Erin Church Sermon: Epiphany

Taking Our Treasures to Christ

There’s a phenomena that we call in Scotland “Scots’ Mist.” It occurs in the middle of a summer’s day when suddenly a dark cloud envelops the top of a mountain. The cloud is jet black and anyone who is unlucky enough to be on top of the mountain at that time is quickly overwhelmed in absolute darkness. An electrical storm usually ensues and the cloud remains over the mountain for a while. From the outside, it looks dark and ominous. From the inside, it’s fearful and terrifying.

I’ve only once been caught in it with a bunch of Scouts on the Campsie hills just above Glasgow. When the Scots’ mist came down, our summer’s day was turned into a winter’s night. We stopped hiking and just waited until it went away. When we started to hike again, we suddenly realized that we were on a cliff edge. If we had kept walking during the mist, we would have fallen over a hundred feet to our certain deaths.

Isaiah 60:2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.

For the people of the Old Testament, the absence of light and the darkness of night were times of fear, superstition, and vulnerability. They didn’t have our instant electric bulbs and streetlamps. Whenever the oil ran out or a candle was finally snuffed, they had no light to keep out the dark. They were completely enveloped in the darkness and shadows of their own homes. And unless it was a beautiful starlit night, no one ventured outside of the protection of their own homes.

Hopelessness was imagined as a darkness of the soul. Illness and death, trouble and turmoil were regarded as dark passages of life, where no brightness of light could penetrate. Even in death, there was no hope. The Jews believed that all souls went down into the depths of the earth to a place of shadows, where eventually their spirits would wander in the darkness for all of eternity. There was little hope in life, and there was no hope in death.

In the Church of Scotland Book of Common order, there’s a great phrase that goes something like this: “we were not meant for the darkness of death, but for the light of life.” I use it as funerals, for it’s a reminder that God created us to be creatures of His everlasting light, not beings that are bound for a dungeon of eternal darkness.

In this passage from Isaiah, written at a time when the Jewish people had lost all hope of returning to the Promised Land, God declares through the prophet that the darkness which threatens to cover the whole earth will not overwhelm them. The Lord God, who has delivered and been with His people for centuries, will still remain loyal to them. He will rise above the people; He will brighten their futures, He will bring and become the Light of the World. As Isaiah writes in another passage: to the people walking in darkness, He will be their great light.”

Light becomes the symbol of hope to the people in the midst of dark and uncertain times. Light becomes the hope for a community that has lost its way. Light becomes the sign that the Lord is amongst them and that He will lead them again to the Promised Land. Light is what is needed in the hearts and souls of the people. Light frees them from the darkness of despair, tyranny, and hopelessness. Light is God’s first act of love and His final revelation.

And so, seven centuries later, when some astrologers look at the Western sky, they see a great light, a new light, a remarkable light…one which attracts them and leads them. One that captivates their hearts and souls, One that sets them on a quest, for when such a star is created in the heavens, then it can only mean one thing: that a new king, a great king, a godly king has been born on earth.

Matthew 2:2 and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."

So this group of astrologers and mathematicians called Magi head west following the star. At some point they realize that they are near to the city of Jerusalem, so they presume that the new king who has been born must have been born at the royal palace. This must mean that they stop following the star, either because it’s too cloudy to see anything in the sky, or they feel that their calculations are slightly off course. Whatever their reason, it made them stop in Jerusalem, to seek the local king and find his newborn son.

A lot has been made about this diversion on their journey. Years ago, I preached a sermon that suggested that this was an example of how believing in astrology can take you down the wrong path. I even mentioned that those who read their horoscopes each day are doing an unchristian thing and that this incident with the wise men proved my point. If astrology was so good at predicting the future, then why do the wisemen make such a disastrous mistake?

These days I don’t see it that way at all, but the detour into Jerusalem still puzzles me. Were they predestined to make this mistake? Did God plan this detour, and if He did, what was its purpose? Did God plan to upset Herod and all Jerusalem with him by revealing that a new king outside of the palace had been born? Was this God’s way of telling Herod that his reign was coming to an end and that the real kingdom of heaven was just about to be ushered in?

The more I thought about this, the more perplexed I became. What was God up to letting a fearful tyrant like Herod know of His plans? Why was it so important for the wisemen to go to the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in front of the wrong king?

And then when I read and re-read Herod’s request to the wisemen, it all became quite clear. Look at verse 8 and see what the king says:
Matthew 2:8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."

It’s not about astrology, or mistaken calculations. It’s not about confronting Herod with an advanced warning that God’s kingdom is imminent. It’s not about upsetting the king and the people in Jerusalem that a revolution was about to occur. It’s about what Jesus actually represented: salvation through God’s grace. Herod the tyrant is actually being given an opportunity to repent of his ways, accept God’s forgiveness, and sincerely come and worship Jesus! This is an incident of amazing grace, where Christ’s vulnerability is at stake. The Lamb of God has no protection, but Herod has the opportunity to use his free will to make amends, to fix his life, to come before God, and seek forgiveness. God didn’t have to let the wisemen go to Jerusalem, but in order to give Herod the chance to be redeemed they had to turn up at his palace.

Can you imagine what would have happened if Herod had accepted that moment of grace? Christ would have been brought up in a palace where forgiveness and love, restoration and redemption were experienced. He would have been a Prince of Peace amongst His people and Christianity would have traveled along a different path. God’s grace knows no bounds. Any sinner, even one as cruel, adulterous, and as murderous as Herod could be forgiven, but the key to salvation does not lie in the gift or the giver. The key to salvation, as always, lie in the response of the one to whom it is given.

Sadly, and perhaps predictably, Herod did not grasp at this godly opportunity. Too many years of tyranny and cruelty kept him from recognizing this gift and realizing his salvation. Instead, he chose to use the moment secretly and insincerely. Rather than worship the Christ child, he simply wanted to kill him.

Mathew 2:11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.

So the wisemen travel on. They see the star again and rejoice. This time they will not lose sight of it. This time they will reach their goal. And so they come to the house where the child was and bow down to worship Him. And not only do they worship Him, they present their treasures to Him, offering gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

A lot has been said about these gifts. Because Christ is the King of Kings He deserves a gift worthy of a king. Gold was the most valuable and precious metal of that time, so they offer Christ their money.

Incense was used by priests in their temples as a means of offering a sweet perfume to God, to please Him and to ask His favor. As Christ would become known as the high priest of Melchizedek in years to come, this gift was also highly appropriate.

Myrrh was used as an ointment, not just to embalm dead bodies, but also as an instrument of healing. Christ would be known as the Healer of the Nations, so this gift was also worthy of Him.

It all happened so long ago and we delight at Christmas when we see images and receive cards that depict this wonderful scene of three wisemen offering their gifts to Christ. But how do we apply this lesson, this story in our own lives. How do we encounter and experience a moment of Epiphany, of transformation and revelation in our own faith.

We also bring our treasures to Jesus. We may not have gold coins or bars to give Him, but we do have money. When we give an offering to the church each week, we’re actually humbling ourselves before Jesus and worshiping Him. When we place our tithes and gifts in the offering plate, we’re saying to Jesus, “I want You to have this because You are my King.” We don’t do it routinely or dutifully, we give it to Him cheerfully and gladly because Christ is the head of this church and he is the King of this congregation.

We may not have perfume or incense to offer to Christ, but we are all priests in His eyes. He looks to us to please God by ministering to one another and serving the community where we live. If we work effectively, sincerely, and faithfully as Christians in our homes, our schools, and our workplaces then we become the sweetness of Christ to the world. God will favor our good works, not to bring success to ourselves, but to attract other people to His Son Jesus Christ. If we offer our lives as something beautiful to God, then we will make a positive difference in our community and in our world.

We may have myrrh to offer to Christ, but we can be healers in our homes, with our families and friends. We can learn to say sorry and seek forgiveness for our mistakes. We can repair our damaged relationships and look for peace with our partners. We can take the high road of forgiving those who hurt us and restoring those who have disappointed us, instead of carrying bitterness and resentment, hostility and hatred in our hearts.

We have all these treasures to bring to Christ, but it is up to us to give them. Are we going to be wisemen and women and offer Christ our all, or will we choose to reject this time of Epiphany and grace, and become a Herod? As always, the choice is ours and ours alone. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Erin Church Sunday Sermon: Working for the Lord

I only remember two occasions in my life when my father was unemployed. The first time it happened occurred when the engineering firm he worked for decided to relocate. Dad didn’t want to move our family 250 miles away in order to keep his engineering position, so he opted to take a redundancy payment that would keep our family going for three months. He felt certain that he could get started in a new job almost immediately and wasn’t worried about his long term prospects. He had marketable skills and he was in his early thirties, so he felt that he was making the right decision for our family. He didn’t want to uproot us away from our extended family to go south and work in England. He also knew that Scottish families underwent hard times in English towns. So he decided to stay and wait for work to come to him.

But it didn’t happen. He was unemployed for almost a whole year, so his redundancy money was quickly used up. He desperately went from factory to factory trying to get a job. Our extended families kept us from sinking, but there weren’t any luxuries in our home. Pieces of furniture were pawned, family antiques were sold, and items that he had brought from all over the world in his years as a merchant seaman, which hung proudly on our walls, began to disappear.

He was desperate for work and even tried his hand at being a door-to-door salesman. I can still picture the little brown leather suitcase that he carried, which was full of plastic ice scrapers, milk bottle lids, and jar openers. He even got me and my brother Andy to go around the neighborhood distributing leaflets announcing that he would in the area with some wonderful gifts and items that people couldn’t live without. He tried it for a whole week and gave up trying. He was an engineer, not a pioneer.

More than anything, I think being unemployed affected his pride as a man. We’re talking about the early 1960’s here, when most women stayed at home. He didn’t like being idle and he hated collecting unemployment benefit. All he wanted to do was to make an honest day’s wage for an honest day’s work. He hated depending upon government and charity. He wanted to support his wife and family. He wanted to be a real man.

I guess when Paul is writing to the Thessalonians “if a man will not work, he shall not eat,” he was thinking the same way. This young Greek church that the apostle had founded was going through what most churches experience: that some of the members were not pulling their fair share or being committed to the work of Christ. I guess that the 20:80 principal operated in Paul’s time – that 20% of the membership effectively carried out 80% of the work. But rather than put up with it, which so many of our churches do today, Paul was direct and candid. If you will not work, you will not eat. In other words, if you are not willing to contribute service, energy, and resources to the life, ministry, and work of the church, then you will not receive any of its benefits and blessings.

We might think that Paul was being unfair, insensitive, and judgmental, but we forget the times. Christians were losing their lives for believing in Jesus. They were persecuted by the Jews for daring to call God “Father,” as Christ Himself had done. And they were being executed by Romans for daring to say that “Jesus is Lord” instead of expressing that title to Caesar alone.

So, when Paul castigates the idlers in the church for not doing their fair share, he is letting them know, in no uncertain terms, that to claim to be a Christian takes a lot of courage, hard work, and effort. For the church to be effective in the world, it could not afford to carry religious idlers and loafers, congregational panhandlers and theological hobos. In those days, if you made a commitment to Christ and took up membership in the Church, it was all or nothing.

Seven hundred years ago today in Switzerland, a young father was ordered to shoot his crossbow at his young son. The Austrian tyrant Gessler gave the command to a Swiss patriot called William Tell. William had stirred up the Swiss people to revolt against their Austrian invaders and he used his expertise with the crossbow to kill many of the invading troops. He was captured along with his son, and Gessler wanted William tell to suffer for it. He told William that if he could shoot an apple off of his son’s head with his crossbow, both he and his son would be set free. So William Tell’s son stood up against a tree, with an apple in his head, which his father had to shoot or both of them would end up dead. It was all or nothing.

Tell took two arrows from his quiver, as Gessler and his Austrian troops watched with glee. William put one arrow in the crossbow and placed the other in his belt. Patiently, he lifted up the crossbow and took aim at the apple. If he missed the apple and hit the tree, then both he and his son would be executed. If he missed the apple and hit his son, William Tell’s heart would be broken. He took careful aim and focused on the shot, in what must have been the most intense few seconds of his life. I’m sure that his heart must have a skipped a beat when he fired the arrow. Thankfully, it split the apple in two and William Tell was freed. Just before he left, Gessler asked him why he took two arrows from his quiver, to which Tell fiercely replied, “If I had killed my son with the first arrow, I would have killed you with the second one.” It was all or nothing.

What I’m trying to relate to all of us this morning is what it means to actually be a Christian. It’s all or nothing. My Dad trudged the streets of Glasgow looking for work to support his wife and children – our survival meant all to him. William Tell applied his skills to free himself and his son – their survival meant everything to him. Paul urges the Thessalonians Christians to take their faith seriously in order to survive hostile persecution – it was all for Jesus, or nothing would remain. People in our lives, people in history, and people in the story of our faith have been faced with this choice generation after generation, and nation after nation. It’s all or nothing.

There’s no such thing as a nominal Christian. There’s no such thing as an average believer. There’s no such thing as come and go as you please servant in God’s Kingdom. It’s all or nothing. There’s no such thing as a nearly saved Christian – you’re either all saved or your not. There’s no such thing as a limited Savior – Christ is either all Savior to us, or he is nothing at all.

There’s an eerie, old-fashioned Baptist hymn that most of us have forgotten or some of us have never heard written by Philip Bliss. He wrote a lot of the old sacred songs and solos, which have become standards at many revival meetings and evangelical churches throughout the entire world. He died in a train wreck in Ashtabula, Ohio. He was traveling with his wife and Philip initially survived the wreck, but he went back on to the blazing carriage to try to save his wife. He never came out alive – his love for her was all or nothing.

Anyway, he once sang this song that he had composed at a revival meeting where many people had gathered. After the song was sung, fifteen thousand people bowed their heads in prayer and made their commitment to the Lord.

Here’s the song

“Almost persuaded” now to believe;“
Almost persuaded” Christ to receive;
Seems now some soul to say,
“Go, Spirit, go Thy way,
Some more convenient dayOn Thee I’ll call.”

“Almost persuaded,” come, come today;
“Almost persuaded,” turn not away;
Jesus invites you here,
Angels are lingering near
Prayers rise from hearts so dear;
O wanderer, come!


“Almost persuaded,” harvest is past!
“Almost persuaded,” doom comes at last!
“Almost” cannot avail;“
Almost” is but to fail!
Sad, sad, that bitter wail—“Almost,” but lost!

Prayer Call

Going to Hell the easy way: Playing Games with our Faith

It’s not what we want to hear – that the Lord blesses and curses. We just want the good parts of the Bible to apply to us and reject the rest. Our generation of Christians is pampered compared to previous ones. We want things the easy way; we want our faith to be unfettered by commandments, demands, and curses from the Lord. We want God to accept us and never want Him to change us, before we will accept Him. We want to make God into our personal assistant, dumping our burdens on Him, and fully expecting Him to bail us out. Instead of revering the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, we want the genie from Aladdin’s lamp. In other words, we want to be in control of every part of our lives.

It doesn’t work that way and never has. We fool ourselves everyday if we think that God doesn’t judge our deeds. And if we turn off just because we read in the Bible something we don’t want to see, or hear from the preacher words we don’t want to accept, then we’ve become the biggest fools in all the centuries of Christendom.

I see people playing with their faith instead of practicing it. I watch folks indulge themselves at this time of year, instead of giving thanks and being grateful to God. I look at our depraved society and it sickens my heart, not because I’m better than anyone else, but because I’m part of the disease itself.

I want to tell people about Jesus and how stern He could be at times, but people don’t want to hear it. I want to preach a Gospel that demands an unconditional surrender to God, but people don’t want to do that. I want to shake up the whole of our civilization and shout out: “Don’t you realize we’re all going to Hell in a hand barrow?” but nobody wants to listen to that kind of Holy Roller talk anymore. We just want to be happy and have a good time. We just want to say to God on Judgment Day, what happens on Earth, stays on Earth.

I won’t play this game anymore because I love the people around me. I won’t dance with the devil any longer in order to keep the peace. I’ll do what the Lord calls me to do – to prepare people for His Coming and to help them get ready for judgment. To do anything less is to disobey God. To do anything other is to come under His curse.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, we don’t want to think about judgment or accept Your non-compromising Gospel. We want to be happy, not harassed by You. We want to feel good, not to face God. We want to get to heaven, but none of us wants to die to our sins. O Lord, help us and save us; rebuke us and restore us. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor at Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Daily Devotional: Seeing Jesus - the work of the church is to bring others into God's Kingdom

John 12:21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. "Sir," they said, "we would like to see Jesus."

This is one of my favorite verses from the Bible because it encapsulates the work of the church. Congregations can get caught up in building programs, financial campaigns, and missional projects, but in the end, if no one comes to see Jesus, then they’re busy doing nothing.

Churches exist to bring people to Christ. They have no other function. Christians can do as much good in their lives and strengthen their community through acts of kindness and well-being, but if no one comes to Jesus, then the deeds are empty of any eternal blessings. This is why it is so important to remember that our faith is missional. We seek others to tell them about Jesus. We try to fill our sanctuaries with those seekers of Christ, not to boost our numbers, but to get more souls into heaven.

Jesus was overjoyed when Andrew and Philip brought the Greeks to meet Him. It meant that His ministry was beginning to travel around the world. That’s why He says it was for this reason that He came. His ministry was to teach the world about God. His mission was to die for the world. On both counts, He succeeded, which is why He is elated at this point in His life. God’s plan of salvation is working. God’s Kingdom is being extended outside of Palestine.

So, the challenge for all of us today is this: what am I going to do or say today that will encourage others to seek and find Jesus? Who am I going to contact or meet today that needs to hear the Gospel? What am I going to do today to extend God’s Kingdom outside of my own personal world and bring it into someone else’s life?

Prayer: Lord Jesus, You have called all of us to do Your bidding and to serve Your will. Grant us the courage to express our faith today to all whom we meet. Give us opportunities to talk about You, Your church, and Your mission, so that others may seek You, too. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.