Yard Work

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

It’s that time of year, isn’t it? It’s that time of year when we look out at our yards and we see a lot of work to do. Yard work. Well, we’ve endured that long, cold winter and I think we can finally say it’s behind us and look forward to the blooming of spring and summer right behind that. And Menard’s is right there to help us, aren’t they? All the sales they have, save big money, buy all those things for your yard to make those improvements and do those projects that you’ve been thinking about doing.

For the last couple of months, my wife and I have been looking at our yard and thinking of how we can make some improvements, how we can make things a little nicer. A few years ago, we had a nice retaining wall built and we’re going to try to take what we have there and use that theme throughout the yard with that color and those kinds of stones and things like that. And as we reflect on these things, I’ve been thinking, “There are some good spiritual lessons in there for us. Yard work and our spiritual life. Our spiritual yard, that is our life.”

The first phase when you think about yard work has to do with cleaning up, though. Our back yard is fenced in by a wooden privacy fence and it seems like a very effective way of collecting all the neighborhood trash as it blows through the neighborhood. It all ends up against our fence or inside our fence and the first phase of our yard work has to do with picking up all that stuff. It’s amazing how much accumulates in those back corners that you don’t normally see from your windows. So our first task is to get the big trash bags and walk around and pick up all those little items that have blown in since the winter began and were left behind by the winter. As that snow melted, it revealed a lot of things, things that we don’t want to remain in our yard so we have a job ahead of us, cleaning up the trash.

It reminds me of a time about 10 years ago, March 29, there was a terrible tornado that hit southern Minnesota and I was a pastor in Minnesota at the time so I thought, “We need to respond to these brothers and sisters of ours that have been devastated by these tornadoes.” So my wife and I went down to St. Peter and we looked around there and they had a lot of help already and a lot of the things we could do were already accomplished so a local pastor that we had connected with took us out to visit some of his members that had been hit by the tornadoes and the one farm we went to, it was just amazing. Where the barn had stood, all that was left was a cement slab. No trace of a structure at all. No roof, no walls, nothing. Several small outbuildings had been destroyed as well and all the contents of those buildings were scattered and strewn throughout the farmyard. It was a mess. The house had been picked up and slammed down. It was uninhabitable. And as the pastor introduced me to the farmer, the farmer replied and said, “This guy’s responsible for taking care of my soul.” And I said, “I hope your soul is in better shape than your farm.” I was just trying to make a joke and get him to laugh. But later the pastor said, “He hasn’t been to church in years.” I also heard from that point on, that man started attending church regularly because God had touched his heart as his brothers and sisters in Christ had reached out with love to help him in his time of need.

So that first phase of yard work and even disaster response is to clean up. How can we apply that to our spiritual yard, our spiritual life? Clean up the trash. That’s the idea. Clean up the trash of our sins. Think about those things in your life that you’ve just put off dealing with, those sins that just kind of linger and you’re having a difficult time turning away from them. Think about that as trash in your life. Sins that are trash.

Now if you had, for instance, a pizza box in your front yard or a McDonald’s bag or something like that, how long would you let it sit there? Not long because we take pride in our yards, right? We want things to look nice but how much more important is your relationship with God than the appearance of your yard? So when we are led by the Holy Spirit to identify those things that are sin in our lives, how can we possibly let them linger? We have to deal with it. It’s time to clean up. It’s time to focus on that problem and make a plan for how we’re going to take care of it.

And God’s Word gives us a clear direction on how to do this. 1 John 1:5-9, “This is the message we have heard from Him and declared to you. God is light. In Him, there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

What a great feeling when we’ve picked up all the trash and we can look out at our yard and say, “Ah, now I’m proud of what I see. It’s beautiful again. We’ve cleaned it up.” What a great feeling when we can take those deep dark secrets of ours and give them to God and He completely forgives us, completely, without hesitation, forgives us for all of our sins. Phase 1 of our yard work is done. We’ve cleaned up the trash of our sins.

The second phase has to do with fixing and repairing things. As we get out in our yards this time of year, we start to notice things that need another coat of paint or things that need a few more nails and screws. About a year and a few months ago, we bought a little beagle puppy. Just love that little thing. Her name is Skittles. She’s not that little anymore but, with that puppy, we got a lot of adventures as you might imagine and the other day, I heard her bark and I thought, “That sounds strange. It doesn’t sound like her normal bark. What’s going on?” So I looked in the back yard. I couldn’t see her. I opened the slider and walked out on the deck and she wasn’t anywhere. Then I heard her bark. She was in the next yard over. She had loosened a board on our wooden fence and pushed her way through and now she wanted to come back but it was a one-way door. So I went over there and apologized to the neighbor and got my dog and brought her back. I thought, “How did she get through there?” And then she showed me. So I brought her back again. And I repaired it. I fixed those boards. A couple of screws in the screw gun and it was good.

There are things that need to be repaired. Matthew 18 directs us in this direction, The things that most often need to be repaired in our spiritual life are relationships that have been harmed or broken, relationships that are strained or difficult. And Matthew 18 gives us a clear path of how to go about fixing those repairs, “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.” This is a very clear passage. It says, “If your brother or your sister sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you.” It doesn’t say when your boss gives you grief for the work you didn’t do well that you should go and talk to half the other employees and recruit them to be on your team and on your side and not liking the boss. That’s not how God says to do it. But that’s how we tend to do it because that’s our sinful nature. That’s our inclination. But God says just you, one on one, “Go to that person and show him his fault. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.” That is the goal, not to say your peace or to get even or to balance the scale but to win your brother or to win your sister. That’s the goal and, as you approach those situations, they’re very difficult, those strained relationships, those broken relationships, they’re very difficult to fix so you need God’s help. And as you’re thinking about that person that you want to repair that relationship with, pray for God to give you the Holy Spirit and the right words to say and the right way to approach them and to really help you to win that brother or sister.

Recently, I heard a story about a woman who lived a long time without speaking to her sister. Can you imagine? She had lived a long time. They probably didn’t even remember what the disagreement was about, what had happened or why they weren’t talking. They probably didn’t even know who was really at fault. All they knew was they’re not talking. But the story has a happy ending. One of the sisters realized that her health was declining and that her days were numbered and that broken relationship was like a hole in her heart and she needed to make that right. So the two of them worked it out. They talked it out. They forgave each other and that barrier was removed after many years, that barrier was removed.

What repairs do you need to take care of in your life? Are there hard feelings in your family? Are you and your wife going through a tough time? Have you forgiven your ex? Why not take a look at your spiritual yard and make the repairs in those broken relationships?

The first two phases of yard work are difficult. Cleaning up the trash of our sin and repairing broken relationships. Both of those are very challenging things to accomplish but the next phase is fun. The next phase has to do with looking around your yard and looking for places to grow. Isn’t it fun when you look at your yard in the spring and go, “Ah, I’d like to put some new flowers over there or I’d like to put a new tree over here or put some more landscaping along there.” That’s the fun stuff. That’s the exciting stuff because you just start to imagine what it’s going to look like when you get done or when that landscaping matures and all the green comes in.

When I lived in New Jersey, we had a huge backyard but it was basically a field that was mowed and had been neglected and never really developed very much. There was very little landscaping around the house so I decided to plant trees. I’m not much of a flower gardener or anything like that but I love to plant trees. And I planted oak trees and maple trees and spruce trees and apple trees and pear trees and all kinds of trees, cherry trees, apricot trees. And every time I would plant a tree, I would think of what it was going to produce, shade or fruit, whatever it might produce. And I’d get excited and it would give me the energy to dig that hole and make a good planting of that tree.

When we think about our spiritual yard, it’s just as fun and just as exciting. With God’s help, we look around at our lives and try to find areas where we can grow in. Maybe we’re new to this church and we haven’t really gotten involved too much yet. Or maybe we’ve been members here for a long time and we’re kind of in a rut as far as our spiritual growth. God calls us in our faith to look for opportunities where we can grow in our relationship with Him. It may mean to join a small group so we can make more friends and enjoy all the benefits of Christian fellowship. It may mean finding out what your spiritual gifts are and asking God to guide you to where He wants you to serve. It may mean going on a mission trip or serving in a local mission here in Des Moines. It may mean just setting aside time to read your bible or taking the next step up in your financial giving. The key is that we look around and see where we need to grow and then make a plan for growth.

Joe and Cathy were a couple that were divided on Sunday morning. Cathy went to her church where she enjoyed the fellowship. Joe went to his church where he’d been raised in. Cathy valued that fellowship at her church and she couldn’t imagine ever leaving. Joe attended the church he’d been raised in and couldn’t imagine joining his wife’s church. After continuing like this for some time, the couple resolved to make a change. Joe was willing to attend his wife’s church. And after a few visits, he made the difficult decision to join that church so his wife and he could fellowship together. They could worship together on Sunday and grow together. It begin like this: Joe started going to bible class. And as he hungered for God’s Word and heard more and more, his desire for fellowship grew. His wife and he joined a small group and the two of them got involved with that small group and got to know the other people and learn about the struggles in their lives and see that they weren’t so different from their own. Finally, the congregation honored Joe by asking him to serve as an elder in the church. Joe’s level of participation in that congregation grew and grew as his spiritual life grew. That is the kind of growth that can happen when we search out our lives for areas to grow in our faith.

Genesis tells us the story of God’s grace and, specifically, Genesis 2. It tells how God made the earth and there was nothing in the earth when He created it. And then how He planted all the shrubs and trees and plants and how He created all the animals and how he formed man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. That’s the story of Genesis and that passage concludes with these words, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” In a similar way, God has created each of us. He created us, His dearly loved children, and He has placed us in the garden of our life to work it and care for it. Our faith in Jesus calls us to clean up the trash of our sins, to fix and repair those broken relationships and to look around us for opportunities for new growth in our faith.

May God bless you in your spiritual yard work. Amen.

Copyright 2008 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church