THE DAY THE GIFT WAS GIVEN

I remember a year when my dad painstakingly reconstructed bicycles for me and my sister.   Somehow I knew he was collecting parts BEFORE the magical day arrived, and even as a young girl I felt the anticipation build.   But I could never have imagined the true joy of that gift before THE DAY came.  I rode that pink bicycle complete with streamers on the handlebars, wind in my face and I rode with all the joy I could ever imagine.   Even now as I am reminded of that Christmas long ago (for me, it is long ago), I feel the wind in my face and I see the pride on my dad’s face as his gift was received, embraced and loved.

This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, ¹⁰ but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.  2 Timothy 1:9-10

This Grace was given to us in Christ Jesus BEFORE the beginning of time.   Phenomenal!   It is like presents have been under the tree and when THE day came, VOILA!  The revelation of all that lay beneath the wrapping. All throughout history God has been giving glimpses of His grace that would help us appreciate THE Gift when the day came for revelation. 

God gave us the grace of Jesus Christ long before we even knew, and oh the joy I am still bathed in as I remember my own Day of Revelation.   The day I was fully aware that Grace had entered my life forever – not because of anything I had done or will ever do – but because He has a purpose and He is full of grace and truth.   I unwrapped that gift as an eight-year-old and I remember being gripped with anticipation just as I remember waking each Christmas morning before my parents were up, wondering if it was ok for me to tear into the wrapping.  I recall the moment when I released my grip on the pew in front of me and stole down that aisle of that little country church into a revelation that changed my life forever.

Long before I was born; long before any of us was born, before the beginning of time this grace was given, and this is the grace we celebrated every year at Christmas.  

 In the beginning was The Word.  The Word was with God, and The Word was God . . . . The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His Glory, Glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1,2,14)   

Full of grace, Holy Savior
Full of grace and truth
May our hearts be filled with wonder
Of Your great, good news
May we bask in all Your splendor
And embrace the gift You bring
Gift of hope, gift of mercy
Gift of Grace, we crown You King

May the God of all grace fill our hearts and homes.   May many more be awakened to the revelation that came to earth over 2000 years ago wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

Sue McCary Sargis
December 10, 2013

WHO SITS IN OUR PEWS

Luke 14:12-23 (NIV)

12 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

The Parable of the Great Banquet

15 When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

16 Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17 At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

18 “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’

19 “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’

20 “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

21 “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

22 “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

23 “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. 24 I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’

We have just begun a new church, New Hope Aloha Pau’ole with this mission statement: “We are committed to loving God and to advancing His kingdom by loving people to a place of freedom.” Our very first sermon was based on the story of the three kings – of Israel, Judah and Edom – who God called together to defeat the Midianites. But the possibility of doing so was against all odds for the people were few in number, by comparison to the Midianites, and the people were weary already and thirsty. They had no water to drink for several days and no prospect of that happening. God’s prophet told them they had to dig ditches so that the valley would be full of ditches to receive the waters that would come. That made no sense at all, but they dug ditches and when the woke the next morning the ditches were full of water. They had filled the valley with ditches and the valley was now filled with life-sustaining water.

Doing church the way we are compelled to by Jesus in Luke 14 makes about as much sense as a mandate to dig ditches when the enemy looms on the horizon and we are dog-tired and thirsty. Don’t invite the privileged ones who can pay the bills and keep things nice and orderly, but rather go invite those who are poor and crippled and blind and lame; those who live in alleys and streets, not in houses. That’s hard work, messy work, abnormal-in-our-modern-day-church-culture work.

Our Pastor told us we would need to dig ditches so that the waters of the living God would fill the valley and people could drink freely of these living waters. He said it would be a messy ministry – that of loving people to a place of freedom. It’s a messy thought – going out into the highways and byways, the alleys and the streets to reach people who are thirsty for the living waters of our God’s saving grace.

As we begin our ministry in a regular Sunday service at Moanalua Elementary School in Moanalua Valley - two services under our belt now - I wonder how we will fill this valley with ditches. Traditional church culture is invasive and the reality that we could settle in to what we all know, in some form or another, is a culture that says ‘come and see’ instead of ‘go and bring them in.’ It is a culture where people are satisfied with snippets of God’s truth on a Sunday morning – just enough of His truth to get us through the week and just enough so that it does not step on our orderly lifestyles. We cannot lose the vision and the heart of the mandate to dig ditches, to go out into the alley ways and streets, or we will just settle back into a western world religious ‘Christian’ culture.

Who will fill the pews of our church, and what will those pews look like? To move out of this established church culture will take constant revisiting of the vision God has given us. To move out of this established church culture we will need to see the work God has before us as one that has no ‘normal’ for if it begins to feel normal then we will forget the alleys and the streets and the ditches that need to be dug so God can pour out rivers of living waters from the very throne room of Heaven into dry and parched hearts.

In a year I pray we will look back and see that we have been faithful to our calling, that we will see our pews, whatever they look like and wherever they might be, filled with people whose lives are transformed because we did, indeed, love our God and advance His kingdom, not our agenda, His Kingdom by loving people to a place of freedom. I want to keep ever before my own heart this simple question – Who sits in your pews? And in reality, with the vision ever before us and call of God mandating every move we make, those pews will be banqueting tables where we will feast with others, people like us who were once poor, crippled, blind, lame and we will all be rejoicing together at the ongoing wedding feast of the Lamb – the Lamb of God who compels us to live life as He, Himself, demonstrated in word and in deed.

Luke 14 ends with these words:

34 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.

“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

Oh God, keep Your vision ever before us. Help us dig those ditches. Fill them with Living Waters. Fill your banqueting table with those we have compelled to come in.  Help us to love others as You demonstrated love, for as our pastor reitterated this past Sunday -- They will only know we are Christians . . . by our love.

suemccarysargis  1/14/2013

A MARKED MAN - LAZARUS

John 12:1-2; 9-11


Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him.

9 Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10 So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, 11 for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and believing in him.

I never noticed, in all my readings of these scriptures over the years, that Lazarus was a marked man. This one who had died once and was resurrected by Jesus four days after he officially was declared dead, this one whom Jesus instructed those standing around weeping, “take the grave clothes off him!”; this one of whom the people said: “He stinks! Don’t you know he’s been dead so long already?” and this one of whom the shortest verse in the Bible is written, “Jesus wept” - he, resurrected and testifying of the power of the long-awaited Messiah, was a marked man. And who was out to get him? None other than the religious leaders of the day – the Chief Priests made plans to kill him ‘as well’ – or at the same time they did away with Jesus.

We don’t know anything more about Lazarus so he may have died a martyr or he may have died naturally at a ripe old age but of one thing we can be certain – he was a marked man.

Yes, marked by the religious zealots bent on destroying the testimony of the One who came to redeem us all but more importantly, Lazarus was a marked by the power and love and grace of God and his life was forever changed. He got a first-hand lesson that few have or will ever experience – one that allowed him to know death and life are held only in the sovereign hands of God and none other. He got to know the passion of Jesus as his sisters told him how Jesus wept at his grave site. He got to experience the stench of death leaving him as those strips of death shroud were carefully removed by friends and family standing by his tomb as he came forth. He experienced, first-hand, what it meant to be marked by the redeeming grace of the Son of God who came to seek and to save that which was lost. No doubt this marked man was hunted down the rest of his life and he may very well have died a martyr’s death just like most of those first century evangels; and yet the mark on Lazarus that remains most significant is the mark that sealed his fate forever – the mark of eternity stamped on his heart and soul and mind that day in Bethany by the Messiah.

We who have received Jesus into our own hearts are marked as well. Yes, we too are marked by those yet out to do away with our own testimonies, but more importantly we, like Lazarus are marked for all time and eternity by the imprint upon our hearts and souls and minds of God’s unending, matchless, redeeming love and grace.

suemccarysargis 12/22/2012