The Taste of Blessing: Count it All Joy

 June 22 2025

Matthew 5:4, Philippians 2:12-18

         I always love to hear people tell me that they have decided to read the Bible. Yet, upon hearing about their interest in reading the Bible, I tell people to begin with the gospel accounts so that they can get acquainted with Jesus first, instead of beginning at the beginning and reading Genesis as one would normally do with a book. The reason for such advice is that the first five books of the Bible contain a number of strange rules, and laws and sacrifices that may cause some people to give up reading the Bible altogether. If nothing else, these books at least make us grateful for Jesus. I mean before Jesus the law was clear that milk and meat could not share the same dish which means no cheeseburgers. Can you imagine the sadness of never tasting a cheeseburger? And how about no pulled pork or ham sandwiches because the Jewish food laws prohibit eating pork. Such laws and rules fill the pages of books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy. 

It was when I was plodding through Deuteronomy one time that I was struck by what God demanded of every single person in the nation. There in the sixteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, God commands his people that when they celebrate the two harvest festivals called the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles, there was to be non-stop rejoicing from everybody. Listen to how clear God makes his expectations: “You shall be joyful at your festivals, you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levite priests, the strangers among you, the fatherless and the widows. For seven days you shall rejoice and celebrate the festival. For the Lord will bless you in your harvest, in all the works of your hands and your joy will be complete.” Now, there were several things that made me scratch my head when I read this. The first question is just how do you command someone to enjoy themselves? I mean, I have been a Dad long enough that trying to tell another, smaller human being that they should stop their crying and put a smile on their face is an exercise in futility. God must obviously know the very same thing so we must understand that this command from God is to be seen as an expectation, something that should be the right response for everyone concerned. In other words, if you are not full of joy during this festival you have seriously missed the point. So God expects much joy, the shouting and jumping kind of joy and God expects such a response from everyone, no one, it seems is excluded. You would think that the poor stranger who found himself in the territory during this time would be one to left off the hook, or the poor child with no father or a widow struggling to make ends meet would be told that no joy was expected from them. But no, this is not the case; all have to be ready to rejoice. And not just to have joy for a moment or an hour; no, there shall be rejoicing from everyone for seven days. Have you ever witnessed a time when everyone you knew was full of joy for seven full days? This has to make us wonder how God could expect such a response for that length of time. 

There are two other interesting aspects of this command to rejoice by God. The first is that this list of who is to rejoice during these festivals is exactly the same group of people who the prophet Joel, tells us will have the Holy Spirit poured out in them. The Spirit will be given to the sons and daughters, the male and female servants, the old and the young, all will be given the holy presence of God and the implication seems to be that the Spirit will be found among those who are rejoicing. The second interesting connection is that when the people rejoice for seven days as God expects, then the people would be blest in their harvest, in all the works of their hands, and this is when their joy, we are told, will be complete. This same phrase, “your joy shall be complete”, is spoke by Jesus to his disciples. In the fifteenth chapter of John, Jesus tells his disciples, “ These things I have spoke to you that that my joy shall be in you, and that your joy shall be complete.” Jesus says, word for word, what God promises his people in the sixteenth chapter of Deuteronomy.

Hopefully, by now it is apparent that in this third part of our message series called, “The Taste of Blessing”, we are looking at the experience of joy which is a part of the fruit of the Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit we are blessed as we taste and see just how good our God really is. The fruit of the Spirit, then, is the experiences we have when we encounter for ourselves the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Last week we learned how we must come into our relationship with God knowing that there is nothing that we must bring to the table. We must, like Simon Peter, learn that we are indeed, desperate people who are, on our own, unable to do the good that God expects of us. The flesh is weak, so unable to do the good we want, that no matter how strong our spirit inside of us is, it still is not able to move us to do the good we desire to do. Yet, even so, as we come before God with empty hands he, in turn, lays in those same hands, the entirety of his kingdom. What wells up inside of us in that moment is love for this one who has everything desires to give us who have absolutely nothing, all of who he us.

Today, we are going to look at the experience we have with the Holy Spirit that is the source of our joy. What we have learned so far from the command God gave to his people in the sixteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, is that joy is the result of knowing that what stands between us and death is God. The people of Israel were to celebrate their harvest by acknowledging that God alone brought the increase. The harvest depends on this simple idea that life comes forth out of death through the work of God. Now, the fact that Israel gave their God the credit for the harvest was nothing special because all of the nations around them had similar harvest festivals. What made the harvest festivals of Israel so very different is that since God is acknowledged as the source of life then he demands that this life be given to all people. You see, what makes this list of people mentioned in these verses so interesting is that none of them are the actual people who harvested the crop. The children of Israel, nor their servants could be given credit for the harvest. And the Levite priest served in the Temple so they were far from the work of the field.The same could be said of the strangers passing through, the fatherless and the widows. The reason that all of these could be full of joy is that God stood between all of them and their fear of death. God gave such an abundant increase that everyone in the nation could partake on the harvest. This is the way that joy was experienced by everyone during this festival.

The importance of this strange command of God that all must rejoice is so very helpful in understanding this teaching of Jesus which says:”Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Now this teaching is often quoted to bring strength to those grieving the death of a loved one, and in these cases it does seem to be a fitting scripture. Yet, in the context of experiencing and tasting the goodness of God this teaching of Jesus has a rather different meaning. In this setting, the mourning spoken of here is not the death of a loved one but it is rather our own death that has brought us sorrow. This follows the realization of the first blessing that all of us are people who are poor of spirit, unable to do the good that we know we ought to do. Paul writes at the end of the seventh chapter of the book of Romans, that he was a captive of the law of sin. He realizes that sin controlled all of his actions and he exclaims, “…Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”  I believe that the reality that we all have bodies which are dead is the source of mourning and lament that we find in the second blessing that Jesus teaches us about. I believe that Paul writes so vividly about this moment of becoming aware of his true nature because he was one who had a life and death moment with the living Christ and he lived to tell about it.

         The story of Paul, once called Saul, encountering the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus is one that seems to be known by many people in and out of church circles. This story is recorded in the ninth chapter of Acts and is also mentioned two other times in this book. Now, for us to really grasp what happened with Saul, later called Paul, and the risen Jesus, we have to begin with a man named Stephen. Stephen was a follower of Jesus, a man who was chosen to serve the many widows who needed cared for in Jerusalem. Stephen though, not only served others but being full of grace and power, he also did great signs and wonders for all to see. The powerful men of Judaea could see that many were going to follow Jesus if Stephan kept on demonstrating a life that had such wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit. So they stirred up the crowds, saying Stephen was against the Temple because Jesus had said that the Temple was to be destroyed and rebuilt three days later. The end result was that the Council found Stephen guilty of blasphemy, a sentence requiring a death by stoning. Paul approved of this death of Stephen, and he was there when Stephen, kneeling on the ground, began to pray in the power of the Spirit. Stephen looked up, and he was able to gaze into the heavens and he exclaimed, “Behold, I see the heavens open up, and the Son of Man stands at the right hand of God”. What Stephen sees is the same vision that Daniel beheld as recorded in the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel. There, one like the Son of Man, a human figure, is presented before the Ancient of Days. We are then told that the Ancient of Days has given this Son of Man dominion, glory and a kingdom so that all should come and serve him. Now, the vision does not stop there because it also tells us that the holy ones of God shall also receive the kingdom and possess this kingdom as being their own. So this is an incredible promise that tells us that not only has the Son of Man been given dominion, and the kingdom from the Ancient of days but this kingdom is also to be shared with those called, “the holy ones”.  Paul, as a Pharisee would have understood himself as being one of these holy ones because he lived his life according to the holiness requirements of the priests in the Temples.As he writes in the third chapter of Philippians, according to flesh his resume was quite impressive. He was born to the right family, went to the right school, followed all the rules. He could say that according to the righteous requirements of the Law, he stood as one who had to be holy. So if his holiness was without question then why was this Stephan, this follower of Jesus, being greeted into heaven, as if the Son of Man knew this Stephen to be one of his holy ones. I believe that the mind of Saul, or Paul as he was later known, was full of questions as he headed for Damascus to root out these followers of Jesus in order to bring them to Jerusalem to face the same fate as Stephen. As he approached the city of Damascus, Saul suddenly sees a bright light, and being struck blind, he falls to the ground. Then he hears these words, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Saul scratches his head as he tries to figure out just whose voice this was. Saul asks this voice, “Who are you Lord?”, implying that he knew this voice came from heaven. This voice replied, “I am Jesus, who you are persecuting”. There is so much here to unpack in such a short moment. The bright light was surely a sign that the Son of Man had broken into our earthly realm. There could now be no doubt that this one who was prophesied by Daniel was indeed none other than Jesus. The question for Paul though was just how had he been persecuting this Jesus? The only answer was that this Jesus, the very Son of Man had united himself with those who followed him. This helped to explain this vision of Daniel because the Son of Man could only stand before the Ancient of Days if he was indeed holy. So this Jesus must be holy and so we’re those who followed him. By being united with him, they too now shared in the holiness of Jesus. So Stephen could behold Jesus, the Son of Man before the throne of God because he was indeed holy, united in someway with this one called Jesus. Yet, this was not all, for Paul also knew that in that moment, that if Jesus was indeed the Son of Man, then when Saul persecuted these followers of Jesus he was indeed persecuting the Son of Man. So there he stood, trembling before the Son of Man, knowing full well that he stood guilty of the judgment of death. Saul was a dead man if there ever was one. I mean what else could one expect when you violently oppose the king whose domain shall have no end.

         What Paul experienced in such a dramatic fashion is the same experience all of us must have for as Jesus tells us, “Blessed are those who mourn and lament this death which seems to have such a great hold upon us.” The blessing of such a terrifying moment is that in this moment we discover that no matter how holy we might consider ourselves, these efforts can not overcome death and its power over us. And just like was found in every harvest festival celebrated by the people of Israel, what stands between our death and our life is God. This is why Jesus, the Son of Man, confronted Saul that day on the road to Damascus, so that he might come between Saul and this road of death that he traveled on. You see, even though it was abundantly clear that Saul was on the wrong side of things, Jesus the Son of Man, did not condemn Saul. How else could Paul write at the beginning of the eighth chapter of Romans, that now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and do so with such conviction. This life beyond his sure demise is what Paul had experienced in his encounter with Jesus there on the Damascus road. You see, Paul was not struck dead there in that moment. Instead, Jesus told Saul to go into the city and there at the hands of Ananias, one of the followers of Jesus, Saul was to be baptized. Before Paul was baptized though, Ananias, told Paul, “The Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me to you so that you might regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Here is the blessing that Jesus promises to those who mourn, the giving to us of the one whose name is the Comforter. This is how Jesus brings life to those who lament their own body of death. Life is brought to us through the giving of the Spirit. This is what Paul says in our scripture for today, that we are to, “…work out our own salvation  with fear and trembling for it is God who works within us both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” What good news this is for all of us, news that is to open up within us a fountain of joy which cannot be stopped. Here is God doing exactly what he did with the harvest festivals of old, being the very one who stands between us and the death that seeks to consume us. When we are united with Jesus Christ through the Spirit, then as Paul says in the third chapter of Philippians, “I count everything a total loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ as my Lord.” All Paul wanted to do after meeting Jesus, this God who places his very life between us and the death that waits for all of us, is to know this Jesus more, to know of this power Jesus had to overcome death. Where happiness is found in all so many fleeting things which come and go, joy is found in knowing Jesus and is therefore, eternal. This is why Paul could say that even if he would be poured out as a drink offering, he was still glad and rejoicing with all the saints. So, in the same spirit as Paul, let us too be glad and rejoice with him. Amen!

         

The Taste of Blessing: It All Begins With Love

 June 15 2025

Matthew 5:1-3

         As we are now at last experiencing more summer like weather, I couldn’t help but think that summertime is usually when big, blockbuster movies would dominate the big screen. Many of these big hits were superhero movies where we watch as yet another unsuspecting person finds that they have been granted a super power of some sort. You know, Peter Parker gets bit by a radioactive spider and he discovers he now is Spider-Man. Dr. Bruce Banner gets dosed with too many gamma rays and becomes a super strong Hulk. People just love to imagine just what it would be like to be suddenly given a super power. Would this new power we would be given be the way we rid ourselves of all our problems or would it just create new problems of its own. Well, as it turns out there really is a super hero who has come to our rescue and his name is God. I say that he is a super hero because he alone has a super power. I never quite thought of God in such a way until I was helping with a worship service at Belmont Correctional, and a large, very muscular resident testified to the group. He said that the greatest power on earth was the love of God. Coming from one who obviously has a lot of power in his own right, this was saying something. What he said certainly makes us think, doesn’t it? I mean if you heard of a new movie coming out that had a super hero whose only power was love, I am sure not too many people would be willing to pay money to watch it. Let’s face it, the world with all of its problems seems much too large of an arena for us to comprehend how love could possibly be the answer. Yet, what if we merely considered how love might be the answer for the problems in our own worlds, you know the lives we are living. I wonder, might love be for us the very super power we are looking for?

         In this series of messages entitled, ‘The Taste of Blessing”, we are looking at what Paul calls the, “Fruit of the Spirit”.  This image is found in the fifth chapter of Galatians, and I believe that Paul here describes the complex taste we encounter from being blessed by God, telling us that the goodness of God is experienced by us as being love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and a dominion within us. To understand how we can know each of these experiences we are going to look at the blessing of God associated with each of these which make up the fruit of the Spirit.

         These blessings of God are the very essence of the teachings of Jesus to all who follow him. Today, we are looking at the very first of these experiences Jesus tells us that we will have when the Spirit of God touches our life. Knowing that the love of God is the very super power which changes the world, it comes as no surprise that love is what we discover in our very first moments with God. Jesus states that this relationship where we know God and where we are known by God begins in this manner: Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Upon hearing this, we have to ask ourselves just how is this a picture of the love of God entering into yet another human life. Perhaps what helps us in our discovery is to consider what this teaching of Jesus might look like in real time. What we would see is that one day the king left his throne to come and walk the streets of his kingdom. Yet, he does not walk down Main Street through the center of town, nor does he visit the well-to-do sections, no, he instead heads for the side streets, the back alleys and the places where the homeless are found. There he stoops down, and he gently touches a poor soul who cowers at his touch because this beggar expects the worst, as he has absolutely nothing and this king he kneels before owns everything. Yet, what happens next is the surprise of a life time because the king asks this destitute person, “How would you like to own this kingdom with me? “I would love for you to come and reside with me and sit with me on the throne so that you might rule this kingdom with me” the king tells this one who has nothing. This makes for an interesting plot twist, doesn’t it? In our world, those who are powerful expect the rest to get in line to serve them. But here is the one who holds all the power and this one only asks that we receive the gift of his kingdom, not asking us to serve him but he, instead, seeks to serve us by giving us what is solely his, his kingdom.

         We have to admit that this is a strange yet beautiful image, this king walking among the destitute and desperate to find any who might desire a kingdom. What this image does for us, though, is to explain why so many people miss out on this experience of God’s love for them. I remember preaching in a little country church one Sunday, and when I told this congregation that Jesus is for the desperate people, I could tell by the body language of my audience that such a belief offended them. You see, many people who live in this country believe that we actually can pull ourselves up by our boot straps, so for them, faith is the belief that God helps those who help themselves. They are not at all interested in a belief where God helps those who are utterly helpless. The danger with this idea is that if we cling to this notion that we are not quite in such dire straits as Jesus tells us then we are going to forever miss out on ever having a deep and powerful encounter with the love of God.

         When we refuse to actually believe that we are as poor and desperate as Jesus alludes to, then when we do encounter him, we do so as those who believe that we have something to offer Jesus, seeing ourselves as being God’s gift to whatever God is up to. We know this to be true because the gospel accounts tell us much about the life of Simon Peter. As you study Simon Peter it becomes quite obvious that he was a man who felt that he had something to prove, especially to Jesus. He was so over the top in his response to whatever Jesus called him to do. When Simon Peter let down his fishing nets at the request of Jesus and there were so many fish the nets began to break, it was Simon Peter who was first to kneel before Jesus, being the man who knew what was expected of him. When Jesus was encountered out there walking on the waves of the Sea of Galilee by those in the boat, it was Simon Peter who was first in line to jump overboard and join Jesus even though he was frightened out of his wits. Then when Jesus invited Simon Peter and James and John to come with him up on the mountain to see Jesus talk with Moses and Elijah, there was Simon Peter falling all over himself trying to build them all tabernacles because he could think of nothing else he could do in that situation. 

As the story goes along, Jesus gets to the point where he must turn his face toward Jerusalem. So, he begins to ask those who followed him, just who did the crowds say that Jesus was. The disciples told him that they thought Jesus might be John the Baptist come back from the dead, or perhaps one of the prophets of old. Jesus hearing these answers pushes them a little harder, and he asks them point blank just who did they believe that he was. Of course, it had to be Simon Peter who had to rush in and blurt out that Jesus was the Messiah. While Jesus attributes this answer of Simon Peter to the work of his Heavenly Father we have to wonder if Simon Peter was willing to acknowledge God as being the source of his answer. You see, once they knew Jesus as being the long awaited Messiah, this is when Jesus began to tell them that he had to go to Jerusalem to be crucified and then three days later he would be resurrected from the dead. Upon hearing this, Simon Peter lost it, getting in the face of Jesus as if Jesus had made a terrible mistake. Suddenly, Simon Peter found himself working for Satan instead of being the right hand man with all the answers.

         Well, Simon Peter did fall in line just as Jesus had told him to do. Just as Jesus had told them, they had made it to Jerusalem in order to celebrate Passover together. After they had eaten and drank together as part of this new meal Jesus taught them about, Jesus speaks to Peter, because Jesus is well aware that Peter still clings to this notion that it is what he brings to the table, this is what matters. So, here at the Lord’s table, Jesus hoped that Simon Peter would at last understand but he also knew that Simon Peter will ultimately fail. So, Jesus tells Simon Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat.  But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you return to me, bring strength to your brothers and sisters”.  Can you understand what Jesus is telling Simon Peter? It is not his strength or ability that is going to bring Simon Peter through the terrible night ahead of him. No, the arm of flesh would indeed fail him, but the prayer and intervention of Jesus, this is what would be the salvation of Simon Peter.

         Well, as usual, it was Simon Peter, James and John who went with Jesus as he entered the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus tells these three, “My soul is very sorrowful even unto death; remain here and remain awake with me.” Jesus begins to pray intensely, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’  Jesus then returns to Simon Peter, James and John, and instead of finding them awake and praying with him on this the worst night of his life, he found them instead, very much asleep. Listen to what Jesus says to them next,“So, you could not even stay awake and be with me for just one hour? Stay awake and pray that you will not fall into hard testing! The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” Here, Jesus is going back to his core teachings telling his disciples yet once again that they are indeed those who are poor in spirit. You see, what Jesus is pointing out is that the spirit within all of us, this inclination and desire we may have to be people who are able to be God’s gift to whatever God is up to, this is going to fail every single time because our flesh, our wherewithal, is too weak. The spirit within us must be considered to be poor because it does not have enough power to do that which we know is right and good. Paul, at the end of the seventh chapter of Romans, tells us the very same thing when he writes, “I do not know my own actions. For I do not do what I want to do, but instead, I do the very thing I hate…For I have the desire to do what is right, but I lack the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want to do is the very thing I keep on doing.” This is exactly what Jesus means when he says that all of us are, “poor in spirit”. This is why we must come to the conclusion that when we come to Jesus, nothing in our hands we bring for we simply are incapable of doing the good and righteous acts that give glory to our king.

         Well, even though Jesus has told Simon Peter that he is being prayed over so that he does not lose his faith and even though Jesus has point blank reminded Simon Peter and the others, that even though their spirit may be willing, their flesh, nonetheless was weak, and even though Jesus tells Simon Peter that later that night he would deny Jesus three times before the rooster crows, Simon Peter still refuses to give up this notion that he is somehow God’s gift to whatever God is up to in the world. So Simon Peter blusters forth full of courage and belief that he is able to last the night and prove Jesus wrong. So what we are left with is this tragic image of this friend of Jesus, warming himself beside a fire on that cold evening, afraid to admit that he even knew Jesus. Three times he was questioned; three times his answer was, “I do not know him”. Then the scene shifts to the rising sun, and the rooster crowing and a man becoming totally undone, weeping bitterly because he suddenly realized that there he was indeed unable to bring anything to this friendship with Jesus. As his tears washed over his face, Simon Peter knew what it meant to be one who was poor of spirit, yet if this was so then we have to ask, just where is this blessing that Jesus once told him, would be found in this confession?

         As it turns out, the blessing of Simon Peter is recorded for us in the twenty-first chapter of John. There we discover that Simon Peter has gone back to being a fisherman along the Sea of Galilee. It is not hard to imagine that now that he has figured out that he has absolutely nothing to offer Jesus except failure he should go back to what he was always good at, fishing. As Simon Peter tries all night to catch some fish he strangely is unable to catch even one fish. This must have given him a case of deja-vu for there was one other time this very same thing had happened. And just like that time, some three years past, when the sun was coming up, Simon and the others heard a voice asking them if they had caught any fish. You know, the last thing you want to hear after a long night of coming up empty is someone who seems to just be pointing out your failure. Yet, just as had happened some three years ago, this voice told them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat.  And just like the last time, the nets became so full of fish they were impossible to haul aboard their boats. This is when they knew who was calling out to them; it was their Lord, Jesus. There on the beach they saw Jesus, frying up a breakfast of grilled fish sandwiches.

         When breakfast was over, Jesus pulled Simon Peter aside, and Jesus asked him, point blank, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? “Yes, Lord”, Simon Peter replied, “You know that I love you as a brother.” Jesus then tells Simon Peter, “Feed my lambs”. Jesus turns to Simon Peter a second time, and asks him, “Simon son of John, do you love me with the love of heaven, the love found in the kingdom of heaven, will you love me as I have first loved you? Simon Peter , with tears in his eyes, tells Jesus, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you”. Jesus says to Simon Peter, “Tend my sheep”. Then Jesus asks Simon Peter a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me? Standing there around that charcoal fire there along side the Sea of Galilee, it would have been easy for Simon Peter to remember another charcoal fire on a terrible night when the reality of his poverty crushed him as he denied that he ever even knew this one called Jesus. Yet, despite his utter failure, Jesus has not abandoned him; no, far from it for here was Jesus asking him if he loved him. You see, that is all Jesus ever asks of those he encounters. Jesus is not interested in anything we might bring with us for there is absolutely nothing that he needs from us. All Jesus desires is a simple response of love when he offers us the gift of his kingdom. So, for a third time, Jesus asks Simon Peter, “Do you love me?, to which Simon Peter replies, “Lord, you know everything; you have to know that I love you.” Jesus then replies, “Feed my sheep”. What we learn from Simon Peter is that none of us have anything that Jesus can use except this, our hearts.  Jesus asks that our hearts respond in love when he tells us that we have a place in his kingdom, a kingdom where everyone loves and serves one another. The goodness of the love of God can only be tasted and experienced if we come with empty hands, desperate to experience this love which invites failures such as us to be his kingdom. If we have tasted this love then when Jesus asks us, “Do you love me? Our response will be just like Simon Peter, who replied, “Yes, Lord you know that I love you! I pray that  love will always be our response when Jesus blesses us, and we taste the goodness of our king’s love of us. Amen!               

 

         

The Taste of Blessing: Until Christ Is Formed In You

 June 8 2025

Galatians 4:8-20

         As a church we follow a different calendar which covers roughly the whole arc of God’s salvation. Last week was the last week of Eastertide, the forty day period when Luke records that the risen Christ taught his followers about the kingdom of God. The end of Eastertide is marked by the ascension of Christ. Now, I find it interesting that we, as evangelical Christians do not see Christ’s ascension as a holy day as the Amish and Mennonite communities do. This is one of those traditions that often catch tourists off guard, and if they went to Amish country on May 29^th, they would have gotten a surprise when everything was closed. Yet, at least these communities are reminded yearly that Jesus Christ has ascended to the right hand of the Father. We need to know the importance of this day because Jesus told his disciples that he was being carried into heaven in order to send the promise of the Father upon us, to clothe us with power from on high as recorded in the twenty-fourth chapter of Luke.

         Today, is the day when we celebrate that the promise of the Father was indeed sent to us, when at last the followers of Christ were clothed with power from on high. This day is called Pentecost, because this outpouring from heaven happened as the people of Israel were celebrating this festival. The name, “Pentecost”, refers to the festival happening fifty days after the celebration of Passover, “pente” meaning fifty in the Greek.This festival marked the beginning of the harvest of the wheat crop when the faithful would come to Jerusalem with the first fruits of their harvest to offer them to God as the Law required them to do. So it should come as no surprise that God would choose just such a day to send the Holy Spirit so that the first fruits of his kingdom might be brought before him. Many times Pentecost is referred to as the birthday of the church. So our church calendar is marked by two birthdays, one, the birth of Jesus, and the second is the birth of his bride, the church.

         Now when we hear that phrase, “the birth of the church”, just what does this mean? There seems to be just as much mystery in who the Holy Spirit is as there is in understanding who we are, the church that has come forth because the promise of the Father has been given to us, the power from on high is now clothing all of us. In our day, the church is what happens every Sunday when people get up and go to a building and sit often in the most uncomfortable seating, to sing songs and listen to a half-hour lecture about Jesus which makes the listeners so hungry that they rush from the service to be the first in line for lunch. I hope, by now, that most people realize that the church is not about the building which we often call a church. No, the church is not a steeple, the church is a people, for I am the church and you are the church, all who follow Jesus all around the world, we are the church together. Yet, is it just enough for us to be people who sit in a certain building for an hour in order for us to be the church. I mean, if you sit in a garage does this make you a car? No, there must be more to being the church than singing all the right songs, saying all the right things, listening for as long as possible and going home. As it turns out there is something more that is expected of us who say that we follow Jesus. At least this is what should be obvious to us when Paul tells his church, in todays scripture, that he is in anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in them. Can you hear the importance of Christ being somehow born in us? If such an experience was so important to Paul, then I believe it has to be this important to us as well. We  might even want to go so far to say that the church is not born until Christ is born in us.

         As Paul is writing this letter to the churches in the region of Galatia, he makes this idea of Christ being in us a steady drumbeat all the way through. He begins in the first chapter by telling us, in the sixteenth verse, that God has called Paul by his grace and it pleased God to reveal his Son in Paul. Then in the twentieth verse of the second chapter we hear this oft quoted scripture, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the Son of God , who loved me and gave himself for me.” As we read this we can sense that Paul is testifying to a deeper experience of knowing Christ, one which he desires all who follow Jesus to know for themselves.

         Now when we get to the third chapter we find that Paul introduces the patriarch of the Jewish faith, Abraham because he was the one who was first declared righteous by God because of the faith he had placed in God.Yet, Paul speaks about Abraham not just for his faith but also for being the one through whom the blessings of God would go out into the nations. This message is one Paul could say was God preaching his good news right from the very beginning. Paul explains, here in the middle of the third chapter of Galatians, that we all used to live under the curse of the law but,”…Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us by dying upon a cross so that the blessing of Abraham might come to all the world, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” So what the Father has promised to us is the Spirit, the one through whom all of the blessings might go out to all the world. Here we need to pause just to figure out just what is this blessing that God desire to give to everyone? One of the best definitions of being blessed is found in the sixth chapter of the book of Hebrews, where we are told that to be blessed is to finally know what God is up to, it is to taste the heavenly gift, being able to share life with the Holy Spirit; it is to taste the goodness of the word of God and to taste the powers of the age to come. The writer is obviously taking off where the thirty-fourth Psalm left off because in the eighth verse, we read, “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him!…those who seek the Lord lack no good thing”. Blessed means that the goodness of God is not just some biblical definition but rather the goodness of God is a wonder for us to taste and experience for ourselves.

         It is just this experience that Paul is afraid that this church at Galatia is in danger of losing out on. We hear his anguish in our scripture for today where Paul tells them that now that they have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how could they turn back to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world all to end up becoming a slave to such things. Paul wonders, what happened to the blessing that this church had received? Perhaps this blessing seemed too good to be true, but for whatever reason, this church had become convinced by some spiritual con artists that keeping the law was still necessary for those who found faith in Jesus Christ. Paul, right at the beginning of this letter, tells this church that what they have come to place their faith in was some other gospel, some other means of salvation not based on the promise God had made to Abraham. Now, this idea that there might be some other gospel that people would be attracted to should grab our attention because such goofy gospels still exist. People run after the good news that says that following Jesus will make you rich but the true gospel says that we have received a blessing in order to bless others, not ourselves. Or some believe that the good news is that if we follow Jesus then God will make us a great nation but the good news that speaks of blessing others says that these blessings will go out to every family on earth no matter what nation they live in; this is the true good news of Jesus Christ. The mark of these false gospels is that they always create division. At the churches in Galatia, their false gospel caused separation between those who thought salvation is by following the rules and those following the ways of blessing. The reason why people become susceptible to false gospels is that they have stopped short in receiving all of the fullness of blessing that the Holy Spirit desired for them. You see, the depth of the blessing of God is when the Spirit brings the life of Christ to be lived within the life of one who has found faith in Christ alone. When one allows the Spirit to lead them, this is when they will be led to discover and know God through the experiences they have with God, tasting and finding that God is indeed good.

         So again, on this the birthday of the church, it must be said that the church is not born until Christ is born in us, the church. The reason we must insist that this is true is that as Paul points out to the churches in Galatia, if Christ has not been formed in us, those who are the church, then the church is susceptible to chase after other gospels. And here is the bottom line: The church without the one, true gospel ceases to be the church, it’s as simple as that. The church that is born at Pentecost is in danger of dying unless it insists that Christ be born in those who are the church. This is the truth that the Spirit reveals to us because the Holy Spirit did not just move there on Pentecost setting the church in motion but the Spirit from that moment on was always leading every generation through the wilderness of this life in preparation of the life to come. Perhaps when Paul spoke of the Spirit’s leading he thought of the image found in the sixty-third chapter of Isaiah, where the prophet remembers how in the days of Moses, God put his Holy Spirit in the midst of of his people. Isaiah writes, “Like livestock that go down in the valley, the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. So, you, O God, led your people, to make for yourself a glorious name.” The implication here, is that the glory of God is tied to his ability to lead his people to a place of rest, a place where they would at last cease to always be striving in unbelief and at last abide in confidence that comes from knowing the goodness of God.  

         So, yes the church is born when the promised Spirit is given to us when Christ has ascended to his throne. The Spirit descends to us so that through his leading, the authority and dominion of Christ evident in the heavens above might at last be seen in us here on earth. This is why Paul insists that Christ must not just be claimed to be alive by us but instead, Christ has to be alive in us for this is the very promise of the Father. How can we not allow Christ to be Lord over us as he lives in us when we remember the wonder of his love for us, his giving to us his very life as an act of the greatest love of all. 

         Those who are the church would most likely believe in all Paul is saying but what is difficult for most people is, just how do we become those who can join Paul in testifying that we have been crucified with Christ, that it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me? The answer, strangely enough is found in this beautiful expression of Paul who speaks of the fruit of the Spirit. You see, people love this image of fruit, spiritual fruit, virtues that are in some way the result of the work of the Holy Spirit. What people don’t love though, is figuring out how this fruit connects with this issue Paul is dealing with in this letter. It is easy, and very tempting to cut this section out of this letter so that we no longer see that here is the answer Paul is giving to them in order that Christ might be formed in them. I believe that this fruit of the Spirit is the experience of tasting and seeing that the Lord is good in a multiple of ways. As the Spirit begins to lead us we will discover all of these different attributes which make up the complex flavor of the goodness of God. The journey, of course begins with love, because love is this, that God first loved us. It makes sense that our first experience will be that we know God as not just the one who loves us but rather we are to know God as being love in all of its fullness. 

         The Holy Spirit, then, leads us through the wilderness of this life and along the way, we are led to different experiences where we are blessed by God. Through that blessing of God we not only know God but we know God as being for us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This last experience, often called self-control, is the part of this fruit which proves that this work of the Spirit is indeed tied to all the rest of what Paul is writing about in this letter. When self-control is ripped from the context of this letter, it can be defined many different ways but when this word is taken down to the original Greek, what we discover is that it means the dominion in us. This word that means, “dominion”, is found at the end of the word, “democracy”. This part, “cracy”, means dominion, so that democracy is dominion, or government, by the people. So to have dominion within us surely must be understood that the one who has been given all dominion, this one called Christ, is found to be in us. It is this last experience found by following the Spirit through the wilderness of this world, this is the experience that Paul insists that this church desperately is in need of, to have the dominion of Christ found to be alive in them. Without this experience of being governed by the inner work of Christ in us we are at risk of being governed by every whim and every other gospel that people insist that we obey. We will be, as Paul told the church at Ephesus in the fourth chapter, “…children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” As Paul insists, we must be willing to grow up and allow Christ to be the dominion within us.

         As intimidating as this sounds, the good news is that Christ knows our frame, being one of us. So, when we go to his one true gospel, we discover that his core teachings deal with blessing, as they should do. The very first core teaching of Jesus from which everything else flows out of, begins, “Blessed are…” In the fifth chapter of Matthew we find this teaching of Jesus which begins, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.” This is where the leading of the Holy Spirit begins, with us spiritually poor and God with all the riches of his kingdom. What is our experience when the God who holds all the cards comes to us and offers us the entirety of his kingdom even though he is aware that there is absolutely nothing we can do to be worthy of such an offer? What we should come away with is that this God who has found us is a God who profoundly loves us. This is what we are going to look at next week in this series of messages on the fruit of the Spirit, called “The Taste of Blessing”. Each subsequent blessing will have a different experience as we find listed in Paul’s description of the fruit of the Spirit. This is the way that the church is born of the Spirit, following his lead until Christ is born in us because we know without a doubt that the church is not born until Christ is born in us. Amen!