Discovering the Way - Episode 1
Discovering the Way • Sermon • Submitted
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Welcome to Discovering the Way, a video series from Redeemer Anglican Church. When the Jesus Movement first began in the first century, it was initially called, “The Way, or the Path,” because it was clear from the start that following Jesus involved walking with him in the ordinary, everyday moments of life. Throughout the centuries, Christians have engaged in spiritual practices that keep us walking in the Way of Jesus, and each week we’ll be looking at one of them. And I’m betting, that some of these may surprise you.
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Let’s get the introduction out of the way:
Here’s what typically happens in a hectic, frustrating, busy, lonely, scattered season of life like what we are experiencing now.
We begin asking questions like “ Why do I feel so empty and discontent and anxious? Why do I struggle to pray all of a sudden? Why can’t I focus during these online Sunday services? Where is God? Why isn’t he speaking to me? Why isn’t he showing up? Why does he feel so distant?”
Now, we may describe this experience as desperation or despair or even doubt.
But what these questions actually reveal is an aching desire for God. In the midst of our exhausted, anxious, and disorienting lives, we want to experience the loving presence of God. We may think that God has left town, but I believe that this desire for God is evidence that He is already at work in your life. The desire for something more, the desire for a different sort of life, doesn’t come from no where, it comes from the Lord who is readying you to walk closer to Jesus.
From its beginning, the Christian community has linked the desire for more God to intentional practices, habits, and experiences that create space in people’s lives to walk closely with Jesus. They became known as spiritual disciplines, and very early on we can see some of them such as prayer and fasting, but over the centuries many others have been passed down to us. With each new generation rises new opportunities for walking with Jesus. For example, in the sixteenth century and the invention of the printing press, the Bible was finally distributed in masse to Christians, allowing for personal Bible reading and study at home, or think about the age of technology that we live in now - we have opportunities such as slowing down, unplugging, and the renewal of ancient practices like silence, solitude, and spiritual retreats.
Now, these practices do not earn us spiritual points or divine favor and blessing - they simply put us in a place where we can notice God and respond in our lives.
Of course we are all different, and the Spirit speaks to us in many different ways, and so some of these disciplines that we will look at will really resonate with you, and others won’t. That’s okay, because we’re coming to them without an agenda or demand, and while we may not know how the Lord will conform us into the image of the Son, we rest assured that he will, because we know the He who began a good work in you, will carry it on to completion.
So that’s what Discovering the Way is all about. Each week we’re looking at a new practice that helps us walk in the Way of Jesus in our everyday, ordinary lives.
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Today’s practice is “Caring for the Earth.”
The Bible makes a clear case that we are to be caretakers of all that God has made. In the very beginning, on page one of the Bible, God creates human beings, and he blesses them by giving them a particular role in God’s creation. He tells us to fill the earth and subdue it. Now, for most of us, the idea of subduing something isn’t a positive thing. It sounds destructive, as if we’re not letting something be free and flourish. But that’s not at all what God is talking about.
Think about a garden. Maybe you’ve got all kinds of beautiful flowers, or big juicy tomatoes growing on the vines. What would happen if you just let your garden be free? What would happen if you did nothing to it? The plants would die, the garden would be filled with weeds. In fact, in order to have a flourishing garden, you have to constantly fight back against the weeds and bugs and weather. You’ve got to subdue the land, but not in a negative sense, you have to subdue the land in order to bring out its full potential. You’ve got to use your power and skill and intellect in order to bring forth beauty out of this little patch of dirt.
That’s exactly what God is talking about when he tells us to subdue the earth and rule over it. He’s calling on all of us to use our power, skill, and intellect to create and foster beauty in creation. In the Laws that were given to God’s people in the Old Testament, God made sure that the land and the animals were given time to rest. Why? Because in God’s world, neither people, nor animal, nor any living thing should be exploited or abused. And who was to ensure that was how things went? That’s right…you and me, the caretakers of the world. And the sad reality is that we’ve not done a very good job in that role throughout our history.
I remember walking along in the park once with my youth pastor, and we stumbled across a clump of trash, and he picked it up and began to walk with it. He looked at me and my buddy, holding this piece of trash, and he said something I’ll never forget, he said, “Littering is a spiritual problem.”
But in Jesus we have been redeemed, and shown a new way to live, and this new way includes taking care of the earth, just like we were always meant to do.
So as we care for the earth, we honor the Lord, we participate in our calling, and we celebrate the beauty of what he has made. Caring for the earth is a form of worship, which means that caring for the earth is a way to be with Jesus. Yes, picking up a piece of trash, or planting a garden, or raking the leaves, or recycling, or sharing your front yard for a neighborhood block party are all ways in which we create space to see, hear, and learn from Jesus, as we worship him in our lives.
So this week, what can you do to make space for Jesus by caring for the earth? Maybe you and your family could go for a walk in your neighborhood or at the nearby park, keeping to your social distancing of course, but as you walk, look for trash and litter that you can pick up and put away. Maybe you could start a garden in your yard, or plant some flowers in pots on your porch. Maybe you could start recycling in your home, or offer to cut a neighbor’s grass who is too old or busy to bother.
There are all kinds of ways to care for the earth and to make it more beautiful, and it’s actually a lot of fun, and very rewarding to do so. And all the while, we can know that as we do the hard work of caring for the earth, our hearts are being worked on to, as we worship the Lord, and open even more aspects of our lives to his presence and direction.