Practically Sanctified

 “Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another. For each one will bear his own load. The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him.

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” Galatians 6:1-10

The Cirque du Soleil is like a circus and Broadway rolled into one. It has the contortionists and strength shows, the trampoline and trapeze acts of the circus, plus the costumes and live music of a theatre show. And you get to eat popcorn. Watching the 8 man trapeze act was amazing. Two guys were sitting on this swing thing, their legs locked in through bars, going back and forth using one another’s weight to get to great heights. Above them on a framework of bars another guy would start the dipsy doodling circling and rolling around the bars and then fling himself into space, timing it just right so he could grab the wrists of one of the two men on the swing. It really was fantastic. It is also a wonderful metaphor for church. Yes, there were clowns and such, but that is not what I refer to. What I saw was amazing teamwork. These men were strong each and every one as individuals, but they all came to points in the performance where they totally relied on someone else to be there for them. There was the sense that they were a team, a community.

For these men and the rest of the performers it was more than just living communally, more than just being together. They participated and worked both individually and corporately to accomplish a very specific goal. They were there to entertain with a world class performance of a specific program. That focus on common task and the commitment to see that task accomplished brought them into a deeper community than normal – something more intense, more chaotic, and something called Communitas.

Communitas is that sense of being equal partners in an intentional and progressive social way; that together the community is becoming something new, something outside of the normal social structures.
For a church that means becoming something more than just an institutional or traditional church. It means we are actively pursuing God’s purposes for us as a community, as we strive to become more like Jesus both individually and as a church.

Shane Hipps is teaching pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids MI. His deepest desire is to be a catalyst in people’s movement towards God. Shane speaks nationally on the topics of faith, media, culture, post modernity, and the church. He has this to say about community:

There are 4 things necessary for community:
1. A shared History: this helps to establish a sense of identity and belonging. They say it takes a pastor between 3 and 7 years to begin to be able to effectively minister in a church. One reason is it takes time to have a shared history. I can now travel back almost 4 years with most of you here.
2. Permanence: Something fixed or consistent. It is how you get shared history. You have to stick to something. People who go from one church to another don’t gain permanence. They will not belong to any community. Common faith also helps with this permanence. You say “Nazarene” and we all get you.
3. Proximity: You have to be with one another over time to create meaningful connections. You have to take the time to show up. As a church we seek ways to get together in the midst of busy lives, because getting together helps immensely in creating connections – but you have to be intentional at it, as with each of these areas. It is more than history, it is closeness.
4. Shared Imagination of the future: A sense of we’re all going in the same direction. This is the hardest of all. We have different opinions and different perspectives. One of the reasons Jesus spoke of humility is because we have to get beyond agendas. It is this fourth point I want you to reflect on today. Service to the community lies at the heart of the Communitas’ mission. By its very nature, to serve is a collaborative process; doing with, as well as for someone.

What is our mission as a church? What is our motto? Why do we have it? We have it because this is our shared imagination of the future. It is where we want to go as a church, and where we as a community of Believers want each of us to go. In fact, we believe it is a vital road that we all need to be on with others regardless of whether we fit into one community or another at the present. If you aren’t part of one, find a community you can join because this is a journey where we need friends on the way. The journey has 2 parts.

To Know the Love of Jesus. This first part is expressed in the passage we read earlier. As you read Galatians 6, you get a sense of community involvement and while the chapter is addressing an individual’s error, it is written in the context of the community, the church. That speaks to you and I. Here we are in community, but we have come as individuals. We come from different age groups, different social structures, different histories, both good and bad; both of our doing and as bystanders. Part of what makes us a strong community is those differences, for they add to the whole mix of who we are as a group.

To know the love of Jesus is to know Jesus. You have to have an understanding of who He is (and who He isn’t) and who you are before Him. One of the reasons we meet on Sundays is to seek to know God better. We look at the Bible and see what it reveals about God. This book reveals His character, and so we encourage people to read it, to memorize it, to study it. It shows us God’s character – and reveals our own character. You want to change? Do it with the guidance of the one who created you. He wants to make you more like His Son, more like Jesus. He wants your life to be involved in eternal things, not simple things of no consequence. You and I both know that those eternal things are all focused on people. So we do our best to focus on people and relationships and becoming more like Jesus.

So here we are, all of us on this journey, this spiritual pilgrimage. As community, we are all progressing to this imagined future of looking and behaving more like Jesus. Is that your commitment? Are you with us on this journey? This is what this community is about. Let’s pray and renew our commitment together. Pray after me in your own heart this prayer:

Jesus, today I make this commitment to be more like you. I commit to do it in your strength, your way, not mine. I surrender all that I am and have to this task, and I join my brothers and sisters on this path of surrender, that we may become a community that reflects your love and grace. We confess our shortcomings and sins that get in the way of this journey. Forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness that blacks our relationship with you. We praise your name, Amen.

To Live the Love of Jesus.  Just being in a community with others who have made that commitment is quite the thing. The only problem is if that is the only commitment we make we become a modern monastery. We need to have a purpose beyond ourselves if we are to be truly a communitas. This common purpose we share is to “live the love of Jesus in our communities”. This church building is like a mission station. We come to learn and be encouraged, to be equipped and discover our gifts and talents if we don’t already know them, but we don’t really go into the mission field until we leave the door out front. What do we do with our faith out there? How do we live our life in such a way that Jesus can be seen? We sing, “Shine Jesus Shine” but do we live it? Is Jesus seen in our business and money management? Is Jesus seen in how we look after our stuff? Is Jesus seen in how we talk with our neighbours, in how we interact with them? Some people only show their faith as it relates to the church, and so people think Jesus is only concerned about them if they go to church. How small a God is that? Living the love of Jesus is living big on the compassion scale, on the “life on the street” scale. Excellence in all you do is a hallmark of following Jesus.

Our church, our community, our Communitas, is about coming together to know the love of Jesus, and going apart to live the love of Jesus. We all subscribe to that. That is who we are and what we are about. Like those trapeze guys who have their own strengths and part of the program, at the same time as relying on the others to be there when they need them.

Romans 5:15-23 So, since we’re out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we’re free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!
 I’m using this freedom language because it’s easy to picture. You can readily recall, can’t you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God’s freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?
As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn’t have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you’re proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.
But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.

There is the old story about how to cook a frog. You put it in a pot of lukewarm water and slowly turn up the heat. By the time the frog realizes something is wrong, it is too late to do anything about it – and you get the French delicacy of frog’s legs. Good for you, bad for the frog. So, what if I told you that you were the frog – that there is something all around you that is heating up? Sin captured us unawares when we were born, and jumped us as we made conscious decisions to go against God’s will; His will of love and grace. There was nothing but bad news for the frog, but for you and I there is wonderful news – and that news is simple God has done the work of setting us free. So often we try it set ourselves free. The only problem was, it is impossible. It is even more impossible than escaping a German POW camp in the middle of World War 2.

In 1943 in Stalag Luft 3, a German POW camp southeast of Berlin a plan was put into place to escape. The prison camp had a number of design features that made escape extremely difficult. The digging of escape tunnels, in particular, was discouraged by several factors. First, the barracks housing the prisoners were raised several inches off the ground to make it easier for guards to detect any tunnelling activity. Second, the camp itself had been constructed on land that had very sandy subsoil. The sand was bright yellow, so it could easily be detected if anyone dumped it on the surface (which consisted of grey dust), or even just had some of it on their clothing. In addition, the loose, unconsolidated sand meant the structural integrity of a tunnel would be very poor. A third defence against tunnelling was the placement of seismograph microphones around the perimeter of the camp, which were expected to detect any sounds of digging just below the surface.

In spite of all this, three tunnels were to be built so that some 200 prisoners would escape at the same time. The tunnels were named Tom, Dick and Harry. Dick was the first tunnel abandoned when the camp expansion made it unusable. Tom was discovered and so that option was ended. Harry was eventually finished about a year later. Unfortunately the exit was just shy of the tree line. 600 prisoners worked on the tunnels. 76 prisoners got out during the attempt, and the 77th was discovered. Of the 76 escapees, 50 were executed. Only 3 made it to freedom. A 1963 movie was made called the Great Escape starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough.

Here is a list of what the POWs used to make the tunnels and all the clothes and forged papers they needed to escape: 4,000 bed boards had gone missing, as well as the complete disappearance of 90 double bunk beds, 635 mattresses, 192 bed covers, 161 pillow cases, 52 20-man tables, 10 single tables, 34 chairs, 76 benches, 1,212 bed bolsters, 1,370 beading battens, 1219 knives, 478 spoons, 582 forks, 69 lamps, 246 water cans, 30 shovels, 1,000 feet (300 m) of electric wire, 600 feet (180 m) of rope, and 3424 towels. 1,700 blankets had been used, along with more than 1,400 Klim tins.

Many people know about this “Great Escape” and some of the details, but few people know of another escape that happened at the same camp about 6 months previous. Conjuring up a modern Trojan Horse, the British RAF constructed a gymnastic vaulting horse largely from plywood from Red Cross parcels. The horse was designed to conceal men, tools, and containers of dirt. Each day the horse was carried out to the same spot near the perimeter fence, and while prisoners conducted gymnastic exercises above, from under the horse a tunnel was dug. At the end of each working day, a wooden board was placed back over the tunnel entrance and re-covered with surface dirt. The gymnastics not only disguised the real purpose of the vaulting horse, but the activity kept the sound of the digging from being detected by the microphones. For three months three prisoners, Lieutenant Michael Codner, Flight Lieutenant Eric Williams, and Flight Lieutenant Oliver Philpot, in shifts of one or two diggers at a time, dug over 100 feet (30 m) of tunnel using bowls for shovels and rods of metal to poke through the surface of the ground to create air holes. No shoring was used except near the entrance. On the evening of October 29, 1943, Codner, Williams, and Philpot made their escape. Williams and Codner were able to reach the port of Stettin where they stowed away on a Danish ship and eventually returned to Britain. Philpot, posing as a Norwegian margarine manufacturer, was able to board a train to Danzig (now Gdansk), and from there stowed away on a Swedish ship headed for Stockholm, and from there repatriated to Britain.

So much time and effort – but freedom is worth it, isn’t it? Here we were, stuck in our lives, our sin, with no hope for tomorrow, for the future. Then God took initiative and set us free through Jesus Christ. He said Himself that if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed. We didn’t have to try to escape. We didn’t have to dig tunnels or file bars. We just needed to accept what God had already done on our behalf. But what is freedom? Remember what we read earlier, that the choice to use freedom to be selfish and self-consuming leaves you empty and enslaved. Sin is like the drug the addict pursues. The addict revels in his or her freedom to shoot up or inhale, but the reality is that he can’t help it. They are a slave to the drug, and it wrecks everything.  I just read a testimony this past week of a guy who was addicted to gambling. He lost his wife and family, his stuff – everything. Some people think freedom means they can run amuck over other people’s freedom, but that selfishness will consume them and lead to hurt, pain, and anguish. The freedom that God gives is about the ability to make choices that result in hope and love and things that count for eternity. If you want a life that is fulfilling and connects to the reasons why God created you, in Jesus you have the freedom to make choices that lead to that. If you want the freedom to experience the joy of life, you can make those choices in Jesus that lead to that. When you are buried and entangled in sin, you are not free to make those choices. You are like that POW walking the perimeter of the camp. You can see the trees, the road that leads to the train station; but the fence and the guards are there. You see it, but you can’t reach it.

But in Jesus you can reach it. You have the freedom to get involved in the kingdom of God. Jesus talked much of this kingdom. It is a kingdom of heroes and love and victory. You have a place in this kingdom of grace. You can become a prayer warrior and pray against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. You can be a messenger taking the message of the King to the people around you. You can be the warrior with you shield of faith and sword of truth.  You can be a healer, who by their gifts of compassion and care ministers to those down and wounded. You can pursue holiness because God has given you everything you need to do that. You can be all that you were created to be because you are free in Christ.

 A person born in captivity may not even know they are captive. All their life has been in bondage, and so they don’t know what true freedom is. They don’t know anything different.  All kinds of people have been in bondage down through the ages. The common thread through all is the bondage of spirit. Whether the person is a slave or the master in life, their soul is held captive by their sin. Some revel in it and they run to chaos and violence. We see those when we read the news of what is happening in Toronto with the protests. Others just cruise through life not paying any attention to that still, quiet voice that says they are missing something vital. They think by ignoring it, it will go away. How will they hear unless we tell them? How will they be set free unless we go to bat for them on our knees before the Father. This is part of your role in the Kingdom of God.

I like how Eugene Peterson put it in the passage above when he said, “A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way!” The message of Romans is that if you are following Jesus with all you got, you are free. There is healing for you. There life for you. There is love for you. Jesus is your All in All.

1 Timothy 2:1-8 “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.

This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying) as a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.”

The Year of Jubilee is about freedom: freedom from the past; freedom for both land and people to be restored. When you think about it, things were always leased or borrowed, not bought and sold. When you understand the truth of that, you come to realize the truth that you and I are stewards. The stuff we have is not really ours. Anything we have when we are born is a heritage, and anything we gain in life is a blessing; both gifts from God our Creator. As stewards we look after the things we have on behalf of God. The question is how we can better utilize our gifts and strengths, our possessions and time for the Kingdom of God. We start by having the best foundation possible.

We were at Pike Lake yesterday. They have cabins for rent on the south side of the park and I got talking to the Charlotte, the lady who manages them with her husband. They are little 2 room cabins made of finished logs – really quite charming. Late in the season last year they had an arson pour gas inside a cabin and light it on fire. The cabin was a total write off, but when I went to look at the site I could see the concrete foundations were in good shape and the camp manager was ready to rebuild. When you have a good foundation it makes all the difference in the world. The CN Tower, located in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is a communications and observation tower standing 553.3 metres (1,815 ft) tall. Construction on the CN Tower began on February 6, 1973 with massive excavations at the tower base for the foundation. By the time the foundation was complete 56,000 t of dirt and shale were removed to a depth of 15 metres in the centre, and a base incorporating 7,000 cubic metres of concrete with 450 tonnes of rebar and 36 tonnes of steel cable had been built to a thickness of 6.7 metres (22.0 ft). This portion of the construction was fairly rapid, with only four months needed between the start and the foundation being ready for construction on top. To build the main support pillar, a hydraulically-raised slip form was built at the base. This was a fairly impressive engineering feat on its own, consisting of a large metal platform that raised itself on jacks at about 6 metres per day as the concrete below set. Concrete was poured continuously by a team of 1,532 people until February 22, 1974, during which it had already become the tallest structure in Canada, surpassing the recently built Inco Superstack. In total, the tower contains 40,500 cubic metres of concrete, all of which was mixed on-site in order to ensure batch consistency. Through the pour, the vertical accuracy of the tower was maintained by comparing the slip form’s location to massive plumb-bobs hanging from it, observed by small telescopes from the ground. Over the height of the tower, it varies from true vertical accuracy by only 29 millimetres. You can look around Saskatoon today and see several sites where they are pounding long piles into the ground that will provide a solid foundation for the building. Most of us have heard about the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I think you can guess why it is leaning. They have tried several things to help straighten the tower and fix the problem of a poor foundation. Unfortunately it is a very hard thing to do. The most time on any project needs to be the foundation, because if you have not got that right, it doesn’t matter how good or expensive or elaborate a building you put on top – it will always be in rough shape and dangerous because of the bad foundation.

So here we are celebrating the Year of Jubilee that God has announced for us. It is a year of transition, a year of change. We need a foundation, and as children of God there is always only one foundation: Prayer. Prayer for the follower of Jesus is like water to a fish. It is the environment we live in if we want the abundant life Jesus talked about. Prayer is what connects us to the spiritual world around us. Prayer is what frees up the Spirit to work in and through our life.

And so we lay our foundation. When you put in a foundation you do some very specific things in a certain order for it all to work. You dig the hole, you put in the forms and rebar, you pour the concrete, and then backfill when all is set and dried. As the body of Christ we are going to be very specific about our foundation. The house we are building is a spiritual house. People are going to be introduced to Jesus. People are going to be challenged with the Word, to grow in their faith. It is time to start, so let’s roll up our sleeves and put the shovel in the ground.

Monday – The first thing we are going to do is to dedicate our homes as lighthouses of prayer. Lighthouses have a bright light, a beacon for those out on the water in the darkness. The lighthouse brings both joy as sailors know the harbour is near, and relief as they warn of shallow waters. So we, in our lives, dedicate our homes as beacons of hope. We do this by very specifically committing our house or apartment and our life to the Lord. We commit to praying regularly for our neighbours. Those prayers are focussed on their needs, which could be physical, social or mental, and spiritual. Try keeping a prayer journal where you have 4 columns: Name, Need, Date started praying, Date answered. One group did this for a semester at university, and they saw 25 people make a decision to follow Jesus that year. They started to refer to their journal as the Book of Life. So we pray for people that they would find safety in the Harbour of Heaven, as it were. The second thing we consistently pray for are opportunities to share our faith. Some people say that the biggest part of prayer is that it changes the one praying. Yes, and no. It does change us, but it also changes the spiritual climate of a place. 2 Corinthians 4 says that the god of this world has blinded the eyes of the unbelievers. One of the reasons your neighbour isn’t a Christian is because Satan is blinding him. He can’t see the truth. Now is the time for you to step in on his behalf and ask God to open his eyes that he may see. Not only do we pray for that healing of spiritual sight, but we pray that we may be used to be a guide to that person. And you know what? If you just ask and speak in sincerity of heart, you can’t mess it up. God draws people to Himself, but He so much wants to use us in that process. Meditate on Ephesians 6:10-20. We are involved in changing the spiritual climate of this city. We are involved and on the front lines of spiritual warfare. So sharpen your sword of the Spirit and repair the shield of faith, for we have a job to do. So on Monday, dedicate your house as a lighthouse of prayer in this city. As you do that, include our church. Commit our church in your prayers as a lighthouse to the community around us and a spiritual lighthouse to this city.

Tuesday – On Tuesday we will spiritually cleanse our homes. We started this process on the Monday by dedicating them as places of prayer. In a sense Monday is the decision, the choice. What follows the choice or intention is the tossing out of the garbage. Simply spend time asking God to reveal any unclean thing that is hanging around. Meditate on Psalm 139 and Psalm 51.It could be something physical that we have been hanging onto when we should have given it to God earlier and given it away. It could be something in us, like a bad attitude, a judging heart, bitterness, or a little closet of selfishness we have been trying to keep hidden from Jesus. It could also be a sense of oppression from Satan as he tries to lean on us and squeeze the joy and the life from us spiritually. Claim the promise that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. As you spend some time in prayer in renewal of your spiritual walk, pray also for our church. Pray that our past would no longer weigh on us today, for we are in the Year of Jubilee. Pray that Satan would have no more influence or oppression over this church, its ministries, or its members. We are an oppression free zone – OFZ if you will. Take the spiritual duster to your house and life, and your community here.

Wednesday – On Wednesday we will prayer walk our neighbourhoods. EM Bounds, a Methodist Pastor in the late 1800’s, stated that “talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still.” Ed Silvoso describes prayer evangelism in his book by the same title as “simply talking to God about our neighbours before we talk to our neighbours about God.” The third stage of this foundation we are building is to go out into your neighbourhood for some fitness. Stretch not just your leg muscles and get some cardio, but stretch your spiritual muscles and get some spiritual cardio. As you walk, simply bless each house you pass. Pray for the people connected to the house that God would bless them spiritually and draw them closer to Himself. For many people it will mean salvation. For some it will be to go deeper with their personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Thursday – As a body we will have a day of prayer for our community, our church. Sign up for a half hour time slot. We can have more than one person praying at the same time, but find a slot in your day where you can talk to God. It may be two 15 minute times if your day is full. You may want to fast at lunch and include that discipline as part of your prayers for the church. If you cannot pray between those hours, sign up for one of them and then pray in the evening – God is outside of time and He can backtrack your prayers to earlier in the day. He’s God – He can do that! We are simply going to pray that God would visit us in a special way over the next year. Pray for some or all of the following: The Board and Church leadership for wisdom and direction, Pastor Steve (Bonnie, Ben and Heather) for health and wisdom, Bonnie for her Writing ministry, Pastor Debbie (Don and Dori) in her ministry with Chaplains, Church Programs: Upward VBS August 9-13, Men’s Bible Study, Women’s Ministry, Sunday School, Seniors’ Ministry, Your Best You ministry and Divorce Care this fall, Pray through the church phone book for each family, pray for the prayer items in the bulletin including the missionaries, pray for our church’s finances this year – that we would not have a deficit, pray for a release from all the things that hold us as a congregation back whether they be physical (ie, location), social (lost friends and splits), mental (ie, focusing on tradition over ministry), or spiritual (ie, Satan oppressing us from stuff in our past), for more help in leading our ministries (Jesus said to pray for workers), for evangelism and people meeting Jesus through our church , for the spiritual integrity of our people and our church, for Jesus’ 2nd Coming, and take time to listen to see if God has a message for you and our church.

And you know what? Feel free to make this a weekly habit for the summer! Prayer is our foundation. Prayer connects us to the Holy One. Always take the time to pray – everyone can pray.

John 9:24-34 So a second time they called the man who had been blind, and said to him, “Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner.”
He then answered, “Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
So they said to him, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?”
He answered them, “I told you already and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again? You do not want to become His disciples too, do you?”
They reviled him and said, “You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where He is from.”
The man answered and said to them, “Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes. We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him. Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.”
They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” So they put him out.

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Helen Keller, atheist

Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” What he meant was this: knowledge is finite. Imagination can take a person into the infinite. Knowledge includes only what has been already developed. Imagination is about our dreams, our visions, which have no limits.

So we have this story of some guy born blind. He was minding his own business, when along comes Jesus and “poof” he can see. Up to that point he could hear the noises, but not understand what much of it was. Everything he understood came by feeling and listening. He would turn his face to the sun and feel the warmth. He would plunge his hand into the water and fell the coolness of it. Someone would try to describe how the liquid was clear and he would struggle with that reality. The colors of cloth and the world around him were confusing, for red and green and brown all felt the same. I can’t imagine the shock to his brain when his eyes were opened. The colors I think would have been the first thing. Then the shapes, the three dimensions of site. His world that used to be as big as his reach was now boundless to the horizons and beyond. The stars at night that would have been just imagination were now the reality of sparkling lights. Can you imagine being blind from birth and then suddenly seeing? God did that. As you read the story, you see the man not only had his sight, but he had understanding. The whole situation pointed to Jesus being God. When he stated the simple fact, he got in big trouble.

In 1880 Helen Keller was born perfectly normal. At 19 months she had a short but serious illness that left her not only blind, but deaf. By the time Helen was 7 the family was desperate for help for the girl had become almost uncontrollable. Enter Anne Sullivan and a month later the miracle happened. Anne and Helen ended up at the pump and as Anne held Helen’s one hand under the water she spelled water by letters into her other hand. At that moment, Helen saw that which she didn’t previously. She understood words and language. It changed her and she went on to be an advocate for the blind and a social activist for many years, passing away when she was 88.

Vision is more than just eyesight. Vision speaks to understanding what is seen. In a sense, Helen Keller lacked sight, but she gained vision as Anne Sullivan worked with her. In Luke 11 Jesus compares our vision to a lamp and talks of darkness and understanding. Jesus said vision is about understanding God, and His work in us. It is akin to repenting, for Jesus makes a reference to those in Nineveh long ago who heard the word of the Lord from Jonah and repented. They saw the truth about who they were before God and it changed them. Their vision was changed, healed. The Year of Jubilee is about having the eyes of our hearts opened up. I pray often as a pastor that our eyes would be opened to see what God would show us today. I do that because I know God speaks to each of us. There is an Old Testament prophecy about the young men having visions and the old men dreams. This prophecy is fulfilled in our lives today as we listen and hear from God.

Let me put vision in perspective for you and I today by asking you a rhetorical question: “If you could do anything you wanted to in the world, money and health being no object, what would it be?” Think about it. How different would your life be from what it is today? Let’s ask the same question of our church – “If we could do anything in our church, if we could be anything, what would it be?” Take a moment and if you have a pen, write down a thought or two. I am not going to look at it or ask you to share it, but just between you and God, what comes to mind? How different are your dreams from the reality of today? If someone asked that man born blind the day before Jesus came and touched him, what would his answer be? Would he have the foresight, so to speak, to consider a life where he could see, or would that have been beyond his dreams, his vision? Why do we have that difference between what we think life could be like and what it actually is like?

Why don’t we realize those dreams we have? Let me suggest it is a vision problem. Some of these dreams are ours and not our Creator’s. We too often pursue our own plans, our own ideas, and in doing so we miss God’s plans, God’s dreams for us. While I was talking to Bonnie this past week I noticed behind her chair the dog was acting funny. As I watched, Poppy started spinning around in circles, trying to grab this black furry thing that was teasing her from behind. Actually, it WAS her behind that she was chasing – she was getting in the way of herself. Poppy is not the only dog to get in the way of herself. America’s Funniest Videos had their final “clip that changed the world” on TV about a month ago. My favourite video was this dog sitting on a couch chewing a bone. She started growling at this thing that was sneaking up beside her. I am sure the dog thought it was after her bone, and she would snarl and growl and bark and eventually snap at it until it moved away. The thing sneaking up on her was her own hind foot. Totally goofy – the dog was so caught up on itself. What are you caught up on? What has distracted you from the vision God has? When God calls us to dream, He calls us to lose ourselves.  He calls us to “lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus.” When we pursue our own stuff, we trip on it. When we focus on what we want we get entangled in it. We need to repent of pursuing our own stuff.

The bigger question is not just our selfishness, but our lack of faith. We who are called a people of Faith; we who are told that if we have the faith the size of a mustard seed “we will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to us”; we who acknowledge that our God is the Creator of the ends of the earth somehow think that life is too much for God to handle. If I asked the question, “If God could do anything in this church what would it be?” we would not doubt so much because we have added God to the equation. When we think of God doing it, we have no doubt He can, we often just think He won’t. If we truly believe God has a purpose for this church and that we can grow and become alive and effective in ministry, why do we accept something less? We need to be calling out to God to fulfill His purposes in us and His church. We need to repent for our lack of faith and pursue what He has called us to do and to be.

Maybe you and I need to be healed first. That man born blind suddenly had a whole new perspective and take on life. His vision was radically changed when he was healed and he saw things he never imagined. Yes God provides. He helps us grow through trials and all that stuff. But what if God wants to open blind eyes here in this church this year? We need to consider that we might have vision problems because he is doing some pretty cool things these days around us. God looks at us and asks the question Jesus did of the man by the pool – “Do you want to be healed? Are you ready to take up your palette and walk?” Are you ready to have your life changed because the Lord God of eternity is going to reach down and touch you? Helen Keller’s sight was restored in a different fashion than the man born blind, but both had their sight restored, one physical and one mentally. Afterwards, the man born blind was thrown into a flurry of accusations and judgements. Who was the real blind man in his story? It was the Pharisees who failed to see the Truth of the Messiah right before them. You can be healed like that man born blind. Let the scales of the past that limit our vision fall away with a touch of the Savior’s hands. Let the blindness that comes from the god of this world be healed as you stand firm in the armor of God, as you consider the new world of possibilities that God offers to you and I.

So here we are. God has announced the Year of Jubilee for us, the chance to push that big cosmic reset button. Today is about the challenge of being ready for it. Are you ready to push that button with me? Are you ready to have your eyes opened to a new world of colour and dimension? Are you ready to have your mind opened to new possibilities that maybe what we have done for decades is due for a cleaning and upgrade? That God is leading us where He will, so let us make the commitment that we will do whatever it takes to follow Him!

The US space shuttle Atlantis touched down this past week on its last planned mission. It has been in service 25 years and travelled some 120 million miles over 32 missions. NASA is ending the Space Shuttle program with 2 more flights by the other two shuttles. After all is said and done, you can buy one of the used shuttles for $28.8 million.

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4’ 8 ½”. That is an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that is the way they built them in England, and by and large, English expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that is the gauge they used. Why did “they” use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools they used for building wagons, which used the same wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that is the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the US standard railroad gauge of 4’ 8 ½” is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. Bureaucracies live forever.
Now the twist to the story: When you see the space shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are 2 big booster rockets attached to the side of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds. So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by some guy measuring the width of a horses’ rear end.

Do you see how the past can create baggage, often when we are not even aware of it? Baggage is not necessarily good or bad; a lot depends on how we carry it. If something happens in life, we can hang on to the emotions that will resolve into bitterness. We can harbour bad feelings left over from disagreements. We can carry wounds from emotional and other battles. On the other side we can use the challenge to lead us to growth. In dealing with issues of truth we can use it to sharpen and clarify our faith. We can also carry forward cautions and knowledge that inform and direct our actions today. But know this: holding on to the bad stuff makes us a captive, and in so doing gives away the power and control of your life to the past. While the event or other person has moved on, we cannot. We get stunted in our growth as people and as followers of Jesus. We get stuck in that spiritual nursery that Hebrews 5 talks about, where we lose our ability to discern the difference between good and evil: Hebrews 5:8-14 “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” We lose our ability to discern between right and wrong. We lose the joy and peace that comes from a clear and uncluttered relationship with our Creator. We lose the sense of that still, quiet voice of the Spirit as He leads and guides us. In short – we lose. But then Jesus announces the Year of jubilee.

What is the Year of jubilee? The Jubilee was to be sounded every 49 or 50 years. Every 7th year was a Sabbath year. The Year of Jubilee was the 7th Sabbath of the 7 year sabbatical cycle – hence 7 times 7 is 49. The biblical requirement is that the Jubilee year was to be treated like a Sabbatical year, with the land lying fallow, but also required the compulsory return of all property to its original owners or their heirs, in addition to the freeing of all Israelite indentured servants. Two freedoms were in place – the land was “freed”, or returned to the original owner. This had the effect of ensuring the 12 tribal boundaries in the Promised Land would not change. In essence, you couldn’t sell and buy land in Israel – you only leased it for a maximum of 49 years. The second freedom was of servants. No Israelite could be a servant for more than 7 years. So the Year of Jubilee was about freedom. It was about freeing the land and the people. This is what the Lord proclaims for us today. In fact, we have three Jubilees before us.

The first is the Jubilee of Salvation. At some point in our lives we have all been captives of sin. When you read the book of Romans, you quickly understand what bondage means. You can imagine a scenario where you have no choice in life. In our own history in Canada we have situations where children were taken from parents with no recourse, and taught values and traditions totally foreign to their history. No choice was given – it was a done deal. You could try and fight it, but that got you nowhere. You could do nothing, absolutely nothing. Each of us existed in that realm spiritually. Sin was in your life and you were under judgement for that. It didn’t even originate in you, but went back to a Garden long ago. You came of age and made your own choices, and they fell short. Nothing you could do could help you save yourself. But in the midst of that lost-ness Jesus reached down, drew you to Himself and gave you love. He took your sin with Him to the cross, and redeemed you. He bought you back from sin. When you were lost in the Egypt of your sins, He sent the Deliverer to bring you out of captivity and so you are free. He has given you the Holy Spirit as a guarantor of that salvation. You are sealed to the day when you shall see Him face to face, and in that work of God He brought healing into your life. He brought healing from the ravages of sin. He is still at work in your life, bringing healing from the past. In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ He declared the Year of Jubilee from sin. You are free to follow, free to choose, and free to be all you can be in Jesus.

The second Jubilee is the Jubilee of Sanctification. It is such a big word, but you know what? Even after salvation and being freed from sin, you were still a slave to Self. You were forgiven the sin that was in your life, but there is a connection to that past that tries to drag you back. As the nation Israel walked further and further from Israel, again and again the tug to go back to the slavery and the bondage there pulled at them. Even at the border of the Promised Land they did not want to go forward, and so they wandered around in disobedience and confusion, missing out on all the Lord had for them. And so we, even after Salvation, wander around in our spiritual lives without much direction. We circle around and don’t seem to be getting anywhere. And then Jesus breaks in and declares the Year of jubilee. The work of His Spirit brings renewal to your life. As you surrender to Him you are freed from the tyranny of self. You are no longer in the struggle of doing the things you don’t want to do, and not getting done what you meant to. It is a work of God, in response to your surrender. Give up your rights just like Jesus gave up His rights in the incarnation. Pursue humility not just before man, but before God, and He will come and bring freedom and a peace that is beyond understanding.

The third Jubilee is the Jubilee of Revival. Have you ever had someone walk past you, and in their passing you enter their scent. Usually and hopefully it is their perfume or aftershave. On occasion it is due to their hygiene. The fact is they left a lingering residue of their presence. The things in our past can hold us captive. We talked about baggage, but sometimes it is not so easy to describe what lingers. We understand there is a realm beyond our senses. As we walk through life and engage with one another and experience tensions and issues, we know there is a spiritual battle going on. We know that there are very often things around us even today as a result of those interactions in that spiritual realm. But we also know this, that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. Yahweh is greater than the god of this world. There really is no comparison, but Satan tries to disrupt the work of God any way he can. His minions follow and disrupt, trying to get us to focus on ourselves. He keeps pushing on us, wearing us down. Like the boa constrictor, the snake wraps around our souls and spirits and community and squeezes. He constricts so it is hard to breathe, hard to see clearly. Our thoughts turn inward to survival, to our needs. And we feel hurt, and disappointed, and angry, and vengeful, and the list goes on. But Jesus comes and declares the Year of Jubilee for you and I. He calls us to lay our baggage and sacrifices down at the foot of the cross and look to Him. As we call out to Him for freedom from the captivity of where we were and what has happened, He sends His Spirit to work in us revival. The head of the snake is cut off and we are free without constriction. And this Jubilee is not just for our church, it is for our city. God is moving. He is breaking down the rulers and powers and the world forces of this darkness. There have been strongholds set up and Jesus is breaking them down into nothing, because the presence of God will not tolerate those things. For you and I, as followers of Jesus, they have no power or influence. We are free in Jesus, and as we meet from week to week we can rest in the victory of the freedom God gives.

Have you experienced the Jubilee of Salvation? Give up your striving and accept Jesus. Have you experienced the Jubilee of Sanctification? Surrender. Have you experienced the Jubilee of Revival? Call out for Him in a new way.