Christianity

Remember (Sermon July 19, 2015)

Ephesians 2:11–22 (NRSV)

Berlin Wall Fragment
The Historic Berlin Wall – a reminder of Freedom versus Oppression – was divided into pieces and distributed around the world when it came down. This is the piece of the Berlin Wall that is in Portland Maine, USA. A reminder for all of the need for Freedom in all parts of the world.
Michele Loftus Dreamstime.com

One in Christ

¹¹ So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision”—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— ¹² remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. ¹⁵ He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. ¹⁷ So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸ for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹ So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, ²⁰ built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. ²¹ In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²² in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Do you remember? This is a phrase that we often hear especially as we all get older. Do you remember when we used to…? There is an importance to remembering the past. It is important to recognize what has happened before and where we are now. The biggest problem with remembering is we rarely remember correctly. There is a big concern among many that people are rewriting history, writing out the truth so that it will confuse the present and the future. I am sure it is an issue, but too often we fail to remember that there is more to history than we fully know. We only get a brief glimpse through a window and beyond that window the rest of the world. Remember?

We want to remember the greatness of our past, we want to remember the beauty of our heroes, the magnificence of our nations, but all of that is history skewed through ideology and in some cases idolatry. I love my country but it has done some terrible things. I have many heroes, people that have encouraged me to try harder and to seek more, but I have to admit that even George Fox was kind of a jerk sometimes. I would like to think I was a pretty good kid, but if I am honest I was a far from being a saint and really I am not much better today. I am human prone to error, my heroes are and were human and they too are prone to error, and my nation is a nation of humans that can get caught up in the emotions of a situation and overreact and cause great harm. Remember.

Paul wrote this letter to the early church in Ephesus. He wrote them calling them to remember. For centuries we assumed that the church in Ephesus was dominated by Gentile believers but as we learn more about the various histories of the people in that region we are finding out that this letter was largely written to the Jewish community that had called this city in Asia Minor home for over 300 years. It is important to know this because that context gives us greater understanding to what is being said throughout the rest of the letter. Paul calls these people to remember.

“[R]ember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision”—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands.” You might want to stop me right there and say that I am wrong in saying that this book was largely written to the Jewish community because Paul just said he was writing to Gentiles, but hear me out. During the first century there was diverse religious expression among the Jewish community, there were at least four expressions of the Jewish religion that was being taught in Israel, and then there were the communities that were scattered throughout the empires that each had their own interpretations of what it meant to be a child of the promise. In this portion of the letter Paul is actually being very derogatory to make a point. A Gentile is anyone that is any individual outside the nation of Israel. And when there was contentions within the larger community many begin to make claims that they have the true knowledge and everyone else is just wrong. Paul is using very colorful language to make a point. That point is that every human being is born Gentile. Every male baby that is born is by all physical appearances born outside the community of Israel, every male is born uncircumcised. To be joined into the community someone within that community had to physically get involved to bring that child into the community, someone had to quite literally pierce the skin and cause blood to flow before even the highest of high priest’s son could be call a Jew.

Everyone is born a Gentile. This goes right along with the teachings of John the Baptist, who was crying out in the wilderness that all should repent and be cleansed. He stood there in the waters of the Jordan and said “and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.” Every person is born outside the Kingdom of God. Every Ephesian that was born to parents that worshiped in the temple of Dianna, and every child of the synagogue at birth are equal in the eyes of God, uncircumcised Gentiles.

The reason that Paul wrote in such a fashion is because this is a very diverse city and therefore a diverse church. There were people that responded to the Gospel of Christ that were once dedicated to the gods of Rome, and people once dedicated to the teaching of Moses. This diversity among the church was causing division along cultural backgrounds and heritage. “Remember,” Paul continues, “that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

Having no hope and without God in the world. The terminology in this statement is very profound. Paul is quite literally saying that every one of the people within that church were atheists without any hope. Today this term is thrown around all over the place, but it was used quite regularly in the ancient world to identify anyone that had a different belief than the common religion of an area. Christians were often regarded as atheists by both the pagans and the Jews. Many of the earliest Christian writers had to defend their faith against the claim of atheism. But Paul is using the very same statements to prove his point. You were atheists at one time without hope, without Christ. This is a powerful claim especially since he is saying this to a religious community that was largely comprised of people that claimed to be children of Abraham. They did not have God with them. They did not have Emmanuel. They were children wondering through the wilderness without hope.

With Christ thing change. Paul takes both the actual Gentile and the Jewish members of the community all the way back to the beginning of the history of Israel. Back to the original promise to Abraham. God did not say that Abraham was to be the father of a nation, but many nations. Many nations, consider this for a moment. What is a nation? It is simply a group of people with a common history and culture. The promise of Abraham was not to make one nation but bring the nations with their various histories back to the God that created them. The gentile people do not lose their cultural identity to become Jews, and the Jews do not lose their cultural identity, instead God brings the nations together under one promise in Christ. No longer atheist without hope but people with God and God with them.

In Christ we have a commonality, in Christ we have hope, and in Christ we have peace, because in Christ the walls that separate the nations break down and we are seen as we truly are. All of us are the same Jew and Greek, Catholic and Orthodox, Baptist and Quaker all of us are humans that recognize that our hope can only come through God with us, without that there is no hope. And Paul tells us to remember this.

In Christ there is no division, there is no separation of greater or lesser nations, and there are no aliens or strangers, because we are all similar. The physical divisions within the temple of God were ripped apart revealing that God is not held in a box but freely among the people. If God is not held in the temple of the Jewish people, why are we building walls? This has profound power in our contemporary age. For half of a century there was a wall that divided Eastern and Western Europe, this wall was built recognizing a division of ideology. On each side of the wall different nations, different cultures no unity only division. I was alive when that wall came down, many of you witnessed that event too. Maps were redrawn nations uniting and others dividing. Today our children learn a different geography than we did prior to the 90’s. That wall gave us a visual indication of the difference that nations can have, the divisions that can occur when we focus on ideology instead of humanity. There are other walls that show the same thing. But Christ came to break down the walls, to unite the nations under the promise of Abraham, not to diminish cultural identity but to build a kingdom of which there is no other type on earth. Uniting people in grace and mercy instead of national identity. Uniting people and urging them to live the holy lifestyle that God himself lived with us in Christ.

I know that most of us have read this letter to the Ephesians as a text to Gentile believers, a letter that is encouraging them that they too are part of this great promise that God gave to Abraham that was fulfilled in Christ. It is that but it is also a letter written to Jewish believers encouraging them to remember that the promise was not for them alone, but for the nations. It would be extremely difficult for an established community that lived three centuries under a certain framework to change their thinking. We are no different today. We remember history in ways that support our current ideals, and we conveniently forget the portions of history that contradict our stances. We must remember. We must remember that we were once something else. We were once without hope, but we now have it. That hope came to each of us freely through Christ. We have hope because God so loved the WORLD that He gave his only son, not to condemn the world but to save it. God loves the world. He loves the Canadians, the Mexicans, the Russians, and the Chinese. He loves the Germans and the Israelis. He loves the atheists as well as the Christian, he loves the Hindu and the Muslim, and He loves the CEO and the Union member. All of those nations, or groupings of people are things of flesh, things that man has defined to divide and define. Those divisions are not seen by God and have no place in the Kingdom because God loves the world. We have hope because the God first loved us and gave his son to redeem, free, and build a bridge of reconciliation with us. Remember. Remember that we were once without hope. Remember that we were once caught behind a wall of separation, but Jesus broke down the wall so that we could be free to love the nations. Remember that we too were once like those that do not yet know the God that loves them. Remember that each of us are here today because someone was led by Christ to see beyond the outward expressions of life and cause us to see that spark of God trying to take hold in our souls. Remember.

In Christ We Have Hope (Sermon July 12, 2015)

Ephesians 1:3–14 (NRSV)

Hands, all together
Avondale Pattillo United Methodist Church, Decatur, GA, USA

Spiritual Blessings in Christ

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴ just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. ⁵ He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace ⁸ that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight ⁹ he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, ¹⁰ as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. ¹¹ In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, ¹² so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. ¹³ In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; ¹⁴ this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

I have often said that the study of scripture is one of the most fascinating things one could do. The book of Ephesians is probably the very first book of scripture that I actually deeply studies. The reason I say bible study is so fascinating is because every time one reads it and studies there is another layer that opens up some different understanding. As we learn about the people that lived in the culture surrounding the book, learn the foods they ate, the clothing they wore, and the people they encountered all give a deeper understanding of what the passage is saying in ancient times and how that can affect us even today.

Ephesians is one of those books that God uses to enlighten my life in many ways. Just when I think I have learned all I could learn, someone has made another discovery that expands and enriches the text. The City of Ephesus is one of the most important cities in church history for many reasons. The first is that it was the recipient of one of Paul’s letters, but even more important is that Ephesus was the second largest city in Asia Minor during the first century. Not only was Ephesus one of the largest cities in the roman empire, it was also the city the Apostle John retired to later in life, where he died, and where he was buried. This city is the city the last of the Apostles lived.

There is a reason that John chose to retire to this city. During the years of exile the Jewish community was dispersed throughout the world. You can find ancient Jewish communities all across Europe, into Africa and East into areas of Russia and beyond. Ephesus was a city that became the home of many Jewish people. By the time Paul had visited this city the Jewish community had been in it for over three hundred years. There is deep history among the Hebrews to this city, but that is just one interesting aspect of this city.

Ephesus is also the site of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It is the home of the greatest temple dedicated to the Greek goddess Artemis or the Roman goddess Diana. I mention this only because they mythology of Diana states that she was a huntress and would only interact with gods and men as hunting companions, but eventually fell in love with a hunter by the name of Orion. The religious leaders of these ancient Greek and roman gods would use the stars as backdrop for their teachings and right after the big dipper, Orion is probably the most recognizable constellation in our night sky. The connection with the constellations is important to understanding this passage and to understand the people of Ephesus. They were obviously people of great religious devotion with a major temple devoted to one of the most prominent Greek goddesses. Paul uses this to help teach them the Gospel.

The phrase, “in heavenly places,” is a direct reference to the gentile study of the skies. But there is something more to this introduction to the letter to the Ephesians, Ephesus is not only a city devoted to Diana but us also a city where for over three hundred years People of Israel lived and worshiped. Paul uses both the pagan and the Jewish faith to teach and encourage the early church.

There is one group among the first century Jewish people that we are only beginning to understand. We know the Pharisees and the Sadducees because they are often mentioned in the Gospels, but the group known as the Essenes have begun to gain recognition. This group is a group of very devout individuals, of which many believe John the Baptist was a part. They were not typical to the other groups, they did not worship in the temple but withdrew into the isolated places and structured their worship around ceremonial washing instead of sacrifice. These people are becoming more important in history because these were the people that provided what we know as the Dead Sea scrolls. This is very important to history because contained in these scrolls are the oldest known copies of Old Testament scripture. But along with the scripture are also books that the Essenes themselves wrote to encourage their group, the documents their religious order used as guidelines for their faith and practice. It is the teaching of the Essenes that Paul uses to connect the people of Ephesus with Christ. The interesting thing about the Essenes is that they too used the sky to teach their followers, so the phrase, “in heavenly places,” also connects the gentile population into the listening to the Jewish teaching from which the gospel of Christ emerges. The teaching that Paul begins in these verses and continues throughout the rest of this letter connects the teachings of the Essenes which we have only recently learned of with the teachings of Jesus. And along with that the adoption of gentiles into the promise through the mysteries of Christ.

I mention the connection to the Essenes because most of this introductory prayer is derived from their teachings, this means that these teachings were probably fairly well known to the Jewish faction of the early church. It is from the mysteries of the Essenes that Paul derives the idea of destined or more commonly known as predestined. And when we begin to look at this concept through the teachings of the Essenes we begin to see something different than the teachings of the theologians that wrote prior to the finding of the Dead Sea scrolls. The Essenes believed that there was a divine plan within everything, a plan that was devised before the foundations of the world. This plan revolved around the coming of the Messiah. Of all the Jewish sects that focused on the Messiah the Essenes were the ones that studied it the most. They believed that everything revolved around Christ, and that in Christ the heavens and the earth would be united. Remember these were teaching that came before the Advent of Jesus. So this predestination is centered on Christ or the Messiah who was to come. They believed this plan was revealed in all of creation, written in the skies, the heavens and the earth groan for redemption.

Paul is telling the star gazers of both gentile and Hebrew decent that this Messiah that you have been watching for is Jesus, the plan or destiny that you have been waiting for is found in Christ. Our predestination has more to do with who redeems than who is redeemed. The concept of being chosen or adopted deals primarily with the pledge that God made in the divine plan to redeem the universe back to himself. We are chosen in Christ to be worth of redemption, not because of our own standing but because of Christ. We are chosen because God wants to reconcile and restore all of creation back to himself, this again focuses not on humanity but of Christ the means in which the divine destiny will be fulfilled. I find this to be very profound. The future of the church, does not rest on our shoulders but on the shoulders of God himself. He devised the plan and he will fulfill that plan.

What does this mean? If we want to participate in the predestined plan of redemption we need to be in or with Christ. Seeking Him in all that we do, seeking to reflect His character to the world we live. And when we seek him he will provide us with the mean and wisdom to accomplish what he has already set forth to accomplish. This should give us all relief. We do not have to save the world, because that is God’s job. We do not have to redeem the world because that is Christ’s job. We do not have to judge the world because those outside of Christ condemn themselves by rejecting the plan that God has establish from the beginning of time. Paul is then telling us focus on the Christ the Messiah in which all things will be redeemed.

This is the mission of the Church. We are to follow Christ, reflect his life in all that we do. Take on the holy lifestyle that he showed us and reflect that back to the world as we live with others. When we do this the hope within the divine plan is shared with those that are without hope. Imagine if that is how we lived? Imagine if all we did was seek the life of Christ and let the spirit of God work in the lives of others. This is exactly how Jesus taught his disciples to live. He taught them to withdraw often to isolated places to pray, He made it His custom to worship in the synagogues, and he ministered to the needs of those around him and all along the way he would teach. There was a difference between his teaching and the teaching of the other rabbis at the time. Jesus called out to the people, “come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Have we ever really thought about what those words really mean? The religious community was doing their best to make their nation a holy nation. They were defining what every law meant and what one should do to keep that law. They taught this to everyone that would listen and they were very pious people yet far from God. The people were weary, they were trying their hardest to make themselves acceptable to God, and they made rules for everyone to live by that was becoming a burden. The people were weary and tired when they should have been celebrating. The yoke or the teachings were weighing them down holding them back. The very people that were trying to bring them to heaven were restricting them from even looking at the gate.

Oh but in Christ we have rest, in Christ we have hope, in Christ we have redemption, in Christ we have acceptance, in Christ we are beloved, in Christ forgiveness, wisdom, insight and a future. This all comes by following Christ by taking on his life and his lifestyle it is easy because all it requires is that we become a people loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit and living the love of Christ with others. But it is hard because to do that we must go to him, leaving behind our plans and taking on his plans. As we enter into this time of open worship I want us to consider just a moment the city of Ephesus, a city that was devoted to the goddess Diana. Paul went to that city and using their own devotion to the stars to teach them the mysteries of Christ using a similar Jewish spirituality. Consider for a moment the era we live, are we speaking and living hope to the world around us or are we burdening the world? We live in an era that desires the hope of Christ but are we speaking their language? Have we become so consumed with being right that we fail to live right? Do we even know how to discern the difference? God has a divine plan to bring hope into this world, into this community will we participate with him?

Finish! (Sermon June 28, 2015)

2 Corinthians 8:7–15 (NRSV)

⁷ Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.

⁸ I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. ⁹ For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. ¹⁰ And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something— ¹¹ now finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means. ¹² For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has—not according to what one does not have. ¹³ I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between ¹⁴ your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. ¹⁵ As it is written,

“The one who had much did not have too much,

and the one who had little did not have too little.”

Although I am sure everyone’s minds have pulled various directions this week due to the topics on the news, I would like us center down for a moment and focus on faith, truth, and the holy rhythm of life that Jesus taught us. I challenge each of us, including myself to center on this because if the holy lifestyle of Christ is not at the center of our lives every moment of every day we will look at current events, and every other aspect of life there skewed lenses of personal perception.

Paul wrote these words to a community that was saturated with icons of entertainment and luxury. A culture that was devoted to commerce, athletics, sensual pleasures, and religious devotion. I want us all to remember the last statement I mentioned the most. Corinth was a devout city. Their entire culture revolved around their religious devotion. It permiated every aspect of their lives and livelihoods. Their athletic games were religious celebrations, their commerce was a blessing of their deity, and they gained great pleasure at their places of worship. They in many ways were not unlike us. The main difference was the deity they honored.

They lived and breathed their faith, it was something that affected every aspect of their lives. And Paul visited them and shared the Gospel of Christ. When he spoke to them, he spoke to them in terms that they would understand. He likened the holy lifestyle of Christ to the training an athlete would engage in while preparing for the games, a life of discipline and devotion. Not one that is easy but requires sacrifice and work. He then went deeper letting them know that this holy lifestyle we know as being a disciple of Christ focuses on loving God, embracing the Spirit’s leading and gifts, and living the love of Christ with others. He begins to speak with a language that they understand and then he goes deeper and deeper until the rhythm of God has so saturated their being that it begins to flow out of them to others.

Our mission in this Meeting is similar to that of Jesus and Paul, of all the apostles and the Church throughout the world. Our mission is to completely saturate individuals in the love and devotion to Christ to the point that that love will ooze out of us and flow to others within our community. This is why we considered our mission statement with careful consideration and discernment. Our mission statement, the statement we declare each week is, that we are a people loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others. It was not something that came out of worldly leadership manuals, but it emerged among us as a group through prayer, careful consideration, and discernment. And that mission is constantly being supported though scripture.

I declare to you that our mission has not changed, and it will not change. I will continue to encourage everyone I meet to love God, embrace the Holy Spirit, and to live the love of Christ with other where ever I am and with whomever I am with. It is a mission centered on building the relational kingdom community that Jesus began centuries ago and pass on to those that follow him, first in Jerusalem, then to Judea, and to the ends of the Earth.

I say that this is our mission statement, but it really is not ours alone. It is the vision of Christ, it was the mission of Christ, with the foundations that go down to the very beginning of time. It has always been God’s mission to bring mankind back into relationship with him, to restore and redeem the world that was once launched into chaos by our first parents, when they sought to be gods instead of living life with God.

I say all of this because Corinth was a devoted city. Paul introduced the gospel of Christ to them and many embraced the Holy lifestyle that Paul showed them through his life and ministry. Yet they veered off course. They allowed the things to distract them. They once lived with a holy rhythm but they allowed that rhythm to get out of sync, and the beatings of their hearts stopped mimicking that of Christ and began instead to reflect something else entirely. Their heart beat with rhythms of commerce, games, and pleasure once more yet they still held to religious devotion.

Paul tells them, “[You] excel in everything – in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you – so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.” These people were amazing people. Ancient myths speak about great kings that could turn everything they touch into gold, well these people could do this. They excelled in everything. If they had a goal set before them they could make it happen. That is what built their city, and their culture, if they decided to do something they did not just do it, they did it in such a way that it was great! Paul tells them this because he knows and they know that it is true. But with that statement he challenges them too.” [We] want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.” The undertaking he is challenging them with is to devote all of that excellence into supporting the continued ministry of Christ.

In many ways Corinth pulled away from the larger church, they pulled away from engaging the culture in which they lived, and their message began to suffer because of it. They pulled away from the church because they had issues that they needed to deal with at home. In the first letter Paul sent to them he called them out on many areas of their individual and communal lives that had strayed from the rhythm of Christ. Because of this they tightened their belts and used their excellence to become a more devote church. They focused on making themselves better, exceling in speech, in knowledge and eagerness live correctly. Paul and the Church as a whole loved them for their devotion, but through this excellence they neglected a very important aspect of devotion to Christ, they neglected living the love of Christ with others. We might see that as being a minor thing. They had excellent worship services, they had excellent theology, excellent dedication to right living we might say they turned themselves into the model church after being the example of what not to do. But in all that excellence they dammed up the flow of grace to the world.

When we neglect living the love of Christ with others we cause the grace of God to become stagnat and the church fails. We fail because the church is not about perfect worship, it is not about perfect theology it is about His will being done on Earth as it is in Heaven. His will is to redeem and restore all of creation back to harmony with each other and with God once again, uniting Heaven and Earth through the hearts of mankind. Paul is saying to them join with us in this generous undertaking. Join with us as we allow the grace to flow to the people God loves and gave his Son to redeem.

As I reflect on this passage my mind wonders to the Gospel of John and the third time Jesus, well the third time John records Jesus meeting with the disciples. Peter and the other fishermen decided that they were done with waiting around in the upper room and return to their fishing boats. They labored all night with no return and in the morning Jesus calls out to them from the shore and tells them to throw the net over the right side.  They were each struck with a case of Déjà vu, and they come to the shore to eat with him. After the meal Jesus talks with Peter, asking if he loves him and peter answers three times that he does. With each answer Jesus encourages Peter to feed his lambs, tend His sheep, and to feed His sheep. This story is the very passage that God used to call me into the ministry I have pursued for the past thirteen years. And it is the passage that often Jesus brings me back to when He again reassures me that I need to continue down this path. But as I reflect this week I am drawn to the encouragement that Jesus gives to Peter, feed the lambs, tend the sheep, and feed the sheep. This is a call to get involved personally, and generously with the people. Feed, tend, and feed some more. This is a calling to live the love of Christ with others.

Paul, like Jesus to Peter, is challenging the people of Corinth with the question “Do you Love me?” He is not commanding that they participate in the outreach ministry of Apostles, but he is challenging them to consider their faith, devotion, and love for Christ. If you were to read the verses prior to this section you would find that Paul mentions the ministry of the churches in Macidonia and the way they had greatly advanced the kingdom even though they were impoverished, and Paul then asks the people of Corinth if their faith and love for Christ compares to theirs. They had and still have nothing yet they gave it all. Is your love any less?

“Do you love me?”  Jesus asks his disciple. “Do you love Him?”  Paul asks the people of Corinth. Do we love him, do we trust and believe to such a degree that we would be willing to not only love God and embrace the Holy Spirit, but to live the love of Christ with others? Do we not only love but do we trust Him? Do we entrust into his care our very lives and livelihoods? Will we be willing to give all that we have to excel in this generous undertaking?

All have sinned, all have been distracted from God, and all including each of us have allowed things both righteous and unrighteous to disrupt the holy rhythm of our lives with God. Yet while we were still and in some cases are still sinners Christ died for us. He left his lofty thrones in heaven to dwell among mankind on earth. He lived among us showing us what life with God looks like, and he did it while living in poverty. He grew up living and working with a handy man, he entered ministry after an entire career in that line of work, and he did it to show us how to live. And then he took on our sin, our guilt, and our shame hanging them on a cross and then burying them within a tomb. The wages of sin are death, but Christ came so that they may have life and have it abundantly. We are dead in sin but in Christ we are alive, made new, and have the hope of heaven even when we are on earth. Paul asks us, “do we love him, is our love for him any less than theirs?” Paul then encourages them to finish what they started. Finish strong like an athlete that has been well trained and disciplined for the race. Finish it. Do not let the world distract us from our vision and our mission. Let our vision be centered on Christ, and let our mission continue driving us to be a people loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others. Let us finish what we started…what He started in us, let us join and finish with excellence the generous undertaking set before us, sacrificing everything so that the world might see life in Christ.