Another Religious Post

I am still trying to figure out what I will teach on when I go before the congregation. I will say that I have had some positive response and a couple of people even discussed coming to hear me speak. The thing is that most of these people are new to Christianity and I don't want to drive them away because I did a bad job.

The second thing is that because these people are new to the faith, there isn't a lot of basic knowledge about the faith. I have been trying to figure out where to begin, to just ensure that they know the basics. I grew up knowing the bible so as I got older and questioned it, I already knew what it did say.

I think one of the things I will want to talk about is why life? To put it another way, why can't we just start in heaven, why do we have to live this life on earth apart from God? It is a good question and one that I would expect new Christians to ask. It is also the perfect thing to explain in advance of people reading the bible because it helps to understand what people went through and the choices they made.

What follows is a possible sermon:

What would we be like if we never had to make tough choices? What would life be like if everything was easy? Well, I think we would be lazy, urge driven and without a sense of ourselves. The devil offers us the pleasures of the world, power, wealth, sex, toys, fame, whatever you will sell your free will in exchange for. If we have not determined for ourselves who we are, what we stand for and how much we can take then we are not ourselves, we are whatever we need to be in order to avoid pain and get rewards. We choose to be like trained seals. Personally, I am nobodies trained anything.

Everyone in the bible tells God no at sometime. Jonah is probably the best example. Sometimes God wants us to say no. When God said to Abraham, "And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." That is pretty heavy, God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son and then burn him. We know that Abraham did as he was told and was preparing to kill his son when God stopped him.

There is only one way to understand the one part of the story. God did not want Abraham to kill his son. If he had wanted him to kill him then he would have let him; but, he stopped him. The generally held belief is that God was testing Abraham to have Abraham prove his faith; but, I don't believe that was the reason. Let's dig a little deeper.

Abraham takes his son to the mountain and tells his servants to stay behind. The quote is, "And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you." He lied. He was not going to the mountain so that he and his son could worship, he was going to sacrifice his son. Issac and Abraham proceed up the mountain and they bring along everything needed for a sacrifice except the lamb. Now Issac knows this and says, "And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"

Abraham's response to his son was, "And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together." This is again another lie, Abraham believed he was to kill Isaac. Once they got to the intended place Abraham bound Isaac and put him on top of the wood. At this point any suspicions that Issac had were pretty well confirmed, he was the sacrifice. However, God stops him. God says, "And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me."

The last part where God blesses Abraham because he acted faithfully leads most to conclude that God was testing Abraham to see if he would be faithful in all things; but, it does not say that God was in fact that God wanted Abraham to do what he was told. Instead God tells Abraham to not ever do anything to the boy.

What if God had wanted Abraham to say no. I cannot believe that God wanted Abraham to lie to his son or his servants. Why did he lie? He lied because he thought they might try and stop him. Abraham knew that what he was doing was wrong; but, he was going to go through with it anyways. What if God had really wanted Abraham to say no, to say that he would not kill his child. What if God had really hoped that Abraham had exercised his free will while still being faithful.

God did not talk to Abraham often. God probably spoke more to Moses than anyone else in the bible; but, Moses is honored more than Abraham and Moses disobeyed God. Let me explain, when Jesus meets with two prophets, he did not meet with Abraham, he met with Moses and Elijah. Elijah is interesting in that he was taken away in a whirlwind; however, just before that happened, Elijah parted the waters. Moses and Elijah both parted waters.

Moses unlike Abraham was not quick to agree with God. When God first told Moses to tell the Pharaoh to release the Jews from Egypt, Moses had nothing but excuses. In fact a common mistake is that Moses spoke to the Pharaoh, because Moses didn't want to talk, Moses had Aaron speak to Pharaoh. Now, we must give Moses his due, he did the heavy lifting. Moses spent 40 years in the desert with a bunch of people who continually did wrong and begged God to not kill them all. He even begged God to heal someone who had made fun of him and his wife.

What did Moses get or ask for, nothing, nothing earthly. Moses was not made rich or given cookies, heck, Moses got to spend 40 years in the desert; but, he got to spend them with God. It says that we are not to store up our treasures on earth; but, to store them up in heaven and Moses did.

Here is the thing. Abraham pleads with God to save Sodom, the town in which his relative lives; but, he did not plead with God for his son's life. Abraham was not that great a guy. Abraham is the one who told the Pharaoh that his wife was his sister because he was afraid that Pharaoh wanted to sleep with her and he didn't want to be killed.

Boy that is a lot to talk about and remember. The bible is filled with stories about human beings, the book is mostly about how humans interact poorly with God and each other. God could have made us without free will, he could have made us with our only intent to be to worship him; but, he didn't do that. We are born with free will and only a handful ever know him personally or interact with him directly.

I have to interrupt this post. I have told a few people that I am going to speak at this service and you know what, a bunch of them want to come. I am talking about people who know me personally, some of whom read this blog. I cannot tell you how honored I am to know that people who know me and already know my beliefs would want to come and listed to me talk about the bible, very humbling. It makes my heart happy. I am also very grateful that many have said that I don't have to worry and that I can talk to anyone. I am still nervous that I will mess it up.

Back to what I was discussing. God lets some people tell him no; but, they have to do it for the right reasons. The final test is when you say no, not when you say yes. Jonah told God no; but, Jonah had already made a promise to God and he did have to keep it. After keeping it Jonah was so mad that he wanted to die. He stomped off, sat on a hill and pouted. God sent a covering for Jonah so that the sun would not bother him too much and then talked to him about why it was right to save these people. It is a great story and most people only remember that Jonah was in the belly of a whale.

One would think that telling God no would get them a one-way ticket to hell or at least severely injured; but, he doesn't seem to do that if you tell him no from a true heart. The bible is a book about people who mess up, it is not about perfect people. Heck, Paul said he was the greatest sinner of all.

I will get to my point now, had to start with some background information. You cannot understand the points if you do not know the stories, the two are one. People's lives are demonstrations of God's lessons, he chooses people because their lives tell us something about ourselves and our choices. A preacher would now ask you, "What does your life tell about you". I am not going to do that because we don't know until the game is over what our lives really meant. Paul tormented Christians and then was converted, his story was his complete life and not just his early mistakes.

My question was why don't we just get born in heaven and get to avoid all of this life. Well, because we can grow here, we can learn to make better choices, we can be of service to one another. I will go back to the story of Jonah. I cannot prove this; but, I think it is a good question. Why did God tell the prophet Jonah to go to Nineveh and why did it upset Jonah?

Couple of simple things, Jonah had asked to be preach in such a way to save people and God sent him to save the people that he hated. I will tell you why I believe this, Jonah pouted because he knew he would save them. Jonah says, "But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD." He says that he will pay what he promised and he promised to tell people of the Lord's salvation. He got his chance so why did he complain, I think it is because Jonah had wanted to pray of the Lord's salvation to his own people, not to non-Jews. Oh, Jonah also says, "And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil."

Jonah had made a vow to God at the temple, he made a promise BEFORE he was swallowed by the whale. Jonah knew that these people would repent and he knew that his own people would not and I believe that is why Jonah was angry. Jonah was angry that the blessing was not for his own people. Guess where Nineveh is, it is in Iraq. It's ruins sit next to Mosul. Can you imagine that an Israeli today promises God to preach and save people and God telling him to go to Iraq and preach and that they will be saved? If you can the maybe you can understand how Jonah felt.

I need to get back to my question, so why life? Why can't we just be in heaven and never endure this life. Because we have to define ourselves and we will make mistakes; but, we learn that we can grow and make better choices. The more loving our hearts become, the closer we are to knowing God. Eventually, we get to know him in person.

I should point out something else, life does not get easier just because you become a believer, nope, it gets harder. The more loving you become, the more you give and the more people attempt to take advantage of your giving. I want to say something to people who decide to return to hear me speak again (I am writing alternate sermons, this is what I will say to the congregation). If you think that you wish to be a believer, if what I say rings true with you then we are going to set out a format that will help you to learn. It is important to have a firm foundation in faith and it doesn't just happen.

I am not a preacher, I am not a pastor, I am not going to baptize babies, I won't conduct weddings under the law, I will not be ordained in any sect. I don't have all the answers and I am not going to and if I did, I wouldn't give them all. I will never ask for a dime from anyone, I have a job. I was asked to speak to some people by a very well trained Pastor because we agree on a lot of things and he knows that I love the Lord.

Nothing we ever do will be what you have seen. This will always be like how the church began, a bunch of people talking about what they know and learning from one another. You can tell me anything; but, I am not confessor and I can be called into court to testify. If you tell me that you are going to kill someone, I am going to call the cops and have you arrested. If you tell me you stole candy last week, I am probably not going to call the cops; but, I will tell you to go back and pay for the candy.

I know a lot about the bible; but, church is for grown ups, it is not about me teaching, it is about you learning. It is about you reading the bible and asking questions. I am here to answer questions and give my insights, I will make mistakes; but, they will be honest ones. I do not know how I got here, I never wished to preach to anyone. My friend, the pastor, told me that there were people who wanted to know and asked me if I would talk to them, how could I say no, I could not. If I have a hope for what this leads to, it is that you would learn and be empowered to tell others of why you have a hope inside you that will take you through any challenge. By the way, we still get scared even if we know the Lord, we are still human.

We do not have to follow any "church rules", we can meet for an hour or for as long as people want, we can discuss anything. I want to understand what you need as you begin your journey. My advice is that each time we meet, you have already read two chapters of the bible, it will take about 15 minutes a night. If you have difficulty reading then I recommend that we read a chapter or two a week out loud. I will still talk about issues; but, you really have to have heard all the stories for us to get deep into it.

Whatever I choose to involve myself in is by choice. I choose to be hear because I heard that there were people who wanted to hear about God. For whatever reason they choose not to be in a organized church and there is nothing organized about me. I believe in personal revelation, I believe in learning overtime, I believe that God loves everyone of us and I believe that he loves you. I am just a guy and no different then anyone else. If there are never more people here than here tonight then it doesn't matter, heck, I would probably feel less insecure; but, I will talk to anyone who wants to know about the hope that is in me, about my Lord.