SPECIAL DAYS: Bible Sunday

November 17, 2002 - Lesson: Colossians 3.12-17

(Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to sermons for 2001-2002)
(Back to sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

1. Who is the richest person in the world?
1. I went to the Internet and typed in the phrase: The richest person in the world, and this is what I discovered.
2. In billions of dollars here are the top ten richest people in the world.
1. Gates, William H. III, United States, 46, $52.8, Microsoft
2. Buffett, Warren E., United States, 71, $35.0, Berkshire Hathaway
3. Albrecht, Karl and Theo, Germany, $26.8, retail
4. Allen, Paul G., United States, 49, $25.2, Microsoft
5. Ellison, Lawrence J., United States, 57, $23.5, Oracle
6. Walton, Jim C., United States, 54, $20.8, Wal-Mart
7. Walton, John T., United States, 56, $20.7, Wal-Mart
8. Walton, Alice L., United States, 53, $20.5, Wal-Mart
9. Walton, S. Robson, United States, 58, $20.5, Wal-Mart
10. Walton, Helen R., United States, 82, $20.4, Wal-Mart
3. We'll we cannot compete with the people on this list.
4. So we will probably never be one of the richest people in the world.
2. Is there another way to look at riches.
1. Well of course there is.
2. Otherwise we could conclude now and go home.

MAIN BODY:

1. I also discovered this statement from the writings of Swami Omkarananda, Omkarananda Ashram, Himalayas found at http://www.omkarananda-ashram.org/
1. You are the Richest Person in the World ⁽¹⁾

A window of the house painted, a new plant in the garden planted, a piece of bread shared with someone, a smile and a word of encouragement given to some unhappy face, a few francs donated for the distribution of spiritual literature, a feeling of blessings released into the wide world, a prayer said for the welfare of all creatures, a good book of inspiring wisdom read, a kind act done, every minute used profitably, a moment of meditation on the immediate presence of the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-wonderful Divinity, - these are the ways to enrich the world. To do all this, you are already exceedingly rich. You are one of the richest persons in the world...You can enrich the world more than the flower that fills it with fragrance. Greater than all the flowers is the gold in your heart. Indeed, God has formed you in His own Image. To express the thousand qualities of that divine Image, you need nothing but just the will and the resolve to do so. And, then, you are the richest person in all the world.

1. This statement is from the leader of a non-Christian religion.
2. Yet it is true to the divine pattern given to us by Jesus Christ.
2. So how do we get there?
1. What do we need to avoid?
2. What do we need to accept?
3. We need to avoid unnecessary doubt and criticism.
1. You are riding in an automobile with an acquaintance and asked several questions.
1. One question has to do with what is happening to this person.
2. Life is full of trouble, Why?
3. The person is very nervous and tense, Why?
1. How do you come to some understanding about God?
1. What do you say?
2. How do you respond?
3. What resources do you offer?
2. So you suggest that many of the answers to these questions are to be found in the Bible.
1. The individual responds:

"The Bible was written by a bunch of drunks who only wrote what they wanted to." ⁽²⁾

2. I was helping an evangelist with some meetings and he used an illustration that helps make this point.
1. He had a pair of scissors and an old Bible.
2. He began to cut out all the passages that critics said didn't belong in the published version.
3. He cut out all the passages that were in dispute.
4. When he was done the Bible was in shreds.
5. What value did it have?
3. This is the point that C. S. Lewis made in his essay God In the Dock (the witness chair.)

"The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits was, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God is in the dock." ⁽³⁾

1. We do not stand on the Bible, we stand under it.
2. We only seek to understand.
3. This then become the basis for my biblical creed that I discovered in the writings of St. Anselm.

I acknowledge, Lord, and I give thanks that you have created in me this your image, so that I can remember you, think about you and love you. But it is so worn away by sins, so smudged over by the smoke of sins, that it cannot do what it was created to do unless you renew and reform it. I do not even try, Lord, to rise up to your heights, because my intellect does not measure up to that task; but I do want to understand in some small measure your truth, which my heart believes in and loved. Nor do I seek to understand so that I can believe, but rather I believe so that I can understand. For I believe this too, that "unless I believe I shall not understand" (Isa. 7:9). ⁽⁴⁾

1. It is the last sentence that is vital to understanding.

"Nor do I seek to understand so that I can believe, but rather I believe so that I can understand. For I believe this too, that "unless I believe I shall not understand"

2. It is better to believe even when I don't believe than it is to disbelieve.

Top    (Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to sermons for 2001-2002)
(Back to sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

2. We come to know what is in the Scriptures

1. So you think you know your Bible?
2. Listen to this true story and tell me what you think is wrong with it.

A nominating committee was interviewing a prospective Sunday School teacher. They asked, "Do you know the Bible?" "Yes, I do!" "What’s your favorite Bible story?" the chairperson asked. The candidate replied, "I like the story of the good Samaritan best." "Fine," said the committee, "tell us that story."

So the man began his account of the famous parable. He said, "There was a good Samaritan going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among the thorns, and they sprang up and choked him and left him half_dead. So he said, `I will arise!’ And he arose and came to a tree and got hung in a limb of that tree for forty days and forty nights, and the ravens fed him. Then Delilah came along with a pair of shears and cut off his hair, and he fell on stony ground. He said again, `I will arise!’ So he came to a wall, and Jezebel was sitting on that wall; and he cried out, `Chuck her down!’ So they chucked her down. He said, `Chuck her down seventy times!’ And great was the fall thereof and of the fragments that remained they picked up twelve baskets full, but whose wife will she be in the Resurrection?"

3. What did you hear?
4. Was he right?
5. Was he confused?
6. Is he the richest person in the world?

3. We come to recognize the value of the Scriptures in themselves and for ourselves.

A pastor was to visit an elderly woman by request of a friend. She was dying and wanted to have a visit from a pastor. ⁽⁵⁾

As the pastor traveled to her home, he asked God to give him some way to relate to this woman.

The woman lived in a one-room house in a very low-income housing area. The pastor walked in and began to look around the room. He noticed a framed document on the wall and inquired, "What is this?"

The dying woman said, "I don't know. I can't read. My employer who I worked for the last twenty years gave it to me before she died. I just framed it because it was hers."

The pastor looked closely at the document and realized it was a will. This woman's employer had left her inheritance to her.

1. We cannot tap into our inheritance in Christ if we don't know what's in the Book.
1. We can live in poverty or in abundance.
2. It just depends on whether or not we know and can claim our inheritance.
2. Paul is urging us to learn and share.
1. Listen again to verses 16-17.

¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. ¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

2. We cannot do this is we do not know.
3. The Bible supplies the means to help us understand how we may become rich.
1. ⁴Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Romans 2:4 (NRSVA)
1. Riches of Kindness.
2. Riches of Forbearance.
3. Riches of Patience
2. ²³and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory--Romans 9:23 (NRSVA)
1. Jesus is the "brightness of the Father's glory" (Heb. 1:3; John 1:14; 2:11).
2. The glorious moral attributes, the infinite perfections of God reproduced in us. (Isa. 40:5; Acts 7:2; Rom. 1:23; 9:23; Eph. 1:12)
3. ⁷In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace Ephesians 1:7 (NRSVA)
1. We have the Riches of Redemption.
2. We also have the Riches of Forgiveness.
4. ¹⁸so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, Ephesians 1:18 (NRSVA)
1. We have the Riches of Hope.
2. We also have the Riches of a Glorious Inheritance.
5. ⁴But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us Ephesians 2:4 (NRSVA)
1. We are to be rich in Mercy.
2. We are al to possess the Riches of Love.
6. ⁷so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:7 (NRSVA)
1. The Riches of Mercy.
7. ¹⁶I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, Ephesians 3:16 (NRSVA)
1. We have the Riches of the Spirit.
2. We also have the Riches of Strength in the Inner Person.
8. ¹⁹And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19 (NRSVA)
1. The Riches of Fully Satisfied Needs.
2. Richness that is for the present as well as for the future.
9. ²⁷To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:27 (NRSVA)
1. The Riches of the Fulfillment of the Mystery.
2. We have the Richness created by Christ in Us.
4. This is why Paul writes in Colossians 2.2-3, ²I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ himself, ³in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
5. We cannot have all the Riches of God if we do not recognize and receive them.
6. What good is a will on the wall that has not be submitted to probate so that the benefits can be received.

Top    (Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to sermons for 2001-2002)
(Back to sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

4. So, now who is the richest person in the world?
1. You can be, If?
2. You are, If!

CONCLUSION:

1. Getting Too Close ⁽⁶⁾

Richard Ward, Assistant Professor of Speech Communication at Candler School of Theology, tells about a wall in the Narthex of his church in Atlanta.

It was a portrait of Jesus that was donated to the church by some Korean army officers.

At first glance he says, you could recognize it as the familiar figure of Jesus the Good Shepherd tending to his flock.

If you got up really close, however, you could see that the lines of the portrait were created out of all the words of the New Testament.

An anonymous Korean artist had used the medium of words to create this portrait of Christ.

You had to get real close to see all the little words but if you did get that close...you could no longer see the picture of Jesus!!!

Professor Ward said he became disoriented when he stood so close to the picture.

But when he stood back, he became aware of the subject again. He could see Jesus--the caring, healing Christ.

2. Priscilla J. Owens expressed the completeness of the revelation of the Bible in the poem that became a gospel song.

Give Me the Bible, Priscilla J. Owens

"Give me the Bible, star of gladness gleaming,
To cheer the wanderer lone and tempest tossed,
No storm can hid that peaceful radiance beaming,
Since Jesus came to seek and save the lost.

"Give me the Bible, when my heart is broken,
When sin and grief have filled my soul with fear;
Give me the precious words by Jesus spoken,
Hold up faith's lamp to show my Savior near.

"Give me the Bible, all my steps enlighten,
Teach me the danger of these realms below;
That lamp of safety, o'er the gloom shall brighten,
That light alone the path of peace can show.

"Give me the Bible, lamp of life immortal,
Hold up that splendor by the open gave;
Show me the light from heaven's shining portal,
Show me the glory gilding Jordan's wave."

1. I believe because I must.
2. I have no other alternative.
3. If I do not believe I have nothing.
4. I believe the internal evidence.
5. I have faith in the church which established the cannon, the volume that we presently have in our possession.
6. I cannot scientifically refute the questions that arise, so faith acts where science doubts.
2. This is Bible Sunday.
1. Have faith in the Word
2. Grow in the Word.
3. Then truly we can achieve the high calling to which we are called in the lesson for today.

¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. ¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Amen!

Top    (Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to sermons for 2001-2002)
(Back to sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

1. Writings of Swami Omkarananda, Omkarananda Ashram, Himalayas found at http://www.omkarananda-ashram.org/

2. Anonymous

3. Lewis, C. S., God In the Dock, Essays on Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: William B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 1970) p. 244

4. www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/anselm.html Anselm: On the Existence of God Proslogion.

5. Janet Parker, Metropolitan Community Church of the Resurrection, Houston, TX

6. Caroly R. Gibson reporting on Richard Ward, Assistant Professor of Speech Communication at Candler School of Theology observations on a portrait of Jesus.