The Taste of Blessing: How many crosses?

 August 24 2025

Galatians 5:13-6:5

         Many years ago, Christians in our area where we live watched an amazing phenomenon happen. It all began when a little church in Sugarcreek welcomed a new pastor, Dwight Mason. Within a few years, the church began to grow by leaps and bounds.It became clear that this pastor had an audacious dream to build a mega-sized church called NewPointe which now has five campuses. The Dover campus is right up the road from where we live so of course we have checked it out. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this church is that, right from the beginning, there is no cross anywhere to be seen throughout the worship area. How very different from all of the other church sanctuaries I have worshipped in which have as their one common element that there is always a cross displayed somewhere. Whatever the reason for NewPointe has for not displaying a cross,in doing so they have called us to ask the question, just how many crosses does a sanctuary need?  This huge church says that none are necessary, while the majority of churches have decided that one cross prominently displayed is sufficient yet I wonder, is one cross really enough?

         The reason I want us to think about just how many crosses does one church really need, is that the answer as to how many crosses is enough is surprisingly found as we conclude this series of messages, called, “the Taste of Blessing”. This series of messages discovered the true depth of meaning found in that simple string of words that Paul calls, “the fruit of the Spirit”. You know it as, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and an inner strength. As I began this series of messages, God led me to see the connection between the fruit of the Spirit and what are called the Beatitudes, the core teachings of Jesus. The similarity between these two seemingly very different teachings is this idea of blessing. The book of Galatians, where the fruit of the Spirit is found, is concerned primarily with the way we are blessed through Jesus. The core teachings of Jesus likewise lay out the ways that the Holy Spirit blesses us. So both of these teachings are indeed very alike and they do tend to shine a light on each other.

         So, as a wrap up, just what have we learned in the last nine weeks? Well, I hope it has become obvious that the fruit of the Spirit is an apt description for the life of Jesus. Jesus is both the the man and the God we know as being loving, and joyful, peaceful and patient. Jesus is the man and the God we know as being kind, overflowing with goodness, one who is exceedingly faithful and gentle with us. So, if this description does not describe the God you believe in, then you may need a new God. You see, as our scripture for today points out, God and his kingdom is found wherever life is described by the words found in the fruit of the Spirit. We can say God has indeed blessed us so now we can taste and see the goodness of God. Through the Holy Spirit we now have this very goodness living in us, right alongside the rest of those qualities we call the fruit of the Spirit. This fruit is the very life of Jesus which is now able to be born in us. Jesus calls us to be blessed so that this life, this light that has come into the world, might shine through us to scatter the darkness of this world. 

         The fruit of the Spirit then does indeed describe the God we discover in the face of Jesus. If we claim Jesus as our Lord and God then we must also be people who are known by these same qualities. Now, the fruit of the Spirit rightly understood is how others view our life. This tells us if we want to be honest about our life then we have to ask others, just how are we doing displaying this love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and an inner strength we claim to have. You see, this is the life God expects for us demonstrate to the world because just such a life proclaims that the curse has indeed been destroyed through the cross. Either the cross changed everything or the cross changed nothing, there are no other possibilities. This is a good reason for having at least one cross in every church. The cross is our good news because this symbol assures us that we do not have to grit our teeth, and pull ourselves together and do our best to live just such a life that God expects. No, as the late author, Larry Crabb always said, “The pressures off”. You see, this life cannot be ours through our work; this life can only come through the work of the Spirit. You see, Jesus upon the cross has indeed done everything necessary so that the Holy Spirit might bless us. Now we have the certainty that through the Spirit the life of Jesus can now live in us. 

         So now we know who our God is; he is the God seen in the face of Jesus. We also know that who God expects us to be is a person who has a life that is loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, you know, people who seem to have an inner strength. If you want to be sure if this life is in you just ask someone, they’ll let you know. If you find that your life needs some work then just ask the Spirit to get busy. Now just so there is no confusion how we go about working with the Holy Spirit we have the fruit of the Spirit and the teachings on blessings, to guide us. A good place to begin to see how this might be possible is for us to stand back and look at these teachings on blessings. I believe that you will become aware that they are a highlight reel for the ministry of Jesus. In the first three blessings, we find Jesus proclaiming the gospel message. Jesus said that the kingdom is near, ready to be received in open hands, can’t you hear this in the first blessing? Jesus told the people that they had to repent, to turn from their dead ways of living to find life with the God of all comfort, well paraphrased in the second blessing. Jesus called the orphans, those lost sheep, and prodigals to come home to the Father, allowing his life to shape their life for this is the way of eternal life. This is the very essence of the third blessing. So in these first three blessings it is easy to sense the proclaiming of the good news of Jesus.

         In the next set of two blessings, we now find ourselves seated at the table eating the last supper with Jesus and his disciples. There around the table, Jesus instructed his disciples to do certain actions to remember Jesus and the way he lived his life. Jesus said to remember in the giving of the bread that it is God who has taken ahold of us, compelling us to give ourselves over to yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit.  As Jesus teaches us, the way of the Spirit is the only way for us to remain free while we patiently wait for his return. When the hunger and thirst for the world to be set right tempts us to turn to violence we remember how in Hebrews 9:14, Jesus was offered up to the Father without blemish through the eternal Spirit. So we too we allow the Spirit to offer us up to the Father keeping us free from being polluted by the world.

         Likewise, on that same night, Jesus took the cup and blessed it and he gave this cup to be his blood shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. There we see how the mercy of Jesus displayed the kindness of God causing those who receive such mercy to become merciful themselves. Jesus at the table called his disciples to remember his life, how his mercy had no bounds for whenever mercy was needed, mercy was given in abundance. Such mercy is seen as kindness which draws ever more people to become merciful, a mercy seen as a kindness which creates unity. So here in these two blessings, we do seem to find the point in he ministry of Jesus where he has given the bread as his body and the cup as his very blood.  

         Well, as we know, after the meal, Jesus goes to the garden to pray. No surprise then that prayer is the very subject of the sixth blessing, “Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.” As Jesus teaches us, we come before our Father in secret, so here Jesus in the garden Jesus also comes before the face of his Father as he prays. In prayer is where our hearts are purified, at last in synch with our Heavenly Father. The intense laser-sharp point of light that is the goal of our purity is found in the prayer of Jesus, “ Father your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.” Only as Jesus yielded himself to the will of the Father was he then able to be faithful in offering himself upon the cross.

         So, we have followed Jesus through his proclaiming of the gospel, we have sat with him at the table and we have prayed with him in the garden. Now we come to the blessing which says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they are sons and daughters of God.” When we know of how Jesus made peace with us on the cross, how can we not see in this blessing Jesus carrying his cross to Calvary. There on that cross we witnessed an intense faithfulness of a Son to love his Father, even unto death. The cross is the result of the religious authorities hunting Jesus down because he dared to uphold the righteousness of God. This is the righteousness which demands that all people are equals before God. Therefore, righteousness could no longer be the means by which religious people could raise themselves up as being supposedly superior to others. So Jesus had to be silenced. Yet Jesus, even in his death, continued to proclaim his righteousness for all to hear. There on the cross, truly Jesus is glorified. Now that great river called the Holy Spirit,  the God who blesses, is given to all. This blessing could only be ours as Jesus endured the curse of being hunted down, just as his teaching on blessings said would happen. Jesus said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and hunt you down and utter all kinds of evil against you,… rejoice and be glad for so they persecuted the prophets before.” The prophets were hunted down because they had the audacity to announce to everyone, even the kings of Israel, that all were subjects of a yet greater king, and they had better not forget this fact. You see, those in the world who govern others do so, as Jesus teaches us in the eighth chapter of Mark, by lording over those they govern. This is not the way of God. No, Jesus taught that to be great one must be the servant of all. Jesus at the cross, served the whole world through the offering of his life, the greatest act of love, making him the greatest of all, indeed our king. Jesus, our king, there upon the cross, ruled over the world with an inner strength that the world simply can not fathom.

         So, yes, we do see the entire outline of the life of Jesus here in these nine blessings yet I believe, there is still more. You see, I believe the blessings Jesus taught are to be how our church life together is structured. As is rather obvious, our worship service is centered around the Word and the Table. With this in mind, we begin with the first three blessings and we discover the framework for the blessing of the Word, the gospel of Jesus. The Word of God is about the God who is king whose one desire is to see all the families on earth be blessed by the one we know as the Holy Spirit, the God who blesses. This story tells us that God desires to give his entire kingdom to those willing to come as poor beggars with their hands stretched out. This is how everyone begins their journey to know the God who has always known them. Then, as the story continues, we hear Jesus calling us to repent, to change our minds dominated by the fear of death and instead to come and follow the voice who calls us into life. The Word, we find, is our loving Father calling us to come home, to be his children who pattern their life after the very life of eternity. Through the hearing of the Word, the Spirit is found to be the one who convinces us to believe, the one who speaks to us words of life, the one who assures us that we have, most certainly, been adopted into the family of God. The church marks this birth of the Spirit by the act of baptism just as Jesus teaches us to do.

         Yet Jesus also commands us, his people, to return again and again to his table. This sacred act called communion is a grace given to us so that we have the power to withstand our temptation to use violence to ease our hunger for a better world. We must remember again and again that the life of Jesus is free only when the Spirit of freedom takes ahold of us. The Spirit is the one who gives us, just as the bread is given. In this moment, we remember we are to be given as an offering to bring the life to the world, just as Jesus spoke about his life. There at the table we also remember, as we drink from the cup, that we are given in freedom to offer mercy to others, a kindness that unifies us as one people. So, through the Spirit of unity, we pray as one church, that the will of our Father be done. In secret, we seek our Father’s face to be purified in our desires so that his will be lived out here on earth just as it is being lived out right now in heaven.

         At last, then, we come in our order of worship to the last three of the blessings that Jesus teaches us about. The first six blessings seem to be a right fit with the way we worship as followers of Jesus. So what might these last three blessings have to do with our worship? Well, Paul, I believe, has the right answer when, at the beginning of the twelfth chapter of Romans he writes, “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters in Christ, by the mercies of God, present your life as a living offering, holy and acceptable to God for this is your logical worship.” Translators seem to not understand that to Paul this offering of ourselves is simply a logical action. You see, Paul knew that it is simply absurd to forsake the freedom found at the table and then go back to live as a slave of this world. No, the only logical choice is to do what Jesus teaches us in the last three lessons about being blessed. Now, when we were blessed by the word and we became born of the Spirit, we are marked this by the act of baptism. Then we mark the giving of ourselves as a free act of mercy when we partake of Holy Communion as Jesus also commands us to do. So we are right to wonder, just what is the action which marks the next three blessing? The answer is the act which Jesus calls all who follow him to do, the carrying of our own cross. Carrying our cross is an act of worship which is done when we scatter and go out to live life. The teaching about being blessed tells us that this carrying of our cross is about doing the work of peacemaking, bringing people to the foot of the cross, where we are all equals in need of peace. In this way we demonstrate our faithfulness as sons and daughters of the Father. As we carry our cross we must endure the reaction of the religious and those who govern us, because they refuse to accept the equality of the cross. Yet our hope is that the goodness shown to others will bring just one more person to give glory to our Father. This is when our hearing the Word, and our eating and drinking at the table and our carrying the cross will have reached its acceptable goal, that moment when, through us, just one more person comes to glorify our Father. So perhaps the answer to just how many crosses should a church building display is two. There should, I believe, be a cross we focus on as we worship as the church gathered because the cross has changed everything. But when we leave, I believe that perhaps there should be also be a cross displayed as we go forth into the world. We need to remember that Jesus teaches us that our worship continues when we go out those doors for he commands us to take up our cross and follow him. You see, if we fail to carry our cross then pray tell, just how will the world ever see our faithfulness, our gentleness and the inner strength of Christ who lives in us? Amen!

 

The Taste of Blessing: What’s Got Into You?

 August 17 2025

Matthew 5:11-12, 2 Corinthians 4:5-5:5

         I have been amazed at the extent of the damage that was done by the drought we had last year. I lost a number of landscaping plants around the house which I needed to replace. Yet where I witnessed the worst damage is in the acre of woods that I walk in every day. There are at least four or five old trees that showed no signs of life this spring. One of these was an old sassafras tree. This tree has rot all through it’s trunk and the woodpeckers have worked on it, punching holes in it as big as your fist into its bark. So yes, this tree is absolutely dead. Or is it? You see, after we had that rainy season this spring, I noticed something different about that sassafras tree. There, up about ten feet, was a little green shoot with leaves that had popped out of that most certainly dead tree. So we have to conclude that beyond what is so evident on the outside of this tree there is a power within this tree that must be called life.

         I want to keep the image of this tree in mind as we come to the end of these messages called, “The Taste of Blessing. These messages are about what is called the fruit of the Spirit, you know, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness and today, what is often called self-control. Now as I have studied the fruit of the Spirit throughout my life, I just could not wrap my head around this part of the fruit of the Spirit. I mean, throughout the New Testament, we are taught that we are to be controlled by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, you know that whole dying to self, living for Jesus kind of thing.To suddenly have this one apparent exception to what is written everywhere else in scripture just seems to be a bit off. To claim that we now have a way to be in control of our life seems to be awfully close to sounding like a self-help book. This is why I believe that instead of, “self-control”,  we should say we have an “inner strength”. This inner strength is demonstrated in much the same way that the sassafras tree revealed that it had an inner strength, through our witnessing to the life within us that appears even in the midst of death.

         You see, when we realize that the fruit of the Spirit is what the world witnesses in us because of the work of the Holy Spirit, then our life demonstrating that we have an inner source of strength seems to be the right place to end up. The Holy Spirit, as we have seen, works through the blessing of our life. The very first teachings of Jesus ask us to consider what a life blessed through the Holy Spirit might look like. It is the Spirit who as Jesus tells us, convinces the hearers of the good news that God truly does desire to give us his kingdom even if we have absolutely nothing to give in return to such an act of love except love. This is how the Spirit works in us so that now the world witnesses that our life now loves others. Love is the fruit, the result of the working of Holy Spirit in us. Likewise, through the comfort of the Holy Spirit assuring us of life beyond death we are rightly, joyful people. The Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of adoption who assures us that we are indeed children of God. So, knowing God as our Father gives our life a profound peace. Likewise, we have become people who are patient, through the Spirit who is our freedom, the one who freely offers us as an offering of love to our Heavenly Father. This is why we are willing to wait to be fully satisfied until Jesus returns. We also come to know the Holy Spirit as being the very Spirit of unity, the one who draws us together through the creation of kindness. This kindness is what others experience every time we offer mercy to them. Then in prayer, the Spirit of holiness assures us that we now are able to come before a holy God whose love and joy for us radiates over his face. Alone with God, in secret, we become in synch with God, pure in our devotion for God, from one degree of glory to another. As we go from being with God to go and serve him in the world, the Spirit of truth leads us to live in the truth that Jesus has made peace a reality for all people through his death on the cross. It is when we follow the leading of the Spirit and go and make peace this is when we become faith filled. We should not be surprised, then, that when we overflow with the goodness of God that we will encounter opposition from the evil in this world. In these times, we are called to be open to the Spirit, the living water, and allow his power to flow through us. Through the Spirit we speak the words that bring glory to our Father. So what the world witnesses in us is the gentleness of a flowing stream which pours forth from our life, gliding past what is in his way, to search for a heart that will be open to the flowing of this river of life that we call the Holy Spirit.

         You see, all of these are experiences with the Holy Spirit which give to us a first-hand knowledge of the goodness of God; this is the whole reason why God  blesses us, to know him and to be known by him. We are to be people who can say, I know God to be a God of love, not because this is I read one time in the fourth chapter of the first letter of John. No, I know God as a God of love because when I had nothing, God gave me everything. If this does not describe love then I must not know what love really is. The importance of our knowing God is what Paul writes about in the fourth and fifth chapters of the second letter to the church at Corinth. There we find in the original wording that in Second Corinthians 4, verse six, Paul writes,  “For God, who said,’Let light shine out of the darkness’, has flooded our hearts with the light of glory-knowing the God seen in the face of Christ”. This word we know as, “glory”, comes from the root word meaning to have an opinion. So when  Paul writes, “The light of glory”, he is telling us that what God has overwhelmingly shown us should be, in our opinion, held to be worth everything to us. In other words, we should be absolutely certain, that to know God, to know the God we gaze upon as we look at the face of our Messiah-King, this is worth everything to us  The way that we can know Jesus is through being obedient to the teachings of Jesus. You see, Jesus is the goodness of God that lives a flesh and blood existence. So through his teachings about how we are blessed by the Holy Spirit, Jesus is calling us to come and join him. We are to be those who, like Jesus. show the goodness of God in our own flesh and blood existence. This is the very the goodness which is a result, or fruit of the Spirit. Paul tells us that this goodness of God given to us through the Holy Spirit is to be our greatest treasure, what we have decided is worth everything, what we call glory. Paul calls us to conclude that this unchanging, uncommon, goodness of God as seen in the face of Jesus, simply must be  our highest glory.

         Now, this has to cause us to wonder just why did Paul place such a high value on this goodness of God received through the blessing of the Holy Spirit? The reason Paul gives to us is that to know God’s unchanging, uncommon goodness gives us a surprising power. Listen to what Paul witnesses about how different a life is that it is now lived knowing God and his goodness: “We are under pressure in every way, but we are not crushed. We are may wonder which way to go but we also know that we are never with out a way. We are hunted down by those who wish to silence us but we know that we are not forsaken. We are struck down but look, we are not destroyed…” The treasure inside this common, clay jar which was the life of Paul, what he could say made all the difference when persecution came upon him, is  knowing God and his uncommon, unchanging goodness. Paul appears to consider that a life that knows God and has this knowledge of his goodness is like taking a fragile clay jar and filling it full of concrete. Where once a person could would take a swing at this clay jar and shatter it to pieces now their hits are met with a surprise for this clay jar simply refuses to break. Paul is telling us that when we have received the fullness of the blessing given to us by the Holy Spirit we are to be like clay pots who simply refuse to crack and break when the world comes calling. When we have received the fullness of the Spirit’s blessing, we keep getting up, we refuse to go down, and this is what the world is to see when they put the pressure on. What an honor when they look at us and ask, “Just what has gotten into you?”. Our answer is life. We have taken the world’s advice to get a life and we have indeed gotten a life, and this life is a life knowing God and his uncommon goodness. This is the power within us that keeps us from losing our hope, the glory we know is worth everything. This is why Jesus can say to us, ‘You are blessed when others revile you, hunt you down to silence you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account…” Can we just just pause here for a moment to consider how this teaching of Jesus goes against every fiber of common sense that most of us have? What Jesus describes is a situation of sheer terror and fear, yet even here, of all places, a touch of the Holy Spirit is waiting for us. You see, it is only when the pressure comes that we realize the strength of what we have received through being blessed by the Holy Spirit. Only then can we say with confidence that greater is the one who is within us then the one who is in the world. So of course, we overflow with joy, for here we discover that all that we know about God is indeed true. God indeed loves as a Father who shields our life from death so that we can live with him forever. So let the world do its worst, for we know God always does his best, so not only do we have joy but we shout and jump with shouts of joy, because we know God and God knows us. 

Paul tells us that when we rejoice when under pressure from the world we will join the good company of the prophets who came before us. This mention of the prophets by Jesus helps us to understand just why are we bing persecuted in the first place. In the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy we learn about those called to be a prophet of God. These were simply those that God raised up from among the people of Israel in order that they might be his mouthpiece to speak his words to his people. In the Old Testament, the prophets were much more seen and heard during the reigns of the kings of Israel. The reason for this is that God called the prophets to the go and speak to the kings who sat on the throne. The kings were called to remember that while they may be king of Israel, there was indeed a greater king who ruled over all the world, this one known as their God. So the prophets were a constant reminder to the kings and the rest of Israel to just don’t forget who is boss. Of course, the kings wanted nothing more than to silence these who would dare stand up and question their authority. The kings, like the world today, wondered just what had gotten into these people of God. You see, before God, everyone, including all kings and rulers, are equals in his sight. This is the message of the cross which made this truth a reality. Through the cross of Christ we are now all equals who make up one new humanity.This is the very scandal of the cross which even in our day, thousands of years later, causes others to scoff at such an idea. I mean, can you hear how outrageous these words of Paul are that are found at the end of the third chapter of Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.” Such an ideal as this is reviled in our world is by those who seek to rule the world. The reason for being against this equality is found in what Jesus teaches us in the tenth chapter of Mark, “You know that the rulers of the nations lord over their subjects and their great ones exercise authority over them.” You see, it is the kings of old and the rulers of today who must hold that they are superior and thus worthy to lord over others.  They simply refuse to acknowledge that there is a true king who rules over all whose name is Jesus. So imagine what happens when those in power encounter those who appear to be living by a greater power, a life which calls into question these rulers claims of authority. This is the problem of being those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because for there to be righteousness there also must be equality; there simply cannot be two sets of rules for people to live by. As Christians, this talk of us all being equals is terrific news especially for those who find themselves among the least of these. Yet if we take this idea of equality to its logical conclusion then it will at last call into question the very way that we govern ourselves for Jesus teaches us, in this, again in the tenth chapter of Mark, that as his followers we are to lead but in a very different manner than we find in the world. Jesus says to us that this lording over others shall not be found among the followers of Jesus. No, instead, whoever would be great among us must be the servant of all. Whoever desires to be first must be willing to be last. For even the Son of Man, this one called Jesus, came to serve others not to have others serve him. He is the one who gave his life as a ransom for many. This is the goodness of God that we have come to know through the touch of the Holy Spirit. You see, the root meaning of what someone does when they bless another person’s life is, “to kneel”. You see, for God to bless you means that our God and king has knelt before us and has given us a gift of great worth. Kneeling is the action which comes before any gift is given, and act of humility and service. These are the actions of the true king whose name is above every other name, above every ruler or authority, because he alone displays his greatness by becoming the servant of all people. When the world sees in us that we now know a king named Jesus, and this king has kneeled before us and has given to us his very goodness, then rightfully, the world has its very claims called into question. When Paul states in the tenth verse of Second Corinthians that we always carry in our bodies the death of Jesus, he speaks to the very reason that Jesus had to be crucified, silenced forever, for he refused to stop telling the truth that his was the way of true greatness. So we might say, that these blessings received through the Holy Spirit and kept within our life, give us a knowledge about God which is a two-edged sword. To the world such a different way to achieve greatness by doing acts of sacrificial service, this upsets the proverbial apple cart. The very authority of the so-called authorities is no longer as certain as it used to be. Just what might happen if one day, the world would suddenly be found under the rule of king Jesus and this upside down way to greatness would become the norm? So such nonsense must be silenced and ridiculed as being just another ideal for the disillusioned. Yet, not only does the death of Jesus live in us, but his life lives in us as well. Just what is it that we know about God through his blessing us? We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will one day raise us also with Jesus and bring us all to live eternally before the face of God. This is why Paul reminds us, we do not lose heart. Outwardly, our lives witness to being beat up up by a world where everyone wants to be king. Inwardly, though we know the one true king for his very life is the life that lives in us. Jesus is the one who makes us new day by day. So, when people ask, what has gotten into you? We can reply, “Jesus has gotten into me, and, that has made all the difference! Amen!                     

The Taste of Blessing: Going With the Flow

 August 10 2025

Matthew 5:10, Acts 3:1-16,4:5-22

         Like a lot of kids, I loved it when it rained because it was fun to play in the water. Now, on our farm we had more than your usual mud puddle. We had a little ditch where a stream of water would run during a rain. So it was great fun to try and dam up that stream with some mud and rocks to see if I could make a big puddle to play in. What was interesting was how difficult it was to try and keep the water from destroying my work. When the water got so high it would pour over the side taking much of my little dam with it. What I learned is something that those who build ponds for others always remember, you have to have a way to handle the overflow when the floods come otherwise the water will flow over the side of the dam and soon wash the dam away. You see, the water is just going to keep flowing. The truth is that there really is no stopping the waters flow only controlling how and where it will flow.

         Well, in this Taste of Blessing message, we are going to take a look at the fruit of the Spirit called gentleness, a gentleness we will see is best understood as being a channel for an ever flowing stream. As we have seen so far, the Holy Spirit blesses us so that we can taste and experience the goodness of God. The result of this blessing by the Spirit is that we become people known for being loving, joyful, peaceful and patient. Others say that we are kind, that there is a goodness about our actions, and that we are faithful people. Today we are going to find out why the world knows us as being people known for their gentleness on account of being touched by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now what is interesting is that we exhibit gentleness as a result of being blessed in this way: Blessed are those who are hunted down for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God”. It is here, in the very midst of being persecuted, being hunted down for doing what is right, this is when Paul states we will display gentleness. Not only that, but we, at the same time, will have a complete certainty that we are saints who stand to inherit the eternal kingdom of God. 

         Now, it may seem kind of difficult to put all of this together for as we all know, gentleness, and persecution seem to be worlds apart. A great story that helps to shed some light on this is found in the third and fourth chapter of the book of Acts. This is a story from the very beginning of the churches history happening shortly after the dramatic events of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came like a mighty wind. We must keep this in mind otherwise we will miss noticing the One who is present even if he isn’t always mentioned. The situation is fairly straight forward, Simon Peter and John go up to the Temple to pray and they hear the cries of a man unable to walk, asking them for charity. It is Simon Peter who suddenly changes the story, for instead of just dropping a coin or two in this man’s hand, Simon Peter decides to offer this man something far better. Simon Peter takes ahold of this man’s hand, and Simon Peter tells him,”Gold and silver I do not have but what I do have I give to you! In the name of Jesus, the Messiah, of Nazareth, rise up, and walk!” Simon Peter lifted this man to his feet and now at last the nerves and muscles that had for so long been unable to move, now pulsated with life and strength. This man leapt up, and he began to walk, now able to enter into the Temple which had once been so far from him even though he was right outside her gates. Instead of cries for mercy, now this man was praising God for his goodness. This is what the prophet Isaiah foretold when he wrote in the thirty-fifth chapter, “…Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees…behold your God will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf, unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute shall sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness and streams will flow in the desert, the burning sand shall become a pool and the thirsty ground, springs of water…” How could those who came to the Temple that day not think of such scriptures as they saw this man who had sat just outside the Temple begging for years on end is now leaping about shouting out praises of God? How could they not be filled with wonder and amazement? 

         Simon Peter seizes this moment to lift high the name of Jesus. As all who gathered there wondered what had happened to cause this man to be healed, Simon Peter let them know that this healing was a sign pointing to Jesus, the Messiah. “You remember, Jesus don’t you?”, asked, Simon Peter. You know, the one glorified by the God of your fathers, the Holy and Righteous one whom you denied, you remember him don’t you?  This Jesus is the very one that you killed, the very Author of Life, the one whom God raised from the dead. By the name of this One, by faith in the name of Jesus, this man has been made whole. It was the faith that comes through Jesus, this is what has given this man perfect health in the presence of everyone. 

         Now, Simon Peter continued, “I know you acted in ignorance, for you knew not what you were doing. Yet, even this was foretold by the Prophets that the Messiah should suffer. So now is the time to repent, and turn so that your sins may be blotted out in order that times of refreshment might come from the presence of the Lord. One day Jesus shall return, but until that time, he waits in heaven until the time for everything to be restored. This Jesus is the prophet that God has raised up, and he is the One whose voice must be heard and listened to.” Then Peter goes on to say something interesting because he reminds his audience the covenant God made with their ancestor, Abraham. Peter reminds them that it is through Abraham that all the families on earth would be blessed. This is why when God raised Jesus, his servant. Jesus came first, to the people of Israel to bless them by turning them from wickedness, so that they, in turn, might bless others.” What Peter spoke to these people was the same message found throughout the pages of sacred scripture, this plan God has to bless his world. Yet, in spite of this, the priests, the captain of the Temple, and the Sadducees grabbed ahold of Simon Peter and John, for they had taught and proclaimed that Jesus had been raised from the dead. You see, these were people so invested in the workings of this world which brought honor to them that they wanted no talk of a new heaven and a new earth, where God would rightly receive all glory and honor. This is what Jesus foretold when in the third chapter of John’s gospel, he says, “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works are evil for everyone who does wicked things hates the light. They refuse to come to the light for then their works will be exposed for what they really are. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it can be clearly seen that their works have been carried out in God.” You see, Simon Peter’s actions were clearly carried out in God, shining a light into the darkness of the Temple courts where those who exerted their power refused to admit that something new had indeed come into this world through this one called Jesus. This one they had rejected called Jesus, the one who is the very cornerstone of God’s new Temple, he is the name by which all will be saved.

         The men who exerted their power in the Temple were left without a reply to what Simon Peter had said to them. I mean, what could they say when this man who clearly had been unable to walk for years, is standing right there next to Simon Peter. You see, Simon Peter did not have to raise his voice, or demand that they see the superiority of Jesus for this was quite evident. So just what were these men who ruled in the Temple supposed to do now that the crowd had seen a new reality break forth right there in that ancient Temple. This new reality brought about through the name of the risen one named Jesus simply could not be made to disappear with the wave of their hands. So they decided that all they could do was to command that Simon Peter and John to stop speaking this name of Jesus, and quit teaching the people about this one called Jesus. If these men would just be quiet, these authorities thought, then perhaps all this nonsense about the resurrection will simply go away. The reply that Simon Peter and John gave in reply is very telling because they say this, “ Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than for us to listen to God is for you to judge” What Simon Peter is telling these authorities is that it was up to them to figure out if Simon Peter was on the side of God. You see, Simon Peter didn’t care one bit out about the opinions of others. No, he invoked the name of Jesus, and he healed in the name of Jesus for only one reason:he did not have the power to do anything else. A current of power, like that of a rushing river was flowing through him, and Simon Peter knew that this river can not be stopped. This is the very river of life that Jesus speaks about in the seventh chapter of John’s gospel. There Jesus promises that whoever places their faith in his name, out of them will flow living water. This river is the Spirit that Jesus promised would flow from him when he was glorified upon the cross. This is the same river of life seen flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb which will bring healing to the nations in the twenty-second chapter of the book of Revelation. 

         The strength and power of this healing river promised to us by Jesus is most clearly seen when it encounters opposition, much like when a river becomes dammed up. In the tenth chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples, “When they deliver you over to bear witness before the authorities, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say , for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it will not be you who will be speaking in that moment but instead the Spirit of your Heavenly Father who will speak through you.’ When we hear these words of Jesus it becomes obvious why Simon Peter said that he did not have the power to stop speaking about Jesus. Jesus had indeed been glorified, risen from the dead, seated on the Throne, therefore the river of life is pouring out upon the world. This river is the Holy Spirit who flows through us, speaking for us, so that there are no worries on our part as to what to say in a moment of trial because our Father through the Spirit will say exactly what needs to be said. Through these words there will come healing for those willing to listen and believe. You see, in this story it is easy to focus so much on the healing of the man born unable to walk that we forget that his healing led to the healing of five thousand who came to believe because they had witnessed the power of God that he had long ago promised would one day be ours. These five thousand had come to believe in the resurrection of Jesus because they had witnessed a glimpse of an age to come, an age of wholeness and peace, seen clearly now in the wholeness of this man who for so long was unable to walk. 

         You see, the gentleness of Simon Peter was simply because he allowed the river of the Spirit to flow through him so that healing might come to all people. There simply was no need for him to be anxious, to fret and worry about saying the right words. While the words came forth from Peter the true source of them is found in our Heavenly Father. This is why Simon Peter could write in his first letter, the third chapter, that we are to have a ,”…unity of mind, and sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. We are to never repay evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, we are to bless, this is why he called you, that you might obtain a blessing.” Simon Peter goes on to tell us, “Now who will harm you if you are eager to do good?Even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed.’ If you had keen ears you should have heard Simon Peter quoting the blessing taught by Jesus. Then Simon Peter continues by telling us, “Have no fear or be troubled, but in your hearts honor the Messiah the Lord as holy always being ready to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is within you; yet do so with gentleness and respect, possessing a mind that knows of the goodness of God, so when you are slandered, those who revile your goodness may be put to shame”. The hope that is within us is the Holy Spirit, the river flowing in us and through us, bringing healing to all the world. The Spirit is our living hope for through him the power of the resurrected Jesus is now found to be an unstoppable force in our lives. Instead of fretting and worrying when we experience suffering at the hands of our world, we instead are to, first, honor Jesus as holy. This means that we need to stop and consider if we are concerned more about receiving the honor of others, or are we willing to live for the honor of Jesus. Are we willing to live in such a way that the world might know the name of Jesus, to know his unchanging character, his uncommon goodness? Is it really our highest honor to reveal to others that Jesus is always giving extravagantly and abundantly, and always ready to offer life to those who face death? If glorifying the name of Jesus is our concern then we must remember that within our minds are experiences of how the goodness of God has touched our lives. We know the goodness of God through the Holy Spirit blessing us just as Jesus teaches us about. We can say with confidence that the Holy Spirit has been our Comforter, speaking words of life when we stood condemned. We have known the Holy Spirit as being our Spirit of Adoption assuring us that we are indeed sons and daughters of God who will receive an eternal inheritance. Through the Spirit we have found true freedom, as we freely gave ourselves to his leading. Yet, we have also found the Spirit is the one who binds us together through the acts of kindness we show to one another, a kindness that is a result of our overflowing mercy toward each other. In prayer, the Spirit of Holiness gives us certainty that we come before  the very face of our Holy Father.  By faith, we know that he lights up with love and joy anytime we come to spend time with him in secret. When we rise from prayer and follow the Spirit of truth, he calls us to be faithful to do our Father’s will, being peacemakers by living in the peace Christ has won for us on the cross.  As we encounter persecution, we now discover that the Spirit is moving like a vast river of life. This river now flows in us, through us and out of us to bring healing and life to a dying world. So through all of these real life experiences we now know of the goodness of God. The only reason we can say that we know God is solely because the Holy Spirit has blessed our life. He is the one who has given us to taste and see that the Lord is indeed exceedingly good. You see, our reason for our hope that one day this world will be at last healed and whole is that we have experienced the Spirit at work. So, as we encounter resistance we must continue to allow the Spirit to work in us. You see, there will be those who are like a rock in a stream unfazed by the water flowing by. Yet, we are to be those who allow that same stream of the Spirit to flow through us. We want to say that we do know of how the Spirit speaks and acts through us in power. We desire to have an absolute certainty that the kingdom has come, and it has come through us. So let us go with the flow of this great river of healing let loose when Jesus was glorified, so that through us others might know of our hope but may we do so with all gentleness and respect.To God be the glory!

The Taste of Blessing:Finding Faith

 August 3 2025

Matthew 5:9, Acts 10:1-23,34-48

         It probably surprises some people when I say that I have come very close to losing my faith.If you knew a little of what I and my family experienced in my early years in ministry it might be a surprise that I’m still have any faith left at all. I had gone for so long without seeing much work of the Spirit that I began to wonder if he was still present within any churches.The one thing that changed my heart was being invited to go along to prison with a group called Kairos. The reason I said, ‘Yes”, to doing something far from my comfort zone was that I take seriously the charge Jesus gives in a parable recorded in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew. Most church going folks remember the story of Jesus, at the end of the age, separating the sheep from the goats by how people had taken care of those Jesus simply calls, “the least of these”. Jesus asks, “How have you done feeding the hungry and going a cool drink to the thirsty? How have you done with clothing those who need to keep warm, and visiting those who are sick? And how are you doing going to see those who are in prison? These questions are important because, as Jesus goes on to tell us, when we care for the least of these, we have done so to him. Now, throughout my years of ministry, I have had opportunities to give food and drink to those in need. I have given coats away to those who needed them, I have visited many who are sick but I never had ever been inside a prison. So when my friend Tom came and asked for people to join him how could I say no. It was this act of saying, “Yes”, not just to Kairos, but, more importantly to God, this is what saved my faith. You see, our Kairos team of twenty-five men from all over north-east Ohio who had gathered weekly for eight weeks to pray and draw together in unity, stepped into Belmont Correctional in faith that God had already been working before we ever arrived. The message we hand delivered was the good news that God’s love for these men had never stoped just because they had found themselves incarcerated. No, God’s love was greater than all of our sin, and as an act of that love, twenty-five of us men, part of the Kairos team, entered into Belmont just to demonstrate the truth of God’s love for these residents. This love was made real by our team bringing into Belmont, three thousand dozen cookies, so that every resident could at least have one dozen homemade cookies. Well, you have to wonder if a bunch of men armed only with a message of God’s love and and lot of cookies could have any effect against the hearts of those who believed they had long been forgotten by God. I myself do not wonder this anymore for I witnessed first hand, on one of our weekends, how God  transformed the self declared leader of the Satan worshippers. This man listened to talks on God’s amazing grace and he let what we had to say, go from his head to his heart. His tough exterior began to drop away. The Holy Spirit had begun to work in his life. Within six months this man who used to worship Satan became baptized as a son of God. And I found the faith I had thought I had lost.

         You see, Jesus was very aware that those who have been blessed by the Holy Spirit, will inevitably begin to have some real doubts about their faith just because of this evil age we live in. This is why the fruit of the Spirit we are looking at today, the fruit called faithfulness, is so important for us to understand. We are looking at the fruits of the Spirit in this series of messages called, “The Taste of Blessing”. We have learned how God has blessed us by his love so how could we not but respond by loving God in return. Now we know that God is our shield who keeps our life safe from death, so that we overflow with joy. As we discover that we are, indeed, the very children of God who has for us an eternal inheritance, we now have peace. Then we remember how, through the giving of the bread, our only free choice is to give ourselves over fully to the Spirit of freedom. This is the way we remain patient, refusing to go back to a life enslaved to this world. We also remember at the table, that we drink of the cup, tasting the very mercy of God. In that moment then, the mercy of God is to live in us. This mercy is seen by others as a kindness which causes them to come home to God. And when we come before the face of God in prayer, we become in synch with him, purified from one degree of glory to another. Our life is lit up with holiness, God’s uncommon goodness which has the power to brings others to glorify our Father. 

         Well, today, we want to figure out how our life can be, faith filled. In the last three blessings that Jesus teaches us in the fifth chapter of Matthew, Jesus speaks to the real test we face as those who are demonstrate the goodness of God yet are still living in an evil age. As we know all too well, it is difficult to keep on believing. So it is good news that the blessing we are looking at in  Matthew 5:9  will cause us to be faith filled. Jesus teaches us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Now, this word, ‘peacemakers”, is an unusual word, and we are left wondering, just what does Jesus mean that the Spirit blesses those who make peace? To learn the ways of peacemaking we are going to look at Simon Peter. Now, he might be a surprising choice to be the poster boy for peacemaking. I mean, if you go to the eighteenth chapter of John, you will find that it is Peter who is drawing his sword, ready to fight to the death to protect Jesus who has just been betrayed by Judas. Hardly an act of peacemaking, right? Yet, even so, Jesus does not give up on Peter. We catch up with Peter far from where he had been when the book of Acts began. Instead of spending his days in Jerusalem, we now discover that Simon Peter is living in a little town called Joppa, close to the Mediterranean Sea. The early days of the church have been rough. Many apostles have either been imprisoned or killed. As the story goes along we find that Simon Peter is found further and further from Jerusalem. He has found that his own people, the people of Israel, have  overwhelmingly refused to accept Jesus as being the long awaited Messiah-King. Peter, too, I believe, has begun to feel his faith slipping away. What we also know about Peter is that he always struggled with his commission given to him by Jesus to take the gospel into all nations and make disciples. As a devout Jewish man who had heard from his childhood the dangers of even being in the same room with a person who was not Jewish, what Jesus called him to do, was nearly impossible for him.

 Yet, Peter had to remember the early teachings of Jesus concerning how the blessing of God could be experienced. Jesus is the one who said that there is indeed a blessing of the Holy Spirit to be found by those willing to make peace. This should remind us of something Paul speaks of in the second chapter of Ephesians. There, Paul tells us that through the cross, Christ created one people, thereby making peace. Jesus, through the cross, brought all people to God thereby destroying the hostility that used to exist. You see, Jesus came and preached peace to both those near to God, the people of Israel, and to those far off from God, all of the rest of the world, so that all might have access to the Father through one Spirit. So when Jesus calls us to be peacemakers, he is simply saying, “Follow me”.

         So, in order for us to become a peacemaker we must firmly believe that this peace of Christ forged on the cross is actually a peace that is a gift for all people, in all places. Yes, the people of Israel, had for thousands of years, kept their distance from the unclean people who lived in the rest of the world. Yet, what Simon Peter had to accept is that the cross changed everything. The cross was the moment in time when the old world had indeed died and with that death, so too the demands of the law had also died. Now, our faith demands we be absolutely certain we live in a new age where peace prevails because the promised Holy Spirit has indeed come and blessed us. This is the very promise of Jesus who, on the night that he was betrayed, told his disciples that the Spirit of truth will come to them. The Spirit guides us to live in the truth that the cross has indeed brought us peace. So peace is made when through the Holy Spirit we invite others to come and live with us in this truth, that peace is here for all of us, both those close to God and for those who are far from God

         We see how the Holy Spirit guides us into this truth in the story of Peter. He is called by God to go to the house of a Roman centurion, a leader of one hundred men. The story goes, that as Peter is praying one day, he becomes hungry. So, as his hand is on the refrigerator door, Peter has a vision. Peter sees the heavens open, and something like a large sheet is being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In this sheet are all kinds of animals, and reptiles and birds. Then Peter hears a voice, telling him, “Come on Peter, go ahead and eat.” Peter, ever the good Jewish man, replies, “By no means, Lord. Never in all my life have I ever eaten anything that is called common or unclean.” Then Peter hears a voice a second time, telling him, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” Now, people often make the mistake that Peter is here told to stop eating food called clean by God. That is absolutely not what the story is about. No, the story is about the very reason why Peter, and every other person of Israel, ate the food that they did. Now, people have for centuries sought the reason why the diet of God’s people was so peculiar. People have speculated that because pigs were believed to have diseases, this is perhaps why the people of Israel were not allowed to eat pork. I read once that the reason for their diet was that by not eating animals who had large litters, the whole land of Israel would eventually become a land overflowing with life. This sounds promising, but the real reason that the people of Israel did not eat certain foods is this: God told them to not eat those foods; end of story. If you go back to the fourteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, we find the rules that determined which foods God’s people were permitted to eat. This section begins with this phrase, “You are the sons of God”. God is addressing his children as those who stand to receive an inheritance. With this in mind then, God goes on to say that as his sons they were to restrict their diet to what their Father has decided they were to eat. This kind of just sounds like just good parenting, doesn’t it? 

         Now, with this in mind, We return to Simon Peter and the vision he has as he prepares for lunch. The vision was a reminder as to why Simon Peter restricted his diet, and that reason was simply that he considered himself to be a son of God. As an obedient child he only ate what his Heavenly Father told him to eat. In this same way of thinking then, when God tells Simon Peter to be a peacemaker, he was to be obedient to this order of God. The reason why he was to do what he was told is the very same reason he never eaten a pulled pork sandwich, because his Heavenly Father expected Simon Peter to obey him. As obedient children we are to be peacemakers simply because we know who we are, sons who will one day receive an inheritance. I believe that this is what Simon Peter took away from his startling vision, because from then on his life began to become faith filled, having a real certainty as to what his Heavenly Father had called him to do.

         The story of Simon Peter and his strange vision thus helps us understand the importance of being peacemakers. We are to be like Jesus because we know ourselves as being the very sons of our heavenly Father, children who go and tear down the walls of hostility for only one reason: our Father told us to get busy with bridge building. If we consider ourselves to be those who stand to inherit eternal life, those known as the very sons of God, then peacemaking is what we will do. Now, people may speculate just why would we, in such a divided world, be those who tear down the walls and the fences and instead build bridges? The only reason we can offer for busying ourselves with the creation of peace is simply that our  Heavenly Father told us to. No other reason is necessary. 

         All that remains for us then is to figure out just how does one go about creating peace in an evil age where peace is always received with skepticism. Well, again, Simon Peter demonstrates to us the art of peacemaking. As it turns out, Peter simply follows the teachings of Jesus concerning how others are blessed by the Holy Spirit. Peter first speaks to Cornelius and his family about the good news of Jesus, the story of Jesus who was full of the power of the Holy Spirit, the one who was the living goodness of God, bringing wholeness to the lives that were broken, a life that demonstrated an uncommon peace. This Jesus was sentenced to die upon the tree called the cross, yet he was raised from the dead three days later and he is now the one who lives to judge the living and the dead. This is Jesus is the one the prophets spoke of, the one all might believe in to receive forgiveness of their sins. This Jesus has judged us all worthy of life, a life lived with him, our king. You see, this is where the blessing begins, the poor of spirit receiving from God this most amazing free gift of life in his kingdom. So yes, the Spirit came and blessed Cornelius and his family, a Roman centurion and his family, those who longed to belong to God and be known as his family. The sorrow he felt as being so unworthy of a life with God was suddenly erased as the Holy Spirit, the Comforter came rushing in, surrounding him with love. Cornelius and all in his household knew they had crossed over from death into life. They now possessed a new life as children of God. This is why they now had peace because they understood that they too stood to inherit eternal life. So, here stood Simon Peter and Cornelius, as equals, standing on the level ground at the base of the cross. Here stood Simon Peter and Cornelius at peace with each other, one who had felt near to God and one who had been considered far off from God, now both brought together through the power of God. This is the very beauty of this act called peacemaking. 

         What do others see when we do what our Father has called us to do, this act of making peace? They see that our life is marked by our faithfulness to God. So, when our faith begins to waver, we must get back to peacemaking. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to bring the truth of God’s peace to those who long to be restored to the family of God. The Spirit will guide us to those who feel unworthy to be called a fellow brother or sister in the family of God, to give to them the good news of this peace God has for all of us. This is how our Heavenly Father fills the hearts of his children with faith. So the Holy Spirit is standing bye, ready to lead us to one who longs to know that they too can be part of this great big family of God. The question is: Are you ready to follow him? Let us always be ready to say, “Here I am Lord, send me! May our prayer be, may just one more person might be blessed by the Spirit and  know at last the peace that Jesus has won for them at the cross!. To God be the glory! Amen!

The Taste of Blessing: The Power of Purity

 July 27 2025

Matthew 5;8, Acts 6:1-6, 7:54-60

         I have to admit that I have always had a lot of curiosity about the world and the way it works. Growing up, the Encyclopedia set that we had at home was a real treasure to me. Whatever I wanted to figure out could be found somewhere in those pages. So I ended up having a real love of the science called physics, the study basically of how the world works. Now, one of the more fascinating new finds in physics when I was growing up was the study of lasers. The word,“Laser” is an acronym which means, “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”. Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? Well, before your eyes glaze over, all this acronym means is that light has been given power. This happens by synchronizing all of the light waves of a laser so they all move in the same direction. We might say that normal light is like a bunch of people all hammering on a door without much effect. A laser though, is like when those same people hold onto a battering ram, a big hammer, and together, in synch with each other, they run in step at that same door and this time they have the force to knock that door down. We might say that the light from a laser is pure, all the light waves synchronized together with a power which your ordinary light bulb will never have. It is this power, the power of the pure light found in a laser, which is able send messages around the world through fiber optics;, a pure light that can cut through thick steel with ease; and a pure light which can even entertain your cat, something no ordinary light could ever dream of doing.

         Now the reason I thought about how different a laser is from an ordinary lightbulb, is not to bewilder you, but to prove the power of being pure. You see, when we speak of being pure, in scripture, as we do in our blessing for today, we discover that being pure unleashes a power every bit as astonishing as a laser. I believe we can sense this in our scripture for today from Matthews gospel. There Jesus teaches us, “Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.” Jesus is telling us that a pure heart has the power to tear away the very veil of heaven so that through the eyes of faith one can even see God. Can you sense that there is indeed, a power to be found in being pure?

         So, yes, we can say that this idea that being pure can indeed result in power is a true statement. Jesus speaks further of how light can be a power which can change the world, found at the fourteenth verse of the fifth chapter of Matthew. Jesus tells us this: ‘You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. People do not light a lamp just to then go and set a basket over top of it, and sit in the dark. No, they put that light on a stand and that light gives light to all the house. In the same way, you are a light, so let your light shine before others. They are to see your goodness and when they do, they will give glory to your good Father in heaven.” Did you hear how the power of our light does indeed, change the world? This world, which is bound in a prison of darkness, is now to  be lit up. This light, Jesus goes on to explain is our goodness that has the power to cause those who live in darkness to come home to the Father and glorify him. You see, it is never enough that we, ourselves, glorify our God. No, we are to be a light that has the power to cause others to bring glory to our Heavenly Father.   

         So now we know that this power, this light in us, is the good that we do. This good, we discover, is given to us through the blessing of the Holy Spirit. In this series of messages, called, “The Taste of Blessing”,  we are looking at what Paul teaches us about the fruit of the Spirit as found at the end of the fifth chapter of Galatians. You see, the Holy Spirit is the God who blesses us. These blessings given to us by the Holy Spirit give us a taste of the goodness of God. Now, what is interesting is that today the fruit which the Spirit gives to us is the fruit of goodness. This means that the goodness we have experienced so far through being blessed by the Spirit, is now to be a quality of our life. This goodness is what others will see in us when we have been blessed by the Spirit in this way, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” When the Holy Spirt blesses those who are pure in heart they will see the very face of God. We hear Paul speak of this blessing in the third chapter of Second Corinthians, where he says that all those with unveiled faces who behold the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to the next,…this comes from the Lord who is Spirit.

          This verse helps us to remember that we are purified only through an action of the Holy Spirit, and never through our futile efforts.The Spirit of holiness, just by being present with us, certifies that we have been declared holy through the blood of Jesus. This means that can stand before the face of a holy God without any fear.  Instead, we know that our Father’s face glows with love for us. Our Father rejoices over us, as we are told in the seventeenth verse of the third chapter of Zephaniah. There we are told, “The Lord God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He rejoices over you with gladness; he settles your heart with his love. He will exult over you with loud singing.”  So, the Holy Spirit calls us to see by faith that the face of our Heavenly Father lights up anytime we come before him. 

         You see, seeing the the face of our Father is the very power which makes us pure.The unwavering love and joy of our Father is the pure motivation which causes us to radiate his goodness in all that we do. Listen to what Jesus tells us at the beginning of the sixth chapter of Matthew. He tells us, “… do not practice our righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. If you want the honor of others then you will receive no reward from your Heavenly Father. Therefore, when you give to the needy, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the streets. The truth is that when they do this they have already received the honor of those watching them. Instead, when you give to the needy do it so secretly that your left hand does not know what the right hand has done. In this way your giving is in secret and your Father who sees you in secret, will reward you.” When we know of the wondrous love seen in the face of our Father, then the honor of others pales in comparison. We know that he sees us, and he rejoices when we imitate him, giving extravagantly and offering life to others.  You see, just as a laser is powered by a burst of radiation, so too we are empowered by that burst of joy which radiates over us in the presence of our Heavenly Father. This is why Jesus encourages us to, “…go into a private place, and shut the door and just stand before your Father in secret. Pray with him, for your Father found there in that secret place will reward you.” The Father who rejoices over us, moves us to act with the power of God’s uncommon goodness.

         This power found in this uncommon goodness is here in the story of the church’s first martyr, a man named Stephen. It is in the sixth chapter of the book of Acts where we first meet Stephen. He is to be the answer for the crisis that the early church has found itself in. You see, the Jewish believers from outside of Judaea, those called the Hellenists, complained to the apostles that some of their widows had been neglected during the daily distribution of food. The number of those in need had grown so large that this ministry of the early church had become stretched thin. What we are to understand is that the early church had made it their highest priority to ensure that no unmarried woman go without a daily meal. If this were not enough, they also did not simply drop some food off at the door of the homes that needed it; no, they waited on these women as they ate at their tables. Can you imagine how very strange these actions must have been for those who were watching these followers of Jesus. First, these people look out for the very poorest of people, these unmarried woman who were without a man to provide for them. Jesus knew, all too well, the plight for the women of his day, how difficult it was for them to merely survive without some man to give them a roof over their head. If their husband died or divorced them, they were left searching for someone else to provide for them, however that might happen. So it makes sense that the church, those who imitate their Heavenly Father by doing two actions: giving generously and offering life, would be drawn to these women in dire straights. While their caring for the widows demonstrated clearly the power of their pure hearts perhaps the most amazing part of this ministry is that the apostles themselves, you know Peter, James, and John, are right there with their aprons on. There they are, hustling steaming dishes of food out to those hungry women. It was only when too many showed up for dinner that the apostles reluctantly gave up this service to have more time for prayer and teaching. This seems to imply that this service at the tables was on equal footing with their teaching and prayer which to our ears sounds incredible. We can understand then, why the apostles were so serious about choosing the right seven men to continue to wait at the tables for these unmarried women. Did they simply grab the first seven guys who they could find? Absolutely not! No, they assembled all the believers and with extreme care they chose men like Stephen, men full of faith and the Holy Spirit. Doesn’t this seem to be a little bit much for those who are going to be waiters and servers? I mean, does such work really require the apostles to come and lay their hands on them and pray over them? You see, these actions bewilder the world who can see no reward in caring for the poorest of the poor. Yet what the apostles knew is that real greatness is always found serving the very least. They knew that such service causes our Heavenly Father to rejoice and sing for this is when we have shown his goodness to the world. Now the world can see for themselves why our God is known as a good, good, Father. As his children, we prove the power of being pure by showing the world that our Heavenly Father gives generously, and he offers life to everyone, especially the least of these.

         So the power that purifies us and causes us to live as holy lights, is found when we come before our Heavenly Father in secret and pray. The prayer that we have been taught to pray causes us to be in synch with our Heavenly Father.  Jesus teaches us about this prayer in the middle of the sixth chapter of Matthew. We first begin with this: “Our Father, who is in heaven. May your name be known as holy.” Here we must pause and ask, just what does our Father desire when he asks that his name be considered holy. Well, holy simply means to be different than the normal, common, ordinary way of doing things. Just as a light is visibly different from the dark, so too our lives are to have visible difference because we have come before the face of God in secret.  We are to be people who demonstrate a life of uncommon, holy goodness. The importance of doing so is found in the thirty-third chapter of Exodus, where Moses asks God to make his glory pass before him. God tells Moses that his glory is his goodness, the very goodness which is his name. This name of God is simply his unchanging character, that we are forever certain that our God is pure goodness. So when we pray that the name of our heavenly Father be known as being holy, we know that we must witness to this pure goodness. You see, as the prayer continues,  this is our Father’s will, what he wants to see us doing, living lives which behold the pure power of our heavenly Father’s uncommon goodness.

         Well, as we continue to pray, Jesus says that to be in synch with our Father, we must desire that his kingdom come here on earth just as it is in heaven. As we learned from Paul in the fourteenth chapter of Romans, the kingdom comes when joy, peace and righteousness are found in our life through the blessing of the Holy Spirit. These are what mark our life when we receive the first of the blessings that Jesus teaches us about. Those blessings given by Jesus, go on then to teach us the importance of the Last Supper. You see, when we pray, “Give us today to be the bread, what is necessary, to bring life to the world.”, we are asking the Holy Spirit to take and give us, just as Jesus gives the bread at the table. We are given to be life giving people, those who bring life to the world. Then Jesus calls us to remember our debts, the debts which he forgave at the cost of his very blood. The blood of Jesus covered over the all that stood between us and our Heavenly Father, so that we might be given a life with him forever. The kindness of our Father which we experienced through this act of mercy draws us to him. So to be in synch with him means that we too must be known by our kindness because of our acts of mercy. You see, we pray to be delivered from evil because know only that the only way to be free from this evil world is to allow the Holy Spirit to offer us up as a pure sacrifice, an offering of uncommon goodness to bring glory of the Father. 

Can you begin to see how the care for those poor, desperate widows became such an important task after praying such a prayer? Every time those apostles grabbed an apron  they were allowing the Spirit to offer themselves up as lives of uncommon goodness bringing glory to their Heavenly Father. Through their actions it was evident that the Spirit of holiness had taken ahold of them. They freely offered their life, and through their acts of mercy they gave life to those who lived in daily fear of death. They gave generously to these women, remembering how the Father generously gave his Son Jesus to pay their debts through the shedding of his blood. Their lives were indeed pure light, in synch with the will of their Father. Their pure light had power just as Jesus had said their light would have for when the purity of their the goodness touched these woman the power of this light caused them to glorify our Father

         So, yes, the early church had lives that radiated a light that could not be hidden. What an uncommon goodness was seen as these men who followed Jesus served and gave life to the woman at their tables. Their lives witnessed to the fact that they had gone into their secret places and had stood before the face of their Father. Yet, we must wonder just how much power does this light of ours have?Can we say that our pure light has a power like that of a laser? We find the answer to this question in the death of Stephan. You see, Stephen lived a life of uncommon goodness, a pure and powerful light. It was this light which caused those who dwelled in darkness to become enraged. They falsely charged Stephan and sentenced him to death. As these evil men, sought to kill him, we find that Stephen is praying. Fully in the grasp of the Holy Spirit, he looks up to see the the face of his Father in all his glory and Jesus at his right side. The heavens had opened revealing Jesus, the very Son of Man, whose kingdom has no end. As Stephen came to the moment of death, his uncommon goodness overcame the evil surrounding him. Stephan asked the Father two things. The first is that he asked his Father to receive his spirit, his life, the fullness of all he had. Then he asked his Father to forgive those who demanded his life. This uncommon goodness of Stephan was a pure and powerful light, a laser that cut deep onto the heart of a man who stood and cheered on that mob as he held their coats, a man named Saul. Later this one called Paul, would become a pure and powerful light that transformed the whole world.  So, may we too be those who go out and radiate with a pure and powerful light, an uncommon goodness which brings glory to our Father. Amen!

The Taste of Blessing:The Power of Mercy

 July 20 2025

Matthew 5:7, Luke 19:1-10

         The other week, our daughter Sarah sent us a strange text which asked us to remember the embarrassing things she did when she was a kid. It seems she was hanging out with the family of her significant other, and as families are want to do, they were telling stories some would just have soon forgot. So we had a good laugh remembering these silly mishaps our daughter has done. Even though she is an overachiever who usually gets it right she is, nonetheless, quite human. It seems that everyone has done something or said something which proved quite amusing to the people who witnessed such gaffes. These moments seem to be quite easy to remember for those who witnessed them and they can tell the story of those embarrassing moments at the drop of a hat

         Now, what is almost as universal as making mistakes is the effort we put into trying to not make mistakes which will embarrass us. We all hope we have learned something through our embarrassment so that we try and not do something like that again. So when we see someone deliberately doing something embarrassing we quite naturally become curious about why they would do such a thing. Take for example this guy named Zacchaeus. Most people have heard of him, you know, he’s that wee little man who climbed a tree, right? Yet, we may never have considered just how embarrassing such an act was in his day. I mean, it is rather laughable to consider any middle aged man trying to hoist himself up into the branches of a tree. I mean, can you imagine the huffing and puffing necessary to pull the weight of an overstuffed body high enough to even get up unto the lowest limb? What appears so effortless for a young kid is found to be pretty difficult for those who their age has caught up with them. If the sheer strength needed to climb a tree were not enough of a problem for Zacchaeus, there was also the issue of the clothes he was wearing. The standard garb back then was a robe, usually reaching to the ground so that none of the person’s legs or anything else might be exposed. Well that pretty much goes out the window when a wee little man tries to throw his leg over the lower limb. So I suspect that the reason that Jesus noticed Zacchaeus is that pretty much everyone else was watching him make a fool of himself scratching and clawing his way up that sycamore tree. Zacchaeus though, was not concerned about being embarrassed, and we have to wonder, why did he did not mind being made a laughingstock in front of the very people he had for so long put on a respectable front? The only answer is Jesus.So we have to be a little curious, just what was it about this Jesus that made Zacchaeus throw his dignity to the wind and do what grown men have no business doing, climbing up in a tree?

         Well, the good news is that his actions, no matter how unseemly to some, did accomplish more than  Zacchaeus could have hoped for because not only was he able to get a glimpse of Jesus but he also heard Jesus invite himself over for dinner. Now, this invitation of Jesus seems beyond wonderful, yet this too was perhaps an embarrassment because who really is ready to have the king over for dinner with no time to prepare for such an occasion? Yet, here was Jesus urging Zacchaeus to hurry up and get down out of that tree that he had had used so much effort getting up into. Zacchaeus had to get on with with preparing dinner for this Jesus who had taken a liking to him. Perhaps, Jesus simply enjoyed the company of those who are willing to go out of their way to embarrass themselves. 

         Well, today in this segment of our series of messages entitled, “The Taste of Blessing”, we are going to look at the fruit of the Spirit that tastes like kindness. The Spirit produces kindness in us through our experience with him, an experience that scripture calls blessing. One of the very first teachings of Jesus was on this very thing, this blessing of God that comes through the God of blessing who we know as the Holy Spirit. The blessing which produces in us the fruit of kindness is this: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Now we have to be careful in how we read this for we do not want to come away with the idea that God will only be merciful to those who first are merciful. This would make the actions of God to be caused by our actions which the cross has proved to be false. As Paul will tell you, it was while we were his enemies, Christ showed his mercy, dying for us all on a criminal’s cross. No, Jesus has something very different in mind. Here is where the fruit we receive through the action of the Holy Spirit proves very helpful in our understanding of this blessing. The fruit of the Spirit found in us when the Spirit blesses us with mercy is kindness. The word from which we get this word, “kindness”, from, comes from a root word which meant, useful. So when we encounter the Holy Spirit through his blessing us with the goodness of God we experience kindness, this mercy found to have a peculiar purpose. 

         This purpose for this mercy given to us is found in the aftermath of this encounter Zacchaeus has with Jesus. You see, it was all because Jesus offered to enter his house and have dinner with him, this is why Zacchaeus decided to respond by doing something truly incredible. He tells Jesus that half of his goods he would give to the poor. On top of this news, Zacchaeus adds, that to anyone he has defrauded he was going to give them four times the amount that he had wrongly taken from them. So, stop and consider what Zacchaeus has done in this moment. He now has given away more than half of everything that he owned. This is the kind of giving that changes your life. This extravagant giving would have surely been considered embarrassing, perhaps more embarrassing than climbing a tree. To his fellow tax collectors, Zacchaeus had just done something incredibly foolish. Come on Zacchaeus, the whole point is for us to see how much wealth can we accumulate, so that we can eat, drink and be merry? We don’t gather all that coinage just to see how much we can give away! I mean, why give half of what you had to the poor, what will they ever do for you? These friends of Zacchaeus had to be left scratching their heads wondering, just what has this Jesus done to Zacchaeus to make him think that this is the way wise people handle their money?

         We are right to be astounded with the crowds encircling Jesus that day, wondering just what had this man named Jesus done to make a noted tax collector like Zacchaeus just up and throw half of his earthly treasures away. Perhaps they had forgotten what power there is when someone is willing to eat with us so that we do not have to eat alone. I believe all of us can imagine the transformation that happens when we know that no matter how bad the world might believe we are, God says that he desires more than anything to sit at our table and eat with us. This is the power of mercy, this kindness which is the very useful goodness of God  So it is obvious that this mercy Jesus has shown to us has a purpose, a very good reason why mercy changes everything.

         As it turns out, Jesus taught his disciples a parable which helps us to figure out the reason why mercy is shown to us. The story Jesus tells us is one which illustrates both the wrong reason to be merciful to others as well as the real reason God extends his mercy to us.. Listen to this story, found in the eighteenth chapter of Luke, and see if you can comprehend what Jesus is saying to us about mercy.  “Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself, and he prayed, “God I thank you that I am not like other men, predators, unjust, adulterers or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I receive.” The tax collector, though, stood far off, unable to even lift his eyes to heaven, and he beat upon his chest, crying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Jesus concludes this story by telling us, “The tax collector went down to his house in a right relationship with God, rather than the Pharisee. For every one who exalts himself, will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” You see, the Pharisee used acts of mercy, his giving of the tithe, to make those listening to him give honor to this Pharisee. His flaw was believing that since his friends considered him to be honorable that God would do so as well. Yet, Jesus tells us that when that Pharisee went back home, he was no closer to God than when he came to pray. He was painfully unaware of what mercy even was, not knowing the very purpose that mercy had been extended to us in the first place.

         We begin to understand why mercy is extended to us in something Paul writes at the beginning of the second chapter of Romans, where he says that God’s kindness leads us to repentance. Here we find that the purpose for the mercy God extends to us. The mercy of God is a kindness which has the power to turn those who are walking away from God and cause them to run into the loving embrace of our Father. So the purpose of mercy, this kindness shown to us, is given to restore relationships. The tax collector rightfully knew that only the mercy of God could restore the relationship which the tax collector had ruined. The word the tax collector used when he asked God to be merciful comes from the same word used for the mercy seat found on top of the Ark of the Covenant. This causes us to remember the most holy of days in the life of Israel, the yearly ceremony of atonement. This is when the sins of the people were cleansed away through the sprinkling of blood upon the mercy seat. This was the day that the people could begin anew in their relationship not just with God but also with each other. 

 

The Pharisee failed to remember the power mercy has to unite God and his people together. This is why he could simply write people off that he disagreed with. He could see them to be nothing more than animals, predators who knew nothing of justice, adulterous in their relationships.  Yet what was proved to be true when Zacchaeus met Jesus is that mercy has a power called kindness which can transform anyone. To the Pharisees, Zacchaeus was just one more person who could be easily dismissed. But Jesus saw Zaccheaus as one who simply needed to experience the power of mercy. You see, the whole reason that Zacchaeus embarrassed himself climbing that tree is so that he could see the one who just might reconnect him with God. So when Jesus told Zacchaeus that his one desire was to dine with him, Zacchaeus understood that here was God, longing to eat at his table with the likes of him. The kindness of God caused Zacchaeus to repent,  changing his whole way of looking at life. Now Zacchaeus knew that his wealth could be the kindness which connected him to those who also longed for mercy. These dear souls just might become the friends who would one day welcome Zacchaeus into his eternal dwellings just as Jesus also promises at the beginning of the sixteenth chapter of Luke. So, yes, the way this kindness of God transforms us just may make us become people who do foolish actions at least according to the world’s standards. Yet we will just let the world laugh for the power of mercy, this kindness of God, is found to be far more important than our honor.

         You see, when we understand that the mercy of God has a purpose, that this mercy creates a kindness which draws us all together, then the teachings of Jesus make sense. You see, Jesus point blank tells us, that we are to live this way: “Do not oppose the one who is evil. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and let him slap the left cheek as well. If anyone sues you and they take your coat, give them your shirt as well. If you are forced to carry a Roman soldiers pack one mile, go with them for two miles. Give to the one who begs from you. Lend to anyone who would borrow from you.” Now at face value, this teaching of Jesus makes us squirm, doesn’t it? I mean if we are considering ways to embarrass ourselves, this teaching of Jesus will certainly accomplish this. Yet, we also hold fast to this truth: kindness is the power that restores relationships. 

This is why we are willing to listen to Jesus who first, tells us that evil is to be no longer opposed by violence. You see, if we use the world’s violent methods to oppose evil we will end up a slave chained to this world and its desires, a world which God will one day destroy. No, we must hold fast to the way of freedom shown to us every time we sit at the table and commune with Jesus. As Jesus takes the bread into his hands, we remember that Jesus has taken us out of the world through the good news which proclaims that we now have a kingdom to call home. Then as Jesus blesses us, we remember that even though we should rightfully be condemned, the blood of Jesus covers over our sin, so that now we might be empowered by the one whose name is the Comforter. Then as Jesus breaks the bread, we remember that we must be broken, so that our life becomes channeled by the ways of our Father.. We must allow God to train us to use what he has given to us to demonstrate that we are a child of God, worthy of an eternal inheritance. Finally, Jesus gives the bread. Here, we remember that the only way to avoid becoming a slave to this world is to freely yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit who offers us up to the glory of our Father.

         So at the table we remember that we are given over to the work of the Holy Spirit as we receive the bread.Yet this is not all for we also also remember as we receive the cup that through the blood shed by Jesus we receive mercy. We remember how God in his mercy allowed the blood of Jesus, our kinsman redeemer, to set us free from our slavery to sin. We also  remember, how Jesus in his mercy, gave his life, the shedding of his blood, so that we might be judged worthy of life. Now we are called to live that life for him. We remember how Jesus, cleansed us by his blood so that that the Holy Spirit might live in us as a guarantee of our future. You see, the power of mercy has reconciled our past, given us a present and has sealed our future with God. So as we drink of the cup, we remember that this same mercy lives in us, in power.

         So when we yield our lives to the Holy Spirit, by his power we can offer  mercy, turning our other cheek. By our kindness we force our enemy to look into our face to see something greater than honor at stake.And by our kindness we give more than expected when someone asks us. We no longer carry the pack of our enemy one mile but go with them for two so that by our kindness we may find a friend. We lend to others when they beg from us so by our kindness we might uphold their dignity.  You see this is the Jesus way of living, offering mercy to the unworthy so that by his kindness our world might be filled with friends. This is why Jesus endured being slapped on his face, the giving away of his clothes, his going the second mile with a cross upon his back, so that by his kindness shown to us at the cross, his kindness might now live in us. This is what we remember as we drink the cup. Yes, living such a life of kindness may embarrass us as Zaccheaus knew so well. Yet, it is just such a life loved in the power of mercy, this is the life that honors God and glorifies him forever! Amen!