CALL TO WORSHIP | Psalm 34:1-10
I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together! I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
Song 1 – The City of God by Chaz Holsomback
Song 2 – The Love of God by Rich Mullins
INTRO | Simple Saints
What have we discovered and been reminded of thus far in our Fall series, Simple Saints? We are given “both a gift and a task” in our faith family name. Like the names by which you and I are known, our faith family name is given to us. It is something granted to us that distinguishes our identity in relationship. And, like names of old, this name also comes with the expectation that we will live into who we are known to be.
Our name, saints, reveals us to be those set apart by God, whose person and purposes—who we are and what we are for—cannot be accurately or aptly described apart from God's intentions for us and His persistent attention to us. We are, paraphrasing the apostle Paul’s greeting to the faith family of Corinth, “ones made into saints in Christ Jesus and called to become saints, together in Christ Jesus our Lord."
While saint may be the name of our faith, simple saints is the qualifier we have striven to live into as a unique community of saints in this place and at this time in history. When we say something or someone is simple, we are not saying they are unlearned, shallow, or even easy to understand. Rather, as we have discussed, to say God is simple, and so to say we are simple, is to describe the existence of a complex harmony of the whole self. Harmony, not identity, but of all that is our identity in harmony.
Indeed, as we have come to see, to be simple saints is to be,
"…saintified completely... your whole spirit and soul and body... kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, he will surely do it." (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)
We have devoted our lives together to this harmony within our complex, wondrous, and gracious identity as saints, experienced, matured, and growing up into, through the simple, unadorned practices, habits, and dispositions that have formed us and continue to shape us as this embodied family of faith. Simple practices that help us become who we truly are in Christ together.
So, will you pray with me as we enter into the simplicity of saintliness together this morning?
PRE-SERMON READING | Romans 12:1-2
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
SERMON | The Simplicity of Saintliness
Over the past few weeks, we have, echoing Paul, described the complete human as “spirit, soul, and body.” This threefold vision of the human person, often called trichotomism, was also articulated by one of the earliest shapers of Christian orthodoxy, St. Irenaeus of Lyon:
"…the complete man is made up of three things--flesh, soul, and Spirit. One of these saves and forms, namely the Spirit; another is saved and formed, namely the flesh; another finds itself between the other two, namely the soul...”[1] (St. Irenaeus)
We are, as Saint Paul and Saint Irenaeus have contended, “a mixture in union,” simple yet not uncomplex beings composed of the relation of Spirit
"Spirit is the thing in man that is essentially more than man, something which does not 'rise from below' but 'comes down from above.'"[2] It is the very life, or breath, of God that begins us, persists us, and through which we are born again.
to soul
That three-part self: Mind (discernment or reason), Heart (desire), and Will (devotion). The soul is the place or part of us where we are most uniquely ourselves; it makes up the inner person and is therefore also where we experience the rest (satisfaction) of sharing in life with God and the unrest (dissatisfaction) of life apart from God most acutely.
Our soul is the inner self that, by the spirit, allows us to partake of the life that is and is not yet, and is that which we should pay close attention to as we experience day-to-day existence through our…)
the spirit-soul inhabited body.
As we were reminded last week, the body is not a throwaway part of our true selves. It is transient; it passes through existence into extinction (as Augustine called it), but will also be resurrected (as Paul told us). The body, then, as Irenaeus contends, is what is saved and formed by the Spirit, the space where we experience both the stings of death and, at the same time, the restoration of Life and so, where our soul (mind, heart, and will) will find rest.
This is why we can say that our day-to-day practice of making a life is saving and forming us, whether we recognize it as such or not. We are being saved and formed in our bodies through our participation in Life. Therefore, to be kept blameless in body, "bring holiness to completion in the fear of God" (7:1); we offer our embodied selves (outer and inner persons) as a living sacrifice.
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present [offer] your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship .” (Romans 12:1)
An act of Spirit-embodied living that we enter into with our soul,
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)
It is with our whole self – spirit, soul, and body – that we live according to God’s nature and purposes, living a life of beauty – displaying the good of which we are by living true to whose we are: saintified, set apart, completely.
The simplicity (harmony) of our whole self, aligned and matured through the simple (unadorned, ordinary) practices that renew our whole self, not just part of us. Practices we have mentioned over the past weeks, experienced together over the past decade, and which we enter into now, on this day.
The unadorned practice we are practicing today is, like them all, not new to us, nor is it our design. Rather, it (they) have been handed down to us across millennia and traditions. They are habits of our faith lineage that help us remain those who, in our bodies and as a body, amid the seen things, attend to the unseen things (spirit & soul) which make a life whole and holy.
This is a habit meant to help us Hear God, to attend to the Spirit of God in us and with us, through the practice known as Lectio Divina, or divine listening.
Lectio (as we call it) is the practice of listening through both the written word and the leading of the Spirit of God. There are four movements of Lectio:
Lectio (listening via reading)
Meditatio (meditating on what is heard)
Oratio (responding in prayer)
Contemplatio (contemplate in rest)
The best way to practice Lectio is to do so with either a familiar text or, as we will do today, with some preparatory context to help us be in a mental space to truly listen. Today’s passage will be 1 Kings 19:1-18. In case you are not familiar with it, let me give you a bit of context before we read, reread, and renew our spirits by listening to the voice of the Spirit.
CONTEXT
There is an almost mythic story in 1 Kings 18. The people of Israel, led by King Ahab, have, at least from the formal state-sanctioned perspective, all but abandoned God by mingling faiths. Yahweh remained part of their national identity, but so did Baal, the Canaanite god of rain. Baal worship had worked its way into Israel’s formal religious practices through Ahab’s wife, Jezebel. Jezebel was the daughter of the priest-king of Tyre and Sidon, and she perpetuated her father’s faith by establishing formal worship of the god who could ensure good soil.
The establishment was comfortable maintaining the traditions of Yahweh worship, even as the nation’s foundations remained as they were, but they could not be described as faithful or godly leaders. Nevertheless, there was a significant minority in the country who were not apathetic or lukewarm to God, but devout and exclusive in their worship. One of these God-devotees was a prophet named Elijah. As is true in all times, most of the visible religious leaders found it advantageous to be connected with the powers of authority, so Elijah consistently thought he was the lone voice in the fight for God’s honor. Perhaps it was this idea of being the sole defender of God, and his propensity for the dramatic, that drove Elijah to consistently confront the compromising king of God’s people.
During one of these confrontations, reminiscent of an after-school brawl on the playground, Elijah challenges Ahab and the priests of Baal to meet him on Mt. Carmel to prove which god is truly the God of gods. Instead of a dance-off, the priests of Baal and Elijah have a sacrifice showdown. Both groups build altars and sacrifice a bull, preparing to interact with their gods. Then, as Elijah says, “you call on the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the LORD, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.’ And all the people gathered around answered, ‘It is well spoken.’” (1 Kings 18:24) Well, to make a long story short, Yahweh is the only God who answers, and the people follow Elijah in revolting against the gods of the system and their priests. At the end of the day, the priests of Baal and Asherah (the queen and eldest deity of the Canaanite pantheon) are dead. And to rub in the humiliation, Yahweh sends a great rain upon Ahab and Israel, ensuring good soil and showing himself to be the true God of rain (see 1 Kings 18 for the full backstory).
Elijah, rightly so, is full of confidence. He acted on behalf of the Lord, and the Lord honored and answered his actions. The pride and power of the oppressive and unholy authority were shown their limits. But Jezebel was not there. She only heard the story but didn’t witness the works and words of God. She is told that Elijah is behind the massacre of her sacred priests, and so she is a bit put off. Jezebel then does what those in power do; she exercises her influence against the annoyer of the status quo, “the troubler of Israel,” Elijah. That’s where we pick up the story in 1 Kings 19:1-18. Let me read our passage for us.
“Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, ‘So may the gods do to me, and more also if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.’ Then [Elijah] was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.
But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: ‘It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.’ [Running from fear and losing faith.] Then Elijah lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Get up and eat.’ He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the LORD came a second time, touched him, and said, ‘Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’ He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food, forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place, he came to a cave, and spent the night there.
Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’
God said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still, small voice [a gentle whisper, a thin silence]. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your alters, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’ Then the LORD said to him, ‘Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Syria. And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be a prophet in your place…I will leave seven thousand [of my royal priesthood] in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
LISTEN
Now that you are familiar with the context and words, close your eyes and take three deep breaths.
As you breathe in, pray “Holy Spirit…”
as you breathe out, pray “…Give me ears to hear.”
Ask God to open you to hear whatever the Spirit wishes to bring to you today.
If (when!) your thoughts wander in the stillness, breathe the centering prayer to quiet your mind. Focus on your breath as you envision breathing in God’s presence.
Now, I will reread the passage slowly, and as I do, immerse yourself in that particular encounter. Remember, those who lived through this experience felt very much as you would if you had been in their place. As the passage is read,
Listen for a word, phrase, or detail in the story that stands out to you. Don’t choose it yourself; let the Spirit bring it to your mind.
Think about where you find yourself in the passage. Do you identify with Elijah, Jezebel, the angel, Ahab, or someone else? Which scene in the story grabs your attention most: the running, the resting, the cave, the hurricane, the wind, the answering voice, etc.?
In any case, do not choose this yourself. Let the Spirit bring it to you. Even if you don’t like it, try to welcome it with humility (it’s key!)and see what happens.
MEDITATE
As you meditate on the passage, consider:
What word or phrase stood out to you? Why do you think these words resonated with you?
Which scene in the passage do you find yourself identifying with?
How does it feel to be that person or to be present in that moment? What draws you to them or to it?
What are you thinking or feeling about God?
Then, ask God, “How does this connect with my life today? What do I need to know or be or do?”
RESPOND
I’ll read the passage one last time. As I do, prepare yourself for what you want to say to God about what you think the Spirit might have spoken to you or what came to you as you imagined being in the story.
Pray whatever you need to pray.
You might…
thank God for something,
confess something to God, or
ask God for something
CONTEMPLATE
In this final movement, rest. Rest with Jesus.
You may wish to wait quietly on God—to simply be with Jesus.
You may want to pay attention to God, pondering a little longer all the ways God interacted with and spoke to Elijah in this passage.
Consider what in this story makes you want to worship Jesus, or at least be with him.
Sit in the companionship of Jesus—the one who never leaves us alone.
CORPORATE CONFESSION & COMMUNION
Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid:
Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name;
through Christ our Lord whose Life has and is becoming our lives.
Gracious Father,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word and deed,
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
you have shown us mercy and forgiveness,
that we may be blameless,
called and becoming saints,
set apart for You,
loved by You,
completed in You.
Amen.[3]
Song 3 – Hear Your Voice by Young Oceans
Song 4 – The Love of God by Traditional/Lehman
BENEDICTION | Romans 8:27-28
As we rest in the day made for us, we prepare to enter into the work for which we are made [LIGHT THE CANDLE], remembering to…
And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for the good, for those who are called according to his purpose.