Going All the Way for God?
April 8, 2007
Good Morning and Happy Easter Sunday:
Happy Easter to everyone and I hope you all are enjoying the wonderful day that Yahweh (God) has made. Today is Easter Sunday and it is a day celebrated around the world for many people. About one thousand nine hundred and seventy years ago during the first few hours of the 1st day of the week, which is Saturday evening just after sunset by Hebrew time reckoning, Yeshua (Jesus) rose from his grave and walked again upon the earth. Think about that for a minute just a few days earlier he had been suffering on the cross and then whew he is raised from the grave. That is the power of the almighty God, Yahweh. Halleluiah!
Most sermons today will undoubtedly be about the crucifixion and resurrection events that took place almost 2 millennia ago, but God has set before me a different challenge today and that is to explain why those events took place. Let me explain why. All week I was wondering what I would say in today’s sermon and I had some good ideas too, but then Friday night God told me and showed me what I was to speak about today. Does God ever talk to you? You know what I mean if he does. He reaches right out of nowhere to grab your attention with his strong hand and then gives you that message you really didn’t want to hear. Those of us who have experienced God’s voice know that it usually isn’t about how wonderful we are, or how special we are and here’s a reward. Oh no God usually tells us something we don’t want to know and gives a meaningful, if not sometimes painful example of what he is telling us. At point, is what happened to us on Friday night of this past week.
My wife and I had dropped off my-step children with their biological father in Albert Lea Minnesota, which is about 90 miles from our home in Titonka, IA. We had run inside the Wal-Mart to pick-up a few things and put money on a shopping card to buy gas for the trip home. We got in our van, I turned the key, and the van started right up. I pulled over to the fuel pumps, got out, ran the shopping card through the card reader on the pump, and wha-la nothing happened. The gas pump would not take the shopping card that my wife had handed me. After several feeble attempts by me, my wife took the shopping card inside and asked if they could run it through their computer. Again we had no luck in using that card. So we both climbed back in the van to head back to Wal-Mart and get a different shopping card. I turned the key, the van started and then died almost immediately. I tried several more times to start the van and nothing happened. We decided to use my wife’s bankcard to buy some gas incase we had run out of gas completely. I put in ten dollars worth of gas and tried to start the van again. It still wouldn’t start. About this time my wife realized that she had given me the wrong part of the shopping card. She had given me the stub rather then the card itself. So out I went to fill the tank. Again with a mostly full tank, I tried again to start the van. Again the van wouldn’t start. Thinking we might of run out of gas and the fuel system needed to be primed, we marched off to Wal-Mart to get some starting fluid. When we returned with the starting fluid, my wife sprayed it into the air cleaner while I tried to start the engine. The engine would start but would die out if my wife stopped spraying the starting fluid. After a number of attempts the battery gave out. Now we are stuck almost a hundred miles from home, on a freezing cold night with high winds. If you ever experienced the winds on the mid-western prairie you will know it is no place to be on a bitter cold night. How do we get home? Who could we call to help us? These were the questions we asked each other. Oh if only I had had the right part of the card to begin with the gas tank would have been full when I went to start it and this would have never happened, I thought. My wife began to cry at the thought of being stranded in the cold so far from home. She had bought some blueberry and raspberry plants and they were beginning to freeze in the cold back seat of the van and that made it worse for her. I through my hands up in the air, as there was no one-else I could think of to call to help us out. God please help us I said.
About that time three young men in a brandy-spanking new Jeep Cherokee pulled up next to us to get gas. While one of the men was pumping gas, another walked over and asked if they could help. We told him what had been happening, he fetched a power pack out of the back of his vehicle, and attached it to the battery. We sprayed some starting fluid into the carburetor and tried to start the van. It started and died. By now I was worried, as the pump should have primed itself and fed gas to the carburetor. Then the battery pack died out. I asked if he could give us a jump, he said yes went to get some jumper cables. My wife found her jumper cables first and we hooked up to the battery of the Jeep and thought, yes now we will get it going. Crank, crank, crank, still nothing, and then the starting fluid ran out. My wife marched over to Wal-Mart in the biting wind to buy some more. I tried several other diagnostics and still nothing. I was invited to sit in the warm Jeep with these men, while we waited for more starting fluid. After standing in the freezing wind and having to take my gloves off to work on the van it felt like paradise to be inside the warm vehicle. We chatted for a while, I learned that they had been at the oldest man’s house coloring Easter eggs with all their children and they had decided to escape the commotion for a while and take a joy ride. The older man and I talked about the type of engine in the van and after several minutes of discussions we both concluded that based on the year of the vehicle an the type of engine, it was possible that this vehicle had an electric fuel pump rather then a mechanical one. We both jumped out and renewed our tinkering with the fuel system. About the time we finished and were ready to try starting the van again, my wife came back with three cans of starting fluid. She was freezing and really hoping for a miracle. I jumped in and turned the key. Before the man could spray the starting fluid the engine fired up on its own and ran beautifully. My wife and I thanked the men and offered to pay them for their trouble or take them to diner. They refused to take anything and instead asked if we needed anything else before they left us. They were worried about us being so far from home on a cold night. When we assured them we would be all right they wished us a happy Easter jumped in their vehicle and drove off before we could even ask their names. As I sat there, taking a moment to thank Yahweh (God) for the help of these men and the van starting, he told me to forget my other ideas for a sermon, because this was the message he wanted me to speak about this Easter, the story of the Good Samaritan. He made it clear to me that the moral behind the story of the Good Samaritan is the very reason that Yeshua (Jesus) came here and went to the cross for us. As I drove away I felt blessed to have two prayers answered, the old van was getting us home again and I had a message for my Sunday sermon.
In today’s Gospel lesson (Luke 10:27-37) we read about the story of the Good Samaritan. But what is it that we were supposed to learn and how do we apply that to our daily lives? Let me recap the jest of the story as told by our Messiah. This man was walking the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, which lies about a two-day walk to the northeast of Jerusalem through the hill country. Somewhere along the way some thieves and ruffians who not only robbed him of all he had but also beat him up and left him on the road side naked to die there. Unable to help himself because of his injuries he laid there in raw elements dying. A priest (Pharisee) was walking down the road and saw the man and instead of helping him, moved to the opposite side of the road, and kept walking. Then a Levite came along, looked at the man, he too moved to the opposite side of the road, and kept walking. Imagine for a moment being this man on the roadside. Here you are naked for everyone to see, nothing to cover yourself with, badly hurt, and in pain. You have no one to call for help or even any way to call someone to help you. You can’t even move off the road to hide your nakedness from passersby. How humiliating and emotionally devastating that must have been. How scary to be helpless and defenseless against anyone or anything that might happen along. Can you feel this man’s pain his emotional suffering as lay there literally dying? Most of us have never experienced such a traumatic experience, praise be the Lord. But, we have all had some pain in our lives that we can relate to this story. We have all been in a tough spot before and needed someone to help us get out of it. And unfortunately we have all had to watch as those who could have helped us, who should of helped us, and who were obliged by their position and gifts in this life to help us turn away and to leave us alone in our predicament fending for ourselves. Isn’t this true? Let those memories flow back to you. Who here can honestly say they have never been in this poor man’s position to some extent? Sure you may not have been literally naked on the road or bleeding from your wounds, but you have felt the humility and the pain, isn’t that right?
We can all say at some time we have felt the loneliness of being rejected and cast aside by others you looked up to. That’s the point of Yeshua (Jesus) talking about the priest and the Levite; these were the Pharisees and the Sadducees who had come to power in the country of Judea. And just as they had cast aside the children of Jacob who were the Judahites, the Benjamites, and other decedents of the 12 tribes of Israel, they were now casting aside this man, who presumably was one of their own, a fellow Judean from Jerusalem. Are you beginning to feel the crushing agony that this man must have been going through as he watched these so-called godly men walk-on and leave him to die? Then when you are at your very end, here comes a stranger a person of a class of people you would normally think to run and hide from. Someone you were taught to fear and to be cautious of is approaching you. You are helpless, what do you do as he stops next to you and starts to reach down? Through the emotional cloud of fear and dread that must be overwhelming you at this point, you see a bright ray of light as the stranger, a Samaritan of all people, smiles at you and assures you that you will be alright. He covers your nakedness with his own cloak, offers you something to drink, bandages you up and then he helps you up onto his own donkey or horse. Later you find yourself at an inn, in a warm clean bed, with food and drink, and fresh bandages. Everything you need to get well so you can get home has been taken care of by someone you don’t know, never will know, or never see again. Can you imagine what would be going through your mind now? Everything you grew up believing, all the social standards and morality of your world is turned upside down. You were living a lie and never knew it. How do you go forward from here? Will you need to change everything you lived by to reconcile the events of the past few days with all the so-called righteousness you were taught before?
Yeshua (Jesus) identifies the helpful stranger only as a Samaritan, but that is more then sufficient to make his point. If you lived in Judea in the days of Yeshua, you would know who the Samaritans were. For the most part the Samaritans were the remnants of the 12 tribes of Israel who had been left in the former kingdoms of Israel and Judah that existed before their people were exiled to Assyria. Some were the descendents of the children of Jacob (Israel) who had been living in Jerusalem when the Babylonians conquered that city and took it’s inhabitants away, only to later be forced out of Jerusalem and the newly founded country of Judea by the Pharisees from Babylon who had come to power in Judea. Yeshua identified this man as a Samaritan because just as the Pharisees, their ancestors, and later their decedents rejected the people of God, the Israelites, they would also reject him and even Yahweh (God) himself. The Pharisees or Judeans wouldn’t intermarry or even associate with the Samaritans because they didn’t want to dilute their imagined purity with the true pureness of Yahweh’s (God’s) love and mercy. Yeshua (Jesus) identified them to us as the literal offspring/children of Satan (John 8:44). They the children of Satan really believe the lies they preach are true, so one can understand their fear. Darkness cannot dilute light, but light can bring destroy the very essence darkness it obliterates it. Shine a flashlight in a dark room and which disappears the dark or the light? A little of God’s light can overcome and defeat an awful lot of Satan’s darkness. Have you ever noticed in scripture that Yahweh (God) will always, always welcome the sinner to join his flock but Satan always rejects the righteous from his ranks? Satan never willingly lets God’s light intermingle with his darkness. Now imagine what this man must have been thinking laying in that inn recovering. He had seen the light and now was aware of the darkness he had been living in.
What does all this have to do with Easter? Yeshua (Jesus) came here to be that Good Samaritan to God’s people. See the real message of the Good Samaritan story is the willingness to go all the way to help someone in need. The Samaritan didn’t stop with just helping the man off the road, he took him to the inn, he bandaged and nursed him, he left money with the innkeeper to care for the man, and he promised to cover any additional costs of caring for the man, no limit. Many Christians I meet today are like the priest and the Levite. Just like the priest and the Levite they are too important in their faith and social standings to dirty their hands for someone. You know it is just such a messy business to help out a person who is really down in out. Many more Christians will get someone on their feet, get them headed in the right direction, and then that’s it. They won’t give that extra bit it needs to make a real difference in a person’s life. They are afraid that God will not watch out for them so they hold back that extra help, that extra money, and that extra love of the Messiah which is limitless. The true believers the ones that believe not only that Yeshua existed but also believe in what he taught and practice his words are like the Samaritan, they don’t hold back anything. They do whatever it takes to conquer the darkness with the light of God. They are like Yahweh because they practice his ways. God didn’t hold back when it came to picking us up off the road and healing us. God didn’t keep a little bag of mercy in reserve for himself incase he needed it on a rainy day. No God gave everything for us, he came he suffered, and he gave his son to die for us.
What about you do you hold back? Do you make excuses as to why you don’t help those in need the way God helps you? How many of you don’t help when you can? How many of you keep that little bag of mercy that God bestowed freely on you, incase you have a rainy day? Don’t you trust God to be there with more when you need it? I want you to try to image what the earth would be like if everyone was like that Samaritan if everyone was like Yeshua (Jesus) when it came to helping the next person you find in need. It would create a chain reaction more powerful then the largest atomic bomb. It would change the face of the earth, no one, not you, your children, your parents, your neighbors, or that person you’ll never meet would ever find themselves in need again. The love of God would blossom and grow on its own. That is the message Yeshua brought to Jerusalem two thousand years ago. Giving everything to help others, holding nothing back as a safety net for you is the message Yeshua broadcast around the world from the cross. Think reverend bob is crazy, then look what John tells us in 1 John 3 from today’s lessons, if you hold back the goods of this world, things like food, shelter, clothing, and money from those in need of any of these then God will hold back his love from you.
Are you getting this message? Are you feeling the power of Yeshua’s words swelling up inside you? If your not then look to what Yeshua says to in today’s Gospel reading. “I, thank thee O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them unto babes;” Only the babes will get this message. The babes are those amongst us that don’t try to compare God’s word to our preconceived notion of what the world should be like and try to make it fit. Is that what you do? Do you really understand that Yahweh’s words are directed at you? You need to cast off all the religious tradition and propaganda of this world to understand the word of God. Don’t try to make God’s words fit into your picture of the world. You have to fit yourself into his design for the world. In John 3:3 (GNV) we read that you must be born from above to see the kingdom of God. You can’t be of this world but of his heavenly kingdom to understand his words. Yeshua calls us who through him have been born from above babes, because we are newly born, our hearts and minds are empty of the dogma and traditions of this world and hunger to be filled with the understanding given to us by God himself. It’s not hard or difficult to be born from above unless you covet your money and your possessions more then you covet the kingdom of God. If you follow Yahweh’s (God) word and don’t hold out from those in need then God will reward you with good just as it is promised in the lesson from Proverbs that we read today.
Some of you will let go of this world and reach out to grasp the light of God’s realm, others of you will be too afraid. Those of you who are afraid will try to save up for their tomorrow on earth because they really don’t have faith in God’s promise to care for them. If you find yourself doing that then think of what Yeshua (Jesus) was willing to give up for you. Look at how he outshines all others before or after him. Isn’t he like the golden apple in the necklace of sardius (rubies)? Doesn’t Yeshua (Jesus) sticks out superior, more pure then everything around him? Look at what Yeshua went on to say in Luke 10, “even so, father; for it seemed good in thy sight”. Yahweh doesn’t want the wise and prudent, the social elite, you know that “I’m better or smarter then you” crowd to get the message. Because he wants his people the babes who are born from above to stand out like a ruby in an earring set against a gold background. We don’t have to die on crosses to be born from above Yeshua already did that for us. All we have to do is put our pride aside and admit to ourselves we don’t know these things, we are babes, and we need to learn everything from the beginning. The message given to us by God’s people the true believers, the true Shepherds of his flock is not complex it is very simple. If your not understanding it, it is because your hanging on to the precepts of this world and trying to force fit the truth into a lie. Your trying to quench the unquenchable light with darkness and that just doesn’t work. Children understand the messages of God easily, while most adults, the so-called wise and prudent, stumble over it and think it is too difficult. Children are innocent and simple, just like Yahweh’s message to us. While most adults have trained themselves with deceptions, deceit, and self-importance so they are looking for the catch in God’s message when there just isn’t one. God’s word is so simple that it looks complex to the impure at heart because they are looking for a complex lie or trick in it. It’s easy to see when you walk in the light of God, but it becomes harder and more complex to see where you are going, when you walk in the shadow of Satan and block the light of God. That is when the true message of God looks complex and the false message of Satan seems so easy to follow instead.
Just like the image of the Samaritan, a true descendants of God’s chosen people, shines out to us across time because he performed the simple easy to follow commandment God, even more so the Messiah Yeshua shines out to us because he gave up it all to follow God’s word. Yeshua held nothing back to help us in our time of need. The Samaritan in the story was representative of Yeshua, while the injured traveler is representative of us, and the priest and Levite represent the Pharisees and the other agents of Satan who pretend to serve God but they are really doing the work of their true father Satan. Just like the Pharisees and many Judeans considered the Samaritans outcast, so they also consider Yeshua an outcast. This because Yeshua never became a member of the “Priest Club”, he didn’t attend their certified and accredited indoctrination schools, nor did his disciples. Yeshua received his ordination from God himself, something we have long forgotten as Christians. We instead put our faith in the institutions of man and have forgotten that God ordains his own prophets, ministers, and priests.
On this Easter Sunday let us return in our faith to the calling of our God Yahweh as taught to us by Yeshua our Messiah. Let us remember not merely his death and resurrection but the great meaning behind them, which is the commitment to us God has made to make sure that he gives us all his grace and mercy so that we may obtain salvation. He is holding back no resources, not even his only begotten son, Yeshua our Messiah. What about you? Amen