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I want to take a moment and welcome all of you who have come this week as well as all of you who started classes last week. Mhm. There's sort of an indication when you've got a group

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of people, some of whom do not know, others of whom terribly well. Because the greeting of peace is kind of subdued when they get to know each other, the greeting gets louder and last longer

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. And if you are presbyterian, some of your committee's will hold emergency meetings. Mhm. Mhm. But we're glad you're here, We're glad to welcome you and we are glad to have the chance for

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all of us to join together as one part of God's people. If you want to identify a yuppie without fail, why you would want to do that is beyond me. But if you happen to want

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to, the sure sign is a Chevrolet Suburban in the driveway. Yeah. Sign of a promotion. Isn't replaced by a Lincoln or or a BMW But before there was the Chevrolet suburban about 30 years before

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there was a Chevrolet carry all Which was sort of the same idea. It uh eight people in moderate discomfort. It was drafty and creaky and slow. And for 10 years we had one as our family

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car. Yeah. We lived out in the country sort of about three miles from the town of learning , Wyoming where my father was a professor. Mhm . And we could hear that car coming a quarter

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mile away. Yeah first there was we could hear the tubercular engine and then the crunch of the wheels on the gravel of our driveway. And finally the moment the car entered the garage and all became quiet

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and then came the clump, clump clump of my parents entering the house. It was almost obligatory when you entered the house. Well you came through the mud room. We had we had a mud room

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and you had to stomp your feet in the mud room because that's what mud rooms or for whether or not you are muddy but clump clump clumping. And there they were and I think I understand how Adam

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and Eve felt when they heard the voice of God saying, where are you? Yeah. Now sometimes we ran to meet our parents and sometimes we just kept on with whatever it was we were doing.

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But sometimes that clump clump clump was the prelude to judgment. Mhm And sometimes when we heard that carry all coming down the road, we were filled with terror and anguish for we knew that we would pay

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for whatever we had been doing the let the good times roll attitude we developed as we watch the car leave and turn onto Highway 30 as it was in called Was replaced by the six stomach we got when

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we knew that our misdeeds were about to be exposed . One notable time, it was my older brother's fault. He and a friend decided they wanted boiled eggs and they put the eggs on to boil and

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went down into the basement and the eggs boiled dry and exploded. Yeah. Okay. We add pieces of eggshell stuck in the ceiling tiles until we sold that house. Thank you. I think it knocked

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about$1,000 off the price. But yeah, at any rate, I do not think I have ever had a moment of doubt in my life as to whether or not my parents loved me, but neither

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did I ever have a moment of doubt about whether or not they had standards and expectations. I was punished as a child. Sometimes I deserve to be even though I do remind my sister every once in

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a while that she was a tattletale until she reached middle age. Yeah. Now at that time I did not consider that to be a blessing. But now I do. The story of creation in the

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first chapter of genesis is really a story of separation . The light is separated from the darkness, the land is separated from the sea and there is a separation that is fundamental to the essence of the human

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condition. Earth is separated from heaven. The realm where the saints praise God. The realm where the angels fill the sky with their praises. The realm where the knowledge of God feels everything is not our

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realm. Our realm is filled with questioning and with guessing and with doubt and with disbelief and with the demonic. It is of course also filled with the presence and glory of God. But nevertheless, this

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earth is non habit. There is a separation, there's a division, there's a barrier. Or at least there was uh I grew up with the revised standard Virgin, the bible that jesus used. Mhm

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. And in our reading this morning, the revised standard version says, and when he came up out of the water immediately he saw the heavens opened and the verb opened is really a very pale translation of

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the original greek text. I've seen a picture of the revised standard version committee at work and they were rather subdued people, no paisley in sight. Regina , the new revised standard version, which actually was

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translated by hippies Mark more accurately says he saw the heavens torn apart. It's not that a little hole appeared and the Holy Spirit squeezed through the barrier was smashed. The separation was obliterated and that's what Jesus

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did. He took away the separation between heaven and earth. Now that's part of the Gospel. Something has happened in jesus, that that is really on the cosmic level, but sometimes we hear that the

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way my brothers and sisters and I heard the arrival of the Chevrolet carry on. Yeah, it could be bad news when we knew that we had done wrong. Yeah. Mhm. The fact that God

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loves us, the fact that God loves us tenderly and compassionately infinitely means that everything we do is important to God. Our decisions, our actions, our ideas, our thoughts, our dreams, they're important

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to God, maybe more important than they are to us from time to time. And consequently those dreams and thoughts and ideas and actions and decisions are important to God's enemies, particularly the great enemy and sometimes

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the suspect, we don't really want to be that important. We don't want to matter that much. We want our decisions on our deeds to be unimportant because that way we won't be judged will be totally

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free in our triviality. We don't want to be able to wound God or to make the demons rejoice by what we do. Now. There is a great freedom that comes with denying God a great and

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terrible freedom. It's the freedom of being consequential. It's a freedom of not being loved or hated or even noticed because if nothing we do matters, it doesn't matter what we do, we're free. It's

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the freedom of hell. But it's a kind of freedom. Mhm. Okay. And more and more I see that freedom all around me and it frightens me because I know it is evil. A few

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years ago there was a bumper sticker that seemed to be on every pickup in texas and it said no fear. I think it came from one of the karate kid movies. But I often, as I

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had one of those pickups cut in front of me , trusting that I would be attentive and my brakes worked. Uh, often mentally amended that bumper sticker to know fear and no brain because there are lots

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of things to fear. There are lots of things that will hurt us. There are lots of things that are stronger than we are. There are lots of situations in which we should fear, including fearing

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our own power to destroy. And above all we should fear God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom says palm psalm 111 and fear does not just mean worship or a door or take

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account of or anything like that. He really means fear. I love my parents and I feared my parents and I think if I had not been afraid of them, I would have despised them. Fear

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means fear. It means that we fear God's judgment . It means that we remember that God is watching and God cares what we do. It means that we know that God can and does punish people if

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you take all of the gods punishment out of the bible, you don't have much bible web. Mhm . It means that God's love for us is such that God must judge and God must punish just as

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loving parents, Judge and punished. But all too often we treat God like it was a warm puppy or fuzzy kitten or at best good natured santa claus type who just chuckles and gives us toys. Mhm

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. Mhm. We talk about God who affirms us and supports us and forgives us and enables us and respects us practically texas under the chin every once in a while, but we don't like to hear about

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the God who judges us or who makes rules for us or who has expectations for us and sometimes we're horrified. It's the very idea that God might punish people. A few years ago, that alternative source

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of revelation, Doonesbury showed a yuppie couple leaving a church in shock because the pastor used the word sin . Yeah. And they said we're looking for a church that is supportive, a place where we can

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feel good about ourselves. Well, is that satire ? I remember when that cartoon appeared and the same week, D magazine, DS for Dallas, D magazine reported that the reverend Williams Jennings bryan the third

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, the pastor then of Lovers Lane Methodist Church was in trouble with his congregation because he talked about sin and judgment and personal responsibility and people left that church feeling guilty instead of feeling good and consequently they were

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leaving that church. And attendance was dwindling and giving was falling off Christianity, it seems, is in danger of becoming a new religion with the name of Sheila is um now Sheila was one of the people

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interviewed by the sociologist robert Bella in the book habits of the heart and Sheila said, and I quote , I consider myself religious, but I don't go to church. I believe that God is inside me

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, my own little voice now who can fear my own little voice. That voice can be obeyed or ignored, but it can scarcely be feared. However , my own little voice did not create Heaven and

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earth. My own little voice did not die on the cross. My own little voice is not and never will be almighty God. Now I'm afraid of a world that is not afraid of God. Mhm

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. I'm afraid of the world that thinks there is only affirmation and no judgment. I'm afraid of a world in which people think that the whole idea of sin is kind of old fashioned, I'm afraid of

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the world that thinks it doesn't matter what we do , because we just don't matter. And I am afraid that that world is becoming more cruel and more selfish and more violent and more evil. I'm afraid

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of a world in which people look to the church to help them feel good but become offended when the Church ask people to work on being good and I'm afraid of the world and with the gospel of jesus

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christ which is centered on a cross is replaced by the Gospel of Sheila which centers on Sheila's own little voice. Now, there is no way to read the bible without feeling blessed, but there also is

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no way to read the bible without feeling condemned. God's voice is not our little voice inside of us . God's voice is the mighty voice outside of us . That demands, why are you hiding? What

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have you done when the heavens are ripped apart? Everything we are and everything we do is exposed now . There is no way, even in the midst of the mightiest, most fearless proclamation of the invincible

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Grace of God, there is no way to take judgment out of the bible. God is not mocked paul said, and even those who have fully and completely entrusted their lives to jesus christ will be judged

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. We all must give an accounting of what we have done with our lives, including what we have done with God's grace. And this will happen not in spite of the love of God, but because

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of it, it's good news. Yeah. And sometimes it seems depressing and sometimes it may be foolish or seem foolish to us. It is good news because if we are not judged, we cannot be

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healed. I truly fear those who think there is no judgment. I truly fear a world in which everything is allowed. I fear for a world that has lost its fear of God. Mhm. And

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I fear to live in such a world and that is why I feel some urgency to say to this world. God is real and God's laws are real . And if you have no fear of God now

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, you will surely learn that fear later and you won't like it much. And you, the world muster the good news to be sure. But the world must here that in the good news there is

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expectation, there is mourning and God is not mocked . God will purify and redeem this world. God's Gospel is not simply reassurance and good feeling, followed by the benediction. Have a nice day, Have

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a nice day, Have a nice day. God's Gospel is power. It is a fire upon the