Apr. 13, 2003

Palm Sunday

Phil. 2:5-11

⁵ Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

⁷ but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

The Passion of Jesus Christ According to Mark 14:32-15:47

Sermon:

A Sunday school teacher was once asking the children in the Sunday school class about how to get to heaven. She said, "If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into heaven?" The children answered "NO."

If I did volunteer work at the church every day, mowed the yard, kept everything clean, would that get me into heaven?" "No" they answered.

"Well, then how can I get to heaven?"
In the back of the room a 5 yr. old boy shouted out, "You gotta be dead!"

AMEN! That is exactly the point. The New Testament tells us repeatedly that before we can prepare for the next life, we must be ready to let go of this life. And what exactly the New Testament means by that is knowing that our life comes from Christ, not ourselves. The dying to self that we are called to do is not suicide or self-destruction. It is a re-assigning of the source of our life. We die to self when we know that life does not truly reside in us, it is only borrowed, on loan from God, and mediated to us now through Christ who is our life, our health, our peace.

Joyce Meyer uses a wonderful illustration of our constant need for God. It’s one that some of you are very familiar with. Think about a dialysis patient. If you have serious problems with your liver or kidneys you may need dialysis. That means that you have to go to the hospital several times a week and spend time hooked up to that machine to clean out your blood. If you don’t do it, you will die.

Now suppose you had your dialysis appointment on Monday morning, and a friend called you up and said,”Let’s go shopping on Monday morning.” Or maybe they want to go golfing, or fishing, or to to Atlantic City and do some gambling. Whatever. What would you do? If the person tried to talk you into it, if they said, “Oh come on. It won’t hurt you to miss one little dialysis treatment. There are some really fun things we can do, and you can do your dialysis later.”

This is a parable of our spiritual life. Seeking God isn’t just a nice thing to do. It’s a matter of life and death. And if you don’t attend to it, you are risking your life- eternally!

Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me you can do nothing” And again He said, “Abide in me, and I will abide in you… I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly.” Do you know that He is the very source of your life?

When we recite the Creed, does it really sink into your heart and mind what those words mean, “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God…. The Lord and giver of life.”

This is how I first learned about prayer. It was when I was a teenager. There was a time in my life, when I was in high school, that I got very depresssed and discouraged. Two things kept me going; the love of my family, and the time I spent with God. I learned to work through these depressed feelings by talking to God.

We lived in a secluded area surrounded by woods, and I loved to just walk through the woods along the bank of the river and talk to God. I didn’t even think of it as prayer, or anything religious. All I knew was that I had a lot of things going on inside me that I needed to get out, and I knew that when I was all alone and it was just me and God, I could be completely honest and say exactly what was on my mind. I knew God wouldn’t be surprised or offended at what I said because He already knew it anyway.

Those times of talking to God were like dialysis treatments to my soul. I couldn’t live without it. It was the most liberating experience! When I came back from my prayer walks I felt a fresh new perspective on life. Not that my circumstances had changed, but that my attitude had changed. My spirit had been cleaned out of all the bitterness and anger that I had felt. My mind was set free from the tight, bound up view I had of my life, and I was able to see life on a much bigger perspective as God sees it.

Last week I asked you to consider the things you would die for. Your family, your faith, your freedom, your neighbors. Let’s go further with that. We were talking about this on Tuesday at the Bible study group, that sometimes dying is not the hardest thing to do. When we act heroically, it usually happens so quickly and instinctively you don’t have much time to think about it. And in a second it’s over. You jump in front of the oncoming car to save someone else, or you take a bullet to save a loved one from a mugger.

But there is another kind of dying that is not so instinctive, and may be much more difficult for us. It’s the kind of dying that the New Testament tells us about, dying to sin, saying no to ourselves in order to say yes to God. We are called in the New Testament to die to ourselves so we can live by the Spirit of God in us.

Sometimes living is harder than dying. Living for God can be as great a sacrifice as dying for a loved one.

God may change your circumstances, or He may not. But before anything at all happens in your world, God can change your attitude. That is what prayer is about.

Romans 6:11-14

Consider yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master….

Romans 8:10-11

If Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Look at what we have done. (Rev. 2:4)

Look at what God will do. (1Thes 5:23-24)

We have forsaken our first love- not just 'lost' it, or fallen out of it, but FORSAKEN. Get it? But look what God will do.

1Thes 5:23-24

 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

but back up to vs 5:16 to find the way into this grace.

Always be joyful. Keep on praying. No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. Do not scoff at prophecies, but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. Keep away from every kind of evil. (New Living Translation)

That’s not only good advice, it is the Word of Life. Meditate on it and take it into your soul.