Let’s Drag the Future Into the Present!

Psalm 121; 1 Corinthians 12:8-10

August Sermon Series: Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Laboring Together in the Lord

August 31, 2014

            I recently began reading a book written in 2011 by pastor and author Rob Bell.   Many of you have heard me mention his name before, and some of you have watched a video of his as part of FPC leadership gatherings.   This particular book is titled, Love Wins.   It’s subtitled, A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.  Now, doesn’t that just sound like the perfect, fun beach read?   Well, okay, the subject matter is more than a bit weighty.   But in the hands of such a gifted preacher and teacher, it’s a very conversational read.    It’s also a controversial book from the perspective of some evangelicals.  But I’m not going to get into that today.  

            My focus is on his biblically rooted teaching about heaven.   Specifically, about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.    I frequently lift up the same theme in my preaching and conversations.   For example, listen to what he declares to be the “proper view” of heaven –

“If you believe that you’re going to leave and evacuate to somewhere else, then why do anything about this world?  A proper view of heaven leads not to escape from the world, but to full engagement with it, all with the anticipation of a coming day when things are on earth as they currently are in heaven.”[i]     

So believing in heaven isn’t just about our hope of entering into a holy future at the time of our deaths.   Our souls do long to go home, to be fully restored to the sin-free spiritual realm with the “peace, stillness, serenity, and calm that comes from having everything in its right place” with God and where “nothing is required, needed or missing.”    But heaven is also about striving to engage in some of this experience right now because that is what Jesus taught us to do.   “He spoke of oneness with God,” Rob Bell reminds us, “the God who is so intimately connected with life in this world that every hair on your head is known.”   Jesus lived and spoke “as if the whole world” was about “endless dimensions of the divine, infinitesimally close.”    When you and I make this our daily focus, God’s promised future through Jesus Christ is,” to quote Bell again, “dragged into the present.” 

All through this month of August, I’ve been preaching on gifts of the Holy Spirit.   So why am I talking about heaven to conclude this summer sermon series?   Because as we head into the school and program year ahead, I pray we all will hold tightly to this vitally relevant understanding of heavenly life.   

I pray we’ll help one another have the vision that keeps it in view before, behind, and beyond us. 

 I pray that we’ll constantly seek out, celebrate and put into service the spiritual gifts God has given us all to help drag our future life in heaven into our here and now. 

To sum up this sermon series with this in mind –

heavenly life is dragged into the here and now when the Spirit gifts you with ways to personally know and not just know about Jesus; 

heavenly life is dragged into the here and now when the Spirit persuades you again and again to faithful action for the Gospel;

heavenly life is dragged into the here and now when the Spirit inspires you to take care of and help heal not only physical bodies, but also God-breathed souls;

heavenly life is dragged into the here and now when the Spirit fills you with prophetic voice that is both honestly jarring and full of hope.

Heaven isn’t just a distant realm.   It’s an immediate reality of love. 

We can’t come close to fully entering into it while walking upon this earthly plain.   We may be trying hard to embrace it, but in our sin, we are wearing, as Bell somewhat humorously describes, a “hazmat suit.”  

What we can do every day is acknowledge that our spiritual gifts aren’t in some cosmic back closet, waiting to be put into a Welcome Basket and given to us at the time of our passing into glory.   The Spirit puts them right in our back pockets each day so we have them with us to use to God’s glory everywhere we go.   By God’s grace and through our faith, we use these gifts to experience and to help others experience the heavenly life demonstrated to us by Jesus during his time on earth.

This is a life of humble service and outstanding expressions of love for all our neighbors and all of Creation. 

It’s a life of unending compassion and concern for all the injustices and illnesses this world endures. 

 It’s a life of deep peace amidst all the panic buttons we possess and keep pressing.

 It’s a life of hope-filled laboring together as a congregation, all the while carrying our personal crosses with a wide open eye on Easter.  

One particular witness to heavenly life has recently made its way across mainstream America.  It’s the story of what happened to a pastor’s kid in Nebraska named Colton Burpo.  His near death experience at the age of four due to a burst appendix is the subject of the popular book and movie Heaven Is For Real.   I haven’t read it or seen it.  But I did get myself familiar with it by visiting the family website which featured a television interview with Colton and his parents.  

I listened carefully to Colton.   And while his children’s picture book depiction of being gently lifted up to heaven by a white robe, purple sash wearing Jesus wasn’t distinctly inspiring to me, I did find that Colton said something I believe speaks to what happens when future heavenly life is faithfully dragged into the here and now.  

He said, “When I was in the throne room of God to start with, I was upset because I didn’t know what was happening.  What God did,” Colton continued, “was God used people or things that I liked to calm me down.  From there on, I felt better.”

At that critical intersection of future heavenly life and present heavenly life, Colton received special gifts from God to help him feel safe and secure in Christ’s care.   This word of witness makes the reality of heaven, for me at least, more real than lovely visions of flowing robes and streets of gold high on the clouds.

Has there been a critical time or two in your life when you had an intense experience of divine care?   When you had a sense in the here and now of your eternal wholeness and peace in Christ?   

These gifts come in the ways we’ve been considering all month.  And they come in the way they seemed to have come to young Colton – filling his fragile mind and heart with people and things that brought him peace and restoration.

Perhaps this is what happens when we recall a loved one gone to glory before us and feel a sense that whatever we are going through, they are still with us on earth as it is in heaven.  

Perhaps this is also what happens when we feel abandoned or stuck in a rut but then suddenly recall a special and sacred place or moment from the past and it fills us with fresh hope and joy for the present and future.

And I know this happens each time we gather to worship and glorify God and then go out to bring a prayer shawl, a home-cooked meal, our caring presence to someone in need of a little heaven on earth. 

Heavenly life is our being in the sacred keep of God from this time on and forevermore (Ps. 121).  May this be our focus today, tomorrow, all the blessed days ahead.  Amen.  

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[i] P. 46 of 198, Kindle Edition

Moses Said It Best ...

August Sermon Series: Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Prophecy

1 Corinthians 12:8-10; Numbers 11:24-30   

           

            Moses said it best … “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”

            Last Thursday evening, I’m convinced I listened to a modern day prophet live and in person -- Malala Yousafzai.    You may or may not know her name.  You most likely know her story …

She was born on July 12, 1997 in a province of northwestern Pakistan.   At the age of eleven, she began to write anonymously for the BBC, detailing her life under Islamic fundamentalist Taliban rule.   Her prophetic voice was especially loud against the Taliban denying the fundamental right of twenty two girls in her valley to be given an education.   At the age of twelve, she painted a picture showing her dream of interfaith harmony – a picture of her on a tree swing surrounded by several religious symbols and hands shaking on the horizon.  Her activism led to a New York Times documentary about her life the following year, quickly followed by world-wide attention. 

This included increased attention by the Taliban who felt threatened by the voice of this teenaged girl.   On October 9, 2014, they boarded Malala’s school bus.  They asked for her by name, then fired three bullets from a Colt 45 at her head.  

In what all kinds of folks in this world are acknowledging as a miracle, Malala survived.   And not only survived but made a remarkable recovery within three intensive months at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England.    Her prophetic voice against the oppression of all girls and women grew louder, stronger, and more global.    On her sixteenth birthday, she delivered an inspiring speech to the United Nations.   On her seventeenth birthday this year, just a few weeks ago, she traveled to Nigeria in support of the 276 girls kidnapped by extremists on April 14.    She is on Time magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World and has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize.    

And then there she was last Thursday seated next to her also inspirational father on the stage of Nash Theater at Raritan Valley Community College.   I was in the balcony listening to what I believe is indeed a divinely blessed voice.   She spoke about how terrorists can be killed by weapons and war, but terrorism can only truly be stopped by books and education.    In her bestselling book, she’s written, “When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”[i]

            Moses said it best … “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”

            The other day, the words of another modern day prophet greeted me through my laptop computer screen.    The words belonged to the Rev. Dr. Herbert Nelson, who is the Director for the Presbyterian Church (USA) Office of Public Witness.  He was officially addressing the continuing crisis in Ferguson, Missouri, concerning a Caucasian police officer fatally shooting seventeen year old Michael Brown, an African American who had stood with his arms raised and was otherwise unarmed.   He also cited five other recent, similarly controversial occurrences. 

 After offering words of sympathy and quoting from Jesus’ sermon-on-the-mount concerning those who mourn being comforted, a firmer voice arose.  “As Presbyterians,” he prophetically intoned, “we must stop giving lip service to a new Church while failing to confront the vestiges of racism in our Church and Society. Our work on racism in the United States is historic in some instances, but insignificant at many recent junctures in our social history. Most often our preference has been to wait for General Assembly statements or involvement from other entities of the denomination to provide litanies, prayers, and words of confession or healing. However, it is imperative that local congregations not remain silent and idle amid community strife. Nor can we be out of touch with the realities of racism, which still exist in the United States.”[ii]

Moses said it best … “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”

A little over a week ago, I got a bucket of ice water dumped on my head while video of it was being taken to publically post on Facebook.   Shortly before that, my teen daughter Anna had the same thing happen to her.   Both of us did so following the example of countless others across America -- average citizens and famous celebrities alike.  It’s gone viral, meaning these videos are all over the internet.  I do believe my favorite is former First Lady Laura Bush dumping the icy waters on a seemingly unsuspecting President Bush.    Kermit the Frog’s was pretty great too.   Have you seen any?  Each video is accompanied by words calling on others to do the same as a way of raising awareness and funds for the progressive neurodegenerative disease ALS, commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.   President Bush, by the way, called on his friend President Bill Clinton.   The idea is that folks either have 24 hours to have ice water dumped on them or they have to make a financial contribution to ALS.   Many people do both.   

God grieves over the diseases that strike and cause God’s children to suffer.   God responds to this by inspiring people to give voice to and take action that contributes to great healing and hope.   While the ice bath videos are very silly, we shouldn’t miss hearing the prophetic voices arising from them.

Moses said it best … “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”

When Moses said this, he was prophetically speaking to a group of grumblers.   The Israelites had been gravely complaining about their harsh life in the wilderness.   Faithfully responding to this, Moses lifted up to God prayers of lament on behalf of the people.  God responded with further revelation and by sending miraculous provisions of manna and quail.  God also recognized that Moses could not lead alone and so the Holy Spirit’s gift of prophesy was also bestowed upon people within the circle of formal leadership (the 70 elders) as well as those outside of it (Eldad and Medad).  

 If all people were given this spiritual gift, Moses stood there praying and later proclaiming, then all would be able to share in faithful intimacy with the Almighty and use their voices as instruments to communicate about the present and future that rests firmly in God’s mighty gracious care.

“Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”

The gift of prophecy is about being powerfully inspired by God to speak on behalf of God to certain times and circumstances.   Moses was a true and mighty prophet.   To his people and the world as they knew it, he raised awareness of what God was observing and the good God kept doing in response.   He was a voice of almost unbelievable hope, of divine promises and blessings.  He was also the voice of firm instructions for obedient living and the terrible consequences of sin.  

What we can perhaps most relate to about Moses is his reluctance to be a prophet in the first place.   God summoned him to be the voice of justice in the face of the Pharaoh.  He initially objected and argued with the Almighty.   He likely would have preferred to have a bucket of ice water dumped on him.   He complained about his speech impediment.  He didn’t feel worthy.   He was fearful.   He felt overwhelmed.  

And yet he knew well what it meant to be a powerful person. Raised by the Pharaoh’s daughter in the “greatest nation on the face of the earth at that time,” he had “the right family connections, the right education, and all the right advantages.”   One of the reasons he was a “premiere prophet” is that in the presence of the glory of God he was truly humbled and transformed into the voice and agent of justice and freedom for the oppressed. [iii]  

His wasn’t just a voice for the Israelites.   His was a voice for the whole, holy future of humankind.   Deuteronomy 18:15 is a promise that points to the coming of the Messiah.   And you know the Good News!   What Moses said best has been fulfilled!  The Spirit’s gift of prophetic insight is upon all people through Jesus Christ.  Our Lord’s voice comes through in both expected and unexpected, familiar and mysterious ways.   Through believers and unbelievers.  It is the voice of courageous hope, of fundamental human rights, of racial harmony, of peace in place of violence, of healing from every manner of physical and spiritual disease and above all, it is the voice of real love.

How and where are you hearing prophetic voices today?   What prophetic insight burns in your heart, yearning to be uttered and put into action?

Amen.

 

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[i] I Am Malala

[ii] http://officeofpublicwitness.blogspot.com/2014/08/j-herbert-nelson-on-killing-of-african.html?spref=fb

[iii] https://bible.org/seriespage/moses-premiere-prophet