Final Touch!
Sermon
Sermons On The Gospel Readings
Series I, Cycle C
When Sean O'Malley died in Ireland and was dutifully laid out in his casket for viewing at his wake, Elizabeth Winfield came by to pay her respects. She said to Fiona, Sean's widow, "He looks good. And I detect a slight smile on his face, don't I?"
"Yes, well, you know Sean was always a bit daft. I suspect he is just slow to realize what's happened to him."
Ah, yes! Death ... as poet A. E. Houseman put it, "The road all runners come." And before death happens to you and you and you ... and me, let's see if we cannot be quick to figure out from scripture what is going to happen to us.
Malachi 3:17b indicates those who have life with God are God's "special possession"; whereas Jesus says our Christian pilgrimage begins with poverty and ends in the kingdom of heaven (Luke 6:20). Entwined, these two truths of God share quite a comfort.
Found
First consider how a jewel became a jewel. There was a time when it was nothing more than an ugly rock buried in some hill. There it was discovered, value was seen in it, so it was taken to the workshop.
Years ago two South African boys were playing soccer with a fist-sized stone. A geologist watched their play, and eventually asked to see their stone ball. He offered them money to purchase a real soccer ball in exchange for their rock. They readily accepted. And he took the stone to his workshop. There he washed it, cut and polished it, and today it is the third largest diamond in the world.
We, too, were once diamonds in the rough -- sinners, lost, encrusted with wrong, ugly to God and others, kicked about by the devil himself. Aye, this is where we all began.
When Jesus said, "Blessed are you who are poor," he was saying, "Blessed are those who realize their total spiritual poverty before the Lord." Indeed, we were helpless as a rock. Ah! But Jesus cast his loving eye upon us. And in his trained look of grace, he saw value in us. He saw through the dirt of sin, the rough edges of evil habits, to the uncultivated beauty deep down within. And he bought us. Paul wrote in Romans 5:8 (RSV), "But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." The good Lord didn't wait for us to be perfect. He did not demand we fix ourselves. He took a chance on us. He bought us "poor," like a stonecutter buys a jewel in the rough.
Cut And Polished
Ah, but now the rough stone is in the master's workshop. There crude rocks are washed and the process of cutting and polishing is begun. Slowly the ugly falls away and the real beauty of the gemstone emerges.
In Christ we, too, go through a process of cutting and polishing. For after Christ purchases us, he takes us to his workshop and begins to shape us. He accepts us poor, but makes us rich. He claims us as we are, but his great love will not leave us as we are. Right now each of us is being handcrafted into a precision-cut jewel.
If our purchase price is the cross, called justification, then the cleaning and shaping of our lives are a process called sanctification. And it is carried out in the church where we are shaped by the teaching of scripture, by caring friends, and by suffering.
Indeed, pain is a gift that nobody wants. Yet it is a valid portion of life in a fallen world. Acts 14:22 warns, "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God." Just as no diamond in the rough is spared the process of cutting and polishing, so no Christian is spared sanctification and the accompanying pain.
What separates us from non-Christians is not that we suffer but how we suffer. Non-Christians suffer without hope. They are often driven to despair and alcohol. But in Jesus, we have hope. We know God can bring the beauty out of our hurts. The Apostle Paul, himself a man familiar with hurts, wrote in Romans 5:3-4 (RSV), "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope." Job, in the crucible of his own agonies, confirmed the same thing. He wrote, "When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10 RSV).
I suppose that every burden of suffering appears to us as an oppressing and overwhelming weight. But do not forget that these weights are only stones, such as are attached to deep-sea divers, that they might descend to the sea floor and fish up pearls. And when they have gathered great riches, the stones are released, and the divers are drawn up with their riches.
C. H. Spurgeon once said, "Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties." Sir Walter Scott learned from lameness. George Washington, the patient statesman, learned from the snows of Valley Forge. Lincoln, the liberator, learned from his early poverty. Disraeli, the crusader for fair play, learned from the prejudices against him. Theodore Roosevelt, the disciplinarian, learned from his asthma; Edison, the inventor, from his deafness; Chrysler, the creative genius, from the hot grease pit of a locomotive roundhouse. Robert Louis Stevenson, the poet, learned from tuberculosis; Helen Keller, the inspiring example, from her blindness; and Jane Needham, the author of Looking Up, learned from her iron lung. Pain doesn't have to tear us down. It can build us up. It is the process whereby God cuts and shapes us into jewel-like brilliance. Peter put it so well in 1 Peter 1:6-7 (RSV): "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold ... is tested by fire, may redound to praise."
Mounted
Now comes the good part! Jesus said the poor will one day know "the kingdom of heaven." And Malachi says God will one day look at us and shout, "Mine! Those who revere the Lord shall be ... my special possession on the day when I act...."
Comfort yourselves with this, O beloved of God! When an artist finishes a masterpiece, he frames it. When a sculptor completes a carving, he places it on a pedestal. And when a jeweler finishes a stone, he mounts it. This is our hope in Jesus Christ! When God finishes with us down here, he takes us up there. As Isaiah 62:3 confirms, "You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God." Listen again to God's own promise from Revelation 21:3-4 (RSV). "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."
Did you ever wonder why Jesus said from the cross, "It is finished!"? The purchase price for you and for me was paid in full. His own sufferings were over. His life work was complete before God. And his soul, a precious gemstone, was going home, a prize to God. And that day will come for each of us as well. God will shout, "Mine!" And He will take us to himself in paradise. We shall be as cut rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and topaz. Works of the highest art. Prized by God! And we shall be satisfied!
Conclusion
In Eric Marshall's book, Children's Letters to God, a child writes, "Dear God, what is it like to die? Nobody will tell me. I just want to know. I don't want to do it. Your friend, Mike."
Yes, like Sean O'Malley, all laid out in his casket smiling, we, too, can be a little slow to realize what's happening to us! But no more! Justified, sanctified, and one day glorified -- that's the way of life in Christ. But it all starts when we kneel in poverty at the foot of the cross. Will you join me there now?
"Yes, well, you know Sean was always a bit daft. I suspect he is just slow to realize what's happened to him."
Ah, yes! Death ... as poet A. E. Houseman put it, "The road all runners come." And before death happens to you and you and you ... and me, let's see if we cannot be quick to figure out from scripture what is going to happen to us.
Malachi 3:17b indicates those who have life with God are God's "special possession"; whereas Jesus says our Christian pilgrimage begins with poverty and ends in the kingdom of heaven (Luke 6:20). Entwined, these two truths of God share quite a comfort.
Found
First consider how a jewel became a jewel. There was a time when it was nothing more than an ugly rock buried in some hill. There it was discovered, value was seen in it, so it was taken to the workshop.
Years ago two South African boys were playing soccer with a fist-sized stone. A geologist watched their play, and eventually asked to see their stone ball. He offered them money to purchase a real soccer ball in exchange for their rock. They readily accepted. And he took the stone to his workshop. There he washed it, cut and polished it, and today it is the third largest diamond in the world.
We, too, were once diamonds in the rough -- sinners, lost, encrusted with wrong, ugly to God and others, kicked about by the devil himself. Aye, this is where we all began.
When Jesus said, "Blessed are you who are poor," he was saying, "Blessed are those who realize their total spiritual poverty before the Lord." Indeed, we were helpless as a rock. Ah! But Jesus cast his loving eye upon us. And in his trained look of grace, he saw value in us. He saw through the dirt of sin, the rough edges of evil habits, to the uncultivated beauty deep down within. And he bought us. Paul wrote in Romans 5:8 (RSV), "But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." The good Lord didn't wait for us to be perfect. He did not demand we fix ourselves. He took a chance on us. He bought us "poor," like a stonecutter buys a jewel in the rough.
Cut And Polished
Ah, but now the rough stone is in the master's workshop. There crude rocks are washed and the process of cutting and polishing is begun. Slowly the ugly falls away and the real beauty of the gemstone emerges.
In Christ we, too, go through a process of cutting and polishing. For after Christ purchases us, he takes us to his workshop and begins to shape us. He accepts us poor, but makes us rich. He claims us as we are, but his great love will not leave us as we are. Right now each of us is being handcrafted into a precision-cut jewel.
If our purchase price is the cross, called justification, then the cleaning and shaping of our lives are a process called sanctification. And it is carried out in the church where we are shaped by the teaching of scripture, by caring friends, and by suffering.
Indeed, pain is a gift that nobody wants. Yet it is a valid portion of life in a fallen world. Acts 14:22 warns, "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God." Just as no diamond in the rough is spared the process of cutting and polishing, so no Christian is spared sanctification and the accompanying pain.
What separates us from non-Christians is not that we suffer but how we suffer. Non-Christians suffer without hope. They are often driven to despair and alcohol. But in Jesus, we have hope. We know God can bring the beauty out of our hurts. The Apostle Paul, himself a man familiar with hurts, wrote in Romans 5:3-4 (RSV), "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope." Job, in the crucible of his own agonies, confirmed the same thing. He wrote, "When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10 RSV).
I suppose that every burden of suffering appears to us as an oppressing and overwhelming weight. But do not forget that these weights are only stones, such as are attached to deep-sea divers, that they might descend to the sea floor and fish up pearls. And when they have gathered great riches, the stones are released, and the divers are drawn up with their riches.
C. H. Spurgeon once said, "Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties." Sir Walter Scott learned from lameness. George Washington, the patient statesman, learned from the snows of Valley Forge. Lincoln, the liberator, learned from his early poverty. Disraeli, the crusader for fair play, learned from the prejudices against him. Theodore Roosevelt, the disciplinarian, learned from his asthma; Edison, the inventor, from his deafness; Chrysler, the creative genius, from the hot grease pit of a locomotive roundhouse. Robert Louis Stevenson, the poet, learned from tuberculosis; Helen Keller, the inspiring example, from her blindness; and Jane Needham, the author of Looking Up, learned from her iron lung. Pain doesn't have to tear us down. It can build us up. It is the process whereby God cuts and shapes us into jewel-like brilliance. Peter put it so well in 1 Peter 1:6-7 (RSV): "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold ... is tested by fire, may redound to praise."
Mounted
Now comes the good part! Jesus said the poor will one day know "the kingdom of heaven." And Malachi says God will one day look at us and shout, "Mine! Those who revere the Lord shall be ... my special possession on the day when I act...."
Comfort yourselves with this, O beloved of God! When an artist finishes a masterpiece, he frames it. When a sculptor completes a carving, he places it on a pedestal. And when a jeweler finishes a stone, he mounts it. This is our hope in Jesus Christ! When God finishes with us down here, he takes us up there. As Isaiah 62:3 confirms, "You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God." Listen again to God's own promise from Revelation 21:3-4 (RSV). "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."
Did you ever wonder why Jesus said from the cross, "It is finished!"? The purchase price for you and for me was paid in full. His own sufferings were over. His life work was complete before God. And his soul, a precious gemstone, was going home, a prize to God. And that day will come for each of us as well. God will shout, "Mine!" And He will take us to himself in paradise. We shall be as cut rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and topaz. Works of the highest art. Prized by God! And we shall be satisfied!
Conclusion
In Eric Marshall's book, Children's Letters to God, a child writes, "Dear God, what is it like to die? Nobody will tell me. I just want to know. I don't want to do it. Your friend, Mike."
Yes, like Sean O'Malley, all laid out in his casket smiling, we, too, can be a little slow to realize what's happening to us! But no more! Justified, sanctified, and one day glorified -- that's the way of life in Christ. But it all starts when we kneel in poverty at the foot of the cross. Will you join me there now?
