Text: Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Focus: Loving God

Function: To help people conflate loving God with loving others.

6:¹Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, ²so that you and your children and your children’s children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. ³Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.

⁴Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. ⁵You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. ⁶Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. ⁷Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. ⁸Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, ⁹and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

For some reason, I have always loved reading this passage of scripture. I guess because it is a call to love God and it gives us an idea of the extent of how we demonstrate our love for God.

It contains a couple of important verses. The Jewish people call it “The Shema.” Shema is the Hebrew word for “hear.” And it is listed as the great “Hear Ye” of the Jewish faith. One site calls it the “central pillar of the Jewish belief.”

And it is interesting that the Shema, the great “Hear This,” is not the great commandment that we are focusing on this morning, but the pillar of how the Judaeo/Christian heritage approaches its belief system.

The statement that they were to hear, according to the Jewish people is this: “Hear O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One.”

Now, our translation uses the term the Lord is God alone, meaning that there is no other God.

And that is the central core of the meaning of the phrase, The Lord is One. The Jewish people lived in the midst of pagan cultures that worshiped many different gods. The Romans, the Greeks, the Chinese and the Indian cultures all worship or worshiped a pantheon of gods.

And the Jewish Shema was a direct repudiation of the idea that there were several gods. God alone is One God and is not divided.

I once got into an argument with an orthodox Jew about the trinity and he cited this verse and said some thing like it was a foundational understanding of God that God is One God.

I explained to him that Genesis 1 says this of God, “Let Us make God in our own image… ...male and female (in the image of God.)

Taking from John 1, I tried to explain to him that Jesus was the manifestation of God that God gave us that we can understand and then I tried to defend the doctrine of the trinity. It takes faith to believe it (and I do).

However, I now I realize this: It never helps to argue with someone, the bible makes it clear that the kindness of God is what draws people back to God.

But you get the idea that it is a foundational principle of the Jewish and Christian faith that God alone is God.

And, the Jewish people did not misunderstand the difference between the Shema, the central pillar of their belief, and the Great Commandment, which immediately follows it.

For some reason, I feel, the great commandment gets washed over. I hope not.

The great commandment, which this passage is about, and which Moses, the author of the book, takes 4 whole verses to introduce, is this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.

So, he uses the Shema, the central pillar of the Jewish faith to introduce the great commandment which is to Love God.

And then he tells them how to visibly remind themselves to do this. Diligently teach the commands of God, which will help us to love God, to your children. Teach your Children the words of God and be diligent about it.

He says to show so much devotion that we tie them to our foreheads and doorposts. If you see a picture of an Orthodox Jewish Priest, you may see a square patch of cloth fixed with a band to his forehead. In it is written the words, The Lord is God, The Lord is One.

Also, you have probably seen pictures of seen for yourselves the doorpost of an orthodox Jewish family. There is a little brass device, generally shaped like a scroll, and it inside it is again, the words of the Shema.

It is a visible way, a literal way to accomplish the commandment in this verse. The visible icon reminds them to Love God.

But the command is still the important part. Love God will all your heart, soul and strength.

Mark’s gospel records the account of the teacher of the Law asking Jesus which was the first commandment of all, or the greatest commandment. Jesus quotes the Shema, then says Love God and then Jesus adds another verse from the OT, Love your neighbor as yourself.

The Jewish expert in the law answered Jesus with the affirmative, that Jesus had interpreted the law correctly. Then Jesus said to Him. You are not far from the Kingdom of God yourself!

I love it when Jesus’ patience with His enemies leads them to their own salvation. We don’t know if the man converted and believed in Jesus or not, but he does understand the purpose and mission of Jesus and he agrees with it.

So, you caught this, I am sure. Jesus added to the great commandment. It was, you shall love God and Jesus says, you shall love God and you shall love others.

And, once Jesus combines the two, He wraps them up together into one command. He says, the command is to Love God and Love your neighbor.

And the teacher of the law who was first questioning Jesus and is now being called to love God by Jesus, agrees that loving your neighbor is part of the “first commandment of all.”

Jesus was clear that this is the greatest commandment and I am glad the Jesus added the love your neighbor part to the commandment that is to be listed as first of all.

Jesus actually goes farther, right before He dies, while He is giving last minute instructions to the apostles, in the upper room, He says, A new commandment (a new “first of all commandment”) is to love one another. You will be known to be Christians by the way you love others.

This is our moniker. And in this, Jesus changes the Great Commandment. Well, not changes it so much as addresses a way for us to be engaged with Loving God. You remember Matthew 25 where Jesus tells us that we are either sheep (members of God’s kingdom/family) or goats (not members) based on the way that we love others.

You hear me gripe about refugees, well in the passage, Jesus gives eternal blessings, or denies them, based on the way we treat the stranger. I have to make these warnings.

But I love the command to love others. It makes the Christian faith, and doing the Christian faith, easier for me. Love God by Loving others. That is how we reconcile the concept of which is the greatest between loving God and loving others.

Cleansed!

 

Text: Hebrews 9:11-14

Focus: Cleansing

Function: To celebrate how our consciences are made clean by the Holy Spirit

¹¹But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), ¹²He entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. ¹³For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, ¹⁴how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!

It is too bad that Carol isn’t here today because she designed this service and sent it to me early and her designing of the service gave me inspiration for how to prepare this message.

Today, we are focusing on the cross and the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ .

The author of Hebrews throughout the book paints Jesus Christ as the Great High Priest who offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

I mentioned earlier, at the beginning of our study in Hebrews that Hebrews is full of Jewish mystery and theology. It can be difficult for us Westerners to understand or to picture the significance of different passages.

For example, the Jews had a sacrificial system to atone for their sins, to honor God and to thank God for certain blessings in their lives. But mainly, the animal sacrifice was the price that was paid when we sinned.

Every year, on the day of atonement they had two goats. They laid their hands on the heads of the goats and they took one and they killed it by slicing its throat in their presence. Then, in the presence of the leaders, the Priests took the goat and butchered it. They laid the fat, the entrails and the meat on the altar where it was burned up.

It was a bloody sight. I imagine that the temple area stunk with the residue of blood and the burning of flesh. They would sprinkle some of the blood on the base of the altar. Imagine how the buildup would have been kind of a grotesque sight and stench.

The worst part was that they didn’t get to eat any of the meat. It was a sacrifice given to God to pay for their sins.

And it didn’t just happen on the day of atonement. The same practice was there for someone who sinned, unintentionally, and became aware of it. The same process happened. The slaughter of the lamb or the goat of the birds, if they were too poor to afford a lamb or goat and if they were rich, they sacrificed a whole bull was the price paid for sin.

Sin cost a life is the message that is shown in the sacrificial system. It was highly symbolic of the price of sinning in the land. They placed their hands on the head of the animal to be sacrificed in a symbolic way to show, I believe, that their sins were transmitted onto the animal and the animal had to die.

There was one ceremony of sacrifice where the blood of the animal is poured into a bowl, then they take a sprig of hyssop branch, dip it in the bowl of blood and then fling the blood onto the crowd. The blood was to remind them of their guilt. That might be a good time to sit in the back for the worship service!

And I hope that I haven’t grossed you out with the description of the scene, but it helps us to be aware of what they were facing in the OT worship system.

Now, there were sacrifices that were eaten, they offered thank offerings for things like babies being born and etc. Those offering went through the same bloody ritual. But they only burnt up the unusable parts of the animal and the rest of the meat they boiled so that all the blood was taken out of it.

The shedding of blood and its visceral image was supposed to be a warning for them not to sin.

Jesus Christ, we believe, paid the final price for all the sins of the entire world and because of His sacrifice for us, the Church does not need to sacrifice an animal to pay for the sins of the people. Jesus, we believe, abolished the need for sacrifice because He became the perfect and final sacrifice for our sins.

Animal sacrifice was a common practice in pagan religions as well. So, when the first Christian missionaries began to share the good news about Jesus death, sacrifice and resurrection, people could relate to the idea that God (or the gods) could be appeased by a blood sacrifice.

And the whole idea was to assuage the feeling of guilt and shame that was inherent in the cultures. The blood of the sacrifices reminded them of that.

So, after building a foundation of the fact that we do not stand before the Creator of the universe without guilt and guilt leads us to shame and shame destroys our hope, we have a remedy for out sin. Jesus Christ, the just and righteous judge who gave Himself on our behalf.

Let us worship Him and draw near.

He says something about Jesus’ sacrifice in the passage that is significant. He speaks of how the Holy Spirit lead Jesus and that is what made Jesus the perfect sacrifice.

It was the Spirit of God that empowered Him and the author of Hebrews tells us to trust in God to cleanse our conscience.

God does it through the same Holy Spirit that lead Jesus to the cross to be our sacrifice.

And that Holy Spirit is powerful enough to actually cleanse our conscience.

I have seen it time and time again. I have had the privilege on several occasions to pray with someone the sinners prayer whereby they make a formal request of Jesus to save them from their sin. And they all report back to me the same experience I had when I asked Jesus to forgive me. They are cleansed and somehow, by the power of the Spirit, they know that they are forgiven.

I consider myself a liberal. But liberal theologians ask the question, and I ask it also, why? If God is all powerful, why didn’t God just erase sin by decree? He could, we know.

But the scriptures show us throughout, from OT to NT that blood is shed for sins and Jesus did it for us. I don’t know why except to believe that God did it to show us both how to live and how to die.

Jesus was killed standing up to those who would displace the poor and the weak. Especially against those who used a false religion to do it. We do not have to follow the system as well, is the example that Jesus gave us. We do not have to live a life of greed, we can love and live because we know that we are cleansed and on the the way to heaven when we die where our reward will be according to the sacrifice and love we showed Jesus while on this earth.

That prayer that I have used? It is simple, It goes like this: “Dear Jesus, I believe in you and I ask you to forgive my sins and to save me.”

Simple. Powerful. Transforming. That is what our salvation, or healing from God, is like. A clean conscience is something to celebrate!

Doulos

 

Text: Mark 10:35-45

Focus: Servanthood

Function: to help people see the joy in serving.

³⁵James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” ³⁶And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” ³⁷And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” ³⁸But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” ³⁹They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; ⁴⁰but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

⁴¹When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. ⁴²So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ⁴³But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

One of the testimonies to the truth of scripture is the way that it reports the bad, as well as the good of the people that we consider to be heroes of the faith.

In this passage, we see a more than petty squabble among the disciples that displayed their ignorance about servanthood and what it means to be a follower of Christ Jesus.

It starts out, as we read, with James and John taking Jesus aside and asking Him to grant them a favor before they ask Him the favor.

Don’t you hate that? When someone asks that you grant a request before they tell you what it is?

Now, we have 12 disciples. Out of the 12 there are three that are the most prominent. Peter, the first Pope and then James and John. John was described as the disciple that Jesus loved. He was above the other 11, in that regard.

And they know that Jesus is up to something great. But they are thinking in human, human kingdom terms, and they cannot understand the nature of the Kingdom of God.

And Jesus doesn’t rebuke them, but makes it a teaching moment. He asks them if they are willing to follow Him to the death. That is what He meant, I believe, when He said drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the same baptism as me. They were both martyred for their faith. They were both beheaded. So, Jesus prophecies that they are going to be martyrs as well and that does not turn them back.

It is strange, Jesus predicts His death, and theirs and they ask Him if they can sit at His side in the Kingdom.

Maybe they are beginning to get it. They have seen Jesus raise the dead. At the time, they were still blinded to the fact that Jesus was going to be tortured to death by the Jewish/Roman authorities, but they seem to have enough faith to believe, like Abraham did when he offered Isaac as a sacrifice to God, that death was not more powerful than God.

And Jesus again, does not rebuke them at the moment, but explains to them a little bit further the workings of the Kingdom of God. He tells them that the decision to sit on His right and left is left up to the Father, not Him. I wonder about that verse, since we also read that all the fullness of God dwelt in Jesus and we believe and teach that Jesus and God are One in the Trinity. I can’t answer that question, but it does lead me to understand that Jesus understands the human condition by the way He gently instructs them even though they are being incredibly selfish.

But perhaps this is the time that they will learn. And they do seem to pick up the lesson. The other 10 hear about the ask and are indignant. An argument ensues as to which of them deserves the position of honor. Jesus interrupts the argument and uses the precocious ask of the 2 as a teaching moment for all 12.

He tells them that God’s kingdom is an upside down Kingdom. Yes, He says, it is true that power and official prestige and privilege is granted to those who rule over us in the human kingdoms. But not so in the heavenly kingdom. The greatest, Jesus says, will be the servant. Or slave, of all.

The word for servant is doulos. And it is an ideal that we can strive for in our Christian faith.

We talked a few years ago about a Christian bakery in California who believed that God has called them to take a stand against what they believe to be sin sin and therefore they refused to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple.

You remember the story, the same sex couple sued to try to make an example out of the case and it ended up in the Supreme court who upheld the right of the bakery owners to refuse the gay couple a wedding cake.

So-called “religious freedom” won. But here is the thing. What kind of witness was given to the world about the love of God for same sex couples?

Jesus has called us to be the servants of all. Why didn’t they serve the couple with the best possible cake as an act of love and Christian witness? That, I believe, is what Jesus would have done.

We are called to be servants and perhaps the disciples were finally getting it in this lesson.

The Kingdom of God is an upside down kingdom. The greatest of us is the one who serves the most. The cook in the kitchen has more honor than the preacher on the stage, in God’s kingdom.

But that is not the way the world thinks. The idea of giving up our personal rights to serve others is becoming un-American and unpatriotic in these days of the COVID pandemic. But that does not demonstrate the servant ideal. Having the right to do whatever we want is part of what we believe freedom to be. But that right, is worldly. The Christian response is for us to find ways to serve others.

This is difficult because it contradicts the passion we feel as American citizens. But we belong first to the Kingdom of God and it is Jesus that we are representing.

Not obeying the directions of the government may be our right as Americans, but refusing to serve our neighbors by caring enough to protect them is not serving others in Christian love.

Being Christian means at times we are not worldly. It means at times we give up our worldly rights to serve others. That is what Jesus is telling the disciples. And, except for a little bit of their petty squabbling in the epistles, they seemed to have gotten the idea.

I love the patience with which Jesus instructs the disciples in this passage. No rebuke, just instruction. I wish I could do that all the time as well in my preaching.

Help From Above

 

Text: Hebrews 4:12-16

Focus: Jesus the High Priest

Function: to help people see how Jesus is there to help us

¹²Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

¹⁴Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. ¹⁵For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. ¹⁶Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

I am perplexed at times while reading the book of Hebrews because it is full of mystery about the Jewish tradition. It is a letter written to Jewish believers who are scattered across the world and it is meant to help them understand the depth and width of this mutual salvation that we enjoy. Because of its Jewish tradition, it takes a little bit to understand some of the mystery that is written into the book.

The passage starts out with the word, “Indeed.” It is a conclusion to the previous passage that states it means this:...

And the “This” that it means is that the people of the first covenant missed it because they were ignorant of God’s word.

And because of their ignorance, they missed the blessing of God. It is important to know that while they were ignorant, they were also, at many times, very religious people. But the Prophet Amos said this about their worship in Amos 5:

²¹I hate, I despise your festivals,
    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
²²Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
    I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
    I will not look upon.
²³Take away from me the noise of your songs;
    I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
²⁴But let justice roll down like waters,
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

The reason was because they were noisy in their worship, but in their practice, they did not take care of the poor, the refugee, the outcast.

But, God has not left us ignorant. I love this verse because it says that the Word of God is alive!

It is alive. I remember when I was a new Christian reading it through for the first time, it just melted my heart as I saw the wisdom given to me in its pages. It drew me close to God and it taught me how to begin to learn to love one another the way Jesus loves us.

So, he says that the Word of God is alive. John 1 tells us that Jesus is the Word of God. The Logos of God. Jesus is the image of God that we can picture, see, and understand.

Here in this passage in Hebrews in its mysterious language, and also in John 1 in its mysterious language, we see the image of God that God wants us to understand is made perfect in the image of Jesus that is given to us through the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And there is a purpose given to us in the passage about why God became human in Jesus the Nazarene, the purpose is so that we can have someone to compare ourselves to, an ideal, a perfection that we can strive to attain.

Not just to have something to do with our lives, and it doesn’t say it in this passage, but Jesus says it often enough during His ministry, but our purpose is to help God bring about the Kingdom of God in this world. “Thy Kingdom Come. Thy Will be Done, in earth as it is in heaven...,” we pray every week.

When we pray that, we confess that we are people who are aligned with that purpose.

And because we are aligned with the purpose we prepare ourselves for the work that God has called us to do. It is the work of contradicting the narrative of this world which is to fight everybody to survive, or to live in the peace of Christ, loving our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.

Jesus’ showed us how to live and to die, for that matter. Jesus’ life exposes our own weakness.

My dear Aunt, a strong Christian, keeps posting these memes about how illegals are bad and I keep posting back to her that Jesus calls them “neighbor” and expects the same from us. She is patriotic to the extent that it overwhelms her sense of Christian duty, it seems to me, a phenomena we call Christian Nationalism instead of NT Christianity.

And she is beginning to get it. Jesus was an immigrant and a refugee, he fled political persecution. The way we treat refugees is the way we treat Jesus according to Matthew 25. And for those who believe in hell, the passage about the sheep and the goats is a reference, FOR THEM, about where their eternal destiny is.

The word of God exposes the true intent of the heart. Jesus’ life and teaching expose what is in our heats as well. And it is important that our worship be genuine, filled with love, even for the least of these in order for it to not be a clanging gong.

He gives a warning in the verse that seems to indicate that God knows the thoughts and the intents of our hearts. Jesus’ loving response to people should inform the way we respond to others.

And the passage focuses us on Jesus. Jesus as the great High Priest. He gives us help from above and it is genuine because He too, was human, and knows the human condition.

We believe that Jesus still exists to day as an High Priest who sits or stands at the Throne of God and makes intercession on behalf of the saints. He prays for us, forgives us and justifies us through His eternal sacrifice in the presence of the Trinity of God.

And the passage says that He is an high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses.

Jesus, according to the passage, experienced the same temptations and trials that we experience and in all of that He did not sin.

The word for sin here is important. It means, He didn’t miss the mark. It was also an idiom that we could also translate, “He passed the test.”

He faced evil that was unfair and corrupt. That evil mercilessly killed Him by torture and He did not respond, the text says, with evil.

He forgave the ones who murdered Him. Murdered Him. Can we forgive as well?

We want justice and revenge. But the scriptures say that Justice belongs to God and that God will judge fairly in the end.

I hope and trust in that. But remember, at the end, when it comes time for those people who murdered Him to be held accountable for their actions, Jesus forgave them already.

What a powerful image we have. He was tested to the point of death and He did not retaliate but instead is leaving justice up to God.

May we live up to the standard that Jesus has set for us and live lives loving and forgiving.

I do remember that only Jesus was Jesus and only Jesus is perfect. That is what grace is all about. But Jesus first gives us an ideal to strive for, Himself, and then gives us the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill our mission while we are still living here on planet earth.

Welcome to the Family

 

Text: Hebrews 1:1-4; 2 :5-12

Focus: Jesus’ sacrifice

Function: to prepare for communion.

1:¹Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, ²but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. ³He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, ⁴having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

2:⁵Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. ⁶But someone has testified somewhere,

“What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
    or mortals, that you care for them?
⁷You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;
    you have crowned them with glory and honor,
    ⁸subjecting all things under their feet.”

Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, ⁹but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

¹⁰It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. ¹¹For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, ¹²saying,

“I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,
    in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”

Good morning! Today’s lessons starts with the nature of angels in relationship to humans in the Kingdom of God and then it looks more intently at the sacrifice of Christ.

Since we are joining the rest of the Christian world today in this celebration of the Lord’s supper, we will focus mainly on the sacrifice of Christ.

But what about angels? We read the scriptures and we read the stories where a few times in the history of humanity, we see encounters with angels and humans. Perhaps the most famous encounter was between Mary and Gabriel when he told her that she was going to be the mother of the hope for all of the world.

At times people living today speak of encounter’s with angels. I believe that I had one way back almost 30 years ago as I was getting ready to preach a sermon.

Angels appear as human or supernatural beings in the scripture. And in this passage, the emphasis is on their supernatural nature. He says that for a while angels are superior beings, but later on the scriptures, First Corinthians 6:3, tells tell us that we will judge angels someday.

The reference in this passage is to Jesus Christ being much more than what we commonly refer to as angels. He speaks of their status and how Jesus was subjected to angelic powers while He was incarnated here on earth, but at the end has glory and honor far superior to any angel or human for that matter. Simply put, God showed us how to love in Jesus Christ and that obedience of Christ to demonstrate to us how to LOVE is what gives Jesus the special place in all of history.

He showed us how to love by the way that He died for us. They killed Him for trying to change the narrative that the poor were deserving of their poverty because they are lazy, while ignoring the systems that have kept them down. Jesus confronted that to the point that they had to kill Him to shut Him up. But, He Himself gave Himself for us with a far deeper purpose. His sacrifice on the cross paved the way for reconciliation between God and humanity.

The passage that we didn’t read goes on the explain just a little bit more that God has ordained angels to be ministering spirits to people. Apparently, God sends them to help us when God sees that it is necessary. I wish I knew the divine formula, but as James said, our prayers are to be focused on Kingdom issues rather than our own personal desires (I think he means the selfish ones.)

And I think that leads us to the sort of conclusion to this message as we prepare to celebrate communion, and today we focus on our place in the family of God.

As I mentioned, James is a book about the human condition and the ease in which we can stray away from good intentions. The good news is that God loves us and knows our hearts and leads us in paths of justice and righteousness. God leads us away from our selfish desires and fills them with love for others through the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us.

In this passage, we read that Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins. And for everyone who places their trust in Jesus, we are privileged to be called the sons and daughters of God, with Jesus Christ, the Son of God being our big brother.

Welcome to the family.

And God sets us in the family through the power of His Holy Spirit. In Romans 8 we read that God has given us His Spirit and because of the love relationship born between us and God through the Spirit of God inside of us, we can have a relationship with God that as is close as a little child and his or her daddy. We cry out to God, he says, “Daddy.” It means that we are also part of the family of God just like Jesus is.

So again, welcome to the family. Communion is the name we give for this ordinance. It is a symbolic reenactment of Jesus death and more significantly, since we eat the bread which symbolizes the flesh and drink the wine which symbolizes the blood of Christ, this reenactment means that we participate, by faith, in the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection on our behalf. Jesus loved us to the point of death and He showed us how to live for others, to love others, by allowing Himself to be killed.

Even though it symbolizes a bloody image, we call it communion, because in it, we commune by faith with God and each other, testifying to the death of Christ for our salvation.