Saturday, May 31, 2008

Romans 8:28-30 (June 1, 2008)

Romans 8 M10 June 1, 2008
Text: Romans 8: 28-30
Big Idea: God causes all things to work for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.
A story is told of a wise Chinese man whose horse ran away from him. Everyone around him said, “Bad luck.” The Chinese man responded by saying, “We don’t know if it is bad luck or good luck.” Then one day the horse returns to the man with a stallion and all his neighbours say, “What good luck!” The man says, “Maybe.” The next day this man’s son was out riding the newly-found stallion when it gets spooked, and throws him, breaking his leg. The neighbours come by and express their sorrow for the bad luck, and again the man responded, “Maybe.”
Now there was a war going on in the land and the king conscripted all the young men in the realm to battle--most of whom were killed in that battle. When the soldiers came to collect the farmer’s boy, he was exempted because of his broken leg, which probably saved the young man’s life. The son ended up caring for his father into old age.
In this Zen story we are being encouraged to suspend our judgment on whether something that happens to us is going to prove to be ultimately good or bad. There are times, of course, when what appears to be “bad” for us turns out to be good for us, and what appears to be “good” turns out to be bad for us.
Life is filled with these kinds of ironies. However, if we give our lives to Christ, we can be assured that God will cause all things to work for our ultimate good.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Romans 8:28-30.
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
In Romans 8:28, we read that we know in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. This is a famous verse.
It is important to note, that when God says he will cause all things to work for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose, that from God’s perspective and the context of this passage (which is speaking about how the Holy Spirit transforms us), the “good” that God is talking about is a spiritual good.
In the preceding verses, the Apostle Paul has argued that our suffering, if we belong to Christ, will ultimately result in something glorious for us. Paul speaks of creation groaning, as in the pains of childbirth, like a pregnant woman experiencing the pain of labour. Our suffering, if we belong to God, is momentary, but leads to a lasting joy.
It is important to note, however, as commentator Douglas Moo points out, that when God says that he is working all things for good for those who love him, for those who have been called according to his purpose, the good here may be a spiritual good (rather than a material good), and the “good” may be referring to this life, but it may also be referring to our life to come.
Someone might glibly say, based on a superficial understanding of the verse, to someone who just lost a job, “Oh, God’s working all things together for good, so I’m sure you lost this job so you can get a better, higher paying job.”
It is possible that God would take us out of us out of a secure, well-paying job in order to free us from our materialism. It may be that in this life we will never have a really high-paying job again.
Someone might say, based on a misunderstanding of the verse, to someone who just broke up with his or her fiancé, “Oh God’s working all things together for good, so I’m sure you will get together with someone who’s more attractive.”
But, it may be that God wants to free that person from an engagement to be married because he wants to free that person for a ministry that would be difficult as a married person.
Someone might say based on a misreading of this verse, to someone who gets sick “Oh God’s working all things together for good, so I’m sure you’ll healed and healthier than before.”
But God may use the person’s suffering for some greater purpose in their life.
Romans 8:28 doesn’t mean things will always fall the way we want them to fall in our lives—SHORT term.
The great promise of this verse is that nothing that touches our lives is not under the control and direction of our loving father in heaven. And if we belong to God, then he will cause all things to work for our ultimate good…toward our being conformed to the image of Christ.
All things include even our sin. Last Sunday Catherine Fenn talked about how her pregnancy out of wedlock brought on feelings of guilt and shame, but also ultimately opened her heart to God. God can use even our sin for ultimate good.
When people ask me about the turning points in my life, I say that perhaps the most significant turning point for me occurred as a teenager when I was caught shoplifting. That experience, coupled with dad’s discipline of me, led me to realize that I needed to chart a new course in life. And that made me open to the Gospel of Jesus Christ which promises a new beginning, which I heard not long thereafter.
God can use even our sin for our ultimate good.
Richard Rohr, in Everything Belongs, says that God will use even our sins to transform us.
Julian of Norwich heard from Jesus: Sin shall not be a shame to humans, but a glory. A mark of sin shall be turned to honour. That is great news.
(Now that’s not say of course, that if you’re contemplating murdering your roommate because he’s been getting on your nerves or wondering if you should begin an affair with someone that you should do it. Romans 8:28 is not encouraging sin going forward, but is saying if you have sinned know that God can use even that to further his purposes in you).
And as Sharon Smith shared two Sundays ago; and as Paul affirms in Romans 5 and 8 so clearly, God can use our suffering to lead us in a path toward eternal glory.
Throughout the Scriptures we see examples of people whom clearly God had chosen and put his hand upon, who suffered greatly. Joseph and Esther were two people whom clearly God had his hand upon, and yet God led them through great suffering in order that they would live with great dependence upon God. Suffering, like nothing else, can open us up to our need for God.
My wife Sakiko was the first person in her family tree to become a follower of Christ. She was working as an editor of a news magazine. She was in a romantic relationship that had become very painful, and as a result of that suffering her heart was opened up to Christ.
For many of us here we know from our experience that suffering has, or is, opening our hearts to God.
Some things are bitter… and in and of themselves they may not be good… take this for example... (hold up flour)--eaten by itself it’s not pleasant…. Or this for example (hold up salt)--eaten by itself it’s not pleasant…. Or this for example--(hold up baking powder) eaten by itself it’s not good… but taken with some butter and sugar… it can become this (hold up cookie) something good. God is working all things together for good for those who love God and who have been called according to his purpose—even if the individual things in and of themselves are not good.
Dallas Willard, the wise writer on the spiritual life, has said that for those who love God, nothing irredeemable can happen to you.
A powerful example of a person who has experienced unusual suffering, and yet God is clearly redeeming that suffering for his purposes in this person’s life, is Nick Vujicic
(Show DVD clip.)
Communion lead-in: The greatest example of all how good can come out of suffering is not Nick’s story (as great as that is), but the story of God becoming a human being in Jesus Christ, allowing himself to be nailed to a Roman cross--that’s suffering--on that cross, God in Christ bore your sins and mine, but out of that great suffering came the forgiveness of our sins and the gift of eternal life.
We can know by looking at God in the face of Jesus Christ that our suffering and even our sins can be used for our ultimate good and God’s eternal purposes.
On the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and broke it, and said, “This is my body broken for you.” He took the cup, and said, “This is my blood being poured out for you for the forgiveness of your sins, for our sins…”
(Offering for Myanmar and China)
In baptism tank for service 3

(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca)

1

Saturday, May 24, 2008

New River (May 25, 2008)

Romans 8 M9: Message

Text: Romans 8: 26-29

Title: A New River

Big Idea: When we are in Christ the river of the Holy Spirit guides our prayers and our lives.

About 6 months ago I saw the compelling documentary, Deep Water (Show the DVD jacket). The movie retells the story of the world’s first around-the-world sailing race back in 1968 sponsored by the Sunday Times of London, England.

Nine contestants enter the race. Eight are master sailors. There is one “dark horse of the sea” named Donald Crowhurst. Crowhurst is not an experienced sailor. He is a marine electronics specialist who has re-mortgaged his house to enter the competition. He is 36 years old and the father of four children. Crowhurst’s voyage begins ominously, when the champagne bottle cracked against the hull of his boat doesn’t break at the first, second or third try. Crowhurst has trouble getting his sailboat out of the harbour to begin the race. Once he is at sea, his self-made boat begins to first leak and then fall apart. Crowhurst should turn around and head back to England (where the race began), but turning back would mean that he would face financial ruin, as the sponsorship money that had enabled him to enter the race was given on the condition that he would complete the race. Crowhurst also doesn’t want to turn back because that would also signify failure. So Crowhurst, in more than one way, finds himself lost at sea in the Atlantic.
There are times when, like Crowhurst, we feel lost at sea.

Perhaps we don’t know if we’re in the right program at school or in the right job… or the right relationship (or we just wish we were in a relationship)… or we’ve experienced the loss of something: our innocence, our health, a loved one… or perhaps we feel lost because life we’re not where we hoped we would be at this stage in our lives.

What Romans 8 tells us is that those of us who belong to God are never truly lost at sea. In Romans 8 we learn that the river of the Holy Spirit helps guide us in our life’s journey.

We see in Romans 8 how the Holy Spirit assures us that God does not condemn us if we are joined to Christ. We also see in Romans 8 how the Holy Spirit transforms our hearts so that we have the power to live in a new kind of way in the world. The Holy Spirit reveals to us and assures us that we can have a new identity as beloved sons and daughters of God. As Sharon pointed out last Sunday, the Holy Spirit also helps to redeem our suffering.

And as we’ll see today—if lives are joined to Christ even when if feel lost at sea, we are not lost because the river of the Holy Spirit prays for us and through those prayers guides our lives.

If you have your Bibles, please turn to Romans 8: 26-29.

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God.
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who [a] have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
In verse 26 we read that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness by helping us to pray.
Sometimes we do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Holy Spirit himself, Paul says, intercedes for us, and prays for us, through wordless groans. There are times in our life when we don’t know how to pray, or specifically what to pray for, because we are not certain of what God’s intention is for us in a particular matter. We might have a decision to make around school, or work, or a relationship, or where to live, and we don’t know what God’s intention for us is. In those times, Paul tells us, the Holy Spirit helps us by interceding for us, by praying through us, in ways that are deeper than words.
There are times when we experience something so painful we don’t have the strength to pray. When my mentor, a Presbyterian minister, lost his son Sandy (when Sandy was just 21 years old) to a rare heart disease, my mentor was asked, “How could you pray after the death of your son?” He replied, “I couldn’t pray.” When I experienced a very painful break-up as a young adult, for some time after I couldn’t pray…
Sometimes when we experience a deep and painful loss, we cannot pray. And the Apostle Paul here is saying in those times, the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness and prays for us (and through us) with groans that are deeper than words themselves.
There are also times when we feel than we cannot pray because our relationship with God seems so dry. Sometimes Christian teachers will say that we need to do all that we can to eliminate that sense of dryness in our relationship with God, but there are times when God allows a sense of dryness to come into our relationship with him to test us--to see whether we want to engage God simply because it feels good…because we are receiving all kinds of spiritual vibes in prayer, or an experience of a spiritual high worship through music. And sometimes God allows us to experience a season of dryness so that we can know, and so God can know that we are not so much seeking God for some kind of cool spiritual vibe or high but because we love God….
We can all intuit that God would want to wean us off things that are obviously sinful and destructive, such as addiction to illegal drugs, or to promiscuous sex, or addiction to TV or certain foods as a sources of comfort. But we may not know that as we progress in our spiritual life God may also want to wean us from our lusting after certain kinds of spiritual experiences, certain kinds of spiritual highs. So God may in his providence allow us to enter into a season of spiritual dryness. If, as we look back across x number of weeks or months, and we cannot identify any obvious sins that we have committed that would otherwise cut us off from God, and if we have learned the basics of prayer (that’s important to connect with God), but we still feel a dryness in our relationship with God (that wasn’t there before), it may be that God is testing and maturing us through what St. John of the Cross called the “dark night”…
When we are experiencing the “dark night” it is difficult to pray. And in these times, the Holy Spirit, Paul says, intercedes through us. We may not be praying in a very active kind of way, but if we spend time in silence before God, even if we can’t pray, we can know that the river of the Holy Spirit is praying in us and through us, and interceding on our behalf.
We may feel that we are lost at sea, but we are not. As Father Thomas Green points in out in his book on prayer When the Well Runs Dry (and the Dry Well is his way of imaging the dark night) there are times when in our prayer life when we can “swim” and, i.e., have a very active verbal prayer life; and there are times in our prayer life when we cannot swim, when we cannot actively forge a particular direction in our prayers. Thomas Green says in those times we are to float in God, and relax in God, and to surrender to the tide of God, and trust that the tide will carry us where God wills us to go.
A few years ago I was speaking out in Oahu, Hawaii. One afternoon I was on one the beaches of the North Shore and was told by my host and friend Hugo that if you’re not careful a wave can sweep over you and the rip tides can carry you out to sea…
If you try to swim against back to shore against a rip tide, you’ll likely get worn out and die, but if you allow the tide to carry you out and then come to a place where the current isn’t as strong, you swim sideways and you can survive…
In our prayer life there are times when it’s better not to try to actively swim, but to simply float in God and trust that the tide will take us where God wants us to go…
Because the Holy Spirit is interceding for us, even when we cannot pray, we can know, as Paul says in Romans 8: 28, “in all things God is working for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born of many brothers and sisters.”
And so, we can know, according to Romans 8, that the river of Holy Spirit prays through us and guides us so we are never truly lost at sea, and if we can’t even swim out at sea we can know that if we float, the Holy Spirit will guide us into his purposes.
At this time I want to invite my colleague Catherine Fenn to come forward. Catherine is the pastor of our children’s ministry. Catherine life has been one guided by the river of Holy Spirit and she… is going to share part of her story with us now.

Hi. My name is Catherine Fenn and I’m the children’s pastor here at Tenth Church. I grew up in Saskatchewan and was a gregarious kid. Despite being outgoing I always felt alone. I remember as a very young child wondering why I was on the planet.
Despite coming from a farily functional home, as a young teenager I discovered that life was better, easier and more tolerable when I was high. I fell easily into a life of addictions to various things, got into a lot of trouble trying to finance those addictions and put myself in places of danger in the process.
During this time I did look for deeper meaning, for power and for hope in various places. I tried church, I tried psychiatry, I tried transendental experiences.
When I was eighteen and came to terms with the fact that I was pregnant, it felt like my heart was falling out. I didn’t have the strength to face another abortion, and made the decision to take this pregnancy to term, and give my baby up for adoption.
I had dropped out of school and was working at this time as a hair sylist in a salon that was owned by my boyfriend’s father. I knew that my baby would have the best chance in life if I could get healthy, and though I wasn’t able to stop drinking or smoking pot, I made a strong effort to curtail the use of other drugs.
A few months into my pregnancy, I picked up a book that looked interesting to me. I thought it was about the devil. The book is called Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth, and is written by a popular Christian author of that time, Hal Lindsay. Hal begins by talking about the occult, and how some people find it attractive. He had me totally with him here. He then goes on to describe how difficult and impossible life can get for those people, and still I was right there tracking everything he says. Here I was, eighteen and pregnant, in despair, full of shame and feeling about 85 years old, and unable to change. I was sitting and reading this book at work. The salon was empty that day, and I was there just answering the phone. I remember clearly putting the book down at one point and the thought going through my mind that I wished the world would just stop so that I could get off. When I picked up the book again, I turned the page. And right at the top of the next page Hal says: Right now you probably wish the world would just stop so that you could get off. I felt like he was reading my mind! In the past! And he goes on to explain that the God of the universe has this amazing plan for people JUST LIKE ME. That he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross and to rescue us from all the bad things we have done, to give us a brnad new life, a clean slate and a fresh start. You can’t imagine what good news this was for me! I didn’t walk to God, I ran. And as I sat there in that salon, and asked God to forgive my sins and to take over my life I literally FELT the joy of Jesus washing me in his love and peace. And as I continued to read Hal suggested that I get a Bible and read that too. So I picked up a copy of the Living Bible, New Testament, and read it cover to cover over the next week.
My pregnancy continued and my life style was still very shaky, but over the next few months I fell in love with my baby. If you’ve ever been pregnant you may be able to relate to this. I talked to him all the time, told him how much I loved him, was so connected to him. I dreaded the day that I would go into labour because I knew it would be the end.
And when that day came, I was determined to face it without the use of pain killers. I know this is a bit of a contradiction to how I was living the rest of my life, but I WANTED to experience it all with my mind fully engaged, to be able to remember those last moments with my child.
But in those minutes shortly before he was born, the pain of being in labour got to the point where I thought I couldn’t bear it anymore. And suddenly I had a very strong impression of God’s hand reaching down to me, and mine reaching up to him, and when our hands clasped in that moment my pain was not taken away, but it was reduced, and I had the strength to go forward with the delivery knowing for sure that I was not alone.
A few days later, in a room off to the side in that hospital, I sat with the legal documents in front of me, and a social worker across from me, and thought about what I was doing. I thought for so long that she got angry with me – it was just another day for her, and she was probably afraid that I would change my mind. In the end I signed those forms and relinguished my child to the government of Saskatchewan, to be placed for adoption. As it turned out, the social worker had written the wrong date on the forms, and I had to go back to the hospital later that day and do it all over again. I thought about skipping this detail since it is not really a necessary part of my story, but I actually still feel ticked off at her for making this clerical error so I decided to include it! When I finally walked away from the hospital that day, I truly felt alone. Pastor Ken’s metaphor of being lost at sea is exactly perfect for what I was feeling. I had no control and felt no consolation. I fell apart, eventually seeking comfort in all the familiar ways I’d learned to cope with pain.
Over the next few years God worked on me, patiently. I eventually found my way to a community of people who shared my experience of God’s amazing love in their lives. And God helped me to leave behind the things that had been so destructive to me. I prayed for my son every day, sometimes many many times a day. I loved him, and missed him, and though I felt somehow that God was looking after him, I still worried that he might not be okay.
Fast forward many years. By this time I was married and my husband and I together had 3 children. But I had never forgotten my first son, and I still needed to know what had happened to him, so I registered with Saskatchewan Social Services to do a post-adoption search. And then I waited. 2 years later a social worker contacted me and asked me to confirm whether or not I still wanted to do the search. She explained that I shouldn’t think that there would be a fairy-tale ending, and that in her experience these searches can end badly. She explained that adopted children have a higher than normal rate of social problems. And she asked “What if your son is on the street, do you STILL want to know?” And I said “Yes! Yes, I need to know what happened to him.”
Well, a couple of weeks later I was at work here, downstairs in my office, when the phone rang. It was that social worker, and she said, “I have good news. I’ve found your son.” I don’t know if you can imagine the emotions that raced through me when she said that! She told me that she had just had a long phone conversation with him, and that he sounded like a really nice guy, and that he was very open to meeting me. And then she said, “I know this is kind of funny, but he’s a little like you.” When I asked what she meant she said, “Well, he works for a religious organization and he works with children.” And she mentioned that he was currently living in Calgary.
The process of getting together with Danny, that’s my son’s name, was gradual and controlled. First of all we wrote letters to each other, and then we emailed. He explained that he was a Christian, and that he worked for a missions organization, working mostly with trouble youth in various parts of the world. He told me about his wife and about the wonderful family he’d grown up in.
And then we had our first phone conversation. It was amazing to hear his voice. He sounded like my Dad, and my brother, and my other sons. We laughed a lot in that conversation, and made plans to get together.
And then finally the day came when we would meet. After church one Sunday I flew to Calgary rented a car at the airport, and drove over to his place. Suddenly I was filled with fear. It was like the most bizzare blind date you can imagine. When I got to his place I knew that he was sitting there waiting for me, but I just could NOT stop the car. I drove right on by, and tried to pull myself together. You’ll be happy to know that I eventually got up the courage to pull over, walk up to the door, and ring the bell.
That first meeting was amazing. We talked for hours and hours, intensely comparing notes, marvelling at all the many freakish similarities we discovered. I can’t list them all but they were things like how Danny was working out of a church in Calgary where my husband’s uncle was the senior pastor. This uncle had known Danny’s adoptive parents for 30 years, and had known and loved my son from the moment they brought him home. And how my good friend, Dean Pinter, had grown up in a house just down the street from Danny, going to the same church, even babysitting Danny and his sister when they were little.
Danny has a fantastic sense of humour, and is very easy to be with. He’s a huge hockey fan, and one of the first things he said to me was: Please tell me my Dad is Wayne Gretsky.” I had to tell him that sorry, I didn’t even know Wayne. And he made a point of telling me very seriously about the focus of his life. He said: “Catherine I need you to know that the most important thing in my life is God. Serving him is what my life is all about.” I don’t know if you can imagine how it felt to hear him say that.
It’s been 3 ½ years since that meeting and we continue to get to know each other.
Now I have to say that I did have one hesiation in telling my story here today. It’s because on the surface it all looks so good. You may be sitting there thinking that my life was messed up, and then I turned it over to God, and now hey presto everything is great.
What I want you to know is that it isn’t like that.
First of all there were 25 years of separation that were painful to me. And then, even in our re-connection, there is a new kind of struggle for me, one I hadn’t anticipated. I had tried to prepare myself for bad news about Danny. I’d thought about how I might react if I discovered that he was living on the street or in a crackhouse somewhere. I’d even thought about how I might try to deal with the guilt I’d feel if he had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. What I wasn’t prepared for was the sense of loss I’d have when I met him and discovered what a wonderful person he is. How I’d realize then just how much I’d truly given up, and how I would never get that time back. And though we have a good and growing relationship, it is different from the relationship I have with the kids I’ve raised.
And you’ve got to know that I took a ton of baggage into my marriage with me.
And the thing about the addictions is still a part of my life. I know that I need to live in a pretty controlled way to avoid temptation, and that I need to be in a supportive community.
But one thing I CAN say, is that in all these things, in the joy and in the pain, I can see God’s hand. It’s like that moment when I was in labour, and sensed God reaching down to me. The pain didn’t disappear, but I knew that I wasn’t carrying it alone anymore.



What Catherine’s story and Paul’s words in Romans 8 tell us is that if we belong to God we are never really lost at sea, that we are in the river of God and that God is working all things, all things for good to those who love God and those who are called according to his purpose…
Pray…. You may want to thank God for guiding you…. You may want to pray God would enable you to enter the river of himself… by helping you to give your life to him and experience the washing of the river which makes all things new… you may simply want to sit in silence…

Prayer of Thomas Merton from Thoughts in Solitude
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

(The sermon can be heard on line at: http://www.tenth.ca/)

Friday, May 02, 2008

A New Identity (May 4, 2008)

Romans 8 M6

Title: A New Identity

Text: Romans 8: 12-16

Big Idea: We can move from fear to freedom when we hear the Holy Spirit tell us that we are sons and daughters of God.

Sometimes people who are having troubling believing in God, will ask me why I believe…

One of the DVDs that plays in my mind from time to time goes back to the time when I first gave my to Christ life as a teenager.

I had worked really hard to get into the elite, popular “in” group (I kind of just barely made it in). I worked fairly hard to excel in sports.

Even I was in the “cool, in group” and a reasonably good athlete, I had so many insecurities as a teenager—I think more than most… (I wouldn’t want to relive my high school days).

After I had given my life to Christ, I began eating lunch and spending time with a kid who was a nerd, who had given his life to Christ. People at the high school began to ask me, “Why I wasn’t hanging around with the cool kids anymore?”

Being part of the in-group had been such a big source of the self-esteem I had, but I started hanging out less with the “cool” and popular group after giving my life to Christ.
But, then to my surprise, for the first time as an adolescent, I started feeling good about myself in healthy way… I had this new joy and inner peace…

One of the signs that a person truly has been reborn with the help of Jesus Christ into the family of God…one of the signs that a person really is a son or daughter of God… is that he or she increasingly hears in their heart the voice of the Spirit affirming who they.

Now that doesn’t mean that, like Joan of Arc, we constantly hear an almost inaudible voice in our mind, but we find that we are increasingly led by the Spirit of God (as Paul says in Romans 8:14). If we are sons and daughters, we are led by the Holy Spirit into the way of God, into the way of wholeness and peace.

One of the ways that the Spirit speaks to those who belong to God is that he tells us, deep in our spirit, that we are a beloved son or a daughter of God.

Paul writes in Romans 8:14-15:

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."

Paul here says the person who is led by the Holy Spirit cries out in their inner being ABBA! FATHER! Abba is the most personal word a person can use for God. It might be equivalent to our saying PAPPA or DADDY. It conveys a deeply intimate connection.

In the text Paul says in verse 15, “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you have to live in fear again, rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship (or daughter-ship).”

Paul here is describing the identity of 2 kinds of people—one of them is a slave and the other is a son or a daughter.

Paul’s Jewish hearers would have been intimately acquainted with the world of slavery. They would have remembered that their ancestors had been slaves in Egypt for more than 400 years. As inhabitants of the Roman Empire, all of Paul’s hearers whether Jew or Gentile, if they were not slaves themselves, would have been able to immediately grasp the plight of a slave, as it was a widespread practice in their day.

It may be a little bit hard for us to imagine because none of us, as far as I know, have been literal slaves.

But, imagine what it would be like to be a slave or a servant. If you were able to imagine that, perhaps you would have pictured yourself living in fear. A slave or an indentured servant tends to be fearful because he or she does not have real security in the household or in the organization in which he or she works. If the slave does not perform up to par, the slave is on his or her way out… Let go… fired. So a slave or servant lives in fear.

Second, a slave or a servant serves out of a sense of duty. They serve because they have to serve; it is their job. Their livelihood depends on it.

Third, a slave or a servant serves out of self-interest. He or she knows that one must work to go on living, so their motivation to work arises from self-interest—survival.

In contrast, the son or daughter, at least in a healthy family, does not live with fear. The son or daughter in a healthy family does not help with dishes or cut the grass because he or she is afraid. The son or daughter in a healthy family knows that he or she is secure in the love of a father and mother (or parent figure). So their life and work is not motivated out of duty, but out of gratitude. The son or the daughter who knows he or she is loved and does not serve merely out of self-interest, but out of love for his or her parents.

As I said, most of us have not been slaves or servants in a traditional sense. But many of us know what it is like to have the mindset of a slave. Some of us here came from families where our parents had unrealistic expectations of us. They wrote scripts for us that reflected their ambitions and their insecurities, rather than the ecology of our personhood.

A good friend of mine, whom I spoke with recently, grew up in a family where her dad won the Nobel prize in physics. This friend of mine grew up with a father whose expectations were so high she could never meet them. She went to one of the best universities in the world. She is beautiful, sophisticated, gifted and succeeding in her career, but I know that there is a part of her that feels like she is not doing enough great things to be a truly “worthy” human being, and, in her head, she knows she should not think like that, but there is a part of her spirit that lives in fear--the sense that she has to do more and to do better.

Maybe my friend’s case is a little more extreme, but most of us, to some degree or another, are tempted to consider ourselves worthy if and only if we have been successful in the areas of our life that matter to us, whether it’s school, at work, ministry, or some recreational pursuit, or some relationship, being liked. And when we don’t fulfill our goals, when we don’t hit the level of performance we desire (some of have no thermostat to know whether the mercury is high enough), we feel a sense of shame, and we try to just step things up. And some of us have this mindset of a slave.

Some of us feel worthy only if we have certain things. The right kinds of clothes, the right kinds of electronic gadgets, mountain bike, car, apartment…

In the novel the Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby who grew up with very little money amasses enormous wealth, allegedly through bootlegging alcohol, buys a home in a fashionable, upper class neighborhood on Long Island and throws lavish great parties, in the hopes of winning the affection of Daisy, an upper class woman he has been in love with from the time he was a young man…. a woman whom he apparently couldn’t win back when he was younger because he didn’t have enough money.

Like Jay Gatsby some of feel worthy only if we have certain things…

We can also be a slave or a servant because our worthiness depends on what others think of us. We may think we are above all that, but most of us are affected by that more than we care to admit. It starts pretty early. As a child and as a teenager I genuinely loved sports, but as a teenager I noticed that while I continued to love sports, I was no longer just playing for the pure love of a particular game. I knew, from experience, that if I played basketball well, I would attract the attention of girls who were clearly out of my league. If I played well, the popular girls would want to associate with me… be around me. If I played poorly, on the same girls would kind of turn their heads and walk past me in the hallway as if I had some kind of open, contagious sore. A big part of my well-being as a teenager rose and fell on my performance in sports because a big part of my approval rose and fell on my performance in sports.

I wish I could say as an adult I am completely free of that. I grew up with very loving parents… and I have a very loving wife …and considerate friends... (and a dog who takes me as I am). I know I shouldn’t be this way, but there is still a part of me that feels like I will be worthy if I can do certain things well and if I can win the approval of certain people.

What Paul is saying here in Romans 8 is if we experience the deep work of the Holy Spirit work in our life, along with that we will experience a new sense of God’s love for us. We will hear the voice of the Spirit saying, “You are my beloved son and my beloved daughter,” and we will find ourselves becoming more and more free.

A slave or a servant’s security and sense of significance is based on what they do, what they have and what others think of them. A slave is motivated by fear. A son or a daughter’s security and significance is rooted in being deeply loved by God. A son or a daughter’s motivation to serve and to contribute is gratitude.

Are we a slave or son or a daughter, or part way in between? Often I find that I am part way in between.

How can we become people who live as the beloved son or daughter of God?

The first step, of course, would be to become a son or daughter of God… by giving our whole self to God… When you become a son or daughter of God… we become according to Romans 8:29 a brother or sister of God’s son Jesus Christ… deeply loved.

Once we are sons and daughters of God, the next step is to really believe( we are loved) we are loved by God….

Henri Nouwen in his book The Beloved says:

One of the voices that seeks to claim our hearts and souls is the voice of self rejection. It is the voice that says, "You are no good, you are ugly; you are worthless; you are despicable, you are nobody--unless you can demonstrate the opposite"….

However, this voice of self rejection "is the greatest enemy to the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the 'Beloved'"….

It is our belovedness, not the rejection of ourselves, that is the core truth of who we are. And knowing that we are the Beloved--that we are God's Beloved--is what it means to be blessed….

God our Father has blessed us, and indeed blesses us even now, in this very way. As the voice of the Father pierced through the heavens and spoke into the core of Jesus' soul, "You are my son, whom I love. In you I am well pleased," the voice of the Father breaks through anything and everything that seeks to keep us listening to the voice of self rejection and claims us as his Beloved.

How can we know that we are beloved? How can we are loved by God like that?

Sometimes we know it in our head, but not in our heart.

Part of the way we can know we are beloved is through the affirmation of another.

The priest and writer Henri Nouwen was once at a Catholic retreat. At this retreat it was made known that only baptized Catholics could take communion, so Henri Nouwen began another line of people who could take communion and he blessed by simply telling them who they were… By the end or retreat his line was longer than the line for those taking communion. We can bless others by telling them who they are…

Do you have someone who tells you who you are and whose you are?

My close friend Chris Woodhull is a respected political leaders and poet who also leads Tribe One, a community organization that seeks to help and transform young African American men out of street gangs by employing them in for-profit enterprises.

“My friends, in working with these gang members,” Chris says, “people don’t change because they think, ‘I’m crap,’ they change because they get a glimpse of the beauty and power with them.”

If you can hold that beauty and power before them… they can change.

Do you have a friend who tells you who you are, and can hold a mirror before you showing your beauty and power as son or daughter of God?

The Holy Spirit in answer to prayer tells us how deeply we are loved…
We must pray for a new sense of God’s love in our heart…

How can we know that even in our brokenness—or rather especially in our brokenness we are loved by God?

Because when we were broken and sinning against God, God demonstrated his love for us in Christ by dying for us so we could experience homecoming.

On the night Jesus was betrayed he took bread and broke it and said this is my body given for you…

Remember you are loved… and respond out of gratitude by giving yourself to the God who loves you…

(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio)