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In preparation for today’s sermon I thought it would be helpful to pass on some great resources dedicated to preserving purity on the internet.  Pornography is a great problem and serious threat to people and marriages.  Many of those reasons are included in today’s sermon (to be posted later) but for a great summary article see: “Why Is Pornography Addiction Such A Problem?” on RBC’s website by clicking here. Some of the resources are better than others, but something is definitely better than nothing.  With that in mind the bear minimum protection that can be recommended is the X3 Watch from XXXChurch.com.  This software monitors all internet use and reports to one or two accountability partners any questionable material that has been viewed.

If you need more than monitoring and this is especially important for families with kids then the most recommended software is SafeEyes from InternetSafety.com.  This website also has hardware options suitable for businesses.  SafeEyes is great for families and the annual subscription covers three computers for the family at no additional charge.

There are other resources available and ministries dedicated to helping.  If you need more assistance I would encourage you to look at the help available through PureLife Ministries.  This ministry has everything from a residential treatment program here in Kentucky to a study at home course.  They also have a program for marriages in need of restoration who have been damaged due to pornography and sexual infidelity.

I’m from a church tradition, that has no church tradition. We are as non-traditional as they come.  Our slogans include: “No creed but the Bible,” “We’re not the only Christians but we’re Christians only (not a denomination),” and “We want to be a church like the first church.” I’m afraid that if Christianity had a flavor, we would be vanilla. Most of the time I like vanilla. I know it’s pure, I know what it is, but I sometimes wonder if a little flavor wouldn’t hurt.

Because Ash Wednesday is nowhere to be found in scripture, many in my non-tradition remain skeptical about it (along with the entire practice of Lent).  I must admit that I approach this season with a bit of hesitancy.  I have a few questions about it. Why do we need ashes on our forehead?  Why do we need to give things up?  Isn’t the cross of Christ I carry in my soul enough?  Isn’t a life of repentance sufficient?

These questions sound good, but I wonder if they’re the real questions I’m asking.  Maybe what I’m really asking is, “Would a day displaying a cross on my forehead match my life?  Am I really as repentant as I think I am?” Is it that I don’t want a cross or I don’t want the world to see it?  Is it that I don’t want an artificial season or is it that I don’t want a season of sacrifice?

In this age of overindulgence would one season dedicated to simplicity and sacrifice be a bad thing?  Some from my non-tradition would argue that all seasons should be seasons of simplicity.  I know that is truly not scriptural, after all consider the words of Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 (NRSV) which state:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

Furthermore consider the words of Christ in Matthew 9:14-15 (NRSV):

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Have we forgotten what season this is?  This is the season fasting.  The problem for most of us is that we fail to observe this season at all!  We run so fast to get nowhere, we work so hard to get so little, we go until we can’t go any longer.  The seasons of the church might be made by man, but these seasons were made for man.  They remind us that regardless of injections or liposuctions we are still mortal and that we must tend to our mortality.  If we fail to tend to it now the season of mortality will become an eternity.  The seasons of repentance are what lead us to immortality.  So, whether you observe Ash Wednesday or not, let us mark seasons of simplicity and repentance for the bridegroom is gone and it is the season.

Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the
earth: Grant that these ashes may be to us a sign of our
mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is
only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

(from the Book of Common Prayer)

Update 2/17/10: Click here for more Ash Wednesday posts from the CCBlogs Network.

We have nuanced murder and allowed exceptions for everything from euthanasia to abortion.  We are plagued with violence, violence is our entertainment, it threatens our streets, it evacuates our schools, it invades our cities, for some of you it resides in your own homes and you live with violence everyday.  Murder entertains and is provided for our viewing pleasure every night on broadcast television.  It’s into this situation that God speaks this word in Exodus 20:13, “You shall not murder.”  God says to our society filled with violence, “Live!”

Let people live don’t kill them with…

• Your actions (Exodus 20:13)
  • The most literal interpretation of this command prohibits the actual, physical taking of life.  We can not murder each other.
  • God values human life and we see this clearly throughout scripture.  I think where the value of life is shown most clearly is in the punishment for murder.  God says you can’t put a price tag on life, the only way to pay for it is with a life.  Which is why for centuries the church has generally supported capital punishment.
  • Today we do not have the time to discuss the ramifications of the death penalty, the effectiveness of it, or whether or not it has place in Christian society.  I will however state that the death penalty can be strongly supported from scripture.
    • Genesis 9:6 is generally seen as predating and holding precedent over this command.
    • Numbers 35:31 tells us that humanity has no power to commute the death sentence.
    • In Romans 13 we see that Paul admonishes respect for the government agents who bear the sword.
  • This command does not rule out the death penalty, only murder and other scriptures support it as well.  But, thankfully most of us aren’t murderers, we haven’t been called to make decisions on jury’s regarding the death penalty and so I want to move on to what we are more prone to struggle with.
• Your language (Matthew 5:22)
  • I like the way the NASB translates verse 22 when it translates the word “raca” very literally as “good-for-nothing.”  Literally, “you don’t count for anything,” “you’re empty headed.”  Jesus makes it clear that we can kill each other with our language.
  • I just attended a seminar on some issues of domestic violence in the church; it was very intense, very interesting.  The presenter who’s worked with thousands of victims of domestic violence says that so often what remains hurtful the longest is the violent language these women hear.
  • Our words are so damaging, we turn our words into knives and attack each other.  Jesus speaks to this and says, “Stop killing each other – LIVE!”
• Your carelessness (Matthew 5:23-26)
  • Notice the language here, Jesus says listen, “If you are offering your gift at the altar.”  This is active, in other words it’s happening right now.
    • One thing I hate is when you’re in line, 5:30pm at the grocery store.  Every checker is 4 people deep and everyone wants to get home quickly.  The only reason I’m there is because Jenny called and said, “Can you pick up one thing for me, please?”  So, I’m here – I want to be there and I’m next in line when the guy at the checkout says, “I forgot something,” and darts back into the store…
    • This is what Jesus is talking about, you’ve waited in line to make your offering, you’re at the altar, you’ve got your sacrifice and you remember that you’ve forgot.
    • What does Jesus say to do?  Finish your offering and then be reconciled?  No, stop what you’re doing and be intentional about reconciliation.  Don’t allow anger, hate, language, actions to build to the point where we kill each other because we were too lazy to reconcile.  Reconcile now!
  • Martin Luther’s comments on the proactive nature of this commandment.  “Under this commandment not only he is guilty who does evil to his neighbor, but he also who can do him good, prevent, resist evil, defend and save him, so that no bodily harm or hurt happen to him and yet does not do it. If, therefore, you send away one that is naked when you could clothe him, you have caused him to freeze to death; you see one suffer hunger and do not give him food, you have caused him to starve. So also, if you see any one innocently sentenced to death or in like distress, and do not save him, although you know ways and means to do so, you have killed him.”  (For further reading see Matthew 25 and James 2)
  • In other words let your thoughtful way of living be a living way for others!  Do not let others die because of your carelessness.

Grace: provides us a chance at life.

• Life is maybe the top value God has for us.  Jesus proclaims this in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life abundantly!”  So, we too must be about the work of living and life-giving.
  • John 3:16 tell us that God sent his son so that we would have eternal life.
  • It’s grace that provides us the chance at life, and we love grace when it’s for us.  We love to be the recipients of grace, but what about the dispensers?  What about grace when it’s for others?  What about when it’s for truly depraved people?
• What about murderers?
  • Many in this church would say that those who murder, they deserve the death penalty.  There are good scriptural grounds to justify it.
  • We see in Egypt it’s an eye for an eye (Mat 5:38), but in the Promised Land we turn the other cheek.  It’s not that there isn’t a price for our sin, it just means you don’t have to pay it.
  • I find it so ironic that this command to not kill, was chiseled by the same hands that took a man’s life in Egypt.  Moses the murderer becomes Moses the life-giver.
  • What I about the persecutors like Paul?  (Acts 7:54 -8:1)  Paul gets a second chance at life and uses it to write almost half of the New Testament.
• This text is used so often to rail against abortion.  I know that God is intimately involved in our creation (Psalm 139:13) and believe that abortion is a sin.  But, God’s grace is big enough to cover this sin.
  • Sometimes those who call themselves Christians speak so angrily against abortion providers and women who receive them.  I hear words like murderers, immoral, selfish, worthless, hate.  All these are summed up in that Aramaic word raca and I wonder, if there are not two parties guilty of murder.
  • And while Paul deserved the death penalty and Moses deserved the death penalty and some women might – I’m so glad that there’s grace.  Because you can rise from that situation into a place of prominent service with Jesus Christ.

I think at the end of the day we need to realize we all have violated this command (Luke 24:7).  Jesus was handed over to us sinners and we killed him.  Romans 6:23 reminds us that the wages of all sin is death.  We all deserve the death penalty, we all deserve punishment.  All of us sinners, along with Moses and Paul, and anyone else whose ever taken a life, we as sinners crucified the Lord of Life.  And things would look pretty bad for us, if it stopped at Romans 6:23, but it goes on in a great crescendo to Romans 8:1 which states, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!”  Amen.

Are we living in sin if we fail to rest?  Are we living in sin if we don’t sleep enough?

According to a recent Washington Post Magazine article:

To the Greeks, a life of leisure was a human’s highest aim. Liberated from work, one could devote his or her time to the pursuit of the higher arts such as poetry, art and music. (Though this applied largely to men.) True leisure was, as leisure scholar Ben Hunnicutt writes, “that place in which we realize our humanity.” Work was only the means to get you there.

Instead, Hunnicutt argues, Americans devote their lives to work. “Work now answers the religious questions of ‘Who are you?’ and ‘How do you find meaning and purpose in your life?’” Hunnicutt says. “Leisure has been trivialized. Only silly girls want to have time to shop and gossip.” To be idle is to be unproductive. To waste time.

[Entire quote and further discussion on this available at, "The Test of Time" from the Washington Post]

Scripture affirms work, as a matter of fact of the seven days we have in a week 6 are dedicated to work.  In most homes it means that we work 5 days for the man, 1 at home and 1 for us.  But, that is becoming blurred in many ways.  Email, blackberries, longer work weeks, two schedules being fit together during the week means more work at home on the week’s end.

Not only are we busy, but we love being busy.  We wear our busy-ness as a badge of importance and honor.  But, listen to the words of the Psalmist, in Psalm 127:1-2: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.  It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved.”

It is because he loves us that he gives us this command, “8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” (Exodus 20:8-11)

Make time for rest.

• Six days you shall labor and do all your work.  Get it done!  (Exodus 16:25-26)
• Provision made for Sabbath – Moses commanded double portion collection for manna on Friday, the only day this was made possible.
• We have to make time to rest, we have to plan our rest, no one will do it for us!  If you have a hard time managing your time I’m going to recommend a classic book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  This book is not explicitly Christian, but it can teach you how to use your time in a Christian way.
• Because we need to rest and let others rest.  Notice that God says, “You and your slaves/servants rest, and let your work animals rest.”

Make time for worship. (Exodus 20:11)

• What is a week?  A year is one rotation of the earth around the sun, a month is one full lunar rotation around the earth, a day is one total revolution of the earth on its axis.  But, what is a week?
• There is no explanation in nature for the division of weeks by seven days, only the divine of God explains it.  The Sabbath is outside of a natural or celestial explanation, it shows God outside of time and nature.  This commandment has no parallel in other ancient culture.  It speaks to interrupting the cycle of work for worship and rest.
• On day seven, God created holiness and he called it rest and the highest form of rest is worship to God.  St. Augustine said “Our souls are restless until they find their rest in You.”

Sabbath principles from the New Testament:

What a great commandment!  Rest!  Why is it then that Jesus has so much criticism for the Sabbath in the Gospels?  The problem is that by this time the Pharisees and Jewish legal system had made all sorts of nonsensical laws about the Sabbath (some available here in the Talmud online).

• The Sabbath was made for us. (Mark 2:23-28)
  • As I talk about the Sabbath I’m talking about the Sabbath principle, the idea of regular, cyclical, planned, holy rest.  Often, I plan to rest every Friday that’s my day.
  • Martin Luther taught this, “However, this, I say, is not so restricted to any time, as with the Jews, that it must be just on this or that day; for in itself no one day is better than another; but this should indeed be done daily[the principle of pausing for rest and worship]…Accordingly, when asked, What is meant by the commandment: Thou shalt sanctify the holy day? answer: To sanctify the holy day is the same as to keep it holy. But what is meant by keeping it holy? Nothing else than to be occupied in holy words, works, and life. For the day needs no sanctification for itself; for in itself it has been created holy. But God desires it to be holy to you. Therefore it becomes holy or unholy on your account, according as you are occupied on the same with things that are holy or unholy.”
  • I think the main principle is to observe a cycle of living and work is a part of it – but so is rest.  The Sabbath principle is a gift, it gives us permission to stop.
  • Isaiah 58:13-14 reminds us that the Lord wants us to delight in the Sabbath – he wants us to enjoy our rest!  Too often people feel guilty about resting, God says, “Enjoy it!”
• Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath and deserves worship on the Sabbath. (Hebrews 4:8-11)
  • The Sabbath and its worshipful rest is forward looking, Hebrews 4:8-11 reminds us that the Sabbath rest is a foreshadow of the rest to come.
  • Stopping should remind us that we are human beings, not human doings.  So I challenge you to commit to one day of holiness.  To a cycle of worshipful rest.
  • Divide up twelve hours through your week, count church in and spread the rest out so that you make time to engage in worshipful rest.
• We should do good on the Sabbath.
  • What good should we do?  Good that benefits others, that glorifies God. (Matthew 12:9-14)
  • Perhaps the highest good is to be restored.  There is an old modern parable often told, you’ve probably heard it.  It goes something like this… Story told of lighthouse keeper whose sole job was to keep the lighthouse lit, farmer came and needed oil to work by, mother came and needed oil to keep her family warm.  Ran out of oil the last night, and a ship came and did not see the warning beacon and many people died.
  • Sometimes we fail at our one purpose on the Sabbath and that is to be still and know that he is God. (Psalm 46:10)

Augustine taught that the Sabbath was a day for spiritual rest, “a regular periodical holiday – quietness of heart, tranquility of mind, the product of a good conscience.”  The observance of this is a celebration of the true rest that is to come in eternity.