Calvary United Methodist Church April 15, 2018

SPEECHLESS

Rev. R. Jeffrey Fisher Children’s Sermon: Acts 10:34-35 I invite our children forth for the children’s message this morning. Good morning! Must have been all that sunlight, gave everyone ener-gy yesterday. Was that a great day? (No, I stayed up late.) You stayed up late? (It was fun.) Wow! I stayed up late years ago, how about you? That doesn’t happen much. I am so happy you are here this morning.

I want to talk about the wonderful gift of this world that God has given us. It’s a global community that we are a part of, do you know that? We are just one of a small group of people around this great world that God has created. The world is very big. If we were to put it on a map and look at all these countries, there are around 195 different countries in the world. And making up those countries are people, just like you and I, but dif-ferent. How about that: just like us, but different. Different lan-guages, different dress, different cultures, different foods, different everything, but difference is kind of a fun thing from time to time.

When they get up and meet like we do, if they are worshipping God or greeting other people, they say things like “Hello!” “Good morning!” “Ola!” What else might they say? “Salut.” “Bonjour.” All kinds of greetings that we have for one another. There are actually over 7000 living languages in this world and count-ing the dialects in between them, you know, like from y’all down in Texas and up here in PA there are even more. But in the midst of all those things that are so different, God says we are all God’s children. God just loves us, even like our families and our friends like us and we are all different. We are different heights and we look different, our hair and the way we dress and all those things.

I want to look at some of the differences of the way we have been cre-ated in this world and to know that we still live wonderfully in God’s creation. Some people live in very dry desert hot climates where it might be 100 degrees every day. That’s pretty hot, even if it’s a dry heat. And then I look at a map and I saw this photo advertised this winter in a place and I am forgetting the name, I looked it up this morning, in Russia. The highest it gets there in the summertime is like 67 degrees, but January, February and March it hangs around minus 36, minus 37. I don’t know why, but 260-some thousand people live there. I would move south! Real quick! And some of the places in the world are desert-like and it would be hard to grow a lot of vegetables and fruits and things that we enjoy in our diets there. While other places are so different that they are very plush and lush with great soil, great water. And then I looked at the differences of the way God created us to pro-tect us where we live. I’m told in the colder parts of the world like Mongolia and up in Siberia and northern parts of Alaska and Canada people are often much shorter, which means that their heart doesn’t have to pump the blood so far throughout the whole bodies and that enables them to stay warm and keep healthier and stronger. And God makes our skin colors different because some places, if you have real white skin and you are out in the hot sun every day you might burn. So you can see the different colored arms. God has a plan. There are reasons why we look different from our heights to our weights to our smiles and everything about us. But what I remember most is that God loves all of us, even though we are different in so many ways.

The color of the skin can change in so many many more ways than even seen in this slide. Some of the cultural things I was amazed at is how we dress. Some-times when we get prepared for things like weddings, that’s not your dress? You don’t see that happening? Well, many people celebrate lives in different ways. Some are more what we would consider traditional, perhaps like the one in the middle. But there is not a right and wrong, it’s just…what’s the word? Different. Sometimes we have cultural feasts and we dress and put on makeup, And sometimes what we do to belong to the groups we belong to make us look different. They are not right or wrong. They are simply, what’s the word? Different. And sometimes differ-ent is just okay because God loves all of us just the way we are.

Even if we look at the way we worship God, sometimes the way we dress looks different. I saw these photos a year or so ago, I was in New York. And there were a lot of the Hasidic Jews visiting from across the waves. And these young men have these hair, this pieces coming down, be-cause the Bible says that they should not shave the hair on the side of their heads. And so they let it grow.

And then we have the sects like the Amish here not far from our area. People travel from all over to say, “Why would people in a developed nation still get around with horses instead of cars? And why do they not have electricity in their houses.” We are different, right? God loves us all. Sometimes in the church we dress very formally. Sometimes in some places people dress very differently. But those of us at Calvary, we dress very casually, because in just a few weeks it’s what? Hawaiian shirt time! Yes! How about that? See, even though we are different, the important thing to remember is that God loves all of us, no matter how different we are, God loves us.

I want you to hear this Word from Acts: Peter began to speak: “I real-ly understand now that to God every person is the same. “God accepts anyone who worships him and does what is right. It is not important what country a person comes from.” You see, no matter our color, our culture, how we worship, God loves us and when we embrace our difference and love each other, we be-come so strong to do what God has for us to do: to make the world a better place. For God’s love has no limits. I love you as this church loves you and we are celebrating God’s love today and wish you to pass that along to everyone you meet. Thank you for coming up this morning and have a wonderful week. Message: Acts 9:1-9 (VIDEO) Your story. Your story. It will be epic. We need to share our story be-cause there are powerful stories of God’s redeeming love through our trials, through our tribulations, through our struggles. The Apostle Paul was once called Saul, a man who was anti-God at that point, or Anti-Christ. And he was a man that was out to get all those followers who were so dedicated at the time, even having them imprisoned and some sent on to their death. When God touched his heart he became Paul, a new man with a new vision and a new hope. God is calling on you and me to be Paul's today, people who are changed from inactive participation in the transformation of the world into people who are transforming the world we are in. Listen to this Word of God:

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went into the high priest and asked him for letters to the syna-gogues I Damascus, so that if he found any there who belongs to the Way, Whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell on the ground and heard the voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but they did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by hand into Damascus.

For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink. Speechless. When events occur in our life to bring us an attention to someone and we don’t know what to do with it, whether it was the fact we were blinded, it might be for us a health problem, it might for us be a sud-den change in our employment or in a relationship, sometimes they are eye-awakening things that allow us to be speechless and don’t know what to do next. And the best thing to do is to listen to God, to say, “God, what is it that you have for me in this experience?” I want to share a few of those people who were speechless when God approached them. You might remember a story about a flood and a man named Noah who was just an average Joe like the rest of us. And God called him to build this big boat called an ark and everyone thought he was crazy, they weren’t even near any water. He listened and God said, “You don’t have to know much, just be obedient.” He was and you know the rest of that story. It ended very nicely with a rainbow and a new beginning for God’s children. God is all about new beginnings. There was a man named Jonah. Jonah was a man who had a few grudges with a few people he didn’t like. Have you ever met anybody like that? Of course. God said, “I want you to go to these people of Nineveh. They have walked away from me. I should be their God and they have forgotten me. They are living a life that is not fit to be lived. And I want you to tell them to change. They will have these days to change and if they don’t, I’m going to destroy their whole city.” Have you ever longed for someone else to be hurt? It’s not a good thing to do. Jonah longed for them not to be saved, but to be destroyed. So he got on a boat. Instead of going to Nineveh to tell them the good news, he went to go to Tarshish and in the process God said that ain’t gonna work. He was thrown overboard; he was in the story gulped up by this big fish or whale as we often portray it. And the whale spit him right out where God wanted him, on the beach of Nineveh. And he went through the city in a sack cloth and telling everybody to put on sack clothes and ashes: “For you must change or God will destroy you.” And you know what happened? Guess what? They heard the Good News and changed. God is about Good News.

There was a man named Moses who was speechless, so much so that he didn’t want to be a spokesperson for God. He said, “Lord, pick somebody else. I don’t want to do this.” And God doesn’t like to be told “No.” You see, he can take all the “can’ts” in our life. It’s pretty simple. Just take the “t” off and you can. All the things we say we can’t do, God says, “By my power you can do it.” You can do it. God used Moses to lead his people from the slavery and bondage of generations into new life, into the Promised Land. For God doesn’t call the equipped; God equips the called. God has a call for you and for me. For every person on this planet, God has something for you to do that will make a difference to make the King-dom of God come in its fullness, to bring life. There was a man and a woman names Sarah and we know Sarah and Abraham were called at a very old age to say, “You are going to be the father and mother of a great nation.” They laughed, remember? At this age? And God said, “I’m going to give you a new beginning,” and so here we are, the descendent from Almighty God, because of people who would step out. They weren’t always so easy to be obedient to God, but they finally responded.

So the question today if you are speechless and wondering what to do is listen and find your purpose. What is it that God will have of you at this specific point of your life? It changes as our years and our bodies and our minds and our experience changes.

God is calling, but will we answer? Or will we have to be blinded as the Apostle Paul till we finally understand that there will be a wakeup call? Have you ever had a few wakeup calls in life? Oh, yeah. Going down the road and you get cut off and you are glad that car didn’t T-bone you and take your life. Sometimes wake up calls aren’t always easy. God called Paul and he calls you and me to finally stand up. He called him from that man and people around Paul at that point didn’t trust him. The first man who was called to speak to Paul and take him to town said, “You want me to take this man to town to the disciples? And he was killing people like us.” God said, “Trust me. I took care of that!” Right? Stand up and speak out. Speak out for Almighty God for God has a plan and he is still calling, but we must be willing to answer. But we get caught up so much in this world. I do. I like stuff. I like tools. I love to build. I like wood. I used to like antiques; I’m getting over that little flash, now that I am becoming one, right? We like com-fort, our homes, our vacations, the stuff of our life and God says, “I want you to get over that.” This is a temporal journey, 100 years or less for most of us. And yet we are so hung up in this world, we think about what? I love this, I can’t hardly read it “I’m not selfish; I just want everything.” Did you ever have a day like that? I just want eve-rything. I want the gold, the diamonds and jewels, I want the stardom; I want the fame; I want the glory; I want the money; I want it all! And God says, “All that is just, it will never cut it. It will never bring you peace; it will never bring you happiness. What will bring you fulfill-ment is finding your purpose in God’s Kingdom. Finding your pur-pose, you will be rewarded more than you could ever imagine.”

It’s been only four brief months since we celebrated Christmas and my family struggles with me at Christmas because it is not a very favorite holiday of mine, hasn’t been since my teenage years when I really, in my mind, came alive for Christ. Because I interpret Christmas as God’s gift to the world and that as Christians we should be giving gifts to the world and my family has like a lot of us where we give gifts to each other. Most of us as adults don’t need much and when Christmas is a struggle because I don’t know what to give everybody who has everything, that’s a good clue that we’re not following God. We ought to be giving some to those who have needs, to bring life change for this Savior came into the world to show us how it is to love and give life where there needs to be life. And then we celebrate Easter. He is not on the cross; we know him to have risen from the grave, again to show us there is new life. Our God is constantly about new life, new hope, finding a purpose for the Kingdom. And it’s about you and me finding our spot in that Kingdom. I want to die with a passion in my heart for people as much as I have now and as much as I had as a youth. But we need to get on fire for God. We need to know where that passion is and where is our desire? When I hear people say that desires are only for the things in this world and I have them, of course I do. But are you keeping them in check? Are you not letting this world’s things, stuff, joys and pleasures cloud the way of the Kingdom?

For if we are only chasing the stuff of this world, we will have disap-pointment. But worse than the disappointment that we will find, we’re not doing our job to bring the Kingdom. God’s Kingdom needs to come so we can have peace, so we can have love and mercy and jus-tice and so the world around us, not that they might enjoy the stuff we have, but the world might become a place of peace, a place of belong-ing. You see, we need to know that we are seeking God, And the promise in scripture: If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me. Are you seeking God today? Are you looking out in the nights and in the days when you wake up and say, “God, fill me with your Spirit. Use me wherever you will.” What was Wesley? “Either use me or lay me aside; lift me up or put me down. Whatever it is God, I just want your Kingdom to come in its fullness right now.”

But we often have this very very small view. We don’t look at the big picture. The big picture is far more than me, far more than this church or our community or our county or our state or our nation. The big picture is the Kingdom of God. That’s a big picture.

And it’s not an American thing and it’s not any one nation. It’s a glob-al thing about all of God’s children. We have sung it as kids: red and yellow, black and white, they are all precious, but we don’t really live it well. We don’t live it very well. You see, God has a vision for the world to come, to live in peace, to treat others as we want to be treated, but we are not even doing that to each other within our families. When we cling on to anger and hatred and all of those things, we can’t bring the Kingdom. You and I must listen to the Word that we might find peace in our own lives.

It’s not only to listen, but we must acknowledge it and then we must respond to it. For we act sometimes as if this life is it. It’s not. It’s not for me. There is another Kingdom, the one that we speak about and grow about all the days of our life. The Kingdom is about lifelong learning. I started my faith as a young boy. I grew up in a multi-generation fam-ily where grandparents and great-grandparents and my parents be-longed to God. My heritage was mostly Mennonite and Brethren. And in the midst of all of that, we used to talk about things like being saved, and I still believe in a relationship where it’s a one on one where I know that I belong to God. It’s a choice you all make right now. God, I’m yours. But sometimes talking like that left a bad taste in people’s mouth, as if if I’m saved that I’m better than you. I’m nev-er better than any child. As a child of God we’re all God’s children. And that’s one of the things I’ve learned and one of things I’ve learned in being part of the family is, I like big family. I like it. I like it when we are with sisters and brothers and we can work and learn to accept even differences among us, to know that God has created us as His children. Hear this word in 1 Peter: What a God we have! How fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand=new life and have everything to live for. It’s not just this physical life. Paul, the day he was blinded and the day the scales came from his eyes, was given a new life. Whether it’s to-day or whenever it’s happened in your life as a little child, when you said, “You know what? I’ve been given a new life. I’m a follower of Jesus Christ. I chose of my own volition to follow God with my story, with my life, that I will be able to tell others.”

My story is very boring compared to a lot of stories I’ve heard through the years. When I look at Paul, God never struck me down, blinded me, all that. Through the years I’ve heard those stories from drug ad-dicts, from people who…there used to be a group over in Dillsburg called Wound for Life and there was another one, teenagers from New York who would come and tell us about their lives being changed. I never when through all those struggles, so I’m thinking: Jesh, what story do I have? I grew up in Mayberry, it might have been, a little town where all the churches, the Brethren, the Mennonite, the Bap-tist…we all worked together. Most of my friends were all growing up in the church. We just decided that that’s what we wanted to do with life. And God says “It doesn’t matter what your story is, I just want you. Wherever your story is, you are important to me but I want you to share your story with other people.” So, my story started at baptism. I was older when I was baptized, but whether at any age, if you were an infant and you confirmed it at con-firmation, at one point you addressed those questions: Do you choose to love God with your heart and your soul and your mind? Do you choose to serve Him and be faithful to wherever you are worshipping with our what? Your prayers, your presence, your gifts and your ser-vice. And I thought, “Yes, I do!” And I’m reminded when I do that that I’m always in line for change. You see, the bit of having been saved in one day is fine to say “Well, I was saved on June 1 of 1972.” That’s fine if you want to say that, but I’m changed every day, every single day, because I need to come back to God. You see, salvation for me is moment by moment. It’s a daily thing. It’s a choice today to say, “Today I choose again to live for God and it will be a lifetime of experience until God calls me home and says, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ I hope.” For that’s the call on all of our lives, to give it daily up to God, to real-ize that Jesus takes us just as we are. Just as you are today, just as I am every day.

For my life has been a journey that has gone all over the place. There was no straight road. There were ups and there were downs. There were mountains and there were valleys and all the way I feel that I have been walking with God. That God has never left my side. There were a few times through life that I have walked away from God, not totally, but enough that I didn’t want to worship and I didn’t want to praise and I didn’t want to served and you know how kids get spunky and do their own thing once in a while? You been there too? Yeah, we’re brats, most of us at all ages in life. But God would always call me back and remind me that I could be on a journey, a lifelong journey. And I have always wanted to make a difference, however small that might be, to share with somebody else, wherever that might be, with strangers, with friends, to bring hope there was no hope, because I had seen that modeled in my life. This past week a dear friend of mine, he was my Sunday School teach-er growing up. I worked with him in the summers, putting in sewage and water lines, building foundations, digging ditches and standing in stuff like that. His name was Dean. Dean taught probably 30 young kids in my church for probably 20 or 30 years. Never even in work with him did I hear a foul word, a word of gossip, a word of frustration about other people. He had struggles too, I know he did. I knew his family well. But he was not a bitter, angry cussing sort of guy that we often connect with a lot of this stuff. He was an example to every young man and women who ever worked with him. Always a smile, always a joyful world, always a pleasant man. And I thought of him and dozens, dozens, perhaps hundreds of people like that who have been my teachers in life. The elders in my church who I could look for, I look up to, the people who were my teachers in school or in sem-inary and people in my churches, younger and older. I’ve look up to a lot of the young people who’ve taught me so many things as much as the older ones who had so much wisdom. You see, God is asking us to be a witness and to look and to find that witness.

I teach. What’s your super power? When I saw his obituary this week and my mother called me, I thought, “That man was a superman.” You don’t find a lot of people whose slate looks pretty good, and I’m sure he wasn’t perfect, but he had a good slate. I would long for a slate like that, where people can say, “You know what? I saw God in him. I saw God in you.” Speak up. Be a witness. Walk your journey of faith. Be a giant like Goliath to do something. There has been a sign out here for almost a year: Do something! But you’ve got to listen and say, “God, what is it at this time of my life that you will have me do to bring your Kingdom?” Paul, even in prison, found something to do as he would witness to other prisoners. He would witness to the guards. He went out on a shipwreck and instead of running away, he even there tried to be a witness to bring other people to a relationship. There is very few of the disciples and apostles who had as much power as the Apostle Paul in every part of life. He would speak about God. His lesson to us was that we only plant. Others will come and water and help to make sure that what is planted grows.

And in so doing, you and I will change the societies that we live in. We will change our community, our family, our nation and the world ultimately because we will be a faithful witness to Almighty God. Be-cause God has chosen us. There are a lot of things we think whether or not God wants us. The scriptures record it this way: You didn’t choose me. I chose you. Even before you were out of your mother’s womb. How’s that for a big choice? God says: I choose you. You are mine. And I want you. And if you don’t want me, it’s on you. God is reaching out and inviting us to come from him, as far as the east is from the west, no matter where we are, Whether we have been blinded by the light or whether we are awake, God says: I want you. Even with Paul, the good, the bad and the ugly, the treacherous things he did, God said: I will still redeem that for my grace is sufficient to use all of us, all the days of our life.

He extends that grace to us, that mercy, that we might be disciples in the world today. Our world needs God and you and I are the deliver-ers. We cannot remain speechless. We need to have our eyes opened, our ears opened and we need to have our feet ready to go into action. God’s call is big today and it’s a joy to be a part of His family. It’s a joy to be able to serve. It’s a joy to bring the Kingdom in its fullness. Let us pray: Almighty and Everlasting God, we thank you, we praise you, for your Son Jesus Christ, who has taught us the way. We thank you for leaders like Paul and our mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and teachers and, Lord, the list is long of those who have instructed us on your way. Let us hear, let us see, let us respond, we ask in your Holy Name. Amen. The ushers will wait upon us to receive our gifts and tithes.