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Grab the hook, grab the line
Grab the bait, grab the box and wait
Tackle and shackle the topic the faculty has chosen
Chosen by many, chosen by plenty, chosen by any
man or woman who can’t understand
the topic that’s known and
[Go by the dock] flock and clock the topic
as I drop my hook and get a bite
The reason I’m fishin’ 4 a new religion
is my church makes me fall asleep
They’re praising a God that watches you weep
and doesn’t want you to do a damn thing about it
When they want change the preacher says “shout it”
Does shout bring about change ? I doubt it
All shout does is make you lose your voice
So on the dock I sit in silence
staring at a sea that’s full of violence
Scared to put my line in that water
coz it seems like there’s no religion in there
Naively so I give it another go
Sitting in church hearing legitimate woes
Pastor tells the lady it’ll be alright
Just pray so you can see the pearly gates so white
The lady prays and prays and prays and prays
and prays and prays and prays and prays…it’s everlasting
There’s nothing wrong with praying, it’s what she’s asking
She’s asking the Lord to let her cope
so one day she can see the golden ropes
What you pray for God will give
to be able to cope in this world we live
The word “cope” and the word “change”
is directly opposite, not the same
She should have been praying to change her woes
but pastor said “Pray to cope with those”
The government is happy with most baptist churches
coz they don’t do a damn thing to try to nurture
brothers and sisters on a revolution
Baptist teaches dying is the only solution
Passiveness causes others to pass us by
I throw my line until I’ve made my decision
until then, I’m still fishin’ 4 religion

Lent is the 40 days prior to Easter. The word Lent originally referred to the forty hours of total fast which preceded the Easter celebration in the early Church. The main ceremony on Easter was the baptizing of the new believers on Easter Eve. The fast was for the new believers to prepare to receive baptism.

The reason that they chose a forty day period was because the Bible uses the number 40 often. Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness; the forty days and nights Elijah spent walking to Mt. Horeb; in the story of Noah, God makes it rain for forty days and forty nights (they were in the ark for much longer); Jonah in his prophecy of judgment gave the city of Nineveh forty days grace in which to repent. the Hebrew people wandered forty years traveling to the Promised Land; finally the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai with God.

Exodus 15:11 recounts the words of Moses when he led the Israelites across the Red Sea safely away from the Egyptian army

Who is like you, Yahweh, among the gods?

Who is like you, glorious in holiness,

Fearful in praises, doing wonders

Moses knew that Yahweh was a holy God.

None of the gods is like Him

There is no person who is like Him.

Fearful

Does wonders

But as a holy God, he demands righteousness of us.

righteousness means that we put ourself under, conform to the claims of someone who has higher authority then us. the opposite of righteous is lawless.

so God’s demand is that we put ourself under him, conform to his claim upon our lives, which means that we are to live up to his standard of holiness.

pretty tough road.

Let’s look at our text.

In Romans 10 Paul describes the righteousness that the Christian is to live under. He does so first by contrasting it with the righteousness that Moses spoke

Verse 5 says

“Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that “the person who does these things will live by them.”

Moses was speaking of the law that God had given them. He was saying that they would live a long life in the land of Canaan, in great happiness and prosperity. He was not saying that they would have eternal life. Something that is notable in the Old Testament is that it very rarely speaks of eternal life and usually not in terms of how to attain it.

How they would acquire this life was by doing what God commanded. The law. We could rehearse the ten commandments or do a study on the law in deuteronomy but for now let’s look at the sabbath.

Deuteronomy 5:12 Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

Sabbath keeping has been an important part of the Jewish faith since the time of Moses. The Pharisees were so diligent in keeping the law that they found Jesus offensive for healing on the sabbath. Jews are still diligent about keeping the Sabbath. I mentioned once that you can go to the internet and put in your latitude and longitude and find out the exact time when the sun goes down and the sun rises to begin and end the sabbath.

Christians have also had a lot of respect for the sabbath. Some keep it as the Lord’s day and there have been many rules for how it should be kept. Awhile ago I mentioned blue laws that restrict activities on Sunday. I’m not positive because I don’t try and buy alcohol on Sundays’ but I don’t believe you can in Idaho. Churches have had restrictions against recreation on Sundays.

A branch of Christianity called Sabbatarians believe that we should continue to keep the sAbbath on Saturday. I went through a season of doing this, though not legalistically. The family still remembers that we used to have church on saturday night, not sunday morning.

All of these people have made sabbath keeping very important. But do you know that no matter how diligent you are to keep the sabbath, you will never be a righteous sabbath keeper?

Matthew 5:20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Pharisees were diligent keepers of the sabbath. And yet they were not righteous sabbath keepers.

We can not find righteousness with God by adherence to the law.

in Romans 10:8 the righteousness which is of faith says “The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart;” that is, the word of faith, which we preach: 9 that if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

We come by righteousness not by what we do, but by what we say.

Because righteousness by our actions is never enough. Our righteosness comes through the work of the blood of Jesus.

1 Peter 3:18 says 18For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

Jesus was our righteousness. He fulfilled the requirements of the law once and for all because he was unblemished, holy, righteous.

Hebrews 9:14 and 15 say How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! 15For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

We are not righteous. He is our righteousness. It is through His actions, not ours.

The only way that we can come under this righteousness is through the words of our lips and through our belief in our heart. There is nothing we can do.

Galatians 2:21 says I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

9 because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.

11 The scripture says in Isaiah 28:16, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.”

12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.

13 The scripture also says in Joel 2:32 “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

We’ll close with a story from Luke 18

Luke 18:9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10”Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about[a] himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13”But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

14″I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The righteousness of the Pharisee could not save him because even though he was a diligent keeper of the law it left him prideful. Rather, the humble confession of the unrighteous tax collector justified him.

Today let us go out confessing that we are made righteous not from our own works but through the work that Jesus did which we are only able to accept through our belief in our heart and confession of our mouth.

Today we are looking at the story of God’s promise to Abram that he would multiply his descendents like the stars of the sky.

One of the questions that is important to ask is how are we to use these stories in our own life.

Will God do the same things for us that he did for Abraham? or for Solomon? or Paul?

A common way that people use the stories of the Bible is to Apply promises that were made to specific people in specific situations to themself.

So, Because God gave Abraham and Sarah a child in their old age does that mean that He is going to give a barren couple one as well.

Because Jesus healed a blind man does that mean that He is going to heal the young man who was deaf in the church I grew up in.

Because God blessed Jabez, enlarged his territory and kept him from pain does tha mean that He is going to do the same for me.

I don’t think so. Instead, we discover first from these stories that the God who has been faithful in the past is going to be faithful in our present. He is going to do a unique work in you just as he did a unique work in the life of Abraham, the blind man and Jabez.

Second, we learn from these stories who we are and where we’ve come from.

Moses told this story because it told Israel _who_ _they_ _were_. They were children of a promise.

The Church tells the story because it tells us _who_ _we_ _are_. We are children of a promise.

In this case, we are the fulfillment of the promise made by God to Abram that He would multiply his seed.

In the story today we learn that God was not simply promising Abram that He was going to multiply his seed. He was demonstrating using this promise to demonstrate to Abram’s that He was Abram’s shield and reward. And so we learn from this story that as heirs of this promise, He is our shield and reward as well.

Read Genesis 15:1-12; 17-18

1 After these things the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

2 Abram said, “Lord Yahweh, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and he who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 Abram said, “Behold, to me you have given no seed: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir.”

4 Behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but he who will come forth out of your own body will be your heir.” 5 Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So shall your seed be.” 6 He believed in Yahweh; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness. 7 He said to him, “I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.”

8 He said, “Lord Yahweh, how will I know that I will inherit it?”

9 He said to him, “Take me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon.” 10 He took him all these, and divided them in the middle, and laid each half opposite the other; but he didn’t divide the birds. 11 The birds of prey came down on the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.

12 When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Now terror and great darkness fell on him. 13 He said to Abram, “Know for sure that your seed will live as foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years. 14 I will also judge that nation, whom they will serve. Afterward they will come out with great substance. 15 But you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried in a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation they will come here again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.” 17 It came to pass that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:

Abram lived during a time of battles for control of various regions. In the previous chapter he had settled into a area that was near oaks that were under the rule of Mamre an Amorite. He had allied himself with this tribe.

In a nearby region a ruler named Chedor-laomer had come to reclaim the territory that he had ruled for twelve years and then lost to a rebellion. Battle after battle he conquered the kings of this land. Finally the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Bela stood up against him in the valley of Sidiim. Unfortunately, this valley had tar pits that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fell into as they fled. Chedor-laomer took the opportunity to take all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and to go on their way. An escapee from this battle went to the oaks and found Abram and reported that his nephew Lot had been taken by Chedor-laomer.

Abram gathered his people and those of Mamre, 318 total and went in pursuit. first to Dan and then as far as Hobah which is on the left hand of Damascus. Finally he was able to retake the army, was victorious and returned with all the goods, the women, the people, and his nephew Lot.

When he returned, the king of Sodom went out to meet him and said to him “Give me the people and take the goods to yourself.”

Abram replied “I have lifted up my hand to YHWH God most high, possessor of heaven and earth that I will take not a thread nor a shoe latchet nor anything that is yours lest you be able to say that you made Abram rich.”

So Abram returned to the oaks.

We can imagine that he did so with some insecurity. Chedor-laomer had a claim upon the land. Generally warriors don’t give up after a loss. They return again for vengence. So Abram knew that he had now made an enemy with a warrior who had a claim upon his neigboring land.

So, at the begining of Genesis 15, Yahweh came to Abram in a vision and responded to his concern.

God said to Abram “_I_ am your shield. your exceedingly great reward.”

Don’t worry Abram. I will protect you. You do not need to fear the return of Chedorlaomer. Just as I was with you in that battle I am with you now to protect you and your people.

But even moreso. You were a man of integrity and did not take a reward from the king of Sodom. So I will not only reward you, I will be your reward.

Imagine Abram’s shock at hearing God in a vision. And of course he was assured by this. But it left him with a question.

In verse 2 Abram replies: “Lord Yahweh, what will my reward be?, since Sarah and I are childless? As it stands now, Eliezer of Damascus will inherit my estate. You have given me no seed.

Abram was saying “All my wealth and riches, victories and honours, are of no worth to me, when I have no heir and am advanced in years, Should I die childless, as I am apt to do, what pleasure can I take in these _rewards_ you’ve promised, and comfort from them, when I have no one to inherit them?”

Verse 4 says And Behold, in Abram’s vision, he heard the word of Yahweh speaking. He said, “Eliezer will not be your heir. Instead your heir will be the boy who will come forth out of your own body. He will be your heir.” 5 Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So shall your seed be.”

In 1996 Kenny and Bobbi McCaughey (McCoy) desired to have more children then the one daughter that they had. Struggling to conceive, with the help of a doctor they finally succeeded through the help of fertility drugs. But what a shock to discover that they weren’t pregnant with one child, or perhaps even twins, but rather she was carrying seven fetuses. They declied what the internet called “selective reduction” to reduce the number saying instead that they would “put it in God’s hands.” And so on November 19th, 1997 they gave birth to Kenneth Robert, Alexis May, Natalie Sue, Kelsey Ann, Nathan Roy, Brandon James, Joel Steven , are the world’s first surviving set of septuplets.

Imagine going from one child to 8.

That’s how Abram must have felt. He was just told that he was going to go from zero to more then the stars in the sky. What a discovery! What a ridiculous claim. He and Sarah were old. And yet their progeny would outnumber the stars in the sky.

And so what did he do?

He believed.

What else could he do? There was nothing he _could_ do. It was totally in God’s hands. The only choice he had was to believe or to doubt. Or to doubt.

The result?

verse 6 says “and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”

I said last week that righteousness means that we put ourself under, conform to the claims of someone who has higher authority then us.

By believing, Abram put himself under God’s claim to be Abram’s shield. He was subjugating Himself to God. He found himself in right standing with God. In right relationship.

Through belief he was doing the only thing he could do. Agreeing with God. Saying Amen to God.

And God said to him, “Attaboy! You aren’t righteous for anything you did, but I am declaring you righteous because you believe me!”

We know that Abram wasn’t righteous because later he tried to pass off sarah as his sister

And yet because of his faith God _declared_ him righteous.

Paul says in Romans 4:4 that if Abram had done something to merit God’s favor, then the reward God promised him would be repayment of a debt. God would have owed Abram. But because there was no work involved but simply belief, instead of God repaying a debt, the free reward was righteousness.

It is interesting that Abram’s belief was not absolute and yet God still credited it to Him as righteousness.

After coming to Abram in a vision, promising him an heir, and then promising him the land as an inheritance, Abram has the audacity to ask “God, how will I know that I will inherit it?”

This is the second time that Abram has asked God a question. Do you know that it is OK to ask God questions? God is infinite and we are finite which means that there is lots for us to not understand. God does not credit our questioning to doubt.

We’ll close with God’s answer to Abram’s question.

God made a covenant with Abram.

Verse 9 says 9 He said to him, “Take me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon.” 10 He took him all these, and divided them in the middle, and laid each half opposite the other; but he didn’t divide the birds.

And then continuing at verse 17 It came to pass that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:

What is described here was a a rite or custom used in making and confirming covenants; a calf, or some other creature, were cut in pieces, and the parts laid in order, and the covenantees passed between these parts; signifying thereby, that if they did not fulfil the engagements they entered into, they imprecated to be cut to pieces as that creature was.

This is a practice that was common to the Chaldeans, greeks, and romans. Some believe it originated with this story.

What is important about this example though is that it was only God who made the covenant.

There are examples when men covenanted with God. Again, one sided.

Jer 34:18 [18 I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between the parts of it;]

But in this instance Abram didn’t.

What does this mean?

It means that it was God who was making the promise to Abram, not Abram to God. God who would be held accountable if He broke the covenant.

Which leads us to a very important question: Who are the parties in the new covenant? We know that God made the covenant with us. Jesus death on the cross was the sacrifice as the animals were here. And we might imagine that God walked through this sacrifice. But does man walk through the sacrifice too?

I don’t think so. because if we did, we would be crucified as well. The symbolism of the covenant is that if one of the party breaks they were to be cut to pieces as the sacrifice was. So if Jesus was the sacrifice on the cross for us, wouldn’t it be true that if we broke the covenant we would be crucificed as well.

And we’ve already broken the covenant. I cannot keep a promise with God. We saw from this story about Abram that even after he believed God, he questioned him. His righteousness came from God’s declaration of his righteousness. Not because of his ability to fulfill a covenant.

You might say then that All you can do is your best. Well, imagine if you borrowed money from the bank for a car and kept missing payments and suddenly found yourself six months behind they would say “you have broken your agreement with us. We are taking the car.” Would you say to them, “but I did my best?”

We can do our best with God, but we will still break the terms of the covenant. Our righteousness comes not from our ability to fulfill a covenant. It comes from God’s declaration of our righteousness based on our faith.

So, it is God who covenants with us. God who prepares the sacrifice. Only God can keep the terms of the agreement.

So what is left for us to do? We must do something?

We do what Abram did. We believe. And God credits it to us as righteousness. God says to us, “I am your shield your great reward. If you did anything, I would owe it to you as a debt. But you did nothing. So it is grace. My righteousness is grace to you. Just believe.”

“How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place.”

I’ve recently begun a discipline of slowing down and absorbing more of my world. I’ve noticed that I hurry through things unnecessarily and as a result am not experiencing life as much as I should. I think this is an important discipline for a pastor to experience for a couple reasons. First, the sermon of our lives is as important as the sermon in the pulpit. We all need to slow down, and one way for it to begin is by pastoral example. But second, the world around us is the parchment upon which our sermons are written. In order to touch people, we need to be in touch ourselves. When we hurry through life, we miss details and meaning that helps to color and contextualize the message of the gospel.

A simple practice that has become a symbol of my decision to slow down has been the signing of checks and credit card receipts. I remember in high school taking the time while I should have been listening to my teachers practicing my signature to develop the swoops and curves that would make it my own. As time has gone on, it has become a hurried sloppy mess. I read somewhere that a sloppy signature is easiest to forge. So I decided that where I was going to begin slowing down was in the signing of my name. Now whenever I sign a check, it is an opportunity to craft my signature rather then hurry through it so I can get on to the next thing I’m going to hurry through. The end result has been attention to other details of life where I am slowing down and absorbing more of the world around me. It has served me well, and could for you as well.

Both come from breviaries. Wikipedia says that a breviary “is is a liturgical book containing the public or canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings, and notations for everyday use, especially for priests, in the Divine Office.”

The first is at Universalis.com. It contains complete readings and services for Morning Prayer (Lauds), Evening Prayer (Vespers), an Office of Readings and Night Prayer (Compline). At various times, I’ve used all of them or some. Currently, I use the Night Prayer before bed. The main advantage to this is that it uses the psalms for prayers. It also includes a time of examination of sin, which is helpful for me to stay in a spirit of repentance.

The second is an automated email service provided by Presbyterian Church USA. It includes the readings for the daily lectionary used in the Revised Common Lectionary. You can subscribe by sending a blank email to (click the link and it will automatically generate an email) mailto:dailylection-subscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org. I actually don’t use this anymore since using Universalis. But it is excellent as a guide for daily reading in the Psalms, New Testament, Old Testament and Gospel.

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No one needs angels more then pastors:

Eugene Peterson in his review of the book The Sermon Maker by Calvin Miller writes:

Did you know that an angel has recently been sighted who has the specialized assignment of helping preachers get their preaching back? His name is Sermoniel, the Angel of Homiletics.

He is especially astute in detecting homileticus horribilis, a virus that infects an alarming number of pulpits. The men and women who occupy these pulpits are especially at risk, often developing sermonic sclerosis, the leading cause of death among preachers today.

Where big things are happening, angels are there. The big event of God coming to be with us started off with a peasant girl from Galilee talking with the archangel Gabriel. Angel choirs abound, and an Angel Mass Choir threw a Christmas party for some scruffy shepherds when the baby Jesus was born. Just as an archangel set up the first coming of Christ, so an archangel will mark the coming of Christ when Time runs out.

Messengers: One good way to see it is by way of the so-called “Tess theory”. It’s named after the angel played by Della Reese in TV’s “Touched By an Angel”. Tess speaks this idea many times in the series : angels are sent by God to bring the truth, especially the big truths, to specific people in critical situations. The biggest truth (the one that Jesus Christ was living, dying proof of) is that God is with us and for us, and the angel is here as a part of that. God’s message can be a warning, or be a comfort in times of danger and fear.

In their protective roles, angels are in no way Precious Moments-like creampuffs. They can be the fiercest of warriors and the swiftest of rescuers. Scripture shows that they have another fierce task : when God passes judgement on injustice, the angels are often the ones who carry out the sentence. The usual image is that they use flaming swords, but the Bible shows how they can execute judgement in other ways.

We’re told not to worship angels in Colossians 2:18 (Indeed, any real angel will urge you not to worship them, but to worship God.) Revelation 22:8-9

However awesome we may think angels are, Jesus is far more important. Hebrews 1

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