Latest / Belin Memorial UMC / “Written on the Heart”
Transcript
- Belin Memorial UMC: Good morning. I would like to thank Jim Sellers and Arthur and Sissy and the choir and all of you for the outstanding music thus far. There's more to come, but the outstanding music thus far this morning, they don't know this. Y'all don't know this. I've got their attention. I have been looking forward to this for over a month. So thank you. It's beautiful. The psalm that Reverend Al read for us is the forty sixth Psalm. We sang a hymn. That Martin Luther, the great reformer, wrote based on that hymn. And then we moved to the hymn that we just sang. And have you noticed we're talking about heart a lot? You're going to hear a lot about heart and written on the heart this morning. Well, that particular hymn was written by Charles Wesley, who of course was the brother of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. It was sung by us. And will be sung by those who come after us. So that speaks to exactly what this Reformation Sunday is all about. The passage for today from Jeremiah is actually a passage that is assigned to often to Reformation Sunday. It is also the longest Old Testament passage that is quoted in the New Testament. And if you want to look it up, it's Hebrews 8, 8 through 12, and then it's partially referenced again over in Hebrews 10, 16, and 17. The author of Hebrews treats this entire passage that we're going to share today as a roadmap, and this will be very important as we move through this. He treats it as a road map pointing specifically and straight to Jesus, who is the centerpiece of a forever covenant and the cornerstone of the church that changes everything. So here now the reading, Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34, a new covenant. The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant. Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of the them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. This is the word of God for the people of God. Well welcome to Reformation Sunday. I know you have counted the days all week, waiting to get to Reformation Sunday. It only happens once a year. I can see the excitement, anticipation, and you made it, we're here. Well, this text from Jeremiah is one of the texts that is associated with this day along with Psalm forty six and along with the hymn that we sang and was played so beautifully and led by the choir, a mighty fortress. Psalm forty six was actually a favorite passage of the great reformer, Martin Luther and author of that hymn, and later it was also a favorite. of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Now On this Reformation Sunday, as United Methodists, this day has a unique heart. John Wesley was a priest, he was an Anglican priest, whose heart was, and we'll hear about this a little in a little bit more detail later. His heart was strangely warmed through the personal, transforming grace of God. And Wesley reminded people then and us now that Reformation isn't just a historical event because we often think of this day as something that happened in the 1600 in the 16th century. But Wesley reminds us that it is an ongoing daily work of the Holy Spirit to transform hearts in our own lives and around the world. So the Old Testament lesson from Jeremiah has been referred to as the heart. I told you we're going to talk about the heart a lot today. The heart of the whole 31st chapter of Jeremiah and what we just read actually summarizes Jeremiah's message. But just as this passage is central and a focal point for Jeremiah's entire message, it reminded me of a sports phrase. Now, those of you who know me well, some of them are laughing back here, some of you who know me well know this is how much athletic ability I have. This is it. I have none. But I go to enough sports events, and if you have a grandchild, you make the round some of you are smiling, you make the rounds, you go from soccer to baseball, I hear tennis might be on the horizon. All sorts of events, right? Basketball, it's all out there. And I can hear this sports phrase, it's timeless from the sidelines. Keep your eye on the ball. I've learned. we have a story. I will share it, George. You know it's coming. You know it is. It's shorthand for don't get distracted. Stay focused. Well that works amid life's distractions as well. Now, in the midst of this zero athletic ability and serving on the appointed cabinet together, sometimes the appointed cabinet had the honor of going to meetings, and sometimes they were out of town. This particular meeting happened to be in Aiken, South Carolina. And George and I did serve on the cabinet. He was already on the cabinet when I was invited to join that, along with another friend of mine. Of ours named John Hip. Well, we, the three of us, were walking to the meeting and we're going down the sidewalk, downtown Aiken. And there are little park benches, you know, so people can stop. They start talking about golf. They didn't know that I had such athletic ability. And they said, let us see your golf swing. I said, I've never held a golf club. They said, you'll know how to do j just show. I don't know how to just show us, just pretend, you know, and so here I go. You know, you and they said, What are you doing? I said, It's the wind up. They said, golf doesn't have a wind up. I said, Well it does now. Okay. So that you know when I get you know, when I'm looking around and but you know. So they gave me very good advice after we went through all of that. After they had to sit down on the park bench because they were laughing so hard, and I'm not exaggerating. See, see, they finally looked at each other and gave me wonderful golf advice. Stick to preaching. So I did, and here we are. But I did learn just a little teeny bit about George, you're gonna be so impressed. That for golfers. Now you know we have a golf tournament coming up, and we're getting ready to start basketball here in the church. It's basketball is a big thing, and the golfers are very serious. You know, you can't talk and distract golfers. But what I have learned is that golfers who are very serious about this they approach it with a calm, steady gaze. Now I see you golfers are watching me. like let's see if she gets this right so you'll have to tell me this is what I have learned and been told that serious golfers in their calm steady gaze they do focus it might be on a specific spot like the back of the ball one even told me it could be a particular blade of grass during are you ready for this George the setup and the down swing See, I've come a long way. Had to work on it. But those who take their eye off the ball, whatever the sport may be, even a split second distraction is can lead to a missed opportunity or the result not being exactly what they had intended. Well that's what happened to the people of the old covenant. They had taken their eye off the ball. Not just for a split second. They forgot the ball was even in play. They broke the old covenant It would have been like the pitch was headed straight for them and they looked the other way. So here's the context of what was going on. It's never easy to be a prophet. Jeremiah was called to be a prophet. He was called at a very young age to be a prophet. He s basically said, Thank you, God, but no, I don't believe I care to do that. And God said, You will be a prophet, and Jeremiah was a prophet. And Jeremiah had had to deliver some very Difficult news. And we are at the part where things start turning. So that's why the context here is important, but in this particular case, it is not easy. The words that we heard this morning are words that Jeremiah shared with the people who were living in oppression, heavy oppression, and in exile. They had been taken away from their home. All of this had happened as a result of their breaking the stone covenant, the tac the covenant that It was written on the stone tablets, the Sinai Covenant, and they're giving up hope. They're thinking this will never end. They feel that God has abandoned them. And then there comes this shift. These verses are actually the pinnacle of Of what is called the book of comfort, which we normally would not even associate with Jeremiah until chapter 30. This actually begins in the 30th chapter and continues through the 33rd. There is this comfort, a shift from gloom and doom to a promise that God had not abandoned his people. And even will eventually restore them. And there is even more to that restoration. But we'll get to that. God was about to do a new thing for God's people in spite of everything they had done to turn away from him and to break the Mosaic covenant given to them at Mount Sinai when God rescued them out of Egypt. I mean they broke it to smith have you ever heard of smithereens? They broke it to smithereens. But God loves God's people. And never abandons God's people. So God offered them a new covenant, a covenant of hope with a return from exile, and God said it this way: The days are surely coming, not maybe, but you can count on this. The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant. Then he says, I will write it on their hearts. They shall all know me from the least to the greatest. And then he says, I will forgive them. This time God is offering a covenant with God's people, and God is going to do a little surgical procedure here. God is going to write the covenant, God's love and promise, directly and permanently on their hearts in God's own handwriting. Now think about that. Many people wear rings or bracelets or have jewelry of some type or some memento, and they may have a date, initials, or a short phrase etched in or engraved into precious metals. And that means it outlasts daily wear, it outlasts weather, it outlasts circumstances, it outlasts time. It is meant to be permanent. That was the message of hope for the people who were feeling helpless and hopeless. And now they have a promise of hope from God. And here's the good news about that. When God makes covenant, it is forever. And that was quite a promise. God went on to say, and I will forgive them and I will remember their sins no more. Now remember where they are. They're in exile, they've broken the covenant, they are suffering, they're in oppression, and God is saying, I'm going to send you back home. I'm going to resettle you. I'm going to restore you so that you can flourish in your homeland. I'm giving you Life with love and hope and a promise, a new beginning from God Almighty. And God offers us the same. That's good news for the people of the New Covenant of which we are a part. It sounds very much moving right on over into the New Testament. It sounds very much like the message that Paul shared in his letter to the church at Corinth. So if anyone is in Christ. There is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. Look, new things have come into being. That's why we absolutely cannot read this passage without thinking about Jesus and what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the cornerstone. We sang that. Jesus is the new covenant who, by his life, death, resurrection, models for Us what it means to belong to God and how we are permanently imprinted by God. You bear the image of God written on your heart. God's new covenant was a covenant with people that they could live by this covenant, not because they had to. Not because they were supposed to, but they could do it because they wanted to. It was a response to what God was doing for them, who God is and whose they were. Now, I will tell you that does not mean we get it right every time. Most of us have had the privilege of making some mistakes along the way. And even with God's covenant written on our hearts, it does not mean that we become perfect human beings. We don't. But it is a matter of staying with the basics. We practice, just like the golfer. Or the basketball player or the fill in the blank the musicians. I would I'm looking at three of them sitting here. My guess is the first time the three of you sat down on an organ or a piano bench, you did not play exactly the way you do today. If you did, OJ I said OJ. that would be the other Jim, that would be Jim Sellers. He said almost, but not quite, right? It means we have to practice over and over and over and it means we keep our eye on the ball. That means we don't get distracted. We keep our eye on the ball and practice until it becomes a part of who and whose we are naturally and authentically. And that brings transformation, it brings reformation, it brings change and restoration in our lives, it brings a newfound sense of wholeness and true joy. God changes things. We hear it all the way from Genesis to our current day. In fifteen nineteen, Martin Luther, the great reformer, had poured over Paul's letters to the Romans, which inspired what is known as the Reformation. The Bible actually, a part of that Reformation was translated from Latin into the language of the people. I was asked this morning. You know about the Gutenberg Press. Well, that's exactly what that is. People were going to be able to read the scriptures in their own language for themselves. The scriptures were being put in their hands and not just read in Latin. Imagine if we read the scripture in Latin every Sunday. Wouldn't that be fun? I hope it wouldn't be for you because I don't want to take another Latin lesson ever, but It was made available to the people in their own language and you see in that detail. There is a thread of grace honoring the footsteps of those who have walked before us, anchoring us alongside those who are walking with us today, and letting God use our lives as living proof of his unfailing love, even for generations to come, people we don't even know and probably never will. Two centuries after Luther, they never knew each other, John West. Recorded this experience in his journal, and this is how he described it. And listen to the reference to Romans and who wrote the preface and how it tied it to him and then even to us. John Wesley wrote that he went very unwillingly, that's very important, to a small gathering. It was a Bible study. A Bible study at 845 in the evening. Perfect time. Right? Okay. For you know, a couple hour Bible study, a quarter to nine. Well, he went. It was held in a chapel on Aldersgate Street in London. He recorded as he listened to Luther's preface to the Roman to the Epistle to the Romans while it was being read. This is what he recorded. He described the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ and about himself. The pronouns changed. It shifted from generally to To him personally. I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. Exactly the covenant that was promised back in the day of Jeremiah, to the day of Martin Luther, to the day of John Wesley, to write here in Merle's Inlet and Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church, October 2026, and it will continue. Wesley reminds us that we experience a new heart. One that is in relationship with God, given to us through the gift of God's own Son. The love of God that is ours through Jesus Christ. God has touched our lives. God has written God's love, God's covenant on our hearts. And here's the really good news, and I just say thank you to this because it is so much fun to be in ministry with all of you. You can smile. I see some of you smiling. It is okay to enjoy being in ministry together. You might even say Say amen to that. And look, nothing fell. It's okay. God touches us, writes on our hearts, and as the body of Christ, we become joined together through the heart to love, to care for one another, and to care for God's people. Some we have never met, we never will. But God knows them and thank you to responding to the call that God places on your life. Thank you for the ways that you so naturally do this and that you live out service. I've heard some folks say recently, this is what we do, this is who we are, because you are the church visible in the world.