Wednesday Community Night – January 11, 2012

“The Son of Excellence”

Isaiah 42:1-9/Psalm 89:20-29/Acts 10:34-38/Mark 1:7-11

Fr. Gary W. Thurman

Imagine the Lord speaking to you, “In Thee I am well pleased.”  What would it be like to hear that from God Himself?   “I am pleased with you! My favor is on you!”  What wouldn’t we do and give to hear those words coming from God?  What did Jesus do to merit those words coming from the lips of His Father?  Probably, it was the sermons that He had preached - the Sermon of the Mount and the other sermons which were such awesome, incredible sermons.

This is probably why God said, “I am pleased with You,” except that the time God spoke this, Jesus hadn’t preached a single word.  Probably, it was the healings – the sick, the lame that were given power to walk or Peter’s mother-in-law who had a fever.  These may be probably why God said, “I am well pleased with You, Son,” except that at the time the Father spoke this, Jesus had not healed one single person that we know of.  Maybe it was the spirit that He was casting out – driving out demons from all those oppressed by the devil like Peter said;  except that at the time the Father said, “I am well pleased with You, Son,” there was not single incident recorded of Jesus having cast out a spirit.

When the Father said to the Son, “In You, I am well pleased,” Jesus hadn’t preached a sermon, hadn’t healed a sick person, and hadn’t cast out a single spirit.  He hadn’t done anything that we would associate with Him as His mighty works of power. Yet before He did anything recorded, except asking some questions to the scribes in the temple when He was twelve years old, even then He didn’t teach; even then He did not answer questions.   In Luke, it says that He was asking questions. It is all that He had done, and yet God told Him, “I am well pleased with You.”

This should make us stop and think for a minute: all the things that we think earn God’s favor and earn God’s pleasure has nothing to do with it.  Do you know why God is pleased with you?  It is just because He is.  It has nothing to do with you, with what you have done, and what you have decided to do, or what you have tried to do.  God just decided that He is going to love you.  God just decided that He is going to be pleased with you.  Before you have done a single thing – good, bad or indifferent, He has decided that He is going to be pleased with you.

Psalm 89 was talking about David.  Verse 28 says, “My lovingkindness I will keep for him forever.” What did David do to earn God’s eternal lovingkindness?  He did some good things; he did some pretty lousy things too.  He made some mistakes along the way, more than just one, and yet God said, “David is not perfect, but My lovingkindness I am going to keep for him forever.”

God said the same thing when He prophesied to David in 2Samuel7:15, “I am going to give you a son, David.  I am going to give you a descendant and My lovingkindness shall not depart from him as I took it away from Saul.”  We know that He is talking about Solomon.   What did Solomon do to deserve such favor?  God did not say, “I will take My lovingkindness away from Solomon.”  Solomon turned his back on God. Solomon started building altars to the false gods that his wives were worshipping.  And some of these gods were just plain heinous in the way that they demanded to be worshipped.   Many of them demanded to be worshipped with homosexual acts; some with child sacrifice. Solomon was building temples to these gods over all Jerusalem, over all Judea, and God said, “I am not going to take My lovingkindness away from him.”

In Luke 2:14, the song that the angels sang on the night skies of Bethlehem to the shepherds, “Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is well-pleased.” Can someone tell me exactly what men did to make God pleased with them?  It wasn’t about what men did.  The men in 4 B.C. were just like the men in 2012 A.D. – crooked as snakes; nothing so special about them or us; and yet God said,  “I am well pleased with these men.”

In the first sermon that Jesus did preach after, God said, “I am well pleased with You.”  He went to Capernaum and started preaching in the synagogue.  Part of what He was quoting in the sermon was in Isaiah 61, “I am here to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”  Many translations say, “The time of God’s favor.”  What have the people done to earn God’s favor?  The people that generation probably were worse than the people of the generation when Christ came in His nativity.

See the pattern. God’s favor is not something we earned. It is just something He gives.  God loves us, He bestows His favor upon us, and He is pleased with us!  It is one thing to give favor to somebody but to say, “I am pleased with you,” is totally His call.

All these examples are here to show us how unstoppable and unchangeable God is in His favor toward His people.  I am pretty sure we don’t understand this.  I am pretty sure we don’t accept it as we should. If we did, we would be free.  We would be free from guilt, from fear, from anxiety, and free from so many things – if we would just understand that God’s favor is on you and He is pleased with you.

I never preached a sermon.  Jesus hadn’t either at the time that God said, “My favor is with You.”  I have never healed a single sick person; neither had Jesus at the time God said, “My favor is with You.”  I have made some big mistakes; so did David and Solomon and all the other people we can mention.  God still said, “My favor is with you and I am never going to take away my lovingkindness from you.”

We can look at these things but Genesis 3 is a tremendous example of God’s favor.  As a word association game, if you say, “Genesis chapter 3,” what is the first thing that comes to your mind if you have any knowledge of your Bible at all?  What happened in this chapter? What I thought of first for my whole life and as I was studying for the reflection for yesterday morning was that Genesis 3 is the fall of man; the temptation of Eve; the serpent in the garden; Adam and Eve falling; curse coming upon man.

This is not probably the most amazing thing in that chapter, but it is in verse 8 where it says, “The Lord God came to the man in the garden in the cool of the day.”  After man sinned, after he disobeyed God, after Eve was tempted, took the fruit, ate, and Adam ate, after that God came to them in the cool of the day, not the heat of the moment. See the difference.  I have always thought that after the fall, I can just picture God coming to the garden.  He is not whistling, singing, “Great am I, and greatly to be praised.”  But, He is like shouting, “Adam, what have you done!!! What were you thinking!!! Where are you Adam???”  This is what I would picture God. It is like what my Mom and Dad used to do to me sometimes when I was a kid.  This is what we would think – in the heat of the moment.  Adam just blew everything – all the plans that God had made from the foundation of the world. But here is God, in the cool of the day, not the heat of the moment asking, “Adam, where are you?”

Don’t get mixed up and think that God did not know what happened.  It is not like God just was strolling in the garden at a usual day, “Oh, something must be wrong.  Adam is not here.”  One of the animals would come and say, “God, Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”  But God already knew exactly what happened.  Even though He knew exactly what happened, He went to the garden in the cool of the day.  He wasn’t hot, He wasn’t angry.  He wasn’t ballistic.

Continuing with Genesis 3, we see something just as interesting and just as confrontational as this.  God had to deal with the situation.  Adam was hiding. He had fallen, and he tried to fix it by himself.  He just made a mistake on top of another mistake and just blew it, but God went looking for him.  We think that God went to the garden to deal with him, “Adam, here is the deal.  You are cursed! Serpent, you are cursed!  Eve, you are cursed!”  We think this is why God went to the garden – to curse everybody.  But God went to the garden to restore Adam.  Adam was hiding and so He said, “Adam, where are you?”

When God found him, yes, He had to deal with things because with disobedience comes consequences.  God took care of him; He gave him some clothes.  He had to slay the animals to get the skin to give him the clothes for He still loved Adam.  Adam, in the whole time that he was hiding, kicking himself, says, “I can never be anything.  I am a jerk, I am a bozo. I am an idiot.”

Adam loved God and he still loved God even after he sinned.  When you sin, don’t you still love God?  We get this idea that Adam was this evil and once he sinned he became like malcontent and reprobate.  I don’t think so.  Adam still loved God.  As Adam was kicking himself, feeling sorry, God had to put him out of the garden. He had to put a curse on him. “There were certain things – they were easy for you before.  They are not going to be as easy now. Childbirth, cultivation - all these things are going to be tough for you now.”

God took Adam out of the garden and put him to cultivate the ground.  God restored him because this is exactly what He gave him to do when he was in the garden – to cultivate and keep. Verse 23 says that God put him out of the garden to cultivate the ground that we he was taken from.  God restored him to his ministry. He restored him to his calling, and Adam accepted it.

Adam lived 930 years after the fall.  Do we really think that Adam lived 930 years in reprobation and hatred against God?  No, for he continued to cultivate the ground.  He continued to love the Lord and tried to have a relationship with Him. He couldn’t be that it was like in the garden before.

Cain and Abel made sacrifices to God.  Who taught them to come to God with sacrifices?  It was Adam, their father.  Who teaches you to follow God?  Your fathers! Adam was still trying to seek the Lord.  Adam taught Cain and Abel to come to the Lord with sacrifices.  Moses wasn’t the one that started sacrifices.  Abraham made sacrifices.  Cain and Abel learned to make sacrifices from Adam.   God said, “Adam, you made a sin that separated you from Me. I have to find a way to cover that sin.  We will cover that sin with sacrifice.”

Adam lived a life for 930 years probably like you and me, working a day – with good and bad days, holy days, unrighteous days, making sacrifices to God when he felt guilty before the Lord. Adam is just like you and me because God was still pleased with him. God didn’t just blast the curse on him and forget about him for the 930 years till he died.

This is an incredible act of God’s pleasure. It is a manifestation of God’s pleasure even after this that seemingly destroying everything that God had planned from the foundation of the world,   plans that He had made long ago.  God is eternal and “long” can be really a long time. When all these plans that God made a “long” ago, Adam just blew it, except God had already known that it was going to happen, and had made provision for it.   At that point, Adam did not know that.

After such a catastrophic sin, God still says, “Adam, where you?  I am going to find you. I am going to restore you, but I can’t leave you hiding in the garden for the rest of your life. What I told you in the beginning when I first created you that you will be the one to cultivate and keep, I still need you to do that.”   Adam says, “Lord, I can’t. I have messed up too much.”  God says, “I will take care of that Adam. I still love you.  I am still pleased with you.”

If God wasn’t pleased with Adam, He wouldn’t have gone to the garden looking for him.  Think about that.  It is going to shake a lot of ideas in your mind but I believe that it is very clear of what the Bible says which we haven’t caught very well. This is how big God’s favor is for you and I; an amazing favor.  We need to snap out of our doldrums in thinking, “God can’t’ really love me that much because I am a mess.”  God knows that, but He cleaned you up.  You may be a mess, but you are a holy mess.  You are a sanctified mess; you are a redeemed and saved mess.  You are a mess that has found favor with God and is pleasing in His sight.  We have to get over ourselves and learn to accept that. We say, “I don’t deserve it.”

 It amazes me every time I realize God loves me because I don’t know why, but He does!  He has told me too many times in the Word of God, but we must really begin to comprehend and accept God’s favor for us and the fact that He is pleased with us.  We have a hard time accepting it, but we’ve got to come to that place where we believe and accept that God is pleased with us.  “But, I did… God is pleased with me!  But, I am…God is pleased with me!”

We have to have this right in our minds to motivate everything we do and everything we say.  If we don’t understand God’s favor, it will affect two things in our lives.  First of all, it will affect our attitude.  If we don’t understand God’s favor, our attitude will be affected. We will always be having a negative attitude. We will have an “I can’t do it” attitude; “I am not strong enough” attitude; “I am not good enough” attitude. “This is just too big for me.”  This is what comes upon us when we don’t understand God’s favor and the fact that God is pleased with us.

Isaiah 42:4 says, “Behold My servant!”  We are servants of God.  It is about us. It is talking about Christ as the first fruit, but we are His offspring.  If God says, “Behold, My servant,” He is talking about Jesus and He is talking about every one of us. “Behold, I put My Spirit on them.” Because we have God’s Spirit, because He is beholding us, we will not be disheartened or crushed.  If we are, we don’t understand God and His favor that He has put His Spirit on us.

I hope we can come to a place where we understand God because if we do, we will not be disheartened or crushed.  If things go against us, we wont’ be crushed thinking, “God is getting back at me.”  He is not for He is pleased with you.  When things don’t go our way, “God doesn’t love me enough to give me what I wanted.”  He is pleased with you! If we understand that, we understand His Spirit in us, we will not be disheartened or crushed.

Colossian 1:11, “We are strengthened with all power in the inner man for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience.” Steadfastness means like perseverance and patience.  Sometimes we want to quit; we want to give up; we can’t go on anymore.  We have been given all power so that we can heal the sick and raise the dead.  This is part of it but first, we must have steadfastness and patience.  He has given us the power and the spirit so that we have steadfastness and patience.

During these post-Christmas blahs, a lot of us don’t want to get up in the morning.  When we get up in the morning, we don’t want to do anything.  There is a truck load of laundry, we say, “I don’t feel like loading the washing machine.” These are post-Christmas blahs!  We have gone through seven early mornings of Advent hour; we have gone through several evenings of vespers, Christmas services, and all these different things and we are just, “Hahhh.”  But it shouldn’t be because we have been strengthened with all power and steadfastness and patience.

Pretty soon, though I don’t know when, we are going to have a bigger challenge than just post-Christmas blahs.  I am not saying that something negative is going to happen.  We have been praying for twenty years, giving for twenty years for the land.  One day, God is going to give us the land, and we would say, “Hallelujah, thank God! The challenges will be over.”  When we get the land, the challenge starts because probably, the Cathedral is not going to be on it yet.  The chances are, we are going to have land only, not land and the church. This means somebody is going to do a lot of work in the transition period when you are building.

Most of us haven’t been through the building program before for most of us have been here all our lives.  Those of you who have been here during the Makati Christian Center days and the days in Manila Garden, and in Sportslink Palace, you know what that was like – to be in the Church early to set things up; to stay really late to get things away.  Those days are coming again.  When we get our land, we will start building. It will take a little while to build the cathedral.  Chances are, we are going to use it long before it is finished, even when it is not in the best of shape.  Chances are, even before we are still digging the foundation, it is going to be expensive to pay the notes on the land, to pay for the building, and still pay the rent here.  We are going to leave this place just so we don’t keep paying the rent here, and be there before it is finished.  Maybe, we may be in a tent.

I was in a church that worshipped in a tent for eighteen months.  It is interesting; it is fun; it is exciting for the first three weeks.  After that, it is hot in the summer and it is not ideal.  If that is what God gives us, it is great. What I am saying is there is the comfort of all this in the Cathedral, but nothing more uncomfortable than a church in a building program. They are always asking for money, extra work, but it is a privilege!  Do you just want to be bouncing around a warehouse?  Some of you young people have always been here where everything has been nice and easy for you.  It is going to be a wake-up call!  We need to be strengthened with all power, steadfastness and patience. For in the middle of the building program, you need steadfastness and patience.  But the good news is that the favor of God is on you and He has given it to you.

This is what happened to Nehemiah when he started his building program. First thing he did was convinced the people, “The Lord is with us. The Lord is pleased with us. He has given us favor.  He has allowed us to return.  He has given these materials.  The king has given me permission to return. God is with us! Let us rebuild.” That gave them steadfastness and patience to go through some pretty hard situations.  “We are going to have that.”  The good thing is, “We will have it because we already have it.”  We just have to remember that we have it.    I don’t know how many years, how many months it will be until this begins, but you mark this down.  I am just telling you that the day is coming. Be ready!  Receive the power and the strength of God so that you will have steadfastness and patience so that you won’t be disheartened or crushed!  No need for that!  We’ve got the pleasure of God.  The very fact that He gives us the land shows that we are in His pleasure.

God did not call the Cathedral of the King to take the easy way out.  Some churches, some fellowships, some groups just lease out places in the mall and let others do the decorations and the fixing up and all you do is go in and have church and go out. This is the easy way! God never called us to the easy way.  God has always called the Cathedral of the King to do things the narrow way – the way that takes dedication and commitment.

You could sit in the mall for a while, and after some time, the mall changes hands. Another group of developers buy it, and they don’t want you in there and they would rent it to another group.  You have to go! You can’t really put a lot of money into it because it is not yours.  You don’t want to develop it like you maybe want to because it will be a waste of money. When it is all finished, the biggest most important thing, “Where is the monument?”  You can spend twenty-three billion pesos fixing it ups and in the end, it is just give glory to the mall developer.

When you are on your own property, building your cathedral, the glory goes to God.  There is a monument.  That is what God called the Cathedral of the King to.  He did not call us the easy way, and because he did not call us the easy way, we have to have steadfastness and patience.  We cannot allow ourselves to be disheartened or crushed.  If we are going to be in that place, we just understand and receive God’s favor and the fact that He is pleased with us.

If you understand the favor and pleasure of God, it will affect your attitude. Your strength and your perseverance will be there.  The second effect is your evangelism.  If you don’t understand the pleasure of God, your evangelism is a mess.  You see it on Christian television channels, on Christians books.

Here is the evangelism for somebody who doesn’t understand God’s pleasure and God’s favor shouting, “Jesus is coming!  He is coming with fire in his eyes!  He is coming with a sharp two-edged sword out of His mouth.  Lightning is flashing around and there is thunder; and He is going to blast everybody who doesn’t repent right now!!!”   It is hard to find the pleasure of God in that, isn’t it?  It works for some people being saved in fear.  The things is when they stop being afraid, they stop being saved too in their minds.

The Bible says that there is a sharp two-edged sword coming from God’s mouth to slay all the nations.  In Revelation 1, “Sharp two-edged sword comes out of His mouth to slay all the nations.” This is talking about evangelizing the nations.  The gospel is the two-edged sword and Jesus said, “My gospel will kill you.  If you want to come to Me, be baptized.  In baptism, you die.”  This is what He is talking about.  The sharp two-edged sword slays the nations.  They die in baptism. Jesus said, “He who saves His life will lose it.  If you want to lose your life, then you will save it.”  Jesus said, “I am the Cornerstone. If you want to come to Me, fall on Me and you will be smashed to pieces.”  This is salvation!  The gospel says that when you come to Christ, you die. This is what it means to say that there is a sharp two-edged sword in the mouth of Christ. It is saying, “To kill the nations; to bring them into salvation.”  There is not a bad thing; it is a good thing.  This is God showing His pleasure, not His anger.

All these things that we think that the Bible talks about how that it is terrible and how it is awful, it is God saying, “I love you enough to slay your old man, to slay your unrighteous man, to slay your unrepentant man, and to make you raise you up in newness of life.”  Revelation also talks about the gospel slaying the nation, bringing them into the kingdom because flesh and blood can inherit the kingdom of God.  We die to ourselves; alive to Him. This is salvation.  This is renewal and repentance.  This is what it means when the Bible says, “There is a sharp two-edged sword out of the mouth of Christ to slay all the nations.”

The Archbishop had shared of bringing the nations into the kingdom of God. This is what God is doing.  Our evangelism has to change. It is not about anger.  It is not about how displeased God is. It is about how God loves your nation so much that He is bringing you to His kingdom.  Our evangelism should be something of love not anger or hatred.  Isaiah 42:3, “You have anointed my servant with the spirit, a bruise reed he will not break.  A dimly burning wick, he will not extinguish.”   It is not all fire and brimstone and anger and testosterone. It is love!

Evangelism simply means telling the nations, “God is not angry with you. He is pleased with you.”  This is what the angels tried to say that night in Bethlehem, “Peace on earth. He is pleased with man.”  Why do we have to change that message?  Where did we get in our heads that the message was, “Problems on earth and God is sick of man!” This is what we share a lot of times.  But our heart should be those not wanting to hurt, but bruise reed.  That wick is not really even working well.  It is not doing what it is supposed to do. It is not putting out a bright light. Just snuff it out! Reeds bruised are not even strong enough to hold anything anymore. Get rid of it!

This is not the attitude of Christ.  This is not the attitude of God.  There is a problem in that one; there is a failure in that one; restore it exactly like what He did with Adam. There was a failure in Adam, God did not condemn him. There was ramification of the sin, but yet God restored. In the middle of the curse, He promised, “Your seed is going to wipe this out anyway, Adam.”

We must make sure we understand God’s favor towards us, for the world, and for the nations, for your neighbour, and for the squatters living in the vacant lot across your street, and from a little kid who is always turning over your trash cans.  God’s favor and pleasure is with them, and that will affect our own attitudes and it will affect how you evangelize.  We want to evangelize from a perspective of God’s judgment.  We want to evangelize from a perspective of God’s love.  Love of God is what changes things.  Healing the bruise reed; restoring the snuffing and the flickering wick.  This is the kind of evangelism that shows people who God really is.  This is the kind of evangelism that brings converts into the kingdom of God.  It makes disciples.

I learned this a long time ago when I was about six to seven years old.  Saturday afternoons, people would come and visit my Dad because he was a mechanic.  He was really brilliant and still is at 84 years old on working on cars.  People would come by and bring their cars over the house and he would always fix them.  There was one particular Saturday afternoon when a fellow came over and brought his wife and a five year old boy.  While the man and my Dad were working on the car, the lady and the boy stayed on the side porch of our house and my Mom was entertaining them. I was bit older than the boy, sitting at the floor.  My Mom and the lady were sitting on the front porch.  Every front porch has a swing and this was what we do during that time before cable, video games, and the others.

This little boy was a bit of a wild kid.  He was bouncing all over the place.  He was bouncing off the screen on the porch, off the floor, off the wall, running and screaming and doing all kinds of things.  His mother had no idea what to do.  She kept screaming at him, “Do stop that. You are embarrassing me.”  She was out of control and the little boy knew she had no control over him; and he was just having fun with it.  He knew she couldn’t stop him, and he was just going crazy. The kid was just ballistic.

The lady did not know what to do, but my mother knew what to do.  She just opened her arms and said like only she could in a southern accent, “Come here, Sugar.” She picked the little boy up, put him in her lap, put his head on her shoulder and started swinging on the swing. It was like she gave him some shot, sort of a depressant, for he became a sweet gentle little child for the rest of the time they were there.  All the screaming of the mother, all the threats of the mother did not help at all.  But when my Mom just reached out and hugged him and put him on her lap and rocked him, he was as dazzle as a lamb.

This is how the love of God works.  This love of God will work in evangelism, in our lives.  We have to show people God’s pleasure, not His anger because His anger is done.  The Bible said the Jesus took the punishment for us.  Bishop reads that every Sunday in the Eucharist, “The chastisement that brought peace was upon Him.”  That was all the chastisement; it went all to Him, not to us anymore. He took the punishment; we received His favor.

Open your hearts to receive God’s favor.  Open your hearts to receive God’s pleasure and never again go back to the attitude, “God is mad at me because….” “God can’t be happy with me because….”  “I am not happy with myself because….”  If God is pleased with you, you should be pleased with yourself too.  He knows more than you do.  He knows you more than you know yourself.  He is happy with you.  Let us just accept that and live with it; and go on with the great things in God because of that. Amen!