Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Sermon Romans 8:12-25 Creation Waits for the Children of God
Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Churches
Last week we saw that salvation is more that just having our sins forgiven and receiving a ticket to heaven. Salvation also includes the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives today renewing within us the image of God with which we were created. The effects of sin had completely erased all of God's image from us. So God sent the Holy Spirit to renew it within so that we can once again hear God's voice, respond to God's call, and obey God's will. Today we will see that this blessing is not just for us but for the whole world. Let's pray.
“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)
I read an article this past week about a couple of atheists who attend church every week and enjoy it. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/atheists-may-actually-like-these-10-elements-of-church-culture/ That's right atheists who enjoy church! Amanda Westmont and Joel Gunz both call themselves non-believers, but they attend church every Sunday to write a blog for Beliefnet.com. The blog is called, “Year of Sundays”. One of the things they like about church is the food. They love the pancake breakfasts and the Sunday evening spaghetti suppers. They like the beautiful architecture, the stained glass windows, the beautiful artwork. They really like the charity work churches do, everything from feeding the homeless to building awareness of poverty. But their favorite thing about church, for these two atheists is the live music. They love the ancient chants, jazz worship, and the pounding rhythm of praise songs. And best of all, all of this is free.
So how is it that two atheists could come to church every Sunday and love what we do, but never find God in any of it? The Apostle Paul has an answer.
Romans 8:18-23 18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.evidence of the creator in creation. Remember that everything was created good. And so long as we obeyed God's will, creation would stay that way. But once sin entered into the world and we started following our own way rather than God's way both the image of God within us and the evidence of the work of the creator in creation has been covered over and can no long be seen. Creation itself has fallen into sin. This is apparent here in Pocomoke. How else would you explain the problems of drug addiction and alcoholism, the problem of poverty, and the problems of marital infidelity and domestic violence? In a world created by God none of these things should be happening. But sin has obscured the goodness of God's creation and these and other problems abound. And so the atheist are unable to see God even in church.
The mistake that the atheists make is that they believe that the world can deal with its own problems. If we have just the right government program and spend enough money any problem can be solved. But as the country has gone deeper and deeper into debt and has many layers of government programs, the problems are still here and the solutions seem so elusive. The world is incapable of solving it own problems because sin has distorted creation, obscured the goodness with which it was created, has twisted it into a world of problems. The atheists will eventually realize the futility of trying to fix the world's problems with their good intentions. An outside force is needed to restore the goodness of the world. And this is where it gets really interesting. The outside force that the world needs, is us. What the world is waiting for is for God's Holy Spirit to transform us into the children of God so that we will listen to what God says and act upon it transforming the world.
So what do we do? How is it that we become God's agents for world transformation? It starts with prayer. As the image of God is restored in us we have the ability to communicate with God. So with the help of the Holy Spirit we can pray, and listen to God's voice. The Apostle Paul tells us that when we pray to the Father the Holy Spirit lifts us up to God as God's adopted children. Paul says that since we are God's children then we must also be heirs of God's creation.
And since Jesus is also God's heir we must be siblings, and as siblings we share in his glory. That is what all of creation is waiting for. It longs for the day when the children of God emerge and transform all of creation back into the goodness that God had intended. All of creations is waiting for us, the children of God, to come with God's glory.
All of this takes time. But it has already started. Already the Holy Spirit dwell is you. Already you are lifted up to God in prayer. Already you hear God's voice. Already the image of God you were created with is being restored. And God is using all of this so that you will be the instruments that God uses to recreated a fallen world.
The place where all of this starts is in church. Yes we have good food here. Yes our music is beautiful. Yes we have a beautiful historic building. Yes we do good things for our community. But church is much more than all of this. Church is where we come into contact with the risen Christ in the Word of God and in prayer. And it is through this contact that God's Holy Spirit enters us, transforms us in God's adopted children and sends us out to restore goodness to a world that has lost it.
So we need to pray that everyone who comes into our doors will find Jesus Christ here and be transformed by the Holy Spirit right here in this church. I hope that the two atheists writing for Beliefnet will one Sunday come to Pocomoke and worship with us and be surprised when they find out that our worship is more than just music, and architecture, and food, and good works – find out that our worship is worship of a living God who is Lord of our lives.
Let's take a look at how God is using his adopted children to transform the world, Here is a portion of the most recent blog post by one of our atheists, Amanda P. Westmont. Listen to what the Holy Spirit is doing for this atheist. http://blog.beliefnet.com/yearofsundays/2011/07/spiritual-journey-update.html
“Two weeks ago, I had one of the worst days I can ever remember having. I’d spent the afternoon up to my eyeballs in pure, unabashed ugliness. I honestly thought it couldn’t get any worse, but then a police officer pounded on my front door, read me my rights and accused me of committing a felony. I went from feeling LOW to feeling LOWLOW. Of course it was all just a big misunderstanding. A tit-for-tat taken one titty too far. Fortunately, after a few words and a few tears, the police officer agreed with me, shook my hand and left...
(Then) there was a Facebook note from Donna Van Horn, one of the pastors at The Bridge, inviting me out for the drinks we’d been talking about having since I first met her on that perfectly imperfect Sunday in March. There was no way she could’ve known what was going on with me, but she somehow managed to reach out to me at the EXACT moment I needed her to. I immediately penned an enthusiastic, if profanity-laden, acceptance and sent it off to her with a complaint that she was making it really hard for me not to believe in God anymore...
I’ve had every reason to hunker down. To shut out the world and keep myself safe. But if these Sundays have taught me anything, it’s that reaching out is the only answer. I had to ask for help. I didn’t ask God or Jesus or Buddha, but I put the word out on my blog and simply asked for support. And I received. Literally hundreds of prayers, blog comments, e-mails, Facebook wall posts, calls from old friends and even flower deliveries rolled in. I was literally overwhelmed with love.
Because of the heathenous things we write on this blog, Joel and I are probably the two most prayed-for souls in all of Portland, Oregon, but this was the first time I ever really FELT those prayers, welcomed them even. And the constant fear I’d been living with dissipated enough that I was able to get back to my life...
I do know I’m going to start reading the Bible and see how I feel about it. I’m doing this not as a road to accepting Jesus Christ as my personal savior, but because a) I write a religion blog and my Biblical ignorance is becoming embarrassing, b) I’ll be reading along via The Bridge’s bi-weekly Bible study group called Red Letter Pub, which means there will be Bibles AND booze, and c) I’ll take advantage of ANY OPPORTUNITY to hear Donna Van Horn speak. She’s a quiet one, that pastor, but if I learned anything by accepting her invitation and having her over to get sauced on my patio with the other Church Ladies of The Bridge, it’s that virtually everything that comes out of her mouth is golden. I don’t have to believe in Jesus to want to surround myself with people doing their damnedest to live like him...”
Ms Westmont, like all of creation is groaning under the weight of sin, hoping that one day she would have a glimpse of God's glory. Lets all pray that she will find God in the Bible study at Bridge church and that she too will be transformed by the Holy Spirit into what she was created to be, and that through her God will transformation our fallen world. Amen.
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