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Ash Wednesday: Sermon · Beyond the Sermon

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  Thanks for joining us, on beyond the sermon.
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  The podcast of First Methodist Church in Collingswood New
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  Jersey. Our goal is not only to share
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  our sermons, but to go beyond the sermon and conversation
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  about what we're learning and what God is doing in our lives,
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  and in our community, this sermon comes from our 2023 lent.
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  Sermon series seven, deadly sins.
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  The power of God to move us from death to New Life, he can find
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  more information about our church fum, see callings Would
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  dot org. Thanks for listening.
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  After being asked to speak tonight, I started reflecting on
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  all the Ash, Wednesday Services. I have attended throughout my
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  years, in my memory, they were like Sunday morning Services,
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  except for two things, they included being marked by ashes
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  and it was also the day where many people restarted, their New
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  Year's resolutions. I didn't know what a normal
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  theme for an Ash Wednesday. Service was turns out.
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  The common themes, are sin, repentance and death, the
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  feel-good messages. Luckily, I have a lot of
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  experience with everything I've listed above.
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  I've been sitting for as long as I can remember.
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  And once I understood how my sins separated me from God and I
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  was Working on that relationship.
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  I started repenting. I've also been surrounded by a
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  lot of death growing up. I was part of a church group
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  called the not-ready-for-prime-time
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  singers. We regularly visited shut-ins to
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  sing hymns. And this is where my love for
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  old, hymns, and older people stem from Since I started
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  attending with my mother at the age of two, this led me to start
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  attending my friends funerals by the age of six and regularly.
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  This prepared me for multiple of my family members, passing most
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  recently, my mother who passed this past October after her
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  third battle with cancer death is an inevitable part of life.
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  Some would say A physical death is one of the consequences God
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  describes for Adam and Genesis chapter 3.
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  When God Says cursed is the ground because of you through
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  painful toil you will eat food from it.
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  All the days of your life, it will produce thorns and thistles
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  for you. And you will eat the plants of
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  the field by the sweat of your brow.
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  You will eat your food until you return to the ground since from
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  it. You were taken.
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  For dust, you are and dust, you will return.
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  When we look at the creation story in Genesis, we have a
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  beautiful world where God and man, dwell together in a
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  creation. That is safe allowing man to
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  live freely without alarm uncomfortably freely for many of
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  us since they were naked. I've heard some interesting
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  speakers say that the serpent was the one telling the truth
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  and God had lied to Adam and Eve.
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  God said to Adam and Eve, you must not eat from the Tree of
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  the knowledge of Good and Evil. For when you eat from it you
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  will certainly die. The serpent told Eve.
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  You will certainly not die. After Adam and Eve ate from the
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  fruit, they didn't drop dead so the serpent must have been
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  telling the truth, right? There are two types of death,
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  the physical death, where our bodies, stop functioning, and
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  our soul leaves the body. The physical death is what Adam
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  and Eve anticipated as the consequence for disobeying God.
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  But what they came to regret was their spiritual death.
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  Spiritual death is when the soul is separated from God, which
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  immediately resulted after Adam and Eve disobeyed God.
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  Paul describes it, as being alienated from the life of God.
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  When we sin, we are creating distance from ourselves and God,
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  which if not reconciled before, our physical death can lead to
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  an eternal separation from God. Why would anyone want to be
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  separated from God even temporarily.
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  I often reflect on the words of Dallas Willard when he said,
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  when the serpent undertook to draw Eve away from God, he did
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  not hit her with a stick, but with an idea, He did not hit her
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  with a stick, but with an idea. I would argue that the majority
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  of our sins stem from the same ideas that the serpent convinced
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  Eve of That God must be withholding blessings from us
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  what? God, prohibits must outweigh and
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  outnumber all that he has provided for our pleasure and
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  provision. That God doesn't care about us,
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  God is only focused on rules and ultimately that God and His word
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  can't be trusted. We probably don't want to admit
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  that you may be thinking to yourself.
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  That I Jeremy, don't understand the full context of your
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  situation. I don't know all of your
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  stories, but I know that our way of thinking doesn't normally
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  stray from the creation account written over 3,000 years ago.
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  When confronted with his sin, Adam gets defensive saying the
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  woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit for the tree
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  and I ate it. We may say to God, it wasn't my
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  fault. This other person who you
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  created led me astray from what you have for my life.
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  Or God, if you only knew the people I had to deal with, you
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  would know, it's nearly impossible to love them.
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  And yet, God loves them. Shouldn't that be enough for us
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  to do the same? If we get to the center of it
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  all we can see. The atom is really saying the
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  woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit for the tree
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  and I ate it. God why would there be a
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  tempting option that isn't what you desire for me?
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  Even when God has provided all the trees in the garden for Adam
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  and Eve to enjoy. They asked why can't we have
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  this one? Why wouldn't you want me to
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  enjoy all of the things even if they're sinful?
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  God. It is your fault that sin is so
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  tempting. Sin can taste.
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  So sweet and sinning can feel so good.
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  Why don't you want that for me? God, the Creator desires to be
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  in relationship with us and genuine relationships.
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  Cannot be forced. This is why God provides Us free
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  will. God, could literally give us the
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  world with one bad option and we would question his goodness.
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  The things God provides for our pleasure is insurmountable and
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  yet we focus on the things that he prohibits.
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  God prohibits them for our good. Not to hold back.
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  Good from us. Like the eating of the fruit,
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  our sins may not cause immediate hurt.
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  They may even taste sweet like most fruits do, but our sins
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  that feel good in the moment can still cause us harm by
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  separating us from God. Coming from someone that has
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  added sugar to Southern sweet tea.
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  I can testify that what tastes good can do harm to you.
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  My dentist has reminded me of that almost every visit though
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  extra extra sweet tea doesn't make me drop from a heart
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  attack. It does harm to my teeth and
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  probably my nutrition. In order to fix the damage, I go
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  to the dentist even though the dentist doesn't harm me
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  visiting, the dentist, almost always hurts.
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  We'll do everything to avoid God's discipline.
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  That may not feel the best following God's will for our
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  lives. Does not always lead to
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  immediate gratification. Sometimes our sins do and we try
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  to ignore the long-term harm that our sins calls us.
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  It is especially hard to not conform to the patterns of the
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  world. When that is what we are
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  surrounded by. We need to trust God when he
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  tells us to avoid something, because if we don't listen to
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  him, we should most certainly die.
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  Ash Wednesday starts, our journey to the Cross where Jesus
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  endured all the consequences for our sins.
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  Jesus wore a crown of thorns from the grounds that were
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  cursed after Adam and Eve, ate of the fruit Jesus Took on the
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  weight of our sins and suffered the consequence of death.
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  Thanks be to God. The story doesn't end there.
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  In Christ's Resurrection, he conquered not only physical
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  death, but spiritual death so that we could be reconciled to
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  God, no longer separated due to our sin.
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  And our reading reading from Ephesians, it says, but God is
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  so rich in Mercy and he loved us so much that even though we were
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  dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised
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  Christ from the dead, it is only by God's grace that you have
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  been saved. if we are content with what God has provided us,
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  And we trust in his word. What could lead us to sin?
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  And I think that is the purpose of Ash Wednesday that we repent
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  of our sins that lead us to spiritual death and separate us
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  from God. We should spend lent being
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  especially intentional about building our trust in God, and
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  His word, putting aside, other things of this world.
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  In order for us to rely on God to sustain us like only he can