Let's Do This

January 1, 2017

Stetson Memorial UMC

New Year’s Day

Sermon Series:

 “Becoming You…”

Adapted from Marcia McPhee’

“Who Are You?” Sermon Series

Psalm 8 NKJV

Revelation 21:1-6 CEB

Ephesians 3:1-12 CEB

Matthew 2:9-10 NIV

“Let’s Do This…”

Prayer that God’s Word is heard through me or in-spite of me…

Good morning. Have you ever been so psyched to do something that you are all pumped up? You are so excited that you can’t even sleep. It is something that you have wanted to do or so long and now you have your opportunity to do so. I love the Home Depot commercials where people are going to Home Depot and getting the stuff they need to complete a project around the home. The phrase that catches my attention is when they say “Let’s do this.” I think that this year this will be my “mantra” … Let’s Do This!

Happy New Year! I pray that all of you had an awe-inspired Christmas and that you would have a God breathed New Year. It is nice though, having the holiday’s behind us. I can have a chance to slow down a little and breath in…well at least for the next 9 weeks before Lent begins.

Back to the let’s do this statement. In the Christian calendar, today is Epiphany Sunday. The day we celebrate the Magi coming to visit Jesus… I wonder how they must have felt? They were so excited to see His star and they traveled from a faraway distant land. They finally were able see the new born king that was foretold by the prophets. Listen to what Matthew 2:9-10 says about their emotions upon finding Jesus.

“After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.”

Their “Let’s Do This” brought them to a place of awe and wonder…they followed God’s star and discovered and unimagined joy.

Each time we enter into a new year I always think of Revelation 21:1-6. It reminds me of God’s promise and gives me hope of “Maybe this year.” It reads:

New heaven and new earth

21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 I heard a loud voice from the throne say, “Look! God’s dwelling is here with humankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples. God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. There will be no mourning, crying, or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 5 Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look! I’m making all things new.” He also said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “All is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will freely give water from the life-giving spring.

This piece of scripture makes we want to do something in the here and now… This piece of scripture makes me say “let’s do this”…Let’s make a difference in other’s lives…Let’s help those who are mourning, in pain, crying… Let’s bring them to God’s dwelling place so that god may dwell with them too.

Now you may say to yourself…well that’s all fine and good for you Pastor Ruth but I am not so sure this “Let’s do this” mantra is going to work for me…I’m just not cut out to “do it.” You know what…neither was I. But the grace of God came upon me and I stand here before you now because of it. But you still may not be convinced of the whole “Let’s do this thing” … Ok…let’s hear a word from Paul that kind of tells us that we all really do need to “Do This”… now as I read this scripture I want you to insert your name when I say Paul … I am reading Ephesians 3:1-12…

Paul, apostle to the Gentiles

3 This is why I, Paul, am a prisoner of Christ for you Gentiles.

2 You’ve heard, of course, about the responsibility to distribute God’s grace, which God gave to me for you, right? 3 God showed me his secret plan in a revelation, as I mentioned briefly before (4 when you read this, you’ll understand my insight into the secret plan about Christ). 5 Earlier generations didn’t know this hidden plan that God has now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets through the Spirit. 6 This plan is that the Gentiles would be coheirs and parts of the same body, and that they would share with the Jews in the promises of God in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 7 I became a servant of the gospel because of the grace that God showed me through the exercise of his power.

8 God gave his grace to me, the least of all God’s people, to preach the good news about the immeasurable riches of Christ to the Gentiles. 9 God sent me to reveal the secret plan that had been hidden since the beginning of time by God, who created everything. 10 God’s purpose is now to show the rulers and powers in the heavens the many different varieties of his wisdom through the church. 11 This was consistent with the plan he had from the beginning of time that he accomplished through Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 In Christ we have bold and confident access to God through faith in him.”

“about the responsibility to distribute God’s grace, which God gave to me for you” We have a responsibility to distribute God’s grace…to share our stories of faith. We are given grace to share grace…

“This plan is that the Gentiles would be coheirs and parts of the same body, and that they would share with the Jews in the promises of God in Christ Jesus through the gospel” We are to share the fact that within God’s plan, through Jesus, we too have the same promises of old…

“God gave his grace to me, the least of all God’s people, to preach the good news about the immeasurable riches of Christ to the Gentiles. 9 God sent me to reveal the secret plan that had been hidden since the beginning of time by God, who created everything” We are to be the ambassadors of God to the world…from our homeland which is not of this world… We are to share the Good News…

This all can be very hard when we may not know who we are in Christ Jesus. Who are we really…how does God equip us…what are we supposed to do…? I propose this for us. Let’s look at who we are. Let’s take a deep journey into these questions and more. Let’s see what transformation happens as we become who God says we are and not who the world thinks we are. 

In 2017 let’s do this…let’s have “More saving. More doing.” …as home depot states. This journey begins with its first steps today. Are you willing to become you? Well then “Let’s Do This” together. Let’s do this for the One who is the Messiah…the Savior…the child in a manger…our Risen Lord, Jesus Christs.

Amen

Beloved

December 25, 2016

Stetson Memorial UMC

Christmas Day

“A Sacred Moment”

Sermon Series

Psalm 98

Luke 2:1-20

John 1:1-14

“Beloved...”

A prayer of illumination so that God will speak through me or in-spite of me…

I would ask that you would stand as you are able for the reading of the Gospel according to the apostle Luke Chapter 2, verses 1-20. Listen to the word of God for His people…you and I… (Read the gospel from the NIV Bible)

Merry Christmas. I don’t know about you but I have been waiting all year to say those words. Those two words shatter what the world around us and bring the sacred near. These two words change our lives. These two words are words of love and redemption. With these two words God shatters the strong holds of the enemy. Without these two words, there is no happy Easter…no day of atonement. Without these two words, there is no hope or light in the darkness… Merry Christmas to you all.

Over the past few of weeks, we have been talking about the sacred. We have talked about the sacredness of the season we are in…the season of Advent when we expectantly wait to celebrate Jesus’ birth and wait expectantly for His return. But at times we can get so busy that we lose that sense of wonder we had and everything becomes a chore…a box to be checked off…

We have talked about the fact that if we don’t find a way to slow down, we are going to miss the best part of this season of giving that we call Advent. We are going to miss the best gift that we could ever receive. The gift of God’s own Son in the form of a baby on a cold and silent night. When we slow down, we will see the sacredness all around us.

We know that the sacredness of something should be revered and respected but awe and wonder of this season seems to get lost in the lights and glamor. If we want to see…to feel…to touch the sacred, we need to slow down our pace and just be for the moment…lest we miss the awe and wonder of the manger.

This Advent season, we have slowed down…even if for but a moment…to see what might be missed in the hustle and bustle of the season. I pray that you and I have been able to see this season through the kaleidoscope, the display of beauty within the sacred space of Advent…

I would ask that we again would stop for a moment and just breath in the sacredness of the space we are in right now…this sanctuary where God shows up to meet us each Sunday… I have asked that each of us would continue to spend some time each day…even just five minutes and focus on…meditate upon the Sacredness we talk about each week… Let each build upon each other until we embrace genuine purpose within this sacred moment…

We rediscovered that Advent is a sacred time. The time of heaven intersecting the time of the then and now. We have even talked about sacred people within the Christmas Adventure…remember…sacred people…set apart by and for God. We heard Mary and Joseph’s stories and discovered they were just ordinary people who “showed up” and God did the extraordinary in and through them…and we too have the same chance of the extraordinary…but we need to show up…that is when the extraordinary things happen…we heard the story of Mary and Elizabeth and how when they showed up hope was birthed within that sacred place.

And so here we are today…the day of Christmas…the day that we have waited for…the day that we celebrated the that Sacred Moment that love came down and the Sacred lived among us. What joy there was in heaven. Listen again to the angels greeting to the shepherds…

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

And what happened next…

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,

    and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

They knew that had happened to and for humanity and they celebrated. Now I am going out on a limb here but it seems to me that they were more over joy not so much about the birth of Christ but what that birth would mean to you and to me…

I think my favorite piece of scripture about Christ’s birth is found in John 1, verses 1-14. Let me read this account for you…

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” This is Christmas…this is the meaning behind the sacred moments…this is the joy of season. Immanuel…God with us. This is the story we, as Christians, should be telling instead of Santa Clause and his 8-tiny reindeer. This is the hope beyond all hope. This is the reason for the season…This is the greatest gift of all that we sang about just a few minutes ago, love wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. The sacred among us…

I continue to challenge you and I to take a road far different than the highway that leads to the Bethlehem Stable and continue to go back as we begin a New Year. I continue to dare us…you and I…to allow God to make something sacred out of our ordinary lives. The Sacred still walks among us, living in you and in me. We need to take that light into a world in need of light in the darkness. We have much to tell for we are the beloved of God for He loved us so much that He sent His only begotten Son and whoever believes in Him shall not die but have eternal life… You Are Loved! We are not loved because of something we can do or earn, we are simply beloved, first born of God. The proof…God took on flesh and lived among us…that’s all the proof we need…

I continue to challenge you and I to slow ourselves down and sit within the Sacredness of the manger where we can see and feel the sacredness of space not only in our sanctuary but as we take our “tent of the Meeting” out into a world that is in need of a “sacred, safe place” to be…to see the sacredness of the ordinary…and bring what we find there to the world through the sacredness of our lives, within the sacred space…the witness of what we find there…in and through the manger to the cross of our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas…may you have a God-inspired New Year!

Brand Spanking New

January 3, 2016

Stetson Memorial UMC

First Sunday of 2016

New Year/New Things

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 MSG

Isaiah 43:18-19 MSG

Revelation 21:1-8NIV

“Brand Spanking New…!”

Prayer for the Spirit’s leading…

Epiphany→ noun, plural epiphanies.

1. (initial capital letter) a Christian festival, observed on January 6, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi; Twelfth-day.

2. an appearance or manifestation, especially of a deity.

3. a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

4. a literary work or section of a work presenting, usually symbolically, such a moment of revelation and insight.

Good morning to all of you and Happy New Year. I can’t believe that we are at a new year already. Have you all made your New Year’s resolution yet? I have made a couple but we’ll see how that goes… I pray this New Year brings you blessings, hope and joy and that you have a renewed vision of Jesus and who He is in your lives.

In the Christian calendar the first Sunday of the year is known as “Epiphany Sunday”. “Epiphany” is a very interesting word to me…so much so that I decided to look up the definition which I just read. This definition kind of reminds me of those old V8 commercials… you know what I’m talking about, the ones that the person has just discovered that what they were drinking had no real nutritional value and they could have had a V8 instead that would have given them nutritional value. That sudden realization that there was something more out there than what you are living with or doing.

I think we all have epiphanies in some shape or form. We are looking for our car keys and then all of the sudden a thought comes to mind of where they are. We may be reading scripture and all of the sudden we have that “ah ha” moment and it all makes perfect sense. We may see or be in a situation and all of the sudden it is like “light dawning on the horizon” we understand why it is all happening…we see it through the eyes of God instead of our own eyes.

The bible is full of epiphanies…people who all of the sudden understood something about God and His promises. Many men and women turned their lives around because of their encounter with Yahweh. I think my favorite one is found in Revelations…although I think that the whole book of Revelation is one big epiphany in itself… It is found in chapter 21 verses 1-8. It reads:

Revelation 21:1-8New International Version (NIV)

A New Heaven and a New Earth

21 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

God is creating…recreating something new…something that He intended from the beginning and He will dwell with His people. There is no more crying…or death…or anything that is against God…He will create everything brand spanking new. As we grasp this fact…this promise…what an epiphany we have as we realize who our God is and whom belongs to Him…you and I…we belong to Him who sits on the throne. Think about that for a moment. The Creator of all that we see…all that is good…is recreating…not only is He recreating the world in which we live but He is recreating us each day as we draw closer to Him.

So pastor Ruth…when can we expect this new world order? Good question. Well remember that reading from Ecclesiastes I read a little while ago? It will happen in God’s time. But we have that promise that it will happen. As children of God, I believe that nothing happens that isn’t Father filtered…nothing happens that God is not aware of…nothing happens for no reason. As we look around us the world doesn’t look all that appealing. There is so much evil around us that we can hardly look at it. We may be thinking “how can God let this happen? Where is God in this?” There a right time for everything on the earth… God is working out His plan. Each day He is creating and recreating. It’s His nature. As we look at the world with the eyes of God, we can see that promise beginning to take shape. But we must believe.

Maybe as we begin seeing through God’s eyes we can begin to see our part in the plan. Perhaps if we begin within ourselves we can begin a chain reaction that will affect the world around us and beyond. Isaiah 43:18-19 tells us:

“Forget about what’s happened;

    don’t keep going over old history.

Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.

    It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?

There it is! I’m making a road through the desert,

    rivers in the badlands.

My prayer for us as individuals and as a church is that we all will have that epiphany that will bring us ever closer to our Lord Jesus Christ this year…That we will have a revelation of who Christ is to us and who we are to Him…That we will embark on new journeys that will lead us to a new and exciting place where we will encounter our Redeemer in new ways.

Happy New Year…happy new you…happy new world…Amen

How Is It With Your Soul

https://youtu.be/VYEq5SDyF9Q

December 27, 2015

Stetson Memorial UMC

Last Sunday of The Year 2015

A Soul In Retrospect

Joel 2:28-29

Matthew 3:11

Isaiah 44:3

http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/selfexam.htm

(All Scripture is taken from the NIV Bible)

“How Is It With Your Soul…?”

Prayer for the Spirit’s leading…

Read the Scriptures…

Here we are at the end of another year. We have almost finished the race of 2015 and the next race is looking at us from just beyond the horizon. We tend to look back in retrospect at what has happened over the year.There has been both good and bad. There have been victories and struggles. But we have made it almost to the end.

As we end I would like to throw in a question that you might not hear too much in the world in which we live. How is it with your soul? Have you ever wondered about that? How is it with your soul? This question is one that John Wesley would ask all who were part of the movement that he was ushering in. He expected that everyone would be part of “classes” as he called it. They were accountability groups that prayed for each other and studied the scriptures together. How is it with your soul?

I think that we as Christians may have gotten away from caring for the soul…others and our own. We are so busy with everyday life that we don’t have time to tend the garden of the soul. We have forgotten that sin is waiting right around the corner just waiting for us to put our guard down. As soon as that happens, sin just slowly creeps in until it can take of all that we do and say. How is it with your soul?

We have just traveled to the manger another way and we thought about…we talked about…things that go on in the world around us and how through the eyes of God we can still see God working. But how can we see Him working if we are not taking time to be with him each day as He whispers His promises to our hearts? How is it with your soul?

This morning…I am going to ask us some of these Wesleyan questions…yup I am including myself with these questions. The questions have their origin in the spiritual accountability group started by Wesley when he was a student at Oxford — a group that detractors called "The Holy Club." The first list appeared about 1729 or 1730 in the preface to Wesley's second Oxford Diary. OK…here we go…now these are just some of them. I didn’t want to scare us off…

Ask Questions…

We are beginning to get ready for a new year. My prayer is that as we venture into the New Year, we will continue to ask these questions of ourselves. As we venture out in God’s name may we go out knowing the One who has sent us. We are His hands and feet. Go forth in the Strength of God, the Hope of Jesus Christ and the Wisdom of the Spirit.

Amen

God of Time and Space

God of time and space, thank you for this New Day Dawning...this New Year given... How awesome it is to know that time is in Your hands. Thank your for the year gone by. As I look back I can see You moving in my life...I can see that in those times I thought I was alone, You were there. How wonderful it is to know that You have all the times in my life setup for me and as I trust You with my life each day comes into being. May I feel You even more present...may I see You even more often...May I know You even more fully in this coming year. Lord, God, create me a new this year. May I serve You more fully as I step out in faith into this new horizon You have created for me. May I be ever closer to Your heart as I strive to live out the life You have set out before me. May I love more passionately...May I be more compassionate with others...May I shine more brightly...May I walk more humbly all to Your glory this coming year. May You use me as Your earthen vessel, waiting to be filled and then poured out for others. I look forward to what is ahead as You use me to bring about Your Kingdom come where Your will is done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Amen...!