Sermon

Luke 6:17-26

With Jesus You Don’t Need Buttons

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Luke 6:17-26

With Jesus You Don’t Need Buttons

By Deacon Rod Amon

Not too long ago, 60 Minutes had a segment on Best Buy’s geek squad.  The geek squad is the people that will come to your home and fix your computer.

What really stuck with me were statements about how complicated we have made our lives.  We seem sometimes to have made our lives miserable with our technology. We seem to want things with more and more buttons to push.

Products are rushed to market before they are tested by the final users—us.  It seems the more complicated the better.  How many know all the features on their cell phone, or all that your TV can do?  Let’s not even talk about your home computer.

The 60 Minutes segment showed a car that had so many buttons; you really needed a degree from MIT to be able to operate the car.

With all that technology are we any happier with life?  I’m not always sure.  I can remember early in life someone told me about the KISS program. (Keep It Simple).  What that really means is that keep things so we can understand what it is we really want need from life.

I think the gospel message today is not only about being happy with life, but how simple life can be.

What it comes to I think is this: If you are not happy, draw closer to God, who is the only source of genuine happiness.

You will be happy only in God. If you have a beautiful goldfish and take it out of the water so that you can sing a song to it will it be happy? No.  If you put the fish on the couch and turn on the TV for it will it be happy? No.  But if you put the fish back in the water it will be happy.

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It is the same with us.  We will be happy only in God.  You might say God is cruel making you in such a way that you will be happy only in God.  But God is not cruel. God is love, total love. God loves you even if you have not yet discovered the love of God for you.  Draw closer to God, total Love, who can lift you up from despair to hope.

When we turn our hearts to Jesus, we don’t need all the buttons there are to push.  There is only one (point to the cross)—there he is ready for us.

Jesus’ words today were simple he said “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”  He was speaking to those who felt sad and he wanted them to know that in the kingdom of God things would be different.  For a time they might feel sadness and cry, but in God’s kingdom there is laughter.

Jesus also gave hope to people who were poor, those who were hungry, and those who were disliked because they followed him.  He said, “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven…”

Take the time and UNcomplicate your life.  Read scripture and pray.  It’s simple and the rewards are great.

One of the things he said to them was, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”  He was speaking to those who felt sad and he wanted them to know that in the kingdom of God things would be different.  For a time they might feel sadness and cry, but in God’s kingdom there is laughter.

Jesus also gave hope to people who were poor, those who were hungry, and those who were disliked because they followed him.  He said, “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven…”

—Copyright 2007, Rod Amon.  Used by permission.