Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture

We should worship a God who made us in his image, not a god we make in our image.  Paul reinforces this when he speaks before the council in the pagan city of Athens.  He diplomatically approaches these powerful people, gradually introducing them to the notion of the one, true God.  We learn from him how we should address others if we wish to win them over to a life of faith.

Jesus' kid brother told us that if we are steadfast under trial, we will receive the crown of life.  He clearly didn't think that any true God would never let us suffer at all - which is what many atheists argue today.  It's said that if there really was a God, there would be no hunger, no homelessness, no disease.  But we see that in truth when we suffer, we gain empathy for others and we are greatly empowered.  Challenges in life help us grow stronger as believers and as humans.

I recently came across a man who was preaching on a street corner.  He was abused verbally, but I found his teaching to be perfectly sound.  He was a man who had made a big change in his life, fully embracing the modest and dedicated life of a true believer.  We look at this man, and at our lives as believers, in the context of Acts, where Peter and the other apostles are judged by the Sadducees and the Pharisees.  Peter declares: "We must obey God rather than men."  

We're a week out from Easter.  Jesus has risen and is walking the earth for 40 days.  He has chosen individuals to act as witnesses to his resurrection and to his Word - that that means us.  Through the story of Cornelius, the first gentile to follow Christ, we learn our true purpose.  We've got another 30 days or so to answer our call...

It is Easter, and not Christmas, that captures the essence of what it means to be a believer.  We look at the resurrection and why this is the one Christian belief that non-believers do their very best to argue away.  But there is no scientific explanation: the truth is that we, as the faithful, simply have the gift of believing in something that only our intuition and our faith tells us is true.  And Easter ushers in a kingdom that, unlike all other kingdoms, has no end.

On Palm Sunday, we go along with Jesus on his journey from Jericho to Jerusalem, beginning on foot and ending on a donkey.  We see that Jesus disappoints the crowd who shout "Hosanna!", meaning "Save us," - and they mean "Save us NOW".  Indeed, Jesus arrived via Roman roads to usher in a spiritual, not a physical, kingdom.

We look at King Josiah of Israel, a person who is not well known among Christians, perhaps because we have to piece his story together from multiple books of the Old Testament.  However, he has perhaps had a very dramatic impact on our faith.  Helping the People of God hone their notion of monotheism, which is, of course, at the heart of Christianity, was a major mission of his.  For us today, we see how Josiah has helped us come to know our God.

In 1st Peter and in Romans, the authors quote Isaiah, where it is predicted that a cornerstone will one day be laid in Zion.  This cornerstone in Jesus. There have been a number of Christian revivals in U.S. history.  Today, those of us who are holding to our faith are serving as a critical foundation for the church.  We need to be like the early believers, like Paul, like the Apostles, who saw nothing in between being a nonbeliever and being a spreader of the faith.  They did not settle for simply believing: they were the foundation laid upon the cornerstone of Jesus - they were builders, not just members era of the church; they were evangelists.

I met a man who has a problem with addiction, in particular, gambling.  When he feels the urge hit him, he gets in his car and drives a route in Denver that takes him past a number of place where homeless people are encamped.  He hands out food, clothing, blankets.  He is like the fig tree in Luke 13, the tree that would not bear fruit.  This man allowed God to cover him with grace so that he could turn his addiction on its head and bear beautiful fruit.

In the third Chapter of Zechariah, he has a vision of a trial scene: God is the judge, Satan is the accuser or prosecutor, and Joshua is the first person chosen to be the High Priest for the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.  Joshua is the accused.  We do not know what he is accused of, but we do know he is found innocent: he (symbolically) goes from being covered with dung to being dressed in fine clothes.  We, too, can be cleansed by God: we can be covered with human excrement and then be transformed into the blameless.

Our daughter, when she was perhaps 6, made a bookmark in school.  Isabelle put three stickers on it: a leaf, a deer, and a tree.  She wrote on it "Safe the trees".  In Psalm 24, we learn that God owns the Earth, and all on it, including us.  We take a fresh look at our responsibility, as believers, to care for all that God has created - especially us...

In the first chapter of Nehemiah, this average man who is not a priest and was not a prophet, offers up a prayer to God.  It is motived by his discovery that despite the Babylonians having been conquered by the Persians, and despite the fact that the descendants of the exiles have returned home, the walls of Jerusalem are still in terrible shape.  The city is exposed to attack.  He is going to Jerusalem, his journey starting from the capital city of Persia; he will rebuild the walls, enact economic reforms, and aid the poor.  His prayer is a request of God to bless him on his many-year mission.  He teaches us the proper way to fast, and in fact, the proper way to perform any act of self-denial.  He teaches us how to honor God instead of ourselves.

I have been deeply touched and very impressed at how many people who are dying or are confronting a disabling disease express thankfulness for all they have.  We look at one such man, who had metastasized cancer.  It turns out that many people seem to have taken to heart Paul's advice in 1st Thessalonians, to "Give thanks in all circumstances".

We look at the history of the Christian Creeds, and in detail at the most popular one in the western Church - the Apostles Creed.  We look at the meaning of the verses of the Creed.  We also look at the need to truly understand what we are saying - and to not let repetition ruin the meaning of a very meaningful prayer.

The Lord's Prayer from the Gospel of Matthew is the most commonly recited passage of the New Testament - by far.  We look at the biblical roots of the prayer and at what the Bible verses that make up the prayer truly mean.  Many will be surprised...