1-28-07 “The Work of the God-Man”  Psalm 34:6-18;  Mt. 4:23-25

Last week several people talked about how the brief statement of faith was not so brief.  But how do you sum up the Christian faith in a few paragraphs?  Compared to the Westminster Confession of Faith or the Second Helvetic Confession, it is brief.  But it also was not supposed to be read the way we read it last week.  We read the whole confession.  Ideally the confession is to be broken down into three parts- and you only read one.  This week, we will concentrate on the first paragraph that focuses on the Lord Jesus Christ.

            I have two boat stories to tell you today.  The very first time I took my boat to Edisto, I was so very excited.  I took my oldest daughter and her college friends tubing behind it on the river.  I ran into someone who suggested that we go out into the sound where there was a lot more room to turn around.  So I did, and the person was right- the sound where the river came into the ocean was very large and the water was smooth.  I ventured to the right of the bay.  My son and one of his friends got on the tube, and they gave me the thumbs up.  So, I floored that throttle.  I went about ten yards and then  I stopped with a jerk.  Mud started flying up out of my motor.  You see, the bay was very wide, but very shallow and it was low tide.  We spent the rest of the day getting the boat out of the pluff mud, and the rest of the week getting the mud out of the motor.

There is every evidence that America is a believing nation- 95-97% of Americans believe in God.  We are a nation of faith compared to the western or eastern European nations who have given into enlightenment skepticism.  In some sense, it seems like we are ready to go forward in our faith to accomplish great things for God.  But what we are finding is that our faith is very broad, but very shallow.  Because our faith is not deep, it is subject to being stuck, and frankly it is subject to destruction if we do not get our faith out into deeper things.  We are subject to be destroyed by unbelief and different beliefs.  If your faith is shallow, you cannot move forward, and the winds of doctrine push you around.  We are subject to be destroyed by immorality.  Sexual immorality, dishonesty, hypocrisy can sink our ship of faith.  Going to church is a way we deepen our faith- so that our faith is as deep as the faith of those who have gone before us.  Saying creeds, are also ways that we sharpen and deepen our beliefs. 

            Ask a Hindu about how to encounter God and they may suggest that you assume the lotus position and meditate to find the God within you.  A Zen Buddhist may ask you to sit and meditate on a beautiful flower.  A New Age devotee may ask you to think on an oddly shaped piece of polished glass.  While there is a little truth in every one of these- that God is at work inside of us and in nature- these, we believe do not offer the story in full as much as the person of Jesus Christ.[1]  We say when you want to encounter God, we look to a real person who walked on this earth at a set time in history.  We believe, we follow this person Jesus Christ who is fully human and also fully God.  Because we believe that Jesus is not just a good teacher, but one who is worthy of our following and worship, we pay special attention to what he does. 

            Jesus proclaimed the reign of God.  Jesus was constantly talking about the kingdom of heaven coming or being near.  There is an old classic movie called “The Postman” starring Kevin Costner.  It is about what would happen in a world destroyed by a nuclear war, with small armies run by warlords wandering about and no central United States government.  Kevin Costner was just a person who dressed up like a mailman and he delivered old mail to a fortified city.  It gave them great hope.  Kostner developed a following of young people who rode all around delivering mail.  One of the things these postal carriers would tell others is “Things are getting better.”  It gave them great hope, but they had no basis to believe that things really were getting better.  Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God, and basically saying, “God loves you, and if you let him in your life things will get better for you.”  But it wasn’t just smoke or hot air.  He preached good news to the poor.  He released people from their captivity to deafness or blindness or lameness.  He taught us to turn the other cheek, but he also lived it out.  He cared for the smallest, the hurting, the lonely.  He healed the sick, and comforted the widow.  His healing of others, his raising people from the dead were signs that the kingdom of God really was coming.

            There was a Christian man named Walter Rauschenbush who lived in the 1800s.  He was hired as a young man to work in the slums of New York.  He saw Christians preaching the need to be saved as individuals, but then not allowing that salvation to have any real affect on the way they lived and treated the poor.  In his day Rauschbush saw great income disparity among the Robber Barrons and the laborers who could not afford to live.  He saw very wealthy men pressing children into labor to accomplish their production at low costs.  He pointed out, rightly I believe, that you cannot separate Christian faith from everyday life.  No man shares his life with God whose religion does not flow out, naturally and without effort, into all relations of his life and reconstructs everything that it touches. Whoever uncouples the religious and the social life has not understood Jesus. Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master."  Partly because of his stance and writings, child labor laws were instituted and pressure was put on the government by the church to break up the monopolies. Historically, the great Christians cared not only about the soul of an individual, but also about the physical welfare of people.  Jesus came not just preaching salvation of the soul, but also healing the sick, preaching good news and hope to the poor, and forgiveness to those who were left out of society by their sins.  The Brief Statement of Faith affirms that Jesus came to teach us to care about the whole individual, not just the soul.  It specifically focuses on Christ’s care for those who are weak, the children, the oppressed, and the sick, and inferred in that is our own calling to care for the children, the weak, the oppressed, and the sick.  You and I are called to pray about these, but we are also called to do something with the time and gifts God gave us to help the hurting, lifting them up.  A love for one’s neighbor flows directly from and is required by a love for God.

            But the creed also emphasizes the basis of our willingness to help, and that is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  We affirm in this creed that our belief has content. We affirm our belief in the testimony of the eyewitnesses recorded in scripture.  I contend that the content of our faith gives energy, strength, and motivation to helping our neighbor.  If Jesus was just a teacher of acts and an example, then we could possibly say his guess about what was right is as good as mine. There are people today who lift up a life of greed and selfishness as the way to live.  The social Darwinists (and Hitler was a follower of this idea) say that what matters is simply survival of the species, and only the strong survive.  Who should care about the weak?  Why should we care about the little guy, or the little children?  Why should we care about the poor and oppressed- tell them to get a job.  While greed and selfishness do not help us to get along together, if say, “survival of the fittest” is our goal- who is to say it is wrong?  Maybe, it ought to be a dog eat dog world, not a love your neighbor as yourself world?  Jesus says it is wrong.  He proved it through the way he lived, the way he sacrificed himself in death, and most importantly, God the Father affirmed Jesus’ message by the resurrection. 

            The second boat story is about the time I took my boat into Winyah Bay fishing.  I would ride my boat right up into the mouth of a creek and start fishing.  But the wind would blow me away from the cove, and the tide and currents would ride me away as well.  Without notice, I would end up far away from where I intended to be.  My little boat was soon beyond the calm part of the bay, and I was drifting right out into the ocean.  Fortunately, I found two things that kept me going.  One was my motor and the other was my anchor.  My motor helped me to fight against the tide, currents and wind, and got me back to the right place.  The Christians’ motor that fights against the tide of unbelief, the current of trends and fashionable sin, and the winds of doctrine- is the Holy Spirit speaking through the Holy Scriptures.  The Spirit makes the dusty words come to life, and together they steer us in the right direction.  But another important tool is the anchor.  The anchor has always been a Christian symbol, as is seen above Bo’s head.  The anchor is a symbol of hope against all that would pull us away from our faith and love for Christ. Anchor your faith in Christ, and let your waters run deep in Him. 

Psalm 34:6-8- “This poor man called and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.  7The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers them.  8 Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed are those who take refuge in Him.”

Matt 4:23-25- “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. 24 News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.  25 Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem and Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.”  TNIV

7 We trust in Jesus Christ,

8 fully human, fully God.

9 Jesus proclaimed the reign of God:

10 preaching good news to the poor

11 and release to the captives,

12 teaching by word and deed

13 and blessing the children,

14 healing the sick

15 and binding up the brokenhearted,

16 eating with outcasts,

17 forgiving sinners,

18 and calling all to repent and believe the gospel.

19 Unjustly condemned for blasphemy and sedition,

20 Jesus was crucified,

21 suffering the depths of human pain

22 and giving his life for the sins of the world.

23 God raised this Jesus from the dead,

24 vindicating his sinless life,

25 breaking the power of sin and evil,

26 delivering us from death to life eternal.