August 7, 2022 ~ Ninth Sunday after Pentecost ~ Sermon & Zoom Worship Video Link

This is the Video Link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/JlmMMBr6fSt8lTPQK8O6U4p64uuXOOP_qkATvVQZNockIWnzB9ScWMOoQaHatY87.4A8sM1RGMwTzdbzF

Communion                                                                            08/07/22—Highland—Meute

“God’s Good Pleasure”

Genesis 15: 1-6; Psalm 33: 12-22; Luke 12: 32-40

Pearl: It is the God of abundance’s will and delight to provide for our greatest needs.

Function: To celebrate, as at communion, the depth of what the Lord provides for people, which should drive away fear and generate faith.

Bigger is not better.

1. More and more should not be the source of our security.
   1. But indeed, in honesty, we do put our faith in more and bigger and better.
   1. We long for greater numbers in attendance in worship, greater numbers at events that we plan; we take confidence in growing investments and bank accounts.
2. Maybe this is why Jesus instructed his disciples to travel lightly. He wanted them to put their trust in him and the reality of the kingdom of heaven being present.
   1. He wanted God’s realm to be the source of their peace of mind.
3. God’s kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, is the best that there is!
   1. It is not as easily seen as numbers and figures and structures.
   1. But it is present, powerful, and permanent, nonetheless.
      1. In Booker T. Washington’s book Up from Slavery, he described how as a young boy he had the strong compulsion to get an education. He most wanted to be able to read. Once slavery was abolished, he eventually was blessed with being able to go to school.
      1. His family was very, very poor but they did what they had to do in order for Booker to go to school.
      1. As he was preparing to go to boarding school, he gathered what he needed. Not much. One thing was a hat. All of the students had hats. He did not have a hat. He went to his mom to ask if he could get one and she said she did not have the money for a “store bought” hat.
         1. So, she took a couple pieces of cloth and stitched together a hat for Booker.
         1. Many of the other children made fun of his hat, as they wore their store-bought hats. But he loved his hat and took great pride in it. It was made by his very own mom with love and sacrifice. He wanted no other hat.
         1. While it didn’t look like much there was great value in his home-made hat. Sort of in the way the kingdom of heaven comes to us. Not in the expected ways. Not in the bigger and better ways. But it comes in power and legitimacy, nonetheless.

Fear not; “…it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

But it is human nature, sadly, to be more fearful than faithful.

1. It is our nature to be skeptical of God’s provision going all the way back to the Garden of Eden. As someone commented, “Jesus picked up on a rhythm that’s been ringing since the beginning of time…
   1. Fear not! Your God is the God of Genesis, who poured out her heart to create giraffes and dragonflies and forsythia. You don’t need to steal and eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil because this is all you need to know: the one who created you will sustain you, care for you, and never let you go.
   1. Fear not! Your God is the God of Exodus who hears you cry, takes you out of slavery and into freedom and feeds you with manna. You don’t need to squirrel away sugar for the bitter days ahead; God will provide.
   1. Fear not! God became flesh in order to touch us, teach us, heal us, take our ashes out of the ground and bring us back to life. You don’t need to build bigger barns or hoard toilet paper: all you need to do is trust in the grace of God” (Elizabeth Myer Boulton, “CC” July 27, 2010).
2. We hold onto a worldly notion of “viability.”
   1. Another preacher pointed out that our notion of viability is “based not on a church’s zeal to work for the kingdom of God, but on its means to do two peripheral things: maintain a building and pay a minister.
      1. This amounts to telling Abram that instead of looking at the stars he had better look at his sperm counts” (Garrett Keizer, “CC” July 18, 2001).
   1. That promise of God to Abraham was extravagant! In recent months we have seen through the power of the James Webb Space Telescope the vast number of stars through the universe.
      1. God said to Abraham that he would be the father of as many descendants.
      1. That was a staggering promise.
         1. It got through to Abraham and he believed. Even though he was very old…as was Sarah.
3. But we trust in what we can see and touch and feel and store up.
   1. A granddaughter wrote fondly of her grandmother, Nellie, who in her prime was a force to be reckoned with.
      1. “In the 1950s and ‘60s, with the threat of nuclear war looming, Nellie stockpiled her basement with cans of tomatoes, tuna and bean salad. During the sugar shortage of the ‘70s, she filled her cupboards with sugar: brown, refined, and raw. When the energy crisis came, she became obsessed with keeping the needle of her Buick’s gas gauge above three-quarters of a tank.
         1. Every other day she would wait in long lines to fuel up. Her husband could never understand this, and one day he’d had enough. ‘My goodness, Nellie,’ he said. ‘Do we really need to wait in line for gas again? We’ve got three-quarters of a tank.’
         1. Every member of Nellie’s extended family can recite her answer word for word: ‘Well, Jimmy, of course we have to wait in line. We’ve got to get that gas before the hoarders do!’” (Boulton, “CC” 7/27/10).
   1. It is our nature to be more fearful than to trust in the provision of God.

But it is God’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

The scope of what God delights to provide for us and all people and all creation is staggering.

1. Maybe we thought that winning the Mega Millions jackpot would provide staggering security.
   1. In truth, the Lord provides “staggering security.” Do you believe this?
   1. It is God’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.
2. I often recall something an early mentor said to me after donating to my mission trip to Africa back in ’93.
   1. He gave me a donation larger than most people. It shocked me and I thanked him, commenting on the large nature of the gift.
   1. He said in response, “There is a lot more where that came from.”
      1. It was as if he was daring me to ask for more.
      1. Thinking back, my friend was telling me to trust God for a lot more. He was saying, God’s resources and kingdom are far more than we can ask or imagine.
      1. Live your life trusting in the excessive and overwhelming goodness of God.
   1. God dares us to trust him more; to trust that there is more and more and more grace, more love, and every provision of what we really need…knowing that there is a lot more where it comes from; you can be sure!
3. God truly delights to give us the kingdom…to give us all that it is!
4. In his book, Spiritual Direction, Henri Nouwen writes about framing our lives by God’s values. He wrote:
   1. “From the beginning of my life, two interior voices have been speaking to me: one saying, ‘Henri, be sure you make it on your own. Be sure you become an independent person. Be sure I can be proud of you’… and another voice, saying, Henri, whatever you are going to do, even if you don’t do anything very interesting in the eyes of the world, be sure you stay close to the heart of Jesus, be sure you stay close to the love of God’” (Hardy Kim, “CC” 7/16/19).
5. I am not saying today that there is not severe hardship and disaster that does befall us and others through our lives.
   1. But with the Psalmist we can agree that “truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine” (33:18, 19). //

Communion is an object lesson in the staggering provision of the Lord.

1. The smallest little morsel of bread, and the smallest amount of wine represent the staggering amount of God’s provision. That provision is akin to the number of stars that are in the universe, if you can count them.
   1. Prior to the covid pandemic many churches passed a common loaf from which you tore out a piece of bread. I was always amused to watch some people take the smallest and tiniest piece of bread.
      1. Do they do that out of a fear that there won’t be enough to go around?
      1. I’d much rather see someone rip a good, big chunk out of it when it comes around because, my friends, that piece of bread represents the staggering vastness of what it is God’s good pleasure to give us!
      1. Don’t tease God. Take a super-sized portion. Because there is a lot more where that comes from!
2. God may not give us significant material wealth but we are God’s heirs. It is God’s good pleasure to give us all that he has.
   1. We are heirs of God’s entire realm.

Go out of here today and every time you worship, with a new spring in your step. Travel a lot more lightly. Because you are heirs of God’s entire realm.

“Don’t be afraid! Sell your possessions! Be generous and free! Trust in God’s grace—for there is more than enough!” (Boulton, “CC” 7/27/10).

It is really God’s intent and God’s good pleasure to give it all to us!