Sunday, June 24, 2007
“The Right Colors”
Text: Rev. 7: 9 - 17
This Sunday concludes our emphasis on your youth. This has been a wonderful celebration and tribute to them. It is clear to me that if you provide youth with the opportunity to serve and participate within the church they will do it with honor and distinction. The scripture is true, “train up a child in the way they will go and when they are old they will not depart from it.”
For our Servant Church to flourish we will have to conduct a youth campaign of epic proportions in the coming years. The challenges that youth face today are monumental. You know the litany of issues. They are plastered over the pages and screens of media today. While I will admit that the issues they are dealing with are great; I believe that our youth have the resiliency to overcome them.
Resiliency is the ability of children to endure extreme stress, to overcome adversity despite overwhelming risk factors, and to go on to be productive adults.
Tough times are not new. Youth have always been faced with great issues. We have to always remind our youth that they are not called to the great; but they are called to the greater. For scripture says, “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.”
What are the factors that support the greater? There are three: family networks, community based schools, and faith communities.
All three of those support systems themselves are under stress. Family networks are not the same as we may remember. Instead of schools transforming communities through education; they are being influenced by negative forces affecting the community and in many cases are losing the battle; faith communities are increasingly being isolated from their youth.
Yesterday while the Deaconess where having their retreat and the Men’s League was having their meeting, I pointed out to the Men’s League President that there where more youth in this community going into the store across the street than coming into our doors.
I cannot accept as fact that our youth need candy, soda and potato chips more than they need the life giving and life sustaining reality of Jesus Christ.
They need to know what a wonderful change can be wrought in your life when Jesus come into your heart.
The message of Jesus Christ as a life changing and sustaining force pales against the reality our youth are facing. When families break down, when schools are losing the race, and faith seems life a distant star. Young people are turning to themselves as their own system of support.
That’s why there is this increase in gang participation. It’s because young people are forming their own support systems to help them survive the issues of the day. And the strongest of the gang groups are identified by the colors they wear.
That’s not new fraternal and sonority groups are identifies by their colors: Black and Gold, Pink and Green, Red and White,
Black and Blue – no that the fraternity of hard knocks.
Colors are an effective method for creating identity. Therefore, gang culture has adopted colors as their markers. Red is for one group and Blue is for another. Quickly coming on the scene is black. And all throughout gang culture is the basic acceptance of a white tee shirt.
Colors all use in different ways to communicate meaning and associations. The questions properly asked: What are the right colors?
I don’t have a cultural answer to the questions. But I do have a spiritual answer. The right colors for me are found in this text: red which represents the Blood of the Lamb and white which represents the cleansing power of his blood.
This text sets the stage for the greatest gang meeting that will ever be held. Its John the Revelators peers into a foretaste of glory. It’s bible language attempting to communicate a deep theological concept that already, but not yet.
The end of time is assured by the author and finisher of time – God. That’s the central purpose of the Book of Revelation – re velatio. To uncover that which has been hidden.
When reading the book you always have to establish your perspective: is it a historistic document? Is it a futuristic document? Or is it a pietistic document? These are the three dominate views of the text. Is it history, or a peek into the future, or is it a message of hope.
I subscribe to the theory that the book is pietistic – a message of hope.
The chapter begins by informing the faithful that the promise will be given to the twelve tribes of Israel. The tribes of Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin.
Not only will the twelve tribes receive the promise, but John sees a number a great multitude that he is unable to count: people from every nation, tribe, people and language. That’s a great gang!
We hear their praise songs:
“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. Praise and Glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be our God for ever and ever. Amen”
And then the question is asked he points us to the answer to our question what are the right colors?
An elder asks the question: who are they and where did they come from?
When we all get to heaven what a day of rejoicing that will be? When we all see Jesus we will sing and shout the victory.
But, I am also reminded by the verse that says: everybody talking about heaven ain’t going there.
So the question is correct: who are they and where did they come from?
Life’s quest can be futile if you are not able to answer the question what’s next?
That’s the frustrating question for many of our youth: what’s next? When life looks bilk and there is no tomorrow only today; it is easy to understand why a young person develops the philosophy to eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. “Get rich, or die trying”
A young man was asked when he graduated from high school what he was going to do next. We stated that he was going to college. After that what’s next? I’m going to get a job. After that what next? I’m going to find me a wife and get married. After that what next? I’m going to buy a house and have children. After that what next? I’m going to get old and retire. After that what next? I’m going to travel and watch my grandchildren. After that what next? I guess I will just die.
But for the person of faith and those who are Christian we have an answer to the: what is next question.
Because we know that we come from God, we live in God, and we go to God.
So when we see this glimpse of the future glory. We see the right gang with the right colors assembled around the throne of God and not only do we get the answer to the question who are they and where did they come from; but we also find out what the rights colors are.
You wouldn’t know what I am talking about if you have not experienced: any tribulation,
any sadness,
any sorry,
any pain,
any missed opportunities,
any disappointments,
any rejection,
any addiction you can’t shake
any heart ache
Because when you see the future glory that answer to who are they are those who have come through tribulation.
Don’t stop when you face some problems?
Don’t pause when trouble comes your way?
Don’t sit down when issues hit you?
Don’t faint when times are tough?
The promise is given to those who go through.
The elder says that these are they who have come through great tribulation.
Then he answers our question: what are the right colors?
So the short answer to the question: what are the right colors? They are red and white.
The red blood of the Lamb and the white robes that they wear.
1st Chapter of Isaiah says it like this: “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool.”
What do we learn from this idea of right colors?
1. On our own we cannot make it.
2. White symbolizes the mercy and grace of God
3. Red symbolizes the power of Jesus blood.
