Pastor Ralph Douglas West - What Do You Believe About God | Matthew 6, 23, 27

0:05 Amen. This is the day the Lord has made. We rejoice and we are glad in it. Wow. Thank you, choir and our children and young people for encouraging us on this Lord's Day. Happy Father's Day to all of our fathers here this morning and those who are listening. What a joy. And I guess Cheryl and Edwin at the other services,

0:41 we have to give them an appreciative applaud for the work that they have done with our Ventress Week. Beautiful, overwhelming participation. And then to pass the mantle down to their daughter who's carrying it on now. And what a real joy. Amen. Amen. That's when church gets good, when it becomes multigenerational. And so, praise God. Fathers, Matthew chapter 6, Matthew chapter 7, Matthew chapter 23, Matthew chapter 27, John 19, Mark 11, wherever Jesus was talking about the Father this is the word of God Amen, you may be seated Donald Miller was a prominent preacher

1:54 and seminary president. In his book, Fire in My Mouth, he records a story from a telephone call that he received on a Saturday night from one of the members who belonged to the parish that he participated in. And when she got Dr. Miller on the call, she just asked him, what do I believe? He had no clue what she was talking about. What do you mean? She said, well, I recently left a cocktail party and I was sitting and talking to friends. One was a Jewish woman and she began to tell us what she believed.

2:39 Roman Catholic woman was in that circle and she began to tell us what she believed. A Christian scientist person was there, and he started to tell us what he believed. I was the only Protestant in the communion that day where we were talking. I didn't know what I believed, so I called you to ask you, what do I believe?

3:04 Miller responded in his writing with a unique phrase. she must have come to the church on the confusion of faith rather than the confession of faith. That story resonates with some of you because it's one thing to talk about belief. It's something else when you have to talk about belief.

3:32 I shouldn't say this, but Ms. West was writing a paper on ordinances of the church, And I simply said to her, it's different when you talk about church and the ordinances and you have to sit down and write and explain what you believe about the ordinances of the church. There are a lot of things in your head you feel like you could give a dissertation on until somebody asks you. I know because I live in this world, I work this side of the street, and people can ask me, and there are times I have to pause to give thought to explain exactly what I believe. You and I know how important belief is. Everybody in here, every child can sit down and tell you how important belief is.

4:28 We saw that in the exercise of the children who talked about their relationship with their father. What they were expressing is their belief. They were testifying about their father as a role of belief. What do you believe? Once a month when we gather out of our tradition, we come to the Lord's table. It's a high holy moment, and we punctuate that time by reciting the confession, the Apostles' Creed. And though we're not creedal, we are confessional, that kind of stuff, but no need to stumble over those terms. I just said that for somebody who's listening, who's always smart and think you don't know what you're talking about. But we're confessional and yet we recite that to punctuate what we believe in. And we say what? I believe in God.

5:27 Yeah, you know it now. God is creator, father of creation, Lord. We recite this and we say, I believe this. This is important because in these conversations, people are always testing you. Don't you just not like to go somewhere when somebody found out you go to church and all of a sudden they think that you're supposed to be the mouthpiece for the whole church? I mean, they can just mess up a good gathering, you know. All of a sudden, they've never been curious about, never curious enough to get up one Sunday morning to say, I'm going to go to a Sunday school class. I'm going to go into a Bible study. They wait for you to get to the party. You're at the party. You're waiting to party.

6:19 and somebody want to say, well, what did Jesus mean when he said that? And all this is born out of what we believe. I believe in God. Belief is important because when you look at the world that we live in, you begin to wonder, how do these people gather like this on a Father's Day and say, I believe in God? with the escalating tensions between Israel and Palestine all of those beautiful bodies that have been blown to pieces in Palestine And Americans with their own religious, political, and greedy interests in Israel are willing to see the exploitation, the death of those Palestinians.

7:25 These are the same evangelicals who say they love God so much. How do you believe in God? I believe in God. How do you believe in God when Russia and Ukraine, big Russia trying to take little Ukraine?

7:46 I love God. I believe in God. Do you? Is that the reason why you're willing to put razor wires in the Guadalupe to prevent children and their parents for coming over to the borderland. I believe. And God, I do believe in him. even though the prison industrial complex is wopsided but I love God and I believe in God. And then on the other hand, when we move past, I believe in God, I do believe in him, then when we don't figure it out, we blame him. see that's what I meant that's what I was getting to I'm still at you at your friend's party and somebody coming up to you and they want you to answer the problem of human suffering well God is so good why did God let this happen did he really let it happen are you saying that God came down from heaven and picked up I looked at somebody walking to a school, a mosque, a temple, a church, and God is the responsible one for them pulling this trigger.

9:15 Are you saying that God is responsible for a million deaths? What happened to the people who were in leadership in our country during COVID who said it was a hoax and a joke? We don't have no bearing on it. It takes more to believe in God in a world like this than it is to check out and not believe in God. It's easier to stop believing in God. It takes more faith to believe in God. I'm not here to convince you to believe in God. If you don't want to believe in God, you don't have to.

9:51 I'm not here to convince you of that. I don't like his argument. You don't have to like it. That's the great thing about life. You ain't got to like it. But it takes a lot of faith to believe in God when you say, I do believe in God.

10:19 The disciples found themselves at that place. You know, when you read the New Testament, and I mean, I know some things about the New Testament that you don't know only because it's the world that I have lived in. You know, the way when you sit down and say to me that you are a school teacher. There are pedagogies of that that I don't know anything about because you've been trained to think that way. You know how to do that. You see? You know, it's one thing to differ between somebody who can play music by ear. They have an ear for it. They can hear it. And then something else for somebody who can say they know the theory behind it. It makes a difference. They just know things.

11:11 So when the disciples was asking Jesus this question, we read the New Testament. And it just comes across as if one day the disciples woke up and they said, I want to learn how to pray. Jesus, teach me how to pray. That's the way it comes across. They're asking to learn how to pray in a world that was not very different from the world we live in. That was Roman domination. That was the empire controlling. That was exploitation. There were people who had been denied their language and culture. People that were being marginalized and pushed aside. That was the apogee of Rome and the acme of Athens. And that was the citadel of Jerusalem. These were the superpowers of the day.

11:58 And when they were asking, they were asking Jesus a question very much like we would ask in a question like what's going on in the world now. Lord teach us to pray Jesus could have started this prayer In a way he wanted to But he decided to begin In a way that he inaugurated his ministry He said well when you pray Say our That's what he said Our father At that moment you don't have to be A New Testament scholar to say If Jesus referred to God as our father he's on to something. One thing he's talking about is relationships.

12:42 This relationship has been going on with Jesus for some time. When he's 12 years old, he's going for his bar mitzvah. He's going to be offered up to recite the five books of the law and Mary and Joseph take him into Jerusalem. It's a high holy day. Now the day is over. They're supposed to be getting back to the ghettos in Nazareth. Jesus decided he wanted to hang out around the temple and talk to the doctors and the philosophers the theologians and the people of that day I mean you know and they're just having a good time talking and they're fascinated that this 12 year old has this kind of insight and he's growing in wisdom and knowledge and he's talking to them on their level and in some ways beyond and they're intrigued and he's curious and they're talking and Mary and Joseph said, boy, if you don't get yourself out of here.

13:43 And here again is why many people don't read the Bible. It's been so sanitized when you read it. You take all the humanness out of it. You know if Mary and Joseph is halfway home and they have to turn around to get Jesus. because remember Jesus is just their son. She ain't thinking about Jesus being no Messiah. She's had this prophecy. She knows, but at this point, boy, if you don't get yourself up out of here and Jesus responds and says, I must be about mine. Yeah. And so the literal translation, my father's house.

14:27 And so father-son relationship becomes a prominent role in the life of Jesus. Where did he get it from, you ask? I'm glad you did. I still love preaching to you. You ask all the right questions. he's reaching back on he bred history because of the relationship of the father that bequeaths certain things to the children in this case the sons uh look save it you don't you have to you don't have to write me about the organic relationship that a child has with that mother. We know that after the moment that fathers donate sperm for the process of fertilization, the father at that moment becomes in many ways an outside observer. And that's something mysterious and winsome that takes place beneath the heartbeat of the mother. We already know that.

15:34 So I'm just telling you, you don't have to write me that letter. Come on. You know, because everybody gets smart after you've done your work. You can say that. I understand that. And so at this moment, Jesus is defined in this relationship, and he's looking back at how Abraham bequeathed to Isaac and Isaac to his sons. Isaac has this interesting relationship as a father with two sons, twins, Esau and Jacob. Esau the oldest, Jacob the youngest. Esau is kind of redhead. Jacob is black haired.

16:24 Esau is, call him dirty red. called Jacob Fast Black. And what makes the story intriguing, well, when it's told that way, it's told in all of its darkest ways, is how the birth takes place. Esau comes out first, and they're wrestling inside the womb, and he gets out. And here's the strangest bird. They haven't recorded one like this, I don't think. Here you have Esau's little foot out there. And now you got Jacob's hand holding on to his foot. Pulling him out. Oh, my Lord, look at that hand. And they called him, his nickname was Hill Grabber.

17:17 And Jacob For the rest of his life Is fighting to get in first place Because the blessing is supposed to go to the elder Now, so I don't leave that story just dangling out there and people say, well, what happened to it? In Jesus Christ, he reversed the road. There's no first or last in him. We're all one in Christ Jesus. I just want to put a bow on that because I have to keep going. That was just a shed light on the moment. But I know my church, you told a story and you didn't give an ending to it.

17:59 Our Father. our Father. And that's what Jesus meant when he said, our, our Father. But then he says his disciples, he helps them to understand the relationship of Father-Son in another dynamic because in this, Jesus asked a question in the seventh chapter of Matthew about prayer and relationship with God. And that is, well, if an evil father knows how to give good gifts to his children, and the people are just sitting on there, it's like you say, wow, that's good. Because it started off when Jesus is talking about our father who art in heaven. He's given these different lines. You know, he's saying, this is who God is.

18:53 This is our relationship to him. This is who we believe in. God is creator. God is sustainer, God is keeper. He said, and when you go to God and you ask God for some things, it looks like God didn't answer some of our prayers. And aren't you glad That God didn't answer All of our prayers The way we prayed And the way that we wanted Them to be answered Now some people here They'll say well speak for yourself I am because some things I prayed for they were so far out of the will of God that everybody in this room had been messed up if the Lord had answered my prayer and since you won't be honest I'll be honest for you and if the Lord had answered some of your prayers everybody in Houston had been in trouble And we've messed up this God-prayer relationship because we've turned God into a genie in the bottle.

20:07 You know, if you rub God and say the right thing, God's gonna do it. Some of us who preach and teach, we are so responsible for that bad kind of way because the people to convince the easiest are folk who are already looking for it and they just need somebody to echo their sentiment. I'm going over to Prophet so-and-so because Prophet so-and-so told me that I'm going to have this. You can't have that. That belonged to Jewel. You can't take that. What you think? God just gonna go take Marco's stuff and give it to you? Well, the Lord said, you know, everything the devil stole. The devil didn't steal what you're trying to get from them.

21:06 And so Jesus said, so if your child asks you for a piece of bread, you're going to give them a stone? For those that don't know, I'm actually reciting, kind of rephrasing Bible right now. And if they ask you for a fish, you're going to give them a serpent? He said, no, if an evil father knows how to give good gifts. how much more Does God know how to give his children? Then he asked this, and the Holy Spirit. That is, God gives you the power in your life that's an operation that you can't control.

22:02 And one thing about the Holy Spirit, you can't control him. He's like the wind that blows where he wills. You don't know where he's coming from and you don't know where the Holy Ghost is going. Our father. Our father. Our father.

22:25 And then Jesus comes around, you know, in chapter 23, because people want power, and there was power brokers. And here in Matthew, just to give you a hint, you notice when you read from Matthew, you say, Matthew sounds a lot different than Luke and Mark and John. That's right. Matthew has that kind of kingliness about it. You pick up something royal, magisterial, you say, you know what? That's what I said when I was reading that. You was getting it right. Because that was always people and countries and movements jockeying against who God is and how he was working in the world. So in Matthew 23, you know, Jesus giving his final discourses before he goes to Calvary. And he's reminding people simply of his authority and said, now on earth, don't call no man father.

23:27 Now, this is where, again, people say, oh, see, that's what I mean. The Bible is so controversial. No, it's not. You have to read it in context. You remember our teachers told us that in high school we were reading Shakespeare or reading Alexander Pope or we were reading somebody. And they said, well, now keep it in context. And they said, what's happening before and what's happening? Okay, he says. So that's how you keep it in the context. You know, people try to say it like it's so deep. Now, the contextualization of this particular. It doesn't mean what's going on before. and what's going on after to understand what's happening at this moment. And so Jesus was saying, now what I want you to do now, I want you to call no man father. Now, this is not for you to go out and tell your Catholic relatives, that's why I ain't a Catholic, because y'all called a priest father.

24:26 That ain't what Jesus was getting at. And stop always looking for the Bible to use it to beat up on people. The word of God is for your liberation and your freedom. It's not for you to destroy people, to hurt people, things like that. Stay with me now, because this thing, you know, I'm not a, you know, I'm a 747. Take me time to taxi down the runway, you know. I want you to get that with me. This is just Jesus using Father throughout his speech. And he was saying, the point is, don't give anyone an authority. that's equal to God or what you believe is above God. That's only one God. And one of the things that I have worked hard at, and I hope that is working in you, when you hear some of the music, you say, oh, I don't want to sing that. Well, don't listen to the music. Read the words sometimes because what we need is a bigger image of God. The God that many of us worship is so small that he is manageable and malatable and we can shape him into our own image.

25:37 We need a God that when we leave out of here, we say these words, how great thou art. Yeah, how great thou art. Not a small little God. And so Jesus is saying, don't equate anyone up to the elevation of who God the Father is. And then Jesus ends, the way begins, our Father.

26:06 Jesus gets to the cross and on the cross, Jesus is going to pray a Father's prayer. And he's going to pray, Father, forgive them. Now, forgiveness is a big word. We throw it around sometimes too casually. Let me tell you something. If you've ever really, really been hurt, really hurt, and you got to forgive, I'm telling you, people who forgive take power away from those who think they have power over them. Robert Smith's a Christian. He just retired from Beeson Divinity School.

27:02 Some of you remember Dr. Smith. Smith was one of the men who trained me in preaching in my doctoral work. The brilliant, brilliant scholar whose son was murdered in Ohio. I can tell the story because he wrote on it. And I couldn't believe it. But then when I said, well, it's Robert, I knew he would do it. And I told him, I said, you shame me with your faith.

27:32 Robert Smith not only forgave his son's murderer, Robert visits this boy to disciple him in the penitentiary. So the next time somebody bump into you, scar up your shoe, and you're mad, you remember that forgiveness is not triviality. Giveness is where God has to give you the power to forgive what you know in your heart and in your own strength you could never do on your own. And I don't blame you. I wouldn't clap either because I was mad at him for forgiving him.

28:20 I left and said, not me. Now, come on, all of you who wouldn't shout, you come on my side, not me. But Robert explained something to us when he wrote on that. He says, as long as I do not forgive, I empower my son's murderer. I have to take that power back for my family, for his siblings to say that God reigns. God reigns and God super reigns. Preach Pastor West. See, that's what I'm talking about. I like this part of church because, see, as long as you're talking about, well, he betrayed me. With somebody, you can forgive that. But when you start talking about somebody taking your son's life, your daughter's life, that's a different level where you start saying forgive.

29:18 Can you forgive when your life has been shattered by the wrong of somebody else? And God says, and you still got to forgive. As long as Christianity is this little soft Christianity where people are talking about what you wear and your hair and how you grow and weight up and down or tuck, nip and all that. Oh, that's cheap Christianity. I'm talking about Christianity that costs you something. Nobody care about whether you got on jeans on and split jeans and how you wear your hair. That's just fashion. That's just style. If you don't like it, you ain't got to wear it or you don't have to look at it. I'm talking about life situation that has ethical ramifications and moral ramifications attached to it. And that's what Jesus said, Father, forgive them.

30:24 Now, this is how you look at forgiveness. If all forgiveness is, is categories, then that's easy. I don't smoke. I don't chew. I don't date girls who do some of y'all remember that you know that kind of stuff well you know I don't gamble I don't do that well see the issue with all that those are things that you can take control over on your own you don't need no power to overcome take control of that no you don't You don't need no real, you can make it. You can take steps to get out of it.

31:19 Yeah, you can. Or you just live long enough, you can't do it no more. You always get real interested in people who get a certain age and get real spiritual. They're real, real spiritual. You say, well, you can't.

31:41 When Jesus was saying, Father, forgive them, he was speaking of the reality that we identify as sin, that three words here, and I'm done, that number one, separates. That's the first image, separate. Separate us from God. that separate us from God. That means something that is internal and something that is psychological and spiritual that pulls me away from God. That's when the scripture says, all have sin and fallen short the glory of God. Yeah. The whole image, fallen short the glory of God.

32:34 That there is an aim. We're aiming at something. but I can't get to it. Jesus said, Father, forgive them. All of that brokenness, all that ruination in our life, all of that that would make us break into a store to kill an innocent boy or rape a little girl, all of that filth that's in us, that separates us from God. Jesus was saying that they, Father, forgive them. And when he said them now, he wasn't talking about you saying them. He was including you and me there. One of the great hymns of the church, were you there when they crucified my Lord?

33:24 Were you there? The implication is, is that at Calvary, you were there. I was there. Our sins were there. And that's the first image. God, God. God. How does God, you ask me, how does God forgive you for that? The psalmist as well as the prophet Jeremiah used this image that when God forgives, he forgives your sins. Look at this, in distance, as far as, not north and south. because if God forgave you from north as far as the north is from the south, that's a north pole and a south pole. You can go dig your sins up. he said but as far as the east is from the west and there is no point there and the idea is that is that you can't find them and once god forgives you he says and i don't find them either if you don't you know what you better learn how to shout at the right time that's why you don't you don't let people keep digging up your past or your past something happened 20 years ago and bringing up your past tell them said the lord forgave that a long time ago and by now that's between god and me I know you can't shout about it because you feel like you ain't got nothing that you need to be forgiven for.

35:01 But there are a few people here I'm talking specifically to them that folk won't let you outlive your past. Tell them, that's what I used to be. Hell, that ain't what I am no more. That's what you got to tell them. God has delivered me from that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to beat that self-righteousness, ain't it? Then he says another word for sin is transgression. You know what transgression is? Glad you asked. transgression is what Miss Ward did on Los Angeles Street. She had one of the nicest lawns on the street.

35:56 And she put a sign up. thou shalt not trespass. You know what that is? Y'all still don't get it. It's the sign that means stay off my grass. Your feet belong on the concrete because she knew, and she didn't just put it up for us. She put it up for her son too because she knew if they find a piece of grass, football games are going to break out on the street. But y'all ain't tearing up my friend y'all. And she put a sign there. Stay off the grass. Thou shalt not trespass. There's some signs that God has put up with some thou shalt nots on them in which he's saying don't cross the line. Thou shalt not trespass.

36:53 This is a rough group here. I got a lot of stuff. Did they just shout it at 8 o'clock? Because they know they've been forgiven. Y'all ain't yet grabbed a hold that the Lord has given you forgiveness. Because the hardest person to forgive is you. That is, a lot of y'all right now, I don't care when I get through. You're going to get in the car. I don't care what he say. I'm just a lowdown on this. I'm a sinner that. I've done that. Well, you can say that about you all you want. I'm y'all's child. The Lord loved me so much. Let me give you my last word now. The last word is iniquity. Now, that's three words. When you hear sin, remember this. Sin, what's that? Separation. Falling short. And then you got transgression. What's that? Crossing the line. Crossing the line.

37:46 And then the last one is iniquity. You know what iniquity is? iniquity is something twisted in you that need to be straightened out. I ain't making this up. When David in Psalm 51 prayed that the Lord would have mercy on him, he asked about, Lord, forgive me three things, my sin, my iniquity, and my transgression. Because David knew that what he had done had violated all three levels of sin. He separated himself from God. He transgressed against Uriah. And there was something twisted in him that needed to be straightened out. And what David learned is what you and I need to know. That when it comes to straightening stuff out. Can't nobody do that better than God himself. He can straighten it out.

38:39 Now you do all that you can for your children and loved ones and husband and wife and all that, but it comes a time after that. You got to say, now I'm turning you over to Jesus now. The only time I ever got really scared is when I would hear my mama calling my name out on the side of the bed in prayer. Now let me tell you, I'd rather have to go get that stinging car. Chase me around the house. I scream it all over the place because there's something that you can't outrun God. You can't get past him. You know, let me give you the last thing. So when they say something is twisted in you, need to be straightened out. Pastor Patterson said this one time. Pastor Patterson, I said, well, what is this iniquity business?

39:35 He said, well, you ever walked in a house and the picture frame is leaning in one direction? I said, yeah. He said, and it just annoys you. Even if you're in somebody else's house. Something just in you say, I got to go over there and straighten that out. He said, that's what God sees in us. Something that's bent, twisted, and say, let me straighten it out. now it takes a little time for some of us it takes a little longer for others than that but don't give up on them God having given up on them let God straighten them out and God and when God straighten it out God will work it out he knows how to do that I'm through now I gotta stop but my soul didn't got happy can I tell you let me wrap it all up at a true story that happened here Texas. John Killinger was at an educational conference and a lady walked up to him and said these words. Said, Dr. Killinger, do you know what I used to be? And he said, well, since the Disciples of Christ was hosting the conference, he figured she used to be a Methodist or a Baptist.

40:53 He says, Methodist, Baptist? She said, no, a gambler. and uh so all right uh i said yeah i was a gambler said my husband and i had gone to vegas and that night we went to the casino and i started out with five thousand dollars by 11 30 that night i was 60 000 up by midnight i had won 109 000 my husband said let's go She said, I can't quit. I'm on a roll. I can't quit. And he said, you better go now. She said, no. So I took the biggest risk that I ever taken in my life. She said, I let it roll on the whole $109,000. I said, come on, because I've been winning all night. She said, that thing I lost, I was sick for three days. I lost everything because I took a chance.

41:56 I've risked everything on that one gamble. Said, but not long after that, I took the biggest risk in my life. I heard these words that while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you. And I figured that I was gonna gamble my life on that one statement. And she said, and I did, and said, and I've been teaching and I've been singing and I've been serving because it was the biggest gamble in my life. Some of you here, if you would just take a chance on God, if you would just trust God, how you know God won't do it. You cannot build your life on what you saw in somebody else. You can't build it on what you heard from somebody else. You got to trust and try God for yourself. And I'm with that sister. As a boy, I rolled the life of dice of life and said, if I'm going to take a chance, I'm going to take it on God.

42:56 And sometimes I've been up and sometimes I've been down. Sometimes I've been right. Sometimes I've been wrong. But one thing I've never been, I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed beg for bread. I've never seen that. Have I got a witness here? I didn't mean to go this far But no wonder Jesus said Our Father Yeah Our Father who art in heaven No wonder he said that He's not just in heaven He's in Houston He's in your seat, in your heart, in your life If you would just trust him Yeah Yeah Yeah I didn't mean to go that far My soul got happy. It's hard to talk about Jesus like that and your soul not get happy. Because I mean, if you walk with him, you know what it means. Sometimes you say, I've been up. Boy, Lord, I know what it means to be down. Sometimes you do something, you say, I cannot believe I was so silly to do what I did. And then God to have enough grace and love to say, Come on back into the fold.

44:11 Don't let anything separate you from me. I've already died for separation, transgression, and iniquity. You come back to me. Our Father, we thank you for today. We believe in you. Help us in a world like this to continue to believe. Today, without debate, discussion, negotiation, there are people in our congregation that came here today for one thing and you brought them here. Now they know for something else to experience your amazing grace. Some have allowed other people to put guilt and shame and hurt on them and they not been able to live from beneath it. Get from beneath it under it. But today they hear you saying anew, Father, forgive them.

45:05 Forgive them. for they know not what forgive them for those that have hurt them, those who have abused them, but for those who have hurt and abused themselves. And so today, Lord, we rejoice in your grace. In the strong name of Jesus, amen. Come on, give God praise today, church. Just for a moment, let's not get in a hurry. Let's give God praise. If you know that the Lord has forgiven you, and here's another one not only has he forgiven you you rejoice in his forgiveness then celebrate the goodness of the lord