Sermon: Your Song

Moses knew that once his people lost sight of God, the image of themselves would get bigger and bigger. He tells us, “Don’t exalt yourself and forget the Lord, your God.”

It’s so easy to forget that the gifts we have — money, success, family — are all gifts from God. And as we begin to separate our gifts from God, we begin to think that our blessings are due 100 percent to our hard work. We begin to congratulate ourselves. And that self-congratulations eventually becomes conviction. And that conviction eventually becomes ideology. And that ideology eventually becomes oppression. Those gifts we have taken, but not been acknowledged as from God, take us from the edge of the promised land back then into the middle of the national tragedy we are in now.

People in power have taken the gift given to them and used it to oppress others. If they acknowledged those gifts came from God, they would use their power for good — to help the poor, to stand for the oppressed. if we recognize our gifts come from God, we will use those gifts to help the oppressed, to right wrongs, to spread love.

The worship of God should rattle the rafters of the church and change this world.