Date Sunday 11th February 2007

Luke 6: 17-26 PRAISE, WORSHIP, THANKSGIVING.

Once again Jesus demonstrates the kingdom of God in word and deed. This threefold ministry of Jesus is the ministry of the Church - your ministry and mine, together. The magnificence of God is found in this Sermon on the Plain in Luke. Magnitude is the under lying theme. A LARGE number of disciples; a LARGE crowd of people; from a GREAT geo- graphical area. ALL tried to touch Jesus because in His presence there was power for life, for health, for wholeness. ALL were healed.

In this magnitude is the magnificence of the goodness, greatness and holiness of God, coming together in the words and deeds of Jesus. Yet, what He taught was a radical truth which reveals the world and its wisdom for the sham that it is.

Where is happiness or blessedness to be found? Woe to those who seek it anywhere other than in God, our Creator! Blessedness involves peace gained from praise and worship by which we enter into the presence of God which flows into a life of thanksgiving we live. Blessedness is delighting in the law of the Lord. God blesses the person who trusts in Him alone. We make this blessing a woe when we turn away from Him put our trust in human wisdom or strength.

Jeremiah tells us that "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a person according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve." How hard it is to be honest with ourselves. We tend to be deaf to the call to the radical discipleship to which Jesus calls us. We tend to say or believe one thing but do another. We do not or can not recognise that our hearts are deceitful or that we are being deceived by this world. We fail to understand the necessity of praise and worship, by which God fills our whole being.

Our praise and worship is often more directed at the characteristics which Jesus condemns when we seek them as ends in themselves - wealth, being well fed, superficial laughter and flippancy, being spoken well of. The church and its people have fallen into the trap of con- textual theology: drawing truth from looking at the society around us rather than from God's Word. Look around us. Is what Jesus says true? Can it be said that the poor are happy, or blessed? Are the hungry happy? By definition it is impossible for those who weep to be happy! Are those who are unpopular happy? Most of us have a very strong need to be liked

When are we the happiest and feel the most blest? Is it when I --

have enough money in the bank to pay all bills and know there is enough there for any sudden emergencies.

can go to the supermarket and buy whatever food we like, plus some other little indulgence.

laugh, joke around, without a care in the world because all the family is doing just what we want them to be doing and no one is rocking the boat.

or when everyone thinks I’m great, preaching powerful, inspiring sermons, not ruffling feathers, not challening any of the destructive elements in the church or community but only doing whatever anyone wants me to do.

If this is the case, then I’ve been in church for the last 62 years but not let the word of God dwell in me richly. Nor am I reflecting a right relationship Sadly I have it wrong! I maybe a good person, but am missing out on the kingdom of God.

How terrible for me. For the one thing Jesus requires in His disciples is that we recognise in us the emptiness that only God can fill, a discontent with the world which will lead to the wealth, satisfaction, consolation and comradeship of His Kingdom. Praise wells up within as we invite God in all His fullness to occupy the void and longing in our inner being.

Praise is what we say, words which flow from us to God, preferably spoken but ofttimes silently from the heart.

Worship on the other hand is something we do. Most Biblical words whether Hebrew or Greek indicate worship as a posture of the body. It might be lying face down before the Lord. It might be kneeling in His presence, or standing with uplifted hands. It might be sitting with hands open on our laps in an attitude ready to receive whatever gift God is giving to us

In this attitude of worship we praise God for who He is.

Thanksgiving on the other hand (3 hands??) refers to what God is doing. Appropriate thanksgiving is not a matter of words. It is both words and actions which combine to show our thanks. "Go out into the world in the power of the Spirit. In all things, at all times, remember that Christ is with you. Make your life worship to the praise and glory of God." Make your life your worship to the praise and glory of God. That is thanksgiving. It is not saying that we should worship our life. The object and the subject of our worship is always God the Father, through His Son Jesus in the power of His Spirit. We give thanks for what God has done, has provided and show thanks by how we live.

This gift of blessing is to be shared with others. In this sense then the poor, the hungry, those who weep, unpopular, are in fact blessed, because they are the recipients of the grace of God through the goodness, holiness and greatness of God shown to them in our words and actions in Jesus' name.

These sayings of Jesus therefore are not a way of salvation. That is only found in Jesus. In part they are an invitation to we who already by faith have become children of the kingdom to manifest our faith in our conduct by the power of the Spirit. But they are also a test for it is our life of thanksgiving which stands as the proof of the relationship that God has and wants with His creation through Jesus.

Albert Schweitzer, the great missionary in Africa wrote in his book "Reverence for Life" - the gratitude ascending from man to God is the supreme transaction between between earth and heaven. Most men, however, live their daily lives oblivious of this supreme event. They have no inkling that their lives are lost to God because they have not given him thanks Those seeds that fell by the wayside, among stones, and among thorns bore no fruit. But the small amount of seed falling on good ground multiplied sixty and a hundredfold, compensating for all that was lost. So it is when we give thanks to God. The goodness each year that he pours forth upon mankind is lost on many, and very few are like the tree planted by the water, which brings forth fruit to God in due season. Even if only those few thousands who are gathered in the churches of our land thank him truly from the bottom of their hearts, this is a rare and rich fruit to Him.

The church is the community where praise is offered, worship is given and thanksgiving is nourished. Where new fruit is brought to harvest; where the poor, the hungry, those who weep and the unpopular may begin to experience God's blessings; where the sick are healed; where people are delivered from unclean spirits releasing people to praise and give worthship to God for what He has done for us in Jesus. It is the place where sinners are blest. Let us offer this praise and worthship as we reflectively sing --

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness