Sunday, August 24, 2014

Remembering Who We Are

April 24, 2014

One of the liabilities of being a former pastor has to do with backing away from the preacher role that comes with the job. It's not just a matter of not doing it anymore; that's the easy part. The real temptation is to sit in the congregation listening to the pastor's sermon and thinking to oneself, "I would have said thus and so," or "You should have said this about that..." The fact of the matter is, each preacher thinks differently and handles the Scriptures differently, and this is a gift from God. Today as Pastor Joe was preaching about pride, I thought to myself, "Your struggles with pride are way different than mine. This is how it affects me." In the middle of that train of thought, it occurred to me (maybe it was the Lord speaking!) that this must be what happens to most people when they listen to sermons. I've had many times when someone would tell me about something I said in a sermon that spoke to them, and my reaction was, "I said THAT? I don't remember saying anything close to that!" The truth is, it wasn't me speaking to them at all; it was the Holy Spirit, who took whatever I was saying and used it as a springboard to speak into that person's heart what they really needed to hear. It had never dawned on me that when the preacher is preaching, God is saying things to people that the preacher never imagined. That happened to me today as I was listening, as it turns out, not only to Joe, but to God himself.

This afternoon after worship and dinner, we gathered down by the falls at the end of our property and baptized Nathan, Mattie, Jo, and Bruce. It was our first baptism at the creek, and it was a wonderful experience! The water rushing in the background, the fifty or sixty people gathered to welcome these young Christians into the family of God, the beauty of the falls itself, and the joy of baptizing my grandchildren made it a memorable day, indeed. Standing in the water, the fish were nibbling my toes; I could feel the pebbles beneath my feet, there was no whiff of chlorine. Our friends and family gathered there in support filled the day with their prayers of blessing. These kids have their whole lives before them; I pray that they will long remember the day when Christ claimed them for himself and they said "yes" in baptism.

The fact is, we often forget who we are. Sin's allure and the busyness of life have a way of subtlety snipping away at the ties that bind us to Christ and each other. Some see baptism as their declaration of faith in Christ, and while that is involved, the beauty of baptism is that it is really God's gift to us in which he claims us for himself. And even when we forget, even when we wander like the Prodigal Son, the Father never disowns us. If the devil tries to steal us away, God remembers and in effect says, "You can't have that one; he belongs to me," or "Sorry, Satan, see that water? That's a seal of ownership that has My name on it, not yours."

My favorite part of the Prodigal Son story is when Jesus said of the young man, "When he came to himself..." That's how he said it. Modern translations render it, "When he came to his senses," but that's not what Jesus said. Jesus said, "When he came to himself." His true self was not the young man wandering in sin, but the young man who remembered he had a father. These young people have a Father who today put his seal of ownership upon them. Life stretches out before them; none of us can tell how those roads will twist and turn, but we know that Jesus himself is the Way, Jesus walks with them, and Jesus is the Goal. And today, we had the holy privilege of witnessing that seal applied, and the work of Christ being fulfilled in four young people who like most of us, cannot begin to grasp the enormity of all God has in store for them. I am not only thankful today, I am praising God, over the moon, down on my knees grateful. Our God is good...all the time, but especially today!

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