Westwood Presbyterian Church

June 28th, 2009

197 Browning  Boulevard, Winnipeg, Manitoba  R3K 0L1

REV. PETER BUSH's SERMONS

Westwood's Mission Statement 3 -Westwood is committed to: Demonstrating God's love and truth in our daily lives." - Zech. 8:1-8, Psalm 15, James 2:14-26-

 

     This morning we come to the third section of Westwood's Mission statement:

Westwood Presbyterian Church is committed to: Demonstrating God's love and truth in our daily lives.

     I promise we are going to talk about that - but we need to get a piece of theology firmly stuck in our heads. Human beings get to heaven not because of their good works, we don't get to eternal life as a reward for having lived a good life here on earth. God does not look down from heaven and say - "Those are such nice people I simply have to have them with me here in heaven." Our salvation, our life in heaven - is all about God's gift, God offers us salvation and we choose either to accept or reject that gift. We get to heaven entire on the basis of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. That is the invitation to believe that we talked about last week. So it is by grace that we have been saved through faith, not of works.

So Christians do not believe in works righteousness - we are not like the Jehovah's Witnesses who believe they are saved by doing good work, or the Muslims who believe the same thing. We do not earn salvation - it is God's free gift. That is what is so radical and so disturbing about grace. It can't be earned, it is freely given.

Now some of us may be saying - "Okay if salvation is a free gift, freely given, not earned - then why are all these Christians running around doing good works and urging others to do good works?" Good question.

Two responses - first to the passage read from James. The only way to tell if someone has a real faith is by the way they live. Believing the right stuff is not enough - as James argues Satan and the forces of evil know that they will ultimately be defeated. The demons believed that Jesus was the Son of God, and in fact they declared that truth. But the demons did not change their lives on the basis of that faith. Faith is not just intellectual assent - faith is not about doing the right rituals - faith is lived out in action. Faith is lived out in the way we live and act in our daily lives. Thus good works are the outward sign of the inward change - good works are the outward sign that faith has worked its way into our very being.

A second reason for our good works - and this comes from John Calvin whose 500^th  birthday is on July 10, 2009 - our good works are our "thank you" card to God for God's grace. When we are given an extravagant, amazing gift we say "thank you" and the way we say "thank you" for the extraordinary, extravagant, gracious gift of God to us - is living a life of faithful service - a life lived in celebration of God's grace. A life lived in thankfulness for the gift given to us - a life lived focused on saying "thank you" to the One who gave the gift.

Our daily lives as individuals and as a church community are to demonstrate that our faith is not just some head game we play - but that the love and truth we proclaim have impacted our lives. We live in a "Show me" world - where people want to see that what we say we believe actually makes a difference in our lives.

James pulls out two giants of the faith to show what he means. Abraham who had faith in God not just in his head - not just as some kind of intellectual activity - but who believed so profoundly that he packed up his household and moved 1,500 miles to a place where he knew no one. And then when the promise God gave was fulfilled - Abraham was prepared to return that gift - the sign that the promise had been fulfilled - to give it back to God. Abraham's belief was seen in action - was demonstrated in the way that he lived.

Rahab, along with the people of Jericho, had a choice to make - stay loyal to the leadership of Jericho and hope they were right - or thrown her hat in with the Israelites and the God Yahweh. This was no intellectual debate - the Israelite spies were in her house - was she going to turn them over to the Jericho police or was she going to become a traitor to Jericho and loyal to Israel. Her actions would indicate which choice she had made. She chose for Israel and Yahweh.

Faith is lived - saying we believe in God makes a difference to how we live our lives as people and as a community of faith - as a church. If the faith we declare with our mouths does not impact the way that we live - then people have the right to ask if our faith is very alive.

One of the challenges facing congregations in North America is financial, how will they find enough money to survive. And so many churches have turned to fund-raising activities to keep going. Thus congregations are out in the community with their hands out -- asking people in the community to buy tickets for the fall supper, to come to the church garage sale, and so on and so on. The church where a central piece of what we preach as true is that God offers us a free gift - where grace is given not bought. Sometimes our actions speak louder than our words. A number of congregations are finding that people in their communities have decided that the church has nothing to offer the community - viewing the church as a drain on the community.

A stewardship piece for a moment - our giving to the church and other Christian causes does not buy favour with God, our giving is a sign of our thankfulness - it is one of our thank you cards. I have a colleague who one Sunday made that point very clear during the offering prayer, he said, "Dear Lord, what is on the offering plates is a sign of how thankful we are to You for all your gifts given to us. Amen." I admit I have never had the guts to pray something like that. My colleague was correct in saying that what we give in the offering is one way that we demonstrate that our faith is not mere words.

I admit that Abraham and Rahab are examples that seem distant from us, but the examples in Psalm 15 are not. The psalmist is not saying that doing these things gets one to heaven - the psalmist is saying that these actions are signs that someone is following God - has faith in God. And the list is extraordinarily practical.

"No slander on our tongue ... casts no slur on fellow human being" - that in speaking about neighbours and colleagues we do not run other people down. Imagine if we actually started to follow the advice - "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" when it comes to speaking about other people when they are not present in the room. Imagine how that would be so different than the way our world works right now. Over time people would notice that we did not run other people down. They would wonder why we were being so different than those around us.

Keeping our promises even when it costs us. To be people whose word is our bond would be radical - for we live in a world where people seek to get out of agreements when they discover that the agreement will cost them. And if we pull it down to the level of everyday life - we make a promise to help a neighbour and the chance to go golfing comes along - are we people of our word? Integrity is big with God - and when we live with integrity - keeping our word we show that we are people whose faith has worked its way deep into our lives.

Who lends money without usury - at first that sounds like we are all off the hook. But the translation here is a bit of a problem. Usury would be better translated "interest." The invitation was to lend to people without charging interest of any kind - and when that is combined with Jesus' words lend to those who wish to borrow from you - this gets really tough. The son's car needs work and they ask if you can lend them some money until pay day - and so you lend them money with no certainty that you will get it back. That we might be able to handle - what if it were the neighbour who needed help with the groceries?

There is a radical grace in these situations - a grace that gives, a help graciously given, words graciously spoken. This is so radically different than our world. It is not surprising to hear G. K. Chesterton's words, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult, and left untried. "

Living the Christian life in the practical everydayness of life is not easy - but it does demonstrate the power of God's love and truth.

As we live by faith - we live in hope. Hope that the way the world is, is not all there is. We live in the hope expressed in the passage from Zechariah - a hope that rings through the pages of the Bible - that God's kingdom is coming - and that truth and justice - love and faithfulness will win out in the end. As we live by faith we declare through our actions, through our commitment, through our love and grace, to the world that there is another way. That we can live by hope.

There is a drummer whose beat tells a story of despair and destruction - and tells us that we need to do everything we can to survive. Holding on to our lives and what we have with all our power. There is another drummer whose beat tells the story of present despair and destruction - but underneath there is an almost imperceptible beat that speaks of hope. A hope found not in us and in human ability to think faster and better, a hope found not in being stronger - but a hope that rests in the fact of God's kingdom which is coming. Which is already here and will be fully revealed. It seems impossible to believe - too good to be true - a dream that is unimaginable. But it is part of the truth in which we live - God's truth.

Live lived in faith in God - lives knowing that the way things seem to be - is not the way things really are. That God is doing God's thing. We have seen signs of that kingdom - we have seen things that are absolutely unbelievable take place. And we live in the hope because of that.

In a world full of despair - we live in hope - hope that rests in God's love and truth. A life lived in hope demonstrates that God can be trusted.

The life of faith is to be lived - as we live out the life of faith - live in the truth of what we say we believe - we demonstrate that God's love and truth makes a difference in our every day lives. We live in the grace that God brings - living lives of thankfulness for the grace and love offered to us ..