October 5, 2014
Fearless Generosity- Fearless Living
- Exodus 20:1-20
- Dr. Teri Thomas
October 5, 2014
Fearless Generosity- Fearless Living
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 and Philippians 3:4b-14
This is going to shock some of you who have known me for a while
but I am not a person who likes to be told what to do.
Don’t tell me what to think.
Don’t tell me what to say.
Don’t tell me how to deal with a situation.
I find as I grow older that now I then I really yearn for direction.
Tell me what to do.
Make that decision for me.
The last two weeks I have been traveling and it is the first time I did not even take a map along.
I relied totally on my GPS, even when I was pretty sure it was wrong.
Turn left, go 100 yards. Turn right, you've arrived at your destination.
Wouldn't it be nice if we had a GPS for faith?
Get baptized, say the following prayer, don't murder anyone, give money to a church...
now you've arrived at your destination. It's tempting isn't it? Sometimes we just want answers to our questions.
We just want a clear path. Tell me what to do.
I think this is particularly true today
because the rules we used to live by don’t always work any longer.
Journalists are being beheaded on TV.
Innocent people are being violently attacked by armed rebels.
Syria is in crisis forcing people to leave their homes as refugees.
Racial tensions and gender issues are on our doorsteps.
The world as it seems today can cause us to fear
Fear for our lives…
Fear for those we love…
Fear for what the future may bring.
Maybe a GPS could tell us where to turn,
which way to go, what to do next.
Our focus in worship, for the next several weeks
will call us to consider the life we share with God,
a journey that can move us beyond our fear.
The theme for this series is Fearless Generosity.
Sometimes it’s good for us to remember
that the God we worship and serve is gracious and merciful.
And in that generosity towards us,
God is constantly reminding us to “be not afraid.”
By grace, God is fearlessly generous to you, and to me, and to all the world.
We are then called to be fearless in our generosity towards others as well.
And the first expression of the fearless way we are called to follow and serve God is in our living.
This is what we might call “the stewardship of all of life.”
What is our greatest responsibility in life?
It is to live responsively to God
and responsibly in relation to our neighbors,
and there is not a part of us that is not involved in this great calling.
But still
we don’t have the clear directions,
the explicit rules to make it easy.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are churches that offer black and white directions for life.
Do this, don’t do that, and you will be saved.
But we are not one of them.
The Westminster Confession teaches us
that God alone is lord of the conscience.
Our reformed faith believes that God gave us each free will
and a mind.
We are encouraged to use them in our decision making.
God does not provide a GPS for daily living.
So we turn to scripture and ask- how shall I live?
When the children of God, the Israelites
were wandering in the desert,
lost, alone, confused,
God gave them direction.
God gave 10 commandments to Moses for the Israelites
a clear set of rules
these commandments told them how to relate to God
and how to relate to one another.
The order of the commandments makes clear that our attention is first of all to be to God.
When our relationship with God is in order,
all our life can become whole.
Our safety, our security, our fearlessness is in God
who journeys with us from Egypt and through the wilderness
all the way to the Promised Land,
from old familiar places
to the new spaces of peace and worship and work and joy.
These commandments are not rigid legalism.
They require us to keep our priorities in order and our perspective clear.
Our primary relationship is with God.
Our relationship with God enables our relationships of caring and covenant with others.
Fearless living happens in community, under God.
It means accepting God’s care for us,
caring for others,
caring for the earth,
repenting from self-serving, self-concern, and fear
we seek to do God’s will in concrete and practical ways.
It means being fearless…
Fear drives us to push for power
feeds our tendency to use force to resolve problems
encourages us to build relationships on whatever feels good
This is not fearless living.
Paul explained it to the Philippians-
12Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Fearless livers dwell in that deep level of intimacy with God in their daily lives.
They trust that God walks with them
and cares for their personal needs.
Fearless living means understanding
that God is indeed the true source of all gifts
Gifts of time
talent justice
peace love
creativity
truth
We have received these gifts from God
and God is only asking that we use them fearlessly
and share them with the knowledge that they are ours to hold in trust, but not to hoard.
Faithful and fearless living is about trusting God
and living in a way that acknowledges all that God has done for us.
God has given us our gifts
and we need to be good stewards of them
using them to share with others
as fearlessly as God has shared with us.
Sometimes life feels like we are climbing a sand dune-
three steps forward
two steps back
we fear we will never make it all the way
it is too hard
we are carrying too much
life is too complicated
This is when we must remember
we are not doing this alone
but alongside God
and the end of our story has already been promised.
We can have hope for the future, the future of the world
and the future of our individual lives
because the future does not depend on us alone.
Because of that promise
we can live
and we can live fearlessly.
Thanks be to God
Amen