Oh, the places you’ll go

This didn't get posted but was from March 20th.

Read Pages 1-17

What a great book. Here is a confession; I had never read this book before I decided on the series. The other three I had read or had read to me as a child and read them to my children but not “Oh the Places you’ll go.” I had quoted from it but never actually read it. What a great read, I have already read it to our Granddaughter I think everyone who has a kid should have this book in their library and read it to them.

Oh the places you will go was first published in January 1990, making it the last book published before Dr. Seuss’s death on September 24, 1991 at the age of 86. You may or may not know that Seuss, Theodor Geisel was married twice but never had children. He has been quoted as saying, “You have 'em; I'll entertain 'em.”

Oh, the places you’ll go! Is written in the second person and uses the future tense to describe what life will be like for the main character, a young boy simply identified as “You”. And it really nails it, the ups and downs, the choices that will be made and what life will be like.

One source indicated that the book has become a popular gift for graduates and that sales spike in the spring of each year to about 300,000 copies.

You don’t have to be around Denn very long to come to know that I am a firm believer that we are the sum result of the choices we make. We can make excuses, we can cast blame, but ultimately each one of us is the result of the choices we make in this life.

Our future life started being defined by the choices we made as a child, would we be a good student or a bad student? Who would our friends be? Would we choice the easy way or the right way? Those choices would set us on a path that would ultimately lead us to today. For better or for worse.

It is not a matter of accepting the blame it is simply a matter of accepting the responsibility. Because here is the very essence of what I am saying: If the choices you made yesterday brought you to where you are today. Then the choices you make today will take you to where you are tomorrow. Which means that you have control of your destiny.

Or as William Ernest Henley wrote “It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll; I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

The story of Joseph is a story of choices, and had Jacob sat down and read his son “Oh, the places you’ll go!” when Joseph was a boy then Seuss’ tale would have seemed prophetic later in life. Because there were times of success, and times of failure, and times of waiting.

The story of Joseph is so familiar that we sometimes never see the roller coaster ride that Joseph was on. His life was a series of disasters and blessings. Some were the result of bad choices he made, and some the result of good choices he made, but they were all the result of his choices. The last thirteen chapters of Genesis chart the life of Joseph, the boy with the coat of many colours.

The story begins in Genesis 37 when Joseph was seventeen, and looking at it as a simply a human story, after all God isn’t even mentioned in that chapter, it is a most unpromising start. Hardly the type of beginning that you would expect for one of the greatest civilisations in the history of mankind. Genesis 37:3 Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph—a beautiful robe.

You have to realize that the secret to the entire story is in that last line So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph—a beautiful robe. This was the flowing robe worn by a VIP who did no manual labour. If anyone in the family should have been privileged to wear such a robe it should have been Reuben, the eldest not Joseph who was practically the baby of the family. And the foolishness of Joseph’s father destroyed any chance that Joseph may have had for a normal relationship with his brothers.

Now to be really frank I don’t like Joseph at this particular juncture in history. I think that he was an immature obnoxious little pup and had I been one of Joseph’s eleven brothers I probably would have voted with the majority and been done with the problem once and for all. “That’s a terrible attitude Pastor, after all Joseph was a man of God.” True and as he matured that became evident, but in the beginning he was just annoying.

Let’s look at some of the things that came Joseph’s way and some of the choices he made, how they affected his life and how they apply to our lives.

1) He Chose to do What Was Wrong. There are a couple of things that the Bible records that might help us understand what was going on in the heads of the ten boys who decided that life would be a whole lot easier to live without little brother around. In Chapter 37 verse 2 we are told how Joseph had been tending his father’s flocks with his brother and brought back a bad report about them. Now we don’t know what Joseph finked on the others about, maybe it was important, maybe it wasn’t important maybe he was just being a kid brother. The Bible doesn’t mention what the others had done or even hint that they had done anything. But I can’t imagine that he endeared himself to his siblings over that little incident. And then he had a dream of how his brothers would all bow down to him. Now having the dream is one thing but Joseph rushed right out and told the guys, and then couldn’t understand why they weren’t as excited as he was, as a matter of fact it says in Genesis 37:8 . . . And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them.

If ’n that happened to me I think I would have kept my mouth shut after the first incident. But no he has another dream and in this one his parents bow down to him as well as his brothers and do you think that the thought even crossed his mind “you know, the other guys might not be thrilled to hear this.” No instead he rushes right off to let them in on the good news. Just goes to prove the validity of Billy Sunday’s statement “Sin can be forgiven but stupid is forever.”

And so one day Joseph is sent by his father to make sure the other brothers are doing their work properly, and we know that Joseph wasn’t planning on getting into it himself because he wore his fancy duds, you know the coat with the flowing sleeves, ideal work clothes right. And when his brothers saw him coming they decided that they had had enough of little Joe, and we read in Genesis 37:19-20 “Here comes the dreamer!” they said. “Come on, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns. We can tell our father, ‘A wild animal has eaten him.’ Then we’ll see what becomes of his dreams!”

Well had that been the end of the story it certainly would have played havoc with story time in Sunday School wouldn’t it? Instead Reuben gets an attack of conscious and tells the others that they shouldn’t actually kill Joseph instead they should toss him down a well and let him die of natural causes, like starvation or thirst. He actually planned on coming back to rescue Joseph later but while he went walk about the other nine got a streak of capitalism decided to make some lose change and sold Joseph to some slave traders. Joseph was about to learn the truth of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”, when Kipling writes: “If you can dream and not make dreams your master: if you can think and not make thoughts your aim.”

Sometimes we bring persecution upon ourselves because we chose to do wrong things. Joseph wasn’t being picked on because he was righteous; he was being picked on because he was being a righteous pain in the neck.

Sometimes I think that because Jesus said in Luke 6:26 What sorrow awaits you who are praised by the crowds, for their ancestors also praised false prophets. Some people think that they need to be unlikeable to get into the Kingdom of God. The secret though is that persecution should be for righteousness sake not because you deserve it the Lord told us in Matthew 5:10-11 God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers.

And while murder is never justifiable we do need to realize that Joseph was the author of his own misfortune in round one. Sometimes we don’t need to look any further than the mirror to see who’s to blame for what’s happening to us.

2) He Chose to do What Was Right. Joseph does get more likeable as the story goes on. You’ll recall that when he gets to Egypt that he is sold to Potiphar, one of the Pharaoh’s attendants and various job advancements came his way until he had worked his way up the ladder until he was head honcho in Potiphar’s house. Everything went well during this time and it would seem that anything Joseph touched turned to Gold, it got to the place that the Bible tells us in Genesis 39:6 So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn’t worry about a thing—except what kind of food to eat!

The young arrogant upstart had made something of himself, perhaps all he needed was humbling, perhaps if Daddy hadn’t made so much out of him out of him when he was a kid and played him as an obvious favourite then maybe he wouldn’t have needed humbling. I do know though that it often takes something to make us humble. We don’t usually become humble just by being told to be, and if we do our “humility” is usually unreal.

And so there Joseph is, a good job, a great future, the word tells us that he was well built and handsome, it looked like he had the world by the tail, until things took a turn for the worse.

 Potiphar’s wife decides that she wants young Joe and so she tries to seduce him, and he won’t be in it. His master has trusted him with everything and he’s not about to betray him by sleeping with his wife and he tells her that. Well you gotta give the lady credit she was persistent and she approached him day after day with the same proposition. A very clear case of sexual harassment, of course if he had of spoken out it would have been very doubtful that anyone would have believed him being a man and all.

So that’s when it happened, one day Joseph was attending to his duties around the house and nobody else was there well let’s listen to the word of God, Genesis 39:12-20 She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, “Come on, sleep with me!” Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house. When she saw that she was holding his cloak and he had fled, she called out to her servants. Soon all the men came running. “Look!” she said. “My husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us! He came into my room to rape me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream, he ran outside and got away, but he left his cloak behind with me.” She kept the cloak with her until her husband came home. Then she told him her story. “That Hebrew slave you’ve brought into our house tried to come in and fool around with me,” she said. “But when I screamed, he ran outside, leaving his cloak with me!” Potiphar was furious when he heard his wife’s story about how Joseph had treated her. So he took Joseph and threw him into the prison where the king’s prisoners were held, and there he remained.

Doesn’t sound right does it? But I would be willing to wager on the same outcome if it happened today. Joseph had to have known the outcome the first time he said no. After all what is that saying about a “woman scorned”.

Sometimes Joseph made the right choices and they worked out for him and sometimes he made the right choices and they didn’t work out, but that didn’t make his decisions anymore right or wrong.

And so the roller coaster continued, from favourite son to slave, from favourite employee to convict. What was it that Kipling wrote, “If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same.”

Most of us know the rest of the story, how after Joseph had been in prison for a while he became a trustee and proving how valuable he was to the warden he was put in charge of virtually the entire prison system. During that time he interpreted a dream for a man who was the chief cupbearer to the Pharaoh the man was released and after two years spoke up for Joseph who was released from prison and became the second most powerful man in Egypt. In his new position he was able to plan ahead and save Egypt from a famine and then had the opportunity to save his family when they suffered reversals because of the famine as well. How did Joseph handle his setbacks? Good question.

3) He Chose to be Faithful. Whatever Joseph was as a teenager his adversity had turned him into a man of God. On four separate occasions the Bible says “The Lord was with Joseph”. Nobody else in the Scripture gets that type of acknowledgment. We see his commitment to God when Potiphar’s wife makes her advances and Joseph stands firm for righteousness by saying in Genesis 39:9 How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God.”

Joseph knew what was wrong even when it would appear in his best interest. The laws of God were deeply ingrained in his heart no doubt laid there by his Father’s teaching. He called the action what it was “Wickedness and a sin against God” he didn’t try to justify it or rationalise it, after all the master’s wife would be a valuable friend indeed, she might even be able to secure his freedom for him. He knew it was wrong, he didn’t call it a failing or an illness or a mistake. He knew the truth of Jerry Garcia’s of the “Grateful Dead” words, who said “Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.”

King David realized the value of having the laws of God etched deep into your being when he wrote Psalm 119:11 I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

. When I was in high school in one of our classes we talked about “Situational Ethics”. What would you do if you were in this situation or that situation? But our commitment to God can’t just be dependent on the circumstances around us.

Too often the message is preached today that if we are righteous and dot all our i’s and cross all of our t’s then everything will be alright. And if things go wrong and if there is illness or set back or problems then it is because there is sin in our life. That isn’t true.

Even when Joseph was in prison the Bible records that “the Lord was with him”. The problem with the name it and claim it philosophy of Christianity is that it make God into some type of celestial Santa Clause or divine genie who makes all of our hurts go away and if the hurts don’t go away and if we have problems then God must not be happy with us. If our salvation and obedience to God was assurance of leading a life without trouble or problems then we would have to bar the door of the church to keep the converts away. It also doesn’t explain away the fact that not all Christians enjoy the privilege of living in a first world country. What do you do with the devout believer in Sierra Leone, or Haiti who doesn’t have enough to eat let alone everything he could possible desire? How do you explain Job who was a Godly man with ungodly troubles?

Joseph remained faithful through it all both in the good and in the bad. And sometimes it’s harder to serve God when everything is going good then when things are bad. Major Alistair Smith of the Salvation Army made this statement concerning the Early days of the Salvation Army, “The world threw bricks at us then. Now they throw bouquets. I sometimes think that the bouquets do us more harm then the bricks ever did.” I believe that will be true of the Wesleyan church as well, as we become more and more respectable in the eyes of the community the easier it is to compromise our message for popularity. Let’s keep our eyes on the cross in the good times and the bad.

4) He Chose to be Persistent. He obviously knew the truth of Galatians 6:9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.

The secret of that passage is in the last five words, “If we don’t give up”. If we give up we don’t get nothing, Billy Sunday the pro baseball player turned evangelist summed it up by saying “Stopping at third adds no more to the score then striking out.” lot of truth in that. Kipling wrote If you can watch the things you gave your life to broken, and stoop and build ‘em up with worn out tools.”

How about it? Can you stick with it? I love the poster that has the picture of the cat hanging on the end of a rope and the caption says, “When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”

When we lived in Australia Stephen and I were coming back from soft ball practise one evening and as we drove home we could see a storm just ahead of us. Even though we were only getting a few drops of rain the storm loomed like a curtain in front of us. When we finally hit the squall it was pouring rain, the wind was blowing and there was a bit of hail. The wipers could hardly handle the rain it came down so hard. And as we got a little ways into it we saw a man pull over to the side of the road to sit the storm out. He had obviously driven as far as he was willing to go and you couldn’t really blame him could you? The ironic thing was that he was within a hundred yards of driving out of the storm. Because he stopped, he had to wait until the storm had gone by him again, and because he was obviously driving faster than the storm he would have ultimately caught up with it yet once again.

You got storms in your life? Don’t stop, don’t give up, seven times in the Revelation Christ gives promises to His church, but in all seven instances the promise is preceded by the thought “to those who are victorious” In the King James it reads “To those who overcome” In other words it isn’t how you start but how you finish that counts.

Sometimes life may be like a roller coaster with all its ups and downs but there is one more similarity and that is it isn’t safe to get off until the end of the ride.

When should Joseph have given up? When he was tossed in the well? When he was tempted by Potiphar’s wife? When he was thrown in jail? When he was forgotten by the cup bearer? When he became governor?

So let’s take a look at how the story ends.  (Read last two pages of book)

Treasures of the Heart

Here we are, April.  At Cornerstone, as most of you know, April signifies the end of our church year and the beginning of a brand new church year and financial year.  If you are wondering why April and not December there are probably a couple of reasons.  And if you are really interested give me a call sometime and we’ll chat about it.

I made a decision ten years ago that instead of preaching about stewardship in response to some financial crisis in the church that I would begin to develop a theology of giving at Cornerstone and methodically preach on it each year as one church year came to an end and another one began. It also allows us to address the issue of year end finances and new year finances together.  So here we are.  April, or money month as it’s been dubbed by some.

Now I understand that not everyone enjoys it when the preacher preaches on money, don’t feel bad, most preachers don’t enjoy it when the preacher preaches on money.  But I have discovered that most people don’t mind, they understand that if they are going to enjoy having a building to worship in, with heat in the winter and cooling in the summer, if they are going to enjoy the benefit of having a pastoral staff then somewhere along the line it will have to be paid for and paid for responsibly.

And all the expenses at Cornerstone are paid by those who attend here and who give sacrificially.  And some folks think “Well there are others who can afford to pay for it.”  Regardless of our circumstances giving costs something, every dollar that someone chooses to give to God’s work could have been spent or invested elsewhere, but a choice was made. 

But the issue isn’t what others are doing; the issue for each one of us should be what we are doing.  Throughout the Bible from the very first book God’s people were called to make giving a part of their worship, because God knew that something that costs you nothing is worth exactly what you pay for it.

And we appreciate those who sacrificially give to God’s work here at Cornerstone and with a $275,000.00  a year budget it really does require effort from all of us.   There is no one person who can or does underwrite Cornerstone.

So the message today begins with a little history lesson.  Cornerstone had its beginning 17 years ago this summer. Angela and I and our two children, who were 10 and 7 at the time, had returned from Brisbane Australia and under the sponsorship of the Atlantic District came to Bedford to start a new Wesleyan church. 

The financial commitment from the denomination was $10,000.00 American which was to be used to buy equipment, supplies and advertising and provide some training.  And back then $10,000.00  American was about 14 grand Canadian.  And from the District we were on a three year plan where the first year we would receive $30,000.00, year two we would receive $15,000.00 and year three we would receive $7,500.00 and then we were on our own.   And from that funding we needed to pay my salary, office expenses, phones, advertising and facility rentals. 

So as you can probably guess part of my responsibility was to raise the extra support we would need. So, our first year in Bedford I would meet people through the week and try to convince them to join us on this grand adventure and on the weekends I would travel throughout the Maritimes and Maine and beg.

 Well, the churchy term was to do deputation, and I called it my “Dog and Pony show”, but the reality was that every week would see me in a different church and sometimes two different churches with my cap out asking for money and prayer support.  And some I did very well at, and some, well not so well, not even sure if it paid for the gas to get there.  I wore out a car that first year, it was not unusual for me to put a 1000 or more km on my car each weekend.

But I had an interesting conversation with an old Wesleyan preacher by the name of A.D. Cann on one of those trips and by old I mean old.  It was at First Wesleyan in Fredericton, I had spoken there in an evening service toward the end of Denn’s magical mystery tour. 

We actually were worshipping together as a church by that time, so one  Sunday I had preached at our service and then I jumped in my car and drove to Fredericton for the six o’clock service.

After I had finished speaking Rev. Cann approached me at the door and told me that I was making a mistake when I stressed having prayer partners over giving partners.  You know in my appeal I would let people know that as important as having their financial support was that what we really needed was their prayer support.  

I guess I hadn’t expected that from someone like A.D. Cann.  He saw by my confused look that I just didn’t get it, and so he said “Remember what Jesus said, Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”  Rev. Cann went on to tell me that most people got that scripture mixed up and would say “that where your heart is there your treasure would be also.” And then he told me “People might say they are praying for you but if they aren’t supporting you financially they probably won’t have a passion or a reason to pray for you.  But if they are supporting you they will be praying for you, even if it’s only when the write the cheque each month.”

And I thought “Darn, why hadn’t I heard that at the beginning instead of the end of this process.”

You heard that scripture read for you this morning, it is a part of Jesus’ greatest sermon, the Sermon on the Mount and it is just one of the many places that Jesus talks about our money, how we earn it and how we spend it. 

So that will be our theme for this month, Matthew 6:21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. Or simply put our theme is “The Treasures of the Heart.”

2000 years ago people weren’t a whole lot different than they are today; they were concerned with where they would live, what they would eat what they wear and at the end of the day whether or not they would have a little extra to put aside for a rainy day.  Every day they got up and went to work in order to meet those basic needs of their lives, and Jesus was speaking to those needs and those concerns when he warned people in Matthew 6:19 “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal.  And two thousand years later those things we collect still are in danger of rotting, rusting or being ripped off.  And with the stock market we could add just plain disappearing. 

But that isn’t what Jesus is warning people about, if you want to make faulty investments that is your choice.  If you want to collect shoes, cars or billy goats that’s up to you.  But if you profess to follow Christ, if you profess to be a God lover then Jesus is telling you to make sure that your love for stuff doesn’t take the place of your love for God.  And in the final measure, the number of shoes, cars or billy goats that you have will be irrelevant. Jesus is telling us that if you want to take peek into a man’s soul you just need to take a peek at his treasures. 

But it’s not as simple as just looking at a person’s net worth, it’s the motives that drives them.  How often have you heard people say “Jesus said that money is the root of all evil”?  Nope not at all, Jesus never said it.  What they are alluding to is a paragraph written by Paul to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.  Now listen to the rest of the paragraph: And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.   Get it?  It’s not money it’s the love of money, and poor folks can fall into this trap as easily as rich folks can.

And so Jesus advises us to store our treasures in heaven and as a result that is where our loyalties and priorities will be.  He tells us that what we are doing with our treasure, no matter if it’s a big treasure or a little treasure will be indicative of deeper more important matters in our life.  And maybe you are sitting there thinking to yourself:  “Self I am glad I don’t have to worry about this because I don’t have any treasures.”

Well compared to some of our neighbours we may not have much treasure but globally we are obscenely wealthy.  A couple of things to think about 20% of the world’s population lives on $1.00 a day, another 20% live on $2.00 a day.  20% live on more than $70.00 a day and the other 40% fall somewhere in between.  8% of the world’s population own a car.  The combined income of the 477 wealthiest people in the world is greater than the combined income of half the world.  Did you catch that 477 people are richer than 3.25 billion people combined.  

 And so Jesus gives us direction in determining where our treasures are being invested.

When I started studying this scripture I completely missed the first point.  Jesus talks about having treasures in heaven and then he immediately segues into Matthew 6:22-23 “Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!”  And then he segues back otthe money again.   I was confused, what do your eyes have to do with your treasure?  Why would Jesus stick a completely different thought into this series of thoughts on where our treasure is?

And then it hit me:  What if this isn’t a different thought?

We Can Determine where our Treasures are by What We Are Looking At:   Here is a deep thought, you don’t have to have a treasure for it to be your treasure. Something can take a priority in your life long before you actually obtain it.  Those who would guide you to success would encourage you to cut out pictures of those things that you dream about and put them on your fridge, or the mirror of the medicine cabinet where you can see them every day and visualize them as yours.  But they aren’t yours and simply looking at them won’t make them yours, but it might make you bitter because you don’t have them. 

I heard a married man defend his girl watching habits once by saying “Just because you are on a diet doesn’t mean you can’t look at the menu.”  But if you’ve ever been on a diet you know the worst thing you can do is look at the menu.  You might go into the restaurant with the very best of intentions, a grilled chicken breast, a baked potatoes and asparagus, and then you looked at the menu.

That’s why Jesus warned people in Matthew 5:28 But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Because that is what happened to King David way back in 2 Samuel 11:2 Late one afternoon, after his midday rest, David got out of bed and was walking on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city, he noticed a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath. I’m assuming that the accidental view turned into something more prolonged because it wasn’t long before we read that David asked his servant to find out who she was and we are told in  2 Samuel 11:3 He sent someone to find out who she was, and he was told, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” And it wasn’t long after that he had invited her to see his etching and then the bible records that they slept together.  David was a married man and Bathsheba was a married woman, just not to each other.  There wasn’t anything David could do about his first glimpse of the beautiful Bathsheba, but he didn’t have to look again. 

It was earlier in David’s life that he wrote in Psalm 25:15 My eyes are always on the LORD, for he rescues me from the traps of my enemies. And if he had kept his eyes on the Lord he would have kept the rest of him out of trouble.

What is it that you are looking at? 

This isn’t so much a warning about having as a warning about wanting.  Because ultimately if we want it bad enough the question will be asked, what are you willing to do to get it?  What price are you willing to pay?  And it becomes a never ending quest for more.  What I call: the Cult of the Next Best Thing.  A bigger house, a better car, more pleasure.  And what you would be willing to do for it.  That’s why one of the Ten Commandments warns us about wanting what our neighbour has.  Exodus 20:17 “You must not covet your neighbour’s house. You must not covet your neighbour’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbour.”

If you went to Sunday School as a child perhaps you sang the chorus.  “Be careful little eyes what you see.”  And that warning is a valid today as it was way back in Sunday School. 

And Jesus continues by saying Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

We Can Determine Where Our Treasures Are By What We Serve.  What is it in your life that has your priorities?  What has your focus, your passion?  I used to tell people that I could tell what their priorities were by looking at the two most important books in their life, their cheque book and their date book.  Well we don’t have cheque books or date books anymore, we do it on our pc’s but the principle holds true.  You can tell what is important to you by how you spend your money and how you spend your time.

What would you be willing to do to maintain your life style?  Your salary?  Do you remember the warning that we read earlier from the book of Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.  And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.   They were willing to give up the eternal for the temporal.  You understand that at the end of your life all that you will hold in your hands is who you are, not what you had.  Thirty years ago Bob Dylan wrote the song “You gotta serve somebody.” And you will choose what or who you are going to serve.  And what will they pay?  Will it be in things that will rot and rust, or will it be in currency that will last forever. 

Where will you invest the treasures of your heart? 

It is getting close to Easter and the story that is told in Matthew 26:14-15 Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests and asked, “How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?” And they gave him thirty pieces of silver.

And there have been all kinds of theories about why Judas betrayed Christ.  Some think he betrayed Christ because of political motives; he had originally followed Jesus thinking that Jesus would establish an earthly kingdom and he became impatient and was trying to force Jesus’ hand.  Others would say that it is much simpler than that Judas did what he did for the money, and we are told that the thirty pieces of silver that he was paid would be worth over $1,600.00 in today’s currency, not bad for an evening’s work.   

But whatever reason there was something in the story that was more important to Judas than his relationship with Christ.  That’s where his treasure was and that is where his heart was.

On the other hand was the story told in Luke 7:37-38 When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.

In a similar story in the book of Mark we are told that the jar of perfume was worth a year’s salary.  It was probably her savings and maybe it was part of her exit strategy out of her life.  Undoubtedly it was all she had and yet in Jesus she saw someone who was worth everything and more.  We don’t know the entire back story but at that point we do know where her treasure was and where her heart was.

And so Jesus is asking: Where do your loyalties lie?  Who or what are you serving?

And then Jesus tells the people who followed him that day, Matthew 6:25 “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing?”

We Can Determine Where Our Treasures Are By What We Worry About.  What are your concerns in life? What keeps you up at night? Do you worry about how much money you make or don’t make?  Do you worry about keeping the stuff you have and do you worry about getting more stuff?  Jesus wasn’t telling people that what we eat, what we wear and where we live isn’t important in our life, just that it shouldn’t be the most important thing in your life.   

Because if we go back to Jesus initial statement Matthew 6:21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.  If your treasure is in the stock market you will be thinking a lot about the stock market and watching it go up and down.  If your treasure is in the bank you will be thinking about the bank and the interest rates they are paying.  But if your treasure is in heaven than you will be thinking about heaven.

But the reality is that most of us didn’t need to hear this message because we know exactly where our treasure is.

500 Hats

Read from Book.

Now let’s be honest today; how many people here had actually heard of “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins” let alone read it before this morning?  I had actually read this book as a child and apparently it stayed with me because the day that I decided to preach this series it was one of the first books to come to mind.

One of the more obscure books by Dr. Seuss it was written very early in his career, it was actually the second children’s book that Theodor Giesel wrote as Dr. Seuss, the first one being “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.”  Actually as obscure as “The 500 Hats is” it is probably better known this this one, “The Seven Lady Godivas” 

The 500 Hats was published in 1938 and unlike most of Dr. Seuss’ books it was written in prose rather than the rhymes which he later became famous for.  Seuss claimed he got the idea when riding on a commuter train and sitting behind a business man who was wearing a hat.   

For those who are curious Seuss began drawing cartoons for magazines in the 1920’s and 30’s  wrote over 60 books in a career that spanned more than 55 years, the first one was published in 1937 and the last one was published in 1998, seven years after his death.  

During the Second World War he worked for the US army producing animated films to be used by the defence department. 

So, back to the book.  The story of course involves the main protagonists Bartholomew Cubbins a young farm boy  in the kingdom of Didd and King Derwin.   We read a little bit of it and you can probably figure out the rest, Bartholomew keeps on taking off his hat and a new one takes its place.  Bartholomew keeps getting more confused and the king keeps getting more frustrated. 

The story takes an interesting twist when starting with the 451^st hat they become increasingly more beautiful or ornate, until finally the five hundredth and last hat appears and it is a beautiful bejewelled hat, well let’s pick the story up at that point.  (read last two pages) 

So what do we learn from the story?  Well, it’s so obvious I shouldn’t have to tell you, but I will.

When we first begin our journey as a Christ Follower and meet our King we take off our hat, it is a sign of respect and we recognize our place and His place.  But as we mature in our Christian walk, and we are supposed to mature in our Christian walk, just listen to what Paul tells us in Hebrews 6:1-3 So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. You don’t need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding.

As we mature in our Christian walk a new hat appears to replace the one that we just took off, and we are faced with a dilemma, will we remove that hat as well or will we simply brace our feet and maintain that we’ve already taken off our hat.  And that’s what some people do, they never grow up in their Christian faith, they never mature, they never move beyond John 3:3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”   They are confident they are a child of God but they have no interest in growing up.  But what is cute in a new born in disturbing in a child who is a year old, and at two years old we expect more of them and as a child ages chronologically we expect their behaviour to change and if it doesn’t we become worried and they are referred to as “developmentally challenged”. 

In the scripture that was read earlier the author of Hebrews warns of the consequences of not growing in our Christian faith of becoming “developmentally challenged” but he finished with this statement Hebrews 6:9 Dear friends, even though we are talking this way, we really don’t believe it applies to you. We are confident that you are meant for better things, things that come with salvation.

Those better things happen as we are confronted with our behaviours and attitudes, the hats we are wearing.  And then we make a decision to either remove the hat or leave it in place.

I’ve mentioned this before and here it is again.  A number of years ago back I developed the Guptill principle of spiritual growth, and it's based on the Peter Principle a principle first expounded in 1969 by Canadian-born University of Southern California education professor Laurence J. Peter, in a book of the same name, Peter stated: “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence”  Right?  So the part time sales man is good at his job and so he is given a full time sales position.  And he does an excellent job in sales so he is made a store manager and he excels there and he's made an area manager and he is really terrible at that job, he just can't seem to get the hang of it, and so there he stays.  He doesn't get promoted, but because of his seniority they can't fire him.  He hates his job, it gives him ulcers and grey hairs but he has a family to support and so he can't really quit and if he asked to be demoted to his previous position he'd lose face, and so there he stays, miserable, unhappy, discontent and stuck.

Under the Guptill Principal of spiritual growth each of us grows in our spiritual walk to our own personal level of disobedience.  So we get saved, we are obedient to the spirit of God in our life, and we begin to grow and God shows us this and we deal with this and he shows us that and we deal with that, and we continue to grow.  And then one day God says, “Hey sport what about this area?” and it might be anger, or our language or habits, or immoral behaviour or attitudes or an unforgiving spirit.  It’s a hat we are still wearing, and we say “Uh-huh, you leave that alone.”  And our spiritual growth stops dead in its tracks.  And because we know that we are disobedient we are grumpy and miserable and unhappy.  And at that point we have three options, one is that we just stay there, miserable and stuck.  God won't take us any further in our Christian walk then that point of disobedience.  Or we say “forget this” and we backslide, we just walk away from God.” or we surrender to His will in our life, take off the hat and become obedient and move on in our Christian life and continue to grow.

What is your point of personal disobedience?  Where are you stuck?  Or maybe you've come to the place where you have sold out to God and you continue to grow and he continues to show you areas in your life that need to be dealt with and you deal with them, no ifs ands or buts.

The Apostle Peter’s Story is a great illustration of this.

Matthew 4:18-20 One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers—Simon, also called Peter, and Andrew—throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” And they left their nets at once and followed him.

Peter Took His Hat off to Jesus the Man  When Jesus first came into Peter’s life he liked him, he liked what he had to say and he like who he assumed Jesus was, but he really didn’t know him.  At that point Peter didn’t really understand Jesus teachings, who he really was or what he would demand of him.   But he was willing to at least give him a hearing.  There are all kinds of people like that in churches today and I’d be willing to wager some of you are sitting in these chairs today. 

You like Jesus, or at least what you know about him.   He seems comfy and cozy and not too threatening.  A local pastor was quoted in the paper a few years ago as saying that Jesus wasn’t really the son of God but that he was a spiritual genius in the same way that Mozart was a musical genius or Picasso was an artistic genius.  And I’ve talked to that pastor and he likes Jesus the way he has defined him, as a good man, a moral teacher, a spiritual genius.

And it’s easy to take our hats off to a Jesus that we have defined in our own terms.  And there are lots of people outside the church like that.  A few years ago we started hearing and reading that there was a whole generation of people who said “They liked Jesus but didn’t like the church.”  

But that isn’t really true, what they like is their view of Jesus the man, they are quite willing to take off their hats to him.  Mikhail Gorbachev “Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.”  And Mahatma Gandhi wrote this about Jesus “A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.”

But many of those people who simply like Jesus as a man don’t really take the time to find out what Jesus was like, the Jesus who warned people about hell being the consequence of their behaviour, the Jesus who required obedience to his commands, the Jesus who spoke about daily taking up your cross, and they have never heard his words when he said in  John 14:6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. And when they hear that then isn’t nearly as much fun and accepting and inclusive as the Jesus they thought they knew

C.S Lewis wrote in “Mere Christianity” “‘I'm ready to accept Jesus, as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God’.  This is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says He's a poached egg, or else He would be the devil of Hell.  You must make the choice.  Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a Madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us, He did not intend to.”

And maybe that is where you are at today, quite happy to take your hat off to Jesus the man.  But now you have come to the place that he is asking why you haven’t removed your hat for him?

Let’s continue in Peter’s story, Matthew 16:13-16 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.” Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Peter Took His Hat off to Jesus the Messiah  You will come to the place that it is not enough for you to simply like the man Jesus without accepting and removing your hat to the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

This is when you come to the place that you understand that Jesus wasn’t just a man, he wasn’t just a good moral teacher, or a prophet or a spiritual genius that he is the Son of God and he has more to offer than just good teaching and moral platitudes.  That through his life and death and resurrection that he offers us forgiveness and eternal life through his grace.  And he couldn’t do that as a man. 

It is when we come to that point of acknowledging that Jesus is the Christ, that he has something to offer us and we accept that offer that we have taken our hat off to our Saviour.  That is what Peter wrote about in 1 Peter 1:3-4 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And what Paul echoed in Ephesians 2:4-5 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)

And that is a wonderful time in a person’s life, the scriptures tell us that they Angels rejoice when that happens.    And the word of God calls it being born again, or having a new beginning, and there are promises of forgiveness and eternal life that go along with the experience.   But it doesn’t stop there.  That is merely the beginning of the quest to follow Christ, not the end of the journey, it is a comma not a period. 

Unfortunately too many people think this is the place to stop, “the hallelujah I have made it” point in their lives.  But the bible speaks about growing up, moving on, finishing the race.

It was at this point that Peter acknowledged Christ not just as a good man and a moral teacher and guide but as the Son of God and as his Saviour.  But over the next couple of years there came times that it was apparent that another hat had replaced the one that Peter had taken off.    Times that he realized that he was once again wearing a hat in the presence of his King.

It wasn’t long after Peter had come to that life changing conclusion about who Christ was that Jesus told his disciples about what lay ahead for him, that he would be put to death and rise again, and what was the response of Peter?  Matthew 16:22 But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!” He reprimanded Jesus!  Or during the Last Supper when Jesus prepared to wash the disciple’s feet and we read in John 13:8 “No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet!” Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”

And then there was the scene in the Garden when they came to arrest Jesus and the old impetuous Peter grabbed a sword and hacked off a servant’s ear.  And then only hours later Peter is cowering when a servant girl asks him if he was one of Jesus’ followers and he denies him three times.   And yet each time he stumbled Jesus was there to offer his hand and his grace and Peter removed his hat and grew a little more in his faith.

There is really only one way to keep from stumbling and that is by not moving, but that really isn’t an option, not in our life and not in our Christian life. It’s like when you were learning to walk as a baby, if you stopped the first time you fell down you would never have learned how to walk. 

 Understand that failure is never fatal as long as failure is never final.  As long as you are willing to get back up, and embrace the grace that He offers you, learn from your experience and move on things are going to be all right.

It’s taking off the hat once when you realize that you have it on.

And you would think that after the resurrection that Peter would have it figured out.  You know, the entire being crucified, buried and raised from the dead thing should have finalized it for Peter.  But apparently not.

Peter is standing on the threshold of the greatest adventure of his life, and what does he do?  The story is told at the end of John’s gospel.  John 21:3 Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing.”   And he does.  He’s still not sure about the entire “follow me” thing.  Earlier in the story when Jesus was teaching about people’s priorities in life Peter makes the bold statement Matthew 19:27 Then Peter said to him, “We’ve given up everything to follow you. What will we get?”

But obviously he hadn’t given up everything.  The boat was still there, the nets were still there but more importantly his desire to be in control of his own life was still there.  Jesus may very well have been an important spiritual teacher to Peter, and he may even have been Peter’s Saviour, but his actions demonstrated that Jesus wasn’t Peter’s Lord.  Peter hadn’t given up everything to follow Jesus he had only given up what he wanted to, he had only given up what was convenient. 

And this would be the deciding point in Peter’s life, and I think he knew that, I think he went down to the beach and then he went out in the boat to make a decision.  And that decision was about who was really in control of Peter’s life.  Would it be Peter or would it be Jesus?  That particular night I think Peter went more for the fishing than for the fish, if you know what I mean.

If you know the story then you know that after a fruitless night of fishing Jesus appears on the shore and tells them to throw their nets on the other side, they do and fill their nets with fish.  When they finally get them in and arrive back on the shore they discover that Jesus has prepared breakfast for them and that’s where we will pick up the story.

John 21:13-17 Then Jesus served them the bread and the fish. This was the third time Jesus had appeared to his disciples since he had been raised from the dead. After breakfast Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” Peter replied, “you know I love you.” “Then feed my lambs,” Jesus told him. Jesus repeated the question: “Simon son of John, do you love me?” “Yes, Lord,” Peter said, “you know I love you.” “Then take care of my sheep,” Jesus said. A third time he asked him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Then feed my sheep.”  

This was the five hundredth hat because it was here that Peter Took His Hat off to Jesus His Lord

There will come that point in each of our lives if we have allowed ourselves to grow in our Christian walk, it often comes after multiple little surrenders where God wants it all and we have to decide if we will give it all.  And I really don’t know what that will mean for you, I know what it meant for me and you will know what it means for you.  For some it means acknowledging a call on their life to do something radical for God, a new career perhaps.  

When Barry and Beth Gould were here in the fall we saw an example of that, a professional couple in their fifties and God says “I want you to move to Haiti and serve me there.”  Wow!  Maybe it won’t be that dramatic in your life, maybe it will be allowing your child to move to Haiti and serve God there, that would be even tougher, wouldn’t it?  

Or maybe it’s control over your finances, or your habits, control over what you watch and listen to or how you do business or simply allowing him to have his will and his way over how you live your everyday life.  There is a lot of truth in that old saying “If Jesus Isn’t Lord of All, Than Jesus Isn’t Lord at All”

But whatever it is that he is asking for ultimately the choice will be yours.   God won’t pull the hat off your head; you will have to take it off yourself.  But the question is:  Will you?