Sermon – Daniel 2 – Faith in a Faithless Land: God's Wisdom

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Sermon – Daniel 2 – Faith in a Faithless Land: God's Wisdom

Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Churches

September 18, 2011

I am continuing today with the second of a series of sermons entitled “Faith in a Faithless Land.” Our text for this series is the Book of Daniel. This book is set during the period after the kingdom of Judah had become a vassal state to the Empire of Babylon. The best and brightest of the Judean youth, the graduates of Harvard and Yale, the football players, the rock stars, the ones most likely to succeed were all carried off to Babylon to serve the growing needs of the expanding empire's bureaucracy. They have been entered into a three year crash course to become Babylonians by learning the language and customs of their captors. The Babylonians wanted to squeeze the Jewishness out of them by replacing their Jewish names with Babylonians names and forcing them to eat meat and drink wine that had been offered to Babylonian gods.

We saw last week that Daniel and his friends wanted to continue to believe in the God of their ancestors, Yahweh. So, privately they kept using their Jewish names and with God's help persuaded their guard to allow them to eat only vegetables. In this way they were able to remain faithful in a faithless land. Today we will see another challenge to their faith with a contest between human wisdom and God's wisdom in a faithless land. But first lets 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)

In the second chapter of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar has assemble his royal cabinet, the secretaries of magic and sorcery, and undersecretaries of the departments of astrology and enchantments. This king had called this important meeting because he had had a bad dream. There were many threats facing the empire and the king had to watch out for all dangers both within and outside the empire. A disturbing dream could be a warning from the Babylonian gods that something bad was about to happen. The cabinet has been called together to deal with the possible threat.

The wise men that met with the king that day were the best in all the empire. They had studied the ancients scrolls and were experts on interpreting dreams. But the king had a twist. He wanted them to interpret his dream without first telling them what it was. Maybe the king had forgotten the dream. Maybe this was a test of his most trusted advisers. Either way these men, steeped in human wisdom, made a startling admission. Remember what they said in Daniel 2:10, "There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks!” The wisest men in the Babylonian empire admitted that there are limits on human wisdom.

Today most people believe there are no limits on human wisdom. This is a product of our scientific age. If we just have enough resources and time and use the scientific method we can figure out anything. This is the axiom that the social and physical sciences are based on. Human wisdom is ultimately capable of understanding everything, we just haven't got it all worked out yet. Our President has assembled the best minds in the county to figure out how to get more people working. They say we need more time and must spend more money. No one ever questions whether or not human wisdom itself is up to the task of restarting job growth. We just assume that human wisdom must be able to do anything. If human wisdom can get us to the moon and back then certainly it can solve all the problems we have today. But the Book of Daniel makes it very clear that there are limits to human wisdom. And with that in mind here is today's second lesson.

Daniel 2:24-49 ²⁴ Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, "Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him." ²⁵ Arioch took Daniel to the king at once and said, "I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means."

²⁶ The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), "Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?"

²⁷ Daniel replied, "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, ²⁸ but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come.

Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you lay on your bed are these: ²⁹ "As you were lying there, O king, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen. ³⁰ As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than other living men, but so that you, O king, may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind.

³¹ "You looked, O king, and there before you stood a large statue-- an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance.

³² The head of the statue was made of pure gold,

its chest and arms of silver,

its belly and thighs of bronze,

³³ its legs of iron,

its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay.

³⁴ While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them.

³⁵ Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth. ³⁶ "This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king.

³⁷ You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; ³⁸ in your hands he has placed mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.

³⁹ "After you, another kingdom will rise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. ⁴⁰ Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron-- for iron breaks and smashes everything-- and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. ⁴¹ Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. ⁴² As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. ⁴³ And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.

⁴⁴ "In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. ⁴⁵ This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands-- a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces. "The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and the interpretation is trustworthy."

⁴⁶ Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. ⁴⁷ The king said to Daniel, "Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery." ⁴⁸ Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men. ⁴⁹ Moreover, at Daniel's request the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego administrators over the province of Babylon, while Daniel himself remained at the royal court.

Daniel was able to both know the king's dream and interpret it because he was not using human wisdom. Human wisdom was not able to do this. But by using God's wisdom, which is available only to the faithful, Daniel was able to do what the wise men of Babylon could not.

Daniel told the king that he had dreamed of a giant statue. King Nebuchadnezzar was very happy to hear that he was on top, the golden head. Below the king was a body of decreasing value. King Nebuchadnezzar might want to erect this statue in Babylon to show everyone how the empire fit together with the wealthiest at the top supported by the poor at the bottom. But this would be interpreting the dream with human wisdom. Daniel had a different interpretation using God's wisdom.

Daniel said that the statue represented three kingdoms that were to follow Babylon. There has much debate concerning which kingdoms the author was talking about. But the important thing is that all earthly kingdoms are temporary. They will all, one day, come to an end because anything that this built on human reason is finite and limited. The only thing that is permanent is that which is built on God's wisdom.

In Nebuchadnezzar's dream the foundation of the statue was built on a combination of clay and iron. This represents human wisdom which is strong, but will one day crumble to pieces. Human wisdom, clay and iron, is destroyed by rock which of course represents God's wisdom.

So anything we build with human wisdom will one day fall apart, but whatever is build on the rock of God's wisdom will last forever. According to the Book of Daniel the rock in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, God's wisdom, will destroy all the kingdoms of the earth and will establish a permanent kingdom, not made by human hands, but the Kingdom of God.

So Kingdom of God is coming and will be established on the solid foundation of God's wisdom. It will replace the human kingdoms built on crumbling foundations of human reason. The Kingdom of God will be permanent. And a first century AD prophet named John told us to repent for this Kingdom of God is at hand.

Don't rely on human wisdom. The experts might be smart, well trained and highly educated. What they build will be as strong as iron, silver and gold. But the foundation of human wisdom is very weak. So it much better to rely on God's wisdom which is permanent, solid as a rock. Amen.

Sermon – Daniel 1 – Faith in a Faithless Land

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Sermon – Daniel 1 – Faith in a Faithless Land

Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Churches

September 11, 2011

Ten years ago today I was driving on the Washington Beltway, Interstate 495, making my way to a sales meeting in Laurel Maryland. It was a typical day and I was doing exactly what I had done for years. I turned on the car radio and listened as Don Imus, a syndicated radio personality, described the burning of the World Trade Center in New York City after an airplane had hit it. Imus was talking with Jim Miklasszewski, the Pentagon correspondent for NBC News, when Miklasszewski said he heard an explosion and would go to see what happened. I arrived in Laurel and watched on a grainy black and white television set as one of the World Trade Towers collapsed. As I drove home I could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon. I got home and locked the doors. The world changed for America on September 11, 2001.

I felt at the time that the America I grew up in was about to change in significant ways. No longer did the great oceans protect us from attack. No longer were we safe under the protection of American military power. But I didn't know how we would all react to being attacked by terrorists. In the months that followed many churches were full. At my church you had to get there a half hour early just to get a seat. But this only lasted for a few months and then attendance began to decline. In many churches this decline has lasted ten years. I don't really know what has happened here in Pocomoke over this time. I do know that now fewer people attend Beaver Dam and Pitts Creek Presbyterian Churches. So something has changed here too.

I believe that what we have been seeing in our churches since 911 is a matter of faith. Before 911 we were all living in a nominally Christian nation, most people believed in God and considered themselves Christian. After 911 most people came to church for a while. Those with the deepest faith, those who believed in Jesus, trusting him with their lives, were comforted by the assurance that God was with them in difficult times. While others with a shallower faith questioned why God would allow terrorist attacks to occur. “Why didn't God prevent the loss of all those lives?” Of course the church couldn't really answer that question and many who asked it left the church. Those who remained in church continued to trust God, but for many who left their trust in God was shaken and they stopped believing. This means that we, those in the church, now are the faithful remnant living in an unfaithful land.

Examples of this being a faithless land are numerous. The Director of the Washington, DC Office of the PCUSA finds it nearly impossible to meet with Members of Congress and has never met with the President of the United States. The Mayor of New York City has invited no clergy to pray in the 911 Anniversary Commemoration. At the National Cathedral in Washington DC an interfaith service will be held featuring “the dean of the Cathedral, the Bishop of Washington, a rabbi, Buddhist nun and incarnate lama, a Hindu priest, the president of the Islamic Society of North America and a Muslim musician”, but Baptists and Evangelicals were left off the program. (Read more: http://radio.foxnews.com/2011/09/06/evangelicals-left-off-national-cathedral-9-11-event/#ixzz1XHWJbHVF)

More and more we seem to be living in a faithless land. And need to know what the Bible says about faith in a faithless land. So I have decided that we need to spend some time in an often neglected and sometimes misused book of the Bible. We will spend the next few weeks looking at the Book of Daniel and what it says about faith in a faithless land. But before we begin this endeavor 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)

^NIV Daniel 1:1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. ² And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his god. ³ Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring in some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility-- ⁴ young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king's palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians.

⁵ The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king's service. ⁶ Among these were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. ⁷ The chief official gave them new names: to Daniel, the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego.

⁸ But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. ⁹ Now God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel, ¹⁰ but the official told Daniel, "I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you."

¹¹ Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, ¹² "Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. ¹³ Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see."

¹⁴ So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days. ¹⁵ At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. ¹⁶ So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.

¹⁷ To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds. ¹⁸ At the end of the time set by the king to bring them in, the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. ¹⁹ The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; so they entered the king's service. ²⁰ In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.

²¹ And Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.

Just as the world changed for us on 911 so too did the world changed for the tiny Kingdom of Judah at the end of the 7^th century. Prior to that year they had been an independent nation, with a dynasty going all the way back to David, great prosperity from international trade, and at least a nominal belief in their God. But in 605 BC the Babylonian army under the command of the king's son, Nebuchadnezzar, defeated the Egyptian army at the battle of Carchmish. The Judeans were no match for Babylonian power and thus became a vassal state. A puppet king was placed on the throne. And Nebuchadnezzar carried off to Babylon the best and brightest of Judean nobility. The Judean youth were to be retrained for use in the growing Babylonian bureaucracy.

This crisis had for Judah a similar effect to what 911 did to the American church. People were divided. Some questioned why God allowed this to happen. The prophets tried to answer this question but some left faith in Yahweh believing that the Babylonian god must be stronger. But some Judeans had strong faith that comforted them through the crises. And it is four of these young Judeans, with strong faith in God, that the Book of Daniel chronicles, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.

The question of the book is this: Would these four good Jewish boys remain faithful to their God even after living in an unfaithful land? Would Daniel, whose name literally means “God is my judge”, Hananiah, “Yahweh has been gracious”, Mishael, “Who is what God is”, and Azariah, “Yahweh has helped” remain faithful to the God of their ancestors? The Babylonians wanted to know the answer to this question too so they came up with a test. The test was simple, give them Babylonian names and make them eat meat and drink wine that had been sacrificed to Babylonian gods and see if they become Babylonians. No faithful Jew would accept those names or eat and drink food offered to idols. So what were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah to do? Would they accept the new names and eat and drink meat and wine offered to false gods? Or would they somehow hold onto their own names and avoid defiling themselves with the meat and wine? Would they hold on to their faith in God or put their faith in the Babylonian gods?

The first thing that we see is that God was still faithful to his people even after their exile to Babylon. God was still filling his people with faith. And God had already worked on the hearts of their pagan captors to allow his people to practice their faith. This gave Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah the faith and the opportunity they needed to avoid eating the meat and wine offered to idols. And so they ate only vegetables and God blessed them with healthy bodies.

We can take assurance in this that after 911 God is still with us. God is with us giving us the opportunity to remain faithful. And God is still working on the hearts of those with little faith who have left or rejected the church. God allows us to live as faithful people in a faithless land by blessing us with faith, and giving us an environment where our faith can grow.

The names that these four young men were given were Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach; and Abednego, pagan names designed to erase their Jewish identity. But as the author of Daniel makes quite clear these young men never accepted their new identity. The narrator of the story continues to call them Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, good Jewish boys, who remain faithful in a faithless land.

So what does this mean for us, faithful people living in a faithless land. First we can have the confidence that God is still at work in the world around us. Our role as a faithful remnant is to align ourself with what God is already doing. To do this we must hold onto our identities at Christians. We must still pray, study the scripture and go to church regularly. And we must always be looking for what God is doing in our community and get involved with God's work. If we do these things we will remain faithful even in a faithless land.

God Almighty, we thank you for helping Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah remain faithful even after the Babylonian conquest. We ask that you help us to remain faithful even as the world around us loses its faith. We know that you are already at work redeem our land. So we ask that you use us to bring our unfaithful land back to faith in you. Amen.  

Sermon – Romans 12:1-8 – Be Transformed

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Sermon – Romans 12:1-8 – Be Transformed

Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Churches

August 21, 2011

For the last few weeks we have been looking at Paul's letter to the church at Rome. Paul did not start this church, and we don't really know how it got started. What we do know is that according to the Book of Acts visitors from Rome where in Jerusalem and heard Peter speak on Pentecost. Furthermore we a told that these visitors from Rome were both Jews and converts to Judaism. These converts would be call God Fearers. They were Gentiles who believed in the Hebrew God. So both Jewish and Gentiles believers heard Peter in Jerusalem and around twenty years later Paul is writing a letter to a church of Jewish and Gentile believers. So it is very possible that the church of Rome was started by visitors from Rome in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. And if this is true the church Paul is writing to a church that has had a 20 history as a multicultural church with both ethnic Jews and roman Gentiles both worshiping Jesus Christ.

This church would have experienced the edict of Emperor Claudius in 51AD expelling the Jews from Rome. The ethnic Jews in the church had to leave. The Gentiles remained. Several years later the Jews were permitted to return to Rome and the church had to once again find a way to be multicultural. Paul's letter is his attempt to help them, and what he told them has become the model for what church is for the last 2000 years.  

But before we look at what Paul says in the 12^th chapter, 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)

Romans 12:1-8 ^NIV Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-- this is your spiritual act of worship. ² Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-- his good, pleasing and perfect will. ³ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. ⁴ Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ⁶ We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. ⁷ If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; ⁸ if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

Two weeks ago Grace and I moved into the Dickinson Memorial Manse. It had been rented for the last ten years until we moved in. A lot of work was required to get the house into shape. After all the house is around 160 years old and a lot of maintenance is required to keep it in good shape. A painter was hired and spent two months preparing the walls and ceilings and putting two coats of paint on everything. It took 8 gallons of paint for the wood trim in the house. A plumber was called in to repair leaking faucets. A shower leak had caused the living room ceiling to collapse just before repairs started. A cracked toilet had to be replaced and new drains installed on the bathtubs. In addition to the painter and the plumber we also needed people to repair the drywall and install new flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms. There are 45 windows in the manse and someone had to install all those curtains. Thankfully Bill and Elaine came out to help with that job. Carpets had to be cleaned, wood floors polished, and furniture moved, and God sent a saint to Grace's church to help with all these things. Willard and Jeanette brought over some covered dishes so we wouldn't starve on our first night in the house. All of these people, and many more were needed just to get a manse ready for a pastor to live there.

The person who helped by assembling furniture was not really comfortable installing new faucets. The plumber was not really comfortable making a washing machine work. The painter was not really comfortable doing the drywall work on the living room ceiling. And I wasn't really comfortable doing all these things myself. What God did was to send people with different gifts to the house. Each of these gifts was necessary to complete the repairs on the house. Each person had a specific gift. So God sent many people with different gifts to repair an old house and transform it into a beautiful church manse for the pastor to live in and entertain guests.

This was the model the Apostle Paul used to design the church. A church is made up of people with gifts from God who use their gifts for the benefit of the church. Using our gifts to benefit the church is what Paul calls spiritual worship. Each of us makes living sacrifices by offering our gifts to the church makings our actions holy. And God takes each of our living sacrifices to transform an ordinary group of people into a church.

The model of church today has strayed from this ideal. We got too large and began to hire profession pastors, educators, and musicians to lead programs. People in the church showed up to be spiritually fed and leave, never contributing their gifts as living sacrifices to benefit the church. We stopped experiencing spiritual worship in the sharing of our gifts. So God has pruned us back so that with fewer financial resources we have had to rely on everyone's gifts rather than paid help. Everyone in the church must make a living sacrifice using the gifts God has provided to benefit the church. We can't afford a Christian educator so people in the church must use their gifts of teaching for the benefit of the church so that we can have Christian education programs for all ages. We can't hire profession musicians to lead our choirs. But people in the church with gifts of music and organization must use these gifts to lead choirs for the benefit of the church.

As each of us must make living sacrifices using our gifts for the benefit of the church so that the church is transformed into spiritual worship.

Now Paul did not know the people of the church of Rome. So he did not know what gifts they could use for the benefit of the church. But he had seen enough people in enough churches to know what gifts God usually bestow on church members, and how those gifts transform a church.

One gift the church needs is that of prophesy. Prophesy is the gift that allows us to know what God is doing in the world around us and to discern what God wants us to do. We have prophets in our church. Last Friday at the men's group we were talking about projects we could support. One person, with the gift of prophesy, pointed out that there are many people in our community who will have difficulty paying their heating bills this winter. Oil prices are so high that people just can't make ends meet. Maybe God is calling Beaver Dam and Pitts Creek churches to do something about this problem. Maybe we could find out what is available to help people with their heating bills from government and christian sources and make our church the place where people could come to find out what is available. So you see how important it is for a church to have the gift of prophesy.

But there are other gifts too. Paul talks about the gift of service. The Greek word he uses is diakonia, from which we get the word Deacon. Literally these are people who provide hospitality to others. Those with the gift of service prepare food, setup and cleanup for coffee hours. They take covered dishes to the sick and those who cannot cook for themselves. They take flowers to those in the hospital and send cards on birthdays. Every church needs people with the gift of service.

Another gift Paul talks about is teaching. Every church needs people with this gift. Our traditions must be passed on from generation to generation. So we need to provide Christian education for all ages. The church needs people with the gift of teaching Bible stories to children, and those with the gift of interpreting the Bible for adults. We have certainly been blessed with many gifted teachers in our churches. Donna and Mary are very good adult teachers and Linda and Chris are really gifted with the children.

So prophesy, serving and teaching are vitally important gifts from God needed by the church. But there are others: encouraging, contributing to the needs of others, leadership, and caring for the poor and the sick. All these gifts are needed by the church. And they are all provided by our loving God.

So if you are making a spiritual sacrifice by using your divine gift for the benefit of the church then you are experiencing spiritual worship. If you are not using your gifts then you are experiencing something else which is not spiritual worship. I urge you to consider what gifts God has given you and make a living sacrifice by using your gifts for the church and experience the reward of spiritual worship.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for blessing us with so many gifts. Help us to use our gifts for your great glory so that we may experience spiritual worship. Amen.

Sermon – Romans 11:29-32 – Pruning the Church

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Sermon – Romans 11:29-32 – Pruning the Church

Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Churches

August 14, 2011

Two weeks ago we heard Paul’s anguish as he talked about his disappointment in not being able to bring his own people, the children of Israel, to belief in Jesus Christ. But Paul was assured that since God is faithful the covenants God had establish with the Jews were still in force. God had not left his people. Last week we saw that the covenants that God had establish with the Jews also apply to non-Jewish Christians, us, because of our confession that Jesus is Lord. Today we will see why the majority of Jews did not accept Jesus because this was part of God’s plan. Let us 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)

Romans 11:1-12 ^NIV Romans 11:1 I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. ² God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don't you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah-- how he appealed to God against Israel: ³ "Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me"? {3 1 Kings 19:10,14} ⁴ And what was God's answer to him? "I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal." {4 1 Kings 19:18} ⁵ So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. ⁶ And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. ⁷ What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened, ⁸ as it is written: "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day." {8 Deut. 29:4; Isaiah 29:10} ⁹ And David says: "May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them. ¹⁰ May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever." {10 Psalm 69:22,23} ¹¹ Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. ¹² But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!

For several weeks now we have been looking at the Book of Romans. This book was written by the Apostle Paul to a church he did not establish and had not yet visited. But he knew about them because he had met two of their members, Pricilla and Aquila, in Corinth where they all worked together in the leather industry. Pricilla and Aquila had come to Corinth from Rome in 51AD because of an imperial edict ordering all Jews out of Rome. Six years later the Jews were permitted to return and the Christian Jews found the church they left was now very different. Gentiles, non-Jews, were in control holding leadership positions. The church had grown significantly with Gentile believers. It had become a Gentile church. It was almost as if God had used the Emperor to prune back the church, by sending the Jewish Christians away, allowing new growth to start. Now that the Jews were returning they needed to be reintegrated into the church, regrafted onto the bush they had been pruned from. The purpose of Paul’s letter to the Romans is, in part, to deal with problems that have arisen since the return of the Jewish Christians.

As we have seen, Paul’s concern is that the majority of Jews have not accepted Jesus as their Messiah and Lord. Paul is astonished by this because the proclamation he has been making is such good news that everyone should accept it. Who wouldn’t want to hear that God loves us so much that he sent his son to die for us so that we would have eternal life? But for most of the Jews this was rejected. Paul knew there had to be a reason for this so he searched the scripture, the Old Testament, for clues about what might be happening. What he found was that time and again throughout the history of the children of Israel, God had hardened their hearts so that for a time the number of believers was diminished, but this eventually led to even greater growth in the numbers who believed. Elijah, at one time, believed that he was the only believer left, but God assured him that thousands remain and from them faith would grow.

We saw this earlier in our Old Testament reading from Genesis. This week and last we have been looking at the story of Joseph. He and his brothers were the first children of Israel. Remember how God hardened the hearts of Joseph’s bothers when they sold him as a slave in Egypt. It looked like God would punish them for this dastardly deed by killing them all with a drought. But Joseph used his time as a slave to because a government official in Egypt in charge of grain storage, and was able to save his brothers from starvation. God had hardened the brothers’ hearts to save them. So too with the Jews in the first century, God had hardened their hearts so they would not believe in Jesus, to save them.

God knew that if the first century Jews believed in Jesus they would control the churches and the Gentiles, the non-Jews, would never come to belief. So by holding back the Jews, God allowed the Gentiles to develop the church, greatly expanding the number of believers. God had pruned back the bush far enough so that it could grow back even larger than before.

Paul took this to by analogy why the Jews were not accepting Jesus as Lord. They has been pruned away from the church by God allowing Gentiles to come to faith. But remember that God remains faithful to the Jews. So just as the Jewish Christians were returning to the Roman Church once a Gentile Church had been established so too will all Jews accept Jesus as Lord once the church is fully established by Gentiles and we love God with our whole hearts, mind and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves. But this has never happened. We have never loved one another just as God loves us. We have hated the Jews, forced them to leave our communities and persecuted them. As a result of what we have done the Jews have yet to accepted Jesus as Lord. Because sin still clings to us so closely we have never accomplished Paul’s dream of building a fully inclusive church of Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, slave and free. And so God must continually prune back the church to prepare it for future growth.

Last Summer I went out to look at the shrubs in front of our house on Greenway Ave. They looked OK on the outside, but I could see a lot of dead wood on the inside. So I began to prune the bushes back getting rid of all the dead wood. When I was finished they really looked ugly, little more than misshaped sticks coming up from the ground. But this year the shrubs have grown back and they are beginning to look better. They are on the way to being even more beautiful than before. You have to prune back bushes from time to time to keep them growing to their full potential.

We see this in the church as well. Whenever we see the church in decline, with falling membership and tightening budgets we must remember that this is God at work pruning us back so that we will be ready to grow even larger and more beautiful than before. When we discern that God is pruning us back it is time to prepare ourselves for the future growth. We do this by becoming more spiritual with daily prayers, Bible study, worship and service to those in need. Through these spiritual practices we become the foundation upon which God can build a church. But don’t think that the people God prunes away from the church are forever lost. This is certainly not true. God prunes them way to prepare us. Once this happens many, if not all, will return and their relationship to the church will be even stronger than before.

So don’t be afraid of falling numbers. See it, as Paul did, as part of God’s plan to make the church even stronger than before. Prepare yourselves for the day when you will be the spiritual leaders of a growing church. When you are ready spiritually, God will send new people to our doors and bring some whom we have lost back to us again, and our churches will be stronger than even.

Lord Jesus, we pray that your spirit will come upon in worship and prayer. Prepare us as your followers to provide spiritual leadership to the church. When we are ready, we ask that you send new people to our doors and bring back the people we have lost. And we pray for our church be stronger than ever. In Jesus’ glorious name we pray. Amen.