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There
is an old American Indian legend about a young brave who found an
eagle’s egg, and placed it in the nest of a turkey.
Once
the eagle’s egg hatched, the bird was raised as part of a flock of
turkeys. This meant that the turkey would scratch in the dirt for insects
to feed on, and when it flapped its wings it would fly no higher than a
few feet off the ground. This is, after all, what turkeys do.
But
one day, the eagle who thought he was a turkey was scratching in the dirt
with his fellow birds when he happened to look up in the sky and see a
bald eagle soaring on an updraft of wind.
“What
a remarkable bird,” the eagle changeling gasped in admiration. “What
kind is it?” And the turkey next to him remarked, “Oh, that’s an
eagle. But you don’t have to give him a second thought. You’ll never
be anything like him.” So the eagle continued to scratch in the dirt for
bugs, and never discovered who he really was. Ladies and gentlemen, this
morning I have an important—no, cancel that, I have an essential
question to ask: Who do you think you are? Who do you think God created
you to be: an eagle or a turkey.
Years ago I had the opportunity to
interview Steve Allen, and I want to tell you, he was quite a character.
Do you remember Steve Allen? He was the
creator of the Tonight Show years before Johnny Carson, and a number of
other TV shows. How big an ego did this guy have? Think aircraft carrier.
When I said that he was “one of those” who invented the talk show, he
corrected me, “You mean I did invent the talk show.” But they say
“It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it,” and Allen had a remarkable
run of creativity, including writing thousands of songs.
Probably the most famous song that Allen
wrote was “This Could Be The Start of Something Big,” and that’s
what I want to talk about today, Epiphany Sunday, first Sunday of the new
year.
I don’t know if you stayed awake to see
in the new year Wednesday night. Robin and I ordered a pizza and basically
fell asleep before the pie had a chance to get cold. But you know what?
We
woke up Thursday morning, the sun was shining bright and the world really
did look fresh and new, a blank piece of paper to write on.
One of the great things about being the
people of God, and this is an idea that folks who lack faith just don’t
get, is that life can always be better than it was before, if you want it
to be.
Here’s
what God has taught me: Without the understanding that God is leading you
forward, that he loves you and wants you to be the best you that can
possibly be, people are just marking time, waiting to die. Another new
year is just 12 more months to be endured.
But
the attitude of God’s people at the start of the year ought to be,
“God has given me another chance to make a difference.”
Let
me ask you, why do you think God leaves us here, on Planet Earth? If God
loves us, and he does, why not just take us directly to heaven where we
can be close to him? You might say, “We’re here to worship him,” and
I would say, “We could worship God in heaven, and one day we will.”
But what can we do here that we can’t do once we’re safely in heaven?
We
can take somebody else on the journey. We can reach out to those who do
not know God, who don’t know him the way we know him, as a companion, as
a friend, as our strength, as our redeemer.
Everybody
wants to be part of something important. I’ve never met anybody who
didn’t get a kick out of seeing themselves on TV. It just makes them
feel important. That’s why people jockey to be at the front of the line
at the Today show in New York, so they can wave at the home folks. Just
standing there, a few feet and a plate glass window away from the movie
stars and world leaders who are being interviewed, or the celebrity
weatherman who works the crowd, or, dare we say it, Katie Couric herself,
gives a bystander a sense of importance.
Seven
or eight years ago Tom Brokaw, the TV anchorman, wrote a book called The
Greatest Generation, and he was talking about people just like some of
you, people who were kids in the Depression and then grew up to fight and
win World War II. He explained that everybody alive during the war had a
part to play in something momentous, something the world had never seen
before, from the soldiers who hit the beach on D-Day to the schoolgirl who
saved her nickels to buy a war bond. Everybody was caught up in something
greater than themselves, something that changed the course of history.
The
human spirit needs to be part of something important, something bigger
than itself. So I’ve got some terrific news for you today. In Jesus
Christ we all have the chance to be part of something big.
Listen
again to what Paul writes to the Ephesian church: “The God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ…chose us in Christ before the foundations of the
world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He has made known to us
the mystery of his will…as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up
all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth…having been
destined according to the purpose him who accomplishes all things
according to his will.”
One
of the most terrible things that can happen to somebody is to feel like
their life has no meaning, that they are in fact worthless to others. You
hear a lot about welfare queens and deadbeat dads here in Fayette County,
and I’m certainly not blind to the reality that certain people make
welfare a permanent way of life. But I also know that the majority of
welfare recipients can’t wait to get off the dole and get a job, because
they hate the feeling of being worthless, a sponge or a leech.
Hetty
Green wouldn’t qualify as a leech on society, but you wouldn’t call
her a real asset, either. Hetty is listed by the Guinness people as the
world’s all-time champion miser. She died in 1916 with an estate worth
$100 million, but she ate her oatmeal cold, because it cost money to heat
it. Her son had to have his leg amputated after she spent too much time
looking for a free clinic.
You
know those little slivers of soap that are annoying, so you open a new bar
of soap? After she died they found nothing but those little slivers,
because she was too cheap to buy a new bar of soap.
Hetty’s
the kind of person who makes you shake your head. Why would anyone want to
live life as a pauper when they’re actually rich. That’s foolish. But
people live lives of spiritual poverty all the time, even though they’re
heirs to spiritual riches from the hand of their father.
How
do I know this? Because the Bible tells us that we all are the adopted
sons and daughters of God himself, made possible through the intervention
of Jesus Christ in the world. Furthermore, this all happened before the
foundation of the world was laid. So here’s Paul’s argument to the
church at Ephesus: God, the Alpha and Omega, could see that it would be
necessary to restore the original harmony of creation, and Jesus was the
plan for this action before the world even existed. Through Jesus, Paul
writes, we are adopted as God’s sons and daughters.
God
had to choose us, we who were orphans to sin, and send Jesus to the world
as his agent to seal the deal. I want to make sure you get the full impact
of this statement. The universe is many billions of years old, but before
a single star glowed in the night sky, God knew you, knew everything about
you, all your strengths and weaknesses, and fell in love with you. He
wanted you to be part of his plan for the salvation of the world. God fell
so in love with you that he sent his son Jesus into the world to be
sacrificed on the cross, and thus put his seal on you forever.
When
Paul wrote about adoption to the new Christians at Ephesus, they knew all
about what it meant to be chosen into a new family, and they were
absolutely thrilled to hear that God had adopted them.
Roman
law took adoption very seriously. First of all, before a baby could be
adopted the infant was placed on a scale, and the adopting father balanced
the scale with copper coins. That was the price of adoption. Then the
father had to go before a magistrate and plead his case to be allowed to
adopt the child. But once approved, the adopted child had all the rights
of inheritance of his new family, and all the debts and obligations
connected to his old family were wiped clean. It was as if the baby had
never existed before the adoption.
Obviously
the child was considered quite lucky to be adopted—he was doubly rich.
Not only was his past forgiven, but his future held a powerful
inheritance. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about this morning
as we ask who we are. God adopted us and paid the price we could not
possibly afford: the death of his son on the cross. Not only was our debt
wiped out, but our inheritance is unimaginably great—eternal life, and
every joy that goes with it.
It
seems that every year now television brings some new atrocity to provide
rich fodder for sermon writers. The latest “reality” show in which
people are willing to reveal themselves to be airheads is an updated
version of “Green Acres.” The updated version stars Paris Hilton and
Nicole Ritchie. Paris is a member of the Hilton hotel family, while Nicole
is the daughter—the adopted daughter, no less—of singer Lionel
Ritchie. I haven’t actually seen this show, but plenty of people who
have say it makes the original Green Acres look like Shakespeare.
These
girls are nothing but the flavor of the month for TV consumption, and have
so far shown nothing to indicate that they understand and appreciate who
they are, and where they’re from.
What
about us? If we truly know who we are, if we want to fly like eagles
instead of scratching in the dirt like turkeys, we have to embrace our
adoption by God, with all that implies. If we want to live up to our
family name “Christian,” there are three obligations that we need to
take seriously.
First,
we have an obligation to help each other in this body of believers;
second, we have an obligation to help others who do not yet understand
that they, too, are God’s adopted children; third, we have an obligation
to share hope with a world that is desperate for hope, and getting more
desperate every day.
The
first part is relatively easy. As a body of believers, we come here to
hear God’s word and to praise him, but sometimes that’s secondary to
what’s really important, which is to bear each other’s burdens, to
pray for the sick, to encourage those whose spirits are sagging. Everyone
needs this kind of emotional sustenance, and it’s not especially
demanding, even though sometimes we do get mad at each other. Within these
walls we are a family, and I can assure you, the number one thing that
people are looking for in this lonely world is to be part of a family, to
be accepted and loved unconditionally.
Part
two, helping those who are outside the body, is much more difficult. It
goes against our human nature to reach out to others, because we want to
horde what we have found for ourselves, and anyway, those people out there
don’t deserve it, do they? Of course, that kind of attitude illustrates
our stubborn pride, a pride that ignores what we were before our adoption:
sinners. A Sunday school teacher was asking her class, “What do you have
to do for God to forgive our sins?” And a little boy pipes up, “Well,
first you have to sin.”
Makes
perfect sense, doesn’t it. For us to truly understand what God has done
for us and who we are now, we first have to understand where we came from.
We have received God’s grace now, so where were we then? In a state of
dis-grace. Get it? When you take a look around the world in general and
Fayette County in particular and see the rotten way that some people live
their lives, the first thought that should cross our minds is “There but
for the grace of God, go I.” Get ready, because that kind of thinking
will take you down a peg or two, but we need a dose of humility to be able
to reach out to those who don’t know Christ’s love.
But
the third part, that’s the key. Hope is what will bring God’s kingdom
to fruition on earth. Look at me—people are starving to death for hope,
and we’ve got it. Are we going to ration it? Are we going to dole it out
with an eye dropper? Or are we going to climb to the mountain top and
holler at the world, “I know the answer. His name is Jesus and he loved
you just as much as he loves me.”
This
is my favorite sermon illustration, and I love to get it out for momentous
occasions, such as the start of a new year. A young woman had quit college
to get married and start a family, but once the children started school
she wanted to complete her degree, so she signed up for a course in
sociology. One of the assignments she received was to go out into the
world, smile at people, and record their reactions. That’s all, just
smile at people, and see how they would respond. Shortly thereafter, on a
wintry Saturday morning, she, her husband and young son were standing in
line at McDonald’s to get breakfast.
She
sensed that the line was moving backwards instead of forward; even her
husband was edging back, and then she understood why.
Regardless
of the struggles we will gave in the new year, and we all know they’re
going to be considerable, we know who we are, and whose we are. We have
been adopted by God as his royal children, and granted three great tasks:
to help each other in this body, to help those who do not yet know that
they are children of God, and to share God’s hope with the world. If we
embrace these roles instead of shrinking from them, this year could truly
be the start of something big.
A
wise person once said that it is better to think of the Gospel as
something that we get to live, instead of something that we have to live.
That’s the attitude that we need to take into the new year, that being a
Christian, to be chosen, adopted by God, is a privilege, a blessing.
We
don’t know what awaits us in this new year, but let us all remember that
even while man’s love is imperfect, because man is imperfect, God’s
love is perfect, and endures forever. He created you to be an eagle, to
soar with that love sustaining you beneath his wings. Now who do you think
you are? An eagle soaring in the sun, or a turkey digging for bugs in the
dirt? Amen.
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