Reverend Raymond Osborne, Pastor

Please Note That Most Messages Follow
The Revised Common Lectionary

Well ladies and gentlemen I have an announcement to make. School is FINALLY behind me! Nineteen years of post-college education is FINALLY OVER!!! WOOOHOOO!! I sent off my last two final exams last week that consisted of a total of 36 typed pages and you are all hereby invited to my graduation in May when I will receive my graduate degree!! Of course there will be a more “formal” invitation in the mail as time draweth nigh.

As I sat down and completed those exams I thought about how helpful it would have been to have all the answers to all the questions prior to taking them. Gosh wouldn’t that have been delightful? I mean it would have made the experience of taking those exams a lot more enjoyable and I would have experienced a lot less anxiety from it all! Of course the argument could be made that my mind would not have been as stimulated, nor would I have grown from the experience, nor would I have had the deep sense of accomplishment and gratification that I now have. My personal response to that is that sometimes it’s okay with me if my mind isn’t stimulated, and sometimes it’s okay with me if I don’t grow from an experience and sometimes it’s okay with me if I don’t have a deep sense of accomplishment or that I am gratified! I use to have this wonderful Greek professor; in fact his Daughter-in-Law is president of the PTA at our elementary school who would refer to his exams as “blessings.” Sometimes I wondered just WHERE the blessing WAS??? Hear me when I tell you that Dr. Donald Cook was one of the greatest professors that I have ever had and a man that I admire and respect with all my heart. I wish to God all my experiences had been as pleasant as the times I spent sitting under his instruction and I also wish I had one 100th of the knowledge that man has about Greek, New Testament, and life. I’m certain that whenever Dr. Cook graded my Greek exams it was painfully obvious that Mr. Osborne did NOT have all the answers to all the questions!

Wouldn’t it have been nice if when you and I were born, that somewhere in the depths of our brain, God would have planted some sort of answer key for all of the questions of our lives? I mean am I alone here or do you find yourself asking God sometimes “What gives?” “Okay God, I’m WAITing, any TIME now.” Sometimes it works that way with me when I’m attempting to write a sermon. I read and I study and I research and I sit down to pull it all together and I pray, “Dear God let the words flow.” Nothing. “Okay God, let me try this again.” Nothing. “I get it. You’re playing around with me aren’t you? Okay God, I’m ready.” Nothing. “God this is no longer funny. Come on God get with it.” Nothing. Do you have times like that or am I all-alone here? I knew it. You DO have times like that! Whew you don’t know what a relief it is to know I’m not all-alone.

Well let me share with you first a cold hard fact of life – a reality check if you will and then I want to share with you a few biblical truths and we’ll go home. Reality check – you and I were not born with all the answers to all the questions of life and what’s more – that’s okay - we can learn how to live without them.

If you are taking notes you might want to write that one down. Let me repeat it:

You and I were not born with all the answers to all the questions of life and what’s more – that’s okay - we can learn how to live without them.

Let me share with you something that John wrote while he was in exile on the island of Patmos. This is part of a vision he had there; in fact the last book in the New Testament is a record of that vision in his life. Listen to what he wrote:

“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.”

I don’t know what that sounds like to you, but to me it almost sounds like a final exam on living. I will never forget my oral Hebrew final in seminary. By the time I made it to Dr. Gerald Keown’s office, my shirt was soaking wet from perspiration! Now don’t get me wrong, Dr. Keown was and is one of the finest men I know. I was so blessed to have two wonderful biblical language professors in seminary. It wasn’t Dr. Keown that intimidated me; in fact during the exam Dr. Keown was very considerate of my feelings. I remember at one point he said, “Now Ray calm down. I don’t want to be the cause of cardiac arrest here.” And he kept assuring me throughout the whole process that I was doing fine. It wasn’t the professor, or the language that caused my anxiety – it was the exam itself and my desire to receive a good grade. In the back of my mind was my ultimate academic goal of receiving a doctorate in biblical studies. I KNEW I had to perform well. I was not willing to settle for anything less than a passing grade in Hebrew!

During my seminary career I never went into a final exam unprepared. I got my hands on every possible resource available that had even a remote possibility of helping me pass. Some exams I did well on and there were others that quite frankly I didn’t do so well on. I am, however, confident of one thing, and that is that I can stand here and say to you that I went into every exam prepared and when I handed it in, I was confident I had done all that I could do.

As hard as Greek and Hebrew were for me, they weren’t nearly as hard as this thing called life. I mean let’s face it – sometimes living is not the easiest thing to do. I began all this by asking a question – wouldn’t it have been wonderful if when you and I were born God placed some kind of answer key to all the questions of life somewhere in our brains? After I have had time to ponder that question I have just about concluded that if He had, it probably would have been the most detrimental thing He could have ever done in relation to our faith experience. If you and I never had our faith tested we would never grow.

One of the joys for me of being finished with seminary is the privilege of being able to finally read a book just because I WANT TO! I mean I have had to read literally hundreds of books, which left very little time for pleasure reading. It has been a chore for me to actually decide where my reading is going to take me. After days of contemplating I finally decided on the Mitford Series by Jan Karon. The series is about a single priest and the background of this series is actually Blowing Rock, North Carolina. One day as Father Tim, the priest was thinking about Sunday’s sermon he thought of some words spoken by an English missionary to China, J. Hudson Taylor who said, “What God has given us, is all we need; we require nothing more. It is not a question of supplies – it is a question of the presence of the Lord.”

In the very next scene, Father Tim, who is single, hears a knock on his door. Cynthia Coppersmith, his new neighbor who also happens to be single, and beautiful has come to return some borrowed sugar. While Father Tim fixes them both a snack he returns to find Miss Coppersmith admiring a collection of writing by Oswald Chambers. She begins to recite, “Faith by its very nature must be tried.” This leads to a theological discussion about faith to which Miss Coppersmith contributes her own view. “I’ve never been much on physical exercise,” she says, “but what God does with our faith must be something like workouts. He sees to it that our faith gets pushed and pulled, stretched and pounded, taken to its limits so its limits can expand. Would you agree that we must be willing to thank God for every trial of our faith no matter how severe, for the greater strength it produces?”

Now beloved that’s deep theology! I would agree that we ought to – but I personally find it to be very hard to do. Don’t you?

You and I don’t have to know all the answers to all of the questions of life and I’ll tell you why – because all that is necessary is that you and I know the ONE who does have all the answers and His name is Jehovah, Yahweh, Creator, the Mighty God.

In Jeremiah we read that God knows everything there is to know about us. He knew us before we were born. God knows far in advance what you and I are going to encounter in this life and it is by His grace that you and I can and will make it through this life to one-day stand in His holy presence to receive our final grade.

I remember asking my language professors in a somewhat joking manner, yet I was very serious – “Please show us grace when you grade the exams.” There was also one thing all my professors could count on before an exam and that was that when they walked into the classroom someone would always have the words, “Come quickly Lord Jesus” written on the board. I will never tell who wrote the words but I suppose both you and they can guess.

Listen carefully to what I am about to say and let it sink into the very depths of your heart and soul. There is no one here this morning that is perfect. The Bible tells us that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” That means that you AND I have made mistakes with our lives and I have a good idea that we are going to continue making mistakes. As United Methodists we believe in the doctrine of perfection. John Wesley might have believed that we could arrive there during our present life but I haven’t arrived there yet and I don’t want to make any of you mad but you probably haven’t arrived there yet. BUT here is what the Bible says about receiving our “final grade” from our Heavenly Father, “For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Life is hard and the best that we can do is remain faithful to God and if we remain faithful to God He will remain faithful to us and lead us every step of the way. You and I may not know what tomorrow holds but you and I know who holds tomorrow and when we place tomorrow in the hands of God and leave it there – we don’t have to know all the answers to the questions of life for we have just learned how to live without them.

Amen.

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