Have you ever been to a sporting event?  Perhaps you went to a football game, a hockey game, baseball game, soccer game, boxing match, wrestling match, or basketball game?  Why did you go?  Most people go because they have some interest in one of the teams or individuals involved in the contest and they want to cheer that team or person on to victory. And so, we go and sit in the bleachers or a seat and together with other people we may or may not know, we cheer on contestants. 

Now why don’t we just sit there quietly, watch the game, and then go home?  Why do we spontaneously cheer and yell words from the stands to the players in the contest? We cheer at a sporting event because we want to help create a sense of excitement and energy in the stadium, with the belief that we can positively impact the team's performance.  Cheering is a way for us to show support for the team and encourage them to play their best.  Cheering is the way we show our admiration and joy for the performance of the athletes in the contest, and we hope that if we all cheer loud enough then our cheering will help elevate the athletes to great feats.  We cheer in the hope that doing so will change the performance to be greater than ever.  We cheer to change the outcome.

          Now let’s change the setting a little bit.  Instead of going to a sports stadium for an athletic contest, we go to church.  Now that is quite a switch, isn’t it?  But here you are in church instead of a sporting event, so my example is not that farfetched.  You have taken your seat near some people you know and near some people you may not know, just as you would have done had you gone to a sports stadium. 

In gathering today, we began our time together at church standing and reciting words together toward God our intended listener.  We got louder together with some music, and we sang couple of songs, again toward God our intended listener.  Why did we use our voices by reciting words and song, our church cheering, if you will?  Our church cheering today is not that different from our cheering at sporting events. Now, at a sporting event we cheer in the hopes of encouraging the athletes to change a bit and do better. Do we use our voices at church in the same way, in the hopes of encouraging God to change a bit and to do better?

          Since God is perfect, the “try to do better” option does not exist for God.  And we are told in Scripture that God does not change, “For I the LORD do not change” (Malachi 3:6).  And neither does Jesus Christ change, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrew 13:8).  Augustine, a fourth century Christian writer and scholar, spoke of nature of God this way:

What then is my God?...Supreme, best, most mighty, most omnipotent, most merciful and most just, most hidden and most immediately present, loveliest, strongest, steadfast and impossible to grasp, unchanging and yet changing all things, never new, never old, making all things new; driving the proud into decay of old age though they know it not; ever in act, ever at rest, gathering up and never in need, bearing and filling and sheltering, creating and nourishing, bringing to perfection, seeking, though nothing are you in want.  You love, but you do not burn with passion; you are jealous for what is yours, though you are secure in your possession; you regret, though you do not grieve; you grow angry, though you are at peace; you alter your works but not your counsel; you take up what you find though you never lost it. (Confessions, Book 1, Chapter 4).

God is unchangeable.  He is never in need.  And so, our words and songs, our church cheering, is different from our cheers at a sporting event because our words and songs at church will not encourage or inspire our listener, God, to change, or do better. 

But it would be a mistake to believe that our church cheering does not lead to encouragement or to change.  Because it does.  Our words and songs to God are rightly and appropriately directed toward God as our form of worship, but instead of encouraging and changing God, our words and songs are part of encouraging us and preparing us to be changed by God, through our worship.  Our words and songs help us to come out of the world to worship God by expressing our appreciation and gratitude to God’s blessings.  Our cheering in church is part of our worship of God and it helps us break up the hardness we experienced in the past week.  Our church cheering done together, with those we know and those we do not know, helps those who are here today who cannot cheer today because the burdens and hurts that they feel are so severe that they do not have the strength to speak the words or sing the songs.  And so, we speak, and we sing for them to help prepare them to receive healing from God.  And someday, these people who cannot engage in church cheering today, will speak and sing for us when we lack the strength to do so.

          And so, you might ask, “Well Pastor we have spoken words and sung our songs of praise and gratitude to God as part of worshipping God, how then will God change us?”  God will change us through the hearing of His word in response to our cheering.  “12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).  When we meditate on and interact with the Bible as part of worship, God's Word can change our hearts and our thinking.  God's Word can set us apart as pure and holy.  God’s Word brings us peace.  Jesus said, “27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).

          Today because of our worship of God, we are in our prepared state to receive from God.  And I want us to look at some challenging words from God, given to us by Jesus in what we now call the Sermon on the Mount recorded for us in the Gospel of Matthew.  I want to begin with the words from Chapter 5, verse 23 and 24.  Jesus said, “23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).

          What is going on in this short passage?  Jesus set the scene that someone skipped going to an athletic event and went to the synagogue or Temple to worship, just like you and I have done today.  After some prayers and hymns, one of the worshipper was ready, prepared, to make an offering to the Lord as an act of further worship.  But something interrupted the anticipated next step.  The worshipper had been changed.  The hardness of worshipper’s heart, the difficulties of the week, had softened and the worshipper heard God’s Word causing the worshipper to change. The worshipper remembered, or could no longer hide from themselves, that they had a falling out with someone close to them, a brother or a sister.  They had not loved their neighbor as themselves.  And so here is that worshipper who because they had been prepared by the words and songs they and others had sung had received the Word of God and now realized they need to reconcile with a brother or a sister.  This story all takes place within the setting of worship.  Do you see how worship works to change us? 

What is this worshipper supposed to do?  Jesus said, “First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:24).  The first step was the worshipper to act and reconcile with brother or sister.”  In our context, if you are in church, prepared by worship, and God’s Word comes to you, “Love your neighbor,” and you realized that you have done something to offend a brother or sister, here meaning another believer, and that person is not there with you in that moment, Jesus says, leave the church now and make things right.  You can come to church again, but you may not be able to reconcile with that person again. Wow!  Think about the change that has come over that worshipper.  God was moving that worshipper to a place of greater inner peace and more into the image of His own Son.  Because of worship of God, God changed the worshipper from a peacebreaker to a peacemaker.

          Even if we do not find ourselves in the circumstance of that worshipper who has been called to become a peacemaker, we now rightly understand the change God wants in our life.  We now see through this worship experience we read about that God wants us to always be peacemakers.  Jesus said as much a little earlier in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, “9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9).  And so because we are in worship of God today, God has already been able to use this moment to take our prepared hearts and minds to breath His word into us to charge us all to be peacemakers in a world that is breaking apart.  If we do as God has instructed, Jesus says, then you and I are not only changed but we are truly children of God.

          Seeing how worship of God prepares us to be changed by God’s Word, let’s look at one more example from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus said, “21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell” (Matthew 5:21-22). Jesus was saying, “I know you have been taught that you shall not murder, that is number six of the top ten list of commandments, ‘Thou shall not murder.’”  You know that Jesus said then said my favorite theological word, “but.”  This is an important word because that word signals the unknown thing that must be known is coming.  “22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ [Stupid! Idiot! Dummy! Moron!] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell” (Matthew 5:22).  Jesus was not abolishing the law but instead was enlightening his audience and us that righteousness in the kingdom of heaven demands that we neither murder a person’s body nor their reputation.  Righteousness lived out means that we do not choose to be angry toward another person, because anger is a choice, and we do not choose to have contempt for another person.  There are two ways we should consider Jesus’ teaching here. 

First, I think is the most obvious.  We shall not kill outright, that’s murder the body, nor are we to kill someone softly, that is murder of their reputation or spirit.  To kill outright is to take someone’s life.  As Jesus said, “You have heard that said to people long ago.”  To kill softly is to abuse another person. When we abuse another person, we kill them, only we do it softly, often without injury to their body itself.  But abuse can be physical, emotional, psychological, sexual, and spiritual.  If you have been abused or if you have a friend or family member who has been abused, you know what it means to be killed softly.  The body may not have died but permanent damage to the person, to their spirit, has been done.  And so, Jesus was saying any form of abuse violates the righteousness underpinning the commandment not to murder and such behavior must not be found in the life of a righteous person.  As so Jesus was saying that not only must we be peacemakers, but first and foremost, we must be peacekeepers. 

And we know this to be true because we came here today to worship God.  In our expressions of gratitude and praise to God, our hearts and minds became prepared to receive this truth from God.  And as part of worship, God sent His Word and He has changed each of us.  We must not be peacebreakers, but peacemakers.  And more than just making peace after it has been broken, we ourselves must allow God’s spirit to work through us to be peacekeepers, saying and doing nothing that would cause harm to begin with.

Now in a few moments, we will sing songs to God again and partake of the Lord’s Supper as a continuation and conclusion of our worship today.  We continue to worship after the receipt of God’s Word as a symbolic way of surrounding God’s Word with praise as one would surround something precious and treasured.  We have come to worship God and He has honored our worship by changing us into the image of His Son and granting us a peaceful spirit.  Praise be to God.  Amen and Amen.