SPECIAL DAY: January 9, Baptism of Our Lord

Lesson: Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Sermon Title: The Power that Transforms

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. What you see may not be what is.

Wesley Taylor, Tualatin United Methodist Church, Tualatin, Oregon relates the following story:

It was Pentecost Sunday. As the congregation filed into church, the ushers handed each person a bright red carnation to symbolize the festive spirit of the day.

The people listened attentively to the reading of the Pentecost story from the book of Acts: about how the disciples had heard "what sounded like a powerful wind from heaven," about how the Holy Spirit had appeared: "like tongues of fire." Then came the sermon.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon us," the preacher began.

"Like a powerful wind from heaven!" shouted a woman sitting in the first pew. Then she threw one of the red carnations toward the altar.

The preacher began again. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon us."

The same woman''s voice rang out: "Like the tongues of fire, like the tongues of fire!" And she threw a red carnation toward the altar.

The preacher looked straight at her and said, "Now throw your pocketbook."

To which the woman replied with conviction: "Preacher, you just done calmed the wind and put out the fire."

  1. How did the preacher calm the wind and put out the fire?

    1. The preacher asked the woman to do something that she was unprepared to do.

    2. The preacher invited the woman to:

      1. See

      2. Be

      3. And to act.

    3. Can you act if you don't know?

Movie Breakout (1)

A fellow took his girlfriend to the movies.

During the previews, she asked him if he would go and buy her some M & Ms.

When he returned with her candy, she opened the bag, picked out all the brown ones and threw them away.

"What did you do that for?" he asked her.

"I'm allergic to chocolate!" she replied.

    1. Can you really know if you are confused or mis-lead.

      1. Juanita R. Ryan, "Seeing God in new ways: Recovery from distorted images of God," makes this observation. (2)

"'God is waiting around the next corner with a club to punish me.'

"'God has a mean face; I don''t like to think of him looking at me.'

"These descriptions of God come from deeply committed Christians. Neither person would have signed a doctrinal statement which described God as someone who carries a large club, or as a someone with a mean face. They both would have affirmed that God is a loving and grace-full God. But their private images of God were in direct--and painful--conflict with their intellectual convictions about God...

      1. "Their private images of God were in direct--and painful--conflict with their intellectual convictions about God...

    1. How do we bring the whole together in integration that allows us to be people of courage.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. The Christian ought to be the most courageous person in the world.

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear." --Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

Atticus Finch says to his son, Jeremy 'Jem' Finch: "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what." (3)

"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare." --Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

    1. We have been given some information that helps us to understand physical courage

    2. We have been given the hint that there is also moral courage.

  1. How does the Christian become the most courageous person in the world.

    1. The Christian is one who has the courage on conviction-the courage to see.

      1. To see what or whom?

M. Scott Peck, in his recent book, tells of a conference where he and Harvey Cox both spoke. (4)

[Cox] told the story of Jesus' being called to resuscitate the daughter of a wealthy Roman. As Jesus is going to the Roman's house, a woman who has been hemorrhaging for years reaches out from the crowd and touches his robe. He feels her touch and turns around and asks, Who touched me? The woman comes forward and begs him to cure her and he does, and then goes on to the house of the Roman whose daughter had died.

After telling the story, Cox asked this audience of 600 mostly Christian professionals whom they identified with. When he asked who identified with the bleeding woman, about a hundred raised their hands. When he asked who identified with the anxious Roman father, more of the rest raised their hands. When he asked who identified with the curious crowd, most raised their hands. But when he asked who identified with Jesus, only six people raised their hands.

Something is very wrong here. Of 600 more or less professional Christians, only one out of a hundred identified with Jesus. Maybe more actually did but were afraid to raise their hands lest that seem arrogant. But again, something is wrong with our concept of Christianity if it seems arrogant to identify with Jesus. That is exactly what we are supposed to do! We're supposed to identify with Jesus, act like Jesus, be like Jesus. That is what Christianity is supposed to be about -- the imitation of Christ.

      1. The courage to see Jesus and his example which we are to follow.

      2. We see Jesus even in the midst of the worst of the brokenness of life.

Rita Bass Coors paid $7,000 for a porcelain mask hand-painted by John Denver. It had been purchased at the 1997 Charity Celebrity Ball for Hospice of Metropolitan Denver. As the auctioneer handed it to her, it slipped through her fingers and shattered on the floor. (5)

The new owner of an expensive pile of broken pieces decided to keep them anyway. Rather than attempting to fix the mask, she placed the pieces in a montage of John Denver photographs.

      1. How do we see God in the aftermath of a disastrous tsunami?

        1. Some blame God.

        2. Some blame Karma.

        3. Some see the result of a deadly act of nature, the result of an underwater earthquake on the magnitude of 9 on the Richter scale.

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    1. The Christian has the courage to be-to become someone different that he\she was, and continues to enter into a lifetime of growing.

      1. What do we know of the power of love?

In the summer of 1868, Mark Twain visited Elmira, New York, and instantly fell madly in love with Olivia (Livy) Langdon. Turned down because of his brashness, brusqueness, and unbelief, he immediately turned over a new leaf for the sake of love.

He began reading the Bible, even the epistles of St. Paul, and immersed himself in a book of sermons by the great pulpit prince Henry Ward Beecher. He started attending church socials, and turned his life around until Livy could not help but notice his transformation. Whenever she didn't show interest, Twain backslid into sin. When she gave him some encouragement, Twain doubled his quota of sermons and churchgoing.

As he wrote to her:

"I don't drink anything, now, dear, & so your darling noble old heart has been troubling itself all for nothing! But please don't let my motive distress you, Livy. You know the child must crawl before it walks - & I must do right for love of you while I am in the infancy of Christianity; & then I can do right for love of the Savior when I shall have gotten my growth. And especially don't give this instance any importance, for it is no sacrifice, because I have not now, & never had, any love for any kind of liquors, & not even a passable liking for any but champagne & ale, & only for these at intervals." (6)

        1. He did what he did because he loved Livy.

      1. Remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace

        1. When Nebuchadnezzer looked into the furnace he did not see three, but four.

        2. What does Isaiah proclaim (Isaiah 43):

     Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
         I have called you by name, you are mine.
2    When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
        and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
     when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
        and the flame shall not consume you.
3    For I am the LORD your God,
        the Holy One of Israel, your Savior....
4    Because you are precious in my sight,
        and honored, and I love you...
5    Do not fear, for I am with you...
7    everyone who is called by my name,
        whom I created for my glory,
        whom I formed and made."

        1. I will be with you in all the conditions and circumstances of your life.

        2. I will be a positive power for that is true, good and lovely.

        3. You can depend on me!

    1. The Christian is not content with the courage of conviction-the courage to see, or the courage to be-to become someone different that he\she was, but uses the developing courage to do.

      1. We met John the Baptist during Advent.

        1. Now he appears on the scene at the time of Jesus' baptism.

          1. He is a person who sees, who has the power of his convictions.

          1. He is a person who has the courage to be-to become.

        2. John is also an example of a person who has the courage to do.

      2. Doing is the end result of being.

A Catholic priest addressing his congregation after his scheduled week off, he declared that, instead of jetting off to some exotic destination, he had in fact stayed right there in town, even in his own parish's neighborhood. But he had transformed his identity by dressing in the rags of a homeless person. By adding some dirt, some poured-on beer, and a stubble of beard, he made a convincing street wanderer. As luck would have it the week was cold and wet. On these dreary, gray days, he walked the streets of his parish, yet he seemed invisible to all he met. Entering a local Quick Mart, in hopes of some food and/or shelter, the priest was nearly bumped into by one of his own parishioners, purposively striding towards his car. The priest began to walk towards this parishioner, hoping for enough of a donation to buy a cup of hot coffee. But as he got closer, the parishioner looked right at him and clearly saw what was coming. Noting the scruffy stranger's nearness and need, this individual hurriedly jumped into his parked car, locked the doors, started the engine and sped off. (7)

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      1. So much for doing.

  1. The Christian ought to be the most courageous person in the world.

    1. To learn what it really means to be a Christian.

    2. To learn how to transform weakness into power.

    3. To learn to take the risks (8)

One pastor, who is developing a service for Busters within a Baby-Boomer church, talked about fear in a core group meeting. He confessed that one of his big fears was skydiving, and asked how many people had the same fear. Lots of people raised their hands. He asked a series of questions that whittled the field down, until finally he asked, How many people would be willing to face that fear with me by skydiving if the church would pick up the tab? Only five people were left after that one. Through a random selection, a young woman named Kelly was chosen.

The next week, the two went up in the air. The pastor was frightened, and Kelly was crying. But after their feet touched the earth, Kelly was transformed. She was fired up; she had conquered a major fear in her life, and that promised to have far-reaching implications in other areas of fear in her life and her ministry to others around her.

It was something she'll remember for the rest of her life. The next week, the core group watched a videotape of the jump, and those images would become a major memory for them as well. It was real; it was relevant; it was relational; it was rousing.

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CONCLUSION

  1. And if you are willing you will experience the highest joy that comes with the calling to be a Christian.

These are the words from a 14th century spiritual classic, The Book of Privy Counseling, describing the joy one experiences as a disciple of Christ: (9)

"So abounding will that joy be that it will follow you to bed at night and rise with you in the morning. It will pursue you through the day in everything you do...The enthusiasm and the desire will seem to be part of each other...though you will be at a loss to say just precisely what it is that you long for.

"Your whole personality will be transformed, your countenance will radiate with an inner beauty, and for as long as you feel it, nothing will sadden you. A thousand miles would you run to speak with another who you knew really felt it and yet when you got there, find yourself speechless! ... Your words will be few, but so fruitful and full of fire..."

1. Thanks to Pastor Tim for this joke! Crosswalk [You_Make_Me_Laugh@lists.crosswalk.com]

2. Juanita R. Ryan, "Seeing God in new ways: Recovery from distorted images of God," The National Association for Christian Recovery Web Site, Nacronline.com. Retrieved July 25, 2003.
Used by permission. Originally published in STEPS magazine, a publication of the National Association for Christian Recovery (christianrecovery.com).

3. Harper Lee (1926 - ), To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960

4. M. Scott Peck, Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth (Simon & Schuster, 1993), 210.

5. Frank Lewis, Preaching that restores, Leadership, Winter 2001, 40.

6. Mark Twain's Letters, ed. Harriet Elinor Smith and Richard Bucci (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990) 2:354

7. As told by Donald N. Lincoln

8. Tim Celek and Dieter Zander, Inside the Soul of a New Generation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 118.

9. The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1973), 182-83. Quoted in Janet Ruffing, Uncovering Stores of Faith (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 1.

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