The following is a written version of my last sermon. I I wanted to share this sermon because it is my attempt at summarizing all that I have learned and believe. It is basically the Sermon of what I believe. The Poem quoted herein is my theology. In reading, please note that I typically do not write down all that I will say in the sermon, but use an outline with notes, transcribing only scriptures and critical points. I have edited the original notes but you will realize that most of this sermon is scripture rather than my interpretations of text. Within this context, I don't believe these scriptures need elaboration.
“A LOVE STORY“
A SERMON BASED ON THE WHOLE BIBLE
June 23, 2013 -- Joaquin United Methodist Church
Genesis 1:1 – Revelation 22:21
(Begin the Sermon by asking the Congregation some questions. Hold up a sweet baby before the congregation. – Ask then about loving the baby? Ask them to remember those who have loved them – Ask them to think on those they love? Ask them what makes living worthwhile? Let them think on these things. Then begin the Sermon).
Before I begin today’s sermon, I need to poll the congregation regarding your cultural experiences. How many of you here, have read at least one book written in that unique genre, called – the "Romance Novel?" Well, if you haven’t all read a Romance, how many of you have seen one of the movies described as “Romantic Comedy?”
Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with either Romance Novels or Romantic Comedies, let me explain, that both are based in a plot in which Love must overcome a variety of obstacles in order for the two lovers to find happiness together. There are often REAL obstacles, such as cultural, religious, or economic differences; and typically other obstacles such as stupid misunderstandings. The tension revolves around the question – "Will they be able to resolve their differences, clear up the misunderstandings and finally get together to live happily ever after?" Sound familiar – it should because it is the single most common literary form in almost every human culture. Keeping this in mind, let’s consider today’s text.
For today’s Text, we read first from Genesis 1:1 --
Gen. 1:1 -- “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
And then from Revelations 22:21 --
Rev. 22:21 -- “The Grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen”
Today’s sermon is on these verses, AND ALL of the verses between. Now you may think that preaching on the whole Bible is overly ambitious, but I was inspired by a recent popular book, which covers the entire Bible. The book is entitled simply – The Story. After surveying this book, I began wondering whether the entire Bible could indeed be reduced to one Story. Could the essence of this very long collection; could the entirety of the "Greatest Book Ever Written" be captured in a single story?
I decided that at its core, the Bible is a Love Story – A Love Story about a wonderful, almighty God and his abiding, limitless, and inexplicable love for one of His Creations -- Man. The entire Bible revolves around the relationship between God and Man. Throughout, God reaches out to Man, offering his beloved all that is good, revealing God’s nature and the way of truth and light. Throughout, Man tries but fails, and God perseveres in patient love. The conflict in this Love Story is created by the vast Gulf of Differences that separate the Lovers.
To begin at the beginning, we learn that God is the Creator; the Creator of everything. An entity who is and was and ever more shall be. A power, a force, a Being who is literally beyond the comprehension of man. But that Almighty God chooses to reveal himself to man. The Bible is a chronicle of God’s revelations -- and of Man’s responses. Theirs is clearly an improbable relationship, and the question is, "Can God make it work in spite of Man’s shortcomings?"
GOD’S EVERY EFFORT TO MAKE HIMSELF KNOWN TO US IS CURTAILED BY OUR LIMITATIONS. In sharing the Creation Story, God could not explain his creation process to Abraham’s people (nomadic shepherds speaking a Semitic language while wondering in a semi arid desert) any more than I can explain complex biology or theology to the baby I held at the beginning of this sermon. An explanation of molecules, protons and photons and atoms and matter and mass and energy was not exactly feasible. So he told those primitive people the condensed version – complete in truth, but lacking in details.
He didn’t give us the details, but he gave us the brains, knowing that in a few millennia, we would work out a lot of those details for ourselves. There is no conflict between science and God’s Word; the conflict is between men who can’t simultaneously comprehend and integrate two versions of the same story.
The relationship between God and Man is complex and difficult and has been this way from the very beginning:
From the New International Version, we read in the book of Genesis:
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
In a recent translation called The Message, this same passage reads:
God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God’s nature,
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
MAN MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE – Atheists look at Man and reject God because they want nothing to do with a God who is “like” the humans they see, and they would be right. Who would wish to worship a God who is the IMAGE of many of the people we see around us every day. . I would offer Two interpretations to explain the discrepancy between this scripture and the reality we experience
FIRST, A Linguist considering this verse would say the grammatical tense is wrong in the translation. The original scripture doesn’t say God created (past tense); it says God is creating (present tense) – Like the children’s song – “God’s still working on me.” The passage in the original Hebrew meant that God is perfecting Man in his Image. The "creating" The "perfecting" is a process, not a completed project.
SECOND, A Theologian in considering this verse would say that the passage refers NOT to man as he is; but to the Potential God has given each of us. That is, we have the potential to be like God; but that this potential must be developed through knowing God, and serving God. It is not that we ARE in God’s Image; but that we CAN BE in God’s Image.
MISINTERPRETATION DOWN THROUGH THE AGES:
The passage says that MAN IS MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE -- It clearly does NOT say that God is made in Man’s Image. However, over the eons, Man has tried to remake God into something he can understand; something he can grasp, and control and use to his own ends. Man has tried repeatedly and continues to try to remake God in his image. --
Look at the false God’s of the Bible – God as a Bull; God as a great fish; God as a Mountain that spurts smoke. – Look at the Roman and Greek Gods – the Norse Gods – The Celtic Gods. All Gods made by men are in the image of men, or in the images men's imaginations project.
Man continues to try to remake God in Man’s Image. If you doubt this, listen to some of the mass-media preachers, with cult followings. They are in the business of creating God in their image. The God they preach reflects their own prejudices, their own fears, their own biases, and their own grasp of reality. They are constantly remaking God in their Images. They remake God to please their followers. They offer their followers a God that looks, and thinks, and acts just exactly as they believe God should look, think, and act --- a God a lot like them.
For the remainder of this sermon, I will NOT offer you my opinion on the Nature of God. I will read, and share the Biblical Words on the Essence of the Nature of God.
John 3: 16
New King James
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Matthew 22:35-41
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
35 One of them, [a]a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and [b]foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
1 John 4:7-9
New King James Version (NKJV)
Knowing God Through Love
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
The Same Scriptures ( 1 John, 4:7-9) from the translation called THE MESSAGE:
7-10 My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other, since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love.
This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.
11-12 My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and His love becomes complete in us—perfect love!
13-16 This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we’ve seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.
To Love, to Be Loved
17-18 God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
19 We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.
20-21 If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.
The following is a poem based on these scriptures:
THEOLOGY
God is Love.
Those who Love know God.
Those who know God, Love.
This is essence.
All else – excess.
The 13th Chapter of the Book of First Corinthians is called, “The Love Chapter.” It is read frequently at weddings and at funerals. I hope it will be read at my funeral
1 Corinthians 13 sums up all that we have been discussing today.
The Message (MSG)
The Way of Love
1. If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2 If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
8-10. Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete.
But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
11. When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12. We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13. But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
AMEN -- AMEN
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