Jeremiah 1:4-10

"I knew you before you were born." I have known a few people who could say this about me. They were usually people who knew my parents. Most of them were family members. I didn't understand at the time what they meant but there was a sense that they knew much more about me than I knew.

As I have grown older I have discovered that there are some people I could say that about. Some children of friends. Most are children of relatives. Then of course there are my own kids.

I could tell you tons of things I know about them because I knew them before they were born. But I won't because it would embarrass them But because I know Melissa and myself I knew them. I understand their inclinations and can even see the same mannerisms and likes and dislikes as I see in Melissa and myself. I knew them before they were born.

But God is saying more than that to Jeremiah. God is not just saying I knew you before you were born. God is saying I knew you before I created you. This is a whole other level of knowing. God knew Jeremiah like an architect and builder would knows a house. Or like an artist knows a work of art. And art expert may look at the painting and see many things. But the artist knew the painting when it was a blank canvas. The artist knows each brushstroke and each blending of color that goes into the masterpiece.

God knew Jeremiah like that. God knew not just the personality traits and physical and psychological characteristics of his parents. God knew the intricacies of the bonding of genes and chromosomes. God knew the details of the processes involved in Jeremiah's gestation. God did not merely count the hairs on his head but God personally formed the cells that produced those hairs and God knew the number of hairs that would fall out and the new ones that would grow.

That is a level of knowing beyond human comprehension. God intentionally designed Jeremiah. And God knew Jeremiah better than Jeremiah knew himself.

But that is just the beginning of what God is saying here. God goes on "before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." So not only did God design Jeremiah, but God designed him for a purpose. God had a big job for Jeremiah. Israel was going to be carried off into captivity. God wanted to be able to speak with them to guide them and prepare them and help them understand.

That was Jeremiah's Job. He was God's spokesperson. He would tell them what was happening to them and why. He would announce the falling of kingdoms. And he would offer hope.

And God had planned it all before Jeremiah was born. God had planned it at the time that Jeremiah was still on the drawing board. Jeremiah was designed in body and spirit to be the great prophet. He was set apart to speak for God before God made him.

But that was a little too much for Jeremiah to take. As a young man God spoke to him and told him all this. But Jeremiah didn't feel worthy or able to speak God's word to the nations. So he protested, "You don't mean me. I'm too young and don't know how to speak in public." Jeremiah saw only his short comings.

But Jeremiah wasn't alone. Many others had said that same kind of things and many more would say it. Moses had said to God in the burning bush, "I stutttter send someone else." Jonah said, "But I don't want the Ninevites to repent and be saved." John said, "Shouldn't I be baptizing you. The rich young ruler said, "Sell everything?" One would be disciple said, Let me go check on my real-estate investments." Another said, "Let me wait till my father dies." And the list of excuses goes on and on.

But remember God knew him better than he knew himself. God had created all his capabilities and all his limitations. God knew what he could do and what he could not do. If he had been incapable of voicing God's words God would not have called him.

Which brings us to the point of the sermon: God knew you before He knit you in your mother's womb and before you were born you were appointed to serve him. God knows your abilities and your shortcomings. In fact God created you the way you are for His purpose. You may not be called to a prophet to the nations like Jeremiah, but you are called. We are all called to live a Christian life and serve God. You were uniquely created to play a specific role in God's plan.

Now don't go making excuses. Don't think that you are not capable of doing what God has called you to do. Because God made you. He created you the way you are for his purpose. You may think you are too young or too old or not able to do this or that or not smart enough or too weak.

But God knows you. He knows what you can and can't do. And he promises to give you what you need just as he gave Jeremiah the words and Moses the tools and Jonah the ride they needed. God told Jeremiah "I will be with you." God will be with you and will help you.

I know it is scary. Often we don't know what we can do to serve God. But remember God knows you and He knows your unique calling to service. He created you and he knows your limitations. He also is ready to help you.

1 Corinthians 13

A preacher once heard about another preacher who gained notoriety by preaching the world's longest sermon. He felt led to preach some kind of notable sermon too and get in the record books. But he didn't want to bore people with a long sermon. So he decided he would peach the world's shortest sermon and he told his congregation that he was going to do this. He didn't want it to just be an excuse for a sermon. He had to say something meaningful in the sermon. He received a lot of good suggestions. When the time came for his notable short sermon he stood up at the pulpit cleared his throat and said, "Love," and then sat down.

Love is important. Popular culture tells us: "love is a many splendored thing." (John Patrick) "All you need is love." (The Beatles) "Love makes the world go round." (Bob Merrill) "Love means never having to say you're sorry." (Erich Segal) Ancient philosophers said that everything in the world is made of four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. The movie "The Fifth Element" imagined that there was a fifth element that tied these four together and that would save the world. That fifth most important element was "Love." Maslow, the psychological theorist, said that Love is one of the five basic needs of a human and that to be healthy and happy we need to love and be loved.

Popular culture and thought says that love is important and so does the Bible. Jesus said that the most important commandments were to love God and to love your neighbor. It also says that God is Love. It says that God loved the world and that is why HE sent Jesus to die for the World. The 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, which is in many ways the thesis statement for the entire book, says that Love is the most essential and eternal of all God's gifts.

"Now wait just a minuet Preacher, aren't there other important things that just might be equal to if not more important than Love? What about preaching the Gospel. It is through preaching the Gospel that people hear about Jesus and accept him and then get saved. Isn't getting people saved the most important? And what about Prophetic powers like the prophets of the Bible. They were able to tell God's people what to do in very troubled times. Isn't that kind of divine guidance important? And what about faith? It through faith that we are saved by grace. And even the faith the size of mustard seed can move a mountain. That seems pretty potent. And what about martyrs. People who live their lives for the truth. Don't their deaths mean anything?"

According to the Bible, no. "If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing."(1 Corinthians 13:3) And preaching without love is just a bunch of hooping and hollering. Faith without love is empty. Even prophetic wisdom is meaningless without love.

Love is the essential element that gives meaning to all the others. Without Love all those other things, as powerful and as important as they are lose their meaning. It is like a parent who works hard to earn a living for their children. They work overtime and weekends to gain extra points with the boss, and move up in the company and in earning ability. Then the parent provides the children with a good house and good clothes and the best in educational toys and summer camps and after school programs. But the parent never spends time with the child to help them grow emotionally and spiritually. Without the love of the parent, all those other things lose their meaning. In the same way without love, wisdom, faith, even sacrifice, become unanchored in the sea of life and lose their place. Love is the anchor, love is the key, love is the essential element to all things in life.

So we all agree that Love is essential and important. But what is love? Both the church and the world speak of love but they often seem to be speaking of different things. The world speaks of falling in love of falling out of love. The world speaks of "making love" as a mere physical act of sex. Is love simply never having to say you're sorry or is it more?

Perhaps the problem is that the English language lacks the vocabulary to speak of love. In Greek they have four different words for what we call "love." One word is "eros." This is where we get the work erotic. It literally means I love you because you have something I want. This would describe someone who made nice to the boss to get a raise or who made a friend with someone to merely gain social prestige. This is the shallowest kind of love and most often refers to sexual desires. Another word is "storge." This is basically parental love. It is the instinctual love that parent has for a child. "Philio" is the third kind of love. It is brotherly love like the name of the city Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. It is basically love because of similarities as in a close friendship. The last one is "Agape." This is unconditional love. It s the opposite of "eros." "Eros" is love you for sake of the self, but "agape" is love for the sake of the other. This is self sacrificial love.

Chapter 13 is talking about the last kind of love. Paul says, "Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." This is the kind of love that the Bible says that God has for us and that Jesus calls us to have for God and our fellow human being. This unconditional self sacrificial love is why God sent the only begotten Son of God into the world and why Jesus chose to die for our sins. It wasn't nails that held Jesus to the cross. It was his love for you that kept him there! So love is not sex, it is not romance, it is not friendship. Love, in the Biblical sense, is so much more!

But all good things must come to an end, right? No! Many good things will come to an end. There will come a time when all the prophesies will be fulfilled and then there will be no need of prophesy. There will come a time when we will not need eloquent speech and fancy turns of phrase to communicate the Gospel. We will know God face to face! At that point all the high falootin' theology and philosophy will mean nothing. It will all seem so silly.

When I was 4 years old my grandmother Coots died. I knew that she believed in Jesus and that everyone who believes in Jesus goes to heaven. Problem was I thought heaven was up on top of the clouds like in the cartoons. One time shortly after her death my mother took a plane ride. I had heard that planes flew over the clouds so when my mother came back from her trip I questioned her to determine that she could actually look out the plane and see the tops of the clouds. When she said that she could I then wanted to know if she could see Grandma. When we get to Heaven all our notions of what heaven is will be completely blown away. In the light of the reality of Heaven even our highest ideas of Heaven will seem as childish as my idea that Heaven was on top of the clouds. And all our ideas of God will seem just as childish too.

But after all our knowledge and wisdom have become obsolete, love will remain. Because love is the thing that is the basis and purpose for all those other good things. It is eternal. Prophesies, knowledge, eloquence will all have fulfilled their usefulness and will fall away. but the most essential thing: love will remain.

Love: The world is right in part about a few things. Love is a many splendored thing. Love is all you need. Love is truly what makes the world go round. Love is the fifth element of creation. Love is a basic need for humanity.

But the world has a few thing wrong too. Love often means saying you are sorry. Love is more, much more than a mere physical act. Love goes way beyond flowers and candlelight.

Love is eternal. Love is essential. You want to know what Love is. Look at Jesus, and especially look at his body broken and his blood shed for us. He is the eternal, unconditional self sacrificial love of God in the flesh!

Love - well, so much for short sermons!

Luke 4:21-30

Who owns the messiah? It sounds like a silly question. But think about it for a minuet. Who has rights to the power that he brings. Who can call upon the mercy that he offers. Who owns the mineral rights to the spiritual riches Jesus has.

It is a very important question. Jesus is a veritable gold mine of spiritual riches. He said he came to bring good news to the poor. Good news for the poor is hard to come by. It is a commodity that should go for a good price. He came to bring release to captives. People who are oppressed want release. They will often pay a high price for freedom. Recovery of sight for the blind. In this room there is easily over a thousand dollars worth of corrective lenses. Imagine what the blind will give for sight.

"Who owns the Messiah?" It's an important question. It is at the heart of the Gospel. It determines who is in and who is out of the Kingdom. It defines who is blessed and who is cursed. Who, after all, owns the Messiah?

You see the people of Jesus' home town thought that if he was the Messiah, they had first rights to him. They knew how valuable the Messiah was. Jesus told them that morning that the prophecy of the Messiah had come true in him. And they said his words were gracious. What a nice thing for him to say that God would send the Messiah to us. I can just see the sign to be erected at the edge of town: "Nazareth city limits: hometown of God's Messiah."

Oh of course they were a little skeptical. After all they all remembered Jesus as a boy. He was the son of that carpenter. Oh, what is his name: Jonathan? Uh, Joseph yes! He's Joseph's son. They had heard what he had done in Capernaum, healing and teaching and stuff. They probably thought to themselves, "You know those Capernians. They are always exaggerating. He probably helped some old man with arthritis and they all thought he could make the lame walk." But remember they also knew the benefits if he was the Messiah.

Jesus knew what they were thinking. He said, "I'll bet you want me to do the same things here that I did in Capernaum. You want me to prove myself to you. And you want me to bless you and no one else. What does the Bible say? During a drought in Israel God sent Elijah to a Gentile widow to bless her. And when there were many lepers in Israel God sent Elisha to a Gentile to heal him." They got the point even if we don't. Jesus was saying that God sent him to bless all who would accept him. Not just other Jewish towns like Capernaum and Nazareth, but even Gentiles. That was more than enough. "What! God send the Messiah for Gentiles! That was too much. It's bad enough that he won't stay at home now he won't even stick with his own kind." They were so mad that they tried to kill him rather than have him take God's blessing to the Gentiles.

Jesus got away that day. The Bible says that he just walked through the midst of the crowd and walked away. But Jesus' words eventually caught up with him. You see the religious leaders in Jerusalem thought they owned the Messiah too. And when they couldn't control Jesus they lost their patience. If they couldn't own Jesus, then nobody could.

So they surrounded him with a crowd of soldiers. Jesus could have walked away again, but this time he chose not to. They nailed him to a cross and he still offered God's blessings to anyone who would accept them. On a cross next to him, a thief asked for forgiveness and he gave him salvation. A dirty rotten scoundrel of a thief and Jesus gave him a place in paradise.

And if forgiving thieves wasn't enough he continued to bless Gentiles. While the Roman soldiers were gambling for his clothes, you know what he said? He said, "Father, forgive them for they don't know what they are doing." Can you imagine the nerve of him to ask God to forgive even Romans?

Who owns the Messiah? I remember watching a show one day. It was about capital punishment. Actually it was the story of a father whose son had been murdered. The murderer was sentenced to death and the father did all that he could to witness the execution. He wanted to see his son's murderer die with his own eyes. So he pulled strings and maneuvered so that he could be in the witness booth at the execution.

The father got to see his son's murderer die, but he was not satisfied. The reporter interviewing him asked him why he was not satisfied. You see the killer had become a Christian shortly before the execution. He had given his life to Christ. He had been forgiven of his sins. He was going to heaven. The father was disturbed because he didn't think it was right that his son's killer should go to heaven.

Nobody owns Jesus, and everybody does. "But you can't have it both ways preacher." Yes I can, because the Bible says so. No one has exclusive rights to Jesus because he died for the sins of the world. God gave him so that anyone who would put their faith in him could be saved. So we all have a God given right to his soul saving blood. We can all share in his grace and mercy.

Christ's grace is offered to all. That is what Christianity is all about. Jesus gave his life for the sins of the world. Jesus didn't do it just for his disciples. He died so that anyone, even convicted murderers and criminals, could be saved. And Jesus didn't give his life just so that Jews could see God. He died so that even a Roman Centurion could say, "He is surely the Son of God."

Jesus died for all. That is why we Methodists practice open communion, and try to welcome everyone. We even advertise out open hearts, open minds and open doors. Anyone could walk through that door and they would be welcome at this table. It doesn't matter who they are or what they have done. The only thing that matters is that they accept new life from Christ.

Jesus died to give forgiveness to any who would accept it. He came to give new life to any who would kneel at the cross. He gives grace to any who will accept his broken body as a sacrifice for their sins. He offers mercy to any who would be washed by his blood. Come, Christ has provided the bread of life for all who would come to his table and receive with thanksgiving.

See also "How are we saved? Prevenient Grace"

1 Corinthians 13

What's really important? Everyone in our world seems to have their agendas and thinks that theirs is most important. Each person thinks that their needs should be attended to before anyone else�s. Each person had their issue: "save the whales," "save the trees," "save the children!" And everyone thinks their should receive the first attention.

There are a lot of important things, but what is the most important for the church? In serving God, what is most important? It is certainly important to have an understanding of God's Word so that we can be faithful to it. It is also important to have a discerning understanding of the situation of the world. It is also important to be able to proclaim the good news in a way that will catch people�s attention and communicate the truth so that all can believe. And it is important to have a faith that leads us to give of ourselves - even our lives that others might receive Jesus.

But Paul, the great and effective Apostles of Jesus Christ, had another perspective. He said love was the most important thing we need for ministry. It doesn't matter if we have golden tongues or great wisdom or sacrificial charity. The thing that makes the difference is love. Now I could try to prove this truth or describe its applications to you over the next 45 minuets - well, 20 minuets. But instead I want to show it to you in the lives of three people.

Let�s start with Millard Fuller. Millard was talented and intelligent young man. He applied his intelligence and talent to a marketing firm and became a millionaire by the time he was 30. Millard is also a very eloquent speaker. Anyone who have heard him speak in public would agree with that fact. He is also a charismatic leader. Among those who have follow him in his efforts are presidents, cabinet members, and Nobel prize winners.

But Millard Fuller is also a man of faith. After he had made his fortune in business he gave it all away to the poor. He gave it away to join Koinonia farm, a Christian community in Georgia founded by Clarence Jordan the writer of the "Cotton Patch Gospels." Millard�s faith led him to give all he had to the poor and leave the boardroom for the barn. Millard is quoted as having said; "I see life as both a gift and a responsibility. My responsibility is to use what God has given me to help His people in need."

But as good and important as all that is it was love that made the difference in Millard�s life. You see Millard Fuller is the founder of Habitat for Humanity. It was love for God and love for his neighbor that led him and others to begin the movement that has used Biblical guidelines to fight the cycle of poverty. It was love that led them to take the hard road of not giving away houses, but of creating opportunities for people to take responsibility for their homes and truly own their own place to live. Despite all Millard Fuller�s talents it was, love that made Habitat for Humanity happen. It was love that made him who he is. It was love that made the difference!

There is also the example of Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. Agnes was a woman of strength and faith. At an early age she heard her call to serve God. When she turned 18 she answered that call by becoming a nun. It was then that she took the name that we know her by: Teresa.

Sister Teresa, not yet Mother Teresa, received her first charge: to teach in a girl�s school in Calcutta, India. It was there that she fell into the ministry to the poor for which she is now famous. Listen as I read her account of the first time she picked up a woman form the street:

"The woman was half eaten up by rats and ants. I took her to the hospital, but they could do nothing for her. They only took her because I refused to go home unless something was done for her. After they cared for her, I went straight to the town hall and asked for a place where I could take these people, because that day I found more people dying in the street. The employee of health services brought me to the temple of Kali and showed me the �dormashalah� where the pilgrims used to rest after they worshipped the goddess Kali. The building was empty and he asked me if I wanted it. I was very glad with the offer for many reasons, but especially because it was the center of prayer for Hindus. Within 24 hours we brought our sick and suffering and started the Home for the Dying Destitutes."

Of course Mother Teresa went on to found a new order of nuns: the "Missionaries of Charity." But all this was possible because of love. Mother Teresa said, "I realized that I had the call to take care of the sick and the dying, the hungry, the naked, the homeless - to be God's Love in action to the poorest of the poor." Once again it was love that made the difference!

Perhaps the ultimate example of the truth that it is love that makes the difference is Jesus Christ. Jesus had all things. He was the Lord of the Universe. He had the stars as his night-lights and the planets as his footstool. And he gave up all things to come and live among us.

And Jesus was an excellent teacher. He had a knack for being able to illustrate almost anything. Crowds of people followed him forsaking work and food. Some even left family and businesses to follow him. Jesus even gave up his body to be nailed to the cross.

As important and good as all that was it was his love that made the difference. It was his love that led him to the cross. It was love that led Jesus to leave the ivory palaces of heaven to become a homeless Savior. It was love that led him to minister to the poor and the outcast. As one song says, "Why did they nail him to the cross when his love would have held him there." Love made the difference.

If I could speak with the tongues of men and angels and give away all I have and be able to understand great things, it really wouldn�t amount to a hill of beans. Love is what makes the difference. It was love that made Millard Fuller the businessman became a modern day monk and the leader of a word wide movement against poverty. It was love that made Sister Teresa, the nun and teacher, into Mother Teresa the leader of the sisters of charity. It was love that led the Father to give his only begotten Son. And it was love that led the Son to give his life for the sins of the world.

Love was what made the difference and was important in these people�s lives. So what's important in your life? Is it eloquence and knowledge? Is it family and home? Is it something as important as faith and sacrifice?

All those things are important. But they mean nothing if they are not accompanied by love. All those things are good and some like faith and hope abide. But the greatest of these is Love! Love is what makes all those other important things meaningful.

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