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March 11, 2007 Lent 3C

Sermon Title: “Q & A Along The Way”

Series: The Path of Discipleship

Text: Isaiah 55:1-9; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Cor. 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

Dr. Steve Jackson

NewSong Community Church

Delivered on March 11, 2007

“No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will perish as they did..” Luke 13:5

Q & A Along the Way

The past three weeks have been deeply troubling ones in many ways. Two incidents in particular have stuck with me personally. The first incident was the tornadoes that swept through Alabama and South Georgia on March 1^st. The loss of so many high school students in Enterprise, Alabama, cut down at such a wonderful time in their lives, has stuck with me. I read this past week about one situation in particular where the father of one of the young people killed was a soldier who had to be called home from Iraq to bury his son. Can you imagine?

The second incident weighing heavy on my heart lately was the baseball team bus accident that occurred the very next day, March 2^nd here in Atlanta. On Friday a seventh person died from his injuries in that accident. Again I was struck by the seemingly random nature of this tragedy. I can’t fathom the fear and anguish the victims of both of those incidents must have experienced as a tornado caused walls and roofs to collapse, or as a touring bus plunged thirty feet off an overpass.

What are we to do with the emotions, the questions, and the fear such events bring to our lives. Michael Smith shared with me his feelings as he put his daughter Sarah on a bus full of young people to go to an event the day after the bus accident in Atlanta. And Donna and I had to release our own Amy into the Lord’s safekeeping as she boarded a plane two days ago to go fly to Brazil. Think for a moment, how are we going to feel when the tornado sirens in our area signal an approaching storm in the next few weeks as they always seem to do this time of year? Why do such things happen?

That must’ve been the mood of Jesus’ questioners in the passage from Luke we read today. His audience brings up two recent tragic incidents of their own—tragedies that raised questions. One was caused by a human being. Evidently some worshippers from Galilee were killed by Roman authorities while they worshipped in the Temple (v. 1). The second incident was a natural calamity. A tower at the southern end of the city of Jerusalem had collapsed, possibly while under construction, killing eighteen people. The question the people had for Jesus is as old as the human race: why these particular people? After clarifying that the victims of the tragedies were no better and no worse than anyone else, Jesus relates the victims’ physical death to spiritual death, using this as a teaching moment, to remind his listeners that we all need to change or we’re going to perish spiritually. He used the incidents like a wake-up call, as perhaps you yourself have been feeling thinking about how would you feel if it was you who heard the tornado sirens or if it was you who, in the darkness, felt the momentary weightlessness of flying through the air before crashing sickeningly into a roadway.

We could hardly find more appropriate texts for the season we are in right now than the ones we have for today. For you see, as we continue on the “Path of Discipleship” questions are bound to arise. As we examine our lives, as we reflect on God and who he is and his purpose for us, questions are going to crop up in our minds. And so today I’ve titled the message “Q & A Along the Way” because in these passages we find some answers to a few very important questions we need to answer as we journey towards the cross. Questions like, “What is the nature of man?” and “What is God really like?” and “What does God want from us?” and finally “What does the future hold?” Personally I can’t think of four more important questions to ask and answer at any time, so let’s spend a few moments together this morning looking at what the Bible says about these important questions.

What is the Nature of Man?

In the Old Testament text Isaiah addresses the nature of man by posing a question of his own: “Why do we choose again and again things for our lives which we know will not cure the hurts and desires and pains we have?” Why do we do that? Why do we spend our money for bread that doesn’t ease our hunger? Why do we work so hard at our jobs that don’t satisfy? Why do we strive so hard in the rat race when we know that, win or lose, it still makes us a “rat” to participate in the race?

Do you ever wonder about this? Here at Lent where many of us have “put away” certain things in our lives which we know are not helpful and, in fact, are hurtful, we realize how much better our lives work without those things. But even as we do so, way down inside many of us are counting the days until we can again do those things—aren’t we? Why is that? What is it deep inside us that leads to such rebellion against God and his ways?

In truth, the prophet doesn’t directly answer that question, humanity would have to wait for several hundred years for the Apostle Paul to come along and answer that question about our “sinful nature” (viz Romans 6). Rather than describe the “cause” Isaiah simply points out the way things are: we continue to make things that are less than ultimate be the ultimate things in our lives (which is idolatry); we continue to dwell on the wrong kinds of things. He concludes by urging us to “seek the Lord while he may be found.”

What is the Nature of God

The prophet does address a second question we need to have clarified as we journey toward the cross, and that concerns the nature of God. What is God really like?

Isaiah tells us that our God is full of forgiveness and that he will “abundantly pardon.” He also tells us our God is so full of mercy and grace that he offers us the things we really need: bread that fills and work that is satisfying—for free. “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (v. 1). Isaiah also teaches that God’s thoughts and ways are radically different and eminently higher than our own. In fact the main reason he gives for the difference between the nature of man (always seeking things that don’t ultimately satisfy) and the nature of God (completely trustworthy and continually offering us “good things.”) has to do with God’s thoughts versus our own. Isaiah explains that God’s thoughts are “higher” than ours.

In Psalm 63 David affirms the nature of God as being completely trustworthy. He expresses absolute trust and confidence in God. Rather than thirsting for the wrong things, David’s soul “thirsts for the Lord” (v1). He doesn’t hunger for bread that doesn’t satisfy, instead his soul is satisfied with the “rich feast” the Lord offers (v. 5). Even when he lies on his bed at night—a time when many of us tend to let our imaginations run wild at all the bad things that might happen to us and to those we love—David continues to enjoy a quiet confidence and trust in the Lord. He sleeps like a baby. In fact, God has been such a help to him that he can describe his relationship with God as being under protective wings, like a baby bird under the wings of its mother.

What is the nature of God? Gracious, merciful, compassionate, forgiving, and ultimately more loving than we can possibly imagine.

What does God desire of us?

A third question for us to consider this morning and on our Lenten journey is “What does God desire of us?” For the answer to that we need to turn to the parable at the end of the passage from Luke. The parable seems kind of odd sitting where it does after a message about repentance. Jesus says a man planted a fig tree and later came around looking for fruit on it and found none. So he tells his gardener, “Cut it down, why should it be wasting the soil?” In response the gardener lobbies to the landowner to allow one more year for the tree to bear fruit.

The answer to what God desires of us is fruitfulness. God wants us to have fruitful lives; to do and be what he created us to be. And notice that this is not an unreasonable request. The landowner wasn’t expecting the fig tree to produce apples or oranges. He was looking for figs, which is what should naturally occur on a healthy fig tree.

What a word to us here in this season of reflection. When you look back at your life today versus one year ago—are things better between you and God? Is your relationship stronger? How about your relationships with others? Would you consider your life a fruitful one? Or are your branches still barren and devoid of leaves and fruit?

It looked so odd to me on Thursday last week—the day the temperature hit the mid-seventies. We have bermuda grass and it is still as brown and dormant as can be, which is not surprising or even noticeable when it’s cold outside. But when the weather warms up and you look down and see dead grass and barren trees—it seems odd doesn’t it? Already some of the trees in our yard have little green leaves (willow trees). New life is appearing that promises new growth and fruitfulness—they’re signs of life. How about the “branches” of your life? Are they barren? Any buds there? Any signs of life?

The good news is we have a Master Gardener—Jesus—who has lobbied with God the Father to give us a little more time to bear fruit. But if we’re going to bear fruit, something has to change doesn’t it? What’s going to make this coming year any different?

What Does the Future Hold?

And that leads right into our fourth question along the way. What does the future hold? Your future and mine is not set in stone you know. It has yet to happen. We must take responsibility for something different to happen.

What’s going to happen? The texts from today are clear—it’s all up to us. If we change and become fruitful—if we “flee idolatry and forsake our unrighteous ways and seek the Lord while he may be found”—then we have a wonderful future ahead of us. But if we continue in our old, unfruitful ways, if we fail to repent—then we will be cut down, we will perish spiritually just as surely as those whom the tower fell on, or who were slain while worshipping by Pilate, or who were killed by tornadoes two weeks ago, or who died on that bus are dead physically today. Jesus couldn’t make it any plainer. Look at verse 5: “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

That’s hard to hear isn’t it? We spend so much time these days affirming one another, building up one another’s’ self-esteem, etc…it seems foreign to our ears to have someone stand up in front of us and say we’ve got to change some things or else we’re in for trouble. Repent or perish…turn or burn. When’s the last time you heard a sermon on that? It has become quite unfashionable to talk about judgment and the wrath of God. But these passages clearly challenge us to look at our behavior and actions. And to change.

What we learn here is that while God offers us warmth, hospitality, forgiveness and love, it is our decision whether or not to accept that invitation or not. The good news is it isn’t too late; with God we have a second chance—another year—to become fruitful. But there is an urgency here; an urgency to look at ourselves and our church to ask the simple question, “Are we being fruitful and faithful?”

We have an awesome, loving God who is faithful. But he is also just. We have been warned. That’s what the passage from 1 Cor. 10 is all about, Paul is reminding the Corinthians that the Israelites were “just like them” and yet they continued to lapse back into idolatry and immorality and because the did the judgment of God fell hard upon them. There in verse 11 of that passage Paul says these things were written down in the Old Testament “to instruct us.” He goes on to say that God will not allow us to be tested beyond our ability to endure and he will always provide a “way out” (v. 13). So we not only have a great advocate and ally in our struggle, we have a God who has set limits on himself and his judgment against us.

Still—there will come a time of judgment—and we must be ready. So as we continue on the path of discipleship let us remember the nature of man—to continually make that which is less than ultimate the ultimate in our lives. And let us remember the nature of God—forgiving, compassionate, and loving. And let us remember what he requires of us: fruitfulness and faithfulness. And finally let us remember what will make all the difference in the world in our destiny, whether or not we repent and “return to the Lord so that he may have mercy on us” (Is. 55:7).

What does that repentance look like? I’ll close with a sort of parable that talks about this.

There’s a little-known town called Wabush located in a remote portion of Labrador, Canada. For years and years the town was completely isolated and cut off from civilization. But finally one day a road was cut through the wilderness to reach it. Wabush now has one road leading into it, and thus, only one road leading out. If someone would travel the unpaved road for six to eight hours to get into Wabush and then should decide to leave, there is only way to go—by turning around.

Each of us, by our very nature, arrives here on earth in a in a “town” called Sin. As with Wabush, there is only way out of that town—a road built by Jesus Christ himself through what he did on the cross. But in order to take that road, one must first turn around. That complete about face is what the Bible calls repentance, and without it, there's no way out of town.

This season we’re in—if we take it seriously and do the tough work I’ve been talking about for a few weeks now—reminds us that many times we’ve decided to leave the town of Sin by trying to hack another road out of town. It may have been the road of your own ability, or the road of good behavior, or the road of education or power, or career or the road of what your parents or someone else has done for you that you’ve tried to go down. We’ve tried and tried to hack out an alternative path and each time we’ve ended up right back in the town, exhausted, frustrated, and feeling defeated.

This morning I want to challenge you to do a “180”—an “about face,” and I want to encourage you to march out of town on the road Jesus himself has provided for us. He’s already built the road—your part is repentance, doing the about face and admitting you can’t do it on your own—that you’re ready to try it “his way” the way of the one whose thoughts and ways are higher than our own. Truth is, it’s the only way.

It’s not too late yet—we have an advocate who has spared us from being chopped down for a little longer—but there is an urgency. We don’t have “forever” to make this decision. Will you take the road he offers today? Will you turn or will you burn? Will you trust or will you just keep on trying? Jesus is calling you to repent, to trust him, and to be fruitful beginning today. Will you heed the call? Let’s Pray.