Who's Your Savior?

Isaiah 49 January 18, 2014

This week, I wrote a pretty good sermon on the 1 Corinthians passage we read today. I labored over it. I struggled over the words and the exactly right illustrations to use. Finally, after quite a few hours, it was written and saved to my computer, and as I sometimes do, I asked a fellow minister to read it over to see what she thought. She asked me to send it to her, and when I went to open my computer up, it didn't turn on.

I didn't get worried too quickly however, because I just figured if I hit the power button, the computer will load up quickly enough. But nothing happened when I did that. So I pressed the button harder. I held it in for a good, long minute. Nothing. I plugged the computer in, even though I knew that the battery was fully charged, but I was getting desperate now. Still, nothing turned that computer on.

I sat there, stunned and angry because this computer is barely 6 months old and how dare this happen to me when I had no way to access that wonderful sermon I had written? By now, in my head, my sermon has become this epic writing that will inspire every one of us to do great things in the name of Jesus Christ. (Leave me to my illusions, please)

I was angry and upset, but not completely disheartened. I have friends that are technologically savvy. I turned to them. They couldn't help me. Then I remembered the man who has a computer business that has worked on the church computer. I gave him a call and he cheerfully agreed to look at it and he said that he'd at the least be able to get me my sermon off the hard drive. I breathed a deep sigh of relief! I was saved! This man was going to be my salvation!

I really should know better, shouldn't I? I am a pastor after all, I should know there is only one savior and it is not the very nice man at ACT. I dropped off my computer on Saturday morning and immediately, I heard him say, "Oh. This has a sealed hard drive. Hmm.." and I looked at him, alarmed, "Should.. should I write another sermon, just in case?"

"It might be wise," the man told me, but I didn't want to believe that he couldn't fix it; that this man couldn't save me the toil of writing two sermons in a week. I went and worked out, I took a leisurely shower, I called my grandmother. I went to Barnes and Noble and had a coffee, playing on the internet and considering writing a sermon, but holding off. I did everything but write a sermon because I had faith in the this man's computer saving skills.

As I write this, the man has had my computer for over eight hours and will not answer the phone when I call. I think he's afraid of delivering the blow that my sermon will be forever lost to me. That's when I decided to reread Isaiah 49 and a couple lines really jumped out at me.

"[God] said to me, “You are my servant,  Israel, in whom I will display my splendor. But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all. Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.”

I labored in vain all week long to write a sermon that would connect with each of you in the pews this week. It was in vain because I am unable to share it with you in it's exact, glorious form. However, the true lesson this week was a reminder to us all that when we do not remember God that we labor in vain. I wanted that man to save me. He's not my savior. Jesus Christ is my savior. Jesus Christ has control of my destiny. Not the ACT man.

And that's where the message I had written for you this week intersects with the one I had to relearn. Our destiny as a church should begin with Jesus Christ. The foundation of our every rule, the rock on which we stand begins and ends not with our own ideas and feelings, but with what Jesus would have us do as HIS church. You see, we allow ourselves to get caught up in the world and the world's ideas of what is right and wrong. We allow ourselves to worry and the anxiety rips apart the peace that comes from being beloved children of God.

The world has a distorted view of truth. Jesus tells us that he is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to God except through Jesus Christ. Then why is it, when something bad happens in the world, that we tighten our ropes and batten down the hatches and act like the world has control over what we do here? The world's rules and problems, while they can influence how we minister to the needs of others, should not and cannot affect who we are as a church. We cannot let fear and doubt be our motivators in what we do.

The fear and anxiety we experience every time we hear about something bad is not coming from Jesus. It comes from the devil. When we make decisions to not help others because our budget wasn't made last year; when we huddle in groups to gossip about others because it's easier than facing the problems of the church; when we turn to making more committees and rules and bylaws because it makes us feel safer; we are not following Jesus Christ.

Jesus never played it safe. Jesus never allowed an angry mob to prevent him from speaking the truth. Jesus  never spoke something about a person that he wasn't willing to say to their face and he didn't use others to say those things he was thinking about them. Jesus didn't think the answer to a problem was to make a bunch of rules. The way Jesus faced problems was through prayer, meditation, reading the scriptures, and trusting in the unshakable foundation of his relationship with God. The same relationship that we have been adopted into upon our baptism.

As a church, we need to stop fearing the future. We need to let go of our anxieties as individuals. We need to leave the burdens of the world at the door and embrace the Holy Spirit's claim upon us. We are children of God. We are promised that when we trust in Jesus Christ, that he will guide us where we need to go. Jesus doesn't promise that it will be an easy journey, but he promises to be our shepherd.

When we don't think and act like Jesus, we labor in vain. When we make the mistake of thinking another person or another bunch of rules can save us; we labor in vain. We dig a huge hole for ourselves and wonder why suddenly we can no longer see the light. LOOK UP. Let go of your fears. Let go of your doubts. Trust that God has placed you exactly where you're supposed to be, that the people that are in your life are there for a reason, and trust in Jesus.

Stop trusting the world. Stop trusting the world's reactions to what goes on. Stop trusting yourself and all your thoughts that aren't inspired by the love and peace of Jesus Christ. Stop trusting in committees and rules and this crazy idea that the more you worry about something that you can prevent it from happening! We drive ourselves mad with all of these thoughts, worries, and fears. We get so lost and caught up in them that we forget why we're here.

WHY ARE YOU HERE?! If it's not to worship God, to share in the love of Jesus Christ, to experience the connection of a community bound in the Holy Spirit then you're here for the wrong reasons. If you're here to hear a good sermon or to be entertained by the music then you're here for the wrong reason. If you're here because you like me or because you hate me; if you're here because you've always come here; if you're here because you had nothing better to do this morning then you're here for the wrong reason.

Church is community. Worship services are about giving thanks to God for the blessings of our life and sharing in each other's sorrows. It's about connecting with others who believe the things that you believe. It's about loving that slightly strange person that walks in five minutes late every service. It's about feeling a sense of belonging to something so much bigger and grander than anything else in the world. It's about learning to accept differences and be more tolerant and forgiving. This is not a social club. This is not something to do on a Sunday morning. This is not the place to judge others.

When church becomes anything other than a connection of a community that is in love with Jesus Christ, it is doomed to fail. Harsh words, but true. We're not here because of you or me. We're here because of Jesus. We're not here to show off our jewelry or clothes. We're here to be clothed in the glory of Christ. We're not here to be petty and mean in our thoughts about the people we don't like that attend here. We're here to learn more about what it means to love a person that annoys us to death because Jesus loved those that killed him.

Fear and anxiety remove us from the light. Fear and anxiety will keep us wandering in the desert for a lot longer than the 40 years the Israelites spent in it. How long will we wander from God's path? How long will we ignore the Holy Spirit's urgings? How long will we pretend to be our own savior instead of acknowledging Christ as our only Savior?

That.. is up to you.

Amen.