Game-Changers
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
The lectionary scripture passages for the Third Sunday after Epiphany bring us a pair of startling stories. Both Jonah and Jesus deliver messages that are remarkable for their brevity and power; in a few words each man declares the urgency of the moment... and the effect is immediate, as the Ninevites "turned from their evil ways" and the four fishermen Jesus addressed "left their nets and followed him." In life it's rare for people to make such drastic changes without great struggle -- but when it does happen, it's usually connected to a moment of clarity that we often refer to as an "epiphany." In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Dean Feldmeyer compares it to another term we often use: "game-changers." Dean notes that we have many examples in our culture of people who have been responsible for paradigm shifts that completely realign our way of looking at things... i.e., change the rules of the game. In the field of technology, Steve Jobs jumps immediately to mind as someone with a unique ability to envision (and market) how computers, cell phones, and personal musical devices could enable us to interact with information and with one another in a completely new manner and transform many areas of our lives. The phenomenon of game-changers has even become part of our popular mythology, with the story of unlikely game-changers being the subject matter for successful movies like The Social Network (the founders of Facebook) and Moneyball (revolutionary baseball GMs). Dean points out that in this week's readings, Jonah, Paul, and Jesus are similarly seeking to shift the prevailing paradigm as they call us to drop what we're doing, change our lives, and follow God.
Team member Mary Austin offers some additional thoughts on this week's psalm passage, in which the Psalmist describes how he waits for God in silence. As Mary notes, silence is something many of us long for, and yet we're often strangely uncomfortable with it when it does come (rare as that may be in our busy and noisy lives). Yet, as Mary observes, when we allow silence into our lives it can be the "game-changer" for our ordinary day-to-day existence that lets us hear God's still small voice and refocus our energies on what's really important.
Game-Changers
by Dean Feldmeyer
Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Mark 1:14-20
Academics call them "paradigm shifts." Author Malcolm Gladwell calls them "tipping points." In the modern vernacular they are "game-changers." These are the people who change everything. They are the events after which nothing remains the same. They are the things that make everything that came before seem obsolete.
Jonah was a game-changer and apparently so was the one sentence he preached to the people of Nineveh. In the gospel of Mark, Jesus preaches a one-sentence message that turns out to be a game-changer for four fishermen... and for us.
THE WORLD
Probably no one and nothing has served as a more profound game-changer in most of our lives than Steve Jobs and the technological changes that he either invented or forced others to invent who wished to keep up with him.
There are people in our churches who can remember listening to a gramophone -- and who received an MP3 player from their grandchildren for Christmas this year. They remember listening to the Green Hornet on radio -- and can now watch him on Hulu or Netflix. They remember telephone party lines -- and now carry an iPhone in their pocket. Their first job required them to use a manual typewriter -- and today they do their typing on an iPad. The first photograph they took was with a Brownie box camera -- and now they take snapshots with their telephones.
All of these innovations were game-changers that forced technology to make a right turn, which took us -- sometimes kicking and screaming -- into the digital age. After them, nothing will ever be the same. We won't be going back to their predecessors -- Princess phones, Kodachrome film, Underwood typewriters, or transistor radios -- in our lifetimes.
The Golden Globes have ushered in the annual run to the Oscars, and as the award season gears up we might want to think for a moment about some of the films that were game-changers for movie making and watching. The Birth of a Nation; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Star Wars; Citizen Kane; The Matrix; Avatar; Toy Story. Each of these films introduced something new in the field of technology or visual storytelling that forever changed the way movies are seen.
As Super Bowl XLVI approaches, we might pause to remember some things that changed the game of football forever. Instant replay, instituted in 1999, has virtually removed the home field advantage. Can you imagine the game without the forward pass? There wasn't such a thing before 1933. Before sudden death overtime, the tie was a common game conclusion. DirectTV's NFL Sunday Ticket package has now made it possible to watch every game -- EVERY GAME -- on any given Sunday. Then there's the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Love 'em or hate 'em, they changed the game and how we view it forever.
Paradigm shifts, tipping points, game changers -- whatever we call them, they are a reality that affects our lives more and more every year because they are coming on faster and faster.
THE WORD
The story goes that Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was such a big city that it took three days to walk its diameter -- about 60 miles across. That's big -- bigger than modern-day Mexico City, New York City, Beijing, London, and Moscow.
Jonah walked a third of the way into the city and preached the shortest sermon in history: "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Only eight words -- but each one was a game-changer, because in the next verse we are told that "the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth."
In Mark, Jesus preaches the second shortest sermon in history: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." Nineteen words... and it too was a game-changer for Peter and Andrew and James and John. Mark gives evidence of this by placing the story of their recruitment immediately after this passage. And its ripple effects changed global monotheism for the next 2,000 years.
Biblical scholars tell us that verse 15 is Mark's digest of the gospel -- the good news writ short and truncated for easy consumption. It is Jesus' entire message in three short, easy to remember, phrases:
1. The time is fulfilled;
2. The kingdom of God has come near;
3. Repent and believe the good news.
The rest of Mark's gospel is a commentary on these three phrases and how they create a paradigm shift for all who hear and digest them. Once you hear these 19 words and own them -- really own them -- they make a claim on your life, as does the one who first uttered them.
They are game-changers.
Then Mark illustrates that fact by showing four men's lives being radically altered. Four working men give up their lives and their families and follow Jesus.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
Mark has broken down the indicative and the imperative for us:
Indicative: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near." I always liked the vaguer, more poetic "is at hand" of the RSV and KJV.
The time is both right and ripe. The waiting and expectation are over. What are we waiting for? More money? More freedom? The kids to graduate from high school? A college degree?
The kingdom of God is now within reach. It is not something distant and far away but something to be hoped and longed for. It is something to be grasped -- right now.
How do we grasp it?
Imperative: "Repent, and believe in the good news."
Two imperatives are prescribed.
First, repent. Literally, turn again. Stop doing what you are doing, turn the other direction, and do the opposite. Stop waiting, stop longing. And...
Second, believe. But this belief is more than intellectual assent. It is faith. It is that belief that is held so strongly that it will be the basis upon which we will act, upon which we will risk. It is faith. Then Mark gives us an object lesson in this type of faith in the story of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, who put down their nets and follow Jesus.
Jonah's story is nearly identical in essence to Mark's. He pronounces the indicative: "In a short time -- 40 days -- this great city, this huge, marvelous city, will be overthrown." We do not know exactly what "overthrown" means. Destroyed? Conquered? Shaken? Changed? Whatever it is, it must not be good because those who hear it anticipate the imperative.
They believe and then they repent. That is, they step out in faith.
The people of Nineveh and the first disciples of Jesus have seen and heard the ultimate "game-changer" -- and they responded in the only possible way.
ANOTHER VIEW
by Mary Austin
Psalm 62:5-12
"For God alone my soul waits in silence," the Psalmist proclaims. The sentence bumps along awkwardly to end with the phrase "in silence." The poetry in translation would sound better without it, but the clumsiness adds emphasis to the waiting "in silence." That may be exactly the emphasis we need.
In our world of chiming phones, beeping computers, earbuds on every teenager, and headsets on every adult, silence is hard to come by. I stopped going to the gas station closest to my house when they installed television screens above the gas pumps, blasting me with ads and news while I filled the tank. A friend who works in a popular chain store quit her job before Christmas because every employee was required to wear a headset. The manager talked to the employees all through the shift, reminding them every few minutes to promote certain products, or to be sure to meet the sales goals for the day. "I couldn't listen to the customers because I had the manager in my ear all day," she complained.
We hate silence and rush to fill it, and yet we also long for it. In a recent article in the New York Times, essayist and travel writer Pico Iyer wrote about the ways people are working hard to build silence into their lives. "Writer friends of mine," he observed, "pay good money to get the Freedom software that enables them to disable (for up to eight hours) the very internet connections that seemed so emancipating not long ago. Even Intel (of all companies) experimented in 2007 with conferring four uninterrupted hours of quiet time every Tuesday morning on 300 engineers and managers. (The average office worker today, researchers have found, enjoys no more than three minutes at a time at his or her desk without interruption.) During this period the workers were not allowed to use the phone or send email, but simply had the chance to clear their heads and to hear themselves think."
Silence and spirit are deeply connected. The rush of information around us nibbles away at our opportunities for silence. Some piece of information is always clamoring for our attention and then our response. As Iyer observes in the same article: "And the more that floods in on us (the Kardashians, Obamacare, Dancing with the Stars), the less of ourselves we have to give to every snippet. All we notice is that the distinctions that used to guide and steady us -- between Sunday and Monday, public and private, here and there -- are gone."
We are more accustomed to noise than quiet. As one friend noted, "I often forget how nice silence is. I'm so used to noise that sometimes I don't recognize that noise is what is bothering me." A pastor friend observed that the practice of silence is not unlike the routine of exercise: "To me, silence is like exercise in that I never think I want or need it, but when I'm disciplined and do if anyway, I feel fantastic." A surgeon adds, "I talk and listen to people talking all day long, along with the sounds of drills, saws, mallets, machines beeping -- so when I get home... no TV, no radio, no music. Even in the lack of silence that is New York City, after work, my own little corner of the world is silent."
If we can't get a moment of quiet to hear ourselves or listen to God, then our day is shaped by all of the other voices coming into our lives. We have to be able to hear ourselves think to know what our deepest longings are. We need the quiet to listen for God's voice. The quiet gives meaning to the sound. A friend observed to me that "I understood the power of silence when I heard the Hallelujah Chorus for the first time. The silent beat before the final Hallelujah, when done well, is absolutely breathtaking."
The website of Spirituality and Practice notes that silence is more than the absence of sound. It's a state of inner quiet, rather than external stillness. Asks the site: "How can you find this inner quietude, tranquility, and calm? You must make room for it -- literally. Find a space of physical silence where you can sit quietly, away from distracting demands, voices, and sounds. Go there every day. It is the gateway to your interior silence." Physical setting creates spiritual space. The Psalmist understands this as he or she waits for God -- not in the frenzy of the day or restless conversation, but in deliberately chosen silence.
If the busy pace of the New Year has already eroded our plans for long, quiet walks or time to meditate, it's never too late to try again. And again. And again. Our attempts to find silence go against the grain of a crazy-busy world, but a little more silence will make us a lot less crazy. Silence brings focus and allows attentiveness to God and each other. Silence gets us below the surface. In it is the foundation for the Spirit's work, and the Psalmist invites us too to wait for God in silence.
ILLUSTRATIONS
As the NFL begins the final approach to the Super Bowl with this Sunday's conference championship games, we might pause for a moment and remember two of professional football's foremost game-changers who completely redefined the sport. Though neither man ever played the game, their contributions were so important that they have both been enshrined in pro football's Hall of Fame.
Tex Schramm was the original president and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys and a longtime member of the league's competition committee. He introduced more innovations into professional football than probably any other individual. It was under Tex's direction that the league adopted instant replay. He also introduced overtime in the regular season, all but eliminating those frustrating tie games. Tex put borders around the sidelines for the protection of players and fans, and it was Tex who first put a microphone on the referee, making the game more understandable to spectators. Of course, it was Tex Schramm who brought to the field the most famous sideline show of all time, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. In addition, Schramm was the driving force behind the creation of the league's annual scouting combine. No less an authority than legendary coach Don Shula has declared: "I truly believe he had as much, or more, to do with the success of professional football as anyone who has ever been connected with the league."
Schramm began his career in pro football with the Los Angeles Rams, where he hired a young public relations director who would become one of the game's seminal figures: Pete Rozelle. Rozelle went on to become the NFL commissioner for nearly three decades and is credited with being the driving force behind the NFL becoming one of the most successful sports leagues in the world. It was under Rozelle's stewardship that the Super Bowl was created, matching the champions of the NFL with the upstart AFL, and that a highly successful merger between the two leagues occurred. In addition, Rozelle was renowned for his grasp of how to make the sport popular on television, and how to make it extremely profitable for every team through his ability to negotiate contracts with the networks while keeping a fractious group of owners unified. (One of the cornerstones of the league's financial success is Rozelle's revolutionary concept of sharing television revenues equally among all teams.) In addition, Rozelle introduced Monday Night Football, which became a staple of the culture. Rozelle presided over a period when the NFL grew into the dominant spectator sport in America -- when he began his time as the league's commissioner in 1960, there were twelve teams playing to frequently half-empty stadiums, only a few of which had television contracts. By the time he retired in 1989, the league had 30 teams that played to routinely sold-out stadiums, and media rights worth billions of dollars.
Rozelle and Schramm truly created paradigm shifts that forever changed the game for everyone.
* * *
Malcolm Gladwell's celebrated book The Tipping Point talks about the process of how a revolutionary idea spreads from person to person until it eventually becomes a majority viewpoint and the scales are tipped in its favor. After an innovator initially comes up with the idea, it is spread by "connectors" (who know everybody), "mavens" (who know everything), and by "salespeople" (who can sell anything).
In much the same way, Christianity is spread because the gospel is told and the love of Christ shared from one person to another. Starting with only the few Jesus called to follow him 2,000 years ago, Christ's message has spread throughout the world.
* * *
William Willimon, former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, tells about a telephone call he once received from an irate parent:
"I hold you personally responsible for this," the father told him.
"Me?" the campus minister asked.
"Yes, you. I send my daughter off to college to get a good education. Now she tells me she wants to throw it all away and go off to Haiti as a Presbyterian mission volunteer! Isn't that absurd? A B.S. in mechanical engineering from Duke, and she's going off to dig ditches in Haiti."
"Well," said Willimon, in a feeble attempt at humor, "I doubt the engineering department taught her much about that line of work, but she's a fast learner; she'll probably get the hang of ditch-digging in a few months."
"Look," interrupted the father, "this is no laughing matter. I hold you completely responsible for her decision. She likes you. You've filled her head with all those pie-in-the-sky ideas!"
"Now look," said Willimon, trying to keep his ministerial composure. "Weren't you the one who had her baptized?"
"Why, yes," the father replied.
"And didn't you read her Bible stories, take her to Sunday school, send her off on ski trips with the Presbyterian Youth Fellowship?"
"Well, yes, but..."
"Don't 'but' me. It's your fault she believed all that stuff and that she's gone and thrown it all away on Jesus -- not mine. You're the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me."
"But all we ever wanted was for her to be a Presbyterian," said the father meekly.
"Sorry. You messed up. You made a disciple."
* * *
Whom does Jesus call? When we read the first chapter of Mark's gospel, we see that Jesus called busy people: men who were working, men who were already doing something. Does that tell us something?
They were fishermen and they would have kept on fishing the rest of their lives. What else was there for them to do? They trimmed their sails. They let down their nets and cleaned them after a night of fishing. They took their fish to the market. But then... but then Jesus entered their lives. They would keep fishing, but now they would fish for men, for people. That's still our calling.
* * *
Following Jesus can mean many different things for many different people. Today we know that to "fish for people" includes being a witness for Christ that goes beyond seeking converts; it also includes our entire lifestyle.
Japanese environmentalist Shigeatsu Hatakeyama is using Psalm 42 as an inspiration for his tree-planting campaign. This educational and conservationist program is called "The Forest Longing for the Sea, the Sea is Longing for the Forest," with the name rooted in the "longing for" of Psalm 42. Hatakeyama notes that the psalm reads, "As a deer longs for the flowing streams, the oysters long for the water in the forest." From his studies, Hatakeyama realized that that iron supplied from the forest through the river into the sea nourishes sea life. After the recent earthquake in Japan, he was able to gather enough scientific evidence to prove this theory. For his efforts, Hatakeyama is a candidate for the United Nations "Forest Hero" award.
* * *
To follow Jesus is to have an understanding of what we are called to do. First and foremost, it is to be aware of the needs of others.
Have you ever wondered why your dog is so attentive to your body language and voice modulations? Behavioral biologists in Hungary recently conducted a study that determined a dog has the same recognition capacity as a one-year-old infant. As an infant follows a parent across the room with his eyes, so does a dog recognize the subtleties of body motion. As an infant recognizes the voice modulations of a parent, so does a dog recognize the voice commands of his devoted house parent. Dogs are the only animals to have this ability that came from generations of domestication. Dr. Adam Miklosi, one of the study's authors, noted: "Being in a human family gives the dogs the ability to interact in a human way."
When we decide to follow Jesus, let us be just as sensitive to the needs of those who are a part of our global human family.
* * *
Jonah was summoned by God to go and prophesy to the people of Nineveh. Jonah was not a willing participant in this assignment, but he did as he was summoned. And by making the message known publicly, the people of Nineveh repented and the city was spared destruction.
Pat Robertson recently said that God has revealed to him the next president of the United States. At least for the time being, the knowledge of this event is to remain Robertson's personal possession.
However, John Mark Reynolds, professor of philosophy at Biola University, noted in the Washington Post's "On Faith" online section that "Foreknowledge does not tend to work that way." This is because "[a] wise man places his private revelation on a shelf and waits and sees what comes of it." Reynolds notes that the community must affirm what the wise man has been told. He concludes his article with this line: "Robertson should tell us what he thinks God wants America to know so we can judge him by the outcome or be quiet."
* * *
Repentance involves first a turning from our current behavior. In the story of Jonah we see that repentance also involves a tuning -- a linking of our wills to God's, so that they function in partnership.
It's rather like what goes on when a musical instrument is tuned. The musician sounds a tone on a pitch-pipe or a tuning fork. That first tone is steady, unvarying; it will not slip up or down the scale, thrown off by changes in humidity or frequent use. Over time, changes in tone will happen to the strings of a piano or a violin, but it will not happen with a tuning fork. That primary tone remains the same.
So it is with God's way, the way of Christian discipleship. It is not enough to make cosmetic changes in our lives -- to go around talking Christian talk, for a change -- unless you and I earnestly desire also to bring our lives into harmony with God's will.
* * *
Eugene Peterson uses his imagination in examining Jonah's use of the word "forty." He contends that Jonah did not denounce Nineveh's sin and wickedness but rather called into question the city's future.
Peterson explains what he means: " 'Forty' is a stock biblical word that has hope at its core. Forty days is a period for testing the reality of one's life -- examining it for truth, for authenticity. 'Is this a real life, or just some cheap imitation passed off on me by a sleight-of-hand culture? Is what I am doing and saying my own or just borrowed from people who know less than I do about who I am and what I am for? Is God skillfully shaping and wisely guiding my life or have I let my untutored whims and infantile sins reduce me to the lowest common denominator? Is this the way I want to spend the rest of my life?' "
Forty days was a time of testing for Elijah and for Jesus in the wilderness; even so it was a time of testing for Nineveh.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: For God alone our soul waits in silence,
People: for our hope is from God.
Leader: God alone is our rock and our salvation, our fortress;
People: we shall not be shaken.
Leader: On God rests our deliverance and our honor;
People: our mighty rock, our refuge is in God.
OR
Leader: Come and worship the God who never changes.
People: We take strength in knowing God is constant.
Leader: Yet God is ever calling us to change.
People: We are not always happy to change ourselves.
Leader: God's constant love is calling us forward.
People: Trusting in God's love, we offer ourselves so that we may be transformed into God's image.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"Rock of Ages"
found in:
UMH: 361
H82: 685
AAHH: 559
NNBH: 254
NCH: 596
CH: 214
LBW: 327
ELW: 623
"Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise"
found in:
UMH: 103
H82: 423
PH: 263
NCH: 1
CH: 66
LBW: 526
ELW: 834
Renew: 46
"A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"
found in:
UMH: 110
H82: 687/688
PH: 260
AAHH: 124
NNBH: 37
NCH: 439/440
CH: 65
LBW: 228/229
ELW: 503/505
"Many Gifts, One Spirit"
found in:
UMH: 114
NCH: 177
"This Is a Day of New Beginnings"
found in:
UMH: 383
NCH: 417
CH: 518
"We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder"
found in:
UMH: 418
AAHH: 464
NNBH: 217
NCH: 500
"O God of Every Nation"
found in:
UMH: 435
H82: 607
PH: 289
CH: 680
LBW: 416
ELW: 713
"O Holy City, Seen of John"
found in:
UMH: 726
H82: 582/583
PH: 453
NCH: 613
"Shine, Jesus, Shine"
found in:
CCB: 81
Renew: 247
"Your Loving Kindness Is Better Than Life"
found in:
CCB: 26
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who is constant in loving kindness to all creation: Grant us the grace to open our lives to the changes you would bring about in us so that we might reflect your image more clearly; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We offer our praise and adoration to you, O God, for your loving kindness never ceases. You constantly come to us, inviting us to grow into our likeness of you. Help us to hear the good news that Jesus brings to us this day. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our inclination to think we do not need to change and grow spiritually.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are quick to claim our place as your children, but we are slow to grow up. Finding ourselves to be part of your family, we are content to stay as we are. We forget that we have been called to a way and to an ever-expanding reign. Forgive us and empower us with your Spirit to stretch ourselves as we more fully realize your reign in our lives and in all our relationships. Amen.
Leader: God loves us and is pleased when we reach out to achieve all the potential with which we have been created. Know God's love and forgiveness and the joy of growing in grace.
Prayer for Illumination
Send, O God, the light of your presence among us so that as the good news of Jesus is read and proclaimed we, your children, may see the way to maturity and growth. Amen.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
All glory, honor, and praise are yours, O God, because you are the one who loves us and who has created us. We are your children, the work of your hands.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are quick to claim our place as your children, but we are slow to grow up. Finding ourselves to be part of your family, we are content to stay as we are. We forget that we have been called to a way and to an ever-expanding reign. Forgive us and empower us with your Spirit to stretch ourselves as we more fully realize your reign in our lives and in all our relationships.
We give you thanks for our creation as your image and for the ways in which you continue to re-create us into your image. We thank you for the ways in which you reveal yourself to us, and thereby reveal our potential to us. We thank you for your grace that constantly surrounds and infuses us so that we may respond to you and to others.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for your creation. We are aware of many pains and traumas that your children have suffered. We know it is difficult for some to conceive of you as a loving God. As you continue your gracious work with them, help us to reflect your love for them in ways that move them closer to you.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father... Amen.
(or if the Lord's Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children's Sermon Starter
Teach the children to play four square, the playground game where an area is divided into four quadrants with a person in each box. When a ball is bounced into a person's square, they have to bounce it into another square.
Start with no square and no ball. Call balls out or that were bounced too many times. Then introduce the ball. Play for a bit and then mark off the squares. If you don't want to put tape on the carpet just make some arbitrary boundaries. Then play a little more. Talk about how different the game is when you add the ball and the lines.
In the same way, Jesus came and changed everything about life. He came and told people that God loved them and wanted them to get ready for a wonderful new life. We need to listen to and follow Jesus.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
What's the Good News?
Mark 1:14-20
Object: a dictionary
Good morning, boys and girls! When Jesus was beginning his ministry, he told people, "Repent and believe the gospel." Can any of you tell me what it means to "repent"? (let the children answer) Let's look the word up in this dictionary and see what it says. (Read the dictionary meanings of the word "repent.")
Based on those meanings, what would you say Jesus was telling people to do? Was he telling them that they needed to change their way of living and tell God that they were sorry for all the things that they had been doing wrong? (let them answer) Yes, I think that's what he was telling them. He wanted them to know that God didn't like what they were doing, and they needed to see that and be sorry about it.
If they would do that, Jesus could then tell them some real good news. He said, "Repent and believe the gospel." Do any of you know what the gospel is? What was it he wanted them to believe? What does he want you and me to believe today? (let them answer) Well, the word "gospel" means good news, and Jesus has good news for anybody who will repent and listen to him. The good news is that we don't have to pay for our sins. Jesus paid for all our sins when he died on the cross. Because of that good news, that gospel, we know that everybody who believes the good news will go to heaven. Do all of you believe that good news? (let them answer) Good! You do believe the gospel so you can be sure that you will go to heaven. Let's thank Jesus for giving us this good news.
Prayer: Dear Jesus, we hear you telling us to repent and believe the gospel. We know that you give us the power to believe when you give us faith. We thank you for giving us faith so that we can believe. We do believe. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, January 22, 2012, issue.
Copyright 2012 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
Team member Mary Austin offers some additional thoughts on this week's psalm passage, in which the Psalmist describes how he waits for God in silence. As Mary notes, silence is something many of us long for, and yet we're often strangely uncomfortable with it when it does come (rare as that may be in our busy and noisy lives). Yet, as Mary observes, when we allow silence into our lives it can be the "game-changer" for our ordinary day-to-day existence that lets us hear God's still small voice and refocus our energies on what's really important.
Game-Changers
by Dean Feldmeyer
Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Mark 1:14-20
Academics call them "paradigm shifts." Author Malcolm Gladwell calls them "tipping points." In the modern vernacular they are "game-changers." These are the people who change everything. They are the events after which nothing remains the same. They are the things that make everything that came before seem obsolete.
Jonah was a game-changer and apparently so was the one sentence he preached to the people of Nineveh. In the gospel of Mark, Jesus preaches a one-sentence message that turns out to be a game-changer for four fishermen... and for us.
THE WORLD
Probably no one and nothing has served as a more profound game-changer in most of our lives than Steve Jobs and the technological changes that he either invented or forced others to invent who wished to keep up with him.
There are people in our churches who can remember listening to a gramophone -- and who received an MP3 player from their grandchildren for Christmas this year. They remember listening to the Green Hornet on radio -- and can now watch him on Hulu or Netflix. They remember telephone party lines -- and now carry an iPhone in their pocket. Their first job required them to use a manual typewriter -- and today they do their typing on an iPad. The first photograph they took was with a Brownie box camera -- and now they take snapshots with their telephones.
All of these innovations were game-changers that forced technology to make a right turn, which took us -- sometimes kicking and screaming -- into the digital age. After them, nothing will ever be the same. We won't be going back to their predecessors -- Princess phones, Kodachrome film, Underwood typewriters, or transistor radios -- in our lifetimes.
The Golden Globes have ushered in the annual run to the Oscars, and as the award season gears up we might want to think for a moment about some of the films that were game-changers for movie making and watching. The Birth of a Nation; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Star Wars; Citizen Kane; The Matrix; Avatar; Toy Story. Each of these films introduced something new in the field of technology or visual storytelling that forever changed the way movies are seen.
As Super Bowl XLVI approaches, we might pause to remember some things that changed the game of football forever. Instant replay, instituted in 1999, has virtually removed the home field advantage. Can you imagine the game without the forward pass? There wasn't such a thing before 1933. Before sudden death overtime, the tie was a common game conclusion. DirectTV's NFL Sunday Ticket package has now made it possible to watch every game -- EVERY GAME -- on any given Sunday. Then there's the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Love 'em or hate 'em, they changed the game and how we view it forever.
Paradigm shifts, tipping points, game changers -- whatever we call them, they are a reality that affects our lives more and more every year because they are coming on faster and faster.
THE WORD
The story goes that Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was such a big city that it took three days to walk its diameter -- about 60 miles across. That's big -- bigger than modern-day Mexico City, New York City, Beijing, London, and Moscow.
Jonah walked a third of the way into the city and preached the shortest sermon in history: "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Only eight words -- but each one was a game-changer, because in the next verse we are told that "the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth."
In Mark, Jesus preaches the second shortest sermon in history: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." Nineteen words... and it too was a game-changer for Peter and Andrew and James and John. Mark gives evidence of this by placing the story of their recruitment immediately after this passage. And its ripple effects changed global monotheism for the next 2,000 years.
Biblical scholars tell us that verse 15 is Mark's digest of the gospel -- the good news writ short and truncated for easy consumption. It is Jesus' entire message in three short, easy to remember, phrases:
1. The time is fulfilled;
2. The kingdom of God has come near;
3. Repent and believe the good news.
The rest of Mark's gospel is a commentary on these three phrases and how they create a paradigm shift for all who hear and digest them. Once you hear these 19 words and own them -- really own them -- they make a claim on your life, as does the one who first uttered them.
They are game-changers.
Then Mark illustrates that fact by showing four men's lives being radically altered. Four working men give up their lives and their families and follow Jesus.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
Mark has broken down the indicative and the imperative for us:
Indicative: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near." I always liked the vaguer, more poetic "is at hand" of the RSV and KJV.
The time is both right and ripe. The waiting and expectation are over. What are we waiting for? More money? More freedom? The kids to graduate from high school? A college degree?
The kingdom of God is now within reach. It is not something distant and far away but something to be hoped and longed for. It is something to be grasped -- right now.
How do we grasp it?
Imperative: "Repent, and believe in the good news."
Two imperatives are prescribed.
First, repent. Literally, turn again. Stop doing what you are doing, turn the other direction, and do the opposite. Stop waiting, stop longing. And...
Second, believe. But this belief is more than intellectual assent. It is faith. It is that belief that is held so strongly that it will be the basis upon which we will act, upon which we will risk. It is faith. Then Mark gives us an object lesson in this type of faith in the story of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, who put down their nets and follow Jesus.
Jonah's story is nearly identical in essence to Mark's. He pronounces the indicative: "In a short time -- 40 days -- this great city, this huge, marvelous city, will be overthrown." We do not know exactly what "overthrown" means. Destroyed? Conquered? Shaken? Changed? Whatever it is, it must not be good because those who hear it anticipate the imperative.
They believe and then they repent. That is, they step out in faith.
The people of Nineveh and the first disciples of Jesus have seen and heard the ultimate "game-changer" -- and they responded in the only possible way.
ANOTHER VIEW
by Mary Austin
Psalm 62:5-12
"For God alone my soul waits in silence," the Psalmist proclaims. The sentence bumps along awkwardly to end with the phrase "in silence." The poetry in translation would sound better without it, but the clumsiness adds emphasis to the waiting "in silence." That may be exactly the emphasis we need.
In our world of chiming phones, beeping computers, earbuds on every teenager, and headsets on every adult, silence is hard to come by. I stopped going to the gas station closest to my house when they installed television screens above the gas pumps, blasting me with ads and news while I filled the tank. A friend who works in a popular chain store quit her job before Christmas because every employee was required to wear a headset. The manager talked to the employees all through the shift, reminding them every few minutes to promote certain products, or to be sure to meet the sales goals for the day. "I couldn't listen to the customers because I had the manager in my ear all day," she complained.
We hate silence and rush to fill it, and yet we also long for it. In a recent article in the New York Times, essayist and travel writer Pico Iyer wrote about the ways people are working hard to build silence into their lives. "Writer friends of mine," he observed, "pay good money to get the Freedom software that enables them to disable (for up to eight hours) the very internet connections that seemed so emancipating not long ago. Even Intel (of all companies) experimented in 2007 with conferring four uninterrupted hours of quiet time every Tuesday morning on 300 engineers and managers. (The average office worker today, researchers have found, enjoys no more than three minutes at a time at his or her desk without interruption.) During this period the workers were not allowed to use the phone or send email, but simply had the chance to clear their heads and to hear themselves think."
Silence and spirit are deeply connected. The rush of information around us nibbles away at our opportunities for silence. Some piece of information is always clamoring for our attention and then our response. As Iyer observes in the same article: "And the more that floods in on us (the Kardashians, Obamacare, Dancing with the Stars), the less of ourselves we have to give to every snippet. All we notice is that the distinctions that used to guide and steady us -- between Sunday and Monday, public and private, here and there -- are gone."
We are more accustomed to noise than quiet. As one friend noted, "I often forget how nice silence is. I'm so used to noise that sometimes I don't recognize that noise is what is bothering me." A pastor friend observed that the practice of silence is not unlike the routine of exercise: "To me, silence is like exercise in that I never think I want or need it, but when I'm disciplined and do if anyway, I feel fantastic." A surgeon adds, "I talk and listen to people talking all day long, along with the sounds of drills, saws, mallets, machines beeping -- so when I get home... no TV, no radio, no music. Even in the lack of silence that is New York City, after work, my own little corner of the world is silent."
If we can't get a moment of quiet to hear ourselves or listen to God, then our day is shaped by all of the other voices coming into our lives. We have to be able to hear ourselves think to know what our deepest longings are. We need the quiet to listen for God's voice. The quiet gives meaning to the sound. A friend observed to me that "I understood the power of silence when I heard the Hallelujah Chorus for the first time. The silent beat before the final Hallelujah, when done well, is absolutely breathtaking."
The website of Spirituality and Practice notes that silence is more than the absence of sound. It's a state of inner quiet, rather than external stillness. Asks the site: "How can you find this inner quietude, tranquility, and calm? You must make room for it -- literally. Find a space of physical silence where you can sit quietly, away from distracting demands, voices, and sounds. Go there every day. It is the gateway to your interior silence." Physical setting creates spiritual space. The Psalmist understands this as he or she waits for God -- not in the frenzy of the day or restless conversation, but in deliberately chosen silence.
If the busy pace of the New Year has already eroded our plans for long, quiet walks or time to meditate, it's never too late to try again. And again. And again. Our attempts to find silence go against the grain of a crazy-busy world, but a little more silence will make us a lot less crazy. Silence brings focus and allows attentiveness to God and each other. Silence gets us below the surface. In it is the foundation for the Spirit's work, and the Psalmist invites us too to wait for God in silence.
ILLUSTRATIONS
As the NFL begins the final approach to the Super Bowl with this Sunday's conference championship games, we might pause for a moment and remember two of professional football's foremost game-changers who completely redefined the sport. Though neither man ever played the game, their contributions were so important that they have both been enshrined in pro football's Hall of Fame.
Tex Schramm was the original president and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys and a longtime member of the league's competition committee. He introduced more innovations into professional football than probably any other individual. It was under Tex's direction that the league adopted instant replay. He also introduced overtime in the regular season, all but eliminating those frustrating tie games. Tex put borders around the sidelines for the protection of players and fans, and it was Tex who first put a microphone on the referee, making the game more understandable to spectators. Of course, it was Tex Schramm who brought to the field the most famous sideline show of all time, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. In addition, Schramm was the driving force behind the creation of the league's annual scouting combine. No less an authority than legendary coach Don Shula has declared: "I truly believe he had as much, or more, to do with the success of professional football as anyone who has ever been connected with the league."
Schramm began his career in pro football with the Los Angeles Rams, where he hired a young public relations director who would become one of the game's seminal figures: Pete Rozelle. Rozelle went on to become the NFL commissioner for nearly three decades and is credited with being the driving force behind the NFL becoming one of the most successful sports leagues in the world. It was under Rozelle's stewardship that the Super Bowl was created, matching the champions of the NFL with the upstart AFL, and that a highly successful merger between the two leagues occurred. In addition, Rozelle was renowned for his grasp of how to make the sport popular on television, and how to make it extremely profitable for every team through his ability to negotiate contracts with the networks while keeping a fractious group of owners unified. (One of the cornerstones of the league's financial success is Rozelle's revolutionary concept of sharing television revenues equally among all teams.) In addition, Rozelle introduced Monday Night Football, which became a staple of the culture. Rozelle presided over a period when the NFL grew into the dominant spectator sport in America -- when he began his time as the league's commissioner in 1960, there were twelve teams playing to frequently half-empty stadiums, only a few of which had television contracts. By the time he retired in 1989, the league had 30 teams that played to routinely sold-out stadiums, and media rights worth billions of dollars.
Rozelle and Schramm truly created paradigm shifts that forever changed the game for everyone.
* * *
Malcolm Gladwell's celebrated book The Tipping Point talks about the process of how a revolutionary idea spreads from person to person until it eventually becomes a majority viewpoint and the scales are tipped in its favor. After an innovator initially comes up with the idea, it is spread by "connectors" (who know everybody), "mavens" (who know everything), and by "salespeople" (who can sell anything).
In much the same way, Christianity is spread because the gospel is told and the love of Christ shared from one person to another. Starting with only the few Jesus called to follow him 2,000 years ago, Christ's message has spread throughout the world.
* * *
William Willimon, former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, tells about a telephone call he once received from an irate parent:
"I hold you personally responsible for this," the father told him.
"Me?" the campus minister asked.
"Yes, you. I send my daughter off to college to get a good education. Now she tells me she wants to throw it all away and go off to Haiti as a Presbyterian mission volunteer! Isn't that absurd? A B.S. in mechanical engineering from Duke, and she's going off to dig ditches in Haiti."
"Well," said Willimon, in a feeble attempt at humor, "I doubt the engineering department taught her much about that line of work, but she's a fast learner; she'll probably get the hang of ditch-digging in a few months."
"Look," interrupted the father, "this is no laughing matter. I hold you completely responsible for her decision. She likes you. You've filled her head with all those pie-in-the-sky ideas!"
"Now look," said Willimon, trying to keep his ministerial composure. "Weren't you the one who had her baptized?"
"Why, yes," the father replied.
"And didn't you read her Bible stories, take her to Sunday school, send her off on ski trips with the Presbyterian Youth Fellowship?"
"Well, yes, but..."
"Don't 'but' me. It's your fault she believed all that stuff and that she's gone and thrown it all away on Jesus -- not mine. You're the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me."
"But all we ever wanted was for her to be a Presbyterian," said the father meekly.
"Sorry. You messed up. You made a disciple."
* * *
Whom does Jesus call? When we read the first chapter of Mark's gospel, we see that Jesus called busy people: men who were working, men who were already doing something. Does that tell us something?
They were fishermen and they would have kept on fishing the rest of their lives. What else was there for them to do? They trimmed their sails. They let down their nets and cleaned them after a night of fishing. They took their fish to the market. But then... but then Jesus entered their lives. They would keep fishing, but now they would fish for men, for people. That's still our calling.
* * *
Following Jesus can mean many different things for many different people. Today we know that to "fish for people" includes being a witness for Christ that goes beyond seeking converts; it also includes our entire lifestyle.
Japanese environmentalist Shigeatsu Hatakeyama is using Psalm 42 as an inspiration for his tree-planting campaign. This educational and conservationist program is called "The Forest Longing for the Sea, the Sea is Longing for the Forest," with the name rooted in the "longing for" of Psalm 42. Hatakeyama notes that the psalm reads, "As a deer longs for the flowing streams, the oysters long for the water in the forest." From his studies, Hatakeyama realized that that iron supplied from the forest through the river into the sea nourishes sea life. After the recent earthquake in Japan, he was able to gather enough scientific evidence to prove this theory. For his efforts, Hatakeyama is a candidate for the United Nations "Forest Hero" award.
* * *
To follow Jesus is to have an understanding of what we are called to do. First and foremost, it is to be aware of the needs of others.
Have you ever wondered why your dog is so attentive to your body language and voice modulations? Behavioral biologists in Hungary recently conducted a study that determined a dog has the same recognition capacity as a one-year-old infant. As an infant follows a parent across the room with his eyes, so does a dog recognize the subtleties of body motion. As an infant recognizes the voice modulations of a parent, so does a dog recognize the voice commands of his devoted house parent. Dogs are the only animals to have this ability that came from generations of domestication. Dr. Adam Miklosi, one of the study's authors, noted: "Being in a human family gives the dogs the ability to interact in a human way."
When we decide to follow Jesus, let us be just as sensitive to the needs of those who are a part of our global human family.
* * *
Jonah was summoned by God to go and prophesy to the people of Nineveh. Jonah was not a willing participant in this assignment, but he did as he was summoned. And by making the message known publicly, the people of Nineveh repented and the city was spared destruction.
Pat Robertson recently said that God has revealed to him the next president of the United States. At least for the time being, the knowledge of this event is to remain Robertson's personal possession.
However, John Mark Reynolds, professor of philosophy at Biola University, noted in the Washington Post's "On Faith" online section that "Foreknowledge does not tend to work that way." This is because "[a] wise man places his private revelation on a shelf and waits and sees what comes of it." Reynolds notes that the community must affirm what the wise man has been told. He concludes his article with this line: "Robertson should tell us what he thinks God wants America to know so we can judge him by the outcome or be quiet."
* * *
Repentance involves first a turning from our current behavior. In the story of Jonah we see that repentance also involves a tuning -- a linking of our wills to God's, so that they function in partnership.
It's rather like what goes on when a musical instrument is tuned. The musician sounds a tone on a pitch-pipe or a tuning fork. That first tone is steady, unvarying; it will not slip up or down the scale, thrown off by changes in humidity or frequent use. Over time, changes in tone will happen to the strings of a piano or a violin, but it will not happen with a tuning fork. That primary tone remains the same.
So it is with God's way, the way of Christian discipleship. It is not enough to make cosmetic changes in our lives -- to go around talking Christian talk, for a change -- unless you and I earnestly desire also to bring our lives into harmony with God's will.
* * *
Eugene Peterson uses his imagination in examining Jonah's use of the word "forty." He contends that Jonah did not denounce Nineveh's sin and wickedness but rather called into question the city's future.
Peterson explains what he means: " 'Forty' is a stock biblical word that has hope at its core. Forty days is a period for testing the reality of one's life -- examining it for truth, for authenticity. 'Is this a real life, or just some cheap imitation passed off on me by a sleight-of-hand culture? Is what I am doing and saying my own or just borrowed from people who know less than I do about who I am and what I am for? Is God skillfully shaping and wisely guiding my life or have I let my untutored whims and infantile sins reduce me to the lowest common denominator? Is this the way I want to spend the rest of my life?' "
Forty days was a time of testing for Elijah and for Jesus in the wilderness; even so it was a time of testing for Nineveh.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: For God alone our soul waits in silence,
People: for our hope is from God.
Leader: God alone is our rock and our salvation, our fortress;
People: we shall not be shaken.
Leader: On God rests our deliverance and our honor;
People: our mighty rock, our refuge is in God.
OR
Leader: Come and worship the God who never changes.
People: We take strength in knowing God is constant.
Leader: Yet God is ever calling us to change.
People: We are not always happy to change ourselves.
Leader: God's constant love is calling us forward.
People: Trusting in God's love, we offer ourselves so that we may be transformed into God's image.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"Rock of Ages"
found in:
UMH: 361
H82: 685
AAHH: 559
NNBH: 254
NCH: 596
CH: 214
LBW: 327
ELW: 623
"Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise"
found in:
UMH: 103
H82: 423
PH: 263
NCH: 1
CH: 66
LBW: 526
ELW: 834
Renew: 46
"A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"
found in:
UMH: 110
H82: 687/688
PH: 260
AAHH: 124
NNBH: 37
NCH: 439/440
CH: 65
LBW: 228/229
ELW: 503/505
"Many Gifts, One Spirit"
found in:
UMH: 114
NCH: 177
"This Is a Day of New Beginnings"
found in:
UMH: 383
NCH: 417
CH: 518
"We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder"
found in:
UMH: 418
AAHH: 464
NNBH: 217
NCH: 500
"O God of Every Nation"
found in:
UMH: 435
H82: 607
PH: 289
CH: 680
LBW: 416
ELW: 713
"O Holy City, Seen of John"
found in:
UMH: 726
H82: 582/583
PH: 453
NCH: 613
"Shine, Jesus, Shine"
found in:
CCB: 81
Renew: 247
"Your Loving Kindness Is Better Than Life"
found in:
CCB: 26
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who is constant in loving kindness to all creation: Grant us the grace to open our lives to the changes you would bring about in us so that we might reflect your image more clearly; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We offer our praise and adoration to you, O God, for your loving kindness never ceases. You constantly come to us, inviting us to grow into our likeness of you. Help us to hear the good news that Jesus brings to us this day. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our inclination to think we do not need to change and grow spiritually.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are quick to claim our place as your children, but we are slow to grow up. Finding ourselves to be part of your family, we are content to stay as we are. We forget that we have been called to a way and to an ever-expanding reign. Forgive us and empower us with your Spirit to stretch ourselves as we more fully realize your reign in our lives and in all our relationships. Amen.
Leader: God loves us and is pleased when we reach out to achieve all the potential with which we have been created. Know God's love and forgiveness and the joy of growing in grace.
Prayer for Illumination
Send, O God, the light of your presence among us so that as the good news of Jesus is read and proclaimed we, your children, may see the way to maturity and growth. Amen.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
All glory, honor, and praise are yours, O God, because you are the one who loves us and who has created us. We are your children, the work of your hands.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are quick to claim our place as your children, but we are slow to grow up. Finding ourselves to be part of your family, we are content to stay as we are. We forget that we have been called to a way and to an ever-expanding reign. Forgive us and empower us with your Spirit to stretch ourselves as we more fully realize your reign in our lives and in all our relationships.
We give you thanks for our creation as your image and for the ways in which you continue to re-create us into your image. We thank you for the ways in which you reveal yourself to us, and thereby reveal our potential to us. We thank you for your grace that constantly surrounds and infuses us so that we may respond to you and to others.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for your creation. We are aware of many pains and traumas that your children have suffered. We know it is difficult for some to conceive of you as a loving God. As you continue your gracious work with them, help us to reflect your love for them in ways that move them closer to you.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father... Amen.
(or if the Lord's Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children's Sermon Starter
Teach the children to play four square, the playground game where an area is divided into four quadrants with a person in each box. When a ball is bounced into a person's square, they have to bounce it into another square.
Start with no square and no ball. Call balls out or that were bounced too many times. Then introduce the ball. Play for a bit and then mark off the squares. If you don't want to put tape on the carpet just make some arbitrary boundaries. Then play a little more. Talk about how different the game is when you add the ball and the lines.
In the same way, Jesus came and changed everything about life. He came and told people that God loved them and wanted them to get ready for a wonderful new life. We need to listen to and follow Jesus.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
What's the Good News?
Mark 1:14-20
Object: a dictionary
Good morning, boys and girls! When Jesus was beginning his ministry, he told people, "Repent and believe the gospel." Can any of you tell me what it means to "repent"? (let the children answer) Let's look the word up in this dictionary and see what it says. (Read the dictionary meanings of the word "repent.")
Based on those meanings, what would you say Jesus was telling people to do? Was he telling them that they needed to change their way of living and tell God that they were sorry for all the things that they had been doing wrong? (let them answer) Yes, I think that's what he was telling them. He wanted them to know that God didn't like what they were doing, and they needed to see that and be sorry about it.
If they would do that, Jesus could then tell them some real good news. He said, "Repent and believe the gospel." Do any of you know what the gospel is? What was it he wanted them to believe? What does he want you and me to believe today? (let them answer) Well, the word "gospel" means good news, and Jesus has good news for anybody who will repent and listen to him. The good news is that we don't have to pay for our sins. Jesus paid for all our sins when he died on the cross. Because of that good news, that gospel, we know that everybody who believes the good news will go to heaven. Do all of you believe that good news? (let them answer) Good! You do believe the gospel so you can be sure that you will go to heaven. Let's thank Jesus for giving us this good news.
Prayer: Dear Jesus, we hear you telling us to repent and believe the gospel. We know that you give us the power to believe when you give us faith. We thank you for giving us faith so that we can believe. We do believe. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, January 22, 2012, issue.
Copyright 2012 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
