Ruth - A Love Story 5.15.2011

This morning, we’re going to continue in our study in the book of Ruth.

We started two weeks ago as we were introduced to Elimelech and Naomi who chose to leave Israel and the famine in the land to follow their “luck” with a foreign god and his country instead of allowing the sovereign Lord of lords to protect them. Then, Elimelech died, and left Naomi, and his sons Mahlon and Chilion to really struggle. After that, the boys married idol worshipers and then the boys died too. That left us with a widowed mother and her two widowed daughters-in-law to somewhat fend for themselves in a land that is strange and far from home for Naomi.

Then last week, we looked at Naomi’s resolve to return to the land of Judah with her two daughters-in-law. As they were on their way, she begged the young ladies to return to their idols and families in Moab and let her, overflowing in bitterness towards God, go on by herself. Eventually, Orpah returned to Moab, but Ruth decided to make a total break with her past. She told Naomi that she would go with her wherever Naomi went and that Ruth would follow God and stay with Naomi until the day she died. After this moving speech, the two widows resumed their journey and returned to Bethlehem.

In Chapter two, we pick up the next part of Naomi’s and Ruth’s story.

Ruth 2:1   Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.  2 And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him win whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.”  3 So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.  4 And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The LORD be with you!” And they answered, “The LORD bless you.”  5 Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?”  6 And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab.  7 She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.”

Last week, I used the Alexanders as an illustration for how people might talk in a small town like Goodfield. Today, I will use the Kuntzs and Coulters, because I think the parallels are pretty good there.

So, to paraphrase the story…Bill and Maurine left Goodfield for ten years. While they were gone, Bill and their kids all passed away. When she returns to her home with Christine in the fall of 1985, it’s already harvest time and they obviously haven’t planted anything since they’ve been gone for a decade.

In those days, people didn’t have Social Security, food stamps, Temporary Aid for Needy Families, life insurance, pensions, or any of those kinds of resources from the government or corporations to help people in need. As a result, Maurine and Christine were on their own trying to figure out how they were going to live. They had a house to live in, but no food.

So, since it was harvest time, Christine went out to the fields to try and find some corn that the combines hadn’t picked up. You know how that works…the combine goes through the fields harvesting the corn, but some kernels fall on the ground, sometimes whole ears fall and don’t make it into the combine, sometimes as the farmer turns the combine, he misses a couple of stalks in the corner of the field, and sometimes, as the corn is put from the combine into the wagon or semi a little bit gets spilled.

So, Christine knows that even though their fields don’t have corn growing, she can get some out of other fields.

For some reason, Maurine is still so upset with God that she doesn’t give Christine any directions on where to go to find her corn. As she sets out, she just so “happens” to come across a field that young Kenny Coulter owns and farms (sorry Madeline…he’s single in this story so you just have to watch from the outside).

At some point, Kenny comes out to check on the harvest…some things don’t change in farming do they? Even though he hadn’t farmed in twenty years, Karen’s dad was ALWAYS checking on the tenant to make sure he was farming the land properly!

As Ken surveys the harvest, he sees a young girl that he doesn’t recognize picking up the extra kernels of corn. Kenny, thinking he knows everyone in the Goodfield area asks Jim Morris, his farm hand, who she is, and he responds that it’s Maurine’s daughter-in-law who had appropriately asked about gleaning in the field and then who had been working really hard all day to get the food.

After finding out who Christine is, Kenny steps away from Jim to go and talk with her.

Ruth 2:8   Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women.  9 Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.”  10 Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”  11 But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before.  12 The LORD repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”  13 Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.”

Kenny goes over to Christine and tells her that he has heard the whole story about how she and Maurine have struggled and how Christine has done so much to help Maurine out. He speaks a blessing on her for what she has done and also tells her that she needs to stay with his servant girls to glean and that he will make sure that no sexual harassment will come from the workers in the field. She should even feel free to grab a Dr. Pepper from the guys’ ice chest during break times instead of trying to find her own drink somewhere.

Back to the text…

Ruth 2:14   And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over.  15 When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her.  16 And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.”

Kenny went so far as to invite this beggar, widowed, foreigner to come and eat lunch with the field hands. It seems that she may not have even had lunch of her own to eat, because Kenny provided lunch for her…and it was such a lunch that she had leftovers that we read later she took home to Naomi.

After lunch, Kenny takes things a step further…he instructs Jim and the other men to not only let Christine gather corn from the edges of the field and from the ground as the Levitical law demanded, but they are now to let her get some corn from the stalks that haven’t been harvested and they are even to purposefully drop some corn for her to easily pick up! Boy… Kenny is quite a nice guy isn’t he!

Christine keeps working after lunch and we’re told how that evening went for her:

Ruth 2:17   So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley.  18 And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied.  19 And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.”  20 And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the LORD, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours, one of jour redeemers.”  21 And Ruth the Moabite said, “Besides, he said to me, ‘You shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’”  22 And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted.”  23 So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

Now, I’ve been using corn in our story with Maurine, Christine, and Ken, since that’s what we grow around here, but remember, in the story, Boaz is harvesting barley. While we don’t grow barley around here, most of us have probably seen wheat or barley kernels. They are SMALL compared to corn or soybeans. So, as we think about the story here, we need to remember that Ruth is picking up tiny little pieces of grain and putting them into her basket. I don’t know exactly how that works that someone is able to walk in a field where they’re cutting the crops by hand and you have little pieces of the grain laying in the chaff and under the footprints of the guys working in the field.

At any point, we’re told that Christine gathered up enough barley that when she had crushed it into barley flour that it was about an ephah’s worth. As I tried to figure out how much that was, one estimate was about five gallons. So, you can imagine, how hard would it be to pick up little barley pieces and then have enough that when you crushed it down and got rid of the hull that you had a five gallon bucket full…I guess that’s a pretty good day’s work!

At any rate, Christine returns to Maurine with this five gallon bucket of barley flour and the left-overs from her lunch and Maurine is shocked with how much food she had. She immediately asked where in the world did Christine glean??? It was obvious to Maurine that God had given some kind of special blessing to Christine and that the man who had helped out should receive a blessing from the Lord for that!

Remember, Maurine did not tell Christine where to go look for barley, so she wants to know where she ended up. Christine of course is a foreigner, and she innocently tells Maurine that some guy named Kenny is the one who helped her.

At this point Maurine comes to life…I can hear her saying…Ken…Kenny Coulter? THE Kenny Coulter who was raised with Bill? THE Ken who helped build the barn across the road from here? THE Ken who is one of our relatives? THE Ken Coulter who is one of the heirs of the Robinson farming dynasty? THE Kenny who could provide us with Angus meat for the rest of our lives?

As all of these thoughts are going through her mind, and probably coming out of her mouth, Maurine gets really excited! This Kenny, whose field Christine had “accidently” stumbled across that morning was a man who while not an exact relative as in a brother or uncle to Bill Kuntz, was indeed close enough of a relation that he could fulfill the laws given by the Lord to marry Christine and make sure that all of Bill’s land would be taken care of and that Christine and Maurine would be taken care of.

Now, remember from last week, Naomi was so upset with God and what He had “done to her” that she wanted everybody in town to call her bitter-old-woman! However, we see in these verses some major thawing in her anger as she is clearly recognizing God’s hand in this set of circumstances of leading Ruth to the particular field of a kinsman-redeemer who could possibly be the answer to their needs on so many levels…whether from the extra barley, the huge lunch with left-overs, ongoing opportunities to glean throughout both the barley and wheat harvests, protection for Ruth while she was out in the fields, and maybe…just maybe…Boaz would exercise his responsibility and would marry Ruth and give them long-term security and hopefully a son to carry on the Kuntz family name!

Now, I don’t know how it is for you. Perhaps, your life has always gone perfectly! You’ve never made a business decision that didn’t work out well. You’ve never done something stupid where you or someone else near to you got hurt…whether physically or emotionally. You’ve never had a job that you didn’t like or a boss that didn’t like you. You’ve never had the markets go poorly such that you wondered about your retirement account. You’ve never had UAW go on strike so you had to work on the floor instead of in your office. You’ve never had someone close to you walk out on you and leave you in a lurch. You’ve never been part of a church where people keep leaving and you wonder what the future is going to be. You’ve never had children quit following the Lord or do things that embarrass you or other Christ followers.

You get the point…. We’ve ALL had something bad happen to us or even because of us! Like Naomi, it becomes easy to become angry and bitter towards the Lord! It is easy to shake our fists at God and ask, “Why me???!!!!”

However, the problem is that we don’t see the whole picture! We don’t know what God is doing behind the scenes! We don’t know what divine appointments He’s already orchestrated so that His glory would be done and so that as Paul reminds us in Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

I will never forget the day that I came over to Goodfield four years ago to meet with my Regional Young Life Director. We met at The Busy Corner where he told me that the money had run out for McLean County Young Life and that after struggling with it for over twenty years, they had decided to go with volunteers and no paid staff…I was out of a job…I was out of a ministry that I PASSIONATELY LOVED!

Did God know what was going on with His ministry? Did God know what I would do next? Had God forgotten me?

The good news was that there was a youth pastor position open up by Flanagan, and one in some town called Congerville. I applied for both of those jobs and due to changes in what was going in each church, they both changed their minds and didn’t hire youth pastors at that point.

In a strange set of circumstances, I ended up at The Baby Fold applying for a job and then I ended up getting a different job…one that really matched my skills and gifts better. I must admit, even in those days when it was obvious that the Lord had miraculously provided a new job for me, I still questioned whether, as Naomi believed, if God had abandoned me.

As Karen and I have been able to look back over the past four years, we CLEARLY see the hand of God in allowing me to work in an agency where I’ve learned so much about things that are helping us raise our foster and adopted kids. We’ve seen friends come to know Jesus in that process. We’ve seen the Lord do many things!

Yet, there was that time where we too questioned whether God really knew what He was doing. I hope that from this little story from our life and more importantly from the things that we see God doing in the book of Ruth that you know…at least with your head (even if you can’t force your heart to believe it yet) that God is indeed working things out…whether we can see what He’s doing or not.

As we close today, I want to encourage you to think through if there are issues in your life that look hopeless like these two widowed ladies. Do you wonder if God is still at work? The resounding answer is YES! HE IS!

The very same God who could orchestrate:

·      Ruth picking the right field to go to

·      Boaz coming to that particular field on that particular day at that particular time

·      Boaz noticing Ruth out of all the others around

·      Boaz doing special things to bless Ruth

·      Ruth taking advantage of working hard to glean all she could

·      Naomi recognizing God’s hand of blessing on Ruth

·      Boaz being a kinsman redeemer who could really help the family

·      Boaz taking care of Ruth throughout the harvest

This very same God can also orchestrate the solutions to whatever problem you might be facing! You may not understand what is going on; you might not be able to see the upcoming answers today; you might not even have enough hope left to trust that the Lord will indeed do what He has promised. Yet, He is working! He is in control! He is making sure that everything will work out for good and for His ultimate glory.

Just like Ruth’s kinsman-redeemer, Boaz, lived and was there because God sent him, our Redeemer, Jesus, lives to help us in the good and the bad parts of our lives. The song that we’re going to close with today reminds us that He is right there to help us in every aspect of our lives.

One of the verses and the chorus state:

The very same God that spins things in orbit
He runs to the weary, the worn and the weak
And the same gentle hands that hold me when I'm broken
They conquered death to bring me victory

Now I know my Redeemer lives
I know my Redeemer lives
Let all creation testify
Let this life within me cry
I know my Redeemer, He lives 

Ruth - A Love Story 5.8.2011

This morning, we’re going to continue in our study in the Old Testament book of Ruth.

As we got started last week, we were introduced to a very sad story of a family who seemed to have tragedy after tragedy hit them.

Elimelech and Naomi chose to leave Israel and the famine in the land to follow their “luck” with a foreign god and his country instead of allowing the sovereign Lord of lords to protect them. Then, Elimelech died, leaving Naomi, and his sons Mahlon and Chilion to really struggle. After that, the boys married idol worshipers and then the boys died too. Now, we’re left with a widowed mother and her two widowed daughters-in-law to somewhat fend for themselves in a land that is strange and far from home for Naomi.

As I promised last week, the good news is that today we’re going to see how God is indeed working in the midst of this tragic set of circumstances. God has NOT forgotten Naomi! God is still involved in this family…even if it doesn’t look that way in the first five verses!

At some point…after living in Moab for these ten years…after having all of the men in her family die…after hearing that the famine was over in Judah, Naomi decides to pack her bags and move back home!

Ruth 1:6   Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the LORD had visited his people and given them food.  7 So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.

Despite the fact that Naomi had been living in an idolatrous land for the past decade, it’s a positive fact that she attributed the end of the famine to God’s work in the life of His people. So, she had not totally given up on the Lord!

Based on this information, she, Orpah, and Ruth start the journey back to Bethlehem. This had to be a tough decision for her to make as well. In returning home, she would be leaving the graves of her husband and boys behind. How many of you know right where your parents or grandparents or other close relatives are buried? Why…because it’s important! Coming up in a few weeks, we celebrate Memorial Day…what do people do to graves? Decorate them. Why? Out of honor and respect? But, for some reason, Naomi believed that it was more important to return to the Living God than it was to stay with the Non-living men.

8 But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.  9 The LORD grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept.  10 And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.”

We aren’t told how far along they were on the journey when the conversation in verse 8 took place. But we are told that Naomi decides that it doesn’t make much sense to take her idol-worshiping, Moabite, daughters-in-law back to Yahweh-worshiping, Judah where they would not have a family or a husband. So, she gives them the freedom to return back home.

Naomi blesses the two women and asks the Lord to show his covenant keeping loving-kindness towards Orpah and Ruth. Evidently, they were good daughters-in-law as the asks for them to be treated in the same way the took care of her and their husbands.

Naomi also prays a blessing on them that they will be able to find another husband.

Here in verse 9 is a GREAT phrase…as the ladies wept loudly at the prospect of leaving their mother-in-law. They had such a good relationship with her, that it hurt them to be separated.

I think this is a good example for us as we relate to our in-laws. Are we in the process of developing such a deep relationship that we are sorry when we leave each other’s company, or are we happy when that happens? These three women give us a great model of how families are supposed to respond to each other!

For those of you…and I will be there soon too…who are “parents-in-law”, how are you building those relationships with the spouses of your children? Do you encourage them? Do you include them as part of the family? Do you thank them for the positive things they do for your child and your grandchildren? Do you make them feel welcome when you are together?

There are plenty of families where the parents treat their sons and daughters-in-law poorly. They remind them or their own children how they never measured up to be the right kind of partner for their child. They refuse to acknowledge their special days or their worth. They refuse to go and visit or spend time with them. This list can go on and on in describing the kinds of disrespect and lack of honor that can be demonstrated.

However, here in this passage, we’re clearly reminded that healthy families care deeply about each other and show deep love towards each other. It’s also a great place to put that plug in for Mother’s Day!

For those of you who still have a mother or mother-in-law alive, make sure you treat her with honor…yes, of course today we celebrate the traditional American Mother’s Day that Julia Ward Howe started as a feminist reaction to the Civil War. BUT, more importantly, it’s critical that we serve and honor and treat our mothers with respect day in and day out. Yes, we sent my mother a Mother’s Day card, but I also try to call her several times each week to connect with her!

Now, some of you may not have someone in the “motherly generation” remaining…so, what does that mean for you. Naomi shows that it’s important for the mother to also show love, compassion, and concern for those in the children’s generation. As mothers and grandmothers, you have the opportunity and responsibility to treat your biological daughters and granddaughters as well as those who marry into your family the same way you want them to treat you!

OK…the advertisement is over…back into the text, (verse 11)

11 But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?  12 Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons,  13 would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.”  14 Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

Naomi starts to discuss the lack of options for the girls. Naomi isn’t married, she doesn’t have a prospect of getting married because she is so old, and even if she were to get married and have a son right away, it would be a long time before that son could fulfill his obligation according to the Law that would have him have kids with his dead brothers’ widows in order to carry on their name! So, she is clear with the daughters-in-law that they need to get married and move on with their lives instead of remaining widows for the rest of their lives.

In the midst of this part of the story, Naomi demonstrates in verse 13 how depressed she is. She is starting to show her own self-pity and her “poor me” attitude. Here she starts to express her bitterness about the situation that she’s in. She blames God for their situation and whines that life is more bitter for her than it is for the girls. We’ll see in a couple of verses that this must have been so pervasive in her heart and mind that she wants to actually change her name to reflect her feelings against the Lord!

Here in verse 14, Orpah obeys Naomi and kisses her good-bye and heads back to her people in Moab. Some commentators and others have criticized her for her failure to stay and go to Judah with Naomi and Ruth. But, as you look at Naomi’s arguments, they are pretty solid. She isn’t having any more kids. Probably, most Godly men in Bethlehem wouldn’t marry a Moabite…let alone an idol worshiping, widow from a family who ran away from Israel to hide out in a foreign country. If you stop and think about it, it is the realistic and most logical option.

After Orpah determines to leave, Naomi once again encourages Ruth to go back to Moab and back to the idols that she worships.

Ruth 1:15   And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.”

However, verses 16-17 bring us one of the key statements in the book. This is a critical change in Ruth’s life. Her decision here makes a radical transformation in every area of her life and it impacts the lives of people for eternity!

16 But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  17 Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” 

In these two short verses, Ruth commits to a radical change in her life. She no longer will be an idol worshiping, foreign widow in a strange land, hoping to find her identity and desperately looking for a husband. She exchanges all of that to become a Yahweh worshiping, adopted citizen of Judah, and permanently attached to her mother-in-law and her family.

Do any of you have children, their spouses, or grandchildren or others in your family who aren’t following the Lord? This amazing transformation is sure something you should be praying for in the lives of those who are wandering away! If God was able to grab Ruth’s heart…despite her bitter mother-in-law with the bad attitude towards the Lord…think about what He can do as you graciously and fervently pray and encourage your relatives to consider their relationship with Yahweh!

As we look at these verses for ourselves, how would our lives be transformed if we were willing to say that we’re willing to do whatever the Lord asks us to do? What if we were willing to go where He sends us and stay when He tells us to stay? After the sermon, we’ll listen to a song that challenges us to do that very thing.

18 And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.

Ruth 1:19   So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?”  20 She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.  21 I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the LORD has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

Ruth 1:22   So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

Naomi finally accepts the fact that Ruth is not going to return to Moab, but rather is going to stay with her. So, they resume their journey to Bethlehem and at some point get back to town.

I don’t know for sure how things have worked here in Goodfield. But, if we go back a number of years to 1955, and a family left the community for ten years and then came back in 1965, would people notice? If the Alexanders had moved out of state and then after all that time, only Karen and her mother showed back up in a U-Haul and pulled into their driveway…would anybody notice? What would people be saying? Would anybody have said something at the old Busy Corner? Would anybody have said something at the Post Office? Would anybody have said anything at one of the grocery stores? Would anybody have called around on the party line to start the gossip about why Karen’s dad didn’t come back with her?

You know it don’t you?!?!?!

Well, the same thing happened to Naomi as she returned after ten years. We’re told that the women in Bethlehem started talking among themselves and they finally went out ant talked with Naomi. Evidently she had not kept Facebook updated, or sent yearly pictures back to her friends and relatives in town. It seems that perhaps she had aged greatly in ten years and her sorrow and bitterness made people question if it was really her or not.

As I mentioned earlier, she was so upset with God that she tells the ladies that He has not treated her fairly…in fact, Yahweh has treated her in such a bitter way that they should stop calling her Naomi which means “pleasant” and instead call her Mara, which means “bitter”. Now, I’ve known some bitter old ladies in my time, but I’ve NEVER heard one admit it, let alone tell everyone that she was so mad at God that everyone should call her Bitter to remind the community that she was in a terrible mood and that she’s just waiting for God to do something else bad toward her!!!!

Then, to make her point stronger, she tells them the whole story about how she and Elimelech had left Bethlehem when everything was perfect and her life was full of all that she needed and wanted…until God caused everything to cave in on her.

To conclude this section, we have kind of the concluding paragraph in chapter one which will lead us into the important events of chapter two. We’re told they got back to Judah as the men were beginning to harvest the barley crops. In Israel, the time for gathering barley is generally the end of April or beginning of May, so it was right about this time of year when the story took place.

Next week, as we start chapter two, we’ll see the next step in God’s great plan to take care of Naomi and Ruth…and we’ll see how God ultimately put together a couple who will be the great grandparents of King David and many generations later will be the ancestors of Christ Himself!

Close with I will Follow…Tomlin

Ruth - A Love Story 5.1.2011

Today, we are starting a new series. As I mentioned previously, since I’ve been here, we’ve focused exclusively on texts from the New Testament. In the coming months, we’re going to focus more on some Old Testament passages.

Today, we’re going to begin to look at one of the greatest love stories of all times! It’s a love story that is set in a very bad period of time in Israel’s history. That is the time of the Judges.

You remember the Book of Judges…it was the time when people did what was right in their own eyes instead of following God whole-heartedly. Perhaps it was a time very similar to ours where people preferred to do their own things instead of doing what God and His Word told them to do!

Judges was the time period after Joshua died and the people would disobey and God would send a judgment on the people. That judgment would get increasingly harsher until the people returned to their senses and begged God to rescue them. At this point, God would send a Judge to rescue the people.

Some of the more familiar Judges: Ehud…the left-handed judge who was able to kill a foreign king. Deborah and Barak who defeated a Canaanite army. Gideon destroyed the mighty Midionite army with trumpets and lamps. Samson was another Judge with all of his escapades with women and with the Philistines. There were many more Judges who ruled in the nation for generations as the people entrusted God for His leadership.

Sometime during this time period, a drought broke out and caused major problems for the people who depended on farming for a living. The drought was so bad that it caused a major famine. Now, I married a farm girl. I know that sometimes farmers think that there are struggles when the rain doesn’t come at just the right time or they can complain like they are going to die when their corn is down a couple of bushels an acre. Do you know farmers like that? However, this was evidently REALLY bad. It was so bad that people were leaving their land and moving out of the country.

I know that there were times when things were not good on Karen’s farm and the yield was substantially lower than what was needed or expected. However, I never remember Karen’s dad talking about renting a semi, putting the tractor and combine on it and moving to Indiana or Missouri…let alone Canada or Mexico!

Think about it…things have to be REALLY bad for farmers to abandon their property and to go looking for better fields somewhere far away!

Maybe some of you can relate in a different way though. How many of you lived in this area in 1992 or 1994-1995? Does anybody remember any struggles with a little yellow company over in Peoria during that time? Does anybody remember struggles with a car company over on the west side of Normal over the past ten years?

What happens during those times? What happens when Cat is on strike? How does that impact Parsons? How does that impact the IGA? How does that impact Pizza Hut? Droughts…whether they are meteorological and are caused by a lack of moisture or are labor related or are generated by problems in the economy cause major problems for individuals, families, and communities!

So, after twelve or fifteen months of the Cat strike, does anybody know someone who lost their home or car or who lost their will to stay at Cat? Did anybody move out of the area? Did anybody figure out how to work somewhere else…even doing something different?

Now, let’s go back to the Book of Ruth. Please open your Bibles up to Ruth 1.

Ruth 1:1  In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.  2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there.  3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons.  4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years,  5 and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

We’re introduced here to Elimelech and his family. In the midst of this famine that was plaguing Israel, he decided that his best option was to pick up the family and move them to a different country. This move was at a minimum of moving 50 miles and of course could have been much more depending on how far into Moab they went.

However, there was a problem! Moab was a country that God had told the Israelites to not associate with. The country had started by the incestuous relationship of Abraham’s nephew Lot and one of his daughters. Despite this close ancestral heritage, the Moabites did not let the Israelites pass through their land after the Exodus. They were also a people who were known for their idol worship.

So, at the best, this was a pretty poor choice to leave Israel and go to Moab. At the worst, it was sending his family into an idolatrous nation that would not be supportive of their faith in God.

Now, we are told that Elimelech planned to only sojourn, or “spend a little time” in Moab. So, the plan was not to become part of the Moabites, but rather to go there until the famine was over in Israel and then return. However, he was making some serious choices for his wife and sons.

I think this is an important lesson for us to look at as we get started in this study. Ultimately, which is most important in our lives…living in a nice environment or living a life that is pleasing to God? They don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but often times in our society, I see Christians who are much more interested in fitting with the culture than they are following what God has told us to do!

Many years ago, a young couple showed up at our church in Pontiac. As we got to know them better, we discovered that Tim had been offered an incredible job in Pontiac. However, upon being offered the job, he told the interviewers that first, he had to determine if there was a church that he and his family would be able to be actively involved in. Wow! What a testimony for their faith…they were willing to turn down this dream job if they couldn’t provide for the spiritual growth of themselves and their family. Just a fun note…later, this guy worked at a company with Craig Maynard for several years…and Tim was still making job decisions based on spiritual opportunities.

So, while Elimelech plans to just go on an extended vacation in Moab, we’re told in verse 4 that they ended up staying there about ten years. So, this short trip turned into something totally different didn’t it?

Stop and think about the changes in your life and your family since the year 2000. In your families, has anybody been married, born, gotten really sick, or died? For those of you who worked at some point during this decade, have you changed jobs, have you seen major changes in your field, have others (or you) retired, have people come and gone at your place of work, have you had the plant leveled by a tornado? Think about the changes that have taken place in our world: 9/11; tsunamis in Indonesia and Japan; Hurricane Katrina; the election of Barak Obama as president; the end of the space shuttle program; wars in Iraq and Afghanistan;  and on and on that list could go!

Ten years is a LONG time in a lot of ways…isn’t it. Of course, it is also a short time depending on your perspective. But at any rate, Elimelech was gone to Moab for a long time.

During the ten years that Elimelech and his wife Naomi were living in Moab, things changed in their lives too. At some point their boys reached the age where they were old enough to get married, and they found Moabite girls to marry…instead of Israelites.

This is another one of those consequences that arose out of Elimelech’s decision to move to a place where there weren’t other believers for their children to build their closest relationships with. We’ll look more at the next section of the text next week, but down in verse 15, Naomi acknowledges that the sons’ wives were idol worshipers…NOT God worshipers!

Now, I don’t know how that has worked in your family, but I know there can often be pain in families as children choose to not follow in the steps of the Lord and they marry non-believers. I know that families can really struggle as they see the faith that they worked so hard to establish in their kids being cast aside or even worse. My Karen had three of her brothers go directly against the solid Christian upbringing in their home as they chose a wife and their lives have been very hard as a result of those choices. My brother’s oldest son got married yesterday, and it wasn’t a situation where things went the way the family had hoped.

I want to encourage you though to keep on praying for those of your kids and grandkids who aren’t walking with the Lord. Pray that God will raise up a co-worker or friend at school who will build a relationship with them. Pray that they will hear or read something that reminds them of their early training and that will challenge them back to Jesus. Pray that their hearts will be open to the Holy Spirit’s work in their lives. Pray that God will give you that opportunity to speak truth into their lives…in a gracious way.

We aren’t told in this particular story about who was married to whom, or even how long the boys had been married. However, since neither son had children and there isn’t a note in the text about their childlessness, it’s probable that they hadn’t been married too long.

At any rate, tragedy has struck this family! The order of events is given here that at some point during the ten years they were living there that Elimelech died. Think about the struggles that this gave to the family!  A foreign widow with two sons living far from home in a time when most women didn’t work outside of the home…what do you do? Who do you call?

Many of you are from this area or have married someone from this area, and so you at least would have some family to help you if a catastrophe like this happened. However, if you were relatively new, and you didn’t have a phone to call with or a computer to send email with, or any other quick way to contact people back home, what would you do? How do you recover? How do you even try to pull your life back together?

Evidently, one part of that solution was that Mahlon and Chilion married the Moabite ladies, Orpah (NO! it was NOT Oprah!) and Naomi. The marriages evidently kept the family there in Moab for at least a couple more years. Perhaps, this arrangement provided some stability as now there was some connectedness with the local community.

Think about that around here. Is there a difference between, “Boy, those Smiths have only been here seven or eight years.” And “Boy, isn’t it nice that the Smith boy married Kenny and Madaline Coulter’s granddaughter?” Those are two totally different things aren’t they? One is disconnected, and the other solidly grounds you to the community.

However, this situation with the boys marrying into the community was short lived as both boys died too. Again, we aren’t told how or why they died, or what the timeline was between Elimelech’s death and then the sons’ deaths.

WOW! Can you imagine how devastating this must have been? Remember, the plan was: since things are tough in Israel we’re going to move over to Moab for a short time because the grass is greener on that side of the proverbial fence. But now, everything has crashed down! Elimelech, the father of this clan has died. The two boys have married idol-worshiping Moabites. Then, the boys die.

Now Naomi is stuck leading this little family unit that now is only comprised of herself and the two foreign women that are her sons’ widows. Three widows kind of alone in the world. What an incredibly tough spot to be in. What kinds of emotions are going through Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth’s minds?

Questions about how they were going to survive? Questions about why Naomi had ever let Elimelech drag her to this God-forsaken country? Questions about whether it would be wise to go back to Israel? Questions about whether they could have done anything differently to keep any of the three men alive…second-guessing the doctor they chose, the prayers they said, etc…. Questions about which God to follow…should they follow the God of Israel or the god of Moab? Questions about who would take care of them if they didn’t have any husbands or children?

I’m sure many of us can relate to these questions and concerns! Just in the past year, people here in our church have had parents pass away. Several people have had others that are close to them enter into eternity. Yes, there are times when we aren’t totally surprised when that 85 or 95 year-old parent dies, but how prepared are we when it’s our baby, our teenager, our young adult, or our child at any age who gets to the grave quicker than we do?

Despite the inevitability of death, it seems like there’s rarely a “good time” for death and we often seem to be so surprised when it comes! Many people have lost a child or a niece or nephew at a young age, and it’s always really hard. The emotional stress can be incredibly debilitating. Often times, when young people die, those around them end up in need of counseling to help them deal with the grief and the subsequent depression that often comes into our lives in this situation.

If that’s a situation that you’re dealing with, please see me or someone else that you can talk with as you work through the issues.

This opening section of this book is very sad: we start out with a family who choses their “luck” with a foreign god and his country instead of allowing the sovereign Lord of lords to protect them. Then, the dad dies, leaving his family to really struggle. After that, his boys marry idol worshipers and then they die too. This leaves a widowed mother and her two widowed daughters-in-law to somewhat fend for themselves in a land that is strange and far from home.

As I was working on this week’s message, it felt like preparing the Maunday Thursday service. Hope is lost! Everything is a mess! Where is God in all of this?

The good news is that next week, we’ll move into the next section and see how God is indeed working in the midst of this tragic set of circumstances. God has NOT forgotten Naomi! God is still involved in this family…even if it doesn’t look that way in the first five verses.

So, please come back next week to hear more of the story! You should also feel free to read ahead and start thinking about Ruth and Naomi ahead of the service.

EASTER Service 4.24.2011

Here we are! It’s Easter Morning!  We have the opportunity to join together to celebrate the risen Lord!

This Easter season, I’ve been really impacted once again by the Easter story. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been working hard to study these passages in order to preach about them. I don’t know if it’s the amount of time I’ve invested watching Jesus being whipped, beat, and hung on the cross as I’ve   looked for music and video clips to use in these three services. At any rate, as I stand before you this morning, I want you to know how important this story is to each of us!

We will talk at the end of my message about the responsibility that each of us has to deal with the truths in this story, but as we go through today’s sermon, I encourage each of you to evaluate what your relationship is with Jesus.

As we think back through the events that we celebrate during Holy Week, we started last Sunday with the incredibly joyful celebration of Jesus coming into Jerusalem as the triumphant King that people thought would rule the nation and set them free from Roman oppression. Jesus spent Monday through Thursday doing miracles, speaking in the Temple, being challenged by the religious leaders, speaking on the Mount of Olives, being entrapped by the religious leaders, telling parables, speaking about His own Second Coming, being betrayed by Judas and the religious leaders, celebrating the Passover meal, giving the “Upper Room Discourse” and the “High Priestly Prayer”, praying in the garden, taken into captivity.

Then late Thursday through Saturday, He was betrayed by Peter, put through phony trials by the religious leaders and the Roman government, lied against by many “so-called witnesses”, whipped and beat, made to carry his own cross to the death site, and ultimately nailed to the cross and raised up to die.

What a week!! Can you imagine the intensity of emotions that Jesus and all those who were around him must have felt? From the incredible “thrill of victory to the agony of defeat”! From feeling like being with Jesus guaranteed a top spot in the new revolutionary government to being forced to run and hide or even deny knowing Jesus to watching Him be brutalized to the point of not being recognizable to his actual death on the cross!

BUT…now it’s SUNDAY, and things are DIFFERENT!

I often take things for granted as I have the privilege of reading the Bible and knowing how things worked out. I also struggle with my own sense of superiority and self righteousness as I read through these passages.

I want to scream, “Come on people…Jesus predicted His death AND His resurrection MANY times throughout the years you traveled with Him.”  “How could you have been so slow or dumb to not get it?” “You didn’t have radio, TV, iPods, cell phones, movie theaters, or any of those things, surely you knew the Old Testament well enough to know those prophecies that explained the things that would happen!”

However…I do have the Scriptures to look at and I can read them and understand what God is saying…about the things that have happened. Truthfully, I still have questions about how all of the events in Revelation and Daniel and other places will play out…why…because they’re still in the future!

So, this morning, I’m asking you to give the disciples and the ladies some slack as we investigate the events on Easter Morning. Again, remember that their emotions are wound tight and the events of the previous week are still swirling like crazy in their minds!

Let’s pick up the story in the Gospel of Matthew today. I’ve been reading all of the Gospel accounts this week, and I encourage you to take some time to reread the stories of this week of passion! Each writer gives their own take on the situation and gives us a slightly different perspective of what happened.

Matt. 28:1   Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.  2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.  3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.  4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.  5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.  6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.  7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.”  8 So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

So, here we have the story! Even on that Sunday morning, the ladies such as Mary, his mother, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, another Mary who was the mother of James, and maybe others had determined to get together some additional spices for the proper burial for Jesus. They got up early and headed toward the tomb. They were so devoted and so focused that they forgot that they would not be able to remove the huge stone in front of the door so they could take care of Christ’s body.

As the ladies were on their way to the tomb, there was an earthquake that shook the ground and an angel came and moved the stone out of the way. The appearance of this angel was so terrifying that the guards passed out! Evidently, it’s not a great experience for those who are not following the Lord to encounter a heavenly being! Things were so bad that we’re told that these guards later are paid off to lie about the whole angel thing and say that they fell asleep and the disciples came and stole Christ’s body!

Anyway, the angel told the women to not be afraid, but instead to check things out, because Jesus had indeed come back from the dead…just like He had promised!

We, as Christians, are reminded here in these first few minutes of the celebration of the Lord’s resurrection that the Good News…the Gospel…the fact that Jesus is living indeed is something that MUST NOT be kept to ourselves. It MUST be shared! The angel told the ladies that they needed to go tell the disciples…how? QUICKLY!

Often times when I’m preparing my sermons, I’ll check several different translations to see what different nuances a particular Greek word may carry as it gets translated into English. Usually, the various versions of the Scriptures will use multiple words to reflect the same word from the Greek or Hebrew. However, I checked out nearly a dozen versions on this particular word, and guess what…every time it’s translated QUICKLY!

There is an urgency in spreading the Good News! It is IMPORTANT that once we’ve experienced the truth that Jesus is alive that we go out and tell others that truth. Remember, while these women traveled with Jesus, they didn’t have the title of disciple or even deaconess…they were just normal citizens like you and me that God entrusted with this life-changing message.

How are you doing on this task? Are you telling others about Jesus? Have you had spiritual discussions this week with others about our Lord who is no longer in the tomb but has risen from the dead?

Several years ago, I had a pastor friend who’s denomination was trying to figure out why their particular group had incredible growth going on in their churches in South Korea, but were losing members here in the US like crazy. As they got to doing the research, they discovered that the average Korean was inviting two friends a week to come to church with them, while the average American for the same denomination was inviting someone once every FORTY-SEVEN years!!!!

Think about it, when was the last time that you QUICKLY ran to invite someone to experience the resurrected Jesus? When was the last time you said to a friend…hey, want to come to church with me this week…I’ll even buy you lunch afterwards J.

Now, let’s pick up the story over in John’s Gospel to see what he records as Mary and whoever went with her find the disciples:

John 20:2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”  3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb.  4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.  5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.  6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there,  7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.  8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;  9 for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.  10 Then the disciples went back to their homes.

John 20:11   But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb.  12 And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.  13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”  14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus.  15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”  16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).  17 Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.

Isn’t it interesting…the ladies still didn’t grasp what was going on! They ran and told Peter and John about Jesus being gone, and we presume that they mentioned that there was an angel there that told them Jesus had risen from the dead. However, in the midst of all the surprise and emotional distress, they still were unclear about what was going on.

In fact, even when Peter and John made it to the tomb to investigate things for themselves, they didn’t get it either. I hope that makes us all feel a little better that even the people who spent the most time with Jesus on this earth had problems understanding and comprehending the incredible truth of Christ being alive!

As these first two disciples investigate the “crime scene”, it finally hits John, and he finally believes that Jesus is alive again. Think about it…this is the same guy who was part of Christ’s inner circle. He’s the same guy who argues that he’s the most important one in the group. He’s the same guy who has an especially close relationship with the Lord, and it’s only now that he believes! So, if you have struggle with your faith at times, you’re in great company!

John reiterates here that neither he nor Peter really understood the Scriptures or what Jesus had clearly stated for that matter about the fact that He would rise from the dead. We often times give the Apostle Thomas a bad name for being “doubting Thomas”, but here we’re told that these two disciples didn’t truly believe until they had personally seen the empty tomb!

After Peter and John leave the tomb and go home, Mary stays…evidently alone at this point. I’m not sure where the other women are that had originally come to the tomb early that morning with her, but at this point, it seems like she’s by herself.

She talks to the angels again and expresses her grief that she doesn’t understand this whole resurrection thing yet. Having already heard that he’s risen and not there, she still thinks His body is lying around somewhere.

Instead of asking more questions of the angels, she turns to leave the tomb and runs into Jesus…Whom she doesn’t recognize. She again asks about where Jesus’s body is. At this point, Jesus speaks to her and she recognizes Him and hugs Him.

Jesus then instructs her to once again go and find His brothers/His disciples and tell them not only that He’s not in the tomb, but also that He’s REALLY ALIVE!

Now, we have not only an angel, but Jesus Himself telling Mary that she needs to spread the Good News to others, and she goes and does just that.

As I reflect on these two passages, I have concerns for us as individuals. Here we are in the Word celebrating the fact that Jesus did exactly what He said He would do! He died, was buried, and rose again on the third day. Yet, those closest to Him didn’t get it! Those who had listened to sermon after sermon after sermon and who had spent countless hours at the feet of the Rabbi, missed so many things! In fact, we’re told just a few verses after the first passage that we looked at that some of the disciples still doubted what was going on several weeks later as Jesus prepared to go back to the Father!

Why didn’t they get it? Why didn’t they believe Jesus when He clearly told them what was going to happen? Where they daydreaming during His messages (our pastor over in Normal calls that mind surfing)?

My firm belief is that if it was possible for these close followers of Jesus when He was here in person to miss the purpose, then it’s totally possible that you could be sitting here this morning and you’re missing it.

I’m NOT saying that to be ugly nor to question your relationship with Jesus! But, the reality is…I’m nowhere near the communicator that God’s Own Son was! None of you have walked around for three years with me in an official mentorship program! You get the picture.

As I work with teens, I often tell them that just because they eat at McDonalds, they aren’t a Happy Meal. Just because you go out to your garage, you aren’t a car. In the same way…just because you’re at Goodfield Baptist Church on Easter Sunday…or every Sunday for that matter, you don’t necessarily have a personal relationship with the risen Lord!

I wonder, was it embarrassing for Peter to say to John…boy, I NEVER saw this death and resurrection plot coming? Why didn’t Jesus ever mention it? How did John do…I was the disciple He loved, I thought I should be the Assistant King in His new Kingdom, but boy I must have really missed something???

Maybe you’re here this morning, and you’ve never made that official step of accepting Christ’s payment for your sins through His work on the cross and His work of coming back to life. The Lord’s own guys and gals didn’t get it right away. So, there’s no need to be embarrassed…even if you’ve been coming 10, 30, 50, or more years! If you feel like you need to make sure that you understand and know Jesus, I’d love to get together with you…during this last song where we talk about the Wonderful Cross, or some other time during the week!

Caleb will you guys lead us in this final song?

Restraining Together 4.17.2011

Here we are, at the end of this study on One Another Commands. We’ve been looking at these for the past two months, and I have heard good feedback from people who are wrestling with various elements of living these out. I’m really glad about that, because at points, as I was preparing these messages, I wondered if I was the only one who struggled with them!

I know, some weeks have been good and fun to listen to, and other weeks have had more of a pointed almost meddling feel. However, even as we get together in a little bit for our quarterly meeting, I’m convinced that if we truly want to have a church that is able to move forward and one that we are excited to attend each week and one that we feel appropriately proud to invite our family, friends, and associates to, we must work at practicing these commands as we get together and as we interact with one another.

As we’ve evaluated around twenty different concepts, my prayer really is that this will be the beginning of us working on these, and not just a one time “shot in the arm” that we’ll quickly forget and move beyond!

Here are the topics that we’ve looked at so far, and the one we’ll conclude with today.

Hanging together

Serving together

Playing nice together

Challenging together

Restraining together

Under the section I am calling Restraining Together, there are several different commands. I thought about splitting them up into two groups and coming back to the series after Easter but then determined it would probably be best to wrap this up this week so we can start something new after Easter. Most of what we’ve covered over the past six months has come from the New Testament. My thought is that we’ll take some time to look at some Old Testament passages in the upcoming weeks and months. I’d appreciate your prayers as I seek to follow the Lord’s leading in choosing the right books to study and to interact with you!

So, today, we’ll look at these six commands in three groups since the concepts are very similar between some of the commands.

Restraining Together

·    Bear with one another                                                                         Ephesians 4:2

·    Forgive one another                                                                              Colossians 3:13

·    Don’t pass judgment on one another                                              Romans 14:13

·    Don’t grumble against one another                                                 James 5:9

·    Don’t lie to one another                                                                        Colossians 3:9

·    Don’t speak evil against one another                                              James 4:11

The Apostle Paul wrote both Ephesians and Colossians to groups of Christians who were like you and me. They wrestled with many of the same issues that we deal with. Their churches had people who were in cliques and who didn’t want to reach out to others. They had groups of people who followed the Lord and those who were selfish and followed what they wanted. They had people who didn’t like certain believers or who didn’t get along with others, and on and on the parallels go.

As we’ve mentioned before, though, Paul is clear in calling people back to the core values of our faith and the basics of what we are supposed to do. I love how in this Ephesians passage, Paul uses a little leverage on the people in this particular congregation as he reminds them that they should “be good” based on the extra struggles that he is having as a literal prisoner.

Eph. 4:1   I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,  2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,  3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Also, as we’ve talked about several times, these One Another Commands are really intertwined as Paul covers several of the terms that we’ve looked at in previous weeks. In this particular passage, Paul challenges us to look deep within ourselves to remember that God has saved us and called us to be part of His family and that we need to live up to that reputation!

When I mention names like Ted/Bobby/John Kennedy, George/George W/Jeb Bush, Dale/Dale Jr. Earnhardt, Billy/Franklin/Anne Graham, Muhammad/Laila Ali, (Queen) Elizabeth/(Princess) Diana/(Prince) William, Adlai/Edward Sr./Ed Jr. Rust, what do you think of?

You know those names and families by the kind of lives they live. They have certain reputations to live up to and certain codes of life to live by. In the same way, as a person who calls yourself a follower of Jesus the Christ, we are expected to live lives that reflect our family heritage and our family’s values.

Paul touches here on words that should look familiar: humility, gentleness, patience, unity, and peace…other one another commands. In the middle of this “review passage”, Paul adds that we need to bear with one another. Now, just so you’re clear…he is NOT saying “be a bear towards one another”!!! Rather, we need to bear with/put up with/let it go as others in the body don’t live up to our standards.

Around our house, it seems like I have to often tell the kids, “Really, as a teenager, you’re going to let your 2, 4, or 6 year old brother irritate you?” or, “Really, you’re going to get into an argument with one of the little ones over something simple?”

When I back away from the situation, it can be pretty funny to see a high schooler arguing with a pre schooler! However, if I’m not SUPER careful, I can find myself arguing with a teenager about their argument with a baby!

It’s a LONG story, but this week, one of my high school kids at work got into a shouting match with a 50-year-old relative. The 50-year-old, got so mad that she started punching the teen, and then bounced his head multiple times on the floor hard enough that he got a concussion. The police were called; the 50-year-old was arrested and spent the night in jail. The incredibly tragic “rest of the story”…everyone involved in the scuffle claims to be a Christian!

In a situation where the older person should have been able to bear with the younger person, she didn’t and it had a terrible ending. Sure, this is pretty extreme, but this is exactly what Paul is warning us to avoid as we bear with each other…whether we agree with them or not!

Of course, Paul isn’t saying we need to bear with heresy or sin, but there are a lot of issues that aren’t matters of salvation or sin that although we may disagree about, we need to still get along!

Over in Colossians, Paul repeats several of these now familiar commands, and again tells us to bear with one another.

Col. 3:12   Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,  13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Here, Paul takes things a step further…not only do we need to bear with each other, but we MUST forgive each other…how? [as God forgives us]. Paul acknowledges that we WILL have complaints against one another. Trust me, with ten kids, I understand families having complaints…music choice, level of cleanness in a shared bedroom, who gets which vehicle to get to work or a date, what we’re going to eat for a particular meal, he stole my toy/brush/CD, she’s sitting in my seat, your dog was in my room, you didn’t put the books/videos/toys/food away after you were done…you get the point!

Here at church, though, the same things can happen, and Paul is clearly commanding us that in the same exact way that we are celebrating this week…Jesus forgave us totally by going to the cross to pay the penalty of our sins. That’s HUGE. That’s HARD. That’s TRUE FORGIVENESS. The concept here is multi-faceted…if God has already forgiven someone through Christ, who are we to not forgive them too? Also, if we have been forgiven totally by God, we should extend that same forgiveness to others as well! The bottom line is that we should not hold grudges against other believers…whether something that happened between our grandparents in 1947, between our parents in 1977, or even between our generation that happened in 2007 or even on April 17.

In Romans, Paul further defines these concepts of bearing with others and forgiving them by instructing us to not judge others.

Rom. 14:12 So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. 13 Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.

Have you ever been judged for how you do something at work, how you raise your kids, how you spend your money, what you wear, etc…? Sure, each of us have been judged by others! How does that make you feel?

Again, Paul doesn’t pull any punches…just a clear statement: DO NOT JUDGE OTHERS! Then, he ups the requirement…not only should we not judge others, but we shouldn’t try to set someone else up in order to “make them judgable”.

I don’t know what list of sins you have in your “good Christians never do these”…but just because these are some that many consider bad…don’t sneak over in the night to a friend’s house to throw beer cans, cigarettes, lottery tickets, or the bulletin from the AC church by their car or in their yard so you can then judge them for what they’re doing wrong.

I know, this sounds CRAZY, but it was evidently happening or Paul wouldn’t have to scold them for it!

In the same manner, James instructs us to not grumble against others.

James 5 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 

Again, the motive for not grumbling is because, as soon as we’re done grumbling and judging someone else, GOD Himself is standing nearby and He will take care of justice for our actions towards someone else!

The last two passages we will read today carry on the same theme of God the Creator and Judge being right with us in order to encourage us to keep from treating one another wrongly.

Col 3:8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.  9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

James 4:11   Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.  12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

These two commands: don’t lie to one another and don’t speak evil (or slander or bad-mouth) seem very simple and clear cut! Why would we do that? Yet, it often happens in churches…from the simple “white lies” that everything is going fine when you’re dying on the inside to the little bigger ones…we missed church last week because we were out of town…sure, you were out of Goodfield…you live in Eureka and you slept in…or you were skipping so you could get to the mall early.

Or, it can even progress to lying to make someone feel good…I’m reading a new book, “Transforming Church in Rural America: Breaking All the Rurals by Shannon O’Dell. It’s a GREAT book! One story he tells is about how in his church of about 30 or 40 people that at one of the business meetings, they unanimously voted that if the youth group (which had about a dozen kids in it) grew to 60, they could take the pews out of the sanctuary and replace them with chairs so they’d have room to do things. Guess what…one night, they had 81 kids there, and so that very night, they took the pews out! Despite the fact that the church members had voted unanimously to allow that to take place, what happened? CORRECT! People threw a MAJOR FIT! Their parents and grandparents would roll over in their graves to see the pews removed! But wait…those people lied…it really wasn’t OK to take the pews out, they thought it would never happen so they said it was fine…they needed to tell the truth.

I’ve seen it get much worse in other churches where I’ve served!

·      People lying about their motives when they did something inside or outside of church

·      Part of the Deacon board holding secret meetings to plot the overthrow of the pastor

·      People questioning a brother or sister’s salvation because they didn’t see things the same way

·      People working to get rid of someone in the church because they were new and didn’t deserve to serve in “my church”

·      People stealing money from the church or ministry and lying about it

·      People saying nasty things about someone else in order to get more people to do things their way

·      Even people doing illegal things and lying about who they were in order to get information they could use to bring down someone else in the church

Paul and James make it clear…Just Don’t Do It! Don’t lie, don’t slander, don’t mess with one another. Do things appropriately.

As we head into this holiest of weeks where today we celebrate Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem today; His Passover meal, His prayer in Gethsemane, and his trials on Thursday; His crucifixion on Friday; and His glorious resurrection on Sunday; I believe that these One Another Commands that we’ve studied over the past two months are critical for us to put into place! Over and over again, the apostles have told us that our motivation to love and serve and honor and forgive one another is based on Christ’s amazing love on the cross. Many times, we’re instructed to live out these hard truths in community with each other because Christ modeled them for us.

As you go through the next seven days, I challenge you to think through the issues in your life and the struggles that you have in obeying these commands in light of all that Jesus, God’s Son, our Savior went through in order to come from heaven to earth and from a baby born in a manger to a man dying and coming back to life in order to pay the penalty for what we have done.

As we gather together on Thursday night, I really encourage you to join us as we reflect on Christ’s work on the cross. We will be celebrating the Lord’s Supper together. We’ve invited those who come to our second service…our Extension Service to join us and you will have a great opportunity to interact with them…maybe you can even reach out to them and invite them back on Sunday.

As we sing this last song, I want to encourage you to think deeply about what Christ has done in your life through His work on the cross and think through how that salvation that He provided should continue to spur us on to want to Develop a Healthy Church as we Follow the “One Another Commands”. This is another song that may be new to a few of you, but the words are so deep and they remind us of our intense need to lay down ourselves as we kneel at the cross that Jesus died on. Feel free to just listen as Brooke Fraser sings or join with her in that process of resubmitting yourself to the Lord.