Today’s Scripture

Psalm 66:8-20    Acts 17:16-31   1 Peter 3:13-22   John 14:15-21

 

          Do you like a good buffet?  Do you enjoy testing several items on that buffet?  Do you sometimes find yourself looking for something but not sure what you are looking for and do not see what you are looking for but do not know what it is you are looking for?

          When Paul went to Athens, a faith buffet is what he found in peoples’ religious system there.  The religion was a system of different gods for different things.  Among the altars to these gods was an interesting marker.  It was an altar to an “unknown god.”  Just in case they didn’t have everything covered, here was the catch-all.  Here was the marker that people were looking for something they just could not find.  It was something they just did not know what it was.

          Paul brings this altar to their attention telling them who this “unknown” god is.  It is the one true God.  This is God who made all things.  This is God who is not confined to a temple nor to anything of our making or thinking.  God is the source of life for all men and everything else.  God is not off in some distant heaven but is omnipresent, always everywhere and never away from any one person or incident.  God is always with you.  He is not busy with something somewhere else that takes him away from you.

          God made all nations and placed all people where they are as he is in each one and each one has his/her being in God.  Paul quotes some of the Greek philosophers and poets who wrote, “We are his offspring.”  How true that is as man is made in God’s own image.  How true this is in baptism when God adopts you back from birth as sinful man to be his own dear child, made holy again in the blood of Christ through these baptismal waters.

          Today we live in a world and society that, as the Greeks in Athens did, practice the Faith Buffet.  Open the web sites and the Yellow pages and we have a plethora of religions to choose from.  Follow the news and from the Dalai Lama to this religious leader to that priest to this minister to another religious scholar, from this group of people to another, from this corner of the world to another, you have your pick of what to follow.  You can even follow the religion of having no religion.  You can follow the religion of having no “denomination” but the collective and selective set of religious teachings that follow the denomination of non-denominationalism.  It certainly is a faith buffet.

          “…one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all,” [Eph 4:5-6].  "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it,” [Matthew 7:13].   "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,“ [John 14:6].

          After Paul’s presentation to the Athenians, they were divided in their response to the Savior who was risen from the grave.  It is no different than the division amongst people today as we hear the arguments that Jesus was merely a human being, nice guy, but only a human being who eventually died and was buried somewhere.  Another book is now out claiming that Mary was raped by a Roman soldier.  The miracle of the incarnation is thrown out.  The miracle of God taking on our flesh to save us is thrown out.  The miracle of God who is also man and dying on the cross is thrown out.  The miracle of the resurrection and victory over death and the grave is thrown out.  The miracle of the ascension into heaven is thrown out.

          Christians walk by faith and not by sight [2 Corinthians 5:7].  Children of God know that there is a heaven and a hell.  Christians know that heaven is through faith in Christ Jesus and hell is the punishment of denying the word, denying the son, denying the father who sent him.  Some do recognize hell as a place and others do not understand the reality and totality of it.  This week I saw a man with a T-shirt with his chosen symbol engulfed in flames.  I do not think that he understands the intensity of those flames.  The hell of unquenchable fire [Luke 3:17] is significantly different than simply shoveling coal into that fire. 

          Paul continues with the message preached by John the Baptist, continued in all of Jesus’ teachings, and the first call by Peter on Pentecost.  Repent.  The one true God is one of mercy.  The one true God is a God of love.  The one true God is one who continues offering forgiveness to all who look to his son, our Lord and Savior and brother Jesus.  The one true God wants sacrifices that are broken hearts and spirits. It is a repentant heart he will not despise, [Psalm 51:17].  Repentance is sorrow from sin, trusting God’s forgiveness in Christ Jesus, and the willingness to continue life as God’s dear child and not a child of Satan and of this sinful world.

          What is your faith buffet?  What things of earthly content or of philosophical thought catch your trust or create doubts and indecision.  What trials have taken you away from God who made you, who has given you your being, who has given you the tangible things of this earth, your reason and all your senses and still preserves them?  What is your faith buffet ranging from throwing up your hands and blindly saying “God will provide,” to throwing out your faith in God who does provide and depending on your hands alone, forgoing his commands and trust in his promises alike. 

          What is our faith buffet as a congregation?  In one moment we are a tightly-knit congregation knowing that salvation is won in Christ alone, a gift from God who loves us and keeps us one in that true faith with him.  At another moment we wrestle with the earthly realities of resources verses expenses and how does that relate to how we do mission and ministry.  We wrestle with knowing this one true faith but how to present it in a community that continually changes in what it takes to bring the Gospel of Jesus to them in meaningful mission as opposed to waiting for someone to walk in the door of the church or school.  As a great number of other congregations do we leave the work of the congregation’s mission and ministry to a handful?  Do we oftentimes sit back and say this employed or volunteer person will do it all?

          Faith.  Thursday is a Day of Prayer.  We will receive quite a number of requests for prayers.  A handful of individuals will sign up indicating a time or intent of participation.  Over 150 households will receive the petitions and a great many will dedicate time not just on Thursday but over a period of time with these petitions, bringing them in faith to God who has answered, who continues to listen and hear, and who will lead us in faith to know his answers.  As a congregation we are pretty quiet about those prayer lives and that is good as so many individually pray together in saving faith to the one true God.

          Faith.  Paul exhibited a strong faith and boldness in proclaiming that faith.  Each one of you is a Paul too.  Not only do you have that saving faith in you, but you are in an “Athens” just as Paul was.  Each one of you lives in a society of “faith buffet.”  Each of you lives and works and does business and studies in a society that is looking for that “unknown” god, unknown to them but known by you.  Each one of you is a Paul, in the position to share with others the one true God, unknown by them today for you to make him known to them.

 

          Yesterday quite a group gathered together to clean up our properties.  You can smell the dusting spray on the pews.  The windows are cleaned.  The grounds raked and trimmed and fertilized and cleaned up.  It looked at first like an insurmountable task.  But tools and elbows and hands and backs and legs and fellowship and coffee and donuts got a big thing done in short order.  Things inside and out were beginning to look a little ragged but now are back in order again.

 

          This week in the local news is the number of shootings and injuries and deaths and accidents and illnesses in this metropolitan area.  Take a look at the globe and Chicago-land is just a speck.  That tells us the greatness of the mission field we are in.  A week ago is a voice-mail from a person in our neighborhood thanking Immanuel for the message on our sing that reads, “He is risen!  Alleluia!” and how important that message is to him.  He gave a contribution for the upkeep of these signs.  Daily the carillon rings out hymns to the neighborhood and passersby.  Immanuel’s web site is visited daily and “hits” are made to the e-messenger and sermon entries.  All new members and visitors over the past couple of years have come either through invitations from individual members, through the school, or passersby who take notice that we are here.

          The message is right.  The faith that saves is here. The messengers are many.  Who is that one person in your neighborhood, at your work, the cashier who greets you each shopping day, the classmate, the parent you sit next to on the ballpark bleachers, one in your family, that you can serve the missing item in their faith buffet?  And have the confidence in Peter’s words to you, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect…” [1 Peter 3:15].  Remember, each one of them today is “dying” to hear. 

 

In Jesus’ undying love.  Amen.