Sunday
02/10/19 - Sidney UMC
Sermon Title: “I am the least of the apostles”
Old Testament
Scripture: Psalm 138
New Testament
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Gospel Lesson:
Luke 5:1-11
Friends,
brothers and sisters, welcome again on this the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany,
of the Wisemen coming to Jesus with gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, and
this our UMC Scouting Sunday. On this day, the church encourages us to take a
moment or many moments to honor those who been in or have led in any way in our
scouting programs. In one of the churches that I served before coming here, we
had a special Scout Sunday service every year, and in these services, Cub
Scouts and Boy Scouts helped to run the service. I hope and pray that in the
coming years that we can work up to that here.
With this said, what I want to talk with you about this
morning, is our past. I don’t mean a history lesson. What I mean, is my past,
your past, as in the events and choices of our own lives. I am sure that all of
us can think about some choices that we have made that we regret. I am sure
that we can all think about things that we may have said that we wish we hadn’t
said. Sometimes our past can seem to haunt our present. The things that maybe
we have said or done, however little or great, sometimes seem to be the rock
that we carry around in our shoes. Yet, we just can’t seem to get that rock out
of our shoe sometimes. Or sometimes, it’s the chains that we drag, or the suite
cases of burdens that we lug around. We all have a past. Yet, the Bible tells
us that in Jesus Christ our sins, and our past can all be forgiven.
For example it says 1 John 1:9:
“If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will
forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”
(1 Jn. 1:9, NRSV).
The Apostle
Paul tells us in Romans 5:1
“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,”
(Rom. 5:1, NRSV).
So through Jesus Christ, his life, his death on a cross,
and his resurrection, we can be forgiven, we can repent of our sins and accept
him as the Lord of our lives. We can have a relationship with him, and our sins
are gone. So this then means that our past is forgotten also right? So often this
isn’t the case, as I have heard so many people say the phrase before, “I can forgive,
but I can’t forget”.
Has anyone here ever forgiven someone, but you haven’t
forgotten what they have said to you or what they did to you? I heard a much older
and wiser pastor say once that, “We don’t forgive for the person who wronged us,
but rather we forgive them for us. We forgive them to free ourselves, and we
should let God deal with that other person.”
Forgiveness is real and is powerful, but many of us have
long memories, don’t we? One of my favorite movies about the Revolutionary War,
is called “The Patriot,” starring Mel Gibson. I am sure that many of you have
seen this movie. In this movie, the character played by actor Mel Gibson is
reflecting upon his past in the beginning of the movie. The character that Mel
Gibson played had fought in the French and Indian War, or the Seven-year war
about 15-20 years before the American Revolution that this movie portrays. In
this previous war, the character that Mel Gibson played, did some brutal things
to people. Mel Gibson’s character regrets this all throughout the movie. In the
very beginning of the movie the character that Mel Gibson plays says something
like:
“I
have long feared that the sins of my past would revisit me, and now the cost of
this is more than I can bear.”
We are all forgiven
of all of our sins and our transgression if we ask Christ for forgiveness and
believe in him. Do our sins ever revisit us though?
They certainly did for the Apostle Paul, as he discusses
his past in our scripture reading for this morning in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11.
You see, before the Apostle Paul was the Apostle Paul, he was Saul of Tarsus.
We was an educated Jewish Pharisee that probably had wealth and prominence. He
hated Jesus and the first Christians, and he was determined to destroy them. On
his way to Damascus, Syria one day in the Book of Acts, Christ appeared to Saul
of Tarsus, and Saul converted to Christianity. Soon after, Saul became, Paul
the Apostle. Saul had arrested and persecuted the early Christian Church
heavily, and now he is one of us. Jesus had forgiven him, much like Jesus can
forgive us, but does Paul forget what he did when he was Saul?
Well, where I get my sermon title for this morning is from
1 Corinthians 15:9, where it says once again:
“For I am the least of the
apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God”
(1 Cor. 15:9, NRSV).
In this
scripture reading for this morning, not only is the Apostle Paul saying that he
isn’t great, but he is saying that he is the least of all of the Apostles.
Jesus had forgiven him of all of his sins and transgressions, but yet he was
the least, he said, because he had persecuted the Christians before he became
one. Now the Apostle Paul wrote 14-15 of the 27-books of the New Testament, by
the way. Let’s look again at this whole scripture from 1 Corinthians 15 for
this morning. It says:
“Now I would remind you, brothers
and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which
you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being
saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you
have come to believe in vain.”
(1
Cor. 15:1-2, NRSV).
The Apostle Paul is saying that
Jesus saved him, and that he then became the Apostle of Christ to the gentiles
or the non-Jews. He also says that he preaches the truth of the gospel with
authority.
The Apostle Paul then continues on
in this scripture to better lay this out. He continues on saying:
“For I
handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that
Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was
buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the
scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he
appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time,
most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James,
then to all the apostles” (1 Cor.
15:3-7, NRSV).
The
Apostle Paul is telling the church in Corinth, or the Corinthians that this is
who Christ is, this is his gospel, and it is a gospel that saves.
The
Apostle Paul then concludes this scripture by once again saying:
“Last of all, as to one
untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles,
unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by
the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.
On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the
grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and
so you have come to believe” (1 Cor. 15:8-11, NRSV).
The Apostle
Paul is saying that Jesus even appeared to him, and saved and restored him. He
then says though, as my sermon title says, “I am the least of the apostles,”
and even says that he is “unfit to be called an apostle”. He says all of this because
he persecuted the first Christians, and as a result he is “unfit to be called
an apostle”. Forgiven by Jesus Christ, restored to the grace of God the Father,
yet “unfit” he says.
So how are we
to take this? Is the Apostle Paul showing guilt? Is he showing humility?
Whatever our angle is on this, one thing is sure, the Apostle Paul is trying to
lessen himself and trying increase the presence of God. This is to say, he is
minimizing his importance, and is explaining that he is the least, that others
are greater, and that he is nothing compared to God.
A United
Methodist Church pastor that I admire greatly has said that his goal in life, “is
to be nameless to history, but faithful for eternity”. Coming to Christ means that
we are forgiven and restored, but it doesn’t meant that the memories, the
pains, and or troubles of our past will necessarily just vanish. They can, but
they don’t always. You’re forgiven, but what we have done, cannot be undone. If
someone does something terrible, they can be forgiven, but it doesn’t undo what
they have done.
So if you have
forgiven others, if you have asked God to forgive, but you still sometimes feel
troubled about your past, then you are not alone. You are forgiven through
Christ if you ask him, but many of us will still struggle at times with our
past. Being forgiven doesn’t make what we done go away, it just makes us forgiven
for it. Certainly scripture tells to give it to God, to surrender it to Him,
but this sometimes it is easier said than done.
In looking at
our gospel lesson for this morning again from Luke 5:1-11, it says once again
of Jesus calling his first disciples:
“Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of
Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he
saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of
them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one
belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then
he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking,
he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a
catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught
nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this,
they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled
their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and
filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he
fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful
man!” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that
they had taken; and so also
were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus
said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When
they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him” (Lk. 5:1-11, NRSV).
These disciples and others will follow Jesus for the next
3-years of his ministry. All but the Apostle John though, will abandon him on
the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. The Apostle Peter will deny knowing Jesus in
public three times before the rooster crow, and yet Jesus forgives Peter and
everyone else who asks him for forgiveness. I wonder how Peter felt for the
rest of his life though when he heard a rooster crow?
Through Christ, we can all be forgiven, yet the things that we
say and do, while forgiven still have consequences. Our challenge with God’s
help, is to try to not let our past dictate the future that God has given us
through Jesus Christ. This isn’t always easy though, as we see the Apostle Paul
struggling with this, this morning. Many other people in the Bible struggled
with their past to. Do you struggle with your past? Do the things that you have
said and have done sometimes pop back up in your thoughts, or your life?
In closing, I would like to share a quick story with you
called “Tomas Borge”. This story is about a man who struggled against a
tyrannical government in Nicaragua. In having been on a mission trip to
Nicaragua two years ago, this story jumped out at me. It’s a story about
forgiveness. Here is how it goes:
“Tomas Borge was
a leader in the struggle against the totalitarian regime that had dominated his
country, Nicaragua. During the revolution, Borge was captured and put in
prison. While there he was subjected to the most extreme torture for over 500
hours.” “After the revolution Borge was freed and become the Minister of the
Interior. One day he found one of his torturers in jail. He walked up to this
man who had inflicted such terrible, relentless and brutal pain upon him and
said, “I am going to get my revenge from you”. He then held out his hand and
said, “This is my revenge, I forgive you” (Reported by Ernesto Cardenal, The National Catholic Reporter,
September 17, 1979).
Tomas Borge forgave, but did he forget? I wonder if his
torturers carried around inside of themselves any guilt for what they had done
to him? Friends we can forgive, we can be forgiven, but sometimes despite our
best efforts, our pasts can come back to haunt us. I hope and I pray that we
cannot only forgive, not only be forgiven, but that with God’s help our pasts
don’t have to dictate our present our future. Amen.
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