A, The Fourth Sunday in Lent - Ephesians 5:10 "A God Pleasing Person"

And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:10 ESV)

What is the will of God? How do we know what God wants?  Where do we go to find this out?  “God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven” Jesus teaches us to pray! (Matthew 6:10)  So we pray for his will to be done. But how do I know it’s being done?  Where do I look to check?  How do I know?  Is it a certain feeling or is that feeling just a bad case of spiritual indigestion — self-justification set to repeat on me?

How we discern, find out, work out, or prove something has moved folk throughout the ages into great explorations, expeditions, across oceans, deep into the unknown, to illuminate our human desire to know.

The desire for knowledge drives one to search.  Science searches the unknown in laboratories as well as in locations that have kept their existence covered in mystery.  Medical science searches to uncover the truth of the human body.  Humanity likes to uncover all sorts of things in its desire for knowledge.

From not long after we’re born, we want to learn.  We learn to walk, to talk, to read, to explore and discover.   But what’s the purpose of finding out?  Why do we study these things? 

Mostly the study of “unknown stuff” helps us gain knowledge to do certain things.  In our eyes we seek knowledge for our own good, or the good of others, or the “greater good”.  It’s been this way since Adam and Eve were tempted to know what God knew!  However, their discernment was not pleasing to the Lord!

Our search to prove, to understand, to fathom, to distinguish, to learn, also means we misunderstand, misread, mishear, misfit, mistake, misjudge and misuse when we want to know.  The end result is  that we often find our desire to know makes us miss the mark.  Our knowledge for good or the “greater good” ends up being practised in bad ways.  Why is this so?  Why do we have the desire to do good, but when it comes to doing it, it’s not all that good at all.

Human desire is geared for pleasure.  Originally that pleasure was intended to please God but now it misses the mark and is used to please ourselves.  As a result, the pleasures of the human heart are now clouded with darkness.  When Adam and Eve got up to mischief in the garden, their mischief was literally a bad head, turning from God their head to their own heads through the deception of Satan.

Jesus’ words from Matthew chapter fifteen tells us that, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” (Matthew 15:19 ESV)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in contemplation over these words of Jesus says, “It is the deep night that hovers over the sources of all human action, even over all noble and devout impulses.” (Life Together: 31)  

We see in our readings today how easy the desires of the human heart can lead a person astray. 

Samuel was brooding over God’s rejection of King Saul. 

How often do we find ourselves brooding and fretting over the way things have gone when the good, we’ve sought, usually for ourselves, has gone bad for us.  I imagine Samuel’s grief was caused by him being turned in on himself, seeing only his actions rather than the bigger picture of what was pleasing to the Lord.

Even though God regretted with a deep sigh over Saul, he calls Samuel out of his grief over Saul to do his work of anointing a new king.  

But on entering Bethlehem to anoint a new king, Samuel’s desires were misplaced as he looked on Jesse’s oldest son, Eliab, to be the new king.  Yet we hear, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7 ESV)

Even as we walk as children of the light, there’s still within us a longing to slip back into the darkness of our human desires.  Samuel was there only by God’s will, and it pleased God to bring an unseen son to light for Samuel to anoint.  Samuel brooded in darkness, and in the darkness of his heart he could not see as God saw, until God brought the light of his will to light.

The disciples of Jesus could not see the truth of a man born blind from birth.  But then again, how could they see by their own desires?  So, they ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:1–5 ESV)

Human desire creates human blindness.  Ironically the gospel reading begins with a blind man, and the blind understanding of the disciples, and after the healing of the blind man Jesus announces, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” (John 9:39 ESV)

In other words, a person whose desires once stopped them from seeing what pleased God will be able to see and please God, and those who see what pleases God and don’t please him will become blind and remain in their guilt!

So, it’s important to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. But how does one do this without becoming blinded by our own darkness of sight? God’s will, God’s desire, God’s pleasure is done on earth and in heaven by Jesus Christ.  We can only please God through Jesus Christ! He is the true worshipper of God.  Jesus does his will and God the Father listens to him!

The blindness of the disciples was exposed during Jesus’ earthly ministry.  In Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples witnessed the fulfilment of God’s pleasure to forgive humanity.  In the wake of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit continues to fulfil the pleasure of our Father in heaven, as humans are led to lay down their arms through repentance and daily grow in understanding the costly price Christ made to please the Father.   And, the Holy Spirit continues to work within helping believers forgive as each of us have been forgiven.

This all centres on Jesus and the Holy Spirit’s work within.  When we turn in on ourselves we return to our desires clouded by darkness, and once again become blind.  This is like a blind man deliberately gouging out his own eyes after receiving his sight from Jesus.  Or, like after God chose to anoint David, Samuel decides, “No! I believe Eliab is the one” and anoints him instead.

In Paul’s encouragement to discern what pleases the Lord as a child of God he commands you, “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” (Ephesians 5:17 ESV)

And the only way possible for this to occur within us and between us is to, “be filled with the Spirit… giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:18b,20–21 ESV)

You and I are not the light of the world.  We shouldn’t expect to be able to please God through what we desire to do.  When we take it on ourselves to please God by thinking we can be our own rays of eternal light and life, the only light we emit is the deceptive light of Lucifer.

However, in submitting to Christ as the only Light of this world, we please God by allowing the Holy Spirit to work the daily death of self and resurrection in Jesus Christ through repentance and the forgiveness of sin and our forgiving of sin.

This reverence for Christ is not a fear that’s afraid of him or of what the world thinks when we confess, are forgiven, and forgive through repentance  No! It’s reverence and desire to please God and be in his holy presence knowing he’s invited us into fellowship with him, through the Light of Life, his Son Jesus Christ. 

When you allow the Holy Spirit to make Jesus Christ the “Light of your world!”  Know you are his child invited by Jesus to “come and follow me!” ­— to repent and forgive as he has forgiven, is forgiving, and will forgive you! 

Jesus promises us, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32 ESV)

“For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13 ESV)

Let the Spirit lead you from yourself to Jesus!  God the Father will reveal the mystery of doing and being a God pleasing person.  Amen. 

B, Easter 6 - John 15:9-12, 1 John 5:1-6 "Joy-Full"

John 15:9–12 (ESV) As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.  “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

God’s love flows down the vine through his Son, Jesus Christ, to us, the branches.  The Holy Spirit flows through Jesus Christ, the word made flesh, and he works in us through God’s holy written word and holy sacraments.  The promise of God is that if we abide in this flowing love, if we do not cut ourselves off from the conduits of Christ’s commandments, his joy will be in you and your joy will be full.

Yet as we travel along the road through parched places, it seems there’s not much occasion for joy!  The joy of being known by Jesus Christ, shimmers like a mirage on the horizon.  But weariness wears us down as we work getting to that mysterious place of joy.

Like seeking the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, we peer into the future, driving hard to get to the place of joy, getting to where we think it is, only to find it’s moved away from us, to somewhere else.

There’s a real temptation to think remaining in God’s love is like a donkey walking while working to eat that proverbial carrot from the end of the string.  Is God dangling a carrot in front of us, leading us through life, without us ever receiving the carrot of joy?

But we know that God temps no one to think this way.  In Luke’s Gospel Jesus tells us, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  (Luke 12:32 ESV)  So what’s going on with the joy, always seeming to be as elusive as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Or thinking joy is just a vain expectation in an oasis mirage, seen only to move with the horizon on our weary walk?

The Apostle John adds yet another dimension to what he teaches us here in chapter fifteen of his Gospel with what he says in his epistle…

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.  By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.  And his commandments are not burdensome.  For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.  And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.  Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?  This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.”  (1 John 5:1–6 ESV)

The love that flows through Jesus from our Father, does so because Jesus is born of God.  Jesus is eternally begotten of our Father.  That is, he is eternally being born of God through God’s being of love.  The Holy Spirit is the great and holy proxy in this work of creating the love of God within us.  He helps us on our way, by helping move our works out of the way, so he can help us in Jesus’ way through the wilderness.

As John tells us in his epistle, this victory is not burdensome.  Which tells us immediately, where the task of loving others is a burden, then we are toiling for the wrong victory.  A burdensome faith is something other than the one true faith!  A burdensome faith is not one that overcomes the world but is a faith in the world that creates a world of burdens, within us, within itself.

However, the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth, he carries out the true work of Jesus within, creating faith, helping us to believe in God’s word and sacraments, with God’s word and sacraments, to remain and abide in the only Saviour in this world, Jesus Christ!  Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to remove the burden so we can delight in God’s word of law and gospel!

Here the Holy Spirit helps you get back on the horse, as it were!  We’ve been donkeys running in the midday sun, like the mad Englishmen who sought to survey and explore the Australian wilderness in our early colonial days.  But even worse than these madmen, we’ve sought to run by our own effort when the horse has been following us with the water wagon of God’s word in tow!

The joy has been right there with us the whole time.  It’s been under our noses!  We’ve chased the mirage of water, while the refreshment walks with us.  Indeed, God works to refresh us and seeks to carry us in love towards the final goal.  The oasis of a heavenly paradise. 

It’s sinful fear that tempts us to get off the horse in the first place and then run with delirious anxiety in the wilderness.  The call to remain in the shade of God’s love seems unreasonable to us.  Perhaps it’s impatience!  Perhaps it’s contempt for what’s familiar!  Perhaps it’s just plain old donkey stubbornness!  Which does reveal a foolish irony, in that, we stubbornly got off the wagon of free food and transport, only to need a carrot dangled in front of us to make us walk in our stubbornness towards a mirage of freedom from the true joyful freedom we’ve just abandoned!

Loving God and his commandments is remaining in him, trusting him, believing in his word, with the means of transport he has given us through the wilderness.  We trust his way, his work, and his help.

Throughout this sermon, a picture has been painted of moving through a parched place towards an oasis, a paradise.  Most likely you have formed a picture of trekking in the wilderness by yourself.  And rightly so if you picture loving God as a toilsome and burdensome task. 

But climbing back on the transport God provides to bring us to him and his kingdom, the Holy Spirit driven church, we realise when Jesus says, “I have loved you!  You, abide in my love!  If you keep my commandments you will abide!  My joy is in you!  And, your joy may be full!”  The “you or your” is not singular!  It’s not just me on the journey but it’s a community on the move.  The “you” is the gathering of the Holy Spirit.  It’s not just me in which the Holy Spirit works one faith.  Rather one faith is worked in we who are the body of Jesus Christ.

Joy, therefore, is not an individual thing, strived for now or in the future!  If it is, it’s a fruitless futile joy.  It’s a transient happiness in oneself, that exhausts itself, and dies in the expectations coveted and idolised in the wilderness of this world.

However, true joy, is unhidden joy!  It’s the joy of God’s holiness!  It’s the joy of faith in knowing God’s kingdom has come, and God is doing his will, here, right now, in our midst, while we wait patiently in hope for it to be unhidden after death!  True joy is the “yes yes”, “truly truly”, and “verily verily”!  The amen amen!

Before he went to the cross, Jesus openly said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.  You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.”  (John 16:20 ESV)

True joy is trusting Jesus finished your journey, when he said on the cross, “it is finished!” 

You are not alone!  Not only does the Holy Spirit call you through Jesus, to Jesus, to enlighten you with his gifts, setting you apart as holy, and faithfully keeping you as a baptised holy believer, he does it with the whole hidden church, gathering it around Jesus, inside and outside of time!

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”  (Hebrews 12:1–2 ESV)

Jesus is no mirage!  You are the pot of eternal gold, like him, already in his possession!   So, may the Holy Spirit grant you a restful race in the fullness of Jesus’ joy, enduring in the peace of God, which wins out over all our understanding and transient happiness, so your hearts and minds are kept in the joy of your baptismal eternal journey.  Amen.