Monday, November 30, 2009

Promises, Promises--Jeremiah 33:14-16

I am really looking forward to Christmas. I saw the Christmas items in the store during the latter part of Black Friday so I am really looking forward to it. This kind of anticipation and excitement has been instilled in me every year. But this year, with a nine year old and a five year old really coming to look forward to it themselves, it is more exciting than ever, and I can’t wait.

Advent is our time in the church year when we look forward. Advent is a season of the year when we focus on the future nature of the Promised Land, of life in the full presence of God. This is the time of year when we look at the Promises of God that are not yet fulfilled. We focus on them, and we get excited about them.

What I would like to do this morning is to take a quick look at the promises we live our lives by. Just, very quickly have us examine our own lives, see what promises that we hold onto, for better or for worse.

“Dr. Jerome Frank at Johns Hopkins talks about our "assumptive world." What he means is that all of us make assumptions about life about God, about ourselves, about others, about the way things are. [I would say that these are the promises we hold onto in our lives.] He argues that when our assumptions are true to reality, we live relatively happy, well-adjusted lives. But when our assumptions are distant from reality, we become confused and angry and disillusioned” (Haddon Robinson, "How Does God Keep His Promises?," Preaching Today, Tape No. 130). Nothing is more destructive than hoping in failed promises. Everybody knows what that is like, and how much it hurts. But we have to believe something.

I remember a few years ago. I was coming home from Bible study when I accidentally dented Joy's car. Feeling guilty about the whole thing I tried to find a way to fix it myself (like a real man). As I was watching my late night program I came across a Ding King commercial by Billy Mays on television. So the next day, full of hope, I went to a local Target store and purchased a Ding King kit. When I got home i took the kit out and followed the instructions. It didn't take long for me to realize the product is not going deliver what it promised. Words can't describe how disappointed I was. Another broken promise!

So our world is full of promises, promises of things that will give meaning and purpose and value to your life. Promises that you don’t have to feel what you’re feeling. Promises that everything is going to be all right. Promises that tomorrow is going to be a better day. Promises that you’re better than that, that you’re pretty and strong and smart and loved and liked. And we live our lives by these promises. And how well we pick these promises is how good our lives are.

I have to tell you, there are a lot of people having a very hard time. I struggle with so many people day to day who are putting their hopes in promises that are deceiving, self-serving, and simply false. When I was in Iowa, I have met people struggling to get by. I got to know them fairly well. Three or four times while I was there, they put their financial hopes in pyramid schemes. A lot of promises were made to them about how they could make a lot of money. All of it was false, and they got in deeper and deeper. It was hard to watch. They learned the hard way what promises to hold onto. Many lives are deeply scared or destroyed before that.

Church, Advent, our relationship with God, is all about promises. Our faith is about the promise of the salvation of our souls from sin and death, and our deliverance to a new promised land – the Kingdom of God! That is an incredible, huge, glorious promise for each one of us. And as we begin advent, it is right that we remember again just how huge and glorious that promise is. That is what we will be celebrating this Christmas, is the fulfillment of the promises of God.

It has become a Christian cliché, and therefore in danger of losing its meaning, to say that “Jesus is the reason of the season,” and that we must remember the “real meaning of Christmas” amidst all the hoopla. The extent to which we are relying on the real promises of God that we have great cause to celebrate, it is to that extent that we truly celebrate the meaning of Christmas.

The great D.L. Moody said, “God never made a promise that was too good to be true” (Christian History, no. 25 cited on www.preachingtoday.com). Do you know those promises, and do you trust them?

The passage in Jeremiah is written by the prophet when things looked real bad for his people. About 600 years before Jesus, they are about to be taken away from their Promised Land because for generations they have been not relying on the promise-giver, but on any other sort of promise. Everything that has given them meaning and identity, it all looks like it will be destroyed. And right then, Jeremiah, says that one will rise up – a Messiah – another David, who will restore Jerusalem to justice and righteousness. It is said that He, himself, will be our righteousness.

The situation in our lives is more confusing. Each of us is in a different place, and it is hard to lump us all together in regards to how well or how poorly we have done in choosing the promises we follow. But all of us, in the deepest needs in our lives, and, finally, in everything, have only one final source of promises that will be wholly, completely, true, reliable, forgiving, freeing, meaningful, real, and everything that we need.

A man is coming at Christmas, at the end of the world, that is going to make everything in the world right, and going to make you right as well. That is the big promise, and the one worth holding onto and celebrating above all others.

“Professional golfer Paul Azinger was diagnosed with cancer at age 33. He won a PGA championship and had ten tournament victories to his credit. He was doing well.

He wrote, "A genuine feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me even harder. I’m going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. It’s just a question of when. Everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live."

Then he remembered something that Larry Moody, who teaches a Bible study on the tour, had said to him. "Zinger, we’re not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We’re in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living."

“Zinger” recovered from chemotherapy and returned to the PGA tour. He’s done pretty well. But that bout with cancer changed him. He wrote, "I’ve made a lot of money since I’ve been on the tour, and I’ve won a lot of tournaments, but that happiness is always temporary. The only way you will ever have true contentment is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don’t have problems, but I feel like I’ve found the answer to the six-foot hole" (Robert Russell, "Resurrection Promises," Preaching Today, Tape No. 151 cited on www.preachingtoday.com).

I believe there are two of us that this message is addressed to. The first are those are devastated because you have been putting your hope in all the wrong places. If you have never known Jesus, the real promise for your life, before, I invite you now to trust him, the one real promise.

But I also think this is for those of us who have known the promise of God and get sidetracked by smaller, busy, promises of the season, of the world, even of the peripheral things of our church and our religion. This season, remember how amazing, how glorious, how deep, how much there is to celebrate from the depths of our heart in the promise of God, this little child who saved our lives forever. Don’t let anything distract your trust in that promise. Amen

A Thanksgiving to Remember

The day after Thanksgiving a number of us were at the church to produce more egg roll to sell to raise money for the youth. As we were doing our usual packaging a man came to the church wanting to talk to me. So I went out of the kitchen to meet the gentleman. It turns out the man was in need of money. He was trying to see his two boys in Santa Clarita last Thursday but just didn't have the money. That is why he came to the church. He already went to the Catholic Church across the street but all he got was Bureaucracy and impossibilities. As I was talking to him I felt his persistent faith. He reminded me of Jacob when he wrestled with God. Jacob's words were "I am not going to let you go until you bless me." In the same way the man that I met at the church was somewhat like Jacob. He is not leaving the church until we at the church bless him. At first, I told him that I only have a dollar in my wallet (which was true) and that we don't have cash at hand at the church. But the man persisted. He said to me, "don't give me that...show me a God of possibilities." And so after I laid my dollar I went back to the kitchen and told the others of this man's situation. It didn't take long before my dollar multiplied as the church members gave what they could. The man ended up having more than enough for hid bus fare and food. Before he left, the man shared his concerns and thanked us. So we prayed for him and blessed him. To this day I have never had anything like this in terms of experience. I am thankful to God that God gave us this opportunity to bless this man this Thanksgiving. We are blessed! Thanks be to God!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Not Just Any Ordinary Encounter

When I first met Pastor Lindy I never thought in my wildest dreams that I will be replacing him as pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Wilmington. It happened during the summer of 1999 at the biennial convocation of the National Association of Filipino-American United Methodists at Claremont School of Theology. I was sitting in one of those big round tables eating breakfast when all of a sudden Pastor Lindy Loresco sat right beside me. He was wearing a polo shirt, blue jeans, boots, and cowboy hat. Then I began to introduce myself. I told him who I was and that I know her sister from the Philippines--Alluida Loresco Kasiguran. After our conversation he turned to the other people around the table and began talking about retirement. Even then he really wanted to go to McCullen, Texas after he was finished with ministry. The thing that strikes me today was the fact that our encounter that morning wasn't just any random encounter...it was destiny...it was something that was meant to be...something prophetic. Three years after my meeting with Pastor Lindy, God chose me to be the next pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Wilmington replacing Pastor Lindy who pastored the church for twenty-four years. Over the years I have treasured my conversation with Pastor Lindy and his phone call to me after my return to Iowa following my meeting with then Long Beach District Superintendent Rev Dr. Osmond Lindo and members of the the Staff Pastor-Parish Relations Committee of Wilmington First United Methodist Church. Praise be to God for the life of the Rev. Melanio "Lindy" Loresco Jr.