TRANSFORMATIONAL
A sermon by George R. Pasley
Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58
"Make the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil."
Paul hasn't told us what it is about those days that made him consider them evil.
It could be that Paul was anticipating the great crisis that would usher in the end of the age. Most scholars think it simply meant that the church had to contend with powers that were opposed to it. But it could have been something simpler than that.
The ancient Greeks often used the word to say that the days were full of labors, annoyances, hardships, and that they brought toils, annoyances, and perils. Paul and his fellow Christians knew that such things were perilous to Christian faith and steadfastness.
I talked to a friend last week who moved to a
These are trying times for him, and we know others like him.
My sister's boss worked 96 hours last week, and that was a rather typical week. She's a salaried employee, so there's no overtime pay for all that work but the company and the department are under pressure to perform.
These are trying times.
Another sister reported that one of her colleagues was up all night with heartburn, so he went to the doctor first thing in the morning. The doctor told him It wasn't heartburn, it was a heart attack. Since he is younger than my sister, she was a bit alarmed by that news.
These are trying times.
A young adult gets in trouble. A friend languishes. A tragedy interrupts our day.
We know they are trying times because there is bad news, disputes, uncertainty, and grumbling. People are nervous, some are afraid, and there's good reason.
Even the little things make us anxious.
A red light stays red too long.
Call a company on the telephone and we get innumerable instructions for
listening, choosing, and touching the corresponding number on our key pads.
They days may not always be evil, but they are quite often a pain-in-the-neck.
It's not too often that Paul gives any simple, practical advice, but he does so here, just before and after he tells us the days are evil.
First, be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise Think about what we do before we do it. That's something I need to do more often.
Second, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.
That means pray, read your bibles, pray some more and then talk about it with other Christians.
Third, do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.
Debauchery is not a word we use much any more, but we know what it means.
Drink too much alcohol, and your life will start to fall apart.
But Paul didn't stop there, and I want to focus on the other advice he gave:
"Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Speak to each other with the lyrics to songs about God,
Hum the tunes to yourself,
Give praise to God.
What difference will that make?
I actually asked that the first time I heard such advice. It's only taken me thirty years to figure it out.
It makes a difference in at least four ways:
One, we need to encourage each other, and it makes a difference when we do.
One Christian woman was undergoing a series of tests and exams for breast cancer, and the experience was of great worry to her. On yet another day she was enduring another series of questions at the check in desk at the hospital and the receptionist who sat across the desk from her detected her anxiety.
As the receptionist finished the form she was filling out, she handed it to the patient with these spiritual words: "Be of good cheer."
Both of them were Christians, and both of them know the words of Jesus that follow them in the King James Version: "Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world."
Two, it makes a difference when we tell the non-Christians of the world that God has something different in mind than the trouble they are experiencing.
Death is not the last word. Resurrection is.
Judgment is not the last word, forgiveness is.
Punishment is not the last word, redemption is.
Cruelty is not the last word, love is.
Hearing the real last words, the good words, don't make life any easier. But without knowledge of them, it is sometimes impossible to rise above the evil of our days.
Yesterday morning I heard Ronnie Milsap talking about his early life.
Ronnie was born blind, but he had a great musical talent and recorded 40 number 1 hits on the country music charts.
But Ronnie had a great handicap to overcome other than being blind: the words of his mother.
His mother believed that Ronnie's blindness was a word of judgment by God against her, and on the day after his first birthday she dumped him at her mother's house. He saw her only once the rest of his life, when he was six-years old, when she brought his half sister to see him.
She told Ronnie to touch his sister's eyes. "They're beautiful," she said. "She hasn't shamed me the way you have."
Those were horrible words of Ronnie to overcome, but he overcame them with the loving words that his grandparents spoke to him, and by the wise words that the teachers at the boarding school spoke to him.
Third, words of praise coming from our lips remind us that God's reality is not that far away and we are our most important audience whenever we speak.
The words that we speak to ourselves- about ourselves, about God's plans for us, and about God's feelings for us, shape us in countless ways.
If we are thinking negative things, we will start to expect negative things, and we will start to create opportunities for negative things to happen.
I had this pointed out to me one time in a book that a counselor asked me to read, and I was dumfounded because I suddenly realized I had been saying negative things to myself for years without even realizing it!
If we think God really intends difficulty, misery, and failure for us- well, we can expect those things but not because of God. It'll be our own fault.
God may indeed have challenges in mind for us, but if we have a positive mantra then our faith, along with the good practical advice that Paul gave us, will be sufficient for us to meet those challenges.
But something else about praise changes everything. Praise builds our faith by binding us to God; a strong faith transforms us; and faithful people change the world.
Let me explain by telling a baseball story.
I'm certain there are some Boston Red Sox fans here today, because my experience tells me that there are Red Sox fans everywhere. But this is not a story about Red Sox fans. It is a story about Oriole fans, and how we seized the day.
The Orioles were playing the Red Sox at Camden Yards. The stadium was full, with about a quarter of those present rooting for the visiting team.
The visiting team took an early lead and held it into the late innings. They had a good team that year, it was late in the year- the last week of the season, I recall, and the Orioles were not in contention. For Oriole fans, the days were evil.
But when the game got into late innings we decided to do something. We cheered our team, and we cheered non-stop. We cheered non-stop, and we did
it standing up, and we did it regardless of what happened on the field.
we cheered at every opportunity. If a player took a strike, we cheered none-the-less. We cheered for the next pitch, or the next batter, or the next inning. We cheered so loud it broke the concentration of the visiting team's pitcher. We broke the confidence of the visiting team's batters. The visiting team's fans were
trying to cheer also, but we drowned them out and embarrassed them.
Hit-by-hit our team got on base, scored some runs, came from behind and won the game and there was no one in the stands who was not convinced that our praise was crucial to the victory. The players in uniform on the field won the game, but our praise transformed a losing score into an opportunity for victory!
But something more important happened that night, and it happens every time a fan cheers for their team: we didn't play on the field, we didn't call the plays, we didn't even mow the grass, and we didn't even clean the litter from beneath our seats. All we did was cheer, BUT OUR PRAISE BOUND US HEART AND SOUL TO THOSE FOR WHOM WE CHEERED.
Thursday night at Women's Aglow, a woman read a testimony and it began with this statement: "Praise doesn't need to be reserved for Sunday. It can be a way of life."
When it is, it nourishes us through drought and storm and upheaval. Consider Dmitri. Fyodorovich Egorov
Dmitri was a Russian mathematician. His work in the areas of differential geometry and mathematical analysis was extremely significant in the history of modern math, and his founding of the Moscow School of Mathematics influenced a whole generation of outstanding mathematicians.
But Dmitri was also a Christian, and he taught during the years of the Russian Revolution.
Dmitri took a stance against the repression of the Church, which eventually cost him his job. He could have kept silent, but the prayers of praise he spoke every day defined who he was and to whom he owed his ultimate loyalty. In 1930 he was arrested and imprisoned as a "religious sectarian". Upon imprisonment Dmitri began a hunger strike until he was taken to the prison hospital, but it was too late. His body organs were too far gone to be rehabilitated, and Dmitri died on September 10, 1931.
Dmitri died at the home of two communists of integrity- his doctor and her husband, a fellow mathematician, who had smuggled him out of the prison
wing of the hospital on a gurney the night before. They told this story of his death: his dying words were Psalm 54, including these:
Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.
Let evil recoil on those who slander me; in your faithfulness destroy them.
I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you; I will praise your name, O
Lord, for it is good.
For he has delivered me from all my troubles,
and my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes.
Make the most of every opportunity, for the days are evil.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, amen.
