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May 24, 2020 Psalm 47The Seventh Sunday of Easter – A Acts 1:1-11Lutheran Church of Hope 1 Peter 4:12-17; 5:6-11Loveland, CO John 17:1-11Rev. Greg Schram“DEEPENING OF THE TAP ROOT”Throughout this time of pandemic, I’ve been re-reading the early history of our nation. The Pilgrims and Puritans who first came here believed they were called of God to help this “new land” become “a city set on a hill.” For that purpose they chose “the Covenant Way” – covenanting with God and one another to be the “light of the world” as spoken of by Jesus – that “city set upon a hill” (Matt. 5:14). To accomplish this they would have to deny themselves, pick up their cross daily and follow Jesus, loving him with all their being, and their neighbor as themselves. As they did this God blessed and prospered. But as human nature is want to do, when times are good we have a tendency to forget God and do what is right in our own eyes. God, then, must discipline the nation to get it back on track again. This usually takes the form of some type of crisis, which compels God’s people to once again seek His face, confess their sins and repent.The result: revival. But why is it that revival never seems to be long-lasting? I suspect that, due to the pandemic, we will once again see in America a type of spiritual revival. But like 9-11, I also suspect that the revival will not last long. Once the crisis is over, and life returns to relative normalcy, we will once again forget God and do what’s right in our own eyes. It’s the pattern of fallen man.Don’t get me wrong. Revivals are good and necessary. They provide the spread of new life in Christ. Christian roots sprout rapidly and spread laterally in all directions. This is all well and good. Yet while these “feeder roots” are vital to Christian growth, what is desperately needed is a simultaneous deepening of the tap root, which so rarely happens, thus causing revival to be short-lived. What’s needed is greater maturity, the spiritual root system to grow deeper. For without the deepening of the tap root, the first great storms of tribulation will once again wreak a terrible destruction.DEEPENING OF THE TAP ROOT is what is needed, and what I want to talk about today. And we find its key in today’s gospel text.Two weeks ago we had as our gospel text John 14:1-12, where we hear those familiar words of Jesus, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (v. 6). These words of Jesus are repeated, but in a more general way, in our gospel text for today. These words of Jesus are not only a summary of the “Covenant Way,” but also key in deepening the tap root.Revival begins by discovering and rediscovering that Jesus is the way. He is the only way of salvation. Jesus puts it this way in our gospel text for today: “This is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent” (v. 3). Jesus is the way, the only way to the Father in heaven. Revival begins by knowing Jesus as the Savior of the world, the only Savior, my Savior, trusting in him alone in what he has done to save me from my bondage to sin, death and the grave. Similarly, it is to believe that God is “the only true God.” It is not believing this along with other beliefs. It is not a blending and mixing of all sorts of religions and beliefs and practices. That’s idolatry. Christianity is the belief that the God revealed in Holy Scripture is the only true God, and that His Son, Jesus, is the only true Savior of the world.Revival begins by returning to these foundational doctrines and beliefs, forsaking all other beliefs, all other religions and their corresponding practices, and all other gods, believing in and trusting only in Jesus for forgiveness, life and salvation. Jesus is the way, the only way… As John put it in his epistle: “…God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life, he who has not the Son of God has not life” (1 Jn 5:11-12).The Christian walk begins with the discovery that Jesus is the way. It grows deeper when the believer next learns through Bible study and teaching, that Jesus is also the truth (Jn 14:6). In verse 6 of our gospel text, Jesus is praying to the Father, and he says of his disciples that “thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word.” God’s Word is truth (Jn 17:17); and Jesus is that Word incarnate (Jn 1:1, 14). This Word (incarnate, written and spoken) is truth. In chapter 8, Jesus said “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (v. 31-32). The only way to be set free – free from bondage to sin, death and the grave, free from guilt and shame, free from lust, greed, selfishness, pride and everything else that destroys self, church and country – is by knowing the truth. God’s Word is truth, absolute truth.When we come to know God’s Word as truth – that it is absolute, that it cannot lie or deceive or mislead in any way whatsoever, and when that “truth” abides in us and we in it – we can then order our lives by it and live in harmony with it. This is the Covenant Way, as it pertains to our relationship with God and with one another.The problem is that the church, to a large extent, has abandoned this pure doctrine. No longer in many churches today is the Bible viewed as truth. But if God’s Word is not truth, then God is not God, for He is by nature truth. It is impossible for God to lie or to be false (Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). If God’s Word is not truth, then God is not God but the devil, who is the father of all lies. Where this leads is to the greatest sin of all – man making himself out to be the sole arbiter of truth, of what’s right and wrong. In other words, man making himself out to be God, doing then what he believes to be right in his own eyes. But as the Proverb puts it: “There is a way which seems right to man, but its end is the way to death” (16:25).There is only one absolute truth: God’s Word; and only one source of truth: God himself. In knowing and keeping the truth we are set and kept free. Only as we know the truth and commit ourselves to living by it can we truly be free. It is “truth” (the truth of God’s Holy Word) that sets and keeps us free – free, not to do was we please, but free to live for God and one another.Jesus is the way and the truth… Yet the Lord does not intend for us to stop there, but to move on to the third phase of our walk, the daily experience of him as the life. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” In today’s gospel, Jesus prays, “Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” In other words, life – a life committed to and united with God and one another. This is the Covenant Way.Elsewhere Jesus said, “I came that you may have life and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10). Jesus is that life. Yet here is where so many Christians refuse to go. Why is it that so many believers are loath to enter into the life which is abundant in Christ alone? Apart from this life the tap root can never grow deeper. It is here that so many fall short, and in so doing ensure that revival is short-lived as opposed to something everlasting.Why are so many Christians reluctant to move into a deeper relationship with Christ? Because the way to deepening in Christ is the way of the Cross: the way of self-denial – of unconditional surrender of one’s own will to God’s will, and of true covenant commitment to one another. This is the way to which the Lord has called all serious Christians. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23), and from all that our Christian experience shows us, it is the only way to spiritual maturity.It is also the only way that we Christians can yet fulfill our nation’s call to be “a city on a hill.” Individually and corporately, we need to re-enter the covenant relationship which our forefathers had with God and with one another. This is what distinguished the Pilgrims and Puritans from all the other settlers, securing their survival when all other settlements died.Our forefathers, from the Pilgrims and Puritans to those who resisted the tyranny of George III, understood that the call upon the colonies (which grew to become our nation) was a call to personal and corporate freedom in Christ. “For freedom Christ has set us free” wrote Paul, “stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1). They also understood that this freedom was not a license to do as they pleased, but freedom to do the will of God. In short, they chose to live by what we, for the most part in the church today, have tended to ignore – Paul’s strong warning to the Galatians: “…do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”In other words, the true measure of our commitment to Christ is revealed in the “horizontal” aspect of the covenant and cross: our relationship with one another. How willing are we Christians to be servants of one another? Enough to become deeply involved in others’ lives? To have them involved in ours? How much do we really care about our neighbors – at home, at work, at church?To deepen the tap root we must covenant with one another in a practical way – husband and wife, brother and sister, friends and neighbors, church-worker and co-worker – to be open and honest with one another, and to care enough for one another to help each other grow out of self into greater maturity in Christ.For in Christ, we are called to be our brothers’ keeper – to walk and live in the light with one another. As John said, “If we say we have fellowship with him, while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn 1:6-7).The Pilgrims knew the value of becoming one body. With the Mayflower Compact, they chose to relinquish their individual independence, and as a covenanted people, not only survived but established our basic American spiritual and civil institutions. The first Puritans knew it, too – that the very survival of their little towns depended upon the depth of their covenant relationship with one another.In our hearts, we also know that God has called us Christians to both a vertical as well as a horizontal covenant; not just a close, personal intimate relationship with God (vertical), but also with one another (horizontal). But the cost – of turning from our selfish, self-centered ways, of being willing to hear and heed God’s inerrant and infallible Word, allowing that light of truth to expose to us our sins (open and hidden) – is more than most of us care to pay. Such was the case with the second-generation Pilgrims.In the past times of national crisis has reminded the nation of this, and has moved the remnant back into the Covenant Way. And so, today, we need to humble ourselves and not only repent of our sins and recommit ourselves to the vertical aspect of the covenant (God), but also the horizontal aspect of the covenant (one another). As we take to ourselves once again, Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life the tap root will grow ever deeper, keeping us from being blown away with the next stormy blast.The tap root is deepened when we return to the Covenant Way, committing ourselves to the only true God and to one another, united in taking Jesus as the way the truth and the life. Amen. ................
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