December 2009 Pastor's Highlander Column

December 2009
Pastor’s Column

Brothers and sisters,

Advent is upon us, and with it the regular round of discussions, debates and arguments between the civic and sacred spheres about how one should address and commemorate the “holiday season”: is it merely the “holiday season in which we are to wish one another “happy holidays”, or is it the sacred season during which we should bid each other “Christ’s Blessings” during the Christmas Season?

And as we contemplate the eternal and majestic mystery made manifest in the Infinite Word’s becoming incarnate in the mortal infant at Bethlehem, it is an excellent time to return to our study of the Second Commandment against idolatry; to see how it applies and is mediated to us through the Savior’s birth, life, ministry, sacrificial death and Resurrection.

Western Society at the dawn of the Third Millennium struggles and strives to reject God’s eternal Lordship and command. Collectively we seek to depose our creator from His throne and replace Him with idols more to our liking and comfort level. And, we do so at all levels of society from the family in “the living room” to the United Nations’ “hallowed halls on the Hudson”.

We see it in the faces of families that never darken the doors of a sanctuary on Sunday mornings but can always be found at the mall, on sports fields or in restaurants. So, too, we witness marketers’ efforts to replace Christ with Santa and mentions of Christmas to salutations of “holiday good cheer.” Even supposedly “Christian” governments throughout the West have gotten into the act as they pass ordinance after ordinance to supplant not only faith in an unseeable God, but to replace the dominant faith-based ethical system that has guided us for the better part of 2,000 years.

In October’s column we closed out with an observation from C.S. Lewis about theories of penal punishment versus the notion of “corrections”. Lewis noted that in a truly secular society in which God is either ignored or re-imagined (and thus idolized ) then genuine forgiveness, healing, re-birth and re-creation are functional impossibilities. In their place is substituted a theory of unchecked “corrections” in which full mental and social assent and conformity are absolutely philosophically mandated and where temporal punishment and re-education are both endless and brutal.

However, if one truly believes that the God of the Bible is God, and that His own incarnate Son made a penal substitution on our behalf and accepted upon Himself our due punishment, then grace and repentance become not only theoretically possible, but also functional realities. Other systems and theories cannot allow this. Sadly, we Christians have not always lived up to our own best ideals and have accepted, allowed and even perpetuated “Inqusitions” and persecutions too numerous to count. But that is due to our personal and corporate sinfulness and idolatry, not to the God who has outlawed precisely these things and can yet forgive and cleanse us of them.

This is well-illustrated by the wife of a former pastor-colleague of mine in Canisteo, New York. Chinese immigrant Esther Wei Haines describes watching her mother, grandmother and aunt being detained by communist troops after an underground worship service during the Cultural Revolution. When the Red Guards found a scrap of paper on the floor with John 3:16 written upon it, they spent more than an hour forcing the women to stand to attention reciting "Mao is our god and the party is our savior." Esther's mother finally spoke out, saying, "You can make me recite all the slogans for months on end, but that will not change what's in my heart."

That singular offense resulted in her being sent to a re-education center (labor camp) for the next several years. Esther reported that upon her mother's release from prison she was a broken woman.

When a people creates and fashions a God for themselves apart from the God of scripture the results are uniformly abhorrent and evil. Perhaps not immediately, but it only takes a small step to go from false worship of false gods to active persecution of those who worship the true Lord of Hosts — or anyone else who might resist the "New Order."

This is why God issues the prohibition against imagining, forming and fashioning our own gods in opposition or addition to Yahweh Elohim -- “I am that I am, the Almighty God.”

But in the face of such grinding daily assaults against the King and His Law, we have hope and a solid place to stand as we consider the once-for-all work of the One Who made manifest the wisdom and strength of our God in worldly weakness, foolishness and innocence. Christ’s completed work of salvation truly strengthens and empowers the Father’s prohibition of idolatry.

Now it is time for us to move on to a deeper look at God’s nature, His universal claim upon us and the empowerment He gives to us through Christ’s completed work of redemption.

Our review of the Second Commandment throughout Covenant History, from Genesis to Revelation, shows us that the one God of the universe sets the terms and conditions of a permanent agreement with those whom He calls to faith so that a continuing friendship can be maintained. He seals this agreement in the foundations of the friendship, redemption and salvation He has already delivered to those who approach Him in faith with a willingness to keep the covenant. He is our God and He chooses and calls us to be His special people.

We respond to the truth, grace and love of His offer by embracing Him as our only hope in life and in death, and by acknowledging in head and heart our total dependence upon Him as Creator, King and Loving Parent. We must respond to Him on His terms; not on our own.

To do otherwise is akin to having a signed sales contract with the car dealer and the banker. I know I must pay cash each month for the continued possession and use of the automobile. If I suddenly decide to pay several — or even one — monthly installment with farm-fresh roaster chickens because I "just know down in the cockles of my heart" that “everyone loves fried chicken”, I will find myself in a tight spot legally. Beyond that, I soon will be car-less when the re-possession agent catches up with me.

Similarly, the groom who makes vows to love, honor, cherish and support his new wife so long as she stays pretty, keeps a convenient schedule and is willing to make the marriage a three-some will find himself retrieving his teeth from the aisle right after he's regained consciousness.

God is even more demanding (and certainly not less) of His Chosen faithful than that banker is of the buyer, or the bride of her new husband. He has an inherent right to determine and designate not just the person of our worship, but also the manner and form. We may not willy-nilly determine for ourselves that we will worship God with pretty pictures or pretty words, nor may we decide that we will glorify Him in whatever fashion we see fit.

And this command is further strengthened, and we to keep it, by the Advent of God’s own Son. God has given us the only image we will ever need to worship. It is His own "Spitting Image", the only-begotten Son. Christ Jesus is the only acceptable image for worship and service. Apart from Him, as revealed to us in scripture, we are unable to create anything acceptable to God. And that knowledge IS available to us. As Paul teaches in Romans 1:16 -32, we know God's will — truly, if not fully, because in creation He engraved His own image upon us, and this is what makes our idolatries so pitiable. When we rebel against the truth that is so apparent to us and create idols to serve, it is our attempt to etch out and deface that engraved image of God stamped upon each of us when we were born and replace it with another of our own making.

Millions every day do precisely this, and it is called “suppressing the truth” which means that we actively hold it down and cover it over. It is the ultimate game of "cover-up" and the and a virulent form of ignorance. It is similar in nature but far more serious than diving under water and attempting to stay there. I can suppress the truth of my own need for air, but this can only lead to my death. Similarly, I can reject my own God-created existence (and by extension, that of everyone, and everything else around me) but this doesn't change who or what I have been created to be. It merely defaces and devalues it. Ultimately it means that I will treat everyone and everything else accordingly.

But, in His love and grace God has given us His Son who came in innocence to seek and save the lost, to break and banish idols and recover God’s defaced image in us. We must embrace the truth. We must put away our idols and idolatry. We must see and cling to the truth God gave to Moses and eternally confirmed in Christ Jesus.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

November 2009 Pastor's Highlander Column

Pastor’s Column
November 2009

Brothers & Sisters,

As I write these words, we as a community, the Body of Christ and the Highland Church family have just come out of an utterly awful week of personal grief, loss and pain.

At the same time we are in the midst of ramping up efforts to send a team to still-devastated parts of Louisiana all while we prepare for our annual stewardship campaign and get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving and the beginning of Lent.

As I looked at all of these competing difficulties, events and needs, I made the decision (hard-fought for me) to take a month away from our discussion of the Ten Commandments. Instead I combed my files and decided to engage in a bit of “literary stewardship and recycling”; I hope you won’t object.

But the message for us in terms of our collective human pain, hope, need, value and Christian duty is such that I think the approach is warranted this month. Toward that end, welcome back to December 2006 . . .

All last week I wracked my brain trying to link two seemingly unrelated intangibles in my head and then in print after Karen Christy reminded me that the deadline for my Highlander column was rapidly approaching, and I noticed that I still have an outstanding column due on the place and function of the Offering and Dedication in Worship at the same time that Christmas is approaching and I should say something about it.

Competing images battled in my brain and gave me a headache. “Great,” I thought, “one more holiday worry to file away! These two things don’t go together, at all!”

Well, I was wrong. They actually go together quite well if you think about them in the right way. First, though, I need to tell you of a holiday memory-flash I had from when I was about 17 years old.
It was after Christmas – the first full Christmas season after I had been working at my first job as a church janitor. I spent what then seemed to me as a lot of money on a Christmas gift for my Dad (I don’t even remember now what I got him). I do recall, however, feeling somewhat disappointed that he never displayed the new gift I’d gotten him — instead he kept some old gift I’d made him from sticks or clothes-pins when I was five or six. It was still on display in the spot in the dining room where to this day he keeps his nick-knacks.

I never said anything to him about it, but I just didn’t understand it. How could he keep up the crappy old piece of “whatever” and blow off the new expensive gift I’d purchased for him?

Well, as a parent now, I think I understand better. And this new understanding gives a certain insight into both the nature of our stewardship and God’s gift to us of Messiah and salvation, which of course is the reason for Christmas.

Over the past 12 years, my kids have given me — as I’m sure most of your kids have given you — certain pieces of their artwork, drawings, wood carvings and small trinkets. They are saved for posterity. Heck, the refrigerator looks like the Romper-Room version of the Louvre!

And I wouldn’t trade a single one of their gifts to Tina and me. They are priceless to us because we know that these items were made in love and “given from the top” of what our children could give to us. With that in mind, how could I desire a more costly replacement that didn’t take account of that all-important component — the heart?

Now then, the Presentation of Gifts, Tithes and Offerings during worship functions in that way for all of us.

Because God has created all of us in His own image; because He has redeemed us at high cost through the sacrificial death and resurrection of His only-begotten Son; because He claims us as His own adopted children through the gift of faith in that Son, we have a direct “heart-connection” that must be expressed.

And in expressing that connection, we are called upon by God to return to Him a portion (the first and best portion) of what He has given to us freely. We are His. We belong to Him and without Him we wouldn’t be here at all to have such conversations.

If this is so, and we genuinely love God and are thankful to Him for the life and gifts He has given to us, then it stands to reason that our gifts of love and thanksgiving should equally come from “the top and best” of what we have and are.

For adults with our practical minds, these gifts of money time and talent form the brick-and-mortar basis for the running of a congregation, the execution of important ministry programs, the maintenance of the Church building, and the care and feeding of the pastor. This is true, and all vitally important, but even more important is the fact that this functions in very tangible ways as the love gifts and offerings of God’s children to Him as Father.

He gives back to us the gifts we give to Him for our good, for learning to know Him better and for further spreading the Good News. And all the while He uses us and the building and ministry of the Church as His refrigerator. We and our love are clearly displayed for all the world to see.

Even the placement of the Presentation of Tithes is significant. It comes after the reading of the Scripture Lesson because it is the visible representation — the portrait, if you will — of our response to the Word of God given to us through Scripture reading and proclamation. This is how God gives Himself to us, and we are given the immediate opportunity to respond directly to Him.

Now, how does all of this tie in with Christmas?

Simply this; God gave us His greatest gift when He became a real flesh-and-blood person and was born of the Virgin Mary.

By doing so, He provided us with the possibility of forgiveness, genuine relationship with Himself and the promise of living as His children and not just as His creations.

Our response then to this act and gift of love on God’s part should be a deeper love, connection and devotion to the one Who is our Shepherd, Lord and Father.

As we enter this season and recall and recount the narratives of the Savior’s birth for each other and the world around us, we should be doing so with such joy and thanksgiving that we become again as children with their devotion and relative innocence. We should make ourselves, the talents God has given to us and the provision He places into our hands the very model of the best refrigerator art in the universe!

Such a re-emphasis on who we are in Christ is a far more fitting gift and display than near riots at high-end toy stores over the latest video games and fluffy stuffed critters that sing, dance and must be changed when tickled! These childish displays of greed, ignorance, ingratitude, spite and temper run 180○ in the wrong direction from everything we are called to be in Christ. They do not represent the love and care God demonstrates for us in the manger or the cross. And they make an evil and hateful mockery of the rightful stewardship we owe to God as creator and parent.

So this Thanksgiving / Advent / Christmas season, let us seriously reflect on the fact that our very lives and the salvation given us through the Holy Infant-become GodMan are a gift to us from a righteous and loving God. Equally, our lives as redeemed and revised by the Cross (everything we have and are) belongs rightly to God. Let us make ourselves and those lives fit gifts of love for the King of kings.

Brothers and sisters, especially in times when we are most distraught and in need of God’s continued and abiding grace and healing, let us remember that He first gave Himself for us and works redemption, healing and reconciliation in us. And in that vein, either we will be God’s blessed refrigerator art, or we will be cosmic graffiti. Good gifts of love are treasured, saved and well-used. Graffiti is an ugly stain that is of no good use; it is rubbed out or covered over as an eyesore and offense.

Remember the beloved holiday classic story based on the song, Little Drummer Boy. No gifts he brought fit for a king — except himself and the gift given to him by God. So, too, are we. We bring our whole selves to the table in thanks for God’s work in us. So which will we be? Are our lives fit gifts for the King to display, or will we become hideous wall-trash?

As the prophet foretold, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over His kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” [Isaiah 9:6-7]

May you all enjoy a blessed and fruitful Thanksgiving and Advent Season!

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

October 2009 Pastor's Highlander Column

October 2009
Pastor’s Column

Brothers and sisters,

In America’s current social and political climate, especially in the last two to three years, we have seen and heard a great many discussions revolving around the twin questions of whether and to what extent the United States is or is not a “Christian nation.”

Loud assertions are heard from all comers. Some contend that we are a firmly Christian nation rooted in Biblical faith and morality and that we should always remain such, while others argue with equal passion that, while we may possess a strong religious background, we were founded as a nation upon purely secular principles and that we should firmly resolve to keep it that way.

This is significant for us as a jumping off point for our current discussion of the Ten Commandments. As we wade deeper into these waters with the first part of a study on the Second Commandment (“You shall not make any graven or carved idols”) we, as both Christians and Americans, truly need to investigate what it means to engage in idolatry and discern how and why even we are guilty of this incredibly serious and dangerous sin.

Last month we closed our discussion of the First Commandment with the observation that we must “allow and put no other gods in our lives. The one we have is enough. He fulfills all things in Himself. Yahweh is the Eternal Word. All other things proceed from serving Him alone.” This concept or principle is the key bridge between that study and this. And it leads to a set of uncomfortable self-diagnostic questions:

• What are our idols and how do we go about carving them?

• How many things do we substitute for Almighty God and His supreme place in our lives?

• Where do we find or manufacture these idols?

As the Body of Christ, we all to often mistakenly assume that we are a “truly Christian country” and that we, especially as Christians, don’t really have much to worry about with regard to this commandment. Our quick mental answers to these questions probably run something like “Oh, I guess that they could be purchased from certain religious curio shops or temples in India or Burma or some such.”

Such answers widely miss the mark though, because idols and idolatry are not relegated only to “pagan nations and peoples” in other places. The cold reality is that they are found in every heart, mind and soul under heaven.

The very reason god forbids us from constructing such idols and false gods is because He knows full well that we will do precisely that. We are all Fallen and sinful, and as the Reformer John Calvin observed, “we are all idolorum fabricum, or idol factories”.

We humans are a contentious and proud bunch who are not content to allow God to be God. Though He has “engraved” His own image upon our hearts and souls (Genesis 1:26-27), we feel the need to return the favor. Everyday we, as both individuals and communities, attempt the impossible as we try to improve upon His nature, plan and design. And we do all of this despite the fact that His existence and unity are very well known to us in creation itself. God, and God alone, is One. He alone is the Creator and Supreme Monarch of all that exists. He created it by His own Word from nothing.

Scripture consistently and repeatedly tells us that such knowledge is integrally implanted in every human heart, mind and soul. We know that God is god, and yet we deny the truth and power of this knowledge. We feel the need to imagine, create and offer ourselves to other gods of our own making because we bristle under God’s easy yoke and constraint. We prefer to fashion physical, mental and spiritual idols of null authority, power and value. And when we do this we sell and indenture ourselves into harsh and perpetual slavery to them.

And this is what the world, and to often we, too, see and call "Genuine Freedom."

We see the effects of such idolatry all the time. As we attempt to “re-imagine” God according to the blueprints of our temptations and desires, we also refuse to acknowledge His image engraved on and implanted in us. Basically, we’ve all taken the collective pledge to join the Frank Sinatra Club: “We do it Our Way! ” We picture God the way we want; we worship the way we want; we behave the way we want — and all so our lives will be “more pleasing,” our worship “more enjoyable and fulfilling,” or “more spiritual and inspirational.” In short, we as a race of creatures continually seek after the warm and fuzzy Smurf-like god of our own fashioning.

It is the first temptation that led to our un-doing, and still we seem unable to resist it. In fact, the temptation Satan offers to Eve in the Garden of Eden is that very one: “Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” (Gen. 3:4&5)

Regrettably, this way leads through a moral swamp in which our feet, hearts and minds are sucked down into the slime and our immortal souls are defaced and devalued. “It is the way that is broad and leads to death, destruction and damnation.”

The proof of this situation is literally “all around us”. We can see the results of our individual and corporate idolatry in microcosm by looking no further than the 100 years of the 20th Century:

• Muslim Turks murdered millions of Christian Armenians during World War I so they could rid the world of “inferior people” practicing an “inferior religion”. The world largely forgot or ignored the infamy.

• Josef Stalin engineered The Ukranian Famine that killed 10 million people as the “collective punishment” of a “collective treason.” The “crime” they committed was un-armed resistance to forced collectivization of their farms.

• In the 1930s and 40s Hitler’s Nazi Reich slaughtered between 7.5 and 10 million Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, Christians and other dissidents. Tens of millions of Chinese, Koreans and others were similarly slaughtered by Imperial Japan.

• Untold millions more perished in the gulags and re-education centers of Communist China between the Chinese Civil War and the present.

• ∙ The last 40 years lie witness to numerous further wars of extermination in Cambodia, Laos, Yugoslavia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and the Sudan.

In an earlier and less “politically correct” time we would have referred to this collective loss of probably 50 to 75 million people as their being sacrificed to the false god Molech. In many ways that would be a supremely accurate characterization. They died in blood and fire as sacrifice to the false gods of ideology, hatred, religious, ethnic or political purity, or, worse yet simple expedience.

The false gods constructed by human hands, hearts and minds inevitably lead to death and the destruction of God's handiwork. It is yet another example of the product of the functional atheism of which we have been speaking throughout the past two studies. Atheism creates a vacuum of belief, and because nature abhors a vacuum, falsehood and perversity fill the void. And, finally, creation of counterfeit gods inevitably leads to the worship of them.

This is the evil, ugly and real truth. It is the end product of our idolatry.

The perceived freedom we gain from overthrowing the holy, righteous and gracious God of all creation will always be illusory and lead to real slavery to sin and death. God created us according to His own will and with His purpose. We can try to evade those, but in doing so we unfailingly exchange genuine freedom within created servanthood for a false sense of well-being and freedom under the very real bondage to demonic false gods. And, as we can see, the results and consequences of such false worship are uniformly tragic.

This is a theme that C.S. Lewis hits upon in a discussion of theories of penal punishment and corrections. If there is no God, or some other god than the one who extends healing, re-birth and re-creation, then correction and punishment are endless and brutal. If one truly believes that the God of the Bible is God, then one makes allowance for grace and repentance. Other systems and theories do not. The best that can truly be hoped for is outward compliance and conformity. And the attempts to bring it about are virtually endless. Forgiveness, rebirth and transformation take place in a heart-beat. Re-education and Corrections may never stop until one is utterly broken or has learned to properly recite the correct answers every time without deviation.

Now that we have looked to the nature of the problem before us, we have set the stage for our continued discussion next month when we will look more deeply at God’s nature, His universal claim upon us and the empowerment He gives to us through Christ’s completed work of redemption and the abiding presence and intercession of the Holy Spirit.

In the mean time, let us look more systematically at the packed closets and dusty attics of our hearts, minds and souls so that we can identify and destroy the idols in our lives that struggle against God’s ultimate love and dominion.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

September 2009 Pastor's Highlander Column

SEPTEMBER 2009 / PASTOR'S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

As the Summer holiday ends, we all return to the regular rhythms of the school year and “normal” activity, it is a good time to consider the great gift God has given to us in His Law and requirements upon us.

In July, we looked at the First Commandment (“Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”) form the perspective of the vows we make and obligations we bear toward the God of heaven who led the Israelites out of their bondage in Egypt, gave them His Law and statutes in their 40 years of desert wandering, and led them into the Promised Land.

This month we look at how it is that the eternal work and sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah enables us to more fully appreciate and live into the command and obligations settled upon us by that command. In other words, we will look to see how it is that Christ’s salvation applied to us enables us to remain faithful to the One True God.

In his gospel, the Apostle John tells us that Jesus is the eternal Word and Son of God — distinct from the Father and yet also one and the same with Him. He is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. And he was fully present and active in the creation of the universe from nothing.

John spells all of this out for us tells us much the same thing in the opening 18 verses of his Gospel.

• John 1:1-18 [NKJV]
• 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
• 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.
• 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
• 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. . . .
• 16 And of His fulness we have all received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

He tells us that Jesus is the eternal Word and Son of God who is distinct from the Father and yet also one and the same with Him. And this Jesus is also the God who made the entire universe (down to the smallest sub-atomic particle) from nothing according to His own specifications and design. In this Triune fullness, this God showed His voice and presence to the Israelites at Sinai with lightening, thunder and incalculable majesty and glory. He ordered the construction of the Tabernacle (the precursor to the permanent Temple) and its erection in the dead-center of the Israelite camp wherever they went. God was always in the midst of His people.

In His great love, this God came once-for-all to take on humanity's nature and share its burdens. Our God lives among us. And, when Jesus ascended to heaven to the Father after the Resurrection, the Father and the Son together sent the Holy Spirit to be present with and in the Church as its Guide and Advocate for all time. Thus, God is not only our God and our Father, but also our Companion and Guide, Friend, Lord and Savior.

John further tells us that when God made the decision to live amongst us in human form He maintained the full glory and power of His Godhood and that we have seen that glory. Because God Himself has chosen to live with us and be "like us," (Hebrews 4:14-16) and still maintains and displays that glory, we can be transformed from the frail and sinful mortal creatures we now are into the immortal human beings proudly carrying God's stamp upon us as He designed us to do.

Because God came down to us as a human — a real thinking, feeling, breathing human being — He (Jesus) acts as our elder brother. The Father accepts Jesus the God-Man. And because He is our older brother, God has broadened the family line by adopting us into it as His very own children. No longer are we mere creations.
And this is the essential piece in this present study. We all stand condemned for those times we have let anything take God’s sole place in our lives and have followed and obeyed them rather than the High King of Heaven. Until God made it possible for us to be adopted into His family no one — not even His Chosen People, the Jews — could truly follow where God led. It was impossible even when He was at the head of the column, or at the top of the mountain where they gathered.

In this, Jesus is shown to be fully human and fully God. And because He is fully God, He is able to administer His own Law and to be the righteous and just Judge over it. But in His perfect human nature He was also able to obey and fulfill that Law. And He did so on our behalf. Because He was sinless and sacrificed Himself for the repayment of our sin debt, He is able to account His obedience as ours when we approach Him with trust and faith.

He enacted the completed and perfect redemption of a people from slavery and death in the foreign land of sin. If the Israelites were called upon to obey out of gratitude for extended grace, how much more so are we called to that same obedience seeing how our redemption is so much the greater.

And this brings us to the last of our three strands of Scripture in this present study. Moving from John's gospel to his first letter we find that God is Love, and by extension His Law is an essential and perfect outworking of that love that is part of God's essential nature. This means that the commandments He gives are for our good.

In I John 4:7 - 5:5, John tells us that Christ is the propitiation, or atoning sacrifice, for our sins. He not only covers over our sin, but also eases God's righteous anger and disappointment with our failings. In other words we hand our broken and defective lives, affections, attitudes and actions to the King of kings, and He returns to us the perfect love and obedience that are demanded by the Father.

And such love will and does produce fruit and results. If we have surrendered our rebellion against God's Son, and asked Him for new hearts and minds, then we need have no fear of condemnation. He enables us to believe, live, and enact the perfect fidelity that are demanded of us in the First Commandment.

This is why John can say in 5:1-5 of the letter that:

• 5:1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also him who is begotten of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith. 5 Who is he who overcomes the world but the he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

This is why anything short of total monogamous fidelity to our vows of love and obedience to the God of our Confession yields only broken or incomplete results. Without that love for God, we cannot love brother or sister, wife or husband, neighbor or stranger, countryman or foreigner. With that love we cannot do anything but love them and seek after their best interest.

Let us make them to God and to Him alone. Allow and put no other gods in your lives. The one we have is enough. He fulfills all things in Himself. Yahweh is the Eternal Word. All other things proceed from serving Him alone.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

July / August 2009 Pastor's Highlander Column

JULY / AUGUST 2009 / PASTOR'S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

As I write this, we have just celebrated Father’s Day, and I want to share again with you some eulogistic words penned in March 1942 by then Maj. Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower upon the death of his father, David J. Eisenhower: “. . . His finest monument is his reputation in Abilene and Dickinson County... His word has been his bond and accepted as such.... Because of it, all central Kansas helped me to secure an appointment to West Point in 1911, and 30 years later, it did the same for my son John. I'm proud he was my father.”

These simple words clearly and movingly describe the value of honesty and integrity. So, as we begin our study of the First Commandment, let’s all consider the following questions:

• How solemn, serious and secure are the vows that I have sworn and undertaken.

• How frequently do I forswear or break my oaths?

• What is the nature of those vows — are they vows of friendship and service? Are they made to man or to God?

These may seem odd questions with which to begin a study of the First Commandment, yet they are really some of the most crucial and probing questions that can be asked of anyone. Further, they are questions that demand not only answers, but correct answers because they are questions of the “first order” or first premise. This means that their answers define all subsequent understandings, relationships and principles that follow them. If these answers are wrong, then so, too, will be everything else coming from them.

This necessarily follows just as certainly as night follows day. It’s an immutable, or unchangeable law of existence. In the same way, one cannot correctly solve a long-column addition sum, if the first sum in the column is wrong. So, too, our lives are relational and demand that proper relationships and principles be established and maintained in order for them to be lived out in proper fashion.

It is a readily observable fact that this is not the way many, or even most, people's lives are lived. We are fallen, broken and sinful, and unable to fully (or even properly) understand the nature of our pledges, promises and vows. At best, we inadequately perceive their nature, permanence and importance, and then we fail to treat them with proper gravity and seriousness. In doing so we unleash destructive and tragic consequences that steamroller over every kind of relationship we have.

Billions of people fail to appreciate that a vow is a solemn declaration of future action or non- action. To make or take a vow means we are making a binding guarantee, by a solemn pledge or promise, to fulfill our declarations. And, because we, or they, misunderstand, misinterpret or ignore the proper nature of vows, we are plunged into the nightmare scenario of broken trusts, hearts, lives, homes, families, and nations.

All of us, men and women, even rulers and nations are torn asunder and dashed upon the rocks of convenience and self-interest because we have been infected by the misunderstanding of promissory obligation. In all kinds of ways and at every level, we abuse each others' trust, shattering our relationships because we have made promises with crossed fingers and hardened hearts.

If this sounds like a “litany of ills” in American culture in the first decade of the 21st Century, it’s because it is. But it is also the portrait of the entire human race since the Fall. Since then (all human history) people have failed to understand the sacred and solemn nature of vow and obligation. All of us are thus morally handicapped.

That “covenantal disabilty” results from our ignorance of the One to and in whom all vows are made and from whom they are derived.

The problem thus stated, we enter our the specific discussion of the First Commandment. Lets begin by looking at Exodus 20:1-3:

• 1 And God spoke all these words, saying: 2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 You shall have no other gods before Me.

It is not some cosmic accident or coincidence that God gives this commandment first. He didn’t just happen to think it up during some cosmic brainstorming session. It is the First Commandment because it has an order of logical and essential precedence that makes it the cornerstone of our existence. All other things derive from this first premise, and it is the most important principle in the existence of the universe. Without God's authorship nothing else would exist.

God spoke creation into existence from nothing, creating all things according to His perfect will. He sustains them by His own authority, majesty and power. Beyond that, He extends His own grace to us for reasons sufficient unto Himself.

It is, then, wholly reasonable that He presents and declares this First Commandment to us as the foundation of all other things. As we noted previously in our study on the nature of God's Moral Law, God is the creator who has fashioned each individual in His own image. Therefore, we owe Him a debt of love and obedience that is both non-negotiable and non-transferable. We may either take up the obligation or rebel against and reject it.

Instead of the more familiar “thou shalt not!” commands, this is the ultimate “thou shalt!” Everything else springs from it. We are informed by the God of heaven that He and He alone is supreme — His word authoritative. We cannot allow anyone or anything to stand in the way of His total Lordship or His commandments. In other words, slightly “tweaking” the recent spate of roadside billboards: “What part of THOU SHALT didn't you understand?”

Theologically and practically, this means that all of relationships to anyone or anything else are mediated by our relationship to Yahweh, the Great I AM. This is the same God and Father who declared and revealed Himself to Moses by saying "I am that I am." The name, Yahweh, shows that because “He is what He is,” we are what we are. If we ignore God's existence and authority, then we become functional atheists, debasing our own existence and all our relationships to everything else. We become lower than even the rocks and the dirt which yield testimony to their Creator and their own createdness.

Such an attitude not only diminishes us, it also warps and destroys all our relationships to everyone and everything else. Again, we are in serious error if we say, “because 1+1=3, then 1+1+2=5.” The conclusion is flawed because the first sum was wrong. Similarly, none of us would attempt to cross a river bridge if we knew that the bridge was 40 yards short of the far river bank. Only a fool would try it!

And John tells us much the same thing in John 1:1-4 and 10-13:

• 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. . . . .
• 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

John tells us that Jesus is the eternal Word and Son of God — distinct from the Father and yet also one and the same with Him. He is one with the God the Father and God the Spirit who made the entire universe from nothing. This same God showed His voice and presence to the Israelites at Sinai with lightening, thunder and incalculable majesty and glory. He also, in His great love, came once-for-all to take on humanity's nature and share its burdens. Our God lives among us. He is not only our God and our Father, but also our companion and guide, friend and savior.

This is why anything but total fidelity to our vows of love and obedience to our God yields only broken or incomplete results. Without that love for God, we cannot love brother or sister, wife or husband, neighbor or stranger, countryman or foreigner. With that love we cannot do anything but love them and seek after their best interest.

Next month we’ll look more fully at how and why our faith in Christ and His grace actually both strengthen the requirements of the First Commandment and enable us to live into it in a way we never could before. Let us renew our vows to God and to Him alone as we strive to fulfill the first commandment to have no other gods but the one true God.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

June 2009 Pastor's Highlander Column

June 2009
Pastor’s Column

Brothers and sisters,

“Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”
As this oft-remembered quote by poet/philosopher George Santayana so forcefully reminds us, every now and again it is good to stop, turn around and look at where we’ve been so we have clearer views of the pitfalls in the terrain before us. This is especially true as we look to Covenant History.

Frequently we believers suffer from historical and theological amnesia. We know certain important things, but have forgotten many more. Recent surveys and polls too numerous to mention have shown that up to half of American Christians cannot list more than half of the Ten Commandments. This is shocking and deplorable.
If we cannot articulate even the scriptural “Cliff’s Notes” version God’s Law, how can we know God and ourselves the way we should?

On this question hangs the reason we will take the next few months in this column to look again at the Ten Commandments. We will do so because the short answer to the question posed above is that “we cannot properly know God and ourselves without reference to His revelation and standard!”

And this is a big part of the reason that Western culture (or American culture) increasingly resembles a rebellious child who has finally learned how to say the "forbidden word." In many ways our culture fixates upon precisely those things that we know we should not think, say and do. Then we celebrate these vices with abandon because we haven't been caught yet — and we’re certain we won’t be.
That this is so is a readily observable fact. Just watch a random sampling of the latest situation comedies on television; read the newspaper’s Arts & Entertainment section; check out a good selection of popular fiction from the New York Times Best-Seller List, and you will see a great many things celebrated as normal that should be roundly rejected and lamented. The content and substance of much of this work frequently reflects a deliberate coarseness and cynicism betraying profound rebelliousness and unbelief.

Some argue that such conclusions are ham-fisted and overstated. That is "their right." And surely the actual amount and degree of moral, ethical and social rot is debatable. But, the existence of the problem is not. It is observable in nearly every discipline and at every level.

No longer are we content merely to overthrow specific overly-restrictive and Pharisaical rules for targeted effect. Instead, we seem to have abandoned all the rules whether positive or negative. Once we shied away from public display of vice; now we publically celebrate the trivial, the banal and the bizarre.

And the problem with such behaviors is that they constitute a rebellion against the Word and authority of the God and Creator of the Universe who created us in His own image and demands our adherence to certain normative codes of conduct or "house rules." He established and designed this Moral Law for His glory and our spiritual and temporal good health. In a very real sense this is the code of “house rules” set by a parent. A child may rebel against them, but they’re still in force.

The child owes his or her parent obedience and love, and owes them that simply because they are born into that particular family. Without those parents, the child would not exist.

In the case of humanity, God is the creator who has fashioned each individual in His own image. We, therefore, owe God a debt of love and obedience. It’s a non-negotiable demand that we either accept or rebel against — one or the other. There is no “Category C” answer. God demands and deserves our obedience and love, and He gives us His law to instruct us and force us to see our own need.

God has created us. We need Him, His authority and grace. We ARE stuck in sin, death and rebellion. We ARE sick and in need of cure. And yet, as a race, we reject the cure and cling to our rebellion. Such rejection of God and His standard constitutes a functional atheism in which we effectively tell God that He is irrelevant to us. And, in so doing we shatter our humanity and sweep it away as so many shards of broken and despised glass.

This does not leave God poorer or less; but it debases and diminishes, our existence and humanity. It is like me telling my father that I hate and despise him. I can mock and despise him through disobedience, misbehavior and rebellion. But this doesn’t change the fact that he is my father. I may hurt and crush him emotionally and spiritually, but he’s still my father. Now, in the process I may destroy my sonship to him. But that means I’m the one debased by this, he is not.

It’s that way with God. Functional atheism perpetuated by our rebellion against and casual disregard of God’s standard means that we dismiss our humanity. But He is still Lord. So then, let’s consider two passages that set the stage for this discussion: Exodus 19:1-6 [God’s preparation for giving the Law] and I Peter 2:1-5 [Peter’s instructions on how Christians should behave on this side of the cross].
Exodus 19:1 - 6 [nkjv]
1 In the third month after the children of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on the same day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai. 2 For they had departed from Rephidim, had come to the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness. So Israel camped there before the mountain. 3 And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: 4 ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. 6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

Moses and the Israelites have been "on the road" for three grueling months. Their mass Exodus into the Sinai Desert from their captivity is complete. Finally, they make it to the foot of Mt. Sinai. Here is the place where God speaks to them. God summons Moses and tells Him, "Listen, I want you to tell My people Israel that I brought them out of 430 years of slavery in Egypt by my own hand. They just flew free, right out of Egypt, like an eagle. . . . don't forget what I did to the Egyptians at the Red Sea for you. And I did it because I love you and want you to be and do something specific."

God's redemption of Israel was a completed action, and yet it was not the whole story. The liberation of Israel from its physical slavery in Egypt is also symbolic and promissory of our redemption from slavery to sin and death as provided by Christ's sacrificial death and His glorious Resurrection.
This, then gives way to our second passage:
I Peter 2:1 - 5 [nkjv]
1 Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil-speaking, 2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby, 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
4 Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, 5 you also, as living stones, are being built-up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Jesus opened the way for all nations to hear the gospel message of peace with God through faith and surrender. He was and is the Promised Redeemer. He was the one who died as a sacrifice and scapegoat for all the world's sins. He leads our exodus from sin and death to the New Heavens and Earth. If we people, trust in and follow Him they are saved and accepted by God. Not just Jews. Not just Gentiles. All kinds of People.

The new Israel is the Church and is a God-created people made up of all the peoples. As Peter says it, "Once we were no people and now we are God's own People." This is our Covenant and Charter for existence as it has been delivered to us by God Himself. It is the preface to all that follows. Our Justification comes from faith and trust in Christ Jesus and His completed work. But that is just the beginning of the process of living out our faith and sanctification.

So let us consecrate ourselves again in gratitude to the God of our confession. And as we do, we will see that He HAS given us His Covenant and His Law in order that we may be His special treasures — so that we who once were not a people can live out the mercy we have obtained through faith in Christ and BE the people of God.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

May 2009 Pastor's Highlander Column

May 2009 Pastor’s Column

Brothers and sisters,

It’s May: the school year winds down; outdoor temperatures rise and greening lawns begin to grow again as the flowers commence to bloom; the community, and nation await and prepare for Spring to really get under way as people start to dream about and plan their summers.

The budding, blooming life-cycles in the world around us cheer our hearts and minds and renew our sense of hope and well-being.

And yet, we miss the genuine sense of hope we should have if we confine our mental and emotional gaze to the physical signs around us. In fact, to do so almost inevitably leads to parched and burned-over fields of the mind and spirit as daily events unfold around us, searing the eyes of the heart and turning those greens, reds and yellows into dismal tans and browns.

It does not need to be that way, though!
Our genuine hope at this time of the year should be grounded in the Gospel hope. As Christians, we celebrate not just the tangible season of Spring, but the ecclesiastical season of Easter — rich with the promise of Christ’s Resurrection and the promise of our own eventual rising from the dead.

Life is frequently difficult as we face the conflicting demands of family, school, community, church and work. In the present fiscal climate, some face serious threats to employment, while others see their horizons dimmed and limited by the requirements of war or disaster. Still others face grim diagnoses and physical discomfort caused by difficult treatments and uncertain recovery times.

That, sadly, is the nature of life in a fallen world. But such travails need not be so dispiriting as they often seem to be. Economies rise and wane, wars flare and sputter, scandals unfold and explode, but the tangible hope of the Christian surmounts all such catastrophes because it is rooted in God’s gracious and definite action.

Sadly, may reject this hope as nothing more than “pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye”. They are convinced that there is no such thing as a definite God-given message and that He does not act directly in the affairs of humanity. With lamentable frequency, such beliefs filter not just through the culture around us, but also into the Church as a whole. And when they do, they sap the life from our proclamation, message and hope.

The current prevailing cultural view of philosophy and theology is called Post-Modernism and it tends to rely on a movement called Deconstructionism. Deconstructionism views all texts as free-floating, without context or a principal meaning (even the author’s intent and purpose). The only important thing in such interpretations is the “meaning” that the readers or commentators take from what has been written.

We, as Christians believe that God actually did create all that exists, and that humans rebelled against God, that we are now fallen, sinful, subject to death and condemnation. Yet God, in His great grace and mercy has provided for our redemption. He has spoken His words to us through numerous prophets, through the scriptures and ultimately through His own Son’s life, ministry, sacrificial death and Resurrection.

The central difference, then, between the Gospel of Life we cling to and the theological speculations of the Deconstructionists is this:
∙ The Gospel tells us a true story full of definite and permanent meaning which is perceived by the world to mean nothing.
∙ Postmodernism tells no story, criticizes all other stories, and believes in no fixed meaning in an attempt to find meaning.

In short then, if nothing can mean literally anything, then everything means nothing.
And death and this “nothingness” are ultimately what the human race fears above all else. We struggle and rail against them, seeking futilely to hold them at bay for as long as humanly possible. Billions, if not trillions, of dollars are spent annually on every conceivable method, formula or nostrum to make us feel and appear younger. And yet, all of these ultimately futile “treatments” and practices prescribed and provided by doctors, scientists, quacks and charlatans do absolutely nothing to actively promote life lived in fullness. Instead they engage in frenetic movements that merely extend one’s existence in the here-and-now without ever grappling with a hereafter in which they don’t believe.

British writer G.K. Chesterton beautifully and presciently described this situation through the voice of his fictional hero Father Brown (the priest/detective in Chesterton’s Father Brown Mysteries stories):
“It’s something I’ve noticed more and more in the modern world, appearing in all sorts of newspaper rumours and conversational catchwords; something that’s arbitrary without being authoritative. People readily swallow the untested claims of this, that or the other. It’s drowning all your old rationalism and scepticism, it’s coming in like the sea; and the name of it is superstition. . . . It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense and can’t see things as they are. Anything that anybody talks about, and says there’s a good deal in it, extends itself indefinitely like a vista in a nightmare. And a dog is an omen, and a cat is a mystery, and a pig is a mascot and a beetle is a scarab, calling all the menagerie of polytheism from Egypt and old India; Dog Anubis and great green-eyed Pasht and all the holy howling bulls of Bashan; reeling back to the bestial gods of the beginning, escaping into elephants and snakes and crocodiles; and all because you are frightened of four words: “He was made Man.”

This is the contemporary tragedy. Humanity is in desperate need of the redemption that only God can provide, but runs helter-skelter from the very One Who does provide it, because grace can be scary and we are mortally afraid of the One who extends it.

But, as frightening as the Messiah is or can be, as uncomfortable as grace is because it leaves us bare, fresh and new, this is our one and eternal hope and deliverance.
In addressing this theme, the Apostle Paul put it this way in I Corinthians 1:18-31:
I Corinthians 1:18 - 31 [esv]
18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Let us cling to this central truth of our faith. Let us allow it to shape and mold us as we live out our lives. Indeed, we will and do undergo hardship, peril and sometimes even the sword. However, even as we do so — even when we die — we are living into the Gospel promise. We embrace our temporal lives here with new purpose and genuine meaning while simultaneously looking and clinging to the eternal life that Christ has won for us.

Life is not about simple existence for us. It is about the substantial and significant healing that Christ brings to us and to our relationship with God the Father, who adopts us as His own children and upholds, refreshes and guides us through even our most dark and difficult times.

Let us live the Easter hope. Christ is Risen! He Is Risen, Indeed!

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

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September 2010 Pastor's Highlander Column

SEPTEMBER 2010
PASTOR'S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

As we move on to consider the Sixth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill (murder)”, I was reminded of an event from almost 16 years ago:

It was about 9:30 P.M. on a brutally cold Sunday night in Pittsburgh — Super Bowl Sunday 1995. At that time I was one of the two interns for the Crafton United Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. I’d canceled the Senior High Youth Group meeting for the night because most of our kids wanted to watch the whole Super Bowl without having to leave mid-game.

With no youth group, Tina, Sarah and I went to my parents that evening to celebrate my birthday. We were a half-hour late in picking up my fellow intern from the Jr. High Youth Group Super Bowl Party, so I felt a titch guilty as we pulled up at church because I’d left my colleague waiting 30 minutes for us. And it wasn’t as though he could leave; we were his ride back to the Seminary.

It was so bitterly cold and crystal clear that night that we had to double-check to make sure that car windows were fully shut and turn the car's heater up to full-blast to stave off the razor-sharpness of the icy air. But even as tightly buttoned-up as we were in our car that night, I could still hear resounding shouts of “excessive revelry” from inside the equally well armored church building (I now know how Moses felt when he was on Mt. Sinai and heard "the sounds of war" from below as the Israelites were making the Golden Calf).

As I entered the church fellowship hall I was “greeted” by the sights and sounds of utter pandemonium and bedlam.

The congregation’s annual meeting and luncheon had been held that morning after worship and the tables and chairs hadn’t yet been put away, but all of the nursery school toys and equipage were set out for “Romper Room” the next morning. Amidst this scene, I discovered that the Jr. High kids had stacked the tables three-high into towers from which they attempted to "Bungee-jump". Several of my Sr. High kids were there, uninvited, and without my knowledge. The icing on the cake in this “demented Kindergarten” was the sight of Crafton’s “best and brightest” teens “drag racing” on Nursery School tricycles.

There’s an old adage well-considered here: "There are those who make things happen; those who watch things happen; and then, there are those who wonder what just happened."? My colleague’s expression demonstrated a firm grasp of the third possibility.

Discipline for the kids was swift, fair and immediate! And, feeling ever so virtuous, I restrained myself from strangling the other intern. Only once did I forcefully tell him he was "a total bean-head"!

After all, that's the commandment, right? You shall not murder!" He had no bruises, and was still breathing, so I was "golden", right? Many of us have faced similar circumstances with such collegial mis-matches. At one time or other, most of us have stifled such impulses and might be inclined to say, "Well done, Rusty! — you’re blameless." Then again . . . Let's use our best "O.J. Simpson trial-language"; I might not have been convicted of murder right then, but that's a far cry from actually being innocent or "not guilty."

I gave my co-worker a "look that could kill", and I couldn’t resist the insults I hurled. I wanted to smack him really hard for threatening my job, the youth program and kids' safety, but instead, I surveyed the chaos and stoked my growing rage. The only reason I didn’t break something or someone was the Holy Spirit’s restraint of my baser impulses!

Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever been so angry you could spit, and then felt virtuous for not having killed someone? Well, our commandment for this month points to just this common quandary in which we occasionally find ourselves.

Our monthly questions from the Heidelberg Catechism are:

• Does "forbidding murder" refer only to killing, or does it point to something deeper?, and;

• Is it enough, then, that we refrain from killing our neighbors?

The answers to these rather pointed questions, and Jesus admontion from Matthew 5:22 (“But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.”) would have signed my conviction warrant. I had avoided murder! But, I definitely flouted the Spirit of the commandment.

Christ, God's own Son, who fulfilled the whole of the Law and Scripture, tells me — and everyone similarly tempted — that I had committed that murder in my heart and mind. True, I hadn’t called him a "fool", but under God's judgment, I think "bean-head" counts just the same.

Jesus, Who knows the heart, mind and intent of His Father, Who has authority to modify the covenant, tells His listeners that anger wrongly directed is morally the same as murder.

He says: “You have heard it said. . ., but I say to you. . .” He doesn’t abolish the Old Covenant. Instead, He fleshes out and fulfills it. He tells us this sort of anger — this rage — is the root of murder. It strips others of the God-created value of people and, eventually, makes even murder seem an acceptable alternative.

This cancerous anger distorts and destroys our relationships with God and each other.

It is the poison that destroys reason, and became the unfocused desire for wanton destruction and that 16 years ago led a nine-year-old Savona, New York boy to sodomize with a stick and then savagely kill a two-year-old neighbor (just months before Tina, Sarah and I moved to a neighboring Finger Lakes community). Four years later that case was in the news again as the now-13-year-old boy's former lawyer argued to the New York State Court of Appeals that the boy was emotionally defective and that he, the lawyer, was incompetent to defend an emotionally defective child. The boy should, therefore gain a new trial.

At least one of the lawyer's observations is essentially correct — the boy was emotionally damaged.

But, the sad fact was, still is, — and always will be — that all of us are emotionally damaged somehow. We just manage to better rein-in our thoughts, feelings and impulses. Instead, we resort to insults and epithets like “bean-head”, “jerk” or “simpleton”. And how often have most of us worked, volunteered with or been neighbors to the “fools, bean-heads, jerks and simpletons” against whom we rage? How often have we become angry enough to do harm to them or to siblings, spouses and friends when we've had a bad day?

And our just conviction and sentence await us unless we gain control, ask forgiveness and seek the better path that leads to a positive, rather than merely negative, understanding of the commandment not to murder. The Apostle Paul gives us that positive understanding of the better path in Romans 12:9 - 21:

• 9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
• 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Paul's instructions direct us once again see the God-made image and dignity each of us possess.

We must come to genuinely love people as a whole and as individuals. This doesn't mean that we always approve others’ actions or behavior, but it does mean that we will seek what is best for others' welfare and care about them as individuals.

We must consciously seek to outdo each other respecting and honoring people's basic character as God-created beings. We must show respect even in the face of disagreement, wrong-doing and personal slights. And, we won't seek revenge for those wrongs done to us because, let's face it, we are not Sylvester Stallone's impression of the comic book character Judge Dredd, who functions as judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one.

We are called not to be the posse, lynch mob or the legendary Judge Roy Bean because judgment and vengeance belong only to God. He Will Repay! To say all of this, is not to say that we should approve bad behavior or that we shouldn't punish and correct wrong-doers and their misadventures. Clearly, such action is part of society's job and function. But. . .

. . . As Christians, we are called to solve our individual difficulties with others respectfully.

We cannot solve them through anger and vengeance, because vengeance is not ours to exercise. It is God’s alone. Instead, as personal practice, we need to be "good to those that hate us" and "let them receive the just reward" for their "looks that can kill."

Let us use our heads and hearts to overcome anger and evil with good and love. This is the path away from Hell and these are the first steps on the path toward love, discipleship and service to Christ our Lord. Remember, Looks can kill. They can kill us and bring God's judgment raining down upon us.

Let us seek the love of Christ instead.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

Highland Presbyterian Church --- Order of Service for Sun., 15 August 2010

Order of Service
for
Sun., 15 August 2010

✙ ✙ ✙ Assemble in God's Name ✙ ✙ ✙

The Welcome & Announcements: Elder Charlotte Clements

* The Passing of the Peace: Elder Charlotte Clements

• Leader: Since we have been justified through faith, we now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us live into and share this peace & grace with our neighbors in all we do. May the peace of Christ be with you.
• People: And also with you.

* The Call to Worship: Elder Charlotte Clements

• Leader: God is good!
• People: All the time!
• Leader: All the time. . .
• People: God is good!
• Unison: Because that is His nature!
• (The Benedictus / Luke 1:68 - 75)
  
• Leader:“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us;
  
• People:To show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath that He swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.
• Unison: Sing praises to the Lord, for He has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

* Hymn: “ O for a Thousand Tongues ” # 76

* The Call to Confession: Pastor Stuart

• Pastor: For all have sinned and fallen short of God’s Glory, Yet the miracle of God’s love is this, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Therefore If we confess our sins and seek His face in faith God, who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In humility and faith let us confess our sins before Him. [Romans 3:23, 5:8 & I John 1:9]

* Prayer of Confession: Pastor Stuart

• Unison: Almighty God, creator of all, You marvelously made us in Your image; but we have corrupted ourselves and damaged Your likeness by rejecting Your love and hurting our neighbors. We have done wrong and neglected to do right. We are sincerely sorry and heartily repent of our sins. Cleanse us and forgive us by the sacrifice of Your Son; remake us and lead us by Your Spirit the Comforter and Advocate. We ask this through Jesus Christ our merciful High Priest. Amen. [Adapted from Our Modern Services; the Anglican Church of Kenya; pg 35.]

* A Time for Silent Reflection:

* The Assurance of Pardon:

• Pastor: Hear the Good News! Who is in a position to condemn? Only Christ! And yet, Christ died for us; He rose for us; He reigns in power for us; and He prays for us. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, that one is a new creation. The old life is Gone and a new life has begun. Amen. [I Timothy 1:15 & I Peter 2:25]

* The People's Response: Gloria Patri

✙ ✙ ✙ Hearing God’s Word ✙ ✙ ✙

The Prayer for Illumination: Elder Charlotte Clements

The Scripture Lesson: Pastor Stuart

• I John 5:6 - 12:
• 6 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. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. 9 If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that He has borne concerning His Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning His Son. 11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Response:

• Pastor: This is the Word of the Lord!
• People: Thanks be to God.
  

Anthem: The Christy Girls

The Sharing of Joys and Concerns: Pastor Stuart

VBS Report Gail Hilton; VBS Kids & Helpers

The Offering:
The Offertory:
* The Doxology:
* The Offertory Prayer:

Sermon: “ What Do We Possess — The Truth or a Lie? ”

✙ ✙ ✙ Responding to God’s Word ✙ ✙ ✙

* The Affirmation of Faith: The Apostles’ Creed

• Unison: I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth;
• And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
• I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

* Hymn: "Onward Christian Soldiers" # 479

✙ ✙ ✙ Go Forth in God's Name ✙ ✙ ✙

* The Charge & Benediction:

* Threefold Amen: