“Excellence of Life"
August 12, 2012
The 11th Sunday of Ordinary Tine
A.K.A.
Kingdomtide
and
Time of the Church
Deuteronomy 8: 1 – 10/Psalm 34: 1 – 8/Ephesians 4: 25 - 5: 2/John 6: 37 - 51
His Eminence
The Most Reverend Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines D.D.
Archbishop of Manila
and
Primate
of the
National Church in the Philippines
and
the Territorial Church of Asia
International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church
We give God the praise and the thanks today that each of us are able to be here, honoring Him for His care, His compassion, and His provision in this the Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time. It literally brings on this journey that the Church has set for us to manifest the power of God and the gifts that He has placed upon us.
When we see the events as such as we have seen this past week, it is a time that the Church should rise to a place of manifestation of the very gifts God has given to us. It should not be that we throw up our hands in panic, in fear and anxiety, but instead we practice the authority and the dominion that God has given to us.
As God’s people, these things comes to us perhaps as a test, perhaps as a challenge for us to put into action the gifts that belong to us; the gifts that bring glory and praise to God; the gifts that are more than natural but more supernatural.
We see this evidence in the Old Testament reading today in Deuteronomy. Moses reminds Israel of what God has done for them. He has delivered them from four hundred years of slavery. He did not immediately take them into the Promised Land because He first would have to help them break the mindsets regarding slavery. They were so used to this. Some have never known any other situation in life. They only knew slavery. They only knew Egypt, and yet Egypt was not which God intended them to be enslaved to. They were meant to save them at one time, but then, they stayed. They were captivated by the situation of Egypt and stayed and they ended up in slavery because of it.
God delivered them from that slavery, taking them into the wilderness almost as though He was separating them from everything so that they can renew their minds and begin to see that it wasn’t Egypt that was their supply. It wasn’t Egypt that was their source. It wasn’t Egypt that was their future. Everything was removed. It was God who fed them. It was God who gave them drink. It was God who caused their clothing not to wear out in forty years. They began to realize the power of God, the authority of God, and the ability of God. They have been in a land of plenty.
In that land of plenty, they forgot the need of God. They forgot their dependence upon God. Even though they were in slavery, they were treated well as far as the food they ate and the other things. They became accustomed to be able to handle their own problems. But God wanted the people to look to Him for their source. He wanted a people who would depend upon Him. He brought them out of Egypt. He did not bring them out without reward. They came with all the wealth of Egypt. Egypt was destroyed as far as their power was concerned because when they tried to follow across the Red Sea, the army, the forces of Egypt were drowned in the Red Sea.
God took care of His own. God provided freedom for His own; but He also wanted them to recognize the dependence that they had to have upon Him. He was giving them bread not like they were used to. It was bread that kept them strong. It was bread that kept them alive. When they murmured about just bread, He gave them also meat to eat. He took care of them. When they wanted something to drink, He brought water out of the rock.
God was bringing them into a new situation. They were not going to be slaves any longer. They were going to know true prosperity. Egypt did not have honey, the milk, and all the fruit, but God was taking them to a land that He had created. A land that was filled with their prosperity and their ability. He said to them, “Keep the commandments because here is where you will have your life. Here is where you will have your strength. Here is where I will bring into your life that which you need.”
If you study this particular portion of Deuteronomy, how that it really identifies with us today. We’ve gotten so used to the world’s slavery. We are in bondage to the situations around us. We bow our minds and our hearts to the system and we forget that it is God who provides. It is God who supplies and who cares for us. It is God who watches over us.
Maybe the events of this past week were meant to wake us up. Maybe they were meant to share with us the thoughts, “Man has not taken care of you. Man has not supplied your safety. Man has not done that which he could have done. He took from you but he did not give back.” God maybe was waking us up. Maybe He was causing us to realize our help is in Him. Our strength is in Him. It challenges us even today to recognize and to realize how blessed we have been. In that measure of blessing over the last few years, have we lost sight of God?
In the Presbytery, we would once stop and analyze what was like before. Wherever the Church would call an activity, the whole Church would be there in full force. We did not have the prosperity we have now. We did not have all the jobs and the other things that we have now. Now, we are putting our energies and our attentions to material things. We are giving them to the system of man and we are forgetting our attentions to God. We are forgetting our faith and our confidence in Him.
Much like Egypt and Israel – maybe not quite so intense, but yet very similar. We are captivated by the system of man. We spend our time studying that system so that we can prosper in that system, but we don’t spend time knowing God, listening to Him and finding out His ways. It is He who gives us life. The world does not have life to give. In fact, the world would like to destroy life, but God is the Source of life. He is the Source of all things, and even if the world pretends to supply for us, it is God who has given and they are taking that which God has given and saying it is from them. It is not; it is from God. We need to renew our minds to these things and to be aware that it is God who brings all things to us.
In the gospel, the beautiful portion of Scriptures reminds us of the greatness of God and the provision of God. We see the same situations as we find in the Old Testament where the people were so captivated in their submission to Rome. They were so captivated by the situations that were seemingly natural around them. When Jesus would speak to them, they couldn’t understand and grasp His meaning because they have trained themselves according to the ways of man and so they evaluate everything by the ways of man rather than the ways of God.
Jesus was saying to them, “I have come down from heaven.” They were murmuring among themselves, “What do You mean? How can He say that He came from heaven? We know His mother. We know Mary. We know His father, Joseph. We know them and we know that they are His parents. How can He say He came from heaven?” Jesus addressed them and said, “Stop the murmuring. I am the bread that has come down from heaven.”
Do we comprehend? Where have we come from? Is not our life from heaven? Is not the very existence that we have coming from God Himself? Who else can supply life? Who else can give life? Who else can protect life but Him? That which we are, we owe to Him. That which we could be, we owe to Him. It is not what we have done, but it is what He has done that gives us the ability, the potentials.
When Jesus says that He is the bread of heaven, He speaks to us and gives us the understanding that the life that He has given is nourished only by the bread that comes from heaven. The other bread that we may eat may not bring us to the fullness of the potentials of life itself. It will not bring us the fulfilment, the satisfaction. It will not bring the other things that He has intended us to have like peace, strength, health and wisdom. These things come only from Him. There may be a semblance of them in the system of man, but not the fullness of them because they only come from God.
Jesus says, “I am the bread of heaven.” He says that the bread is the life of man and the light of man. He shares with us, “Here now is that which gives to you the potential. It gives to you the ability. It gives to you that hope that can come from no other place.” The provision of God; the ability of God; and the protection that He provides for us.
One beautiful sentence says something that challenges us to think clearly, “This is the will of Him who sent Me that all that He has given Me I lose nothing.”We can struggle, we can fight, and we can do everything we can to go our own way, but the things that God has given to us only function as they bring back the understanding of their source being from God. It cannot come from any other source. It cannot come from any other way. The provision that God has given to us, “I am the bread that has come down from heaven.” This is the power that is ours.
John1:1;3 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” In Him was life, and the life was the light of man. Do we comprehend this reverence that should be given to Him? The honor that comes from Him? It is not we that could make these things work. It is our recognition, our dependence, and our acknowledgment that He is the Source of everything.
Do we keep a thanks in our heart? Do we keep a praise in our lips for all that He does? Looking at Israel in the wilderness, the things that happened were all there to bring Israel to a point wherein they were ready to handle the Promised Land. God could have taken them directly to the Promise Land, but they wouldn’t have known how to handle it. They wouldn’t have appreciated the greatness of it because Egypt was still in their mind set. They have to have a new mind. They have to set an allegiance to God and an awareness that all things come from Him. When this is true, then the blessings of God find their fullness in our lives.
John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” Here is God speaking to us. He is helping us understand that Christ is the very source of our life. The words that He speaks are sacred. The words that He speaks are the strength. They are the wisdom, the counsel that He has intended us to walk in and follow. “In Him was life and that life was the light of man.”
Do we know Him? Do we listen to Him? We spend much time knowing the Internet and knowing how things work in this electronic age, but do we know God in that intensity? Do we know Christ with that same commitment? Do we understand the Word and how they mean for our lives and what they will bring into our lives? We may be able to handle all the technical things but can we really succeed in life itself? Do they bring us fulfilment? Do they bring us hope or do they bring us into slavery and bondage?
God is speaking to us and here, these lessons are brought to us at a time when we find ourselves captivated by the world around us. We are driven to find success according to man rather than according to God. God’s success is eternal. Man’s success is temporary. It passes away and they are not known for anything. Eternally, it is the blessing that God gives to us when we walk according to His ways and His commandments.
Remember the warning that Moses gave the people, “Don’t forget the commandments. Follow them. Walk in them.” Today, the commandments come through the Word of God. As Christ speaks to us, He speaks truth. He speaks confidence to us.
This is the fourth Sunday that we have looked at Ephesians. It must mean that this chapter is very powerful for the guidance and the preparation of the life that God has given to us. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be centered for four or five time this Season. It says, “Speak truth.” We have let truth be side-tracked and we listen to excuses. We listen to man’s ideas and man’s analysis rather than truth.
Truth is something that only comes from one source. People may have facts, but truth is what we base our lives on. Ephesians say, “Speak the truth.” Not the excuses, not your feelings, not your emotions, but truth! This is how God created us. God created us with potential and with ability. He has given to us much and how much God has equipped us with to be able to handle life in its fullness and its greatness. Yet, we make excuses for our failures, for our weaknesses when we have been given the power that comes from God, the ability that comes from Him. He has sent His Holy Spirit to strengthen us, to counsel us, to guide us, and to bring us out of the weaknesses.
We choose the failures. We choose the excuses. I have said several times that some people have enough excuses that they could publish a book with all of them. When they don’t do something, they’ve got twenty excuses why they can’t do it and it is all because they did not want to. The potential in our lives is as God says: all things are possible. Why do we allow the impossibilities to rule? Why do we allow the difficulties to overcome? Why do we allow the tragedies to form our lives rather than conquering them, overcoming them, and using them as stepping blocks into the next realm of glory and power?
Scriptures says: changing from glory to glory. We must, as God’s people, recognize the challenge before us. “Sin not; let him labor, performing with your own hands what is good.” We have gotten away from using our hands for the things that God has given to us, the ability to work with. We would rather go to the store and buy rather than create. We would rather have someone else do it for us, but yet God says, “Labor; perform with your own hands what is good so that you will have plenty and much to share with the needy.”
We see ourselves in situation right now where there are those who are suffering because of the waters. Are we ready? Are we able to help them? Can we help them have something to eat? Can we help them have something to drink? Can we take from what we have that is beyond our need? Can we sacrifice to help them?
This is part of our responsibility. Not just standing back and saying, “Thank you, God, for saving me. Thank you, God, for keeping me from tragedy. Thank you, God, for redeeming me from these things that are going on.” If we have been redeemed, if we have been saved, then our task is to help those who have not, those who are in difficulty, and those who are in pain.
We should have a bodega that is so full of our blessings that at the moment something happens, we can immediately reach out and touch the lives of those in need. Isn’t it amazing how that instead of having extra, we want more. We are not satisfied. We are not blessed. We are not pleased. We think we are poor and we have to have more and more. We have spoiled ourselves.
It is time for us to recognize how blessed we are. We are God’s people. God’s provision is more than enough. The fact that our sins have been forgiven, the fact that He has given to us the peace that brings us security and serenity in our lives and brings us health, courage, and strength. This should be that which we bring the expressions of thanksgiving to God. These are the things that should come out of our lives as the explanation, the proclamation of, “God with me, I can stand firm in the midst of the problems, the circumstances. I am not intimidated. I am not threatened with it because I know that God will not fail to provide.”
Someone came to me this morning to share that on Tuesday, they were here. The waters were rising and they were getting ready at the front door of the Church and there were no sandbags. The person stood, with hands raised, rebuked the flood and commanded it to leave. The waters receded and did not enter the Church. This is the power that God has given to us.
Why do we succumb to circumstances? Because of fear, because of a lack of confidence, because we do not know God and we have not spent time studying Him and knowing Him. Instead we have studied Science, Math, and Business and all the other things, but to know God, we have not spent the time to know Him. Then we wonder why these things happen? They happen because we are strangers, aliens to Him, when He has given His Son to redeem us, to bring us back to His family and to His kingdom.
It should be that we are so thankful that we speak the truth. We are not afraid of truth because truth sets us free. No longer are we in bondage by our stories and by our excuses. At times, they get us into trouble because we forget what we have said before and we say something else. Then we realize, now they know I lied. When you speak the truth, there is nothing to hide. There is nothing to be afraid of because the truth sets us free.
Ephesians says because of all that God has done, “Put away your bitterness. Put away your wrath; put away your anger; put away your clamor; your slander, your malice. Be kind, tender-hearted, forgiving. Imitate God and walk in love.” This is what God has given to us. We are a blessed people. Why do we have fear? Why do we allow fear to come into our lives? Why do we allow it to enter our minds? Why the anxieties when God is greater than all the things that could ever come against us?
This life that He gave to us is excellent. It means that we have to live it out the way He created it to be. He created it to be able to handle whatever comes our way. In Genesis 1, when He blessed man, He said, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth; subdue and reign.” This is what He has given to His people. This is what He has given to His Church. Why do we stand back as though we were in Egypt, in slavery? Bitter and angry at the things happening around us?
When we walk in the principles of God, we have compassion, gentleness, a tender-heart and we forgive those who fail because we know except for the grace of God, except for God’s love, there we would also be. “I am thankful God has forgiven me. Therefore, I walk in understanding of others. I may have to discipline. I may have to correct, but yet in my heart, there is that love which allows discipline to come.”
Discipline only comes when you have love. Discipline will never be there if there is no love. Children that are not disciplined are children that are hated by their parents because the parents won’t correct their wrong. They won’t correct their mistakes. They won’t want them to grow. God corrects and disciplines us. We wonder why later in life, we have problems with the children because as parents, we didn’t take time to train them. Scriptures very clearly says, “Train the child in the way he should go.” It is our responsibility and our trust in Him. We should never be afraid of our circumstances. Our situations train us and get us ready for tomorrow.
In my life, I have shared that my family is poor. We didn’t have much. I was embarrassed in school because I wore the same clothes all the time. I wore the same pants and same shirt every day. I did not have anything else. It set something in me that made me desire to rise above. I wasn’t spoiled. I did not have a lot of things, but I made my mind up that I wasn’t going to stay there.
When I was in high school, I was working three jobs. At the age of 16, I bought my first automobile. My father did not have a car. I bought a car; I was tired walking to school every day. When it was raining, I would sit in class soaked to the skin because I had to walk through the rain. My mother won’t let me stay home because of the rain. She says, “It won’t hurt you.” It never did but it gave me the courage to face issues, to conquer, to overcome, to rise up and put these things underneath rather than allowing them to conquer me. I am still not afraid to go out in the rain. It won’t hurt me. I take a shower every day and it doesn’t bother me. Why would the rain be any different? It is probably pure than the water in the faucet.
This is the greatness of our God. Do we understand that He is training us and bringing us through things that may seem to us like that at times He hates us? In reality, it is a discipline to prepare us to rise up and go beyond. Rise up and be He wants you to be.
When I was in college, I had given my car to my father because I couldn’t afford to pay my way through college, work while I was in college and take care of the car. Today, our college students can’t go to school if they don’t have somebody pay their way. We are too lazy. We made them lazy because we haven’t given them challenges. We have pampered and babied them. Then we wonder why they can’t rise up. Why can’t they not conquer? Why can’t we not overcome the situations? Maybe because we didn’t challenge them as they grew up. We pampered them and gave them an Ipad, an Ipod, telephones, and everything. They lacked in nothing, but courage, challenge and strength.
This is what made me what I am because I did not have these things. When I was in college, in the Summer, I worked two jobs. I went to work in one job in the office at nine to five. I went home, slept and got up and went to the factory at midnight. I worked at midnight till seven in the morning. At seven in the morning, I went home, took a shower, ate breakfast and went to the office. I worked two jobs all Summer long. No activities outside of those jobs because I was driven to make certain that I didn’t stay in the doldrums and in the poverty. I wanted to rise up. It opened the door for me.
When I went to business, I eventually became a candidate for an Executive Vice-President for an international conglomerate. This is because I was driven, pushed, shoved, and I wanted to achieve because perhaps I was disciplined in life early and it gave me that drive to go on, to rise up.
This is what God gave to Israel that caused them to want to get out of the wilderness. They wanted to get free from this. They wanted to get to the point of plenty, milk and honey. They were driven. Their fathers weren’t because they had so much in Egypt. They only murmured and complained in the wilderness. They were not driven. They had to die first so that the others could make it on.
May we learn, and may we not be captivated by the situations around us. May we rise up and conquer because this is what God has given to His people – this ability. This is the life, the excellent life. This is not life that is weak. It is not failing; it is life that will conquer and overcome if only we will follow the commandments of God and be obedient to Him.
This is the hope that we have. This is why we are so blessed. Programmed within us by the Holy Spirit is an ability to multiply. We don’t need to be in poverty. We can multiply if we will not give in. If we would just simply rise up and face the issues and the conflicts. If we will take steps by faith, God will prove Himself to us.
The challenge that we are given today is to take this life. Take what God has given to us and bring it to a point of excellence – depending upon Him and His commandments. He is the One who gave us the life. He is the One that created us the life. He knows how the life works. He knows how it functions. He and His commandments and His words to us give us the insight into how this works.
Ephesians 4 speaks to us so loudly about success in God, and yet do we spend time in it? No, we will enrol in a program which says, “We will bring you success. We will bring you business excellence.” It is in Scriptures that God gives us the wisdom for life. No one else can give us this because no one else created the life. It only comes from God. We need to spend our time knowing Him and knowing His ways because it guarantees success and it guarantees to us fulfilment and excellence.
The beauty of God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us because God so loved us. Christ came to be the witness to us. He came to be the model, the block that we were to form our life with. He came for that purpose. He was the cornerstone; we are to be like Him.
This is our calling and purpose of life. May we, as His people, rise to such a level wherein we are not murmuring and complaining. Around us, there may be the difficulties, but with us is the ability to conquer those difficulties. To overcome them and to cause them to bring into our lives the provision of tomorrow wherein the Promise Land is ours.
Scriptures says, “When you obey the commandments, you will possess the land. We need to possess the land but it comes only by our commitment to Christ and to the life that He has given to us.
LET US CONTINUE OUR REFLECTION THROUGH
THE WORD EXPOSED
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