Hit Refresh

Central to every worship service is the proclamation of God’s Word, a word that is alive and active. The Confession of 1967 says that “God’s Word is spoken to his church today where the Scriptures are faithfully preached and attentively read in dependence on the illumination of the Holy Spirit and with readiness to receive their truth and direction.”

God’s Word is spoken today. When we faithfully preach and attentively read Scripture. Dependent on the illumination of the Holy Spirit and our readiness to receive truth and direction. The Prayer of Illumination may be the most important part of our worship. In our Prayer of Illumination, we pray for God’s Holy Spirit to speak and for us to be open to hear and respond. The Prayer of Illumination is a “refresh” button!

Have you ever come back to a website expecting to find updated information but it isn’t there? Or had someone else say that they got information on a website on their computer but when you enter web address, you still see old content? What do you need to do? Hit refresh.

This fall, a new book by Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, is being published. The title? Hit Refresh. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, wrote the Forward. Hit Refresh is “about how people, organizations, and societies can and must transform “hit refresh” in their persistent quest for new energy, new ideas, and continued relevance and renewal. At its core, it’s about us humans and how our one unique quality—empathy—will become ever more valuable in a world where technological advancement will disrupt the status quo as never before.”

The writer of 2 Peter says the same thing, really. As long as I am alive, I will refresh your memory that Christ has given us all things that pertain to life and holiness. So we are to “make every effort to add to [our] faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.”

Christ has given us all things that pertain to life and holiness…but we have to hit refresh to “cache” them in. Go ahead, groan. The life of a disciple is a life of opening ourselves to the Holy Spirit to add to our faith. Other metaphors have been used: grow, journey, strengthen, deepen – have all been used to describe the work of adding to our faith. But it is not our work – it is the work of the Holy Spirit as we hit refresh and are open to being shaped and formed, changed and transformed.

Here in 2 Peter, there are 7 steps once you have faith: goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. I have grouped them into 4 B’s.

First, we believe. How many of you have ever heard someone say, maybe you’ve even said it, “I believe in Jesus. I just don’t believe in organized religion.” This is the first step of faith. And a lot of people who believe know that God calls them to be a good person. Some seek to know more, to read the Bible or devotionals, to study books about God or faith.

But life as an individual disciple gets glitchy. The page is stagnant, boring, doesn’t really do anything. Faith is not lived out individually. We begin to desire more than believing, the Holy Spirit leads us to others. Our faith is refreshed as we experience that the life of faith is life in relationship with God and with others. We are a part of the body of Christ, a part of a community. We not only believe, we belong.

Rev. Will Mullins is a college chaplain now, but at 19 he was a homesick young man on active duty in the U.S. Air Force, who believed. So he went to the chapel and found he belonged. He met a chaplain whom he describes as “a phenomenal human being who sat on the steps of the chapel…with me and [would] talk to me. He was funny, and he didn’t seem overly religious, which was kind of cool in a way.” He created space for young Will Mullins to belong, to know himself as he came to know God through fellowship and worship. So, when Will said he was considering seminary, he looked at him and said, ‘Yeah, I think that would be great’.

So, Will hit refresh; he opened to the work of the Holy Spirit in his life. He believed, he belonged, and now he was focused on becoming more like Jesus. In the words of 2 Peter, to his faith he had added goodness, knowledge, and self-control. Now he was adding perseverance and godliness. He began studying the Bible, and when he finished active duty, he went to college and then seminary. All of us here aren’t called to go to seminary. We are all called to study. Our study begins in worship as we hear the Word of God proclaimed.

The Presbyterian Handbook gives 6 helpful tips on “How to Listen to a Sermon.” We believe that God who speaks in Scripture speaks to us now. So, first, we need to listen attentively. And perhaps take notes. By all means necessary, we should remain awake and avoid leaning on our neighbor. And as we are listening alertly and taking notes, we are to, what the Presbyterian Handbook describes as “Listen for the Law.” Now this was a new one on me. “Listen for the Law” is described in this way. “You may feel an emotional pinch when the preacher names the sinner in you. Pay attention to your reaction,…” and listen for the Gospel. “Keep your mind engaged to follow the flow of thought or the major ideas that emerge in the sermon.” Finally, review. Did the sermon bring up questions for you? Things you want to explore? Talk about? Respond to?

Good! That’s what sermons are supposed to do. They are supposed to help you become more like Jesus. Rev. Dr. Michael Jinkins, the President of Louisville Seminary, recently wrote about a conversation that he had his late father-in-law had. His father-in-law was a Baptist minister, and they had been to church together. That evening, they were commiserating about the sermon. Dr. Jinkins writes, “we lamented the fact that the sermon implied that the gospel is limited to getting people to come to church. The preacher’s vision seemed to stop at the front doors of the church building. And, in his view, the Christ’s obligations seemed to stop there too.”

His father-in-law paid a compliment in their conversation to Presbyterians, “You believe in people growing in faith and serving in all sorts of ways in society.” Dr. Jinkins points out, though, that “Presbyterians can be as insular as any other group….[We] have never had a monopoly on ministry beyond the walls of the church. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said that the whole world was his parish. Baptists like Walter Rauschenbusch and Martin Luther King, Jr. showed us how the gospel can liberate the oppressed and oppressors alike. Roman Catholics like Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa…taught us what it means to serve Christ by serving ‘the least of these.’”

Believers Belong to a community in which they are Becoming more like Jesus Christ, so that they can Be Christ to the world as they add to faith mutual affection and love. In worship, as we proclaim the Word of God, we are refreshed by the Holy Spirit to go out into the world and be Christ’s hands and feet.

George MacLeod, a pastor to one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Scotland, out of which grew the Iona Community, wrote about the place of the church in the world. “I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan that they had to write His titled in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek…at the kind of a place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died. And that is what He died about. And that is where [we] should be and what [we] should be about.”

Christ’s death on that cross between two thieves, on a garbage heap at the intersection of the major world powers amongst sinners has, in the words of 2 Peter, given us everything we need for a godly life. As we proclaim the Word of God in worship, we invoke the Holy Spirit to speak a fresh Word, a Word that is alive and relevant and we open ourselves to be refreshed and transformed by that Word, so that we who Believe may know that we Belong to God, and Belonging we may seek to Become more like God’s Son Jesus that we would Be Christ to the world.