Standing In Grace (Romans 5:1-4) 5/26/13

Standing in Grace

 Romans 5: 1-4

On the afternoon of Monday, May 21, 2013, Anna Canady and Jessica Simonds were teaching their kindergarten students at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Oklahoma. A mile away, Paula Fauble was doing the same thing at Briarwood Elementary. Sheryl Stoepker, a nurse, had just helped deliver a baby at Moore Medical Center. In a matter of minutes, everything changed. Only miles away and coming fast was an E5 tornado two miles wide, seventeen miles long and carrying winds of 210 miles an hour. It was headed right at them. There was no place to run, no place to hide. The fury of nature was bearing down on them in all its ferocity and power. More on that later.

The book of Romans is thought to be the fullest expression of the Apostle Paul’s theology. He is writing from Corinth to the church in Rome but has yet to visit there personally. In the opening verses of Chapter 5, Paul celebrates the blessings that come from justification by faith. He begins by simply reminding his audience that we Christians are justified by faith. While it helps to know that Paul is writing to the Christians in Rome, his words bring equal light and comfort to Christians today. The watchwords in this passage are faith, peace, access, rejoice and hope, and they are interconnected. Watch for them as we explore this passage.

Back in Oklahoma, it started out as an F1 tornado, which would have been bad enough, as it would have been accompanied by 100 MPH winds, but evidence indicates that within ten minutes, it had turned into an F5 and over 200 MPH. That’s not twice as bad. Scientists tell us it’s eight times worse. On the ground the wind force is greater than that of an atomic bomb at ground zero. That goes over the top of my ability to describe with words, but words are not needed. We have all seen the pictures and the video footage. Everything in the path of that tornado in Moore was either flattened, splintered or thrown hundreds of feet.

Paul said to the Roman Christians that since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. We no longer stress over our inability to adhere to the law, to all the rules and regulations that would make us righteous. We are made righteous, not by ourselves, but by the atonement of our Savior. Our faith in Christ is all that we need. He is our refuge and our strength, just as the Psalmist says.

Tornados give signs, but little warning. What I mean is, weather people can tell us that conditions are favorable for a tornado, but that warning tends to be geographically wide, as it was that Monday. Much of that portion of the state was under a tornado warning. But the tornado itself comes with little warning and can gather strength very quickly. The monster came flying through the town of Moore, destroying everything in its path. When it got to the hospital, it looked like a hundred wrecking balls had hit simultaneously. But Sheryl Stoepker was ready. She was trained in emergency procedures, including tornadoes. She got that one hour old baby and its mother to the center of the hospital in the cafeteria where all were gathering. Sheryl and the new mother lay down on the floor and hugged, with the newborn in between them.   They are people of faith, and they began to pray. Over 250 people had gathered there and when the tornado hit, the winds pushed them into a big pile of bodies, but everyone survived. Sheryl calls it a miracle.

Paul says that through Christ we have obtained access by faith. How different from the days of the judges and kings of Israel. On the Day of Atonement, which came once a year, the high priest prepared himself meticulously for his annual venture into the Holy of Holies. He would disappear behind the veil and enter into God’s presence, where he would offer the blood of bulls as the sacrifice of the people. The people never entered this place. Indeed, the high priest himself entered it only once a year.   No more, says Paul. Through Christ we have also obtained access by faith to the grace in which we stand. The Greek word for access is prosagwh>n (prosagege). The word is used only three times in the New Testament, all by Paul. Every time, it is applied to Christ. It is the word used to mean introducing someone into the presence of greatness or the divine. Paul is saying that Jesus opens the door for us to God’s presence.

Access was important to Paula Fauble, as she and three other teachers at Briarwood Elementary gathered eighteen children into a hallway between the bathrooms. They put the children on the floor, put pillows between them and the adults and climbed on top of them. Four adults covering eighteen children. Paula says at one point all she remembers hearing were the prayers of the adults. Think of that. A tornado is coming through your building and all you can hear is the prayers of those around you. After the tornado, there was nothing much left of that wing of the building except the hallway where they had gathered.  Everyone survived. Paula lived only a block away. When she went home, it too was gone. Rummaging through the rubble, Paula found her tote bag, complete with comb and brush. She was delighted. Asked if she had lost her faith, she looked surprised. “Oh, no,” she answered. “My faith is stronger than ever….God took care of us.” Paula had access to God through faith…faith in the grace in which we stand.

Paul told the Roman Christians, and us, that we rejoice. We rejoice in hope and even in suffering. Our hope is for the glory of God. Our suffering is a road to more of that hope. As Paul says, it produces suffering, which produces endurance, which produces character. And character produces hope. And there we are again: back to hope. When we believe, we hope. When we hope, we will find God’s glory. We will even share in it.

Can you rejoice in the middle of a tornado? I don’t think I could, but I want to believe that I could hope. I want to believe that I could hope like Anna Canady and Jessica Simonds were hoping that Monday when the sky turned dark and they shielded those kindergarteners from the wrath of the tornado as it tore through Plaza Towers Elementary School. As they climbed on top of the children, a wall crashed down on them. Then a car flying through the air came to rest on the wall, wedging it in place. In some aberration of gravity, the car may have actually helped keep the wall in place as an overhead shelter. When workers came through after the tornado had passed on, they saw only Anna’s head sticking out of the rubble as she called for help.  They gathered enough people to roll the car from atop the wall. Then, one by one, the children were passed out to the rescuers. The adults were last. They all survived. Anna says that she kept asking God to take her instead of the babies. One of those babies was her own daughter. She just kept telling the children that it was going to be OK.

It is. It is going to be OK. As Christians we know that. As Paul tells us, through our faith, we have peace with God. Through Christ we know who God is. Through the Holy Spirit, we come to that personal relationship with him that gives us that peace, the peace that we are at home, that we are loved, that we are OK. Paul calls it justification. We might call it “right with God.”

Through Christ, we also have access, not only to God, but to his grace. It is the grace in which we stand, the grace by which we enjoy that access, the grace which gives us hope, that realistic expectancy that it really is going to be OK. That gives us reason to rejoice, a word Paul uses thirty five different times in the New Testament, and with good reason. Ask Anna Canady or Jessica Simonds or Paula Fauble or Sheryl Stoepker or a lot of other folks in Moore, Oklahoma. They are rejoicing in the midst of tragedy and suffering, because they have that peace and that hope which Paul talks about. Yes, people dies in that tornado, but we look at all that wreckage and marvel that so many survived.

          Stories of hope that come from experiencing God’s grace abound.  The Bible is full of them, from Joseph to Lazarus. God lives and he lives in our hearts. Our stories are his stories. Our victories are his victories. Our suffering only brings us closer to him.

Do you have a story? If you are one of his, you most certainly do. Why don’t you share that story with someone? You don’t need a microphone. You don’t need a TV camera. Just tell it to someone. If you’re telling your story about your experience with God, they will listen. In Moore, Oklahoma, they are calling all these stories “God-Winks.”  We need to do some winking of our own. We are all, as Paul says, standing in the grace of God. Don’t wait for a tornado to tell your story. Just stand in his grace…and start talking. God will do the rest.

Spirit Led (1 Samuel 17: 26-47, Romans 8: 14-17) 5/19/13

Spirit Led

 1 Samuel 17: 26-47, Romans 8: 14-17

            In ancient, biblical Near Eastern literature, a champion is a man who steps out to fight between the two battle lines. Sometimes a champion would fight on behalf of his entire people. It was a gamble. It was winner take all, so you had to have a lot of confidence in your champion’s ability. Such was the case for the Philistine army encamped at the Valley of Elah in the time of King Saul of Israel. The Philistines had a champion. His name was Goliath. He was six cubits and a span tall. In today’s measurements, that’s 9 feet 9 inches tall. His armor was made of bronze and weighed 125 pounds. His shield was 10 feet tall and he had an extra man just to carry it. Just the tip of his spear weighed 15 pounds. It was mounted on a shaft described as like a weaver’s beam. This guy had some serious size and some serious armor and weapons.

          Goliath came out from the ranks of the Philistines and shouted to the army of Israel, challenging them to send their champion to do battle with him. Scripture tells us that Saul and all Israel were dismayed and greatly afraid. One might ask at this point what the big deal is. Just say no and go to war with your army. Well, we are not told the numbers, but I’m thinking this was not really a good option for Saul. He must have been outnumbered and out weaponed and he probably knew it. He also was out of favor with God. The previous passage tells us that the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul. He even sent for this teenage shepherd, the youngest son of Jesse. The kid was pretty good on the lyre, a musical instrument sort of like today’s flute. When he played the lyre, it soothed Saul. The kid’s name was David.

          Goliath came out every day for forty days and made his challenge to the Israelites. As God would have it, Jesse sent young David to the front lines to take cheese and grain to his older brothers in Saul’s army. Apparently, the armies were about to go to war when David showed and heard the challenge of Goliath. The teenager speaks up: “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

Word travels fast about the young man. David is sent to King Saul, where he volunteers to be Israel’s champion. Saul is unimpressed, but David does a little resume building. He has killed a lion and a bear with his bare hands. That is, says David, the Lord delivered him from the paw of both the bear and the lion.  And Saul said to David: “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

Now Saul himself is a seasoned warrior with lots of notches in his war belt. But Saul has broken faith with God and he isn’t feeling all that good about his chances. Was Saul impressed with David? Did Saul hear God’s voice again?  It’s really hard to tell from the text. Maybe he just didn’t want to be responsible for all that death about to happen to his people.

So Saul tries to equip David with his own helmet and armor and sword. David tried them on, but they just didn’t feel right. He ended up swapping them out for five smooth stones and a sling. Now David still carried his staff, and might have been lucky for him that he did. That’s what Goliath focused on, and maybe he didn’t notice the sling that David carried in his other hand. The Philistine hurls some insults at David and David responds. David says “I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts…This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand…For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.”

You know the rest. Even Goliath’s size and his bronze armor could not protect him. The Scripture says that the Philistine was struck on the forehead. Surely his helmet was on. Did David hit the one square inch exposed? Did the power of his sling throw cause the stone to penetrate the bronze helmet? It hardly matters, for David was right. The battle belonged to the Lord. David, already secretly God’s anointed, was just the messenger.

In the eighth chapter of Romans, the Apostle Paul writes the Church in Rome, probably while he is in Corinth during his third missionary journey. Paul wants the church to know of God’s saving mercy. He says that those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  Yes, if we are his God’s children, then we will suffer as Christ did. But we will also be glorified with him. You can almost hear the sound of David in the background saying “the Lord will deliver you.”

There is no other glory. Christians understand that there is the glory of God, and there is death. David said to the Philistines: you have defiled God’s army and you cannot stand. Paul said to the Romans and to us as Christians: Don’t fall back into the fear and slavery of sin. You are adopted. You are in the family. You are fellow heirs with Christ. Dare to let yourselves be led by the Spirit. There is no need to fear, for glory awaits.

In the old story of David and Goliath, we learn of a champion that would act for his people. The Philistine’s champion is Goliath. Israel’s champion is….no…not David. It is God himself. God is the champion of Israel. God is the champion of his people. From time to time, people are called upon to act as God’s messengers to a task or an event. David was one of those people. He, like Paul, was led by the Spirit of God.

David had the good sense to realize the source of his power. It didn’t come from armor or man made weapons. David’s power came from the courage to follow God’s will and to trust in the Lord to equip him with the tools to both do the task at hand and to deliver him from danger.

All of the time, people are called upon to be led by the Spirit of God. But we have to come to the task in humility and obedience. We have to recognize the source of our power. God will give us the tools we need to do the task at hand. We just celebrated Mother’s Day. Ask any Christian mother about the source of her power. This next week, we will celebrate Memorial Day and honor those among our number who gave all they had for our country. They gave that last full measure of devotion out of duty and a love of country. For those who now live with God, they also acted with the trust that God would deliver them. And he did. Ask any Christian soldier the source of his or her power. They too are Spirit led.

Never, ever fear to follow where God leads. Every one of us can be God’s champion. If we believe, we are adopted. If we are adopted, we are heirs. If we are heirs, God will deliver us. He promised.

A Call to Stay; A Vision to Go (Acts 26: 6-15) 5/5/13

            “Go West, young man,” said nineteenth century author Horace Greeley, although he probably borrowed it from newspaperman John Soule. He was referring to Manifest Destiny, the 1850’s movement to populate the American West and the desire of many to join the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific. While the movement that may have been inevitable, it left many casualties in its wake.

          Mankind’s drive for adventure, to conquer, colonialize and occupy, is nothing new. It has been both blessing and curse, depending largely upon whether you are the mover or the moved. It is certainly not unique to emperors and kings. We can also find it in God’s Word. For instance, Abraham was called to a great Bedouin dynasty, Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt, David to unite the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel.

          In some ways, Paul’s second missionary journey seems like a blueprint for God’s manifest destiny, for that second missionary journey could easily not have happened, and just as easily have gone in a different direction. The fact that it did happen, and that from it came the spread of Christianity to the West, has much to do with the survival of Christianity and its worldwide influence. And it all started with the Holy Spirit saying “No” to Paul.

          Ever start to take a step in the dark, and something holds you back? Ever start to do a job and it just won’t happen, as though some invisible hand is restraining you? Ever start to talk about something serious with someone and you know right away it’s the wrong time? We all have experiences like this, when somehow we are led to inaction. Usually it turns out that whatever we were about to do was not a good idea. Call it instinct. Call it Providence. Whatever it is, sometimes it can save your life, or save a relationship, or change the course of your life or someone else’s.

After the famous Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, where the leaders of the Jerusalem church affirmed Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles, Paul and Barnabas go down to Syrian Antioch. Soon after, Barnabas suggests that they return to the cities they had previously visited, but they disagree over whether to take Mark. This results in a split. Paul chooses Silas and departs for the region of Cilicia. In the city of Lystra, Paul meets a young man named Timothy, who joins the ministry.

Apparently Paul wants to go east into Asia, but Scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit forbade Paul to speak the word in Asia. Paul then wants to go north to Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus does not allow him. They continue westward to Troas, where Paul has a vision. In the vision, a man from Macedonia stands in front of him and urges him to come to Macedonia and help. Paul concludes that God has called them to preach the Gospel in Macedonia.

          The Trinity is all over this passage.  The Holy Spirit forbids Paul to speak in Asia. The Spirit of Jesus stops Paul from turning North or East.  A vision from God propels Paul the way he is to go. Paul is stopped twice from striking out in a certain direction. While we are not given the details, we are certainly made privy to the source of Paul’s inaction. God is preventing him! Paul is called to stay. Then, and only after two false starts, Paul concludes that God has called him to Macedonia. Paul’s direction comes from a vision in the night, perhaps in a dream.

          So armed with God’s vision, Paul and his friends go west to Macedonia, the region which we refer to today as Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, or today’s Eastern Europe.

          Acts 16 is also the first recorded appearance of Luke as a participant in Paul’s ministry and not just Paul’s physician. Luke apparently joined Paul’s group, perhaps in Troas, as they set out for Macedonia. He may have come to treat Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.” Perhaps this ailment is what God used to hold Paul back temporarily. At any rate, Luke now narrates the story using the pronouns “we” and “us” throughout the passage. He is not only reporting; he himself is witnessing as they take the Gospel westward.

Paul’s group arrives in Philippi, a leading city and Roman colony in Macedonia. It was customary for Paul to first go to the synagogue for Sabbath worship, but Philippi had no synagogue. So they go outside the gate to the riverside, thinking it to be a good place for prayer and worship. And once again, Paul is thrown a curve. Rather than talking and sharing in the synagogue or to some gathering of men outside the city, Paul and his disciples engage with a group of women. Among them is Lydia, a seller of purple goods. She has come from Thyatira to set up her marketing business.

Lydia must have been quite a merchant. She was in a business that required a lot of capital. Purple goods were in great demand and also in short supply. The purple dye had to be gathered drop by drop from a certain shellfish. To dye a pound of wool in purple cost the equivalent of about $350. Lydia was probably at the top of the social scale of the time. Yet here she was at the river’s edge with a women’s prayer group. And Luke tells us that “the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.” She and her household were baptized. Lydia became Paul’s first European convert.

This was Paul’s second missionary journey, but he had not been this far west the first time. Others had preceded him, and Lydia was probably not the first convert in Europe. But it is noteworthy that the first European convert recorded in God’s Word was a woman. Lydia’s home was to become a base of operations for Paul in future journeys. Her wealth and generosity probably helped finance his ministry. Perhaps God used Luke’s gospel here to point out how important women were to the spread of the Gospel from the very beginning.

While these stories are helpful to show us where and how the Apostle Paul’s ministry began to penetrate beyond the confines of Palestine, they are even more important to illustrate how God worked then and how he works now. Paul was held back. God the Holy Spirit and God the Son held him back from going east and north into Asia. This must have been confusing and frustrating to Paul. We are not told how Paul was restrained, but clearly God restrained Paul from going his intended way. For a time, Paul was called to stay.

Like Paul, we have sometimes thought sure we were in a position to do God’s work, only to be thwarted and held back. Obviously, Asia was reached by Christian missionaries, but it was not God’s will for Paul to carry that banner. God had other plans for Paul.

When God was ready for Paul, Paul was given the vision to go. For Paul, it came in the form of a vision in the night, but God’s call comes in as many ways as there are people. Some of us are called to go across the street, others to the far regions of the world. The call is no less important in our dens and kitchens than it is in third world huts and grass houses. And when the vision comes, we should do as Paul did. We should immediately make plans to follow that call.

Equally important was the way God chose to use Paul in Philippi. Rather than debate with philosophers, as he did in Athens, or engage with religious leaders, as he did in synagogues, God took Paul to a riverbank and a small group of women. God led Paul to Lydia, opened her heart to receive the message, and from such unlikely beginnings, established a base of operations that was to aid Paul and others in their mission to Europe.

The work of God can be done by all of us, but it is done best when we are guided by the Master. He will take us to people and places that we would never have gone under our own direction. In what Paul might have characterized as misdirection, he was introduced to Timothy, his son in the faith, to Lydia, his first European convert, and to Luke in yet another calling, as he grew from doctor to reporter to missionary in his own right.  

The prophet Isaiah reminds us that “From days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him” [Isa. 64: 4]. It’s amazing what can happen when we listen. Where one door closes, another is opened. When we wait for God, great things are possible. We too can experience visions of our own. They may come from prayer or conversation or just being still. When we wait for God, he will be faithful to guide us. As Paul found out for himself, a call to stay is just the prelude to a vision to go.