January 18, Ecumenical Sunday, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Lesson: Matthew 12.38-42

Sermon Title: Signs and Wonders

(Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to Sermons for 2003-2004)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

INTRODUCTION:

David Tyler Scoates, Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota relates this story:

University of Illinois football coach Bob Zuppke was renowned for the fire and fervor of his half-time pep talks. One afternoon, his team hit the locker room after the first half well behind in both points and enthusiasm. Zuppke began talking to them and the more he talked, the louder and more dramatic his voice became. The momentum built in the players. Then the coach pointed to the door at the far end of the locker room and said, "Now go out there and win this game!" Filled with emotion the players got off the bench, ran toward the door and charged through it. But it was the wrong door, and one by one they fell into the swimming pool! (1)

  1. It is one thing to be all charged up - it is quite another thing to be headed in the right direction.

    1. So where are we headed this morning?

    2. How are we going to get there?

(top)    (Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to Sermons for 2003-2004)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

MAIN BODY:

  1. What gives you a "natural high"?

    1. Eudora Welty was one of our greatest writers.

      1. She is best known for her lyrical narratives that explore significant and heroic moments in the lives of ordinary people.

      2. In her autobiographical bestseller, One Writer's Beginnings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), she describes her experience in a southern Methodist Sunday School.

"In the primary department of Sunday school, we little girls rose up in taffeta dresses and hot white gloves, with a nickel for collection embedded inside our palms, and while elastic bands from our Madge Evans hats sawed us under the chin, we sang songs led and exhorted by Miss Hattie. This little lady was a wonder of animation, also dressed up, and she stood next to the piano making wild chopping motions with both arms together, a chair leg off one of our Sunday school chairs in her hand to beat time with, and no matter how loudly we sang, we could always hear her even louder: 'Bring them in! Bring them in! Bring them in from the fields of sin! Bring the little ones to Jesus!'

"Those favorite Methodist hymns all sounded happy and pleased with the world, even though the words ran quite the other way. 'Throw out the lifeline! Throw out the lifeline! Someone is sinking today!' went to a cheering tune. 'I was sinking deep in sin, Far from the peaceful shore, Very deeply stained within, Sinking to rise no more' made you want to dance, and the chorus - 'Love lifted me! Love lifted me! When nothing else would help, Love lifted me!' - would send you leaping. Those hymns set your feet moving like the march played on the piano for us to enter Davis School - 'Dorothy, an Old English Dance' was the name of that, and of course so many of the Protestant hymns reached down to us from the same place; they were old English rounds and dance tunes, and Charles Wesley and the rest had - no wonder - taken them over" (31-32).

      1. Even with the words, the English rounds and dance tunes set feet to moving.

      2. I get the same thing singing the songs of worship.

      3. You can get a high listening to good Southern Gospel.

    1. What are the songs communicating, but a relationship with Jesus.

      1. Worship ought to be a natural high, it is exciting.

      2. The music

      3. The prayers

      4. The word

      5. The fellowship

      6. Even the rites of the church provide for a natural high.

        1. Communion.

        2. Baptisms.

        3. Weddings.

        4. And even funerals.

  1. Christianity ought to provide us with a "natural high"!

    1. It is something to get real excited about.

    2. Its about liberation from the fear of death.

    3. Its about freedom from old laws and rules that stifle the exuberance of the Spirit.

    4. Its about restoration to the God-given place that we once enjoyed.

    5. Its about the reconstruction of the life into the image of the life of Jesus.

    6. It is all these things and more.

      1. It does not come easy.

      2. It does not come without cost.

      3. It does not come without opposition.

  2. If there is one person of which we should be acutely aware it is the Wet Blanket.

    1. The definition of a "wet blanket" is "someone who spoils the pleasure of others."

    2. Synonyms include: killjoy, party pooper, spoilsport

    3. If you want to go into some overload See Also: fuss-budget, fusspot, persona non grata, unwelcome person, worrier, worrywart

  3. Those Pharisees were like a wet blanket.

    1. They were party pooper's, they spoiled the pleasures of others.

      1. They confused the thinking of the people.

        1. It is not to difficult to become confused.

        2. A freshman at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair by showing how conditioned we have become to alarmists spreading fear of everything in our environment through junk science. (2)

In his project he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical Dihydrogen monoxide because:

1. It can cause excessive sweating and vomiting.

2. It is a major component in acid rain.

3. It can cause severe burns in its gaseous state.

4. Accidental inhalation can kill you.

5. It contributes to erosion.

6. It decreases the effectiveness of automobile brakes.

7. It has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients.

He asked 50 people if they support a ban and 43 said yes, six were undecided, and only one knew that the chemical is...water.

(top)    (Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to Sermons for 2003-2004)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

      1. They offered rationalizations and excuses for the purpose and power of Jesus.

        1. Norman Stone is a veteran (25 years) British television director.

        2. He's the one who directed the BBC's Shadowlands, and many other specials.

        3. In his speech before the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College, he said that the issue is Obedience, not success. (3)

Please, America! I went to the National Religious Broadcasters Association one time and I sat down on a seat. I jumped up rather smartish because I sat on a little pack. The pack was called, 'Ten Ways to Guarantee Success in Your Ministry.' It had a razor, toothpaste and lots of stuff telling me how to guarantee that the Holy Spirit would bless my ministry. This is weird, this is wrong, this is not biblical - and it was certainly uncomfortable to sit on. What are we talking about when we worship success? Success with dollar signs, head counts? This is not right. Obedience and faithfulness are the true measures of success.

    1. They were fuss-budgets.

      1. They refused to believe.

      2. They would not accept.

        1. Former NASA computer scientist Moria Gunn, whose weekly talk show Tech Nation is broadcast over PBS to nearly 100 domestic radio stations, was recently asked if there was one guest on her show who really stood out over the years. (4)

She replied: Charlie Trimble, who invented one of the first hand-held GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) devices, told me about traveling in Africa on the road coming north out of Nairobi. There's a big setup there --souvenir stands, food, a big sign saying you've reached the equator.

Charlie's friends are taking a picture of him with the new GPS when he looks down and discovers they're not at the equator! The GPS is showing that it's up the road. So they find the mayor of this little hamlet, and they explain about these satellites going around the earth and everything and tell him that the real equator is a mile up the road.

The guy says, Oh, we knew that. But the parking up there is terrible.'

        1. The convenience blindfold keeps us from going where Jesus wants us to go.

(top)    (Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to Sermons for 2003-2004)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

    1. They were spoilsports.

      1. They were in the marketing business

      2. They wanted to see a sign.

    2. Jesus has been offering a multitude of signs.

      1. They are not content with what has been done so far.

      2. They want a sign of their own choosing.

      3. They want a huge sign from the heavens.

      4. They want Jesus to do what they want done.

      5. It is an imposition of will that is unacceptable and totally contrary to the purposes for which Jesus came.

    3. Jesus call them an evil and adulterous generation.

    4. No sign will be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

      1. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the great fish.

      2. So Jesus will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

    5. Beware of seeking signs.

      1. They are not the most reliable of means of determining a conclusion or seeking an end.

Philip Yancey has written: "Some Christians long for a world well-stocked with miracles and spectacular signs of God's presence. I hear wistful sermons on the parting of the Red Sea and the 10 plagues and the daily manna in the wilderness, as if the speakers yearn for God to unleash his power like that today. But the follow-the-dots journey of the Israelites should give us pause. Would a burst of miracles nourish faith? Not the kind of faith God seems interested in, evidently. The Israelites give ample proof that signs may only addict us to signs, not to God." (5)

A parable.

One day a man went into the bus station in Athens, Georgia, to buy a ticket to Greenville, South Carolina.

The ticket clerk told the man that the bus was running late, so, to pass the time, the man walked around the terminal. He came upon a machine on which was a sign that claimed it could tell your name, age, hometown and so forth.

Inquisitively, the man put a quarter in the slot, and instantly a ticket popped out that read: "Your name is Bill Jones. You are 35 years old. You live in Athens, Georgia, and you are waiting for a bus to Greenville, South Carolina. The bus is late."

The man was dumbfounded. How did this machine know such facts? So he reached into his pocket, pulled out another quarter and inserted it in the machine. Another ticket came out that read: "Your name is still Bill Jones. You are still 35 years old. You still live in Athens, Georgia, and you are still waiting for a bus to Greenville, South Carolina. But it is behind schedule."

The man was astounded. How could this be? He decided on a ruse to fool the machine.

He walked across the street into a dime store and bought a pair of Groucho Marx glasses with an exaggerated nose and moustache. He also bought a pair of fake ears, a funny hat and a cane. Wearing his silly disguise and walking with a limp, he returned to the bus terminal and approached the little machine. He feebly inserted a quarter and waited for the machine's response.

Out it came and it read: "You name is still Bill Jones. You are still 35 years old. You are still from Athens, Georgia, and you are waiting for a bus to Greenville. South Carolina. While you were fooling around, you missed the bus!"

      1. Isn't this too often what we do?

      2. While we're busy trying to get a sign wee miss out on all the goodies of God.

(top)    (Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to Sermons for 2003-2004)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

CONCLUSION

  1. Getting to the heart of the matter, you have the option of being a Wet Blanket or an Exciter.

    1. Barry P. Boulware, First United Methodist Church, Kansas City, Missouri, got this story from Norman Neaves, a colleague

Some years ago, a young man who wanted to change his life went into a church and sat down in the sanctuary for awhile. He took out a piece of paper and a pencil and began writing down a long list of things that he promised he would do to change his life - a whole page of things - and he signed his name at the bottom and took it up and placed it on the altar, and sat down again in the sanctuary.

As he was sitting there, however, he began to sense the voice of God speaking softly in his own soul. And the more he listened to it, the more he heard God saying to him, You've done it all wrong. I want you to go back up there and get the piece of paper and tear it up. And then I'll give you another instruction.

So, the young man got out of his pew and walked up to the altar and did as the Lord told him. And then he went back to sit down in the pew and waited for the Lord to instruct him. It did not happen immediately, but finally the message came through. The Lord said to him, very gently, Now take a piece of paper and sign your name to it at the bottom and let me fill in all the rest!

      1. We can keep our little pieces of paper.

      2. We can let Jesus show us how to change our lives.

    1. We have before us the producer of the greatest signs and wonders that human kind has ever seen.

    2. What more do we need?

1. As related by David Tyler Scoates, Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

2. Phil Proctor, Planet Proctor, Funny Times, December 1997, 5.

3. The Medium and the Message, Discernment, 5 (Spring 1998), 3.

4. As quoted in Wired, July 1997, 136.

5. Philip Yancey, Disappointment With God (Grand Rapids, Mich.:Zondervan, 1988), 48.

(top)    (Back to Study Home Page)   (Back to Sermons for 2003-2004)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)