My scripture passage for this morning is Matthew 7:24-27. Listen to our Lord Jesus Christ:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and it fell, and great was its fall.

Over my lifetime, I’ve looked at the Bible from several different perspectives. When this one was presented to me many, many years ago by the Sunday School, I thought, “They gave me this very special book. I need to take good care of it.” When I was a teenager and a young adult, I saw it as a rulebook I didn’t want to follow, so I ignored it, along the lines of “If I don’t know what it says, I don’t have to do what it says.” When I was born again, it became my lifeline, the word of God. I prayed that God would help my understand it, and many times He gave me that understanding and I thank Him.

More recently, I’ve come to see it as an owner’s manual for life. Instead of a list of do’s and don’ts, and God standing ready to womp us on the head with a baseball bat when we make a bad choice, it tells us the consequences of our actions ahead of time, so that we can avoid bad consequences and reap good consequences, even if we don’t understand why it works this way. I think it’s much like a parent teaching their children not to put their hand on a hot stove. If they do it anyhow, the good parent doesn’t beat the kid. They treat the burn and give them a hug – but the kid still has a burn to suffer through. Yes, God can miraculously heal that burn, and sometimes He does. But it’s been my experience that, most often … He doesn’t. He lets us suffer through that burn, so we learn not to put our hand on a hot stove. The wise man learns from his parents when he’s a child, and from God when he’s an adult – which takes us back to our scripture this morning.

You might think that the difference between the wise man and the foolish man is faith – the wise man believes in Jesus Christ, and the foolish man doesn’t. That’s true, of course, but it’s not what this passage is telling us. Listen again.

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man … And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man

Both the wise man and the foolish man heard the words of Jesus, maybe even believed His words. The only difference between the two is that the wise man acted upon those words, and the foolish one did not.

This concept is backed up in James 2:19-20:

You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?

Hearing and believing is not enough. Jesus entreats us to act on what we hear, to demonstrate what’s in our heart by using our hands and our feet and our voices.

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man … And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man

So what words was Jesus referring to? What actions will make us wise men? This passage happens to be the very end of the Sermon on the Mount – three full chapters in the book of Matthew, including the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer, where it also says Jesus amazed the multitudes with His teaching. You’ll be glad to know I’m not going to read all three chapters, but I am going to read little snippets, a condensed version if you will, perhaps some of those things that we haven’t yet acted upon. I won’t editorialize, but simply let the Lord speak to each of us as He will.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank You for sending Your Son to save us. We thank you for Your Word, that we can learn and act upon what we learn. Fill us with your Holy Spirit this day, Lord, that Your Word may penetrate our hearts, and we may choose to act as wise men. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

The following are taken from the gospel of Matthew, chapters 5 – 7.

= Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

= Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

= Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

= Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

= everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever shall say to his brother, ‘Raca,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever shall say, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

= everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.

= everyone who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

= make no oath at all … let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; and anything beyond these is of evil.

= do not resist him who is evil; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone wants to sue you, and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. And whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two.

= love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven;

= Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

= Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.

= if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

= lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

= do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on … But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.

= Do not judge lest you be judged.

= why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? … You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

= Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

= Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.

= however you want people to treat you, so treat them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

= Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.

= Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits … every good tree bears good fruit; but the bad tree bears bad fruit

= Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.

= Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock … And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand.

God loves you. God loves me. Simple words, but do we really believe them? We should, because nothing you or I do can change His love. We can’t do the right thing and make Him love us more. We can’t do the wrong thing and make Him love us less. It’s simply a fact. God loves us. He loved us when we were right in the middle of the worst sin we’ve ever committed. He loves each and every one of us with an unconditional, immeasurable love. How do we know this? He told us.

· John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
· Rom 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

· Rom 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We can’t change God and we can’t change His love for us, but if we allow Him, He can change us. He can teach us to love one another the way He loves us.

In the first year of our marriage, I was praying one day for Tom, praying for our marriage. Like most newlyweds, we didn’t really know each other that well. I was crying out to God to draw us closer, to show me Tom’s heart. God answered that prayer, but not in the way I expected. He showed me things I didn’t want to see, things that hurt me.

Once each day for six days, Tom would make a seemingly casual comment and, like a flashbulb going off, God would show me the attitude or the feelings behind his statements. It wasn’t a pretty picture and each one cut like a knife. By the seventh day, I was a wreck. I cried out for mercy. I said, “God, why are you showing me these things? I love my husband and this pain is unbearable!”

And the Lord answered me. He said, “You wanted to see his heart. I showed you his heart. Now … I still love him. Do you?”

As I sank to my knees, I knew that I didn’t love my husband the way I should, the way God loved him. My love was conditional. I loved the good things in him. I loved him when he did things to please me. I didn’t love his weaknesses. I didn’t love him when he hurt me, even unintentionally.

Please don’t misunderstand. Tom is not some secret monster. In fact, he is an incredible blessing in my life and treats me as a blessing in his. He loves the Lord, and seeks to serve Him in all that he does. But he is human, as we all are, and God exposed his humanness to me, the wife who professed to love him.

Has God exposed the weaknesses of those around you? Have you seen ugly things in your spouse, your children, your church family? Have others been seeing ugly things in you? I believe this process of exposure is an opportunity to love as God loves. It’s easy to love people who never hurt us or make mistakes. It would be easy to love perfect people, if you could find any. I know I can’t.

But Jesus said, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) We all know we should pray for each other, instead of condemning each other. But if we are to manifest Jesus, if we are to be His representatives on this earth, then our witness must go beyond not condemning. We must truly love each other, just the way we are. In John 13:35, Jesus said By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. If we can’t love one another, brothers and sisters in Christ, then how can we possibly love the unsaved? How can we honestly love the drunk, or the drug addict, or even the neighbor that drives us nuts?

This is not an easy thing to do. But one thing the Lord has shown me, is this: when I’m finding it difficult to love someone, when someone hurts me and I want to strike back or run away, I’ve lost sight of the fact that God loves me unconditionally, no matter what I do. And it’s this love that drew me to God.

In Romans 2:4, Paul asks this question: Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? It’s His kindness that leads all of us to repentance and into the kingdom of heaven.

1 John 4:19 says this: We love, because He first loved us. This is our motivation. God loves us right where we are. This is what gives us the strength to stand where God puts us. This is how we learn to turn the other cheek. This is how we learn to love our enemies, to bless those who persecute us. This is how we even learn to truly love our spouses.

We love, not because we know we should, not by pretending that we haven’t been hurt, or that others don’t have weaknesses. We love because God first loved us. God loves us in spite of our sin. If we are to be His disciples, we can do no less. We need to honestly love each other the best we know how – right in the face of sin and pain and betrayal.

And when we fail – which I do every day – we need to confess that we can’t keep Jesus’ commandment. We need to acknowledge the sin in our heart, and ask the Lord to replace it with His love.

One biblical example of this kind of love is found in David. Saul persecuted him, tried to kill him, and made his life miserable for years. Yet God said that David was a man after His own heart. (1 Sam 13:14) Through all that distress and misery, David never struck back at Saul. And when Saul died, David mourned and wept and fasted. He chanted a lament, and told Israel to teach it to their young. It contained this line: O daughters of Israel, weep over Saul. (2 Samuel, Chapter 1.)
David learned how to love. Can we?

My message this morning has an official title. It’s called “Ham, Home Runs, and Healing.” I’m going to start with the ham. Some of you have probably heard this story, so bear with me.

There was a young bride who decided one Sunday to make a nice ham dinner for her new husband. She put the ham on the cutting board, cut off the ends, and put it in her roasting pan. Her husband, who was watching intently, asked her why she cut off the ends of the ham. After a moment, she replied, “I don’t know. That’s the way my mother always did it.”

“Well, why did your mother do that?”

“I don’t know.”

So they called up Mom and asked her why she cut the ends off the ham. After a moment, she replied, “I don’t know. That’s the way my mother always did it.”

Getting really curious now, they called Gramma. When they put the question to her, she said, “Gracious, child, I had a small roasting pan and the ham wouldn’t fit.”

I’ve been thinking about traditions in general, and realized that we have many reasons for them.

When we celebrate events on a regular basis, it provides continuity. Singing “Happy Birthday” and blowing out the candles helps us feel like we’re a special part of a special family. We know we belong.

Sometimes we draw comfort from the familiar. When we’re struggling with tough stuff, reading John 3:16 or reciting the “Apostle’s Creed” reminds us that we’re not in this alone

And sometimes, like cutting the ends off the ham, our traditions have outlived their usefulness.

I went to the Bible to see what God has to say about traditions. I’ve chosen just a couple passages that helped clarify my thinking. The first is from Mark 7, verses 5 – 8:

And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?” And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. ‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’ “Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”

Ouch. Our traditions can cause us to neglect God’s commands. That’s a pretty serious warning.

Another passage is from 1 Corinthians 11:1-2. Paul says:

Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you because you remember me in everything, and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you.

Now here’s praise for holding firmly to traditions.

So which is it? Are traditions good or bad? I think neither. In and of themselves, traditions are neutral. What I think is important is the impact of our traditions. As Jesus warned, if a tradition keeps us from God’s commands, we’d better let it go. On the other hand, if a tradition helps us imitate Paul, who imitated Jesus, then we should hold on tightly. Let me give a couple examples from my own experience.

My father died back in 1974 at the old St. Mary’s Hospital. I was 19 years old. While he lay sick in ICU, the whole family was camped out in the waiting room for a few days. One night, as I was looking for comfort, I found that I couldn’t remember the 23rd Psalm – it just wouldn’t come into my head. So I went down to the chapel to look for a Bible. I went up and down the pews, but there was not a Bible to be found. So I went up to the altar and starting looking around there. All of a sudden, someone came in and started yelling at me. “What are you doing up there? You can’t go up there!” Well, I wasn’t Catholic. I didn’t know I’d broken a rule – and I don’t think this was what God intended I find in the chapel. Bad tradition.

A few years ago, my son Aaron was in the hospital for several weeks. I would go spend the day with him, and then come home and collapse at night. It was a rough time, and I started to get burned out. Late one night, as Tom was driving us home from the hospital, I remembered the little prayer cards at the church in Glen. He turned the car and we came this way. On the way, I wondered if the door would still be unlocked, as it was when I was a kid. It was. We went in and filled out a prayer card and put it in the offering plate. Two good traditions: prayer cards and open doors.

Remember my title: Ham, Home Runs, and Healing? We’ve done the ham, so now we move on to the Home Runs. I think it’s fairly certain that God doesn’t think in baseball terms, but we can, at least to a degree. As we walk with the Lord through our days and nights, He often steps up to the plate for us. If we’re paying attention, we see Him bunt, and hit sacrifice flies and singles on our behalf … but we don’t often see home runs. I think God wants to hit home runs for us … but maybe sometimes our traditions get in the way. I’m going to share the story of a home run I saw God hit, when traditions did not get in the way.

Many years before I knew Tom, he left a church that he had been part of for a long time. This church held a teaching that if someone left the church, they broke fellowship with the other members. In fact, the members were instructed to have nothing to do with anyone who left. In effect, they were shunned … and ostracized. As you can imagine, this was difficult for Tom. He not only left his church, he left his friends – including his best friend Steve. Sometime later, Steve also left the church.

Fast forward a few years, and Tom and I are planning our wedding. He decided to invite some of the people from his old church, and asked Steve to stand up for him. Steve agreed and a few other people also came to the wedding. God hit a couple singles, but He wasn’t done yet.

A few months after we were married, one of those who came to the wedding was involved in an original Christian musical at Proctors called “The Prodigal.” Tom and I attended, along with some others from his old church. We learned that one of the musicians was going to perform at that church the next morning. We decided to attend, as did Tom’s friend Steve.

We didn’t know what would happen. We didn’t know if we would be welcomed or if the door would be slammed in our faces. Tom and Steve hadn’t been there for years, and a lot of hard feelings existed.

Well, when we got there, people were … pleasant. They were polite. I was introduced to a few people … and then God took over.

I don’t remember the details of all that happened, or all that was said, but I remember some things.

It started with the saxophone player from New Jersey who was their guest. He played his sax for a while, and then he started talking – unplanned by him. He said that God wanted to heal some hearts that morning. Well, if you’ve been to a pentecostal-type church, you know that’s something you often hear, so honestly? I didn’t pay a lot of attention at that point.

Then someone in the congregation stood up. He said that a scripture had been burning in his heart all morning, and he read it to us – it was about God healing the broken hearted.

Then someone else spoke up – and someone else. Five different people had something to say or something to read about healing.

Then the pastor stood up. Now this man is rather mild-mannered and quiet, not at all dramatic. He took some papers out of his jacket, tore them in half, and dropped them on the floor. He told us that was his planned sermon for the day.

Then he took an index card from his pocket. It seemed a nurse named Mary was on her way to work early that morning, and she felt the Lord kept telling her to pull over and get out her pen and paper. She finally did. When she got to work, she called the pastor. She told him she had a message for this church, for this morning, that God was going to heal old wounds. The pastor dutifully, but skeptically, wrote it down. He, too, had heard this before.

But after the pastor listened to all these other people, all saying roughly the same thing, he read us Mary’s note. And he knew what else he had to do.

He then asked Tom and Steve to come forward. And when they had, with tears in his eyes, he publicly apologized to them and asked their forgiveness. He explained to the newer members that Tom and Steve had been badly hurt by this church, and today God was making things right.

Others came forward to ask forgiveness. People were praying for one another, people were hugging, people were crying, I was a blubbering idiot. The sax player played some more, and soon … a great celebration was underway. We sang and we clapped our hands and we danced and we gave our praises to the Lord. God’s people had been set free from guilt and healed from broken hearts. God had hit a home run.

So don’t tell me God doesn’t care. And don’t tell me God doesn’t heal. And don’t tell me God needs our traditions.

What He needs are people who listen to Him and obey, people who are willing to stand up for Him, even if we might look foolish … even if we have to break with a few traditions along the way. Psalm 147 tells us:

“The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
He gathers the outcasts of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted,
And binds up their wounds.”

In John 10, Jesus said:

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”

Let’s follow Jesus … and maybe, just maybe, God will hit some home runs right here in Glen, New York.

————————————
Benediction: Lord, we are a people who need what only You can provide. We are outcast, we are brokenhearted, we are wounded. Come, Lord Jesus. Heal your people and set us free. Amen.

[I shared this message at my church on April 29, 2007.]

Have you wondered why Tom & I are here? We just kind of showed up a couple months ago and started taking up space. Well, there’s a reason. We’re hoping to move back up here on the hill. My mother has signed over some land to us, the woods over there that I used to play in as a kid. We’re planning to sell the big old house we’re in now and build a nice little one, right smack in the middle of the woods. That’s the plan, God willing. So we thought we could reconnect with the community in Glen and here we are.

Being here each Sunday has brought back a lot of memories.
- When I think of Sunday school? I think flannel boards. I loved flannel boards. I always wanted to be the one to put the people on or take the animals off. They were great fun.
- After our individual classes, we would all get together in the middle of the room and either Marty or Bessie would play piano so we could sing – and sing we did, loud and long.
- And we always finished with “Onward, Christian Soldiers” as we stomped up the stairs, making as much noise as possible. The adults never had to guess when we were finished.
- This sanctuary was almost full most Sundays, and over-full at Christmas and Easter. In never-ending amazement, we watched each week as the Egelston’s came in and filled up a whole pew.
- We would leave the doors wide open in the summer – and sometimes our German Shepherd, King, would come in and wander around until he found us. Then he’d lay down by our feet until we were ready to leave. A well-churched dog.
- In third grade, we all memorized John 3:16. On children’s Sunday in June, we took turns marching up front to recite it in front of the whole church. I was terrified … but I did it.
- And then we were each presented with our very own Bible. I can remember wondering why they would entrust something as important as the Bible to me – with my name in it, too. I felt very special.
- And every summer, of course, there was Vacation Bible School. I don’t know who spent the winter dreaming these things up, but it seemed like every year we would have a new project to make — always, always out of popsicle sticks and yarn. I can’t remember what even one of them was, but I know we always had fun making them.
- When we were in 7th grade, our Sunday school class graduated upstairs with Harold Pierce. That made us feel very adult. It was always clear how much Harold loved teaching us about the Bible. He would always get excited when one of us grasped a new concept. In retrospect, it’s very apparent how much he loved the Lord. He would have to have, to put up with the bunch of know-it-all 7th graders that we were.

It’s nice to have these memories, and I thank God for mine … but we can’t live on memories.

When you come back to a place that you haven’t been part of for awhile, I think you see some things differently than the people who have been here all along. For instance, I haven’t gotten a day older in the past 30 years – some of you, on the other hand … I’m teasing, but I do want to share some of what I’ve seen here in the past few months.

- I’ve seen familiar faces that have opened their arms and their hearts to us. That doesn’t happen many places these days.
- I’ve seen that this beautiful building has been well-maintained. Enders may not be mowing the lawn anymore, but someone has taken his mantle and wears it well.
- I’ve seen Biff in church every Sunday. I confess, that surprised me — probably as much as me being here has surprised him! God is full of surprises.
- You’ve added this Early Bird service, where regular folks like me can share what the Holy Spirit is doing in our hearts. Before I’m done, you may want to re-think that idea.
- On the other side of the coin, we stayed for the congregational meeting a few weeks ago. We listened to report after report, and, frankly, it was depressing. If you looked past all the cheery voices, most of the reports pointed to a shortage of funds.
- We were also here for the joint Easter service. Because we’d been attending this early service, I knew we were missing the people who attended the later service. And Easter always brought people out of the woodwork, so I was expecting a full house on Easter morning, but — they weren’t here! I was heartsick! Where were all the people?

I’ve spent a bit of time praying and thinking about these things, and asking the Lord questions. In fact, I’ve been making a real pest of myself about all this —and I believe He’s given me an answer.

Now, some of you are probably thinking, “Who does she think she is, waltzing in here after all this time? She thinks she’s got answers to the things we’ve been wrestling with for years!”

Well, you’re free to ignore me, of course, but this is who I think I am: a child of sin, forgiven by Jesus Christ, and filled with the Holy Spirit. I also happen to love the people of this church very much.

As for the answer I have, it’s right here in the Sermon on the Mount, one short verse, Matthew 6:33:

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.”

Instead of seeking God about the lack of money, instead of seeking God about the lack of people, instead of seeking God about keeping this place going, I believe we need to seek God … because He’s God. We need to seek His kingdom for our own hearts.

And instead of just praying about all the horrible things that people in this world do, we need to pray about all the horrible things that we do. I once heard a story about God’s Holiness and our sinfulness.

Imagine we’re all in college, and there’s just one final exam. To pass this final exam, you need to get 100. It doesn’t matter if you get 99 or 21. If it’s not 100, you fail. Well, we all fail. There’s not one of us that can get 100 on God’s Holiness scale. But because He’s a merciful God, he sent Jesus to suffer for all the 99’s and 21’s – and He, of course, got the 100 we can all claim, when we confess that we didn’t earn it ourselves.

Nonetheless, Jesus exhorts us to seek His righteousness. A grateful, humble heart desires to please God, even knowing that we would never be able to pass the test on our own.

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.”

Last week Jayme told us about different seasons we go through, and I remembered other seasons I’ve been through of seeking the Lord — seasons where every thought, every feeling, every action — revolves around seeking the Lord. Where nothing on this earth matters, except drawing closer to God.

I’m sure many of you have been through this process. I discovered that as we seek God wholeheartedly, as we seek to make His righteousness our own, He starts a fire. Sometimes it’s a little match, sometimes it’s a blow torch, and sometimes it’s a forest fire — but always He burns off the dross that gets in our way — and we come out the other side cleansed and purified, a more fitting vessel for the Holy Spirit.

One time when I went through this process, the Lord prompted me to write a song. I’d like to teach you that song this morning. I invite you to sing with me as you get hold of the melody. And I invite you to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. All these things surely shall be added to you.

—————————————

c1998 Jean Leonard, all rights reserved

Can You Feel the Heat?

Can you feel the heat? He’s coming closer.
He’s burning off the dross.

Can you feel the heat? He’s coming closer.
He’s burning off the dross.

1) He’s the Father. He’s Holy.
We’re His children of sin.
Still He loves us and wants us close, closer to Him.

2) He’s the Savior, our only hope.
We’re the reason He died.
Then He rose up and set us free to follow in stride.

3) He’s the Spirit. He leads us on.
We just need to obey.
He will cleanse us and comfort us and show us the way.

[This is the first message I shared after I returned to the church where I was raised.]

Disclaimer: The views I am about to express are not necessarily those of this church. In fact, they’re probably pretty unique.

For instance … God is like an elephant. Ok, not exactly like an elephant, although He is very big.

You’ve probably heard a version of this story. Some people are blindfolded, and reaching out with just their hands to touch what’s in front of them, trying to identify it. Someone thinks it’s a tree. Someone else says it’s a wall, and a third thinks it’s a snake. They argue about it, but it turns out they’re all touching different parts of an elephant.

They don’t know this until the blindfolds are removed, and so it is with God.

We each have little pieces of knowledge about God. We can share that knowledge with each other, and we should, but until the blindfolds come off, we still only know our little pieces.

So this morning I’m going to share some of my little pieces of God, and then I’ll tell you about my blindfold.

1) There is something very special about the love a grandmother has for her grandchildren. Some of you may remember my father’s mother. Her real name was Ethel, but we always called her DeeDee.

We had a very special relationship. I was her only granddaughter, and she was the only grandmother I could remember. In her eyes, I could do no wrong. No matter what dumb thing I stumbled into, like sticking my tongue onto a frozen pipe or fighting with my brothers, I could always tell her about it and know that her arms would be open. She never said “I told you so.” She never said “you should have known better.” She just opened her arms and loved me.

This was my first big lesson from God: He showed me what unconditional love is.

2) Somehow, it seems that I’ve always known about the God of Creation. Maybe it was growing up on this hill, with 20 acres of woods to play in. Maybe it was watching storms come down the valley, and splitting apart at the Nose’s – or maybe it was watching clouds dance across the Adirondacks.

Somehow I’ve always known that acorns turning into mighty oak trees, and babies being born with 10 fingers and toes, cannot be explained by anything but miracles of God – the God of Creation.

3) The first time that God revealed Himself to me, I was 10 years old. My grandmother was sick in the hospital. I started praying. They brought her home and set up a hospital bed in the middle of her living room. I kept praying. Every night before I went to bed, I prayed, “God, please don’t let my DeeDee die.”

After about 3 months, it was Thanksgiving Eve. I was busy that night helping my mother prepare for Thanksgiving dinner for the family. I put the extra leaves in the dining room table, and got out the good tablecloth and china. I polished the silverware, and washed the fancy goblets. And then, exhausted, I went to bed. When I got up the next morning, DeeDee was dead. I had forgotten to say my prayers the night before.

You might think I learned about guilt, but the miracle of this story is that I never felt guilty. Somehow, I KNEW that God decides when someone dies, not a 10-year-old. Somehow, I KNEW that her time had come, but God had put it off just for a little while, so that I would know that He heard my prayers.

At 10 years old, I learned that God hears me.

4) Now flash-forward 23 years. In retrospect, I know God was walking with me for that 23 years, but I wasn’t often conscious of Him. In fact, for the most part, I was ignoring Him and forging my own path. I developed my own moral guidelines, but that’s what they were – MY guidelines, not God’s.

And then one day, I broke my own guidelines. When that happened, even as it happened, I knew in my heart that I had crossed a line. My guilt was overwhelming, and I believed that I was now beyond hope of God’s forgiveness. I lived in that place of spiritual death for 7 years. I learned what Hell is like.

5) Now flash-forward again and it’s 1994. I have just bought my first computer, a cutting edge IBM 486. There were only a couple ways onto the internet at that time, all of them involving expensive long-distance phone lines, but I did it anyhow. I joined AOL, and soon was chatting online just like I knew what I was doing.

One day, I got chatting with a man from Daytona Beach, Florida. We started sending emails, and chatting at pre-arranged times. After a few days, the conversation turned to God. He told me stories about his life with God. I told him that I was beyond God’s help. For 5 hours, he and the Holy Spirit argued with me. They finally convinced me that God could, and did, forgive me.

Using keyboards and phone lines and a man 1200 miles away, I confessed my sin and invited Jesus into my life. As we prayed together, a warmth spread over my head and shoulders, like a gossamer-thin veil. The blindfold was removed and I received new life.

Another lesson learned: we must be born again.

No, we don’t have to call it that, especially if we come from a Reformed Church background, and no, it doesn’t happen the same way for each of us. But I am convinced that it has to happen, that there has to come a place in time when we consciously decide to yield our lives to God and receive the Holy Spirit.

Jesus explained it much better than I ever could:

(John 3:1-8) Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Him by night, and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”