Help Me Breathe! Please!

"Help Me Breathe! Please!"

Pastor Jerry

Matthew 7:12a, 20-25 (NLT)

 

------------------------------------- Message Synopsis -------------------------------------

This past Sunday we celebrated Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, to empower believers to live lives of love, justice and unity. The function of the Holy Spirit is never to divide us, but to gather us together. All of us! On that first Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit gathered the disciples together, they cared about each other and believed that it was important to stand up for each other when there is injustice, to speak and to act in love. What about now? When we hear about the way people abuse and misuse other people, do we stand-up for them? Do we speak out and act in love for them? Have you heard this statement before? “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The passage has often been used to promote the rights of marginalized groups, and came to represent for many people a moral standard for which the United States should strive. As the people of God, who believe that all people are created in God’s image and who are called throughout scripture to work for justice and peace and to particularly work on behalf of the marginalized, we must speak out and stand up when there is injustice. As Christians, and as Americans who believe that all men are created equal and that we are one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, we are called to remember that “all” means “all.” We have seen injustice recently. “I can’t breathe” was the repeated cry of a dying black man suffocating from the pressure on his neck by the authority of law enforcement two weeks ago!  George Floyd is yet another casualty in the history of racism against blacks in the United States of America. His last words were, “I can’t breathe! I can remember two separate episodes in my life recently, when I could not breathe. My heart had gone into afib and I was gasping for breath and finally I passed out and collapsed. (If it had not been for a defibrillator device implanted in my chest that shocked my heart to begin beating regularly again – the doctors said I would have died). When I woke, after a few moments I was breathing normally again. Those two events without breath were desperate experiences and I do have a new appreciation for life, and for breath… It is a desperate situation when someone cries out, “I can’t Breathe!” However, do you realize that we all are dependent on the Lord for every breath we breathe? In Geneses God breathes breath into the first man, Adam. Gen 2:7, “the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” The Bible reminds us of our full dependence on God for every breath we breathe. In the same way the Church, without the breath of God, we the body of Christ would collapse in the very places where we stand. That’s why I have titled this message, “Lord, Help Me Breathe! Please!” How will we, the Church, be people who are called to heal the racial divide that plagues our nation? …and the world? We too often hear stories of injustice toward our fellow human beings that are hard to comprehend.  We wonder why in the world people would act so cruelly. The scripture simply identifies them as ¹⁵ “… false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves.” When people are threatened to have their breath taken away, we are called to take action. We are called upon to become part of the Kingdom of God! But life in God’s Kingdom is quite different than it is in the world. The Church which is part of the Kingdom of God has been given the gifts of the Holy Spirit, love, forgiveness, grace, hope and faith—all of which enable us to be God’s presence in the world. And when we are God’s presence in the world …we are “helping our brothers and sisters to breathe.” At the center of Jesus’ teachings is what has come to be known as the Golden Rule. (Matthew 12a) “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you…” In order for us to live by this rule, in our daily lives, it is necessary for us to adopt a different perspective of people. In order to treat others like we would like to be treated, we must see ourselves in them. To be compassionate is to be conscious and sympathetic to others’ distress and also desire to eliminate it.  When we are compassionate and sympathetic to other people’s distress, we are “helping our brothers and sisters to breathe.” For Jesus, the way we treat others is a matter of character—it’s a matter of the heart. Jesus knows that what’s in our hearts spills over into how we live our lives and treat others. Jesus knows that people who mistreat others with disrespect are people who have heart trouble, and as a result, they hurt others because they themselves are so deeply hurting. That, in part, is why Jesus came in the first place—to heal our hearts that we might learn to experience the joy of life, ourselves. Often time people mistreat others because they can’t see any value or joy in their own lives. Perhaps they never heard words of praise or worth from anyone else. That’s exactly what happened with Star Daily. Star was known in England as a vicious killer and a ruthless armed robber. When he was a kid his teacher routinely called on him to stand and read a passage in front of the class. And as usual, the students laughed at him. And that was it. In anger he threw the book against the wall and yelled.  “You will fear me! You may hate me! But this will be the last time you’ll laugh at me!” And he ran out of the room. For the rest of his life he made it his purpose to mistreat others as he had been mistreated. And many of us understand the hurt of those who are mistreated; because we’ve been there. Our hearts have been broken by hurtful, demeaning words. But, when we see worth in others and let them know that, we are “helping our brothers and sisters to breathe.” Jesus came to heal our broken hearts by restoring our sense of worth and value. He does that by reminding us that God sees great worth and value in us. He tells us that God loves us. Jesus came to let us know that we all are created in God’s image which means we were created with worth and value woven into the fabric of who we are. When we let others know that Jesus loves them, we are “helping our brothers and sisters to breathe.” We need to be able to judge good fruit from bad. “Because every good tree bears only good fruit, but a bad tree bears only bad fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them” All of us have things hidden away in the closets of our hearts that we’ve done that embarrass and shame us—things we’ve done that have robbed us of our dignity. We know we’ve messed up but we can’t seem to let go of the guilt. And the guilt causes us at times to demean and mistreat others in order to make us feel better about ourselves. Jesus came to heal that brokenness. T When we confess to him the areas where we’ve fallen short he forgives.  And because he forgives us completely and unconditionally, the guilt disappears and we’re able to believe in ourselves again and in the process to treat others with value and dignity. When we let Jesus forgive us and we forgive others, we are “helping our brothers and sisters to breathe.” That’s what the Golden Rule is all about. It’s about living in a relationship with Jesus who heals the brokenness of our hearts and fills them with his love and forgiveness. And as he mends our hearts he creates in us the kind of character that reaches out and values others. His love makes us loving. His valuing of us enables us to value others. His belief in us sets us free to believe in others. His compassion toward us makes us compassionate toward others. His forgiveness of us motivates us to forgive others. “Lord, Help Me Breathe! Please!” Yes Lord, I depend on You for every breath I breathe.  Use me in “helping our brothers and sisters to breathe.” As God’s children, who live in the reality of God’s Kingdom, we are to live lives of love and compassion—lives that do not condemn and that seek to treat others as we would want to be treated.