March 1999 Sermons
Dr. Henry E. Roberts

Getting Spiritually Fit
The Rule That is Gold
Palm Sunday: A Day of Commitment

Getting Spiritually Fit
Matthew 6:1-18

   The physical fitness industry is an amazing and very fine development in our modern times. There was a time when most workers each day would in their daily work get plenty of physical exercise in order to accomplish their given tasks, but we are in a different age and certainly you who are here this morning spend most of your time in a sedentary lifestyle which means sitting rather than moving about in order to accomplish your daily tasks. Lots of sitters in our congregation today. In order to remain physically fit, you have to be very intentional about your activities.

   So you join clubs like YMCA or Pensacourt or a half of dozen others in our community. P.E. Classes...You walk and train for such events as the "Run for Missions" which is coming up this Saturday. And all of this is good for we need to be physically fit. The body is the "temple of the Holy Spirit", it is the container in which we live and move and have our being for a season. We need to watch what we eat, we need to do nothing to excess, but live a balanced lifestyle. Do things in moderation. We need to throw away any tobacco products in our house along with any excess use of any other drugs.

• Take care of the body that God has given you.

   And as physical fitness is important and takes intentional effort, so also does spiritual fitness. Our spiritual growth and health doesn't just happen if we regard it in a casual way or practice the spiritual disciplines in a haphazard manner. There has to be intentional commitment and some reorganization of our lives. A church member who died this week at 80 suffered 28 years ago a massive heart attack but  lived well on a defective heart because he exercised, watched his diet and worshipped every Sunday. Physical and spiritual exercises practiced on a regular basis produce a healthy body and spirit. The season of Lent is a time to reorganize our lives and to consider our spiritual lifestyle.

   If you have been planning to get your life organized, today is the day to start. In an interesting book entitled "Tuesday's with Morrie", the writer quotes Morrie, his old professor who is dying with Lou Gehrig’s disease as saying each day I get up, I hear a little bird on my shoulder saying to me "Morrie, today could be the day." Well if today is the day, today is the day you need to do whatever you are planning to do.

   We have as Methodist people from our very beginnings considered the spiritual disciplines to be very important because they help us know what is important and to get on with it. The spiritual disciplines help us to know God and to understand ourselves. Spiritual disciplines like daily prayer, weekly worship, spiritual readings, financial gifting, and fasting and there are others.

   Marjorie Thompson in her book "Soul Feast" writes of what she calls a "Rule of life" which is but a way of saying that spiritual growth has to have some kind of structure, commitment, good habits.

   The Roman Pope John 23 as a young man practiced a discipline which he spelled out in his journal:

• 15 minutes of silent prayer upon rising in the morning

• 15 minutes of spiritual reading

• Before bed, a general examination of conscience followed by confession .

• Setting aside specific time for prayer, study, recreation and sleep.

• Making a habit of turning the mind to God in prayer.

   This phenomena of experiencing God is more apt to take place when We Are Spiritually Fit and When We perform certain spiritual disciplines. They are called the means of Grace for that is what they are:

• Prayer:

   Daily prayer can be a way as Paul describes his prayer life to "pray without ceasing". Every time you are driving a car, on the way....offer a prayer, it can center your life in God's will. You can drive and pray at the same time. You can do two things at the same time. Now you will probably have to stop driving and talking on the cell phone and doing your makeup at the same time. But you--we need to stop talking on the cell phone and driving anyway. More than half the auto accidents are now cell phone related and the other half are alcohol related, so if we can eliminate cell phones and alcohol, we will be a lot safer on the road. Well here's my suggestion--start praying.

• Worship weekly focuses your mind and don't miss communion:

   A church member that attends regularly was in the hospital and I said to her "I'll miss seeing you in church on Sunday, to which she said: "I might be there!" One of our youth was in the hospital with the flu bug this week and when I said: "I'll see you soon." His dad said, who doesn't miss teaching a children's Sunday School class and has his place in the balcony, "Well maybe we’ll be there Sunday." Practice hospitality: reach out to someone and provide space in your busy life and learn from them and they will learn from you.

• Spiritual Readings:

   There are so many resources available to us for spiritual readings. The Upper Room. The Bible. In the 9th chapter of John there is a wonderful story of the healing of a blind man by Jesus. Jesus was in ministry only three short years and occasionally you realize from his recorded statements that he feels the pressure of life closing in on him. "We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day, night is coming when no one can work." ..."Once I was blind but now I see!"

   Through the spiritual discipline of reading, God enables us to see. So we read The little green Lenten Devotional booklet which our church members have produced. Majorie Thompson's "Soul Feast". John Grisham's newest mystery "The Testament" became for me a spiritual reading as I saw the shallowness of the pursuit of wealth and status as did the Washington lawyer against the backdrop of a missionary to the Indians in Brazil who could care less about status and success and more money, but was interested only in helping. It helped me see that the greatest pursuit is not for success but for significance. It made me ask the question what am I doing that will live on after I am gone? As Soren Kiergard once wrote: "I am trying to find the idea for which I can live and die."

   Spiritual readings are found in many places: Loren Eiseley, was professor of Anthropology and Provost at the University of Pennsylvania until his death in l977. In his book entitled "The Star Thrower" this noted scientist and poet, was asked of his greatest accomplishment in his distinguished career. He was the recipient of some 89 honorary degrees. He invited the reporter to walk with him across the campus of the University of Pennsylvania and he pointed to a sizeable tree in the middle of the street. "See that tree?, he asked. "Several years ago when cars were allowed on the campus many of the students were injured by cars striking them as they walked or bicycled on the campus. Being provost, I could be on any committee in the University so I chose to attend the grounds committee meetings to advocate for closing the street to vehicles or if not, to plant a tree in the middle of the street to slow traffic down. The committee permitted a tree to be planted. That is the most important act I have accomplished in my academic career."

• Financial Gifting or Sharing:

   I have a friend who will often call and say: "What good are we doing today? Are you helping somebody? And the best part is that he always sends a check to enable me to help somebody.

   For 50 years our church has given through the "One Great Hour of Sharing" offering to assist persons through the United Methodist Committee on Relief, whom we will probably never know by name or see their face, but they are individuals who have been caught in the path of destruction created by hurricanes, floods, earthquakes as well as manmade disasters.

   One example of the results of this ministry is providing prostheses or artificial limbs for Angolan women. In the nation of Angola, approximately 70,000 people have lost limbs to land mines, explosive charges hidden under the surface of the ground. That figure continues to grow as land mines cripple 150 to 200 people every week. Through UMCOR's One Great Hour of Sharing Offering, we assist in providing new prostheses for these innocent casualties. The men in the army are provided for but the women, who often carry the burden of providing for their families, have not been cared for until recently when UMCOR began this program. Increased mobility will enable them to care for their families. Healthier families will benefit the community at large as people rebuild their lives after decades of war. Most of us cannot go there, some can, but we can all go there through our offerings.

• Summary: John Wesley established for Methodists early on what he called "Three Rules for Spiritual Growth." Do no harm. Do all the good you can. Practice the spiritual disciplines. But in the later part of his life and ministry, he preached a sermon on the Sermon on the Mount in which he is recorded as saying: "A person who does no harm and does good and uses the means of grace, the spiritual disciplines, will be termed by the world a religious person. But will this satisfy him who hungers after God? No."

   It is true that he who is careful to abstain from the very appearance of evil, he who is zealous of good works, he who attends all the ordinances of God, will look religious but looking religious is not what we are after. These are the outside marks of religion and Jesus was clear in his instructions concerning prayer, outside appearance is not what we are after. Go into your closet and close the door and pray to God in secret. Do not give your gifts so that everyone can see your generous actions.

What we long for, what we hunger for, what we strive for

• is knowing God.
• is life in Christ, knowing that we are in the center of God's will. The apostle Paul wrote living in such a way that living or dying is gain. What we long for is having communion with God as Holy Presence. What we hunger for is being purified even as He is pure. What we are restless for is resting in God.

   And the way of spiritual fitness leads to this desired result. As we reach for God, God is reaching for us.

   The residents of St. Cloud, Florida suffered for years a water shortage that required a rationing system. They had water to drink but none to water the lawn and barely enough to bath. Finally the city took desperate measures to replace and enlarge all the pipes and install a whole new water system. As the city workers were digging up the old pipes, they discovered on the water main two uncharted valves that were closed down that had never been turned on when the system had been installed ten years earlier. "They had plenty of water available to them, they just had the valves closed down.

Perhaps what we need to do is to just open the valves
of how God traditionally communicates with us.

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The Rule that is Gold
Matthew 7:7-12

   To be a Christian, a follower of Jesus, a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, involves a choice. Life is filled with choices:

   Where will I go to school? How will I live my life? Will I respect my body, by parents, my neighbors? Will I marry? and if so, then who will I marry. Will I join the church? Will I support Christian causes by my giving? my life style? Choices? so many, so varied, so important.

   There is a place on the Western Coast of the U.S. called Death Valley. And there is in Death Valley Dante's View. From Dante's View, you look down in the lowest spot in the U.S., a depression in the earth of some 300 feet below sea level. But also from Dante's view you can also look up to the highest peak in the U.S. Mount Whitney, which rises to a height of 14,000 feet above sea level. One way leads to the lowest of valleys and the other way leads to the highest peak. So often in our life's journey, we stand at Dante's view and are confronted with a choice, which will shape our days forever.

   James Russel Lowel once wrote in words of warning: "Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side, Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, and the choice goes by forever Twixt that darkness and that light."

   I have for years been captivated by a simple poem entitled "The Way". It reads:

To every person there openeth, a Way and ways,
And the high soul climbs the high way, and the low soul gropes the Low,
And in between on the misty flats, the rest drift to and fro.
But to every person there openeth, a high way and a low,
And every person decides the way their soul shall go."

   Perhaps that was the reason Joshua stopped the nation of Israel after they had crossed the River Jordan before they claimed the promised land, and said to them: "You have a choice, chose the way of God and be God's people and live abundantly in the land which is being given to us or chose the way of death." Said he: "I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil, blessing and curse, therefore chose life that you and your descendants may live."

   Today we recall the events of the Palm Sunday when Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem, as had the kings of Jerusalem had before him. Riding on a back of a young donkey with many in the crowd waving palm branches and crying out, "Hail him who comes as King of the Jews." It was a day of decision for many:

   The Jewish authorities, the Roman soldiers and many in the crowd were to busy with other things to even notice and theirs was a negative decision, but many others chose to identify with Jesus. That day of days would separate all of time for so many. Like the Cross would separate all time between BC before Christ and AD after Christ, so the day of the palms would separate people for ever.

   Today will separate those of you who will be baptized and confirmed from your other friends in some cases forever. Today Christ is offered to you and you are given the opportunity to renounce evil and to accept the power God is giving us all to live a Godly life.

   You make such a decision to follow Christ for a number of reasons:

   First of all, and the dominant factor of those who today are confirmed:

• Christianity is a natural choice. In order to live we chose to drink fluids and take nourishment. In order to live well, we chose the way of Christ. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

• Today is the celebration of a rite of passage for our youth. It is a significant time in the life of these families for it marks the last moment in time before their children move into the teen years. There will be other important events like when you go to high school, like when you are 16 and have a driver’s license, like when you go away to college, when you marry, when you have a child and make your mother a grandmother.

   The apostle Paul wrote to young Timothy: "I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure dwells in you."

• Many, if not most of us, join the ranks of Christians because, thank God, we know no other way. Many of the members of the l999 Confirmation class, I first visited when they were in the hospital when they were born and soon afterward baptized them here at this altar. I have watched them grow up in the church, come to the altar for the children's time and then when they began to think they were too big, stubbornly sat in their pews. Thank God many of our children know the hymns, the creed is in their heart, and the way of life is the only thing tattooed on their lives.

   You will be asked a series of questions in a few minutes:

Will you renounce evil and reject wickedness as a way of life?

Will you accept what God is trying to do for you?

Will you place your whole trust in his grace and promise to serve Christ?

   Your answer is your decision, your choice, which will determine your years and seal your eternity.

That you were created in the image of God,

That you are free to chose your way of life,

That it is better to give than to get, to help than to hurt, to lift up rather than push down.

That it is better to forgive than to hold on to grudges.

That to be great, you must be the servant of all.

That God must have first place in your life or he will have no place.

That there is power in a faith community.

That God will never forsake you.

That God's grace is sufficient.

To pray with a believing heart.

• You have been taught that to know the truth, you have to carefully balance what the Bible says, what human reason tells you, which how Christian tradition informs you with your experience of God as Holy Spirit.

• You have been taught that there are some things that will displease God: dishonesty, drugs, and destroying others property, or putting someone else down, laughing at a person whom God has created, whom Christ has died for.

• You have been taught that some ways you please God is by a generous spirit, a disciplined lifestyle, by praying and learning and laughing and loving, and by being actively involved in the faith family.