New Year's Eve: Making Ends Meet

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon

December 31, 2008

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

What a year! What a year we just finished. Now today’s the final day so we haven’t finished it yet but what a year! All kinds of different events, experiences, elections, all kinds of things going on.

Tonight the title of this message is Making Ends Meet and, as we reflect on our economy, hum, that seems kind of appropriate. Making the ends of our finances meet the beginning of our resources and making them come together, stretching the dollar to survive and provide and all of that. With all of these different things we’ve been reading in the newspapers and seeing online and television, it can be kind of unnerving. Layoffs, bail outs, stock market roller coasters and other gloom and doom experiences that we’ve seen in this past year of 2008.

All of this kind of hit home to us recently, too. We kind of had a rocky end of the year. We started in August and, as our daughter was about to go off to school, her car died and we weren’t too surprised. We’d kind of seen it going downhill. I took it to the repair shop and the guy gave me a page and a half of stuff that needed to be replaced so we said, “Okay, we’re just going to kind of let it peacefully end its existence and then throw a shovel of dirt on it or something,” but that happened in August.

Then things were going pretty good the rest of the year. They were going pretty good through September, October. And then we started into November and we noticed our van was using a lot of antifreeze. Took that into the shop. Got the terminal diagnosis. Okay, from three vehicles to two; well, maybe not two, one and a half. But we kind of thought, “Well, we were hoping to get another year out of it but we’ll just have to make it. We’ll have to figure that out.” About the same time, the washer and dryer started acting up. So, “Oh, my gosh, what are we going to do?” Tried to figure out our warranty. No warranty. That’s done. “What are we going to do. I don’t know anything about that stuff.”

And then Kim was on her way back after Thanksgiving and hit a patch of ice and lost control. And, miraculously, it was a really bad accident but, miraculously, she survived and, incredibly, without injury. But that meant we were down to 0.5 vehicles, if you’re doing the math out there, keeping score. Oh, what a year! We were starting to think things go in threes as they say. We still had 0.5 so we were okay. But we went through the ordeal of settling with the insurance company and finding a new vehicle and, just as I pulled into our driveway with my new truck, what a great feeling, go in the house, the house is cold. The furnace quit! As they say in Spanish, “Que lástima.” That’s the end!

But you could really get some bad feelings from all of that and say, “Life stinks. What a rotten year.” Or, “Man, one bad thing after another.” Or you could turn it all around and look at it from the other way and say, “Can you believe we had three cars?” We had one that could die in August and we still were fine. We had two. And another one later in the fall, that wasn’t so bad. At least we had three to start with.

Think about the washer and dryer. “Can you imagine we have so many clothes, so many outfits and things to wear that we can wear out a washer and dryer?” We never had to beat them on a rock or anything like that. We can be thankful.

And, of course, we can be thankful that Kim wasn’t hurt. It’s really a miracle. I don’t want to go into detail about the accident but it really was a miracle. And it happened just this side of Newton, you know, where the Adult Super Store is. And my daughter insists that the reason she had the accident was because she had her eyes closed praying about that store. I don’t know about that but she survived, basically without any injury. Walked away. Then God blessed us with a new vehicle that we got an incredible deal on through a friend of ours who worked at a dealership. And on and on the blessings continue.

Every bump, here’s God helping us to get over it. Here’s God helping us down the road. All those things, all the bumps do is remind us of His constant care and protection. The gospel reading tonight helps us to focus on God to supply all that we need instead of worrying about what we might not get or what we don’t have at the moment. It helps us to trust in God and the words come to us from Jesus’ sermon on the Mount where the multitude had gathered and He preached and preached and preached and preached and preached, hours of preaching. So powerful were His messages, so beautiful were the words that came from His lips that the people were captivated and it wasn’t just words. It was like food for their souls as He spoke.

And this is part of that message, “Don’t worry. I’m going to supply everything you need.” In fact, taking care of us and providing for us is just part of who God is. It’s in His nature. It’s in His character. Psalm 145 says it like this, “The eyes of all look to you and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and supply, satisfy the desires of every living thing.” And that’s exactly true. God has provided for all of us, supplied everything we’ve needed all along the way. With every bump, He’s there, isn’t He? To lift us up and carry us forward, to guide us through the treacherous path, to help us with a difficult diagnosis or the loss we experience. God is there. He’s been there all of our lives up to this point, to this day, God is there. You think about Him as your provider, how He puts a roof over your head, the clothes on your back, food on your table. Let’s just think about the food. Up until this time in 2008, 364 days, if you just calculate 3 meals a day, that’s about 1,092 meals. How many of those 1,092 meals did you miss? Hum. How many of those 1,092 meals did you have more than you needed and maybe even ate more than you needed. God has provided consistently for 2008.

Again, let’s do some math. How many of those 364 days did you go to bed hungry? Hum. Think about your house. How many of those 364 days did you wander the streets looking for a place to stay the night, making a bed out of trash and cardboard and old cloth, making a pillow out of newspapers? God is providing, isn’t He? No matter what the economy does, the stock market or anything or who’s the president or who’s not the president, God provides for all of our needs. He’s done it throughout 2008 and I have no reason to doubt that He will continue to do that in 2009.

The second half of our gospel reading took the concept of worry and went to the place of taking it to God. He says, “Instead of all this worry about what you’re going to eat and what you’re going to wear, remember the lilies of the field and all the birds of the air, God provides for them.” They don’t even contribute to the process. God just provides. He says, “Now you, when you think about all those things, seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things, everything you’re concerned about, everything you’re worried about, all these things will be given to you as well.” Seek first His kingdom.

Well, what does that mean to seek God’s kingdom? I think, in a sense, it’s different for each of us. Depending on where we are, it’s different. If you do not have a relationship with God, seeking His kingdom means beginning that relationship, confessing your sins and confessing your faith in Him, putting your trust in Him or, as Pastor Burcham told us one time about the man who did the wheelbarrow across Niagra Falls and he put things in the wheelbarrow to show how good he was. He put a stove in there and cooked pancakes out in the middle across Niagra Falls. He went back and forth and he challenged the people and said, “How many of you think I could go across there?” Everybody raised their hand, “Yeah, yeah.” Then he finally said, “Who would like to volunteer to be in the wheelbarrow?”

Trusting in God is a much safer proposition but it still takes faith, doesn’t it? Trust in His promise that He will do as He says in His word. So if you do not have a relationship with God, seeking Him means to confess your faith and trust in Him. And if you really want that and don’t have that yet, I’d really like to talk to you tonight after church. I’d really like to do that.

This is what it says in 2 Corinthians 6:1-2, “As God’s fellow workers, we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says, ‘In the time of my favor, I heard you. In the day of salvation, I helped you. I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor. Now is the day of His salvation.’”

Seeking God means different things to different people. If you feel like the relationship that you’ve had with God has gone stale, seeking His kingdom means drawing near to Him by reading your bible or calling out to Him from your heart and asking Him to pour out His Holy Spirit on you. Remember the day of Pentecost how God poured out the Holy Spirit on the church, the disciples how they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke languages they’d never spoken  before and they, all of the disciples, became missionaries and instead of just students who followed their teacher, they became people who lived and died for the message of salvation in Jesus Christ and they did live and die. In fact, Christian tradition says that only one died a natural death. All of the rest of them gave their life so that people could come to faith in Jesus. That’s what the Holy Spirit did for them. So if you feel like your relationship with God has gone stale, ask Him to pour out His Holy Spirit on you. You might say it like this with the words that David prayed in Psalm 51, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.”

Seeking His kingdom means different things to different people. If you were at a crossroads in life, maybe you just graduated high school or just graduated college or maybe you’re ready for a career change, something just doesn’t feel right in your life and you’re just seeking God, “God, what is it that you want me to do?” Or maybe you’re weighing the two possible choices and you’re saying, “I don’t know which one. Which do I choose, Lord?” Seeking God means to take it to Him. Seeking His kingdom means to lay it before Him and ask Him to reveal to you His will for your life, His plan for your future.
There’s a biblical example of that. It comes from Judges 6:36-40 and this is the story of Gideon with his fleece. I’ll just read it so you’ll get it fresh in your mind. “Gideon said to God, ‘If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised, look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.’ And that is exactly what happened. Gideon rose early the next day. He squeezed the fleece and then wrung out the dew. A bowlful of water and all the ground around it was dry. Then Gideon said to God, ‘Don’t be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece. This time, make the fleece dry and the ground wet with dew.’ That night, God did so. Only the fleece was dry. All the ground was covered with dew.” So you can lay it out there before God and say, “God, I don’t know what to choose. Guide me. Show me what it is that you want me to do.” And He will. He will.

Again, seeking His kingdom means different things to different people. If you’re battling a particular sin, which is part of our human condition, there’s something you just can’t overcome, you’re just tempted and you struggle and a lot of times you fail but you try and try and you don’t want to give up because it just isn’t right for you. You’re battling a particular sin and realize the ruin that you’ve brought on your life, seeking His kingdom and His righteousness means repenting and turning away from that sin. Part of repentance is to say the same thing God says about that sin, to say, “This is sin and, as God’s child, it does not belong in my life. As much as I’m struggling with it, I know that much. It doesn’t belong in my life.” The second part is to turn away from it. If this way is sin, turn this way. Go towards God and pray for Him to give you the strength to resist that temptation, to overcome that struggle.

As I think of this, it reminds me of the prodigal son. You know that story about the man who had two sons and the one son said, “I want my inheritance.” Well, his father hadn’t died so it was kind of premature to ask for his inheritance but he insisted. He was young. He was stubborn. He wanted his way and wanted what he had coming so, as much as it was a hardship on the rest of the family, the father divided the estate and gave his son what was his. And that son, I can’t hardly imagine what the father felt, but that son left and wasted his money, squandered his money. It says later on, “He squandered it on prostitutes and wild living.” Imagine how that pained his father to know. But then when his money ran out, so did his friends and he was left alone in his squalor. He was starving so he hired himself out to feed pigs. In fact, he was so hungry, he wanted to eat what the pigs were eating. Then, in Verse 17 of Luke 15, it says, “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare and here I am starving to death? I will set out and I will go back to my father and I will say, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and I’ve sinned against you. I’m no longer worthy to be your son. Make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and he went to his father but while he was still a long way off, his father was standing and watching for him to come and praying for him to come home. And his father saw him and he ran to him and he hugged him and kissed him. And then the son said what he had decided to say, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But his father just poured out love on him.” And that’s the way it is with God. When we turn away from that sin, we come into the loving embrace of His forgiveness and He doesn’t keep hearing our sin over and over. He doesn’t want us to keep telling Him and keep rehearsing. It’s done. When we confess that sin, it’s gone and we’re free and we’re back in His loving arms.

Finally, seeking Him and seeking His righteousness means different things to different people and if you wandered away from God and your life now seems hopeless and without meaning, seeking the Lord means returning to Him. It means getting back where you need to be, a right relationship with Him and placing Him first in your life in every area.

This reminds me of the parable of the sower. You know that story how the sower went out and he sowed seeds and some fell along the path and some fell along the rocks and some fell in the thorns and some fell on good soil. And then Jesus explained what He was saying, how the seed that fell among the thorns, I think this is very common with Christians, this is what the seed was like, the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke out the faith we were taught as babies, the church that we grew up in. All those things choke it out, making it unfruitful.

In this circumstance, we turn back to God and He brings meaning and life back into our world. We have purpose and a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to go to work and things to do that make a difference.

2008 is finished. It’s done. We have a few hours left and we’re all planning on doing something fun, right? Celebrate and kind of enjoy time with good friends. 2008 is done, though. And 2009 is about to begin. We may sum up our year in sadness over losses experienced or in celebration of blessings received. We might be discouraged about our nation’s economy or grateful about the economy of God that our debt of sin is paid in full by Jesus.

We may have fears about the future or we may find comfort in Jesus’ words. “In this world, you will have trouble but take heart. I have overcome the world.” In the end, it all comes down to this: If you want 2009 to be the best year possible, then seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things, all the things we’re concerned about will be given to you as well. Amen.

Copyright 2008 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church