August 19, 2018-Keep on Truckin
/Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. Amen.
These days are complicated, are they not? I can’t get over the complexity of life that has been introduced to not only adults but even to children as well. Many of us probably have fond memories of youthful days when there was not a planned and difficult summer. The kind of summer where you got up on any given day and the most complicated thing you had to do was figure out where all the kids were playing that day. Then their may be a pick up game of some sort and picking sides could get interesting but for the most it worked itself out and every one had fun. Summer was about running out to the lake or beach. Leisurely reading books, and maybe even spending a few weeks away at camp.
I know in my house summer was basically leaving the house at some point in the morning, running all over the streets of Bloomington Minnesota, swimming in the creek, riding my Schwinn Orange Crate Sting Ray out to Bush Lake, or playing pick baseball with my friends. It was wasn’t complicated, it wasn’t planned, it wasn’t orchestrated, it was simple. Boy are those days gone.
Now days children have to have a PDA just to keep their schedules clear. Girl Scouts on Monday, Ballet on Tuesday, Chess club on Wednesday, Soccer 2 or three practices a week. Then mix in music lessons, instrument lessons, extra studying because of academic challenges that our children face, never mind the normal homework load. And the demands of extra curricular activities at the school make it impossible for kids to miss a single activity without the threat of a failing grade hanging over their head. In the midst of all this flurry of activity we find our faith, our church participation simply becoming one part in a pizza of life, rather then the whole pie of our existence
Life in general has become a cornucopia of philosophy, ideology, commentary, and worldly understanding which fills our minds with all kinds of ideas about what is right, what is moral, what loves, and what the real rules for proper living are. Today’s Proverb sums up this incredible human being that the world expects us to be. This worldly existence that requires us to be open and understanding of all points of view, open to the instruction of the wise, looking and knowing every word that comes to you and believing in it for the sake of community and for the sake of the world. Yes this worldly person is described in one succinct word in the Scripture this person is considered Simple. That does not seem right, after all our lives and flow of information is far from simple and in fact is confusing and complicated, full of so much knowledge that it can hardly be called simple, and yet that is exactly how the worldly man and woman is, simple.
Simple because we have quit rightly dividing the truth and fallen after what is false. Simple because we refuse to speak in the absolutes of God’s Truth, and have fallen into personal philosophy that says everyone has their own opinion, there is no absolute truth, and what really matters is what I think. And the battle is lost.
On many cultural fronts that battle has been lost. We need look no farther then the last Star Wars film to see how our culture of relativism has taken over and absolute truth is no longer something we seek to grasp. In end of the movie we see the epic light saber duel between Anakin Skywalker and Ben Obi Wan Kenobi. In a dramatic exchange of words we see the two Jedi knights preparing to face off, and Anakin is portrayed as having given in to the ultimate evil of the dark side, and Be Obi Wan Kenobi as the harbinger of truth, and loyalty to democracy. Then Hollywood shows its hand when Obi Wan Kenobi Says, “Only the Sith deal in absolutes”.
This world wants us to believe that nothing is absolute. The truth is we have absolute understanding, and wisdom from and through Christ. He has fixed for us salvation from the whims of this world. He has saved us from the flurry of information that simply inundates us with false teaching, false dichotomy, and false belief. Do you think it was a mistake that the ultimate power that that the Sith contained was the ability to resurrect someone from the dead? If we can paint that power with people of evil means, this world would have us deny that resurrection from the dead is even possible, and Satan would win again. Don’t be deceived by the false teachings and the simplicity of this world. It will lead you away from Christ, it will subtlety move away from the truth of God’s Word, and it will brazenly deny that Jesus is the only source and norm of salvation.
Oh that we could be simple again. There is a pure simplicity that God give us, and it runs counter to the simplicity of this world. God’s simply plan was for us to believe His word. For us to see himself become flesh and dwell amongst us, to watch our Jesus be taken to the cross, and die for our sins, and to see Jesus once he has risen from the dead. For the world it is to simple, for us it is simple enough. One God, one mission, one world that needs to live in remission, simplicity of plan, simplicity of faith, our mission is simple: Tell the world about the absolute nature an love of Jesus, tell them with the absolute truth of God’s Word, and tell them exactly what you know to be absolutely true. He died for our sins, He rose from the dead, we, through faith, will rise again as well. It’s just all to simple. Amen.
