"You are ..."

"You are ... "

In the movie "Overcomer," the main character is a high school runner who comes from a troubled family.   She has to overcome her tough background as well as asthma in order to succeed both in cross country meets and in the relationships in her life that are so broken.

At one point, her high school principal suggests that she read Ephesians.  She tells her she will discover who she is by reading Ephesians.  

After seeing the movie, I decided to read Ephesians to discover who I am.   Here's just a little bit of what I came up with:

I am loved  (2:4).

I am saved (2:5, 8).

I am created for good works (2:10).

I have been drawn close to God by the blood of Christ  (2:13).

I am a member of the household of God (2:19).

I am strengthened (3:16).

I am called (4:1)

That's just a taste, and that which is true of me is true of you too. 

Do you go through periods where you are really down on yourself?  I do.  I beat myself up pretty good.  Sometimes, I believe that voice in my head that tells me, “Rob, you’re a failure.  Rob, you’ll never do any better than mediocre.  Rob, you best days are way behind you.”  Those voices nip at my heels and I hear their sinister whispers and believe the lies.

Reading Ephesians, I rediscover who God says I am. God gets to be the authority, not those voices.  God gets to say who I am and who you are.

            Who will you believe, God, or those voices? You are a beloved child of God.   Read through Ephesians and rediscover who you are. 

First Sermon of the Year - 2016

The Big Reveal (Matthew 2:1-12)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, January 3, 2016

My wife loves home remodeling shows and I love my wife.  So, I have watched these shows.  We don’t see them often now that we don’t have cable TV.  But, whenever we get a night away, we sit in the hotel room and watch some “do-it-yourself” program.

The experts from the Bravo network or HGTV meet with homeowners and spend the entire show with crowbars and sledgehammers tearing the kitchen apart.  It looks like a disaster.

            But, they stick with it.  They paint.  They review the designs.  They encourage each other in moments when it seems like it cannot possibly come together.  Then at the show’s end, they provide the “Big Reveal.”  The new kitchen is worthy of display in a design magazine.  It is immaculate, fresh, innovative, and so wonderful the homeowners weep in wonder and joy.  Can God do something so marvelous it leads us to weep in our gratitude and wonder?

            Adam and Eve weren’t sure he could.  They decided to trust their own wisdom instead of God’s.  The rebellion continued when their son Cain killed their other son Abel.  Sin spread to the point that the world descended into chaos so bad that God wiped it all out in the flood.  God started over with Noah’s family. 

            As soon as Noah was off the arc, he worshiped.  God accepting the offering, but God also noted that evil perpetually lurks in every human heart.  Noah’s son Ham confirmed God’s observation by shaming his father, who himself had passed in a drunken stupor. 

            By the first century BC, the world appeared as if for centuries human structures and institutions – societies, governments, families – had been torn apart by crowbars and sledgehammers.  However, unlike the design show, the destruction had no bigger purpose.  Sin has taken the good world God created and sent it in plummeting into chaos.  Sin destroys individual lives, communities, nations, and the natural order. 

            At Christmas time, we see how God deals with the devastation.  The coming of Christ is God’s “Big Reveal.”  Jesus is God’s answer.  If we look at disease and disasters, divorce rates and abortion rates, drunk driving deaths and addictions, terrorism and war – if we consider all the ways people suffer; if we see this and ask, OK God, what are you doing about it all???  “Jesus” is God’s answer.

God came and dwelt among us as one of us.  On the cross we see God take all the damnation of sin on himself.  Christmas – the birth of the Savior – is the beginning of God’s revelation of how the world is saved.  On the design show, in the newly remodeled kitchen we see results of the homeowners’ efforts.  They worked really hard.  The birth of Jesus is the big reveal of what God has done.  This is God’s work.  Salvation is what God has done and will do.

            Viewers of the design show, if it is done well, find themselves joyfully surprised at how wonderful the new kitchen is.  It went from a seemingly irredeemable mess to a place of beauty, a work of art that invites us to come in, sit down, and enjoy coffee and conversation.  What surprises come in God’s Big Reveal? 

            Hear that question, and rest with it for a moment.  What surprises does God have in store for you?  If you are an experienced churchgoer, can God surprise you at all?  Everything I have said about God, coming in human form in Jesus, all of it has been said before.  If you attend church regularly or even occasionally, you have heard this many times.

January 6 is Epiphany – the revelation of the Lord.  How much of a revelation is it?  Every year has a January 6 on the calendar.  Every year the magi come and see Christ for the first time.  They may be filled with wonder each time, but we read the story over and over.  How can we still be surprised by God?

I can’t give an exact answer.  If I could it wouldn’t be a surprise!  But I do believe with everything that is in me that God has new things to show me and to show you, to show our church and to show the world. 

New Testament scholar N.T. Wright has written several books that anticipate the Second Coming of Christ, the final Judgment, and eternity spent in the Kingdom of God for all who are in Christ.  Wright does not attempt to describe that day in more detail than the Bible gives.  He imagines what life in the Kingdom will be like, but acknowledges that what he’s offering is imagination.  We are given glimpses in the Bible, but not much more than that.  Wright does offer this important suggestion.  He thinks the Day of the Lord, “will be full of surprises.”[i]

I don’t think we have to wait until then for surprises from God.  If we live in a dynamic relationship with God in which our prayers include listening to God, in addition to asking things of God which is also appropriate, God will open our eyes to new wonders all the time. 

To explore the thought that God might surprise us, we will begin 2016 in Biblical stories about people who went looking for God and were amazed and surprised by what they found.  We will go from now, into the first Sunday of Lent, February 14, seeing how different individuals in the Biblical story were surprised by God.  Along the way, we keep in front of us some questions. 

How can God surprise me?

How can God surprise HillSong church?

What surprises does God have in store for 2016?

As it is Epiphany, we begin with those seekers from the East who followed the star.  In our hymn, we described them as “three kings” from the Orient.  They are also called “wise men.”  We don’t know the actual number in their traveling party.  They were magi, ancient astronomers, first century Persian scientists.  They journeyed across the desert following a phenomenon in the sky.  They were headed toward Jerusalem.

Because so many Jews stayed in Persia after the end of exile, the Jewish religion was known there.  These intellectuals were more familiar with Hebrew Scriptures, including Messianic prophecy, than many Jews.  The amazing star and the fact that it led them to Israel made it clear that the Jewish Messiah had come. 

So the seekers went to the King’s palace in Jerusalem.  There, Herod gave them their first surprise.  “When King Herod heard this,” Matthew writes, “he was frightened.”  Why would the king of Israel fear the coming of the one promised in his own holy book?  He should have been watching for the Messiah.  Why did these Persians see the sign God had sent, and Jewish king did not?  The seekers discovered that Israel was not expecting anything from God; at least Herod, the supposed Jewish King, was not.  How could this be?

We must pause and deal with a haunting question.  If someone outside of Christianity looked into the church, would they be surprised to find that Christians don’t expect much from God?  Would they be shocked to discover our view of reality and our values in life are no different than people who have no interest in God?  We may find it easy to cast Herod as a faithless villain.  How much are our lives marked by a faith that truly expects God to speak, to protect and provide, and to act in ways that will bless us and the world in which we live?

The second surprise for the magi came in Bethlehem.  By the time they arrived, Joseph and Mary were out of the stable.  However, I bet their living quarters were far more humble than what the magi had back in Persia.  These erudite, wealthy scholars found themselves in the home of a peasant family.

Yet in that home in that baby, they saw the face of God.  How surreal was it for Mary when these exotic guests  began showering her with gifts worth more than generations of her family had ever seen?  What did Joseph think when these men who would normally never cross his path knelt to worship his baby boy?

The wise men left Bethlehem with an understanding of God they did not have before they came.  That’s what happens when we meet God face to face.  They learned how unconcerned God is with human conventions. God has no need of human kings.  God did not need Herod’s approval or acceptance.  God was fully God in a simple peasant family’s home.  And God was fully absent from deviant, faithless king’s palace. 

The wise men did not know a cross was coming, or a resurrection.  But after what they had seen, I don’t think they would have been surprised.  Rome crucified so many people, the news of Jesus’ death would not have causes even a ripple in the lives of people in other parts of the world.  Yet, I kind of think that the magi, the wise men, kept tabs on this baby they visited.  I believe they heard news; Jesus has been crucified.  I imagine them in deep grief.

And then, in a way that strains credibility but is just like our God of the possible, the report of the resurrection found its way east to the ears of these God-seeking scientists.  And I believe their heavy hearts felt the blinding brilliance of Heaven’s light shine on them.  Of course!  The God we met so many years ago, the nursing baby, conquered death through resurrection.  We didn’t see it coming.  Of course we didn’t.  I think they heard of the resurrection, believed it more easily than even the disciples, and broke out in smiles that could not be erased. 

This is the God we meet in the story of Jesus: the God of surprises.  What is God going to do in your life in 2016?  I believe God will do something.  I don’t know what it will be.  I am certain it will be beautiful.  I am certain of this because of who God is.  God is the God of the possible, the God of blessing, and the God of wonder.  I believe wonders are in store for us. 

I say this knowing people are going through some real trials.  Many among us care for ailing parents and have to make hard decisions.  Some among us face the specter of cancer.  Some live in the shadow of job uncertainty.  Some are in relationships that are very fragile right now, threatening to completely break.  I believe God sees all this, all that we go through.  I believe God loves us so much, there is more than just a promise of help in the face of pain or crisis.  God does not just want to get us through, help us survive.  God has blessing in store. 

This doesn’t mean the pain is not real.  It is and that needs to be named.  But even in dark days, I think God can and will reveal blessings that bring joy and enable us to flourish.  We will see what God reveals as we watch and listen in prayer, and we do this together.

How can God surprise me?

How can God surprise HillSong church?

What surprises does God have in store for 2016?

We begin 2016, turning our hearts to Heaven and putting these questions to God.

AMEN

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[i] He says this in Surprised by Joy and in other writings.  I have also heard him make this point in several speeches.

The New You (Colossians 2:11-15)

Sunday, June 1, 2014

            Often while reading articles online the advertisements in the side bar will be for weight-loss programs.  Whether it is a diet, a miracle pill, an exercise plan, or a combination of all three, the ad is the way for you to shed 10lbs in a short time.  Photos always accompany the ad.  Before, the woman was pushing 300lbs.  After, she, who is over 4, struts down the beach in a bikini looking like she could be on the cover a magazine. 

            It is effective.  I saw a headline this week that reports obesity as a serious problem is on the rise in every country.   The simple answer to the problem is to eat healthier foods, eat less processed and fat-filled food, and exercise.  Just walking for 30 minutes a day can make a difference.  But the point in the ad photos, the “before” and “after” is the change.  We want to be healthy.  We want to look good.  For a lot of people this means changes need to happen.

            Colossians 2:11: “in him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh.”  Circumcision is painful.  We who have gone through it are quite happy that it happened so long ago, we don’t remember.  That’s bloody, visceral imagery.  Jesus tapped into this in John 15 where he says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. ² He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”

            Circumcising, pruning; does there need to be so much snipping and slicing and cutting for us to grow close to God?  Yes.  If we could photograph the totality of a person – the mind, the body, the spirit, the soul – there would be a “before,” and an “after.”  Like the 200 pounder trying to get down to 170, the one who wants to be in Christ has to get rid of something.  The allegiance to the world, the sin nature, the corruption that has infested God’s good creation – humanity – that all has to go.  Paul calls this the circumcision of the heart in Romans 2:29, and in Colossians 3:12 he talks about clothing one’s self with the stuff of the Kingdom as opposed to that which comprises our sinful nature.  It is taking off the sin as one takes off a tattered garment.  It is circumcising the heart so that the will is freed of the evils of sin.  It is pruning, cutting off the unfruitful, wasteful bits of life.

            Thus Colossians 2:11 - “in him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh.”  N.T. Wright in the Tyndale New Testament Commentary says this phrase is quite tricky for scholars translating from the Greek (p.110).[i]  I found three potential ways of understanding what the apostle is saying.  I share each this morning because this idea of circumcising the heart is a matter of turning one’s self to God.  We turn away from all the sinfulness, death, and destruction around us and we turn ourselves to God.  That involves more than just one aspect of our lives and I think the three different pathways of understanding I read this week all fit.  

            The first comes from The Interpreter’s Bible, author Francis Beare where he writes that spiritual circumcision involves cutting off the “corrupt personality as a whole – what [humanity] is apart from the regenerating grace of God.”[ii]  Apart from God, we die without hope.  Death is permanent and any existence beyond death is an eternity without God, without God’s love and the fellowship of God’s family.  God is God of the living.  Every moment is a moment closer to our death and a Godless eternity.

            However, we have changed – become something different, a new humanity, because of Christ.  Colossians 2:10 says we come to fullness in Him.  And then our verse, verse 11.  We put off the body of flesh – we are no longer of the humanity under the fall.  We no longer are destined for death.  The change is not seen with the eye, but the reality is unmistakable from God’s point of view.  We put off the flesh and we are raised with Christ – raised from the death (Col. 2:12).  To read and understand Colossians 2:11, especially that phrase, is to realize our basic nature has changed because of spiritual circumcision. 

Baptism depicts this.  We go under the water – buried.  We are dead in sin and dead things are buried.  However, then we rise.  In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, by the power of God, we rise to new life.  As new creations, we have put off the body of flesh.  We rise as eternal beings.

A second way of understanding this phrase in Colossians 2:11 is described by Fuller Theological Seminary Professor Arthur Patzia.[iii] This approach was taken by the translators of the New Living Translation which renders the phrase – “Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature.” 

This way of thinking is similar to the notion of transformed human nature but is more specific.  As people born again in Christ, “put to death” fornication, impurity and whatever is of earth, of the flesh (3:5).  We are told to “get rid of” all sinful attitudes and actions (3:8); simple to say, but is it impossible to do?  As members of the new humanity which is destined for eternal life not death, we are freed from sin’s grasp.  This theme runs throughout Paul’s letters.  First Corinthians 15 is one example.

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.
⁵⁵ “Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?”

⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Because of the power of God at work in us, we can actually stop sinning and live righteously.  Of course this does not come easily our consistently.  If it did, Paul would not have had to write letters like Corinthians and Colossians.  Even after we turn to Christ, even after Christ takes ups permanent residence in us, we still have the power to choose how we will think and act in life.  We are still vulnerable to temptation.  Choosing to sin is walking the way of death, yet we do it.  Paul urgently reminds us there is another way and the power to turn that way, the way of life, is in us because Christ is in us.  Putting off the flesh, Colossians 2:11, is us yielding to a painful but needed procedure – the work of Jesus cutting the sin out of our lives.  This requires of us that we sit still and stay focused on him.  Sitting still and staying focused comes about when we live spiritually disciplined lives, practicing prayer, confession, worship, and Bible reading.  In these and other ways, we are present for God so that the Spirit may work in us, pruning, and growing us. 

We have been discussing, this morning, three ways of understanding a phrase from Colossians 2:11 – “¹¹ in him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ.” We have understood ‘putting off the body of the flesh’ to mean the creation of a new humanity, one destined for life in Christ.  We have understood it to mean freedom from sin – a freedom made available by Jesus’ death and resurrection.  We are alive and we are free in Christ.  Because of this, we are part of something great – the Kingdom of God

This idea that in Christ we are part of something new is a third way of seeing the spiritual circumcision described in Colossians 2. This perspective comes from N.T. Wright.[iv]

He says, “The Colossians now belong first and foremost to the family of God, and not to their human families to which they formerly belonged.  ‘Body’ [from verse 11] can easily carry the connotation of a group of people.”  Putting off the body of the flesh in spiritual circumcision, which is marked by baptism, means cutting off old solidarities.   Our primarily loyalty then is to one another and to others who are in Christ.

The first way of seeing the phrase, a sense of new humanity, describes what we are.  We are born again, born to eternal life.  The second identifies our potential.  We are free in Christ, free from sin and free to not sin.  This third path of understanding builds on the first two by showing where we belong.

Perhaps this third facet of understanding is the most challenging to accept.  Are you your family’s name?  Are you your nationality?  What is it that defines you?  To whom do you belong?

Am I a Tennant?  Am I an American? 

Often this is not in conflict.  I can bring honor to my family name as I serve Jesus by loving my neighbor and in doing so I build up my community and help my country.  The three loyalties complement each other.  Just as often, the loyalties are divided.  In Colossians there was a Judaizing presence; mystery cult religions were around, religions that identified many gods.  There were local Roman authorities.  All these groups vying for loyalty challenged Christ-followers because often group loyalty demanded actions and words that ran against the gospel and the way of Jesus.  To make a stand as a part of the community of Christ followers was to draw the ire and scorn of the surrounding people.  But, we have put off the body of flesh, the human group loyalty.  That has been pruned.  We are connected to those who are in Christ.  Paul called on the Colossians to stay true to the Gospel even if it meant banding together and enduring persecution.

I saw this many years ago.  A friend of mine went to a family funeral, which was in another town.  When she got back, I asked about it and all she would say is it was a “Chinese funeral.”  That tells me nothing.  Millions of Chinese are Uyghurs.  Their funeral would be a Muslim funeral.  Many millions more are atheist.  What happens at an atheist funeral?  The fastest growing Christian nation on earth is China.  A Christian funeral would be very different than an atheist or a Muslim one. 

My friend said her relative had a Chinese funeral.  What she did not say was it was a Buddhist funeral.  She was living a bifurcated life.  She wanted to be in our church family.  She believed what the Bible says about Jesus.  She wanted to follow Christ.  But she wanted to do so without releasing her loyalty to her mostly Buddhist family.  She was not prepared for the pruning Jesus was doing in her life.  She did not want to put off the body of flesh to which she belonged. 

It is not easy.  There will be times in every believer’s life when our allegiance is tested.  Would I forsake the Tennants if following Christ required me to do so?  I hope so.  That is what Colossians 2 calls for.  When the moment comes, would you see yourself first and foremost as in Christ?

This does not have to mean abandoning those we love.  Jesus was not calling on my friend to forever leave behind her Buddhist relatives, people she deeply loved.  If she did that, she’d never be able to show Jesus to them.  Jesus loves them more than she does.  He wants them in His family and maybe she is the key.

We are part of the new humanity when we are part of Christ.  We destined for eternal life in the Kingdom.  We live among those who die daily because they have not yet received the life Jesus gives.  Our mission is to help them see Him.

We are freed from sin.  It has no power over us.  We live in a world soaked in sin.  While we are to not participate in the sin around us, we are to love those still enchained by sin’s shackles.  And we are, through humble, patient love, to help people see the way they can be freed from sin by Jesus.

We are connected to the body of Christ.  We no longer belong to our nation or to our families but to the Kingdom of God.  We still live in the world as it is, loving our families and living in them as a witness to Jesus’ love and goodness. 

Colossians 2:12 says we are raised with him.  Verse 13 – he has made us alive.  This is the new you and the new me – the new us; we are of the new heaven and earth, destined for resurrection, freed from sin, and made to worship Jesus as we draw others to him.  The before and after won’t be seen on a banner or advertisement.  It is seen in how we live, how we relate to people around us. 

Paul says we have received the Lord Jesus Christ; now, we live our lives in him (2:6).

AMEN

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[i] Wright (1986), The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: Colossians and Philemon, Intervarsity Press, Nottingham.

[ii] Beare (1955),”The Epistle to the Colossians” exegesis section, The Interpreter’s Bible Vol 11, Abingdon Press, Nashville, p.196-7.

[iii] Patzia (1984), New International Bible Commentary, New Testament series, vol.10, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, MA, p.54-55.

[iv] Wright, p.109-113.