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| St. Patrick on the Hill of Slane by Bette Dickinson |
“Just before dawn,
St. Patrick and his friends lit
the Paschal Fire on the Hill of Slane.
Their fire,
lit in defiance of the king’s order,
symbolized the light of Christ and
St. Patrick and his friends lit
the Paschal Fire on the Hill of Slane.
Their fire,
lit in defiance of the king’s order,
symbolized the light of Christ and
His resurrection power
that defeated darkness."
that defeated darkness."
We Are Eagerly Waiting for Him Sermon Manuscript Lenten (St. Patrick's Day) Weekend March 15-16, 2025 Philippians 3:17-4:1, NLT 3:17 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. 18 For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. 20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for Him to return as our Savior. 21 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like His own, using the same power with which He will bring everything under His control. 4:1 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stay true to the Lord. I love you and long to see you, dear friends, for you are my joy and the crown I receive for my work. Main Idea We Can Wait with Peace, or Hunger with Anxious Appetite Story I recently finished the book, Something Other than God, by Jennifer Fulwiler, who used to describe herself as “a militant atheist who hated all things Christian … but now I’m reading about the Church while occasionally shouting at God.” Jennifer would eventually get to a place where she would shout less and whisper the words, “Never, ever could I have imagined what it would do for my soul to hear the words, My child, you are forgiven.” Between the militancy of being against God and coming home to Christ, she also explored the lives of Christian saints like St. Patrick and St. Paul. She wrote: For as diverse a group as the saints were, the one thing they had in common is that the people always remarked on their peace. To know a saint, I’d heard was to know someone who was so in tune with God that they became a channel of supernatural love. Not necessarily through a way with words or great deeds, but through mere presence, infused by something not of this earth. Peace and presence not of this earth. It’s what filled and fueled St. Patrick to share the Gospel with his slaveowners and others hostile to Christianity in Ireland. And the same peace and presence filled and fueled St. Paul to write to the Philippians from a prison cell, encouraging them to walk in the cross-shaped Way of Jesus instead of the way of the Empire in a city filled with retired Roman soldiers. Stop and consider that a moment. A prisoner of the Empire is writing to a city filled with retired Roman soldiers to not be enemies of the cross, which is what they used to dehumanize their enemies. This wild and holy boldness reminds me of a paraphrased quote by G.K. Chesterton about subversive saints: The paradox of history? Each generation is converted by the saint that contradicts it the most. It’s why St. Paul’s sharp and soothing words like … pattern your lives after mine, learn from those who follow our example, the cross of Christ, we are citizens of heaven, stay true to the Lord, I love you and long to see you … still pierce us today. This is what saints do. They lift high the cross and don’t let us settle for less than heaven. They don’t let us be slaves to our circumstances. They call us with love, peace and presence to follow Jesus. Today, among various empires and powers, we’re also taught by a culture of celebrity. I like how Our Church Speaks illuminates the contrast between celebrity and saint: The celebrity offers you everything you want but can never have. The saint offers you the thing you fear but will redeem your soul. So what are we afraid of this afternoon? And what are we eagerly waiting for? Is it Jesus? And what if the saintly discipline of welcoming Jesus’ heavenly peace over settling for quick earthly appetites will redeem our souls like in ancient Rome, and in Celtic Ireland, and with us in the modern U.S. now? Prayer Let’s pray and ask for Jesus to reveal how we can follow Him with peace and presence today. Let’s eagerly wait for the power of His cross and resurrection to redeem us from our slavery … Are We Eagerly Waiting for Him? Pattern Our Lives by the Cross, Not Our Cravings Vv. 3:17-19 Pattern Your Lives + Learn from Others Vs. 3:17 Is purpose in life to share in an eternal God’s love or to satisfy our instant desires? Would we rather rejoice in learning from those who came before us or lust with those who (shamelessly or perhaps shamefully?) tell us right now is all that matters? Would we rather be identified w/ Christ’s saints or identified w/ celebrities? (There) Are Really Enemies Vv. 3:18-19 To be “an enemy of the cross” means, besides not submitting to the Lord on the cross, to resist any form of self-denial. “If anyone would come after Me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me” is Jesus’ counter to celebrity. When God and His saints tell us abundant life involves self-denial of gluttony (food and drink to excess), lust (sex on demand outside sacrament of marriage intended to point us to Christ's promise-keeping lifelong love for His bride), greed (seeking to hoard money for individual gain over communal benefit), and wrath (belittling and destroying one’s enemies — social, political, religious), people today who are enemies of the cross pride themselves in knowing better than God. Freedom is unrestrained indulgence in physical desires and demands, and slavery is learning discipline in the Way of Jesus. In our country where obesity is rampant, a quarter of people participate in binge drinking, the wealthy are getting wealthier and the poor are getting poorer, and desire is determined by sexual pleasure on demand with 77 percent of Americans watching internet porn at least once per month, it can be tempting to settle into living like we are only hungry animals who are here to satisfy our cravings. Colonize your spot on this earth with your demands, discipline be damned. Questions + Pause What has your life been patterned after recently? What have you had an appetite for? What might the invitation to practice praying, fasting, and almsgiving provide for you to help you turn to the cross during this season of Lent leading to Good Friday and Easter? Are We Eagerly Waiting for Him? Be Citizens of Heaven Who Stay True Vv. 3:20-4:1 How Do We Be Citizens of Heaven on Earth Right Now? Vs. 3:20 Through the historic disciplines of Lent — prayer, fasting, almsgiving — found in Jesus’ Kingdom of Heaven Manifesto in Matthew 6:6-24 and practiced by St. Patrick and St. Paul and other saints throughout the ages, we can break free from the appetites of this age — demanding, consuming, hoarding. We can learn to be like the Christ who patiently suffers on a cross and gives generously for others. Strong hope in this King of heaven is necessary to experience His Exodus for us from slavery to our stomachs. But unless there is hope for heaven to come, it doesn’t make sense to abstain from pleasures on demand. So Lent reminds us of deserts and death, helping us learn how to follow the example of others who practiced the discipline of hope by storing up treasures in heaven as they waited eagerly on Jesus in His Way. Vulnerability But is it worth it? Self-denial instead of self-pleasure? Contentment instead of consuming? I admit, it’s hard. Everything is so accessible. Everything so satiable. We’re often slaves to the demands of the moment. Our bodies’ cravings causing us to be chained to only the here and now. But are we meant to live for more? What does Jesus want for us and our bodies? The tension and the hardship and the difficulty of making the choice of the cross over cravings reminds me of the lyrics The Porter’s Gate wrote for their song, “The Breastplate of St. Patrick”: When my work takes me places I don’t want to go, Christ before me. And my heart aches with sorrow As I hit the road, Christ be with me. When the care of my family Takes all that I have, Christ within me. When I’m worn and exhausted, Ashamed that I’m mad, Christ defend me. I rise up today in a strength That is not my own, I’m held by the promise of God That I’m never alone. He Will Take Our Mortal Bodies and Change Them into Glorious Bodies Vv. 3:21-4:1 We’re never alone in our worried minds and in our weak bodies. Jesus has us and holds us. How does this shape how we live? In general, there are 3 ways we can view life in our bodies: (1) You can ignore your body and health as a shell to use and abuse. (2) You can worship your body and health as an idol to glorify. (3) You can value your body and health as a gift to steward for God, others, and yourself. Christ puts a high value on our bodies. They were made through Him and for Him. And this can be one way Christianity differentiates from much spirituality today. Spirituality today often refers to what we think or feel regardless of what we do with our bodies. But this is right where Satan, the accuser, likes to attack us. He has no respect for human bodies, including Christ’s body. The deception is for us to be only spiritually focused or only materially focused. Just as too much of a focus on spirituality can fail to respect the gift of the body, too much focus on the material only can fail to wonder at the gift of the soul. But God gives us both. And while sages of this age will give us their words, Christ gave us His mind, heart, and body: “This is My body broken for you.” This touches on some of what our City Groups have been learning in The Tangible Kingdom Primer Week 2: What Is Incarnational? To live a cross-shaped life, one that values others, that says in our actions, “This is my body broken for you,” is like yesterday’s call-to-action: Bless one person, without any strings attached. What if you could live a life of blessing? Hope in Action When we look to the cross and see what was given for us in Jesus, we can receive peace and presence no matter our circumstances to bless others, like St. Patrick blessed his enslavers and St. Paul blessed the Philippians from a Roman prison. Because if the Prince of Peace can bless us with forgiveness from a cross, then perhaps He can finish world’s appetites’ hold on us. So again we ask, during Lent, how will we be citizens of heaven? How can we wait w/ peace instead of hunger w/ anxious appetites? How we can we pattern life after the cross instead of our cravings? Consider how the King of the cross might ask you: + What can help you deny your initial and demanding cravings in a world of entitlement? + How can you remember that there is more than this world, a Kingdom of heaven that is near? + Whose life is cross-shaped that you can ask to help you pattern your living in similar ways? When we answer these questions, if we are eagerly waiting for Jesus, like St. Patrick and St. Paul (along with the saints of Ireland and Philippi in Greece and beyond), we’ll learn how not to want Something Other than God. Like Jennifer Wiler, we’ll turn away from militant or masquerading atheism of a life without God, and we’ll welcome the peaceful presence infused by Someone not of this earth. We’ll be citizens of His Kingdom of heaven, saints who stay true to the Lord and who love each other with our hearts, minds, and bodies. Our life will be patterned after the One on the cross who says, “I love you.” And that’s what I also want to say to you today, Emmaus City Church: My dear brothers and sisters, stay true to the Lord. I love you … for you are my joy and the crown I receive for my work. Prayer Vs. 4:1 Jesus, we love You and we long to see You move among us. You are our joy and our crown. Are we in Emmaus City Church eagerly waiting for You? Are we shaped more by the cross than our cravings? Are we citizens of heaven and hope or are we too stuck in our circumstances and complaints? Lord, help us. We need Your body given for us. May we become Your glorious body broken for the sake of others and for the life of the world. Make Your Kingdom become tangible in us and through us in the days to come in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Songs May God's Kingdom come, His will be done. Que le Royaume de Dieu vienne, que sa volonté soit faite. 愿神的国降临，愿神的旨意成就。 Nguyện xin Nước Chúa đến, ý Ngài được nên. Jesús nuestra Rey, venga Tu reino! 🙏💗🍞🍷👑🌅🌇 Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan |
