Our God is a consuming fire

Scripture Lessons: Jeremiah 1: 4-10 and Hebrews 12: 18-29 Sermon Title: Our God is a consuming fire Preached on August 21, 2016 I was standing by the door that most of you entered the church through – the door on High Street. It was last Wednesday morning and Diane Maloney, our youth director walked in. You may know already that in addition to serving our church as our youth director Diane is a seminary student and so she walked in carrying one of her text books: “The Story of Christianity” by Justo Gonzalez volume 1. This is a two volume work that was also my text book in seminary for church history, and the book, being a history of Christianity, begins with Jesus of course, and volume 1 ends with what we Protestants call the Great Reformation of the 15th Century, when Martin Luther initiated a schism that separated the protestant denominations from the Roman Catholic Church. Mrs. Carolyn Fisher was standing at the door with me when Diane walked in, and she suggested that volume two must get us from the reformation to today – “which is chaos.” The Church does find herself in a strange situation these days. Here in Columbia, TN, whereas many can remember Sunday mornings as a sacred time when nothing was open and everyone seemed to be in church, today you can leave this service to see that for many people the Sabbath is just another day. Run over to the Kroger Supermarket and there you’ll see men and women who have been hard at work since 7 or 8 this morning. Used to this pattern of doing business with groceries stories open on Sunday, some of you may be working on your grocery lists now, but this has not always been so. Today our Christianity exists within a culture which is not so friendly to the rhythms of the Church anymore, but not only does our church today exist in a culture no longer so friendly to her schedule, we have heard the reports of numerous shootings which targeted Christians, we have heard of the persecution of Christians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, the Sudan – news stories from places where oppressive but secular leaders have been deposed, and in the power vacuum that was left, terrorists have risen up to oppress our brothers and sisters in Christ as well as moderate Muslims and other religions minorities. So, Mrs. Fisher is right - volume 2 of “The Story of Christianity” gets us from the reformation to today – “which is chaos,” but if you read the book Diane was carrying you’ll come to learn that for most of Christian History, chaos has been the norm and not the exception. Now not everybody thinks like this, not every preacher knows all the stories of our past, and I’m sure that you could walk out of this church to easily find a preacher who would tell you that the history of the Church is pretty much this: Jesus was born, and after a few years of walking the countryside speaking the King James English, some scribes who were following him dictated what he said into the four gospels, and now we can tell his story just as he would have wanted it to be told. Then there are other preachers who will tell you that church history is a little more complicated than that - because pretty much what happened is that in the past 2,000 years since Jesus got things started, he had to suffer through all kinds of incompetence until our church came along to finally got Christianity right. I’m not sure I’d buy that one either, because even in the Bible we read that even within the 12 Disciples, that even within that small group there were arguments and disagreements. Then we go beyond Jesus about 500 years and we come to Marcion – who was so sure that the God of the New Testament was a gentle and loving God compared to the God of the Old Testament that he encouraged his followers to just leave the Old Testament to the past. This widespread belief sparked one of the many great debates in the history of our church. Another learned Christian Leader named Tertullian came forward to take the opposing view convinced that the God in the New Testament is not just the same as the God of the Old Testament, but that if you think the God of the Old Testament is harsh than you haven’t really gotten to know the God of the New Testament. Think about it – Moses said “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” but Jesus said, “anyone who so much as thinks about it has committed adultery in their heart,” and in Jeremiah (our 1st Scripture Lesson from the Old Testament), God calls the young prophet to: “Pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow and in Hebrews (our 2nd Lesson from the New Testament) God is described first as an earthquake and then a consuming fire. These are both images that I don’t really like, but both images describe a God who I need. Let me tell you what I mean. I was thankful to have had to opportunity to attend a leadership conference week before last, and at this conference a man named John Maxwell – this big time famous preacher – he took his arm and with one arm he pointed up-hill and he said, “we all have up-hill aspirations,” and then he took his other arm and pointed it down-hill and said, “but we have down-hill habits.” Knowing this to be the case, the author of Hebrews challenges a church lulled to sleep by the habits of daily living. In chapter 12 the author writes that “indeed our God is a consuming fire,” and like the God of the Old Testament, the God who revealed himself to the prophet Jeremiah, this God came like a wrecking ball to pluck up, pull down, destroy and overthrow – and in Hebrews we read that like a consuming fire our God intends to consume what is not holy and like an earthquake our God will shake up our world so that only those things that cannot be shaken will remain. Now that may sound a little harsh…because it is. It is harsh but it’s also true, so hear this massage from the book of Hebrews: God is at work even when the world feels like chaos. Think about it. Some people call babies little bundles of joy, but I don’t. I think of baptisms that were like trying to baptize a racoon. I think about all this free time that I used to have. Years ago, before we had children, I’d wake up on my day off to watch a movie. Every Friday I’d wake up and would watch a movie and now I can’t remember the last time I saw one. My experience of our growing family has been a lot like that State Farm Insurance commercial – the one with the man who says he’s never getting married in one scene, and in the next he’s buying a wedding ring. Then he tells his wife in an airplane surrounded by crying babies that they’re never having kids, and in the next scene his wife is delivering their first child. As he cleans a crayon drawing off the wall of their house he says, “we’re never having another kid,” to which his wife responds: “I’m pregnant.” The commercial ends with this man who made all these declarations about what he was never going to do, but on the couch surrounded by his wife and children he voices one last never: “I’m never letting go.” “I’m never letting go” to all these changes in my life that I didn’t expect and that I was resistant to, all this chaos that wreaked my free time, forced me to let go of my hobbies – the man who sold his motorcycle because he never had time to ride it to buy a mini-van; who hung up his basketball shoes to become a soccer coach – and like that man and every other one, each time I think about all the chaos that our children brought into my life I thank God and I say – “I’m never letting go” because the challenges in my life have been gifts. The trials of my life have made me stronger. The chaos in my life forced me to choose what I would let go of and what I would hold onto and doing so has made me who I am today. That’s the gift of the earthquake, the fire of life, and I’m not saying that we ask for this kind of chaos – because we don’t. In fact, every Sunday during the Lord’s Prayer we pray that the Lord will deliver us from temptation, that God will save us from the time of trial – we pray that we won’t be tested and that we won’t have to face the storm for while our God is a consuming fire I don’t have anything that I really want to see get consumed. I’d rather live an easy life. I’d rather live a safe life. I’d rather live the kind of life where everyone around me believes what I believe and has the values that I have and teaches those values to my children. Out of such a desire we have many parents here who send their children to one of the fine Christian Schools in our county – only once there, some find that they’re not exactly our kind of Christian. So what happens then? Well let me tell you what has happened and what I hope will happen again and again. Our own Molly Grace Demoss was at a pool party with all her friends, telling them how much she enjoyed the High School Mission trip to New York City our High School youth group just went on when her friend’s dad comes out and he declares: “Oh that’s right Molly Grace. You go to that weird church downtown.” Who would describe us as that weird church downtown? Well, regardless, Molly Grace looked this man in the eye and said: “Yes I do – (yes I do go to that weird church downtown) and my mama is about to become a deacon.” Now listen – we 21st Century Christians who are writing our chapter of the history of Christ’s Church are called to go out into a world where people may very well think that we are weird. The chaos of this current age rages all around us – it’s not easy going out there – so the temptation will always be to fit in or to give up but don’t you forget this – take it to heart and hold it close – even this chaos will advance God’s will. Even this chaos will make you stronger. Even this chaos with all that it tears down, consumes, or destroys – it will help you to have the faith that our Molly Grace has – the faith to tell the world that “yes I do go to that weird church and yes my mama is a deacon.” Yes – I do follow that man named Jesus. Yes – I believe that my sins have been forgiven. Yes – I rejoice, even in my suffering. Yes – I’m faithful. Yes – I’m hopeful. Yes – I am his and he is mine. Amen.