**NOTE - the message from Judges had significant technical difficulties. I will re-record at another date**

Transcript for this week's message: Ruth

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that who ever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life

Ruth 1

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.

Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilionalso died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.

When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-lawprepared to return home from there. With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.

Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”

Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”

But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”

At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”

“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”

So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.

--

Let us pray:

Hide me behind your cross, Lord Jesus. Articulate the Father’s heart through my voice and let the Holy Spirit breathe new life to us, opening our ears to hear the message of God. Amen

There is a prayer that is cited to St. Francis of Assissi, although it may well have been an anonymous prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that who ever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life

Joshua 1:1-9

After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Let us pray

Hide me behind your cross, Lord. May my words be your heart in my voice to your people. You have told us you love us, help us to know your love and live it every day of our lives. Amen

In the Old Testament, who besides Adam and Eve has no parents?

Joshua, son of Nun

That’s a preacher joke. They are kind of like dad jokes, but even funnier.

In all seriousness, we now find ourselves at the book of Joshua. And Joshua tells us the story of the conquering nation of Israel as they move into the land that was promised to them. Joshua will lead them. But Joshua is pretty new at being the only leader – his mentor and friend, Moses has just died. And so God comes to Joshua and gives him this pep talk. It is a pretty compelling pep talk – but it is a reminder that whatever else moving into the promised land might be, easy is not going to be one of the terms used to describe it.

Listen as God tells Joshua some important things about his next steps:

Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

You will lead. You need to obey. And I will be with you.

IN those things, Joshua is urged, be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or discouraged. You will do what I have called you to.

You will lead; they will inherit.

You need to obey; you will be successful in what you do.

You need to be brave and encouraged: I will be with you.

And then the whole book of Joshua is an exercise in exactly that:

God helps them cross a flooded river Jordan on dry land

God helps them investigate Jericho, the first city they must fight against

God gives them Jericho by leading them in a strange battle practice and defeating their enemies for them

God helps them save Rahab, the woman who protected their spies and includes her in the lineage of Jesus

God helps them conquer city after city and people after people throughout the Promised Land.

Unti

Transcript:

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that who ever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life

Deuteronomy 5:6-21

 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Let us pray

Hide me behind your cross, Lord. May my words be your heart. You have told us you love us, help us to know your love and live it every day of our lives. Amen

Just a quick recap of where we have been so far. And it’s appropriate to do it today, because that’s exactly what Deuteronomy is – a speech, wrapped in a little context, that is given just before the children of Israel cross over Jordan to take on the daunting and yet do-able task of conquering the land. The land that was promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs of this incredible homeless for now nation in the desert between Egypt and Canaan.

In Genesis, we were created and we fell, but God promised this land to Abraham along with descendants for him and his barren wife that would number more than they could count. God continued that promise through Isaac, and then Jacob, also known as Israel.

Jacob’s son Joseph wound up in Egypt by nefarious things – his brothers sold him out of jealousy. Joseph eventually, after false accusations and prison, reunited with his brothers and rescued them from famine, by bringing them all to Egypt.

In Exodus, 400 years later, Moses was born into a nation that had become pretty large and was enslaved to the Egyptians. Moses had some missteps of his own, but he ultimately lead the children of Israel out of Egypt – across the Red Sea on dry land – and then to the foot of Mount Sinai.

There, the people received the law.

There, the people rebelled for the first time by forming a golden calf.

In Leviticus, we read the full text of the law and it’s purpose for setting apart the children of Israel as holy people who love God and neighbor.

Eve

TRANSCRIPT:

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that who ever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life

Numbers 13:26 – 33

They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”

Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anakcome from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

Let us pray

Hide me behind your cross, Lord. May my words be your heart. You have told us you love us, help us to know your love and live it every day of our lives. Amen

In the 1990s, there was a craze that I never understood. Called the Magic Eye, it had to do with these pictures that looked like prisms of color oddly put together. Supposedly, if you squinted just right at these images, you could see a 3D picture that was completely unrelated to the blotches. The reason I say supposedly is that I never saw these pictures. Even as I prepared to preach this week and I visited the Magic Eye website and even tried their special “this is how you do it picture” that is supposed to make it easy to do. Even when I knew what the underlying image was supposed to look like – For me, it does not work. I could not see these special graphics, no matter how hard I tried. The thing is, though, that the pictures are there. Just because I cannot see them does not mean they aren’t real. The 3D picture, in fact, is the foundation of the 2 dimensional pattern that is readily apparent. According to mentalfloss.com, the process works like this:

“A Magic Eye image starts with a programmer creating the hidden image…as a grayscale, smooth gradient depth map where dark points that should be furthest away are darker and closer points are in lighter shades. Then, they create a 2D pattern to camouflage that image. Finally, a computer program using a Magic Eye-patented algorithm takes the image model and the pattern and orients repeating patterns to the intended depth of the hidden image. When someone looks at a Magic Eye, the repeating pattern feeds the brain the depth information encoded into it, and the brain perceives the hidden picture” For whatever reason, I am incapable of seeing the hidden picture. The repeating patterns are all I can see. What is right in front of me in the image is the limit of my ability to view the picture.

Here's what’s happening in Numbers so far:

The people were counted as they continued to learn at Mt. Sinai all of God’s commands for them and their worship.

When they finally left Mt. Sinai, they began marching across the desert, headed for the promised land, the land of Canaan that God had promised throughout time to this point to them.

Along the way, they had some challenges. They had no food, so God provided manna. They had no water, so God provided water.

They complained ab

TRANSCRIPT with timestamp:

00.00 - 00.02

So we continue today our .

00.03 - 00.15

Series called love letter from God . Today we are talking about . Leviticus . And it is our .

00.16 - 00.21

Fourth message in the series . We started with a message on John 3:16 .

00.22 - 00.27

And then we have moved from Genesis to Exodus and now we find ourselves in Leviticus .

00.28 - 00.35

As always we start with our Key verse for the entire series which is John 3:16 .

00.35 - 00.51

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life . And then I'll ask you to stand as we read the verses for today's message . They’re .

00.52 - 01.11

From Leviticus. Chapter 19 verses 1 and 2 and then Leviticus Chapter 19 Verse 18 . The Lord said to Moses speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them be holy because the Lord your God and holy .

01.13 - 01.22

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people but love your neighbor as yourself . I am .

01.22 - 01.23

The Lord .

01.24 - 01.41

Let us pray . Hide me behind your cross Lord . May my words be your heart . You have told us You love us . Help us to know your love and live it every day of our lives . Amen . You may be seated .

01.47 - 01.49

I presently have three animals at home .

01.49 - 02.17

Two guinea pigs and a dog named Bear . I know that some of you have more . Some of you might have less. My dog Bear is an older dog . He is about 13 and when we got him he was already 5 . So he came to us with some very bad habits . Some of which we have been able to help him out of and some of which we have not . He was a rescue .

02.18 - 02.27

And at first when we first got him he was very afraid of us . He was particularly afraid of my husband but he was very afraid of us generally .

02.28 - 02.51

We had to teach him that we wouldn't hurt him and that everything that we did was actually for his benefit . We taught him that. And even though we taught him that, and he is much better now sometimes he still gets afraid or worried and he came with a cage .

02.52 - 03.22

And when he gets like that he'll put himself in there and sometimes he'll stay there for a couple of days and he only come out at night and get food but then he'll go back to his cage . We never know why we made him mad . Or what we did . Maybe to frighten him but . He he does that every now and again . And . He puts himself back in that cage because that's where he's most comfortable and in many ways teaching our dog to trust us .

03.22 - 03.45

Is very similar to what God is trying to do here for the Israelites . Reading Leviticus is not an easy task . I know of many people who have said they started trying to read through the whole bible they are going to do the whole Bible in an entire year and they start reading Leviticus and they say . What . Happened? .

03.46 - 04.25

This is hard . Genesis is great . It has lots of story we talked about Genesis stuff happening every single page . Even exodus . There's all kinds of really good stuff in there too right . We read of God's rescue of the Israelites from Egypt . We read of everything that's happening in there . There's so much stuff happening and then we get to Leviticus – I almost want a screeching brakes sound .

Partial Transcript:

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that who ever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life

Exodus 14:10-14

As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Let us pray

Hide me behind your cross, Lord. May my words be your heart. You have told us you love us, help us to know your love and live it every day of our lives. Amen

Americans are really fond of a ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps’ philosophy. We love stories of the poor child who becomes a mogul through hard work and perseverance. All the better if they never went to college, but learned all they needed to know by the school of experience. We have even created “Bible Verses” in our minds to underscore it: The Lord helps those who help themselves, we say, as though that is in the Bible. Or God won’t give us more than we can handle, when the real truth is: our lives are OFTEN, if not ALWAYS more than WE can handle.

Scripture is actually pretty clear that we are pretty hopeless and hapless and helpless on our own. The Israelites were certainly not in any position to help themselves. This part of the story is the moment right before they cross the Red Sea, which happens miraculously and as a further testament to the fact that they, in fact, did NOT rescue themselves. They couldn’t. God helped them anyway – God did what they could not even start to plan. But let’s recap how they got here:

Exodus summary:

400 years have gone by since Joseph, and the new rulers don’t care about some centuries old famine some foreigner saved them from. The new ruler is, in fact, pretty glad that because of whatever happened back in the day, Egypt has some free labor.

But man oh man are there a lot of them.

So, pharaoh starts killing off the Hebrew boys. I’m not sure how that would have made for a sturdy future workforce of manual labor, but it didn’t work anyway – the midwives wouldn’t obey and moms were hiding their babies and finally, Moses was born. His mom put him in the Nile when she couldn’t hide him any longer and he is found by an Egyptian princess. Moses grew up in the palace and was well taken care of, educated, and protected. When he’s 40, he sees first hand the oppression of his people and he takes matters into his own hands: he kills an Egyptian. Everyone knows he did it, too. So he flees. He had somewhat hoped to rescue his people. But he couldn’t do it on his own terms. He’s gone for 40 years. He gets married, becomes a shepherd, the old days of being a great Egyptian adoptee long forgotten in a shameful past.

Then one day, God shows up. God reveals himself as the “I AM” – one of the most profound and incredible revelations of God’s self in all of scripture: I am is not ever in the past tense. I am is not in the future tense. I am is here and now and always IS. It is one of the statements Jesus uses about himself in John that gets him in trouble, and it is one of the most powerful 2 word descriptions of any deity anywhere: I AM. The one who goes before and behind and is with us everywhere IS the I AM. And what God does – boy, howdy!

God had always intended to us

Partial Transcript:

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that who ever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life

Genesis 12:1-7a

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.”

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him;

Let us pray

Hide me behind your cross, Lord. May my words be your heart. You have told us you love us, help us to know your love and live it every day of our lives. Amen

I love to read. I went on strike in Kindergarten because we weren’t learning to read there, so my mom promised to teach me to read over the summer. By the time I went back to first grade I was reading at a fifth grade level; by the time I went to third, I was reading at a college level.  I tell you all of this to let you know that when it comes to books, I am a fan. I love horror stories and love stories and adventure stories. Dystopian novels are fun, but I also love histories and biographies. If you print it on a page, I probably would love to read it. All good books start well. The Bible is no exception.  Genesis is one of my favorite books in the Bible. It tells us about the beginnings of the world and the way God was at work from the start. God created, God was disappointed, God promised: and then God set a plan in motion that is still at work today: a redemptive covenant that would restore the relationship we need and had with God. We were loved from the first page and we are loved to this day, by a God who started out planning redemption with an old man named Abram.

What does it mean to say God loves?

God loved us enough to create us, to form us from the dust.

God loved us enough to let us fail, to let us choose our own way over God’s – to let us chain ourselves to sin and defeat and heartbreak and sorrow and death.

God loved us enough to provide a rescue, a way back: through wanderers, murderers, adulterers, defaulters, promise-breakers, foreigners, strangers, and lovers.

God loved us enough to show us mothers, judges, kings, and prophets who loved and spoke for God and kept reminding us of the promise of redemption

God loved us enough to show us how evil and wrong continually mess things up and how obedience to God fosters holiness and bestows blessing

God loved us enough to send us Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, to preach and live peace, grace, hope, joy, and love.

God loved us enough to see Jesus rejected, to see him die, to see him buried.

God loved us enough to raise Jesus from the dead and send the Holy Spirit to remind us of all we have in him and empower us to live like him.

God loved us enough to want us to live like Jesus – and abundant life infused with all the fruit of the Spirit, redeemed, free, loved.

God loved us enough to still let us choose our destiny.

God loved us enough to promise the hope of forever, of resurrection from the dead, and judgement.

God loved us enough, God loves us enough, God will always love us enough.

For God so loved the world…

God loves you.

God wants you to know it. God wants you to live in it.

God wants you to be able to love others because you know you are loved.

God’s love is expressed to us every week, most tangibly, as we gather at this table: The Son who died and yet lives, gave everything so we cou

Transcript for the Hearing Impaired:

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that who ever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life

I John 4:7-8

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Let us pray

Hide me behind your cross, Lord. May my words be your heart. You have told us you love us, help us to know your love and live it every day of our lives. Amen

Henry Moorhouse was a wild young man who, by age sixteen, was a gambler, gang-leader, and thief.  But during the Revival of 1859, Henry gave his life to Jesus.  While D.L. Moody was in Great Britain, he met this man,  and Moorhouse said to Moody, “I am thinking of going to America.” “Well,” said Moody, “if you should ever be in Chicago, come down to my place and I will give you a chance to preach.”

Now Mr. Moody was not two-faced, he was merely trying to be polite, but mentally he was saying, “I hope he won’t come.” There are so many people, you know, who want to preach, even though God never meant them to, and Mr. Moody was not quite sure of Mr. Moorhouse.

Mr. Moody was rather taken back one day when, just before leaving for a series of meetings, he received a telegram from Moorhouse which stated that he had just arrived in New York and that he would be in Chicago on Sunday. “And now I’m going away,” Moody thought, “and I told him he could preach here.” So he told his wife and his committee that a young Englishman was coming and to allow him to preach once. “If the people enjoy him,” Moody added, “then put him on again.”

When Moody returned he asked his wife, “Well, what about that young preacher?” 
“Oh, he is a better preacher than you are.”
“Why?” said Moody. “He is telling sinners that God loves them. He is wrong! God doesn’t love sinners!”
“Well, go and hear him.” replied his wife.
“Why? Is he still preaching?” asked Mr. Moody.
“Yes, he has been preaching all week and has taken only one text, John 3:16.” 

That evening he went to hear Moorhouse preach.  The young man stood up in the pulpit and said, “If you will turn to the third chapter of John and the sixteenth verse,” said the young man, “you will find my text.”  Moody later recalled, “He preached a most extraordinary sermon from that verse…. I never knew up to that time that God loved us so much.  This heart of mine began to thaw out, and I could not keep back the tears.  It was like news from a far country.  I just drank it in.”

Night after night, Moorhouse preached from John 3:16, and it had a life-changing effect on D. L. Moody.  “I have never forgotten those nights,” Moody said later.  “I have preached a different Gospel since, and I have had more power with God and man since then.”

Later, when Moorhouse fell ill and was on his deathbed, he looked up and told his friends, “If it were the Lord’s will to raise me again, I should like to preach from the text, ‘God so loved the world.’”

Those five words serve as the catalyst for the sermon series we begin today. God so loved the world. It is the underscore of everything – God loves us. God loved us. But what does love mean here? What kind of love does God have for us? Does God love us like our parents love us? Does God love us like our friends love us? Does God love us like a boyfriend or girlfriend? What does the love of God look like? How is it possible that God’s love could be so compelling and so provocative and so immense that it could be proclaimed over and over and have impact? What does it mean to say God loves?

God loved us enough to create us, to form us from the dust.

Link to the video referenced in the message:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw

Please stand together for the reading of God's Word:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted,seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
    the whole earth is full of his glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King,the Lord Almighty.”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Let us pray

Hide me behind your cross, Lord. Let the words I say be the thoughts of your heart articulated by my voice to your people. May they with the power of the Holy Spirit guide us into greater understanding, deeper faith, and abundant, fruitful lives that point only to you. To the glory of the father, the majesty of the son, and the power of the Holy Spirit be given all we offer. Amen

There are some things that you can use an analogy to describe – things that are otherwise hard to understand, you can take this thing or that thing that is easier to describe and help someone understand a difficult topic. In the Forrest Gump movie, we all learned what an analogy was: Life is a like a box of chocolates – you never know what you are going to get.

We use analogies to help us understand church things, too. We talk about sin and how it is like a captor – it holds us prisoner and keeps us away from a relationship with God.

But it is not only difficult, it is heresy to develop an analogy for one theological concept.

Watch this… [play video of Lutheran Satire Irish Twins]

At the very end of that video, Patrick said this:

The Trinity is a mystery which cannot be comprehended by human reason but is understood only through faith and is best confessed in the words of the Athanasian Creed which states that we worship one God in trinity and trinity in unity neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance that we are compelled by the Christian truth to confess that each distinct person is God and LORD and that the deity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is one: Equal in glory, co-equal in majesty

Which is a very fancy way of saying we can’t say anything about the Trinity without saying a bunch of words, if we want to avoid heresy.

The trinity is a mystery – we will never understand it completely. Aside from describing it with a lot of words as Athanasius did, we can also understand it (a little) in terms of the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Jesus says it best:  In John 16:7-15:

Transcript:

Acts 1:1-11 New International Version (NIV)

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Hebrews 1:1-4 New International Version (NIV)

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.

Revelation 19:16 New International Version (NIV)

On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:

king of kings and lord of lords.

Revelation 22:20 New International Version (NIV)

He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

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Hide me behind your cross, Lord. Let the words I say be the thoughts of your heart articulated by my voice to your people. May they with the power of the Holy Spirit guide us into greater understanding, deeper faith, and abundant, fruitful lives that point only to you. To the glory of the father, the majesty of the son, and the power of the Holy Spirit be given all we offer. Amen

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The Royal Wedding. Who is invited, who is not, who is wearing what…all of these things have captivated imaginations around the world through the centuries. Truthfully, while England/the United Kingdom has the most well-known royal family in the modern era, there have been kings and rulers and people in charge of countries and groups for thousands and thousands of years.

But the King we discuss today, King Jesus – is the King of Kings.

He rules all, he was and is and is to come. He is the Alpha and Omega.

He is the King who walked among us. And he is the King who sent us to keep doing his work.

The first text we read this morning tells us about the ascension of Jesus. We read in Luke’s words the message Jesus gave – it is the primary direction for the church and it is part of our mission here:

“But you will receive power when the Ho