August 29, 2021 ~ Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost ~ Sermon & Zoom Worship Video Link

Zoom Video Link

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/np5CVGiKN_lVRtSNPyn2YczKMo9mszbe3IhRVlk01axDE5Ds9YJjaOE7bF_iUDVa.NLPgwDzkDR3BMCDz

                                                                                                08/29/21—Highland—Meute

“Your Lord Jesus” Summer Series: “Dependable Disciples”

Deuteronomy 4: 1-2, 6-9; Psalm 15; James 1: 17-27; Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Pearl: Consistency breads dependability in disciples.

Function: To motivate worshippers to anchor their lives in the law of love and for that to tie the outward and inward life together in a consistent whole.

There is great security in knowing that you can depend upon other people.

1. You can trust what they say to be true.
2. They are the same person in all areas of their life.
   1. They do not put on appearances of one way of life and then live an all-together different way of life.
3. You are at ease in their presence. You do not have to worry who they are going to be today. They are consistent.

Disciples of Jesus should be those people known for dependability and consistency of life. There is a matching of word and deed.

1. This was the basic cause of the clash between Jesus and the religious authorities who criticized him for allowing his disciples to eat without first observing the ceremonial washing of hands which they never failed to observe.
   1. They were not consistent in the practice of their faith. They knew that the law was primarily about loving God and loving neighbor as self, but they added many other things which for them became almost as important, and often more important that the “main thing” of loving God and loving neighbor.
      1. This is why Jesus called them hypocrites and quoted the prophet Isaiah, saying, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines” (Mark 7: 6-7).
   1. Jesus reacted with great heat to their criticism disguised as an innocent question.
      1. They touched a nerve in Jesus.
      1. He was provoked at the inconsistency which he saw; he expected a match between word and deed, between belief and practice.
      1. He expected a deep penetration of the law of love into the heart of God’s people such that it would be consistently practiced in all areas of life.
   1. His criticism was against putting on the appearance of godliness but it not going much deeper than that.
      1. When people tell you they are about this or that but show that they are not, then you cannot depend on them and you are not secure in their presence. They are unsafe in the realm of relationship.
      1. When I did youth ministry one virtue that I stressed was the “importance of your word.” Don’t say one thing and do another thing. Be trustworthy.

Your Lord Jesus calls on his disciples to seek harmony between the inward life and the outward life: thus, to be dependable.

Of course, disciples stumble and fail. This will always be a given. We are prone to selfishness. We are prone to sin.

1. I don’t expect anyone to be perfect. We all struggle to be consistent.
   1. The problem comes when we resign ourselves to being inconsistent. If we do this our hearts become hard. The scriptures often comment on “hard-heartedness.”
      1. This is a condition which really pertains to your over-all being. It is not simply about the organ inside the top of your chest. Soft-heartedness means that you:
         1. are able to be taught;
         1. that you feel deeply;
         1. that you are moved by things that are going on;
         1. that you care from empathy and compassion;
         1. and that you are peaceful and a peace-seeker/maker.
      1. When your heart is hard, deep within you have stopped caring.
   1. Disciples of Jesus seek over and over through confession and repentance to have that soft heart.
   1. Disciples of Jesus seek day in and day out to consistently live out love for God and for self and for others.
2. Again, we will stumble and fail.
   1. But there will be an overall, regular rate of consistency of life which allows people to depend on you.
      1. It allows people to feel safe with you. They will trust you. They will be at ease with you because they will know you.
3. This comes from seeking godliness, not just putting on the appearance of being godly.

If you sense that, for you, your faith life is something which mainly happens for an hour on Sunday morning (and many do not even make that a habit of life), then there is a likely disconnect between what you profess and what you live out.

1. I recall some significant early influences on my life who sought to be godly people but they could also be very harsh and abusive to others.
   1. One was able to preach the most powerful, and beautifully moving sermons I’ve ever heard but was very hard on his staff of colleagues over whom he was Head. If he liked you things were good for you; if he did not, he made life difficult for you.
   1. Another person was an Elder in the church. He did significant missionary work both supporting it financially and doing it hands-on, and he was the CEO of an engineering firm. He required employees to attend a bible study once a week at the office which he led.
      1. But he would often be overheard screaming at employees in anger over who knows what.
      1. Many of his employees thought very little of his “Christian portrayal/profession” because of the way he acted toward others.
2. Disciples of Jesus should “preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” St. Francis of Assisi is given credit with that saying.
   1. And there is a Kenyan proverb which goes “when you pray, always remember to move your feet” (“CC,” 8/11/21). 
      1. I take from that proverb that our words of faith and our professions of faith should lead to acts of love and care which demonstrate the kingdom of God.

Under the Lordship of Jesus Christ his disciples are called to a radical consistency of life revolving around love of neighbor as self which fulfills the law of God.

1. Jesus was the epitome of consistency and “wholeness of being,” making him safe to be with.
   1. Everyone flocked to him in part, because he was a human being who was real and consistently whole through and through matching what he said with how he lived.
      1. For this reason people could trust him. They felt free to be themselves around him. They did not feel the need to put on appearances of godliness, because there was so much love dripping from him that whether they could put their finger on it or not they sensed that God was present all around Jesus and with them.
2. Disciples of Jesus are those who give a lot of grace to themselves and to others.
   1. Of all people we should realize all of the grace that was given to us. “Jesus gave his all, all to him we owe,” as the hymn goes.
   1. Jesus illustrated the kind of grace we are called to give when he told the story of the slave who owed so much to his master that he would not be able to repay it in one hundred lifetimes.
      1. The master called him to account for his debt and the slave fell at his feet begging for mercy. The master forgave the entire debt…a colossal sum.
      1. The slave no sooner left the presence of the master and rather than doing somersaults of joy and dancing and skipping and slapping hands with everyone he encountered, he throttled the neck of another someone who owed him a pittance demanding he pay immediately. When that person asked for mercy and more time to collect the money he had him thrown in prison.
   1. Amazingly, it is very humanly possible to forget all of the grace we have received through our lives and to not live it out in practical ways. It is this condition of a hard heart, you see.
   1. Of all people, disciples living under the Lordship of Jesus Christ practice what we profess we believe and we give grace; we have life from grace; and we are gracious people.
      1. Richard Rohr wrote, “See everything, judge little, and forgive much.”
3. I close with a story I told you once before but it is worth repeating.
   1. A Christian believer lost at sea washed up on the shore of a remote village.
      
      Half-dead from starvation, exposure and sea water, he was discovered unconscious by the people of the village and was slowly nursed back to full health. He lived thereafter among the people for some 20 years.
      
      During his time with them, he lived out his Christian faith. But he sang no sacred songs. He preached no sermons. He neither read nor recited Scripture in public. He made no personal faith claims whatsoever —except by his actions.
      
      When people were sick, he visited them, sitting long hours into the night.
      
      When people were hungry, he gave them of his own food.
      
      When people were lonely, he kept them company.
      
      He taught the children. He always took sides with those who had been wronged. There were few, if any, human conditions with which he didn’t identify.
      
      After 20 years passed, missionaries came from the sea to the village and began talking to the people about a man called “the Christ.”
      
      After hearing of this “Jesus,” the natives insisted that he’d been living among them for the past 20 years. “Come,” they demanded, “we’ll introduce you to the man about whom you’ve been speaking!”
   1. Oh, to be mistaken for our Lord Jesus himself! But that is what it means to be disciples of Jesus Christ. He should be seen in us and he should be known in us!

Seek harmony and unity between what you profess, with what you believe, and with what you are within. You are new people in Christ your Lord!

If you are absorbing your Lord and his Way, if you are continually taking in the goodness of God, good will come from you and the kingdom of God will radiate in you and it will extend through you.