March 5, 2017
"We are sent into the world to be one with God and Jesus and honor His Name as Holy"!
"We are sent into the world to be one with God and Jesus and honor His Name as Holy"!
In
March 1999, I stood on Mount Carmel, where Elijah had stood against those who
worshiped Baal. The story has of that
day has not only been passed down for generations, been used in Sunday School
classes, Confirmation, Bible Studies, but I have personally used it while
teaching about World Religions. Each
time I use the story I am reminded of one truth that we as Christians need to
remember and hold onto clearly and without fail lay claim to daily and emulate
with our prayer Jesus taught the disciples.
“We
[Christians] are sent into the world to be one with God and Jesus and honor His
Name as Holy”. This is our
calling and during this season of Lent this is our opportunity. You see on Ash Wednesday, the Sign of the
Cross was clearly placed on our foreheads, reminding us we are dust and to dust
we shall return. The connection we have
is that we who claim to be Christian need to call upon God’s Name and honor Him
and daily make His Name Holy among us.
This is why during Lent on Wednesday nights, we will be probing the
depths of the Lord’s Prayer.
On
Wednesday we began with the “Our Father” and today we bridge the gap of “Our
Father Who art in heaven” with the responsibility, dare I say the ‘joy’ and
‘opportunity’ we have to go into the world and honor God our Father’s
name. For when we honor God and His Name
as Holy and lift up and hold up and honor, Jesus, we then not only show respect
for God, but Satan who lurks among us to influence us then has no power over
us.
We
all know of someone who when they smash their thumb while driving a nail home
or when a tool slips from their grip or when something happens that twists
them, they fly off by taking God’s name in vain. For some the reaction to this is clear. Children at times cower in the corner,
because when the profanity flies, the next thing will be a hand lifted against
them, not for what they have done, but just general principle. There are some people whose stomachs get tied
in knots, their blood pressure rises just a little or our faces flush red,
because we know we shouldn’t do this since we are Christians. But this isn’t a result of a personal or
moral failure on our part, this is simply our humanity, the failure that began
in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, eating the forbidden fruit and sins entrance
into the world.
But
truly thanks be to God, we have, believe and know the cure to this
problem. The cure is our Savior, Jesus
Christ and His death on Calvary for all of mankind, including each and every
one of us. And we as Christians, marked
by the seal of the promised Holy Spirit in our Baptism and reminded this last
Ash Wednesday are changed, maybe not in each other’s eyes, but truly in the
eyes of God. For in our Holy Baptism
into the life, death and especially the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are
made heirs of eternal life and made Christians Who can show our family, friends
and even and especially others the love of God in our fallen world as
Christians who believe in our Savior, Jesus Christ.
This
is why “We are sent into the world to be one with God and Jesus and honor His
Name as Holy”. You see God feeds
us today not only with His Holy Word read from both the lectern and pulpit, but
God especially feeds us with His Precious Body and Blood from the Altar and
‘sends us into the world’. We are sent
into the world to honor God by how we live, how we love one another, but also
how we make His name Holy. Yes, we will
fail daily by at times taking God’s name in vain, but we shouldn’t apologize
for it, thinking its ok if we apologize, even at times apologizing to the
pastor for our language. What we need to
change is ourselves. And this only
happens when God changes us from the inside.
The
best biblical example of change from the inside is none other than a man named
Saul, who we know today as Paul. Prior
to his Damascus road experience and encounter with Jesus, Saul persecuted and
helped to kill the followers of Jesus Christ.
After his personal encounter with Jesus Christ, Paul and his commitment
to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, sending out others into the world and honoring
God and His Name and His Son, Jesus Christ became his passion. For Paul was changed from the inside out.
We
who gather here today have this same opportunity to be changed from the inside
out. It is our choice. Just as Cain chose not to listen to God and
killed his brother Abel, by choice. We
to have the opportunity to choose to honor God and His name today. We have only to ask ourselves, will we
continue on the road that does not honor God?
Or will we embrace God’s calling on our lives and the Gospel message of
God’s Son, Jesus Christ? For each of us
who claim to be Christians need to understand and believe, we are called not
only to a greater purpose of ‘honoring God’ and His Name. “We are sent into the world to be one with
God and Jesus and honor His Name as Holy”! AMEN.
Check out Pastor on the Prairie (ProtP)
Subscribe to ProtP
No comments:
Post a Comment