sermons

What is Fellowship? I John 1:1-7

2009-06-14T13:21:00.001-07:00

What is Fellowship? I John 1:1-7

In the past I've shared some bulletin bloopers and as you hear them they will help to underscore the text and the topic I've prepared for today's message. But these were actually seen in church bulletins over the years. Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa. Announcement in a church bulletin for a national PRAYER & FASTING Conference: "The cost for attending the Fasting and Prayer conference includes meals."The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus." Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King. "The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been cancelled due to a conflict. The church will host an evening of fine dining, superb entertainment, and gracious hostility. Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 pm - prayer and medication to follow. The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon. This evening at 7 pm there will be a hymn sing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin. The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday. Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use back door. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

Today as we continue looking at the subject of "the purpose of the church"" we are going to look at the importance of the principle of fellowship. When a church is lacking in fellowship, the church's growth will be stunted or out of balance. . We will all miss out on the joy of growing in Christ together. We will cheat ourselves and others out of great joy. Is fellowship potluck dinners at church, it is just doing things together or is it something more?
Fellowship does not happen on its own; it takes time and effort to happen. I want us to examine what fellowship is, why we need it and how we can encourage it in our church.
I. WHAT IS FELLOWSHIP? 3 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. J.I. Packer defines fellowship as "a seeking to share in what God has made known of Himself to others, as a means of finding strength, refreshment, and instruction for one's own soul." The Greek word for fellowship KOINONEIA comes from a root meaning common or shared. So fellowship means common participation in something either by giving what you have to the other person or receiving what he or she has. But its more than just on the level of relationships with one another. Christian fellowship is two-dimensional, and it has to be vertical before it can be horizontal. We must know the reality of fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ before we can know the reality of fellowship with each other in our common relationship to God (1 John 1:3). The person who is not in fellowship with the Father and the Son is no Christian at all, and so cannot share with Christians the realities of their fellowship.

Hebrews 3:13 describes the value of it: "But encourage one another daily, as long as it is still called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sins' deceitfulness." In other words, fellowship is required to encourage one another." When we are outside the spiritual protection God intends for us to get from fellowship, it is much easier to be deceived and to be hardened by sin. One of Satan's ways to destroy a Christian is to try to isolate him from other believers. If he can do that, and remove a Christian from contact with other believers so that his encouragement is cut off, he will. This happens because so many Christians are so busy today. We think, I just don't have time to spend with my family, much less with other people.

Following the pattern of Jesus, and led by the Holy Spirit,, those in the early church you will notice here in Acts 4 "devoted themselves to (among other things), fellowship." Other New Testament Scriptures likewise stress the importance of Christians living life together in supportive community.
For true fellowship to happen there must be something that ties us together with others. Going to the mall and being around a lot of people does not mean we have fellowship with them. We may all be doing the same activity, shopping, but that may be all we share in common with the other shoppers. Even when we have a covered dish dinner, Does having a covered dish dinner mean we have fellowship? It can if we share some common things we will look at. If we do not share these things in common, we are just eating together. Now, here is the rub. One of the downfalls of the modern church is that we have failed to distinquish between socializing and fellowship. Although socializing is often both a part of and the context of the fellowship that we enjoy, it is possible to socialize without having fellowship. Socializing involves the sharing of human and earthly life. Christian fellowship, that is New Testament koinoneia, involves the sharing of spiritual life. Don't misunderstand- socializing is a valueable asset to the church and we need to do it, but sometimes we go beyond giving socializing the place it deserves. In other words, we have become willing to accept it as a substitute for fellowship, almost cheating ourselves out of our Christian birthright of true fellowship altogether. Now I'm not saying that every conversation between Christians has to include references to Scripture and taking prayer requests. But I have noticed that often our conversations don't get beyond the level of socializing. Little if any authentic fellowship takes place and often we think that just because we have had a conversation with somebody in the church fellowship hall, then we think we have had fellowship, when we haven't.

II. How do you know when you have fellowship?7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. Ok- so what kind of experience do we need to have in order to qualify that we have experienced genunine Christian fellowship?

1.. Goes Beyond Friendliness I have had people tell me, "Salem Baptist Church is a friendly church." It is a friendly church. I believe that with all my heart. And its not just that you are friendly toward the people you know, but that you reach out to people you don't know. But even friendliness doesn't mean the same thing as fellowship. I mean, it helps if we're friendly. And yet as odd as this sounds, I have been in churches that didn't seem to be very friendly and experience genuine koinoneia. Does this make sense? Authentic Christian fellowship is not just being friendly. Genuine Christian fellowship may even be somewhat unfriendly at times because it challenges us to move beyond superficial relationships to help us overcome unChristlike attitudes and behaviors in ourselves.

2. When another Christian has challenged you to grow or change beyond what you are doing, or that you have experienced godly encouragement from another Christian- that would be fellowship. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Look with me over in Titus 2

But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: 2 that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; 3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things— 4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded, 7 in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility,8 sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.

Now Paul first mentions doctrine, but that's not the kind of doctrine you get from a Sunday school class or picking up from a sermon necessarily as it is the kinds of Christian values we learn by observing one another. Its instilling a responsibility in looking out for one another, and so much of that is incumbant upon the older ones. For example, you older guys- especially you all who are 40 and over. There are younger men here in this church who need your godly example and character to follow.

Its not that you have to sit somebody down and teach them a Bible study lesson, and it doesn't mean you have to be perfect. So much of what we do is caught rather than taught. When I was a young man the one whom I really looked to for spiritual guidance to show me how a Christian man is supposed to act was my father in law. Not only was he a godly man who had a lot of wisdom but I could see in that man the kind of character I wanted to model for myself. He invested a lot of that in me without him having to sit me down and lecture to me. One of the things he showed me was how a Christian man is supposed to work- to instill a work ethic in me that I hope that I have passed down to my children as well is what I learned from my father in law. Another thing I learned was how to act when he has a lot of pressure on him. This is the kind of thing we receive in the context of Christian fellowship that we wouldn't be able to find anywhere else. The same is true for Christian women. You older ladies have much you can teach by your example. I know that its different for women today than it was when you first got married and were raising your children. But the younger women today need to know how to care for their families- no one is teaching them that.

III. Fellowship is based on love and trust. Here is what I John 2:9-10 tells us He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. 10 He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.6 Romans 12:10 puts it in a postive way. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:10 Being devoted means much more than being around people that you like. Fellowship is based on trust. You can't have fellowship apart from Christian love. In fact I'll even go as far as to say you can't love someone without making yourself vulnerable to someone else. If you say that you love them, you have got to open yourself up to them and build relationships with them.
You say, "Wait a minute now, I don't hate anybody!" No, you wouldn't hate anyone by showing someone dispect or being hostile, but one of the ways we show this and not even know it is simply out of neglect, disregard, by being focused only on ourselves that we don't make room in our hearts for each other in the body of Christ. That's where it comes down to us more often than we would like to admit.

To cultivate Christian fellowship means we have to make time for it. Not just making time for worship but making time for each other because we experience the fellowship and communion of Jesus Christ when we make time to build relationships with other Christians. You say, "how do I do that?"

First of all, look for people with whom you might share some things in common. If you have children, for example, make an effort to get to know those couples that have kids and invite them to you home or get together with them somewhere. They may not be where you are spiritually- ok, if that is the case then maybe God has directed you to take them under your wings spiritually to help them model the best of the Christian life in you. Don't just seek to have your spiritual needs met- because they need you. They need to see how you cope with all the pressures of family life and then the pressures of this world with the love of Jesus Christ.

As a church, we need to work hard at making sure we do not foster an environment in which we just come together Sunday morning and then detach ourselves from one another until the next Sunday. Let us show we care enough about each other to spend time with one another and to take advantage of the opportunities our church offers to help foster a true sense of fellowship. The world is keeping us isolated and alone as it is. The church can offer something to the world that nobody else is offering- a community of people who genuinely loves them and wants them to belong. The world is a lonely place, we need to be a place where the world wants to come and learn about Jesus, a place where we can develop lasting relationships.
In 1773, the young pastor of a poor church in Wainsgate, England, was called to a large and influential church in London. John Fawcett was a powerful preacher and writer, and these skills had brought him this opportunity. But as the wagons were being loaded with the Fawcetts' few belongings, their people came for a tearful farewell. During the good-byes, Mary Fawcett cried, "John, I cannot bear to leave!" "Nor can I," he replied. "We shall remain here with our people." The wagons were unloaded, and John Fawcett spent his entire fifty-four-year ministry in Wainsgate.

Out of that experience, Fawcett wrote the beautiful hymn, "Blest Be the Tie that Binds."

Evangelism: The Power of Our Witness Acts 4:1-22

2009-05-26T13:54:00.001-07:00

Evangelism: The Power of Our Witness Acts 4:1-22
The city of New Orleans has had its share of tragedies lately. I read one recently about what happened five years before Hurricane Katrina. It brought tears to my eyes as I read it. A party took place in New Orleans around a swimming pool, and the people were celebrating the first summer in fifty years without a drowning at any New Orleans swimming pool and in honor of the occasion, 200 people gathered, including 100 certified life guards. And as the party was breaking up, the four lifeguards on duty began to clear the pool. It was then that they discovered the lifeless, fully dressed body of Jerome Moody, age 31- in the deep end. They tried to revive him, but it was too late. Can you imagine a person drowning in the presence of 100 lifeguards? It is both tragic and ironic, that those 100 certified lifeguards didn't see this man drown in their presence? Incredulous- you say.

But is there a lesson in all that for us? You bet there is!! What about among our family and friends? IS there someone we know drowning in a pool of depression and loneliness? It is both a calamity and tragedy, when people are surrounded by Christians, and yet they die and go to a devils hell without Jesus. That's right- they die and go to hell. Every day in this country 150,000 people die. That is where most of them go. I've been preaching on the five purposes of the church. We started out with worship and how worship connects us so that we will communicate with God. Then last week we looked at Discipleship and how essential it was not just to make converts, but mature men and women of God. Today we're going to look at Evangelism-The Power of Our Witness When I was a teenager we called it witnessing. Years ago we used to call it soul winning. Before that we called it Personal work or something like that. You know what we call it now? We don't call it anything, because we its been so long since we've done it that we can't remember what it was like to tell people about Jesus.
    God had just used Peter and John to heal a beggar in his forties who had been lame from birth. The spectacle of this man walking, leaping, and praising God draws a crowd, and Peter begins to preach the gospel to them. Suddenly Peter is interrupted as the priests, the captain of the temple guard, and the Sadducees as they are upset that Peter was teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
    They arrested Peter and John, put them in jail over night. The next day they are brought in front of the Jewish Sanhedrin. Although they were on trial before this intimidating council, Peter quickly turned the tables on the Sanhedrin, showing that it was they who were on trial.
    He points out that it was not a crime to do a good deed to a cripple. Then he indicts the Sanhedrin because they had crucified Jesus, whom God had raised from the dead and in whose name this lame man had been healed. Furthermore, Peter let them know that there is salvation in no one else except Jesus Christ (4:12).
    Peter doesn't see a court; he sees a congregation. The members of the council are amazed at the boldness of Peter and John, who had not been educated in their schools. After a private conference, the council commands Peter and John not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. However, Peter and John replied that they had to obey God, because they could not stop speaking what they had seen and heard. While Peter and John had to be commanded to stop speaking, most of us need to be reminded of the command to speak to others about Jesus Christ. Many modern Christians think that Jesus' Great Commission was really the Great Suggestion. Note the characteristics of a bold witness

I. A bold witness is EMPOWERED (filled) with the Spirit (v8). To picture this scene correctly, we need to understand how threatening it was for Peter and John. The Sanhedrin was like our Supreme Court. The high priest was the most powerful Jew in the city, and the captain of the temple guard was second behind him. They were standing before powerful men.Just a few weeks before, Peter in order to avoid possible arrest had denied that he knew Jesus Christ to a lowly servant girl. But here he is before this powerful body of men, boldly reminding them that they had crucified Jesus, that God had raised Him from the dead, and that He is God's only way of salvation.
    What made the difference? Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter's witness before the Sanhedrin was not due to his natural boldness, but to the filling of the Holy Spirit
The key to everything in the Christian life is the power of the Holy Spirit The Bible teaches that we receive the Holy Spirit the moment we trust Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. The Spirit of God literally comes within our bodies and lives with us for the rest of our lives. It's a one-time event, and He never leaves. But what makes the difference in Christian living is the degree to which we are filled with His presence. To be filled with the Spirit means that we are completely controlled by the Spirit- and to do that means that we deliberately put ourselves into positions like Peter. Not in our recliners sitting in front of the TV set, but by standing on somebody's doorstep and feel your heart beating as you ring their doorbell to tell them about Christ. Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit, and the empowering work of the Spirit gives Peter a boldness that enables him to share the gospel before a powerful, intimidating group of people.
    I think of Peter Cartwright, a circuit riding Methodist preacher of the 19th century. He was to preach to a large congregation, and right before the service, he was informed that President Andrew Jackson would be in attendance. They told Peter Cartwright, "We thought you would want to know so that what you say won't be offensive to the President." Peter Cartwright said, "Thank you for telling me." He got into the pulpit and said, "I've been told that President Andrew Jackson is in the congregation, and I've been asked to carefully guard what I am going to say. I want to begin by saying that Andrew Jackson will go to hell if he doesn't repent of his sin." You could have heard a pin drop. But, immediately after the service, President Andrew Jackson walked up to Peter Cartwright and said, "If I had a regiment of men like you, I could whip the whole world."
    Here were Peter and John, just a couple of hillbillies from Galilee who should have stood with shuffling feet and downcast eyes. Instead they looked more like what they really were, ambassadors from the courts of heaven empowered with the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit transformed average men into anointed men.
II. A bold witness EMPLOYS the Scriptures (4:11). Peter quotes from the Old Testament in Acts 4:11. A confident witness will make much of the Scripture No Christian can progress very far in the Christian life or be effective in Christian service who does not make much of the Bible. The Bible is the Sword that is quick and powerful. Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
    The Bible paints the picture of the sinner The Bible presents the provision for salvation.
The Bible produces the people called saints. The Bible provides the message and produces the members of the church. ACTS 5:42 says And daily in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.". In another translation it says, they never stopped. The difference between our day and their day is the fact that we have stopped. Instead we have gone from proclaiming the word to talking about the Bible and they are two different things. That's the difference between us telling what we think the Bible means versus what the Bible says for itself. In the filming of the movie Ben Hur, the Star of the movie, Charlton Heston, had a difficult time learning how to drive the chariot. So after a great deal of practice, he mastered the art of chariot driving but he was slow and and so he went up to the director, Cecil B. DeMille and said, "I think I can drive the chariot, but I don't think I can win. " DeMille is said to have responded- Heston, Your job is to get up into the chariot and stay in the race. I'll be the one who makes sure you will win. And that is exactly what God has said to us.. God has given us the job of using the power of Scripture, not the power of our persuasive arguments, to bring people to salvation. I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. Rom. 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth;
III. A bold witness EXPRESSES what is SURE (4:20) The disciples could not stop speaking of what they had seen and heard (4:20). They had seen the risen Lord Jesus. They saw Him ascend into heaven. Peter and John knew that Jesus had changed their lives. The formerly crippled man knew that the name of Jesus had changed him. Anyone who has called upon the Lord to save him from his sins knows that He is mighty to save even the chief of sinners.

Many years ago, in fact I think I was still a teenager, a vacuum cleaner salesman appeared at our door. My mother was not at home and my dad was at work, so I opened the door and there stood this man, trembling, standing there with a vacuum cleaner in his hand. Nervously he said, "Son, you wouldn't want to by a vacuum cleaner or anything would you?" Unless you either take great pity on this poor excuse for a salesman or you badly needed what he was selling, you would not respond positively to his weak presentation. Though there are many differences between salesmanship and evangelism, there are a few parallels. An obvious parallel is that if you want to communicate effectively, you must be confident about your subject. The best salesmen honestly believes that his product is something that people really need. The best evangelists are confident that Jesus Christ is the only Savior and that people desperately need to trust in Him or they will perish.

A confident witness is one who gives a testimony that is based on personal knowledge. He does not tell what he thinks or supposes, but what he knows. He speaks only to what he knew as fact in his own case. He focuses on what he does know and not what he does not know. A man can be bold about what he knows. Proverbs 11:30 tells us "He that wins souls is wise." 1. ...some Christians think of witnessing as an assault by a God Squad of sorts. 2. ...some sort of spiritual mugging mission. A bold witnesses EMPHATICALLY declares the SAVIOUR The Sanhedrin had asked Peter, "By what power, or in what name, have you done this?" (4:7). Peter explained it simply: JESUS (4:10, 12). Salvation is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6) There is no other name. There is no salvation in any other. Peter and John were straightforward and to the point. Jesus is the only way to get to heaven, not one of the ways, but the ONLY way. If there is salvation in none other, THEN there must be ONE that is all-sufficient and His name is Jesus. Story- An accountant interviewed a few applicants for the position of a bookkeeper. He asked several respondants some basic math questions. One applicant in particular answered the question 7x3= 22, 7x5 = 34, 8x5= 41. When he checked his answers, he knew that he had gotten them wrong and did not expect to be hired for the position. He was surprised the next morning when the accountant phoned him: "Congratulations! We wanted you to know that we would like to offer the bookkeeper position to you if you are still interested." The applicant said, "Yes I'll take the job, but I'm curious. I know I got several of those math questions wrong and yet you still hired me. Why did you hire me when I got so many questions wrong?" The accountant responded: " Sir, you were the closest!" Some people have the mistaken idea that God is like the man who conducted the interview. They think it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're close to the truth However, it does matter- it is Jesus or eternal tragedy. Jesus is the only answer you can give and receive eternal life in Heaven. Our burden is to proclaim it.

Discipleship- Growing Up in Jesus

2009-05-16T13:49:00.001-07:00

Discipleship- Growing Up in Jesus

Acts 2:42-47

This morning I am struck by the fact that six years ago when we first moved here our oldest son was 13 almost 14. Jared was 12 and Jinger was 10. John is now almost 20. Jared graduates in a few short weeks and will soon be leaving us. Jinger also gets her driver's license next month. Someone said to me the other day- "the empty nest is coming- I guess that makes you sad that your children are growing up?" Misty eyed- yes. Going to miss them, you better believe it. But sad? No way- because this is what is supposed to happen. Growing up is part of life. Babies are cute but if a baby never grows up that's a tragedy. Because all living things grow. We are meant to grow. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. A couple of years ago there was a movie out that called "Failure to Launch." It traced the all-too-common pattern of a man who lived with his parents even after he was 40 years old. Its supposed to be a comedy. Tragically, this happens all too often- not just in the home, but even where its more tragic is when it happens in the church. Whether it's physical growth or emotional growth or spiritual growth, if you don't grow that's a tragedy. One of the purposes of a family is to help little babies that God places in them to grow to maturity. And one of the purposes of the church is to help baby Christians to grow to maturity Now, having a grown up son or daughter who is experiencing failure to launch in your home might be difficult to deal with- but having a whole bunch of people who chronologically are mature, but spiritually are immature is one of the paramount tragedies that faces the church today. And as your parents raised you so that you would one day get out on your own Jesus saved you so that one day you would grow up and be like Him. He wants fully grown-mature- men and women of God.

I. What? Grow.
⁴²They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching You read this passage we read earlier and we see the fantastic growth of the church taking place after Pentecost. I know that you have read it and heard it preached many times. It's a great passage because it describes an idyllic time in the life of the church. A model. And did you notice that, somewhere along the line, the original disciples of Jesus became known as apostles- that is, they became leaders. It didn't really take very long for this to happen. But it marks out the steady growth of these men whom Jesus chose, who gave them an expectation. Jesus told us in the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20) that we were to go and make disciples. Not just converts- but disciples. The word that we use for that maturing process in the church is called Discipleship. Its one of the five important ships of the fleet that we began looking at a couple of weeks ago. In the first century, a disciple was a student who was a follower of a teacher- usually a rabbi. A disciple was to a rabbi what an apprentice is to a Master trademan. Those of you who are farmers can probably understand this idea as much if not better than anyone. Its plowing up the soil, treating it, fertilizing it, sowing the seed, cultivating it and harvesting it. It's a long, difficult process. It is tedious and painstaking. But most of the time it is worth it. But it operates on the assumption that when you put something in the soil, its going to grow. Mothers understand this of their babies, that is why I Peter says As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word that
you
may
grow
thereby.--1 Peter 2:2. Growing is natural. Growing is healthy. Growing means that you are alive. If you have a baby and that baby is not growing, you would have that baby into see the pediatrician the first appointment you can get. They talk about growth percentiles and all this sort of thing.

Not long ago I read about a little girl in India who was not growing up. The article said that although she was five years old, she only weighed nineteen pounds. The problem was malnutrition. The shocking part of this article was it was a very common problem. In fact, in India it says that forty-six percent of Indian children are under nourished and under weight. Forty-six percent – that's nearly half. And thirty-eight percent of children in India have been permanently stunted in their growth. Permanently stunted! The thing that caught my eye was this: "Poverty is preventing a generation from growing up."

I could be wrong but I suspect that this is what is happening to our churches as well as individual believers. We're pretty good at getting a sinner to pray the sinner's prayer and maybe even get him to be baptized. But after that, we kind of leave them alone. Yes I know that its hard to encourage a full grown man that he needs to grow in Christ- to set down with you and go over Scripture together, teaching him how to pray how to read his Bible, helping him understand the necessity of it. But if he can see it in your life- it's a whole lot easier. But we are so conditioned instead of growing, learning, becoming more and more like Jesus. We want and come expecting to be entertained. I think somehow we have gotten caught up in the idea that we got to do what the world does and bring in the world in order to entertain one another. Come and see the show. Come listen to the choir sing, come hear the pretty music- give us a reason to get out of this warm bed on Sunday morning. Come watch the preacher knock himself out up there preaching and strutting around- couldn't tell you what he said as soon as you get to your car but oh how good he looked up there saying it. People come expecting to be entertained, and we feel the pressure to have to keep up with all the other churches are doing just to keep our doors open. Entertain us, but don't expect me to do anything about it, and for sure don't require me to go any deeper than where I am. That attitude reminds me of what Paul taught in 2 Timothy 4:3. He was telling Timothy to preach the Word, to be instant in season and out of season- why? "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; ⁴ and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables." Now friends, doesn't that sound like our generation today? Listen dear ones- those who complain about the present generation of people forget who raised them! Why do you come to church anyway?

Sort of reminds me of the family who came to church got out of there just as fast as they could as soon as the service was over. As soon as they got in the car to head to the Golden Corral they all began to complain about the service. Mama spoke up first and said, "Did you ever in your life hear so many sour notes our organist was playing. She did nothing but mess up the whole way through." Sister said, "Yea and the choir sounded so bad all I wanted to do was to cover my ears!" Daddy said, "Well the reason we're having to take off out of here so fast is because Pastor Jeff just goes on and on and on. I couldn't tell you what he said, because I feel asleep three times!" But then brother said, "Well you know, Daddy, for what I saw you put in when the offering plate came around, I thought it was a pretty good show for a dollar!"

II. Why Grow? ⁴⁴All the believers were together and had everything in common. The fact is that story would be really funny if it were not so true. And it points to the heart of what is happening to so many Christians and Christian families today. It's the reason why so many churches are closing their doors and why we have to prop up so many others is because we Christians are not wanting to grow. Probably its because they never took the time to ask why? This is what we have in common with each other- the need to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. Look with me over into Ephesians 4 for a moment, beginning at verse 11:

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴ that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵ but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16).
I know that was a lengthy passage but bear with me. Did you catch on to what Paul was saying here? At least three times Paul mentions the word growing or maturing- in fact in several different ways he expresses the same idea. Notice he says till we all come …to a perfect man. Does he mean perfect like you think he means perfect? Not at all- that word perfect means mature- growing, maturing in Christ. Doesn't mean sinless, but growing, learning- not just stuffing his head full of factual knowledge, but his character is being transformed. He is a changed man- he's different than he was when he got saved. In fact he is different than he was a month ago. That's what discipleship is all about- change. Changing. Transforming yourself with the Holy Spirit's power to be more and more like Christ. That's why we grow. I know a lot of people in the Baptist denomination don't like change. You can see that in our architecture. You can see that in the way we run our worship services, the songs we sing. We haven't changed a thing in years, preacher- and they are proud of it. Dr. Elmer Towns, my church growth professors up at Liberty says "we are so stuck in the past that if the year 1957 rolled around again, we'd be ready for it!" If we are not maturing, growing, learning, you know what we would be? (tell the story of the 85 year old widow who went out with a 95 year old man. Daughter worried, "Did you have a good time?" Mother said No- in fact I had to slap that old boy three times!" Daughter- "O I was afraid of that, he didn't try to get too frisky did he?" Mama said, "No." Well why did you slap him three times?" Mama: "Because each of those three times I thought he was dead!" If you are not growing, being a disciple, examine your heart. Paul said we should no longer be children…but grown up

III. How to Grow? (v.47) And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved In other words, how do we know when we get to the point of maturity? .When we have children ourselves. When we start bearing fruit. Jesus said in John 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.But many of us are afraid we're going to be like the nursery rhyme about the old woman who lived in the shoe, she had so many children, she didn't know what to do! And so they start practicing spiritual birth control, and never produce because new Christians are too much bother. Friends new Christians don't cause problems (in churches). They just reveal the problems that already exist."--With so much to know and so much to learn- its kind of overwhelming, isn't it? How do you know when you ever get to that mark of being a disciple? I would have to say, you know when you are mature when you start winning and helping others to grow in Christ?

I think back to my own life- when did I start becoming a mature person, and start thinking seriously about life and growing up? Its when our children came along. And our children came along a lot later than most people's did we were married 7 years before our first child came. A lot of our friends are grandparents now. My wife's sister who is 5 years younger is a grandmother. But that's ok. We were so busy in college and seminary days and then we birthed a new church before we ever started birthing babies. In three years God graced our home with three children. Ha! Be careful what you pray for. You'll get three kids in pampers all the same time. I Cor 13 but then I became a man, I put away childish things.

Look over in Hebrews 5:12-13, the writer of Hebrews tells us this as well: For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. ¹³ For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. ¹⁴ But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Do you need milk? Its time for solid food. It's time to open up your mouth for the meat of the word of God. We had some friends over to have dinner with us. They said- "We want to have you folks over next time," Then he said "Do you like T bone steaks!" We exclaimed- "Yes!" Then he said, "Well, bring 'em!" We here at Salem serve up we serve up the equivalent of a two inch thick T bone steak, spiritual food that's going to help you to grow- and us to grow as a body of believers. Making disciples. That's what we're about. That's why we grow. And how is by producing and nurturing other believers to be mature in their faith and that makes us mature ourselves.

[Worship: The Flagship of the Fleet

2009-05-05T13:16:00.001-07:00

Worship: The Flagship of the Fleet John 4:19-26

There is an old story about a Catholic priest, a Baptist pastor, and a rabbi. Their respective congregations were all complaining that preaching to people was easy. They said if they really wanted a challenge, the ministers should try preaching to a bear. So, the Catholic priest, the Baptist pastor, and the rabbi decided to take their congregations up on the challenge. They all agreed to go out into the woods, find a bear, preach to it, and try to convert it.So, a week went by and the three ministers met up again to talk about how things went. The priest was on crutches and he had one arm in a sling. He said, "I went into the woods to find a bear. And when I found one, I began to read to him from the catechism. But the bear didn't want anything to do with me and he began to slap me around. So, I grabbed my holy water and I sprinkled him and, sure enough, the bear became as gentle a lamb. The bishop is coming out next week to give him first communion and confirmation." The other two ministers were nodded that they were impressed. Then it was the Baptist pastor's turn to speak. He was in a wheelchair, with an arm and both legs in casts, and he had an IV drip. He said, "Well brothers, you know that we Baptists don't sprinkle! So, I went out and I found me a bear. And I began to read to him from God's holy word. But that bear didn't want anything to do with me. So, I took hold of him and we began to wrestle. We wrestled up one hill and down another until we came to a creek. And as quick as I could, I dunked the bear and baptized his hairy soul. And just like you said, he became as gentle as lamb. We spent the rest of the week fellowshipping together and praising Jesus." The priest and the pastor looked over at the rabbi. The rabbi was lying in a hospital bed, with a full body cast and all sorts of tubes and wires running out of him. And looking up at the other two, with a weak voice, he said, "Looking back on it now, circumcision may not have been the best way to start things out."

That joke makes you appreciate being a Baptist, doesn't it? But you know, Christians of all denominations are becoming less conscious of their distinctive and are trying desperately to understand their purpose and relevance- both to God and to the people they have been called to reach. So Today I'm going to begin a series of messages entitled, "The church, what's it all about?" And in the Word of God we find five different reasons for what we're all about: worship, discipleship, evangelism, ministry, and fellowship. Sounds like a lot of ships, doesn't it? In fact, its a whole fleet.

I. If there were the most important ship in this fleet of ships that I could name, I would have to say that its worship. And the first ship we're going to get on is worship and as we do we're going to explore part of our purpose about why Christ established His church and the part we play in it as we get on the worship. Jesus talked to a woman one day about what it is to worship. Ask a hundred people what is worship....and you'll probably get 100 different answers. The Bible doesn't give a formal definition of worship. But perhaps we can start by seeing what various words for worship mean. The English word "worship" comes from two Old English words: weorth, which means "worth," and scipe or ship, which means something like shape or "quality."

. The Samaritan woman said We worship up here on this mountain, where you Jews worship down in a temple in Jerusalem. But Jesus wasn't asking whose denomination did worship better Instead Jesus said, God is spirit, and he that comes to Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. The reason why is because its all about God. They that worship Him. The Hebrews had a certain word for worship in the Old Testament- the most common word for worship is the Hebrew word hishtahvah . Its basic meaning is "bow down," with the sense of reverence and respect and honor. It occurs 171 times. In the Greek Old Testament, 164 of those instances of this Hebrew word are translated by the Greek word proskuneo. When worshippers would come to the Temple, they would literally bow down or protrate themselves as But you will notice that Jesus says "There is one greater than the Temple is here."

The Samaritan woman's idea of worship was much like our idea of what worship is today. Have you ever wondered if we are more concerned with what worship does for us and less concerned for the object of our worship? I mean, it seems like we are more concerned with what we get than what we give. Its like taking a present to a birthday party, and then keeping the present for ourselves. I like what A.W. Tozer, great Christian theologian, once said "If you are bored in a worship service, you are probably not ready for heaven!" But all too often we hear people describing the worship service like they would a restaurant or a grocery store- "I really got a lot out of the service today" Really? I think I know what people are trying to say in a situation like that, but I'm always half-tempted to say, "Yea, well I wonder what did God get out of it? Because that's who its for. They that worship Him- Jesus tells the Samaritan woman what worship is all about. Its all about, its for God. The focus of our worship is upon no other one but God alone. Its not the building, its not the pastor, its not the singing, its not the choir. Its not the style of our worship. Its not even about our comfort. But the focus of our worship is on God. Psalm 45:11 Because He is Your Lord, worship Him. The Bible has given us a command, as well as an opportunity to respond.

Henry Ward Beecher was a great pastor of yesteryear. He had to be absent from the pulpit once Sunday, and so he asked his brother Thomas Beecher to fill in. When many of the folks saw that the famous Henry Beecher was not going to be preaching that Sunday.....they begin to leave. Undisturbed, Thomas simply said......would those who came to worship Henry Ward Beecher please leave, but those who came to worship God please be seated. Beecher revealed a lot about what those folks thought worship was all about. It wasn't about them and its not about us, its all about God. But you go to your typical Baptist church and it gives the impression that its more about them. About their comfort, about their pew, about their time- about what hymns they want and how long they want the sermon to be. I'm convinced that the more we make worship about God, and less about ourselves, the more God we are going to get.

II. God Is Seeking Those Who Will Worship In The Spirit. Now Jesus makes an interesting point here. He says that God seeking those who worship Him in spirit- why? Because God is spirit. Phil 3:3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. What happens when we worship in the Spirit.......? How do you know when the Spirit is there? The Spirit Produces Life. The services will come alive. This is true whether there is organ music or guitars and drums. The instruments themselves don't determine whether our worship will be vibrant or not- its the Spirit. The sermons will come alive.
Story about a church....had a man in the choir who couldn't sing. Others tried to help him find other places of ministry in the church without hurting his feelings but with no success. The choir director became so desperate that he went to the Pastor. The music director told the Pastor that he had to do something or he would quit, and half the choir would as well. After trying to beat around the bush, and make a point unsuccessfully....the Pastor finally told the man that he needed to leave the choir......why asked the man......Several people have told me you can't sing That's nothing....fifty people have told me you can't preach.....but you're still here !

The singing will come alive. And that's true whether we're singing traditional hymns or contemporary praise choruses. It makes no difference. If our worship is focused on God He wants to hear it all, and His spirit will mess with our spirit. The souls will come alive.You read over in the book of Genesis and you'll find that the first thing that moved on the earth was The Spirit of God.....but it seems to be the last thing moving in the church today. We walk in looking like our father in heaven died, and didn't leave us a cent. The Spirit Provides Liberty.

2 Cor. 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Liberty means freedom- free to express ourselves to God the way that God has made us to worship Him. Not in the stilted, constricted way that we try to do it sometimes, but in the freedom to express our worship to God without strings attached. Don't take this the wrong way, sometimes I would like to just take this order of service and just tear it up so that we could be free to worship the Lord, free from the institutions of people. Free from the conformity to the past. Free from the confines of the clock. Sometimes, believe it or not, we get in the way of real worship. We give people the idea that you have to get dressed up in a suit and a tie or a dress in order to worship God. Listen, my Jesus didn't get dressed in a coat and tie. And when He went to church, He wore a first century pair of flip flops. Now if you were born before 1970, Now I know its a cultural, generation idea that you were taught to wear a suit and tie because that went along with the idea that you wore a suit and a tie because people, and God deserves the respect that you give them when you dress that way. But does that mean God won't accept your worship if you don't come dressed for church that way? No- not as long as you are giving Him your best.

III. God Is Seeking Those Who Will Worship In Sincerity. That's what Christ means when He speaks of truth. It means true- true motives, sincere, honest, authentic. Have you ever gotten a limp-wristed handshake, where the person doesn't look you in the eye or insincere about having made your acquaintance? How does that make you feel? Diminished, embarrassed, angry? Then you will know how God feels when our worship of Him is not made in earnest.

1. Sincere in Purpose. I love what David said in "I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart;I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High," Psalm 9:1-2. "Praise ye the LORD. I will praise the LORD with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation," Psalm 111:1. "Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise," Psalm 98:4.

Now that is sincerity in worship. David had the right idea about how to approach the Lord, right motive.....the correct purpose for his worship ! We need to be sincere in our purpose or motive for worshiping. Old song......I don't know what you came to do.......people come to worship services for different reasons. The Pharisees of Jesus day just wanted to be seen, and heard ! They wanted to make a name for themselves.....and they did. Jesus called them hypocrites ! What a difference it would make if the believers all came together with singleness of purpose, and we turned our heart heavenward and worshipped the Lord !

2. Sincere in Praise. True praise begins in the heart....the pure heart. God gets no satisfaction from those who shout in the church.... but wont speak of him or for him in public. He is not blessed by lips that honor him when the heart is distant. Psalm 122:1 I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.

3. Sincere in Prayers. God is not interested in how long our prayers are......or how good our vocabulary is......I've heard some folks pray as though their trying to impress those around with extensive knowledge of the English language. Pardon me.....but God isn't interested in what we say if it comes from a heart that is not sincere ! Are you worshipping as God desires ? Perhaps, we need to evaluate our worship. Are we spirit-filled ? Are we sincere, genuine in our worship ?

Worship is the flagship. When you walk up the gangplank of a boat or a ship you have to either get on board or get off. Because when that ship starts to sail either you will be on the deck, on the dock, or in the drink. God takes on no halfhearted passengers who want to experience Him.

john

2009-04-11T16:24:00.001-07:00

John

My name is John. I was the youngest of Jesus' disciples. I along with my brother James Jesus called us "The Sons of Thunder!" That's because we were loud, and maybe a little bit obnoxious- and sometimes even arrogant. There wasn't anything we thought we couldn't do. It really made the other disciples mad when our mama asked Jesus if we could sit on the right and on the left of Him when He came into His Kingdom. But you see, for the first time in my life I saw a man I really looked up to and respected, a man who could do anything, one who said "nothing shall be impossible for you!" I wanted what He had, and that's why I stayed as close to Jesus as I possibly could.

Then came that fateful night when Jesus gathered us for the last time. None of us knew it, though. He started talking about us having greater power than He had and doing greater things than He did and I couldn't understand what He was talking about when He said He was going away! I felt ashamed of myself that night after the Passover, when Jesus asked us to watch and pray. What did I do? I fell asleep when I should have been watching. I woke from my slumber again as the Jews came and they took Him. I was so scared I didn't know what to do. I followed along as close as I dared to get while they did all kinds of terrible things to Him. They beat Jesus with a cat of nine tails and struck Him so many times I thought my heart would break. Then they led Him up to Golgotha where they stripped Him and nailed Him to that terrible cross. It made me want to vomit, the things that they did to Him. But Jesus had been there for me, so many times! I knew I could not leave Him, especially now when He needed me.

Jesus looked down at me as He hung there on that Cross. He looked first at His mother who stood there and said, "Woman, behold your son." And then He looked at me again and said, "Son, behold your mother." For some reason Jesus entrusted His own mother into my care. I felt so unworthy- after all, I had run out on Jesus when He needed me the most. How could I look after His mother when I could not even look after myself?

I was too horrified to look as I saw Jesus breathe for the last time. If that day was bad, the next few nights were worse as I shook in fear for my life, wondering if the next knock at the door would be the soldiers coming to carry me away and crucify me just as they had done to Jesus. I stayed with Peter until when that knock at the door came. I decided, I would be brave, remembering how brave Jesus was when He went to the Cross. However, the knock at the door revealed only Mary Magdalene, our friend and follower of Jesus. She cried, "He is not here, He is risen just as He said!" Peter and I just looked at each other, dismissive of Mary's claims until suddenly Peter bolted up and ran out the door. It took me a minute to figure out where Peter was running until it occurred to me that Peter must be running to the tomb where Jesus lay.

As I said, I was the youngest. That also meant I was the fastest and ran just as hard as I could and flew by Simon Peter like a flash. I got to the tomb first. The stone was rolled from the entrance, just as Mary said. But I feared to go in. Simon Peter caught up with me as I stood there doubled over, panting hard to get my breath. Simon Peter went on in. The grave clothes were there, but no Jesus! That was when I realized that Jesus had risen. I knew it had to be the way He said it would be. I saw and believed!

Mary magdalene

2009-04-11T16:23:00.001-07:00

Mary Magdalene

My name is Mary. I came from the village of Magdala not far from Jerusalem and this is my story. I was the first to arrive at the tomb of Jesus very early in the morning before the sun even came up. I did not go there alone. I had Mary, the dear mother of Jesus with me, and another friend by the name of Joanna with me. Why were three women out late at night, trying to get into a tomb, knowing that what we were doing was very dangerous?

Jesus, my Lord and my Master, had been crucified. In horror we watched Him die that day! If that was not horrifying enough, we watched as the Romans bundled his body up and started dragging it away. If it weren't for Joseph, they would have thrown Jesus' body away like so much garbage. There wasn't much time. Joseph went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body so that it could be buried properly in his family tomb. Sundown- and the Sabbath was coming. All Joseph could do was to hurridly throw some sheets on Jesus' body and place him in the tomb. But us women knew that this would never do. It was bad enough to see him have to leave this world the way He did. The very least thing we could do for Him was to give Him a decent burial.

Mary, Joanna, and I prepared the spices, gathered some clean linen, and aloes, and made our way to the Garden where Jesus was. It was so early, but we couldn't sleep anyway. We were so frightened. It was after dark. What if robbers would attack us on the way? And another thing, what were we going to do when we got to the tomb. We knew the soldiers were guarding it. How were we going to persuade them to let us in. Would they roll the stone away for us or would we have to do it? How were we supposed to do that? These nagging questions persisted, but it was our faith- and our love for Jesus that urged us on. So many times we had seen Jesus do the impossible- we felt guilty for these doubts, especially after we arrived at the tomb that morning.

Imagine our shock after we got there, standing there looking at the open grave with the stone already rolled back! Who could have done this? We saw the low flicker of torches glowing up above- no sense in asking the soldiers what was going on- they were sound asleep! Could someone have taken Jesus' body away and they not know it?

Joanna and Mary ran home weeping. They left me standing there thinking the worst. Tears blinded my eyes for several moments when someone called out my name. "Mary!" he said. Who was this? The gardener? But how could he have known my name? "Why are you crying?" he asked. It didn't occur to me how strange this was, "Because they have taken my Lord away and I don't know what they did with Him. If you know tell me please so I can go get Him!"

Through my tears, and through my doubts I saw Him. It was no gardener! It was Jesus- come to life again! All I could do was to want to throw my arms around Him. I couldn't believe my eyes! He was alive!

But Jesus said to me, "Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go and tell my disciples that I am alive again just as I said."

Simon peter

2009-04-11T16:22:00.001-07:00

Simon Peter

My name is Simon Peter. I am one of Jesus disciples. Many looked up to me but I don't know why, because all I did when they put my Lord on trial was to deny I ever knew Him. I followed Him a far off, even when they crucified Him I could not bear to watch them do it. Yes, every one looked up to me, but all I could do is to run and hide like some coward. For three days I hid out, fearing for my life. That last night was the worst- I could not sleep. The knock at the door startled me. "O God! Have they come for me, too?"

The knock was not like a man would do it. Who could it be so early in the morning before daybreak? John got up from where he was-at least he had the fortitude to answer the door. There stood Mary, Joanna, and Mary Magdalene! What on earth were they doing, standing there so early in the morning?

Then they all started talking at once- "He's alive, He's alive, we saw Him. Come and see where they laid Him, Jesus is risen from the dead!" Hush, hush now, ladies- please! You are all beside yourselves. Women! They can be so emotional. They got themselves so worked up that they were no longer making sense. It was like a dream, or maybe some cruel joke. Who could have stolen Jesus' body? I lit out of there- wait till I get my hands on whoever did this! When I get there, they will know that I, Simon Peter, had been there.

I ran as fast as I could. I used to be pretty fast on my feet but I'm not as young as I used to be. From out of nowhere a man rushed past me. IT was John. He is always such a show-off! Anyway, he got to the tomb before I did and stood there at the entrance. I was out of breath by the time I arrived, but I saw the stone rolled away from the entrance, just as Mary had said. I also went on in, and saw the place where Jesus lay, but nothing was there but grave clothes right there where Jesus had been. Surely this was some kind of a joke. If they stole His body, why would they not have kept Him in the grave clothes? Something really strange was going on here! John then came in. We stood there totally bewildered as to what had happened that morning!

I had forgotten. I had completely forgotten what Jesus said that He would be crucified and in three days He would rise again. I put Him down for it. I told Him, "Not so, Lord!" I remember how He pursed His lips and said, "Get behind me, Satan!" I never knew how much like Satan I could be until I denied Him. All those feelings of guilt and remorse and sorrow came over me until I heard Jesus say to me Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?"

"Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you."
Then He said to me "Feed my sheep."

sunrise

2009-04-11T16:21:00.001-07:00

Sunrise

"A Celebration of Christ's Resurrection"

Salem Baptist Church

Call to Worship: "The Lord's Prayer"

Welcome

Scripture: I Corinthians 15:1-8, 12-19

Dramatic Readings: John

Chorus of Praise: "Were You There?"

Dramatic Readings: Peter

Chorus of Praise: "Lord I Lift Your Name on High"

Dramatic Readings: Mary

Chorus of Praise: "Shout to the Lord"

The Ordinance of the Lord's Supper

Benediction: "Blessed Be the Tie that Binds"

Dirty Jobs

2009-03-21T19:31:00.001-07:00

Dirty Jobs

John 13:1-13:17

There's a popular TV show on the Discovery Channel- its called Dirty Jobs. The premise of the show is that the host Michael Rowe goes around the country looking for the most menial, dangerous, or filthy job he can find and reports on it. Some of the jobs range from scraping pigeon poop off of chimneys to wading through open sewers as well as performing artificial insemination on cows to sorting trash at the city dump. Those are all dirty- perhaps even disgusting jobs but the fact is someone's got to do them. And as he introduces himself he says, Hello, my name is Mike Rowe, and this is my job: I explore the country looking for people who aren't afraid to get dirty—hard-working men and women who earn an honest living doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us. You might remember a job like that or you might even do it now. ?

The scene we are witnessing took place no more than 24 hours before the end of His life. Yet more was written about Jesus' last 24 hours than was written on the first 33 years of His life. So is the day when Jesus went to the cross to die for our sins. What I find most strange is that during this 24 hour period, as if His going to the cross were not a selfless act. Even so, Jesus stoops down to perform a particularly dirty job and that was the act of washing His disciples' feet. But when He did Jesus this he foreshadowed the ultimate dirty job, and that was when he laid His life down on a filthy cross to take the sins of the world on Himself. Showed us several important truths about serving others and this is what we are going to look at this morning.

I. Somebody's Got to Do it (v. 4 ) rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. Jesus engaged here in a dirty job- the dirty job of washing the feet of His disciples. It was customary when guests would come into a home to have them remove their sandals. A servant or slave would then come in and kneel at their feet with a bucket of water. That servant would then bathe their feet and in some cases anoint them with perfume. We're reminded just one chapter earlier how the woman came in and anointed Jesus' feet with her tears and the spikenard, and then dried them with her hair. His disciples were there, and they witnessed this spectacle, and yet as soon as they got to the place where they were to celebrate the Passover, none of them took the initiative to do what this woman had done. They had even been talking among themselves about who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven. They looked themselves over in their so-called pecking order. Maybe they were thinking, "Who is going to do it? Somebody's going to do it? We know this because this was a job that was supposed to have been done before they ever entered the room to sit down. They were already engaged in the meal.

Ever have one of those jobs, ever see one of those jobs that you think- somebody needs to do something? Ever been the first one at the scene of a big mess and then pretend that you didn't see it? Maybe there is a diaper that needs changing or the dog had an accident or you come into the church and discover that the toilet has overflowed and there is unpleasantness everywhere-and you just happen to stumble onto the scene. Or maybe It's kind of like this old story about four people: Their names were Everybody, Somebody, Nobody, and Anybody. Whenever there was an important job to be done, Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. When Nobody did it, Everybody got angry because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Somebody would do it, but Nobody realized that Nobody would do it. So consequently Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done in the first place. Everybody's always looking around for somebody.

Yet Jesus, the Bible says, knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and so he took off his cloak put a towel around His waist and washed the dirty feet of His disciples. This was the last lesson Jesus was to teach them. He did not have the time to hold a seminar or to teach a course on the subject. There was only one way Jesus could do this in order to make the fullest impact possible. To show them the priority of serving by finding the most degrading job he could think of at that moment to show them what it was He was going to do in a few hours time when He went to the cross to take on His body the filth and the sin of all humanity, and doing so as a suffering, loving servant- the One about whom was written in Isaiah 53:4-6 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Jesus became that Somebody- that somebody who loved us so much that He took upon Himself the dirt job of handling the filth of the whole world, suffering and dying for us. And seeing that He has done this for us, is there anything that we would be unwilling to do for our Lord.

II. The second thing Jesus showed about dirty jobs is that we have to do them no matter how important we think we are, To serve in spite of rank or status. (v.6)
And this is significant because these disciples were just having a discussion about who among them was the greatest.

A navy chaplain told me this story while working with a large group of women for the fleet family support group- all of them were military wives. The chaplain said, "Now ladies before we begin this meeting we're going to do a little exercise. I want you all to line up each according to rank." He said. All at once the women began to position themselves- putting the admiral's wife and the CPO's wife up front, with the so-called chain of command. In a moment, the chaplain broke it off. He said, "What are you doing? Your husbands might have a rank, but you have no rank!"

And that's the way it is with us as fellow servants of Jesus Christ. Only Jesus Christ is the head of this church. He is in charge of it. None of us have any rank in the church- not if we are servants, Our families may have belonged to this church for a few weeks or even a couple of hundred years- and while that might mean something to us it means nothing to God. Clearly if there ever someone who was a Somebody, Jesus made Himself a nobody. who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. (Phil 2:6-8)

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; yet He reached up to His disciples by stooping down to serve them. This is exactly how we are going to reach the world for Him, reaching out, and reaching up, by stooping down.

The late Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's hamburger chain was known for his humble service within the multi-billion dollar empire he founded. When asked what made him so successful; he replied, "my MBA." But he didn't mean a graduate degree in business education, he meant "a mop- and-bucket attitude." In other words, no work task was too insignificant for him to tackle; he simply jumped in and got the job done. He never asked anyone to do anything he was unwilling to do himself. Dave Thomas was an extremely busy man- but if he saw a need, he did it. And I want to ask right now "Who in this church is not extremely busy?" I want to see a show of hands. If you put your hand up, its probably because you were so busy at one time and you are now worn out. Everybody here is busy. There's not a one in this room- with a few exceptions, who is not. I realize its not always pleasant to serve others. Its not always convenient. We all think that what we got going on is more important than what others have going on. Especially if we think we have a more responsible position or job than others have, etc Guess what, God has called us as Christians who are busy people because He knows busy people will find a way to get a job done. He knows better than to call a lazy person just to get them involved. But don't ever think you are busier than somebody else.

Paul tells us in For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Romans 12:3 This also answers those who think they don't have to do certain things anymore.

Jesus also told His disciples- But Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, "You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. 44 And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."
Mark 10:42-45 The word servant, by the way, comes from the word diakonos. IT is also the same word we get Deacon from. And I have to tell you, I have been in a lot of churches and never have I seen such model examples of servanthood like I have seen in our deacons. These men are the busiest men in this church and in this community. They might not be doing the things you think they should be doing, that's because they are doing what the Lord wants them to do. A couple of them are retired men- that means they are busier than anybody else. And I cite them to tell you sometimes we have the attitude that our deacons and other spiritual leaders are part of the woodwork. We take them for granted sometimes. We think of our best servants like the plumbing around here- don't ever think about them until its not working properly. Jesus, was the Lord of the Universe. If anyone didn't have to humble himself to wash the feet of farmers and fishermen, He didn't. But because he knew he was Lord of the Universe, Because He knew, He was not diminished by showing his love in humble service, he took up the towel and basin and stooped to serve.

III. The last thing about dirty jobs here is that in order to have part in His Kingdom, we must let Christ to do a dirty job on us. (v.8)

A young woman asked for an appointment with her pastor to talk with him about a besetting sin about which she was worried. When she saw him, she said, "Pastor, I have become aware of a sin in my life which I cannot control. Every time I am at church I begin to look around at the other women, and I realize that I am the prettiest one in the whole congregation. None of the others can compare with my beauty. What can I do about this sin?" The pastor replied, "Mary, that's not a sin, why that's just a mistake!"

Peter almost made that mistake. Because when Jesus came to Simon Peter, he could not bring Himself to let his Lord wash his feet and asked Him "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" (v.7) Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." "No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet." Just like Peter it is pride that often keeps us from letting Jesus cleanse us. We want to be self sufficient. It shames us that the Son of God should have had to die for our sins. We want so badly to be considered good people in our own right, by our own effort. Truly unless we let Him cleanse us, we have no part with Him.

Unless we recognize the mistake of our pride--the mistake that says, "I'm good enough on my own" then we make no room for Jesus. Unless we confess our need, confess our sin and humbly ask his forgiveness, trusting that His death on the cross paid the price for our sins, we are doomed to an eternity without him.

Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." "Then, Lord," Simon Peter replied, "not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!" The point here is made so well. We cannot be qualified as servants unless we have first allowed ourselves to be served by the chief servant, Jesus Christ. When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

Washing Disciples’ Feet

2009-03-18T06:21:00.001-07:00

You know what I discovered as I made that list? It is difficult to say exactly what a servant does, but you know one when you see one. It is hard to get a good definition of what servanthood is, but you sure know what it is when you experience it. I thought about Delores Bolton, a church secretary for 30 years, one of the most retiring, shy, unassuming people I have ever known. Buford Thornton, a pharmacist, was one of my father's best friends; Hal Kirby, who had so much help for me when my father died; my friend Libby Redwein down in Texas. Of those people, none of them are famous as the world counts fame. None of them are great and there is no reason that you would know any of them. And yet, when I thought of servants, those are the people I thought of. Why? Because you may not know how to define it, but you sure know a servant when you meet one.

I draw some conclusions from that.

#1 Being a servant is an attitude, not an action.

So many of us think, "Tell me what I need to do if I'm going to be a servant." Being a servant doesn't start with what you do, being a servant starts with the attitude of the heart.

#2 Servants come in all sizes, all shapes and all colors.

These people are some of the most ordinary people in all the world. Mannford George Guchki said it this way, "The servant of God may be a very ordinary person with a very ordinary manner of life."

#3 Anyone can be a servant if they have a servant's heart.

What is it that makes the difference between being a servant and not being a servant? Is it visiting a nursing home? Is it baking bread for those who are sick? Is it giving money to those who are in need? No, because you can visit a nursing home with a servant's heart or you can do it out of a sheer sense of obligation. You can bake bread because you want to serve somebody, or you can do it because you want to win favor and have them praise you. You can give money because you really want to serve, or you can give money in order to curry favor with somebody. The same action can be the action of a servant or the action of a proud person. What makes the difference is the motivation inside the human heart.

#4 Some people will find it easier to be a servant than other people.

However, the Bible commands us all to be servants whether we find it easy or difficult. Somebody said to me last week, "Are you going to talk about the spiritual gift of being a servant or the spiritual gift of service?" I said yes. I am doing it right now. I just want to acknowledge that there is such a thing as a spiritual gift of service. There are those people inside the body of Christ who are specially gifted by God at serving others. Romans 12:7 says, "If your gift is service, let him serve." The other part is the part that all believers, whether they have the gift or not, are commanded to serve one another. Galatians 5:13 states, "You therefore, have been set free. But do not use your freedom as an excuse to indulge the flesh, but rather serve one another in love." So whether you find it easy or whether you find it difficult to be a servant, it is still commanded that you should have a servant's heart.

#5 Jesus Christ is the ultimate or model servant for the people of God.

There are two verses that you ought to tattoo on your soul. The first is Mark 10:45, "For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve." The second is Philippians 2:5, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." What was Jesus, why did he come? He was a servant, he came to serve.

Where do you find servanthood in the life of Christ? I think you could go almost anywhere in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, but to me the supreme expression was Thursday night in the Upper Room. The disciples gather with Jesus for their final meal. They are all there—James and John, Judas, Peter, Bartholomew, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot. They are chattering in a nervous tone. Things aren't going well. The men know that something is up. Jesus seems pensive and quiet. He doesn't seem his usual gregarious self. He talks, but it seems as if he has something on his mind and indeed he does. Jesus, as he eats that meal, knows that before long Judas will come with a kiss, the Roman soldiers will come to arrest him, and soon he will stand before Herod and Annas and Caiphas and Pilate. Soon, in just a matter of hours, he will be hanging on a cross. The chatter goes on back and forth and Jesus listens. Suddenly, without a word, he stands up. Without any explanation, he takes off his tunic and wraps the towel of a slave around his waist. Taking a pitcher of water, he goes to the end of the table and kneels down. Without a word he takes the feet of the disciple. He brushes the dirt off and begins to splash the water on the feet. He massages it. When it is clean, he takes the towel and wipes the feet dry. He goes to the next one and does the same thing. In the room there is silence, total silence. No one dares to speak. They cannot believe what Jesus is doing.

Four facts about foot washing:

1) Foot washing was considered an ordinary sign of common courtesy.

To us what he did was bizarre and unusual, but in those days foot washing was just what you did when somebody came to your house. The roads in Palestine were dry and dusty, except when it rained they turned into a quagmire of mud. So even if your feet were clean when you left your house, by the time you got wherever you were going, your feet would be covered with dust and dirt and grime and grit. So it was common in those days that if you came to my house for the evening, when you arrived I would greet you with a kiss on the cheek, I would offer you oil to rub on your face, then I would call my servant, who would kneel down and take off your sandals and he would wash your feet. That was a sign of common courtesy.

But what was NOT common was for the host to wash the feet of his guests. Foot washing was the work of slaves. It was the mark of a rich man that he never had to wash anybody's feet because he had enough servants to handle the feet of anybody who came to see him. But Jesus broke the rules and that's why they were so shocked—not that somebody would wash their feet, but that Jesus was the one doing it. That broke all the customs of the day.

2) Foot washing by definition is dirty, smelly and humiliating.

Have you ever tried to wash somebody's feet at the end of a long, hard day? Have you ever tried to wash somebody's feet covered with grime, perspiration, somebody's feet when the feet really stink? Have you ever put your face right down next to an ingrown toenail? It's not as much fun as you think it is. There are some churches, I think the Freewill Baptist are among them, that will have foot washing as a part of their regular practice. Some churches even call it a Third Ordinance —Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the Washing of Feet. They will say, "On Thursday night we're going to have a foot washing ceremony." So everybody will come out on Thursday night. Only what do they do before they come to church? They wash their feet. Because you don't want anybody touching your dirty feet. But that misses the point. The only feet that need washing are dirty feet. Just to have somebody messing around with your feet is embarrassing.

As I was preparing this, my mind went back to Seminary days when I took a course called The Upper Room Discourse (John 13-17) in Greek exegesis. There were about twelve of us in the class. It was taught by a young professor at Dallas called John Best. John Best had always struck me as a rather proper, rather straight, non-exciting, typical Greek teacher, knowing the adverbs and participles, but nobody that would surprise you. We were a couple of weeks into the class and we came to this passage in John 13. We were all sitting around a table and he had a box next to him. He started to talk about the Greek text, about participles and adverbs and conjunctions and pluperfects, and suddenly he said, "Take off your shoes, men." I don't like it when somebody says that. We all looked at him. "Go on," he said, "Take off your shoes." So we reluctantly took off our shoes. He opened up his box and said, "Give me your shoes." He started polishing our shoes. He said, "I could have washed your feet, but you would have thought that was bizarre. But shoe shining is something you pay people to do. That is the closest I can come." When he came to me, it bothered me. I didn't want to give him my shoes because my shoes were old. My shoes were dirty. My shoes had a hole in the bottom. Because my shoes had been on my feet, they stunk. With my shoes off, my feet were stinking. I didn't feel comfortable. That was 17 years ago, but when I came to this passage, that is exactly what came back to my mind, because any time people start messing around with your feet and you don't expect them to, it's uncomfortable. It's dirty; it's humiliating. It makes you vulnerable.

3) Foot washing, though often misunderstood, meets a very real need for continued cleansing.

Peter told the Lord, "Don't touch my feet. You're not washing my feet. Jesus, what are you doing?" By the way, when Peter spoke up, I think he was speaking for all the disciples. As usual, Peter was blurting out the concern of all of them. In Peter's mind and in the mind of the disciples, what Jesus was doing was demeaning. You didn't do that. That was slaves' work. Don't, Lord, don't touch my feet. That's not your job. That's beneath you. What bothered them was not what he was doing, it's that he was doing it. Foot washing was OK as long as a person of lower class or lower position did it. But to see the Son of God do it, that was a bother. That just blew all their preconceptions; it destroyed their status quo notions.

I have a question for you. If foot washing was common, and it was, and they had come together as friends, and they had, then why hadn't they already washed each other's feet? And why hadn't they washed Jesus' feet already? What was it the disciples were talking about before and during the Last Supper? What was the topic? Who's going to be the greatest. Jesus was about to be crucified, and they were arguing about who would be on his left and right. Listen, as long as you're arguing about who's the greatest, you're not going to have any time to do foot washing, because foot washing and looking out for number one are mutually exclusive. In that room you had a bunch of proud hearts and dirty feet. They would fight over a throne, but they wouldn't fight over a towel and a basin.

Not only that, the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet is meant to be a picture of his work on the cross. The disciples didn't understand that. It is meant to picture the cleansing that his death can provide. The dirt on the feet is just a symbol of the dirt that's inside the soul. The dirt on the outside is just a picture of the dirt of sin, and the water that washes away the dirt of the feet is a symbol of the blood of Christ which washes away the dirt of sin. Coming to Christ is having his blood wash away the dirt of your sin. Therefore, having your feet washed is like coming to Christ because all you do is sit there and Jesus does it all. That is what salvation is like. You're dirty and he comes and cleans you up. I heard somebody say a few months ago that coming to Christ is like taking a shower on the inside. There are some of us this morning who need a shower on the inside. You are clean on the outside but you're dirty on the inside. What you need is inner cleansing.

Our hymns speak of that. "What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus." "There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stain." "Down at the cross where my Savior died, down where for cleansing from sin I cried, there to my heart was the blood applied, glory to his name." "Dark is the stain that I cannot hide. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all my sin." "Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow." If you're dirty, I know where you can be made clean. I know somebody who can clean you up from the inside out. His name is Jesus.

4) Foot washing will never go out of style because you'll never run out of dirty feet.

Everybody has dirty feet. That's one good thing about foot washing. Everybody around you has dirty feet. Wouldn't it be great if we would take a few minutes now to prove that, to take our shoes off and check everybody out? That would be the end of the service. Even to think about it is frightening because underneath all the exterior, we've all got dirty feet. Jesus came to a world of dirty feet. He came to clean the dirty feet, which means he came for you because your feet are dirty too.

That brings me to the end of the message from Jesus Christ to you. He got to the end of the foot washing and asked the question in verse 12, "Do you understand what I have done for you?" In order to answer that question, you have to go back to verse 1, which says, "He now showed them the full extent, the completeness of his love." Verse 3, "Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power and that he had come to God and was returning to God." So in washing their feet he was giving them a parable, an acted-out object lesson. He wasn't just washing their feet. He was saying, "This is who I am. This is why I have come to earth. This explains the cross. I came as a servant, to wash dirty feet." The greatest washing of all took place when he died on the cross and his blood was poured out. The answer to his question, "Do you understand?" is no, they didn't. So like any good teacher he goes ahead and gives them the truth, the command and the promise.

The truth is found in verse 13, "You call me teacher and Lord and rightfully so, for that is what I am." The truth is you call me Lord. What is the command? Verses 14 and 15, "Now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you." The command is do as I have done. Brothers and sisters, that is a shocking thought, because to wash feet is the work of slaves. It is not the work you would think of for the Son of God. No wonder they were upset, baffled, confused. No wonder the disciples tried to protest. After all, these are the same geniuses who just ten minutes before were arguing about who would be greatest in the kingdom. End of argument. Jesus is saying, "If you're going to be my disciples, just go wash dirty feet and let the kingdom take care of itself. If you're going to follow me, just get down on your hands and knees and find some feet to wash. In the end all that throne stuff and kingdom stuff will be taken care of." That's the message. Here's the promise in verse 17, "Now that you know these things, you'll be blessed if you do them."

Brothers and sisters, I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is feet stink. If you're going to wash feet, you're going to do some humbling things and some humiliating things and you're going to be involved in some situations that aren't very nice or popular or that aren't going to be seen by the masses. You aren't necessarily going to be applauded for doing it. The good news is there is a great reward for foot washers. You're blessed if you do these things.

Three reasons why we ought to wash dirty feet:

#1 Because Jesus did it.

#2 Because dirty feet need washing.

#3 Because we're blessed when we do it.

Here is my whole sermon in one sentence: The followers of Jesus distinguish themselves through humble acts of service to those who don't expect it and are unable to repay it. Foot washing is a distinctive mark of the followers of Jesus Christ.

Only one question is left this morning. It is very simple. Jesus said, "Do as I have done." My question to you is this: who's feet are you going to wash this week? It is time for us to move away from theory and get over into practice. It is time for us to move away from talk and get over into action. You see, if all you do is just say, "Well, Pastor Ray, that was a nice sermon," and you walk out of here and it doesn't change you and affect you, you might as well not have been here at all. Jesus didn't say, "Blessed are you if you know what I know." Jesus said, "Blessed are you if you do what I do."

How did Jesus do it? Note this: 1) He saw a need and moved to meet it. 2) He didn't wait for an invitation. 3) He took the initiative. 4) He took off his uniform of greatness and got down on his knees. 5) He didn't announce what he was going to do. He didn't stand up and say, "Well, men, I'm Jesus and now I'm going to wash your feet." 6) He didn't wait for a thank you and didn't receive one either. That is what a servant does. He sees the need and moves to meet it.

Just remember this. It all starts in the heart. I'm going to give you some suggestions, but I'm halfway scared to. You'll hear my suggestions and you'll think that a servant must do something. Servanthood begins with an attitude of the heart. A couple of years ago the staff got together and came up with a list called "Fifty ways to wash feet." Here are some of them.

Running errands for a friend.Baking a cake for a shut in.Opening your home for international students.Giving $20 with a note of encouragement to a single mom.Confronting a friend who has strayed from the Lord.Driving car pool to Awana.Making tape recordings for the blind.Hugging your children every day.Refusing to repeat gossip.Sending flowers to a friend.Meeting a new Christian at 6:30 a.m. for discipleship.Picking up your own dirty underwear.Giving anonymously so a single Mom can go to Snow Camp.Intervening in a quarrel to bring two friends back together.Buying food for the food pantry.Tutoring at Circle Urban Ministries. Helping a friend light the pilot in their boiler. Writing your parents a love note. Cleaning up the kitchen so your wife can read the paper. Complimenting your boss. Keeping a secret you'd really like to share. Spending Saturday helping a friend move. Raking leaves for a senior citizen. Changing the oil on a friend's car.Making supper for a new mom. Baking an extra loaf of bread for your child's teacher. Visiting a nursing home.Counseling at the Crisis Pregnancy Center.Inviting college students over for Sunday dinner. Volunteering to serve in the nursery.Washing windows at the church. Reading books to children. These are just suggestions. The heart is what matters. The servant's heart will always find plenty of dirty feet to wash. If you have the right kind of heart, you will find 10,000 times 10,000 opportunities this week to wash dirty feet.

I want you to pray a prayer right now. The prayer is, "Lord, whose feet should I wash this week?" Don't pray for ten names. Start with just one, your husband, your wife, your children, your family, your friends, people across the street, your co-workers, somebody you barely know. Ask the Lord for one name right now. Now that you have the name, write down the initials of the person the Lord has shown you. This will help you be accountable to God, to seal the decision.

It's not that difficult if you have the right kind of heart. If you don't, it's impossible. Anyone can wash dirty feet. You can. If you're willing to kneel down and if you don't mind your hands getting wet and if you don't mind dirty feet you can do it. You can wash feet this week if you're willing to be a servant, not a big shot. Jesus said, "Do as I have done for you." The only question this morning is this, "When will we take the words of Jesus seriously?"

Lord Jesus, for too long we have overlooked your words and we wonder why the world has overlooked us. Forgive us for our disobedience. Send the Holy Spirit to do a deep work of repentance within us. Grant that we might leave this place determined to become foot washers for you. As you were not ashamed to kneel before your brothers, may we not be ashamed to do as you have done, and so prove ourselves worthy to bear your holy name in the world. Amen.

Church growth

2009-03-18T06:19:00.001-07:00

What do you think of when you hear the words "church growth"? What kinds of associations do you make? The question is an important one because the phrase has come to signify one of the most popular and, at the same time, provocative ideas in the recent memory of American Evangelicalism. Hundreds of thousands of people flock to the Western Meccas of suburban mega-churches, while others have, for one reason or another, decided to remain warily aloof. But the importance of the church growth question lies not merely in developing an educated opinion about a current methodological fad. Rather, the question of how we understand, value, and pursue growth in our churches has to do with the way we read our Bibles, what we think a truly converted Christian is, and what we think the local church should be doing. In other words, our model of church growth strikes at the very heart of what we say we believe, and what we intend to do about it. The way we define church growth will determine the way we measure it. The way we measure it will determine how we pursue it. How we pursue it will determine our effectiveness in achieving it. And what it is that we actually achieve will determine whether or not our churches honor God's plans, goals, and values for the local church. As you can well see, there is much more at stake here than initially meets the eye.

God warned Moses to build the tabernacle after the pattern he was shown on the Mount (Ex 25:9, 40; 26:30; Acts 7:44; cf. esp. Heb 8:5). Moses was not free to choose any pattern or method that suited his fancy or worked best with his culture. God had a pattern for the tabernacle because He had a plan to inhabit it - Moses was to build it for God's pleasure, not man's. We believe that God has a similarly normative blueprint for His New Temple, the Church. Just like the tabernacle, the blueprint for the Church is tailored to the personal specifications of the Master Architect Who plans to move into it. And that blueprint should serve as our normative guide for the way we go about building the New Temple - for the way we understand and promote growth in the local church. From tools to design, from materials to the finished product and its intended use, God has a plan for the raising of His Church, and it is important that we know what that plan is, and how to put it into practice.


God cares about numbers.

Many staunch critics of the mega-church movement cite the irrelevance of numbers in God's economy. "God cares more about depth than breadth", they like to say. There is certainly a measure of truth to this concern - even millions without maturity misses the mark.
Yet God does seem to be interested in numbers - even big numbers. After all, the first command He gives to humanity is to Be fruitful and multiply [not just add!], and fill the earth (Gen 1:28). And one of the last visions of heaven we have is of a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb singing praises to God (Rev 7:9). Situated between the two is a whole book with the very title "Numbers"!


God commands multiplication of people and wildlife.

God blessed [every living creature], saying, "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth" (Gen 1:22).
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" (Gen 9:1)
Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands that they may bear sons and daughters; and
multiply there and do not decrease" (Jer 29:6).


God views abundance as a blessing.

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord; they will flourish in the courts of our God (Ps 92:12-13).


God will cause the growth of His kingdom.

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed… and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches (Matt 13:31-32).
Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number…the Word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith (Acts 6:1,7).
But the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied (Acts 12:24).
So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing (Acts 19:20).


God cares about the strength and maturity of His children.

Some think that it is normal for Christians to remain in spiritual infancy for the duration of their lives. As long as they have professed Jesus as Savior and Lord sometime in the past, they are satisfied, and think God expects no more of them.
But what kind of a father would want to have ten children and then not care about whether any of them grow to spiritual or physical maturity?
By the same token, what kind of Father would God be if He wanted to adopt so many children, but then didn't care whether or not they ever grew up? God is not a deadbeat dad. He is always working towards the spiritual growth of the members of His Church.


God cares so much about this growth that He expects it in His older children.

And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly (1Cor 3:1-2).
We have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil (Heb 5:11-14).


God cares so much about this growth that He commands it in His younger children.

Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord (1Peter 2:2-3).
Be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2Peter 3:18).


God cares so much about this growth that He causes it in all His children.

The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows - how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come (Mark 4:27).
What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth (1Cor 3:6-7).
May the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people, just as we also do for you (1Thess 3:12).
We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brethren, as is only fitting, because your faith is greatly enlarged, and the love of each one of you toward one another grows ever greater (2Thess 1:3).


If God cares so much about this growth, we should care too.

Pastors should care about the continued spiritual health of the sheep under their care, not just how many are in his flock. No good shepherd neglects the health of the sheep God has entrusted to him. Good shepherds are faithful to graze and guard the flock.
- "Thus says the Lord God, 'Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves. Should not the shepherds feed the flock?… Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them'" (Ezek 34:2-4).
- I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand…sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches and scatters them (John 10:11).
Members should care about their own continued spiritual progress, as well as that of the other sheep in the flock.
- As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine…; but speaking truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love (Eph 4:14-16)


Godliness grows as we believe the promises of God.

Godliness does not grow as we remain passive when we feel tempted beyond our ability to resist. It grows as we believe the promises God gives us and as we use them to escape the stains of worldliness. (Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You [Ps 119:11]).
Godliness does not grow as we try harder to obey God's perfect law in our own strength. It grows as we believe and use God's promises to proactively imitate His character (2Pet 1:4).


Godliness flowers as we imitate the character of God.

We are to supply certain character traits to our faith if that faith is to mature in godliness. Mature people are morally pure, Scripturally knowledgeable, self-controlled, persevering, godly, kind, and loving.
There is no true growth in godliness or maturity in Christ without the development of Christ-like character. Maturity into spiritual adulthood only develops as we proactively cultivate these habits and character traits in our own hearts and relationships.


Godliness comes to fruition as we become useful in the knowledge of God.

The knowledge of God has a purpose - in its mature form it is supposed to be put to the use of bearing fruit that others can eat and appreciate. If our knowledge of God is not useful or fruitful, we may rightly question whether that knowledge is mature, and may even be wise to question whether it is saving (cf. James 2:14-26).
The character traits listed in 2Peter 1 are the things that make our knowledge of God useful and fruitful. If these qualities are in us and are increasing, we are useful to God in the building of His church and the spreading of His kingdom.
This is the Biblical pattern for spiritual growth. As Christians who have been called into saving fellowship with God, we must believe God's good promises, using them to kill the weeds of sin and cultivate the character of God in our hearts and in our local churches. It is in this way that we will bear fruit for God's kingdom both individually and corporately, and prove to be mature adults in the family of God.


A lack of individual growth in godliness suggests a false conversion.

This is not to say that genuine Christians are always perfect Christians. We know that indwelling sin is tenacious - even in the most mature believers - and that we will not be completely freed from the presence of sin in our lives until we are glorified with Christ in heaven. This significant remainder of indwelling sin is why the Christian life is characterized by Paul as a battle (Rom 7:14-25; Eph 6:12-18).
But it is to say that the most reliable indicator of true conversion is the Spirit-produced fruit of an increasingly godly lifestyle. God's purposes in us are purposes of holiness, of increasing conformity to the image of His son. This increasing conformity to the image of Christ is our biblical destiny as truly converted Christians - it WILL happen (Rom 8:29).
So if we are not able to discern increasing conformity to the character of Christ, then we have reason to examine whether or not God has even commenced the work of conformity in us by truly converting us. In other words, our failure to grow in godliness suggests that we may never have been truly converted at all, because increasing godliness is the destiny of everyone who is truly converted.


The church is the primary means of maturity (vv14-16).

 Of course, God works in different people's lives by different instrumental means - God does not wield a cosmic cookie cutter. But again, according to Ephesians 4, the primary instrument He uses to develop spiritual maturity in His people is the local church.

 How, specifically, does God use the local church to develop maturity in His people?

Truth spoken in love (v15) - We "grow up in all aspects into Him" by "speaking the truth in love" to one another.
Individual growth happens as we talk with each other about God's Word - His Truth - and its implications for our lives. Spiritual growth is therefore a function of relational involvement, not rugged individualism. We grow by pursuing the joy of purposeful relationship with one another - by deliberately and lovingly talking with each other about God's truth over meals and walks and car trips and plane rides.
Conversely, if we neglect to do this, then our lives will evidence that neglect in perpetual immaturity - and God will hold us accountable for it.


The proper working of each part (v16) - The body "builds itself up in love" by the "proper working of each individual part."

Corporate growth happens as we each serve in the ways God has called and gifted us to do so as individual members of His corporate Body. Spiritual growth is therefore a function of investing ourselves fully in a local church, not remaining aloof or anonymous. We grow by pursuing the joy of working together for the building up of the local church.
Conversely, if we neglect to do this, then our local church will evidence that neglect in stunted growth and perpetual corporate immaturity - and God will hold us accountable for it.

A lack of individual growth in godliness suggests a false conversion.

This is not to say that genuine Christians are always perfect Christians. We know that indwelling sin is tenacious - even in the most mature believers - and that we will not be completely freed from the presence of sin in our lives until we are glorified with Christ in heaven. This significant remainder of indwelling sin is why the Christian life is characterized by Paul as a battle (Rom 7:14-25; Eph 6:12-18).
But it is to say that the most reliable indicator of true conversion is the Spirit-produced fruit of an increasingly godly lifestyle. God's purposes in us are purposes of holiness, of increasing conformity to the image of His son. This increasing conformity to the image of Christ is our biblical destiny as truly converted Christians - it WILL happen (Rom 8:29).
So if we are not able to discern increasing conformity to the character of Christ, then we have reason to examine whether or not God has even commenced the work of conformity in us by truly converting us. In other words, our failure to grow in godliness suggests that we may never have been truly converted at all, because increasing godliness is the destiny of everyone who is truly converted.

A lack of corporate growth in numbers may suggest a spiritual problem.

Since numerical growth is no sure sign of a work of God in a local church, its presence or absence may or may not indicate spiritual vitality or fatality.
It may be that a pastor is called to a work in a local church that will not enjoy rapid or substantial numerical blessing, even though there is no discernable sin in the pastor or in the congregation for which the Lord is withholding it.
It may be that a pastor is called to work in a local church that will not enjoy rapid or substantial numerical blessing because there is sin in the congregation for which the Lord is withholding it.
Jeremiah is a prime example. He faithfully preached his whole life to a rebellious people, and preached them right into numerical atrophy and exile because of their rebellion against the Lord! They rejected his warnings, burned his writings, and threw him into prison. And they rejected him most clearly at the very end of his ministry to them.
As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we are not going to listen to you! But rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths (Jer 44:17). The numerical decline happened because of Israel's rank, rebellious sin. The decline and exile of Israel was a means of God's discipline of His people.
It may be that a pastor is working in a local church that will not enjoy rapid or substantial numerical blessing because there is gross sin in the pastor for which the Lord is withholding it. The pastor needs to repent of his sin, seek accountability from other men in the church, and believe the gospel for forgiveness and change.

 Read 1Peter 2:1-3. What is Peter's hope for these Christians? What does he mean by "grow up" in salvation?

 Some people believe that "church growth" means only growth in numbers. Read Acts 2:41. Why do you think the number of converts was recorded? Now read the rest of chapter 2. Would the great numbers of converts have been glorifying to God if they had not also been growing in holiness? Why or why not?

 Weeds can have bad effects on the plants around them. In what ways can undisciplined, sinful church members negatively affect the growth of Christians around them? How can good influences in a church be tools in God's hand for growing His people? Can you think of some examples in your own church?

 What are some ways that God is glorified by a maturing church? How many of these things do you see consistently in the life of your church?

Objections Against Church Discipline.

2009-03-11T07:35:00.001-07:00

Objections Against Church Discipline.

1. "The implementation of discipline will cause division in the church."

Christ has commanded the exercise of loving discipline (Matthew 18; etc.) both for moral and for doctrinal offenses. His word is determinative for the church; the church is not to walk according to pragmatic considerations. Should division result (assuming that the disciplinary steps are taken in a spiritual manner) then that division is not carnal. The church would have been obedient, and Christ's blessing would be upon it.

2. "To discipline someone is to judge someone, we would be guilty of disobeying the Lord's teaching."

It is not judging; rather it is the recognition that the sinning member has proved himself unworthy of fellowship with the saints; he has judged himself. And as long as he continues unrepentant, the church should make him all the more aware of his guilt...to help him in the way of restoration. If the church is silent she is automatically complacent; indirectly she is approving sin. Paul rebukes the Corinthians for failing to judge (1 Corinthians 5:1,2), and the Lord himself rebukes the local church (Revelation 2:20). Let us make it clear that there is a world of difference between the right act of judging (1 Corinthians 5:3,4) and the wrong act of judging (Matthew 7:1-5).

3. "As we are all sinners, how can we judge and condemn another?"

Admittedly every person, converted or unconverted, is a sinner. But there's a difference between a repentant sinner, contrite in heart and humble in spirit, and a sinner that virtually brags of his sin and does not combat it, mortifying it daily.

So all those who persist in open sin without repentance, remorse, or desire to change, would be subject for discipline, whoever they may be.

The church does not condemn anybody. In discipline she only pronounces Christ's disapproval and judgment upon those who bring this censure upon themselves by persisting in open sin without repentance. For a Christian does not practice sin.

4. "Church discipline seems to be so unloving, especially excommunication. Is it not better to work with the offender, to counsel him and try to lead him gradually out of his sin?"

Many reject discipline in the name of love. But which kind of love? It is ironic that this rejection is often justified by eloquence over love. When John wrote that we should "love one another," he also wrote: "And this is love, that we walk after his commandments" (2 John 5,6). When properly carried out discipline is a profound display of Christian love. For the Spirit-filled Christian dares not ignore the use of the various forms of discipline wherever they are applicable. Love necessarily challenges sin, for sin is fatal to the soul. A surgeon is not unloving when he operates; his act of removing the cancerous member is praiseworthy. No loving parent watches his wayward child, moving towards disaster, without protest. If we look for God's blessing in our churches, it is essential that we conduct ourselves according to his directives. He tells us how to conduct ourselves in the house of God (1 Timothy 3:15). And for this purpose the Scripture is profitable for reproof and rebuke.

Indeed there should be nouthesia, individual attention to give counsel where needed, but in the case of a person who is progressively becoming fossilized in sin, action should be taken (Galatians 6:1ff). We are not advocating rashness, but on the other hand passivity is not the answer either.

5. "Does not the phrase "against you" (Matthew 18:15) limit disciplinary action to the one or ones who have been sinned against?"

Christ speaks thus not without reason, for it is the sinned against member that usually takes (or should take) the initiative. Every sin, if persisted in unashamedly, is a sin first of all against Christ and then against his church, as well as against any specific person involved. Therefore, more is at stake than the feelings of the one currently sinned against (cf. Psalms 51:4). Comparing Matthew 18:15 with other scriptures we find that in no other text is the right to exercise discipline limited to offended persons. Is the offended one mentioned in Romans 16:17, 1 Corinthians 5, or 2 Thessalonians 3:14?

6. "Why proceed with public censure if the offending member decides to withdraw membership from the local church?"

All the more should the church proceed with censure, seeing that a man should not be allowed to lessen the judgment against himself for his course of sin by committing another sin (leaving the church without proper cause and becoming a schismatic). Besides, a quiet withdrawal can only be seen as sweeping sin under the carpet. The issue is not solved. Again, failure to administer proper discipline is a tacit admission that there is no spiritual power or authority in the act, but simply a breaking of outward ties. It is also seeking peace through compromise rather than obedience. This kind of peace is cheap and unbiblical.

“ Loving God with All Your Mind"

2009-03-04T04:37:00.001-08:00

The Greatest Commandment: " Loving God with All Your Mind"

Mark 12:28-30

Some of us are just never satisfied. Frank and Mabel had been married for 40 years. Frank turned 60 a few months earlier, and they now were celebrating Mabel's 60th birthday. During the birthday party, Frank walked into another room and was surprised to see a fairy godmother appear before him. She said, "Frank, this is your lucky day. I'm here to grant you one wish—what would you like?" He thought for a moment and said, "Well, I would really like to have a wife who is 30 years younger than me." The fairy godmother said, "No problem." She waved her wand, and "poof"—suddenly Frank was 90 years old. I imagine old Frank was a little bent out of shape by the way that turned out! I have a friend whose favorite expression was "bent out of shape." When he was upset about something he always said he was "bent out of shape" about it, and I recall he stayed "bent out of shape" much of the time.

I. Attitude: The Power of our Thoughts. Mark 12:30 Going back to our Scripture in the Great Commandment we find that we don't have any reason to be bent out of shape. We've been looking at what it means to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, today we're looking at loving God with all our mind. They say that a mind is a terrible thing to waste, and in the mind God has given us a wonderful gift. The word that is used here in the original language Jesus uses the word dianoias.
This noun, dianoias, means thought, thinking. What I found interesting is that this word is similar to another word which looks kind of like it, the for power, dynamis- and it is associated with basically the same idea. What ever word Jesus used, there is no denying that there is power in our thoughts. The thoughts we have basically control our decisions, our rational ability to make choices and to respond to things around us. What's more is we have the ability to control our thoughts- what we allow ourselves to think and more importantly, our attitudes about the things and the people we think about. I want to narrow this down here this morning because I know we don't have a lot of time here today.

The English poet and cleric Thomas Traherne (1637-1674) once wrote: "As nothing is more easy than to think, so nothing is more difficult than to think well." I want us to think about thoughts today, not just any kind of thoughts but the kind of thoughts that motivate us and glorify God. What's more these thoughts are the thoughts that motivate us to fulfill the will of God within us. These thoughts are called our attitudes. They empower us to do and to accomplish what we want to do. More specifically how do we love God with our attitude?

We certainly don't love God by being bent out of shape. You know its amazing I know people who have the intellectual ability that would enable him or her to get into Harvard or Yale or even Oxford if they wanted to be. They have the ability to recall facts and knowledge that would just make you sick. When I was in high school I knew some of these people - they were bright, super-intelligent, studious, smart. They were always the first one to raise their hand when the teacher asked a question, they were always the one making 100% on a test, they were always the ones making straight A's in chemistry and in calculus. When I was in high school we didn't have calculators- we used slide rules. And while we were trying to figure out how to get our slide rules out of the case, these guys didn't need one- they had it all in their heads, and they would make you feel inferior sometimes. We called them nerds.

But you know what? Intellectual ability alone won't help you to succeed and it won't always help you love God. I've known people who were voted most likely to succeed and most studious and you know what? You can't find them today- nobody knows what happened to them. The tragedy is I've known so many so gifted with smarts like you wouldn't believe make a wreck of their lives because they convinced themselves that they will never amount to much or worse yet, were afraid of where those thought would And yet I've known those who had somewhat marginal intellectual or even average ability give what little they had to God and God used them in a tremendous way. That's the power of the attitude. It's the power of not only what we allow ourselves to think about, but also what drive us- what motivates us. On the other hand, those with somewhat limited intellectual ability have been propelled to into greatness because of what, and especially who they allowed themselves to think about, because ultimately

II. We Are What We Chose to Think About. (Prov 23:7) When you think about the mind you have a terribly complex organ in our craniums that commands every aspect of our physical being. Did you know, for example, that the average brain weighs about three pounds – It contains 12 billion cells. Each one of these cells is connected to 10,000 other brain cells, totaling 120 trillion brain connections. Dr. Duane Gish has observed that "the human brain is the most complex arrangement of matter in the universe."Some have compared the brain to a sophisticated computer, but technology still has a long way to go before it can duplicate the brain's capabilities. The brain is not only the most complex mechanism in the world; it is the most influential organ in your body. It accounts for your ability to think, remember, love, hate, feel, reason, imagine and analyze. Everything we see, hear, touch and smell is recorded on the lobes of the brain. Your brain elevates you high above the animal kingdom – It literally sustains your life. It also houses your intuition, your conscience and your sexuality. It both houses and actually constitutes the mind.

Proverbs 23:7 summarizes so well the over-arching significance of the mind as far as God is concerned in this poetic declaration:- For as he thinks within himself, so he is. – Proverbs 23:7a (NASB) We may rightly conclude that the human mind is the single most important entity in Creation – for as it goes, so goes the person and the society in which he/she lives. Who and what we will be then must have its origin and sustenance in the mind. What we sanction or suppress mentally determines whether we take the high road less traveled or the low road which is far more popular.

We could look at the mind in all kinds of different ways. We could look at intelligence and giving God all of our intellect- as if He really needed that. He's got more intelligence than we ever thought about having. I mean the smartest guy in the world doesn't even come close to God's intellect- not even close. He's not even on the same planet, the same roadmap. God doesn't need our intelligence- I mean we need to give our intelligence to Him but it's not like He needs it. In our mind we could talk about not just intelligence but rational abilities, decision making, our resourcefulness and we know all this comes from God anyway so why does He need that? No what I believe Jesus is talking about here is not just the brain processes and the things which we can think up, the very reason we do or do not chose to think at all and this is our attitude, friends.

Its all about attitude. God can give me all the intelligence in the world but if I don't have a loving attitude, a good attitude, one that uses that thought to the glory of God its not going to mean a thing- not if I'm bent out of shape all the time. Here is a smattering of wry observations on life and work: Attitude = The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. Borrow money from a pessimist. They don't expect it back. If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. The sooner you fall behind the more time you will have to catch up. If at first you don't succeed, then sky diving isn't for you.

III. We Can Choose the Attitudes that will express our love to God. (Romans 12:2) Many people think that attitudes and moods are things that are thrust upon us, that we are passive and therefore must respond to them. Attitudes come about by our choice. Don't speak of being in a bad mood because of what has happened to you that day, as though you couldn't help it. You can. Its what we choose to think about that motivates us and gives us a thought life that glorifies God, and therefore exemplifies a mind that loves Him. That's what Paul tell us in Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind- that you may know what is that good, acceptable, perfect will of God."

Christ spoke to hundreds of people, just like the ones He spoke to in our text today, whose minds were blinded by lies of their own making, what they chose to think about so that they refused to see what He wanted them to see. Its not that they were stupid, they were blind. Paul did as well. That's because their minds were not transformed, they were not renewed by the Power of the Holy Spirit. Its only the Holy Spirit that can renew your thought life from thinking about wickedness and turn it into godliness. The Holy Spirit can renew our thought life and bring it into subjection to Christ. I had someone say to me on more than one occasion, "I can't stop looking at pornography on the internet." I said yes you can- You look at it because you want to. Nobody's holding a gun to your head and making you look at it. The same way with cursing. Cursing and vulgarity are nothing but the expression of impure thoughts placed in your mind by Satan. They are Satan's words, and every time you emit them, you invoke not the power of Christ, but the power of the devil, did you know that? I know people who say, "I can't stop!" Yes you can, because you can choose what you say and what you look at and what you think about because Scripture tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, ⁵ casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, Bringing every thought captive. That carries with it the idea of a policeman arresting somebody. With the power of the Holy Spirit when you go in there armed to the teeth and arrest that evil thought, that impure lust, that silly musing, that clever rambling and hogtie it with handcuffs and throw it back into the pit of hell where it came from! If you don't, sooner or later that thought will pervade your subconscious and work its way out into our attitudes and eventually into our actions. That's why Jesus equated sin not just what we did, but also what was in our thoughts. Matthew 5:28

"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is lovely; whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things...And the God of peace will be with you" (Philippians 4:8-9). What do you have in your mind that keeps you from loving God?

One Holy Passion Preached at Salem Feb 8, 2009

2009-02-18T09:28:00.001-08:00

One Holy Passion Preached at Salem Feb 8, 2009

Mark 12:28-34

A couple of weeks ago my professor at Liberty , Dr. David Earley, asked us, "What is your passion?" Naturally I asked, "what do you mean by passion?" We usually define passion as a feeling very strongly about a subject or person, usually referring to feelings of intense desire and attraction, be very passionate about something. Christians refer to Christ's passion or suffering leading up to when He went to the cross. Actually Christ's passion wasn't the suffering itself but the reason why He suffered in the first place. However you would describe passion, Dr. Rick Warren (you may remember him as the preacher who gave the invocation at President Obama's inauguration last month) says that "The creative force behind all great art, all great drama, all great music, all great architecture, all great writing is passion. Nothing great is ever accomplished in life without passion. Passion is what mobilizes armies into action. Passion is what causes explorers to boldly go where no man's gone before. Passion is what takes a good athlete and turns him or her into a great athlete where they're breaking records. What are you passionate about?

Looking at our text today, One day a man walks up to Jesus and he says, "Lord, what's the most important thing in the Bible?" And you know what the Great Commandment is. Jesus said, in Mark 12:30 And you shall
love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

    Nothing matters more than that. That's the number one thing in life. God says I want you to love Me passionately." Nothing else matters in life if you don't love God passionately. What do I mean by passion?
    Let me tell you what I don't mean first: I'm not talking about just an emotion or a feeling. I'm not talking about something sensual or romantic God doesn't want you to love Him half-heartedly. He wants you to love Him with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. The word heart is not referring to this blood pumping organ that we have in our chests. In the Greek language, this word heart καρδιας – means the center, is actually where we get the word passion from- the center, the very core of your being, is the idea. , "If you're going to follow Me, you've got to go it with passion. You've got to give it some oomph, some spark, some zip, some enthusiasm, some zest. I want you to live passionately."
    Then as if you didn't get the message, in Colossians 3:23 He says "Whatever you do, do it with all of your heart as unto the Lord and not unto men." He says I want you to do everything passionately when it comes to loving Me, serving Me, living for Me.
I. One of the reasons why there is so much dissatisfaction is not because we can't find anything to be passionate about- but that we are passionate about anything except God. I guess because we are embarrassed to be passionate about God. I can be passionate about movies. I can be passionate about sports. I can be passionate about politics. I can be passionate about fashions and clothes. I can be passionate about cars. But I cannot be passionate about God.

    If you go into Barnes & Noble bookstore you'll find all kinds of books with Passion in the title of it. There's a book call A Passion for Birds, A Passion for Books, A Passion for Cactus, A Passion for Chocolate A Passion for Fashion, ... for Fishing... for Flying, ... for Gardening, ... Golf, Hunting. There's even a book called A Passion For Mushrooms (somebody's smoking them probably is what he's doing. I can't figure out what that one's all about!
But in our culture it's ok to be passionate about anything except your faith, except your relationship with God. I can go to a rock concert, or a political rally or a baseball game and I can shout my head off. I can get excited. I can get hoarse from yelling so loud and really embarrass myself. When my team loses I could cry- really make a fool out of myself. Nobody thinks that's a big deal. When my team wins I can jump up and dance around and wave my hands in the air. If I do that at a game people go, "He's a real fan!" If I do that in church people say, "He's a fanatic! He's a nut case." You don't want to get too emotional about your faith. Its ok about anything else but not that.
    Romans 12:21, in the NIV it says, Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord" Keep the fires going in your life. Circle the word "keep." Notice, it's not automatic. It's a choice. It's a discipline. It's something you must maintain. You and I are not by nature passionate about God. It's something that you must choose to do. You and I get distracted and everything in life conspires to keep you from being passionate about God. So He says keep your passion going. Keep the fires going. It's not just automatic. This kind of thing -- being passionate about God has nothing to do with either your personality or your age.     Everything in life conspires to keep you from being passionate. And it dissipates your energy. We were at Walmart or somewhere they were selling helium balloons. This lady was looking at them and let a whole bunch of balloons slip out of her hand. The clerk said, "No big deal, they'll probably come down tonight. And the truth is, it wasn't even that long. In just a few hours they began to dissipate, lose their steam and come back down.
    A lot of times we're like that. When you first become a believer and you really understand what a good deal you've got you get excited about it, And you get excited about that when you give your life to Christ and you're pretty passionate. But then, BUT THEN, you feel this overwhelming pressure from somebody comes along who just loves to throw cold water on stuff and says, "YES but you won't always feel this way! Why do people do that? They are jealous of what they used to have. Probably because they want everybody to be as miserable as they are. As though we needed any help, Because as time goes by you begin to lose your steam. You begin to lose your zip, your zest, your enthusiasm. What happens? Why does that happen?
One of the things that steals our enthusiasm for God more than anything else is this:

II. Many Do Not Have a Passion Because Their Purpose is Unclear. Its not that they don't know what it is, its just they have become so familiar with it being there that they don't think about it all that much, and when they don't think about it, they just take it for granted- that's what we do with God. They have allowed something precious to become familiar. After a while, things become just common.
Max Lucado: "God Came Near," tells how he almost lost his 2 year old daughter because she fell in the pool one day. He took things for granted and wasn't careful. Here are some of his words, after the almost tragedy. "It was only a matter of minutes, maybe seconds. We almost lost her. The thought was numbing and convicting. He almost lost his daughter to familiarity. His goal is nothing less than to take what is most precious to us and make it appear most common. To say that this agent of familiarity breeds contempt is to let him off easy. Contempt is just one of his offspring. He also sires broken hearts, wasted hours, and an insatiable desire for more. He's an expert in robbing the sparkle and replacing it with the drab. He invented the yawn and put the hum in the humdrum. And his strategy is deceptive. He won't steal your salvation; he'll just make you forget what it was like to be lost. You'll grow accustomed to prayer and thereby not pray. Worship will become commonplace and study optional. With the passing of time he'll infiltrate your heart with boredom

    When you forget the purpose of your life that is a sure way to kill your passion for life and for God. If you don't know the purpose for life, why bother? Why get up in the morning? Why put forth the effort? Life without purpose is activity without direction. It's motion without meaning. Life without purpose is trivial, petty, and pointless.
    But even still it's easy to forget why we're here on earth. We get distracted by budgets and bills and babies and baseball and all kinds of other things. Whenever you forget why God put you on earth you're going to drift toward apathy and lethargy. Who cares? Maybe you've felt like Isaiah who said in Isaiah 49 "I've labored to no purpose and I've spent my strength in vain and for nothing." (NIV)
    There is no reason for we as believers not to know what our purpose is or so familiar with it that we get bored with it. Passion and purpose go together. When you have a clear purpose it's going to give you a lot of passion. But it's got to be God's purposes for your life. If you're only living for yourself, that's a pretty dinky purpose. That isn't going to make you very passionate. In fact it's pathetic. "I'm living for me." That'll give you a lot of energy to get out of bed in the morning! You need a cause greater than yourself. That gives life significance and gives life meaning. The more you understand God's purposes for your life and the more you live those purposes the more passionate you're going to be.
    Hobbs wrote this about passion. He said, "Passion is waking up in the morning wherever you are and bounding out of bed because you know there's something out there that you love to do, that you believe in, that God made you for and you're good at, something that's bigger than you are and you can hardly wait to get at it again. It's something that you'd rather be doing than anything else and you wouldn't give it up for money because it means more to you than money."

III. A Passion Could Be Described as What You Be Willing To Die For

Paul, writing about his passion in Romans 10:1 , says, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. Paul so passionately desired that his people be saved- to accept the Savior as Messiah that he tells us in Romans 9:3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen^[^a] according to the flesh. Of course, he knew this would not be possible, but Paul's attitude was unmistakable. There was no way you could read a statement like that and not know what Paul was passionate about. Sometimes being passionate is described not only in terms of what you live your life for, but what you would be willing to die for. I personally feel like if you don't have anything you'd be willing to die for, what kind of passion are you willing to live for.

I want to die the same way Wilson Bentley died. Wilson grew up on a farm in Jericho, Vermont, and as a young boy he developed a fascination with snowflakes. Obsession might be a better word for it. Most people go indoors during snowstorms. Not Wilson. He would run outside when the flakes started falling, catch them on black velvet, look at them under a microscope, and take photographs of them before they melted. His first photomicrograph of a snowflake was taken on January 15, 1885.

Under the microscope, he found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind.

The first known photographer of snowflakes, Wilson pursued his passion for more than fifty years. He amassed a collection of 5,381 photographs that was published in his book Snow Crystals. And then he died a fitting death—a death that symbolized and epitomized his life. Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley contracted pneumonia while walking six miles through a severe snowstorm and died on December 23, 1931.

And that is how I figured out how I want to die. No, I don't want to die from pneumonia. But I do want to die doing what I love. I am determined to pursue God-ordained passions until the day I die. Life is too precious to settle for anything less.

“Loving God With All Your Soul” Matthew 22:34-40 Preached at Salem on Feb 15, 2009

2009-02-18T09:23:00.001-08:00

"Loving God With All Your Soul" Matthew 22:34-40 Preached at Salem on Feb 15, 2009

When I say "soul" what is the first thing you think of? Aretha Franklin? What do you picture? Soul train? Soul food? What comes to your mind? It's different with your soul. Where is your soul? If I say where is your heart? That's easy. If I say where is your mind? That's easy. But where is your soul? Do you point to your foot? We don't even know where to point. The greatest question to begin this is What is my soul? Heart and mind are obvious but soul is not quite so obvious. It's a little more abstract than what we looked at last week.

If you do a study of the Old Testament word for "soul" and the New Testament word for "soul" you get a pretty quick idea of what God is talking about. What's God talking about when He says, "Love Me with all your soul?" The Old Testament word for soul is the word nephehs and it means literally "to breath" and it's the idea that God breaths life into us. That's why we have a soul. We're a living soul. We have an awareness that nothing else in creation has because God Himself breathes life into us. The New Testament word for soul is the word we get psychology and all those words from – psuche. It has to do with your will, your drive, the passion of your life, the power with which you live. Put those two ideas together – Old and New Testament and you get a pretty good idea of what the soul is. Based on a good long look at those words and how they were used in the Bible four things that are a part of who you are when it comes to your soul. Soul is my desires and passions. Soul is my God given personality. Every one of us is unique. God h as made us that way. At the essence of it your soul is your life. I put that in capital letters because we're talking about the kind of life that only God can give, the creator, the life that is given to us by God. Your soul is the passion with which I've living, the personality that I've been given, it's the path my life is taking. It's the power in my being.

It's you. That's what your soul is all about. Tonight we're going to take a look at, based on this definition, how do you and I love the Lord with all of our soul.

Do you want to love the Lord with all your soul? Do you want to take the personality that you've been given an use it to love the Lord. Loving God with all your heart- I covered passion pretty well with that last time

1. Your Soul love Him with Praise

Have you ever stopped to think about how numb we are- we have so much thrown at our souls these days that some kind of mechanism has kicked in to shut ourselves down emotionally to the point that we can't feel anything anymore. We're bombarded by so much stimuli that we can't take it anymore, so we can't seem to feel what we once could feel. For example, I remember as a kid the distinct soothing feeling that listening to the rain would have on me, or someone running a bathtub full of water. It would soothe me right off to sleep. I don't have that feeling anymore. Some people have told me they once had that feeling of excitement and love for their spouse they don't have any more. The human emotions are like that- they can get where they just kind of shut down. Some people have even said that about loving God- and feel like God doesn't love them anymore- or they don't have the same feeling they once had. Aside from the fact that God's love for us is not based on feeling, but on fact, the fact is the reason we feel like this from time to time is because we have allowed ourselves to become empty. Not long after we were first married Robin and I went for a drive somewhere. We were driving out on a west Texas highway, must have been 100 degrees when all of a sudden, the car began to shimmy and shake, and then the engine cut off and we rolled to a stop. I looked at the fuel gauge- slam empty! Robin doesn't say a whole lot- she didn't need to. Ever get that look from your wife? One look was all it took to communicate the message- "what kind of idiot would make take a trip like this and not fill up first?" Believe you me after 25 or more years of marriage I have never failed to do that since.

We may never forget to fill up our gas tank before we take a long trip somewhere, and we may never forget to fill our fuel tank before winter sets it, but why is it we have a more difficult time filling our soul tank. As in every relationship, we get out of it what we put into it.

When we spend time with God, loving Him, its amazing how quick that tank gets full.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. (Psalm 103:1-5) Notice how the Psalmist says your youth is renewed- the passion you had for God is restored, so that you are no longer empty but full. This comes about by praising God. I mentioned God filling up your soul- did you know that the Hebrew idea of the soul nephish is also part of the word they use for well.

Psalm 9:1-2 says I will praise You, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will tell of all Your marvelous works. 2 I will be glad and rejoice in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.Ps 150:6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.Psalm 25 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in You…Remember O Lord,Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses, for they are from old.

Many people don't understand the value of praising the Lord. But they are one of the ways that we fill up our souls. If they spend anytime with God at all, its usually just enough to dump on God about what they want from Him. O God- gimme that new truck I've been wanting. O Lord fishing season's coming up. Everybody's got a new boat but me! Then they come to church plop down on a pew and park themselves and think "now if I can just get through this thing we can all get out of here. I'm tired of having the Methodists beat me to the Golden Corral. They wonder why their relationship with God is so empty- its because they are not praising Him.

II. . You Soul loves God with all Your Worship Let's take it to another level-not just praise, but worship. Praise comes from our mouths, but worship comes from our soul- we were built to worship God. Worship is the expression of our soul, who we are as the people of God. If you want to learn how to express yourself, then worshipping is the way to do it. One of the reasons why some folks are just so dead and empty inside is because they have never been taught to worship.

I want to shift gears here and take you to another level. Romans 12:1- which is your spiritual worship. Sometimes when we come to church we think that as long as we sing a couple of hymns, take up an offering, and then listen to a sermon, then we have worshipped. No we haven't. If our soul is just as dry when we left as when we came in- then we haven't worshipped. We don't worship until our souls receive something from Him and when we have something to offer to Him. God wants so much to fill us with His presence, but we have to have a heart that He can fill. I mentioned our tanks being full- but sometimes its not full of the right stuff. Sometimes the well of our souls is contaminated- polluted- by sin. Sometimes its full of full of the stuff of the world, or ourselves, or whatever that God wants to fill us with His presence but can't because of all the stuff that is in the way. Its got to be cleaned out first, purified.

Jason was telling us last week that part of the process of Katie's healing was that the doctors are confident Katie will get better, but the process also involves some things that are getting in the way of it, impeding it- and when they get rid of those things, then Katie's healing goes better and faster. Our souls work the same way. IF we want to experience the fullness of God's presence and to fill up our souls in worship, we've got to get rid of some things. We can't give God a soul full of sin? We can't give Him a soul full of porno or deceit, or lustful thoughts. We can't give him a barrel full of selfishness or hatefulness or bitterness. You would be surprised how little bitterness it takes to fill up the well of our souls.

III. Loving God with All Your Soul Means Being Filled By His Spirit Another way we love God with all our soul is coming into contact with His power- we call that the Holy Spirit. Now I must warn you- this might make you feel the way I did at the dentist a few weeks ago. Dr. Griffin, my dentist, is up in his 80s now. When he tells you this is going to make you feel a little uncomfortable, you better ask him for some novacane and then grab on to the arms of that dentist chair as hard as you Ephesians 5:18 tells us Do Not be Drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. Here is the uncomfortable part. People's souls don't get full of God because they don't feel comfortable with the power of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because we are afraid of Him. We're afraid the Spirit is going to cause us to get out of control. That's funny because many who imbibe in alcohol don't worry for one minute they're going to get too drunk to drive home. They don't have any worries about getting so inebriated they can't stand up right or that they'll do something foolish like put their head through the juke box or really embarrass themselves. The Holy Spirit will never cause us to do anything like that, yet why are we so uncomfortable and self conscious.

God's the one who is present in our lives. And when I open up my life to Him, He starts to fill your life with God-things. It's inevitable. So the question we have is how do I do that? How do I open up my life to Him? How am I filled with God's Spirit? How is the truth of Ephesians 5:18 fulfilled in my life "Be filled with God's Spirit."

1. I desire to be filled. It starts with a thirst. Psalm 42:1 We're talking about "Is He controlling my thoughts and actions?" Is He the one who's in charge?

The first step to letting Him be in charge is saying, "I desire to be filled." Let me work up a thirst for you. Just dream of what it would be like if Jesus Christ were at the center of every decision in your life? What pain might it have saved? Even more, what opportunities might you have seen that you hadn't seen? What would it be like if He were at the center of every decision? What would my life be like if Jesus Christ, if His control, God's Spirit, were at the center of every relationship? How would they change? Maybe not immediately but slowly, surely, securely how would they change? What would it be like if He were at the center of my career? The center of my friendships? The center of my thought life? The center of my love life? The center of my worries and stresses? How would they change? Just dream about that for a minute. That's what we're talking about when we say thirst for this.

The world has yet to see

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled. That's a promise. That is something we should be thirsty for.

2. You repent of your sins and receive God's cleansing. Recognize I've turned my back on my relationship with God. He hasn't turned His back on me as a believer but I've turned my back on Him and I'm walking a different direction. The word "repent" simply means to turn around and walk in a different direction. Do a 180. When I repent it means I agree with God about the fact I'm headed in the wrong direction. I turn around and start heading in the right direction. It's not so much a matter of though as a matter of action. Turning around and moving in a different direction of life. You repent of your sins and then you recognize God has forgiven you because of His grace. I don't deserve it but He has forgiven me.

3. Yield to the Holy Spirit's control. When you see a yield sign what does it mean to you? It means you give the other person the right of way. It doesn't mean "stop". You yield. Some people think it means stop. If I'm yielded to God, I stop, I do nothing and I'm yielded totally to God. It doesn't mean stop. It means you give the other person the right of way. Yield to God's control. You keep moving but it means you give Him the constant right to have His way in your life. That's yielding to the Holy Spirit's control. You don't stop. You don't sit down. You say, "God what do You want me to do today?" and if any of you are doing this perfectly you should be up here teaching this and not me. We all struggle with this. .

In my life right now, I don't even know all the areas I need to yield to. If He showed me everything I need to yield to Him, I'd die right on the spot thinking I could never do that. All of us would. But He just graciously shows us one little bit at a time. That's why you never run out, by the way. The day you think, "I've got it! I've figured out the Christian life!" He puts something else in your mind. There's always new areas of growth. You yield to the Holy Spirit's control.

4. Trust God to fill you as He said He would. Trust that God will keep His promise and fill you. I've confessed all the sin I know about in my life. I've yielded my life to His control as best as I know how. Now I trust Him to fulfill my life.

Can you be filled with God's Spirit without feeling filled with His spirit? Of course you can. What does a Spirit filled person feel like? What does a Spirit filled person look like? Do they like glow in the dark somehow? Do you grow more hair? I wish, but you don't do that. Do you smell different?

It's trust, not feelings. Whether it sends a chill up my spine or not I know that it's true because He promised it. It doesn't change how you look but it does change how you act. Romans 5:5 "God has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love." What if your life were filled with the love of God in such an incredible way that it overflowed to the people that were around you. What if?

February 1, 2009 Morning Service “Holy Desperation”

2009-02-18T03:21:00.001-08:00

Holy Desperation Mark 5: 21-24; 35-43

Opening- The story is told of a woman locked her keys in her car. Her child was also in it, and the motor was running. So she began to pray and ask for God to send someone who could open the door. Just then, a very rough looking man appeared on a motorcycle, a gang member. He said, "Ma'am- I'll be happy to help." So he got off his motorcycle, took out a "slim jim" from his back pack, went over to the running vehicle and slid the "slim jim" down inside the window and opened the door. The woman said, "Thank you, thank you, sir! You are such a good man!" The motorcycle gang member said, "You are welcome, ma'am. But I am not a good man. In fact, I only got out of jail last week. I went to prison for five years for Grand Theft Auto." At once, the woman looked up to heaven and prayed, "God, thank you! You not only sent someone to open my car, but you also sent me a professional!"

Most of us here have experienced, at some point in time, what we would consider desperate circumstances. It may have been searing physical pain, a long-standing financial problem, or perhaps, as in the case of our text, the grave sickness of a loved one. According to Webster's New World Dictionary Of American English, to be desperate is, "having a very great desire, need" However, there is usually an aspect of anxiety attached to this feeling of great desire or need. So much so, that one is willing to do almost anything to have that need met. You see desperation drives us to seek a solution—to find deliverance. Such was the case with Jairus (Ja-i'-rus), a religious leader in the synagogue of Capernaum. His teenaged daughter was deathly ill, and he wanted her to live more than anything in the world. He was desperate to find a solution, and he went some distance to where Jesus was to get it. When he heard of Jesus' miracle-working power, he knew that this must be the solution to his dilemma.
A desperate person possesses a desperate passion. I call it a Holy Desperation. I call it that because it is desperation that literally drives us into the arms of a loving and compassionate God who alone can do something for our desperate need. And we won't stop until will have it and pray until they get it or until it gets them. Holy Desperation. In the story of Jairus we see:
I. AN ATTITUDE OF CONCERNED DESPERATION
A. Jairus' Respect. Mark 5: 22 "And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name. And when he saw Him, he fell at His feet. It is rather significant that the name "Jairus" means, "whom Jehovah enlightens". Jeremiah 33: 3 says, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty (hidden) things, which thou knowest not." There is always an element of enlightenment in the process of prayer. Jairus was about to receive enlightenment concerning the power and person of Jesus Christ.
[2] When Jairus fell at the feet of Jesus; he fell partly in exhaustion- anquish, but also in adoration and submissive respect. Matthew, speaking of this same incident, translates the idea as, "worshipped him" (Matt.9: 18a). This simply means that Jairus "…bowed down before him as an expression of profound respect- reverence. Frustrated because of the crowd, probably, desperate because he was fearful his daughter would die, but still reverent in the presence of the only One who could meet his deepest need.
B. Jairus' Request.
1. His request was characterized by desperation. Mark 5: 23a "and begged Him earnestly, saying, "My little daughter lies at the point of death. NOTE: [1] The English version somewhat softens the meaning of this phrase. It means that Jairus kept begging, perhaps repeatedly and desperately"
[2] The words "…at the point of death…" mean, "to be in the last gasp" (Jairus was simply relating to Jesus in the most urgent terms, that his daughter's death was imminent. I think its clear to us that although the Scriptures doesn't say it, its quite clear=Jairus wasn't begging for himself, he was begging for the life of his daughter so much that if it were possible he would have changed places with her.
2. His request was characterized by love. Mark 5: 23a "…My little daughter…"
NOTE: Most scholars agree that Jairus used these words as a term of endearment. They obviously do not refer to her size, since we are told in verse 42 that she was twelve years old. Archeologists tell us that in the first century, most young girls that age were almost grown up women, so she wasn't little in that sense. But he still called her his baby girl. According to Luke 8: 42, this was Jairus' only daughter. Her well-being was extremely important to him. He loved her so much he wasn't going to hang around and watch her die- he had to do something…
3. His request was characterized by faith. Mark 5: 23b "….Come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she will live."" This father exercised some bold faith in Jesus Christ. He said, "Lord, if you'll just lay Your hands on my daughter, she'll live. I believe we need to come to God with this same kind of bold faith. If God ever lays His hands on this church, dear friends, it will live. It will burn more brightly for Christ than ever. Frankly, dear friends this is often the point we have to come to that will shake us out of our complacency and into dependency. We see this man, Jairus, with a high social position, a man known among the people, a man of prestige and power, but a man who had a desperate need- Sir you will never become so powerful, so popular., that will never rise so high that your problems, and your troubles can not reach you or you think you don't need God or that you can do it entirely on your own. If you do, may I respectfully say- just wait! My friends, I think you all know what I am talking about.

Who among us have not felt that rousing anguish of Jairus within us the past few weeks? I have seen some of you pray like I have never seen you pray before. We are not likely to have a significant encounter with God until we become desperate. There we will get a such a wonderful revelation of God that we are willing to make known to the world the truth of His Kingdom regardless of the price. And God has done some amazing things this month, not just restoring health to a teenage girl but we have seen the lost saved, we have seen relationships restored, we have seen people renew their commitment to Christ, and we have seen people healed. It is this Holy Desperation that moves us from taking God for granted to holding on to Him for dear life, as though everything in life depends upon Him, which of course, it does.
4. His request was characterized by an immediate response. Mark 5: 24 "So Jesus went with him, and a great multitude followed Him and thronged Him.." Jesus Himself said and I, even if I be lifted up from the earth I will draw all men unto me" John 12:32
II. AN ATTITUDE OF CONSTANT DEPENDENCE
A. A Message That Engendered Fear. Mark 5: 35 "While He was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue's house who said, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?"
My how this father's heart must have leaped to his throat when he heard the word. Just when the news couldn't be any worse, it did. There are very few, perhaps a few in this room, that knows what it is to hear news like this, especially when it involves your own precious children. It's the call that every parent fears. Words cannot describe the awful combination of shock, grief, and heartache it is to get a call like this. I hope I never get a call like this myself, but I have had to make a call like this and friend let me tell you it is almost as bad. And when you get that call, all kinds of emotions whirl around in your mind. One of the first things you want to do is to blame somebody- or worse. Perhaps Jairus began to blame himself for not having found Jesus sooner. But my dear friend, your biggest fear does not disturb Jesus in the least. God's power does not end with the possible. He specializes in impossibilities.

And always in a situation like this, there is always somebody who thinks they know how you should deal with that situation. Can you imagine someone so callous and heartless as to say to a grieving dad, who is fighting back the tears, saying, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?" I'm glad the culture we live in has some compassion in it to know better than to tell someone- "Hey, your loved one just died!" We have a lot of euphemisms for this-we'll say, "passed away," "gone home to be with the Lord," "gone to meet his maker," "gone to his reward", "gone to glory," etc. When we lived in Germany, they didn't have words like that- they'll call you up and say, "So and so is dead!" And I would think- so heartless, so cruel, so real! But if this person's heartlessness wasn't bad enough, they had to throw in "Why trouble the Teacher any further?" As if this person could presume what Jesus wanted to do at that moment. This messenger was a messenger of fear. Ever know anybody like that? I mean they'll run over somebody just to tell people bad news! OR they love to incite fear and panic into everybody else: "Sure hope this plane don't crash!" Speaking of desperation, people like that are desperate for attention- they love to be in the know as though they are the spokesman for God on earth. For one brief moment they hog the spotlight just so they can show how important they are. The idea of this message seemed to be that there was no more hope. The situation was final. What did they know? For that matter what do any of us really know?
B. A Message That Encouraged Faith. Mark 5: 36 "As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, "Do not be afraid; only believe."
When we are in desperate situations like these we have to remind ourselves, like Jesus reminded Jairus, that God is never the author of fear. The Bible plainly tells us, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (II Tim.1: 7). It may seem obvious, but we need to be constantly reminded that anytime we are living in fear, we cannot be living in faith.
[2] Jesus was telling this man, "…to continue believing, even in the presence of death" That is the test of desperate prayer and desperate faith- to continue believing when everyone around you says that hope is lost. Illustration- my father.
III. AN ACT OF TOTAL AND COMPLETE DELIVERANCE
A. The Commotion Of Hopelessness. 1. The sorrow over the fatality.Mark 5: 38 "Then He came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and saw a tumult and those who wept and wailed loudly.." Do you know what the word tumult means? It doesn't look very friendly, does it? The word translated "tumult" means "a noise, uproar" [2] The words "those that wept and wailed" refer to professional mourners who were hired to put on a demonstration of sorrow for the occasion. As though they really needed that! Imagine it- professional wailer? I know people who do that and more for free! I think if it had been me I would say "get these people out of here!"
2. The scorn of faithlessness. Mark 5: 39 "When He came in, He said to them, "Why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping."

40 And they ridiculed Him. NOTE: [1] The meaning of Jesus' assertion that the girl was "not dead," was simply that her condition was not permanent.. By the same token, death is not a permanent condition for anyone who dies in Christ.
[2] Some so-called religious scholars suggest that this young girl wasn't really dead, but that Jesus merely awakened her from a coma or some such condition. However, Luke, the physician, recounting this same event, says that the people, who laughed at Christ's statement that the girl was not dead, did so, "knowing that she was dead" (Luke 8: 53). If you don't believe that Jesus can raise the dead or heal the afflicted or move mountains in time of need, boy do I feel sorry for you!

Ray Stedman tells the story of an alcoholic [who] became a believer, was asked how he could possibly believe all the nonsense in the Bible about miracles."You don't believe that Jesus changed the water into wine do you?" "I sure do! Tell you what, you come to my house and I'll show you where Jesus changed beer bottles into food and whiskey bottles into furniture."

Holy Desperation takes you right to the brink of your worst fears and then some, but this is where you find the presence of God where you most need Him. When you are that desperate and people say, or all appearances show that there is no hope look into your hand my friends and that is where you find the hand of God. Those are the times when you have no more strength in your hands to cling to Him, that's where He is clinging to you, and will never let you go. I will never leave you, nor forsake you, He says.

B. The Comfort Of Christ's Help.
Mark 5: 40b "…But when he had put them all out (ekballo—"to throw out"—
But when He had put them all outside, He took the father and the mother of the child, and those who were with Him, and entered where the child was lying. 41 Then He took the child by the hand, and said to her, "Talitha, cumi," which is translated, "Little girl, I say to you, arise." 42 Immediately the girl arose and walked, for she was twelve years of age. And they were overcome with great amazement.

Only Christ can do this my friends. Have you had your prayers answered like this- you can if you are desperate enough, with Holy Desperation to go to the One who can help you when you find yourself in a desperate situation. The thing is, there may be some of you in that situation right now and they don't even know it. You are desperately lost and the only one who can get you out of this situation is Jesus. Some of you may already be saved but you won't know the power and extent of your faith until a desperate situation has been thrust upon you. Are you willing to trust Christ in Holy Desperation this morning enough to know that there is deliverance beyond your desperation, that there is help beyond your helplessness.

January 4 2009 Morning Service FACING YOUR FEARS

2009-02-18T03:12:00.001-08:00

FACING YOUR FEARS

Exodus 14:1-16

An Arab chief told the story of a spy who was captured and then sentenced to death by a general in the Persian army. This general had the strange custom of giving condemned criminals a choice between the firing squad and the big, black door. As the moment for execution drew near, the spy was brought to the Persian general, who asked the question, "What will it be: the firing squad or the big, black door?" The spy hesitated for a long time – It was a difficult decision – He chose the firing squad. Moments later shots rang out confirming his execution. The general turned to his aide and said, "They always prefer the known way to the unknown. It is characteristic of people to be afraid of the undefined. Yet, we gave him a choice." The aide said, "What lies beyond the big, black door?" "Freedom," replied the general. "I've known only a few brave enough to take it."

How brave do you feel this morning? Today God brings to each of us a choice – we can live by fear or by faith. If we choose fear we will live our entire lives never fully experiencing the great satisfaction of taking a risk for God. If we choose to walk in faith we will experience a newfound freedom that will lead to a personal assurance that we are living life to its fullest. Now I know that some of us here today are still living by fear even though we want to live by faith. I want to try to help you turn your fear into faith today. To begin with it will be helpful for us to understand that:

1. FEAR IS A FORMULA FOR FAILURE In a few moments I want to give you five steps on how to take risks in faith. But, before I do, I want us to look at an example of people that should have been living by faith, but instead they gave into fear. The book of Exodus tells us about the Israelite people leaving the bondage of Egypt for the freedom God had planned for them. They have just seen God's hand work in a mighty way. They have witnessed the ten plagues; they have experienced the first Passover; they have just been released by Pharoah after 400 years of bondage. You would think that they will be filled with faith, but instead they are crippled by fear.

I think you will remember when Charlton Heston, I mean Moses, was leading the people away from Egypt and to get away from Pharaoh's army they would have to cross the Red Sea – that's where we're going to pick up the story. We're going to let the Israelites stand as an example to show us what fear can do to us if we let it replace faith in our lives.

1. IT MAKES US SKEPTICAL Then they turned against Moses and complained, "Why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness? Weren't there enough graves in Egypt ? - Exodus 14:11a When we are afraid, we begin to doubt. We doubt ourselves, we doubt God, we doubt other people, we become skeptical. Studies have shown that cynics, at the root, have basically a problem with fear. We often ridicule what we're afraid of.

2. IT MAKES US SELFISH When I'm afraid, the only thing I can think of is myself. I don't think about you, I don't think about God, I don't think about anybody else, I'm just focusing in on me. Let's look at the rest of v. 11 -- Then they turned against Moses and complained, "Why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness? Weren't there enough graves in Egypt ? Why did you make us leave? What are they saying? Look what you've done to us!" When we're afraid, we accuse others, we excuse ourselves, we pass the buck, we blame other people, we run from responsibility.

3. IT MAKES US STUBBORN We resist change when we're afraid. In v. 12a, they said, "Didn't we tell you to leave us alone while we were still in Egypt ?" In other words, they were saying to Moses, "Don't rock the boat. Don't upset the status quo. We've always done it this way before." And fear keeps people from growing, it keeps businesses from growing, it keeps churches from growing, because it causes us to be stubborn. God is ready to set them free from 400 years of slavery and the Israelites say, "Leave us alone!"

4. IT MAKES US SHORTSIGHTED When the Israelites were confronted with the Red Sea , they said, (v. 12b) "Our Egyptian slavery was far better than dying out here in the wilderness." They wanted to go back to the "good old days" in Egypt. They wanted to return, they wanted to retreat, they wanted to go back. They had so little faith that God would come through for them and grant them freedom that they preferred to return to bondage in Egypt . And you know what? Many people today are living the exact same way. They would rather live in the bondage of their own sin, rebellion, and guilt, than be set free by risking it all for Jesus Christ. Actually, I don't think that they really prefer living in bondage, they are just so afraid to let go and let God that they really don't know what else to do. Perhaps some of you have been living in fear for so long that you really don't know what it means to live by faith. Well, let's see what we can do to rectify that today – let's answer the question in point number two of your outline:

2. HOW CAN I REPLACE FEAR WITH FAITH? Now, how do you take risks in faith rather than caving in to fear? Whether we're talking about that first step of faith of becoming a Christian, or perhaps you're already a believer ready to step out in another area of faith, we all need to learn how to move on to the next level.

There are five principles that God teaches us in His word. But I only have time for 3 of them today…

1. INFORMATION: GET THE FACTS If you're going to take risks, God wants you to get the facts. Anything that requires faith is going to have some element of risk in it, but God says, "There's a right way and there's a wrong way." God doesn't want you taking foolish risks, that's not faith. So He says, "First off, get the facts. Find out all you can first. Every prudent man acts out of knowledge, but a fool exposes his folly. - Proverbs 13:16

Get the facts at any price, and hold on tightly to all the good sense you can get. - Proverbs 23:23 When you're going to make a major decision that involves a risk in your life, talk to people who've already done it. Get the facts at any price. Read a book. Attend a seminar. Listen to a tape. Find out who's already been there and get the facts at any price. Now, once you've got the facts, you have to go to step two.

2. EVALUATION: COUNT THE COST Find out why you're doing what you're doing and what the risk is involved in it. You find out what the costs are – What it's going to cost in time – What it's going to cost in money – What it's going to cost in reputation and emotional energy. Once Jesus was talking to a crowd and He was telling them that if they were going to become one of His followers they needed to count the cost before they took that step of faith. He illustrated His point with the following words from Luke 14:28, 31: "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?…"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?

He says, if you're going to build a building, you better go out and plan a budget first – and evaluate the cost. If you're going to go to war, you'd better figure out what the strength of your army compared to the strength of the enemy's. If you're going to step out on faith and believe in Jesus Christ for your deliverance from bondage, you need to evaluate, count the cost, analyze the risk. It is not a lack of faith to evaluate, it is an encouragement to faith. It is foolish and rash to make a promise to the Lord before counting the cost. - Proverbs 20:25 Every decision has a price tag and you'd better know what the price is before you take the risk.

3. PREPARATION: PLAN YOUR STEPS … The prudent carefully consider their steps. - Proverbs 14:15 The prudent person of faith thinks about where they're going. This person understands that you don't go charging into battle without a plan. Now, you might be wondering what this has to do with faith, with taking risks. Consider Proverbs 16:9 -- We should make plans--counting on God to direct us. Notice there are two parts to this verse: man's part and God's part. We should make our plans – That's our part – Counting on God to direct us – That's God's part – And they both go together. As you plan, you pray and you ask God to direct you. What am I saying? I'm saying that prayer and preparation go together. When you prepare without prayer, you're going to have problems. When you have prayer without preparing, you're going to have problems. One without the other is insufficient – You need them both. The Bible says to plan out your life, to think where you're going, to be intelligent in the direction of your life. Now I've heard people say, "Well Jeff, you know, I don't make any plans. I don't organize. I don't set any goals. Because I just live by faith. Who needs any plans? I just live by faith." Folks, that may sound spiritual, but that's not faith, that's presumption – and there's a big difference. The Bible says we should make our plans, counting on God to direct us.

4. DECLARATION: ANNOUNCE YOUR GOAL You need to tell the world about your intention. You need to make a public statement. Announce where you're going. Why should I make an announcement? Why can't I just go out there and take the risk and not tell anybody about it, and then if I fail it doesn't look bad? Because goals are statements of faith. They're saying, "I believe God wants to do this in my life, by such and such a date." And here's how you do it – the Bible's very clear about this. What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that." Otherwise you will be boasting about your own plans and all such boasting is evil. - James 4:15-16

That's how you make the goal statement – If the Lord's willing, we'll do this or that. You don't do it presumptuously, you don't say, "It's going to happen no matter what." If it's the Lord's will, God willing, we're going to do this by this time. Now, why should I announce the risk that I'm about to take? Why should I tell other people about the thing that I'm about to do, my dream, my goal, my ambition? In the first place, it builds your faith when you announce it publicly.

Building Dynamic Faith: Trusting in God Even When You “Mess Up”

2008-06-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

Building Dynamic Faith: Trusting in God Even When You “Mess Up”
Isaiah 43: 1-7
There’s an old saying that there are three sexes- men, women, and preachers. Preachres ought to be able to walk on water, or that they are perfect. We’re not. My purpose for relating this story is to help you grow in your faith, especially if you think that you have lost it, or done something so bad that you cannot get it back again. Friends, the devil would like nothing more than to see you defeated, permanently side-lined on the shelf of effectiveness. Some preachers you hear about get sidelined because of adultery. Some because of wrong financial dealings. Some because of lying and lack of integrity. Mine was because of fear. If you feel after hearing this message you no longer have confidence in me, well- I leave that for you to decide and I’ll just trust God to do what He will. I want to tell you this morning how I went through deep waters, and how Jesus jumped in and rescued me.
I wish that in 1994 I had a church family that was as loving and as understanding as the one I am in now, or I probably never would have done what I did- not that I blame the church, I blame myself, for what had happened. Romans 12:21 says: do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. The church was growing- not phenomenally, but it was reaching out to the professional and international community that God had called us to serve in this Washington D.C. suburb. Blacks, Asians, Africans and others were fellowshipping with us every week. We baptized more people in one year than we had the previous ten. You would have thought the deacons on the board, and many of the other church leaders would have been excited- they weren’t. Instead, they felt threatened. They didn’t like all these. I was also a lot younger than I am now, and I couldn’t understand that. I was getting restless and impatient- probably not waiting on God the way I should have, and that, dear friends, was my undoing. I’ve given it all over to the Lord now, and all of that is under His blood of forgiveness. Our life at church was not very happy in those days. Every action we did was met with malice and suspicion. There was also sin in the church, and no matter how much I protested its existence, I was told to mind my own business- especially about the unusual affection that two of our deacons and their wives seemed to have for one another, and for others in the church. I knew my ministry was on its way out when I stumbled upon a liaison between one of the deacons and another woman in the church. These people were in their early sixties- certainly old enough to know better. When I stopped at a traffic light and looked over and saw this woman getting into our deacon chairman’s van, I slumped down so they would not see me. It was too late. They had seen me before I saw them.
Things began to deteriorate rapidly after that. I felt the pressure to leave the congregation, and my feelings of fear and insecurity began to grow more noticeable. But I was convinced that they had not hired me, but that God had called me there. In spite of the friction that ensued, the church continued to grow. But Satan was also at work, waiting for the right moment to trip me up. That winter, our boys who were five and three and a half at that time, needed a large warm place to play and run off some energy for a while. Their baby sister was laying down for a nap and needed some quiet. I told Robin I’ll take the boys over to the church, since we lived next door. It was in the 20s and icy- I brought over their matchbox cars and they could play in the fellowship hall while I engaged in a short counseling appointment. The boys would not be far away, and they should be alright, I reasoned. They were content to play down there on the waxed tile floor, zooming their cars on the floor. I planned to check on them occasionally to make sure they were alright. A few moments later, my appointment arrived- an unchurched couple that I had been witnessing to, showed up for premarital counseling. I escorted them into my office and left the door open- listening to the sound of my boys playing downstairs. I was scarcely into the opening remarks of our visit when I heard a crash of metal downstairs in the church fellowship hall, followed by a blood-curdling scream. I rushed to the stairway, almost with one bound, when Jared met me at the top of the steps, still sucking on his thumb, trying to tell me that his brother had been hurt. When I saw the sight of what had happened, I nearly passed out. Apparently a match box car toy had become lodged beneath a rolling rack made for portable metal chairs. But the custodian had placed the heavy metal banquet tables on the rack so he could wax the floor a week or so prior to that. When John went to retrieve his car, the tables dislodged, and fell on top of him, and on his little hand, severing one of his fingers and nearly severing two others. The blood from the site was horrendous. The couple who had come in for counseling were horrified, I shot back and said, “this is one of the things you might run into when you have children. Are you sure you want to do this?” They looked at one another and left the building. I never saw them again.
I wrapped John’s bloody hand in a towel, along with the appendage, and carried him up the stairs. My heart was racing so badly I could hardly breath the prayers I was uttering, O God please stop the bleeding. Please don’t let my son bleed to death!” I was so frightened I didn’t know what to do. In what seemed like an hour, but actually it was just a few minutes, the paramedics arrived- not just for him, but also for me. I tried not to look at Robin, for fear she would see the fear in my eyes and get upset. We got to the Suburban Hospital just down the street. A neurosurgeon by the name of Dr. Goldblatt, who just happened to be on call in the emergency room that day, took care of the entire matter. “Don’t worry,” he said, “we’ll have that finger sewed back on and you’ll never know he had been hurt.” Those reassurances were a sign from God that everything was going to be okay. “He might loose some agility in his fingers at first, but he’s only five years old. Give it time. I’ve seen kids go through a lot worse and they’ve grown up to be dentists and concert pianists. He spoke to John and said, “Do you play any instruments?” he asked, “No, not yet. But I think I would like to play the drums!” With thanksgiving to God, those fingers were set and reattached. Just a small scar appears now from the ordeal. But it was nothing to compare with the scar Satan would leave in the weeks following that accident.
The next thing I knew, I learned that the deacon I had witnessed with the extramarital affair, and been talking with others about having social services called in “to take my kids away” as he was quoted, because of child-endangerment. Actually he feared I would sue the church for the custodian’s negligence, but I never had any thoughts to do that. But he feared a confrontation from me about that and his personal indiscretions. All this discussion went on while I was preaching, when he and a couple of others in the church would count the morning offerings and then slip out of the service up to the nursery to count it while I was preaching. One or two others reported the conversation to me. My blood ran cold when I heard what they said. I cannot let such a thing happen. I will make sure that word of this gets established and then the whole church will know what is going on. Surely God would vindicate me, I said. And then I did one of the stupidest, dumbest things I have ever done in my life. I purchased a voice activated cassette recorder, hoping to record more conversation and other goings-on in that church nursery, where my own children were being cared for at that time. I must confess to you I did that out of a fierce combination of fear and stupidity. Fear causes us to do stupid things. A nursery worker- in fact the grown daughter of the man who was conspiring against me, dislodged the cassette recorder from behind a drawer in the diaper cabinet. She discovered it and reported it to her father, who then threatened to have me arrested for wiretapping without a court order, a felony in the state of Maryland. My troubles went from bad to worse in a fleeting moment of fear and anxiety. In just one moment of faithless, lack of trust and dependence upon God, our home, my ministry, our future- was nearly in ashes. I had messed up big time. The legal entanglements that faced me were insurmountable. I thought about hiring a lawyer, not knowing that I needed about $5000 to retain one and that the District Attorney was the deacon’s brother in law I didn’t think I had a defense anyway. I had never felt so alone, so helpless, and so isolated in my entire life at that point.
II. Now I told you this long story to get to the sermon. I read my Bible and probably prayed more during that long winter of 1995 more than I ever had in my entire life. I had several dark nights when I wondered if I would make it to the next day. I had forgotten that I was God’s child. Instead I was orphaned. I was so despondent and my heart was so heavy that, without me even knowing it, my father who worked near by drove down during lunch and took away all my hunting rifles. During those days I read about Job whose story we just read about this morning. No one ever suffered as much as he did- so much more than I did. He didn’t have his children taken away by social services- he lost every one of them through death. He lost his wealth, and his health all in a matter of days. There is much we can learn from him about victory in life after we have suffered some of our most difficult hours. His story is one of the most incredible accounts in Scripture, and it reveals the cosmic spiritual battle that goes on in heaven behind the scenes in this life.
God told Satan, “Behold, all that he has in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person,” Job 1:12. This text emphasizes a great spiritual truth: Satan has no power over our lives except by the permission of God. So Satan took away all of Job’s possession. Wealth could easily be lost in the ancient, and bandits stole all his sheep and cattle in one day. His herds were devastated and his servants were murdered. Then, before the day was over, all of his children were killed by a desert storm when they house they were in collapsed. Devastated by these personal tragedies, Job simply responded, “Naked I came from my mothers womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21). The Scripture further explains that in all that had happened to Job, he did not sin against God. Later Satan struck Job with a terrible disease. Boils and blisters covered Job’s entire body. He had not only lost what he loved the most- his children- but now he lost his health as well. In the next scene, Job is seen sitting in a pile of ashes, pathetically scraping himself with a broken piece of pottery. He had been reduced to the trash pile of life. Can you even imagine his suffering and pain? Broken and rejected, Job sat there all alone. Job’s friends came to console him, but eventually they ended up accusing him of committing some secret sin. Their consolation turned to condemnation and criticism. Just when Job though things could not be worse, they did…his wife gave up on him. I’m so glad Robin did not give up on me. She was angry at me for what I did- and angrier for not telling her the threat we were under but I wanted to protect her and spare her the grief of hearing all of that. Robin stood right by me in spite of every thing. I don’t know what I would have done had she not done so.
But in all this, Job did not let his faith in God waver. In spite of his personal pain, he learned to keep on living by the grace of God. And because of that faith, God eventually vindicated him and blessed him with ten more children and twice as many possessions as he had originally. Job knew that he could depend on God no matter what went wrong. That is what I had to learn as well.
We too can learn how to handle life’s toughest problems as we come to the realization that when all goes wrong, even when we have messed up so badly, God’s way is always right. He is still moving on our behalf wanting our greatest good to come together for His glory. We must trust God even as we walk in the darkness. The real problem each of us has to ask ourselves is, “How am I doing with my problems?” Has Satan ever bombarded you and gotten you down? Has he ever threatened you like I described, or tried to pull the rug out from under your life and leave you with a pile of ashes? If that is where he has you now, this is no time to throw in the towel. When you do get down, you probably get lonely and start to wallow in self-pity. You feel like no one understands your pains and your problems. You may even think you are the only one suffering in the entire world. That’s when Satan comes along to say, “See you blew it! You are all washed up. No one really cares about you anyway so why not just end it all?” When the devil tries to beat you down, remember Job. In spite of all his troubles, and even the rejection of his wife and friends, Job hung on to his faith. He put his confidence in God and trusted Him with his very existence. Friends I want you to understand, God is always there for us, even when we cannot see Him, He is there.
Job’s greatest source of strength was the promises of God. He knew God could bring him through his troubles. Absolutely nothing can happen in our lives that God has not promised to see us through, who has said in His word in Hebrews 13:5 “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
III. When you pass through the fire, how do you rise up out of the ashes? Take a look first of all in your rearview mirror. In my side mirror of my car there is an etching in it a sentence that says, “caution, objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” That is also true of our lives. Many times we might look in that mirror, but all we see is ourselves so we think its okay. We don’t see the devil on our shoulder shouting out the plans to fall into sin or make a wrong decision. You cannot live in the past, so why should you let past failures control your future? But sometimes you need a review mirror to get a total view of the journey ahead. So today get out a piece of pare and list two or three past problems that could have destroyed you. Mine was faithlessness and fear. The real mirror we should be looking at instead is God’s Holy Word that tells us that we have a loving God who wants us to come to Him for cleansing and forgiveness. I John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just.. It doesn’t matter if others were wrong, its important to confess the wrong that you did because two wrongs don’t make it right.
Secondly, take your spiritual temperature. Look at your life today to determine what you’ve learned from your past problems. How are you stronger now than you were before all these storms in life hit you. What did God teach you through your troubles. God showed me in the book of Isaiah these words that got me through those tough times: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you.” Isaiah 43:2. What did you learn about God as you passed through the waters. Maybe you also walked through fire, like I did in those difficult days after I hid the cassette recorder.
Thirdly, look beyond your present troubles. Building dynamic faith is not just about when we succeed, but especially when we mess up. Since God has used past troubles to make you a better person, don’t you think He can do the same thing again? God may have more than one lesson to teach you. Identify what you expect to learn may give you present hope in that dark night. Consider all your issues a faith issue. Why is it that you react the way you do? We ask, “Why is this happening to me? When our whole focus is on ourselves, and on our problems, we lose God’s perspective. But when our focus is on God, He shows up as so magnificently larger than any troubles we may now face.
Friends, since God brings troubles into our lives to make us stronger and better, when you refuse to learn from them, we turn our backs on God. Accept these trials by faith, learn from what God wants you to know, and work through today’s difficulties by following the principles of His word: “And all these, having obtained a good testimony by faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.” Hebrews 11:39-40

What Jesus Does For Losers John 21:15-19

2008-06-02T10:20:00.000-07:00

What Jesus Does For Losers John 21:15-19
Reality programs have been all the rage on TV the past few years. It started with Big Brother, then American Chopper, the Bachelor, Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, and my personal favorite- Little People, Big World. I think if I had an opportunity to write a script for a reality show it would be American Preacher. And then its spinoff, American Deacon. Or how about- American choir member? There’s a new reality show on television- have you seen it? Its called “The Biggest Loser.” The premise of the show is a parade of severely overweight people and their daily struggle to lose weight. Every time they step on the scale you take a deep breath for them- will their weight go down- or will it go in the other direction? For someone like that, being a loser is a good thing. But we all know that loser has a more common meaning.
The teenagers call a failure by another name- loser. To be called a loser means to be inept, a disgrace, someone who can’t get it together, whose not quite right, who doesn’t fit, someone who has messed up. Let me give you the politically correct term-Someone who is success challenged. What do we do with losers? How do we deal with them? We sideline them, avoid them, and if they do come into our presence, we tolerate them just long enough until somebody we want to be with comes along and we say, Gee- look at time! Gotta run, see ya! We have a hard time dealing with losers in our world. But it was just as hard dealing with them in the first century. Peter, and the rest of the disciples, were expecting something different. They were expecting an overthrow of Rome and a new kind of kingdom. But…the movement failed. He did not conquer Rome. You know, Jesus’ death looked like anything but a success. And when Jesus needed them the most, the disciples scattered. They failed miserably. But what we learn out of this is that…
Jesus Makes Successes out of Losers.. He can take our most miserable failure and make something great out of it. What we need to realize is we are all losers- is what the Bible tells us. For all have sinned. Sin means to lose out on our relationship with God. Today we are going to look into the life of Peter, and how he almost lost out because of his own self-confidence, and how he received forgiveness and most of all restored to a greater place of ministry and service.
I. We often have a self-confidence that is not well-founded. (John 13:36-38; 18:17, 25-27). In a conversation that occurs before Judas’ betrayal, we find this: Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!”
Simply, Peter overestimates his own ability. He is arrogant. He has a certain belief in his own strength.
So much so, even if the rest of the disciples were to fall away, he would not.
He would surpass them all. He was going to stay with Jesus no matter what. And then…the betrayal comes. Judas kisses Jesus and the soldiers move in. Peter found himself surrounded by the Lord’s enemies. All of sudden, it became real hard for him to stand by his earlier boast. And you know what they all did…they ran. They proved…
The thing we do not want to do is the very thing that we do. And the man who said that he would not fall away, did follow Jesus…from a distance. Now listen what happens to him… “You are not one of his disciples, are you?” the girl at the door asked Peter. He replied, “I am not.” As Simon Peter stood warming himself, he was asked, “You are not one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it, saying, “I am not.” One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, challenged him, “Didn’t I see you with him in the olive grove?” Again Peter denied it, and to drive home his denial, he punctuated the denial with curses, and at that moment a rooster began to crow. Can you imagine what it was like for Peter at this point? He felt like a complete failure- the ultimate loser. Here, he had been a member of Jesus’ inner core group. He had even seen Jesus in the glory of the transfiguration, with Moses and Elijah. He had had all the advantages.Yet, when push came to shove, when Jesus needed him most, he denied the Lord.
Peter was devastated by his own inability. And the text tells us that he wept bitterly. It was probably his worst moment ever. It broke his heart, for he had violated the trust of the One he loved the most. He had just promised that when all the others fell away, he would be there. And he was not.
Peter teaches us that most of us don’t know how sinful we are. We think more highly of our abilities than we ought. Romans 12:3 tells teaches us that we are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. We love to be identified with success, don’t we? We love to impress people with what we have done- or what we would do in a certain situation. O, I would never do what Peter did- not me..
So…we are shocked when we fall. We prefer to be shocked when someone else falls. Dr. W.A. Criswell once said, “Lord, if I should fail, let me fall into the hands of the lowlifes and the drunkards and the sinners, but Please don’t let me fall into the hands of church people.” Instead of nurturing and restoring the fallen comrades in God’s army, you know what we do with them? We shoot them! Why do we do that? Because we’re afraid? We’re afraid that people know the loser we truly are, so we become judgmental, harsh, critical, mean- which is, in my humble opinion, worse than messing up in the first place. Do you know what you would do if you were in that same situation Peter was in? Truth is, most of us don’t really know what we would do if we were faced with a situation like that. We would like to think what we might do, but what if you were confronted with having to deny your faith? We live in such a materialistic world today I submit to you that I despair to think about what it might take for a so-called Christian to deny his or her faith in Jesus. But the point is does failure have to be permanent?
II. The good news, is that our failing does not have to make us a failure. (Luke 22:31-32; John 21:15-17). Jesus has provided for our failings. Jesus knew that Peter was going to fail.For Jesus said…Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” What is wonderful here is that Jesus saw beyond the problem to Peter’s heart. He knew the man behind the loser. And it was because of that loss, Jesus had went to the cross. It was for his sin. It was for his denial.
The great thing about this is that God doesn’t wait until we are cleaned up and acceptable to love us and care for us. There’s a phrase people use around here that describes this, when I talk to them about their need for Christ, and you know what they tell me? “I’ve got to get things righted around!” Got to get things righted around? How are you going to do that? That’s like a lot of women around I have observed around here who hire the cleaning lady to come in to clean their house, but you know what they do the day before? They work like crazy to get their housecleaning done before the cleaning lady comes. Why? They will say, “What will the cleaning lady think of us- she’ll think we’re a bunch of slobs!” That doesn’t make any sense, anymore than to think we can clean up our lives before asking Christ to come in, because we can’t do it. No, Jesus died for us while we were still sinners. Jesus knew that Peter was going to mess up!. And now he was bringing him back. Jesus wants us to know that there is nothing that can separate us from His love So now it is time for the question, “Peter, do you love me?”
Notice, Jesus is not asking, “Did you distinguish yourself in My service?” Did you get a PHD? Did you go to church?” It is, “Do you love Me?” And Jesus asks it three times. He asks it three times to go along with every denial Peter rendered. . Now, how Jesus asks these questions and Peter’s reply are significant, because they use different words for love.
The two words we see here are agape, which is the most powerful type of love, characterized by self-sacrifice. The other word for love is phileo, which is a deep affection as a love between family and siblings. It is intense, but it is not as powerful as agape. So Jesus’ first question is, “Do you agape me more than these?”
Jesus asks this question, because Peter had said that he would outlast the rest.
But he did not. Rightfully, Peter does not boast anymore. His response to Jesus was, “You know that I phileo you.” “I have a deep affection for You. I like you!” He cannot say anything more or higher within himself. And he was not going to lie. He was not going to say that he had the agape kind of love after he had denied Jesus. He obviously did not have that kind of love for Jesus. He is careful not to promise more than he can deliver.
Peter is right to say that Jesus knows. For Jesus knows the worst about us and still loves us. But what’s more, He knows the best about us when others do not. He knows what we can be. Jesus again asks the question, “Do you agape me?” The reply is the same, “You know that I phileo you.”Peter had to take responsibility for this.. You see, you cannot grow from failures until you acknowledge them, own them and learn from them- not blame other people for it. If you have messed up, you’ve got to take responsibility for it, and repent of it. And Peter is beginning that process. But Jesus isn’t done yet. He has to ask one more time. But the question this time is different. He says, “Peter, do you phileo me?” This is such a wonderful question even though Peter grieves at its asking. For on this third time, Jesus comes down to Peter’s level. You see…
Jesus meets us where we are. Though this question a third time distressed Peter, and probably hurt his feelings, he had to recognize that it was grace. Peter confirms his love for Jesus and now Jesus owns him. There will be no more denial or betrayal. Now is the time for service-its time to get to work. Galatians 6:1- if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.
III. We discover this wonderful truth here, that…Jesus frees us from our past and provides new opportunities for us. (John 21:18-19). There is hope for you. We are not beyond recovery! Its true, Peter messed up, and he messed up badly. But Jesus came to call Peter back into the fight. With each question, Peter gets an assignment. He is to be a shepherd in the church. He is to “feed my lambs,” that is, he is to feed the young, immature believers. He is to “take care of my sheep,” that is, he is to shepherd and lead the mature believers. Jesus said, “Keep on following me!” Its not the convenience oriented faith that we see so much of today. He too would someday be led to die, but this time he would make it And the hope of the resurrection would be a true hope for him. He forgave Peter and offered him something even greater than before.
Are you a loser? We all are! Jesus can take your failure and make you a success. He can turn it around for you. If you have failed Him, you do not need to stay in that pattern. You can know His grace. For Jesus can take your old life and give you a new one. Jesus offered Peter Perhaps, you have fallen behind. Jesus is here today to make you a new creation, old things will pass away, all things become new.
You see Jesus is offering you the opportunity to change. He is offering you the opportunity today. He is pursuing you. He is out to rescue you, not to put you down. You do not have to be a loser anymore. No matter how you may have messed up, come to Jesus. He stands ready to turn your failures into successes.

What Kind of Neighbor Are You? Luke 10:29-35 04/13/08

2008-06-02T10:18:00.001-07:00

What Kind of Neighbor are You? Luke 10:29-35 SBC 04/13/08

INTRODUCTION: Can you name some FAMOUS NEIGHBORS? Mr. Rogers Neighborhood … sweater, sneakers … “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood … won’t you be my neighbor?” Dennis the Menace … “Helloooo Mr. Wilson!” Ricky & Lucy Ricardo … Fred & Ethel Mertz.. Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor … Wilson- the one you never see but just his forehead above the picket fence. I sincerely hope your neighbors are as good as the neighbors I just mentioned. We hear jokes neighbors. We live in a time when we don’t even know our neighbors anymore. The story this morning is about NEIGHBORS … AND … it has all the elements of a MOVIE. It has: violence … crime … racial discrimination … hatred … neglect … unconcern … love … mercy. Who says the Bible isn’t relevant to the modern world? And it begins with Jesus’ response to a question- who is my neighbor?
I’m preaching a passage that in all honesty I don’t think I’ve ever preached on before. I’m not sure why. I think it might have to do with the fact that it is so familiar we might be tempted to think we know it and don’t need to hear it. The fact is, while this parable is indeed familiar, it is also one of the least understood, and therefore most misapplied passages of Scripture that we know. When we think of who our neighbor is, we automatically assume its somebody that we know. The story does not focus on who our neighbor is in the first place- it focuses on this question, “To whom can I be a neighbor?”
The term neighbor is an interesting, if not obscure one in the Greek language. We think of neighbors as people who live in houses across the street or next door neighbor. But the term that Jesus uses is much more general than that, and it doesn’t even involve a house. The word playsios- simply means near, close by, something or someone in proximity. It carries with it no other distinction of age, sex, creed, color, ethnic, or economics. In fact its about as plain vanilla of a word as you can get. It applies to everybody- anybody that you see on a given day- people who are like you, and people who are not. Just plain folks and the upper-crust. By the way upper crust is defined as a bunch of crumbs stuck together by their own dough! But we just think it means doing something nice for somebody- is what defines what a Christian is. I’ve known lots of godless people in my lifetime who have done more nice things in comparison to what Christians do- if you want to put a profile on being nice.
In this parable that Jesus taught He brings out three philosophies of life that were prevalent in His day and are just as prevalent in our own. What’s yours is mine, what mine is mine, and what’s mine is yours.
I. What’s Your’s is Mine- (v.30) Its not too difficult to identify who these culprits are in Jesus’ story. They are the robbers who find the traveling man on his way to Jericho and beat him, take all of his cash, strip him of his clothes, and then beat him till he’s nearly dead. Traveling was extremely dangerous alone in those days. Most people, sensible people never attempted it alone, but traveled with caravans escorted by Roman soldiers or private security armies. We don’t know why the man was alone- possibly he decided to risk the journey and didn’t want to pay the fee for the armed escort, we’re not certain. But more’s the point. Many people are just like this Jew who risked the journey- they think they can “go it alone.” They feel very self-sufficient and don’t feel they need God. They don’t need the church-they can get by very much by themselves. After all, they’ve succeeded very well so far, so why do they need religion, ignoring the plea of the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor 10:12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Just as the presumptuous are easy pickings for highwaymen and robbers, they are easy pickings for Satan.
The point of their beating of course is hurt him so badly that he will not pursue them, or if he dies he would not be able to identify them should the robbers be apprehended. The way most robbers defeated their victims was through deception by instilling false confidence or trust in the robber. A second way was through ambush, but this was very dangerous for the robber because even though he had the element of surprise, it was difficult to estimate the strength of his victim. By earning their victims trust they could learn if they had any friends, how much money they carried, where they were from and would anybody come looking for him if they did away with him. Sometimes they would disguise themselves as a hurt victim along the road. Sometimes they would look like a traveler in need- please help me my ox cart got a flat and I’ve got to get to town. And as they approached him, they said, “What’s your’s is Mine, is ours.” I’m going to get what you’ve got and not going to stop till I get it.” They’ve always got their hand out. They don’t care how long it took you to earn that cash or the sacrifices you made to get to where you are- with one fail swoop they will bleed you dry in their quest to take what rightfully belongs to you. That’s the feeling I get every time I drive up to the gas pump, but that’s not the culprit I’m thinking of. I’m thinking of Satan. Jesus says in John 8:44 He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.. In Isaiah, he was called Lucifer, son of the morning, and he led a rebellion saying, “I will be like the most high.” Isaiah 14:14 He dared to think he could take anything from God, but he knows he can take anything you’ve got if he can only make it good enough, sound good enough, look attractive enough, appear sophisticated enough or flatter you enough. You’ll fall for it. IF you’ve got money- if he can get his hands on it, he will. If Satan can steal your character, he will. Young people, If you have your virginity, he’s out to take it from you. He’s out to take away your innocence and your self-esteem. Parents- Satan is out to take away your sanity. Old folks, Satan is out to steal your mind if he can, and leave you addled and confused. He is the enemy of our souls. Thousands upon thousands are being lost to Satan’s philosophy every day. Everything of value is being stolen away from them, leaving them in pain and suffering- every day!
II. Then there are those who think, what’s mine is mine. (31-32)Now in a way, based upon what I just told you, you really can’t blame the priest and the Levite for looking the other way when they see the injured, robbery victim. After all, whose to say he might just be disguising himself, waiting to attack them. What Jesus doesn’t tell us, is that these guys, these so-called religious workers, are out by themselves also. They have no covering or protection, and they know it. That is why they are so fearful? And why? Because they have no faith. And so when they see the badly injured man, they don’t want to get involved for fear that 1) they might just come into contact with a dead person, and if they did that they would become ceremonially unclean. 2) they were fearful that, as I said before, this might be a trap. Robbers count on religious folks to have a heart for someone as badly injured as this man, and as soon as their back is turned, they could swoop down on them. We have nothing to fear friends if we are doing God’s work. We shouldn’t be foolhardy, but neither should we be faithless.
3) But the main reason why they didn’t do anything? It was just too inconvenient.
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard lame excuses from so-called church folk, even ministers, when presented with a concern to help someone they say, “well, we don’t want to get involved with them- they’re not the right kind of people. We like to skirt around our responsibilities the way the Levite and the priest did. We make lame excuses- well I don’t want to embarrass them, etc. The Levite and Priest represent the Christians today. We wonder why it is that our faith is not meeting the needs of the world like it once did, its because Christianity has become a big disappointment to many. I realize some of it is unfair, but much of it is. They will evangelize and help others just as long as it is convenient. Just as long as they don’t get their hands dirty. But they forget about what Christ taught us in Matthew 16:24-25 “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Christ calls us to ask ourselves every day, is our faith in Him real, or is it simply a “fair-weather” faith. Friends I will tell you something- I don’t think I have ever found it convenient to do the Lord’s work- especially to help people who are in need. Matthew 25:29 "For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. It never just falls into your lap. And so the priest and the Levite mosey on back to Jericho, feeling bad about leaving the wounded man there, but not badly enough to do something about it because their desire to keep what they’ve got is greater than their desire to say what’s mine is yours.
III. And that is the desire and attitude of the hero of our story, the Samaritan. (33-35) He comes along just in time, before the man has expired. As he blazing hot sun showers down upon him, he picks up the man (mind you, he’s bloody, he’s dirty, he probably stinks by this time) messing up the Samaritan’s clothes. The Samaritan is an unlikely prospect to come alongside to help this Jewish man on his way to Jericho. If it had been the Samaritan that had been hurt, and the Jewish man who had found him, do you think he would have stopped to help? Probably not. Jews and Samaritans despised one another with a racial hatred that equals what we have in our own country between different races of people. Judea and Samaria were adjoining provinces, but that didn’t mean they were neighbors to one another. The Samaritan brushed aside all these reasons why not to stop. Instead God’s compassion in his heart was stronger than his desire to keep what he had. He took him to an inn- probably out of his way, bandaging his wounds, taking money out of his own pocket- two denarii, which is two-days wages to pay for the lodging and the medical care the Jewish man needed. Then he offered to come back to the innkeeper and settle his bill when he got better. Such outpouring of compassion. He had no trouble with the attitude “What’s mine is yours!”
That’s the attitude of love bound up in the heart of Christ when He went to the Cross. He not only says what’s mine is yours, He says “I have redeemed you and have called you by name- you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1 He is our ultimate neighbor, and He comes along side of us not just to have pity on us, but to claim us as His own. Whom can we be a neighbor? Anyone who is near us who has a need. We may need to go out of our way, and it might be inconvenient, but we are never more like Christ when we do it. We have a tremendous opportunity to be that neighbor this coming Saturday for Operation Inasmuch. We have a sign up list on the board for those of you whom the Spirit of God has affected to help those who are in need. They need your compassion. They need to see Jesus in You. In the mean time, what kind of neighbor are you? What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is mine, or what’s mine is yours? You be the judge of that as we have our hymn of invitation.

What Kind of Neighbor Are You? Luke 10:29-35 04/13/08

2008-06-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

The University of Hard Knocks 2 Corinthians 12:7-9

2008-02-18T08:18:00.001-08:00

The University of Hard Knocks 2 Corinthians 12:7-9

This past week, universities have been in the news with the sad shooting rampage of yet another crazed student at Northern Illinois University. After what happened here and at Virginia Tech, we wonder just what we are instilling into our young people to make institutions like these almost irrelevant. But we’re grateful to have so many institutions of higher learning, especially in our state. We have of course the rivals NC State and UNC Chapel Hill. We have Duke University in Durham, UNC Greensboro and East Carolina Univeristy and Elon. Across the country everyone knows about Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. In England there is Oxford University and Cambridge. I remember when I graduated from Old Dominion University in Norfolk there were those who graduated with honors. On their diplomas the faculty announced they had graduated Cum Laude. With higher honors they graduated Summa Cum Laude. And for the distinguished few scholars they received Magna Cum Laude. Then there was a category for everybody else who weren’t quite as distinguished- they were just glad to graduate: “Thank De Lordy!” But I want to tell you about another school. It has had more students and more graduates than any other school that ever existed. It has thousands of campuses throughout the world, its tuition fees are the costliest on earth, and its drop out rate is enormous, but the lessons we learn there do more for us than those in any other school. I am speaking today of the University of Hard Knocks.

Paul received his degree from the University of Tarsus. He was a brilliant scholar and distinguished alumni. He sat at the feet of Gamaliel and other great teachers of that day. But he learned far more from the UNIVERSITY OF HARD KNOCKS, for there he sat under God’s great teaching. In the text he tells us that he had a “thorn in the flesh,” which buffeted him. We don’t know what it was, the Bible does not tell us. For some reason God has kept this knowledge from us. Surely that is best, for if He had revealed this knowledge, many of us would say, “That doesn’t apply to me, for I have no such thorn.” As it is, the text could apply to any of us. The thorn could be any affliction, any trouble, anything that keeps us from being what we ought to be. But even though the thorns are there, God’s consolations are always available to us.

Paul prayed, “O father, remove this thorn from my flesh.” Did God do that? No, God doesn’t always answer our prayers exactly as we ask. He did say in effect, “No, Paul, I am not going to take away the thorn, but I’m going to give you more grace and power so that you can bear it.” And Paul, great man that he was, said, “Thank You, Lord. I’d rather have the thorn with Your added grace than to be without the thorn and not have Your grace.”

I. How We Grow Through Hard Knocks v.7

Two couples marry. One couple has everything they need without ever having to work for it. The other couple has a hard time climbing up the ladder of life. The couple who has the hard time will have the greater chance of a successful marriage. Their hard knocks will bring them closer together and make them strong. Our country became the great nation it is because of the hard knocks. When the early settlers arrived, they did not find an easy life. They had many hardships and struggles. It was a constant battle just to exist. 2 Tim 2:3 Paul says: You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

God’s servants grow in the same way. Often the growing process nearly kills us, but it always turns out to be for our good. If our early churches had started as magnificent temples like some of the megachurches we have today, they would have perished. But the early Christians had to hide in caves and secret places of the earth. They were hounded by their enemies, and many of them died for their faith. But they grew stronger and more faithful because of these hardships.

Our church is strong today because of the bitter experiences through which they have passed. It takes these things to make us. Perhaps we would not want to go through them. But we are stronger in our faith and our commitment to Christ because we have gone through them. A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Prov 17:17

II. The Curriculum of Hard Knocks v.9

1. There is the hard knock of failure 101. Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. Job 5:7 I’ve heard people say, “There are so many things I wanted and planned to do. But I am an old man now and it is too late. I feel that my life has been a failure.” But sometimes these failures bring success. It is said that Edison failed dozens of times before he invented the electric light bulb. But he didn’t grow bitter, frustrated or angry- he just kept trying. In the University of Hard Knocks you will have to take many exams. Some of them you will pass, but very few the first time around. Some of the courses you will have to repeat time and again. When you fail a subject you don’t want anybody to know, and you feel like such a dummy! But there are worse things than failing a course or failing in a relationship and that is what Paul discusses in 2 Timothy 2: 7 “Ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth.”

2. There in the hard knock of Disappointment 201. Moses had a dream. God had appointed him to lead the children of Israel to the Promised Land. But Moses failed God on one occasion, so God allowed him to see the promised land but not enter it. How often our dreams are shattered when disappointments come. Maybe we have known the sad spurning of relationships like the poor tree toad in this story:

A tree toad loved a she-toad That lived up in a tree. He was a two-toed tree toad.

While a three-toed toad was she. The he-toad tree toad tried to gain the she-toad’s friendly nod. For the two-toed tree toad loved the ground the three-toed tree toad trod,

The he-toad tree toad tried in vain to gain her friendship, But from her tree toad bower

With her she-toad power The three-toed toad Vetoed him.

Its not easy being green, is it? But its not that we have suffered from disappointment that matters, but in how we respond to it that shows us whether we have passed this course or not. The Christian life can sometimes feel like a roller coaster ride when strong hope and faith collide with an unexpected reality. When our prayers aren't answered as we desired and our dreams become shattered, disappointment is the natural result. We're like Peter, who tried to remind Jesus, "We have left everything to follow you." (Mark 10:28). Maybe we haven't left everything, but we have made some painful sacrifices. Doesn't that count for something? Shouldn't that give us a free pass when it comes to disappointment? You already know the answer to that. As we’re each struggling with our own private setbacks, godless people seem to be thriving. We wonder why they’re doing so well and we’re not. We fight our way through loss and disappointment and wonder what’s going on. But your life will begin to change when you start asking God, "What would you have me do now, Lord?" Oh sure, you’ll still feel angry or disheartened by disappointments, but you’ll also discover that God is eager to show you what he wants you to do next. Not only that, but he’ll equip you with everything you need to do it.

3. There is the hard knock of Bad Health 501. Some of you are going for your masters in this one. When God made man, He gave him a wonderful body; but man fell into sin, then disease and sickness set their hold upon him. When Jesus comes back we will have no sickness and He will give us a perfect body, but now bad health seems a part of our education. In sickness we often learn the lessons of patience, sympathy, faith, and courage. Some of the finest Christians in the world have grown spiritually because of bad health. Fanny Crosby, who wrote more hymns in our hymnal than any other writer, was blind and in constant ill health. Yet out of her hardness comes the sweetest words we have ever heard sung. They would never have had the influence for God they had if they had not lost their health. It brought them closer to Him. We need to remember what the Scriptures tell us in I Corinthians 15:51-53 (read)

4. There is the hard knock of Persecution 301. Here is a woman who wants to go to church and serve the Lord, but her husband ridicules her and even forbids her to go to God’s house. Or here is a man whose wife is worldly and who nags him about the work he tries to do for the Lord. He does his best, but he is always handicapped at home. Some people are persecuted by friends.

III.The Lessons We Learn from the University of Hard Knocks? V10. “Glory in Weakesses” All of us are going to the University of Hard Knocks. Are we getting any benefits from going? Yes!

1. These Hard Knocks Toughen Us. They train us not to be so thin-skinned. The way to ruin a child’s future is to shield him from every danger. Soon he goes out into the world and life knocks him down. The person who gets a few hard knocks when he is young is better able to cope with life. "He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son" Revelation 21:7. James 1:3 says Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

2. These Hard Knocks Teach Us. There is no hope for a man who goes through the troubles of life and learns nothing from them. Some of the biggest men in life were once failures. Its only when we are confronted with our pride and to give that to God can we ever hope to succeed in the University of Hard Knocks. James J. Braddock Cinderella Man- electricity cut off and babies starving, swallowed pride and got help from relief.

We Christian men can be like that: too proud to ask for help. Except it’s not the relief office we’re afraid to go to. It’s God. Somewhere along the way we got the idea that it’s wrong to ask for help, that it’s something no real man should do. Experience is the greatest teacher in the world, but her lessons are the hardest.

3. These Hard Knocks Tenderize Us. Selfishness and pride must be knocked out before we can help others. We must be tenderized. Hard knocks make us grateful and fit us to sympathize with others. Pride is a funny thing. Psalm 10:4 (NIV) tells us: "In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God." The psalmist recognized this shortcoming in men thousands of years ago. It hasn’t gotten any better since. God, the source of all wisdom, is eager to give us the direction we need, yet we’ll take one dead end after another rather than ask him for help. Jesus was different from us. He constantly sought his Father’s leading. His character was flawless, free from the pride we display. Instead of trying to make it on his own, he depended heavily on the Father and the Holy Spirit.

IV. Some Distinquished Alumi of the UHK.

We always measure schools by their famous alumni. 1. Job lost his property, his children, his health. But he said, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” And he came out a bigger and better man. 2. David’s life was full of persecution and his enemies often tried to kill him. But through it all he could say, “The Lord is my shepherd.” And he became a great king. 3. Daniel had the courage to say no. He kept on praying and was finally thrown to the lions, but he came out victorious. 4. Paul was thrown out by his fellow Pharisees after his conversion. He was beaten, stoned, left for dead, even shipwrecked. 5. John Bunyan preached Christ and was put in jail for 12 years. But he wrote Pilgrim’s Progress that has taken its place next to the Bible in influence. 6. Of course there is Jesus, the greatest of them all. He was despised and ridiculed. He was beaten, cursed, and crucified. But He came through it all and today has a “name that is above every name.”

“As For Me and My House” Joshua 24: 14-28

2008-02-04T04:04:00.001-08:00

"As For Me and My House" Joshua 24: 14-28

            Life is filled with choices. We must choose when to go to bed and when to get up. What to eat and what not to eat. What to wear and what not to wear. We choose what to do with our time. We choose where we'll go to work and where we'll go out to eat. Life is filled with choices. Some choices are easy to make. Some are difficult.You and I are who we are today because of the choices we made yesterday, The choices we make today have an impact on the decisions we will be making tomorrow. They establish a pattern and a foundation for our life. But some may say, "But pastor, I haven't always made the right choices!" You and I may never be able to undo the choices we made yesterday, But I have good news for you. Who we have tomorrow, is determined by the choices we make today! Today I want to focus on the right choices we make with respect to our families in Joshua 24. We spend many years with our children teaching them about life, about God, about what is right and what is wrong, and someday they will be on their own and will have to make their own choices. And we just hope and pray they make the right decisions.
            Joshua I am sure in many ways felt like he was the father of these people. The bond he felt may have been stronger than even the bond Moses had with these people.
Joshua had been with these people longer, his entire life, where Moses spent the first third of his life living in Egypt, but in pharaohs household, the next forty years he spent in the wilderness and it was only the final 40 years that he lived with the Israelites. Joshua on the other hand lived with them in Egypt for about forty three years, he worked beside them building cities and making bricks. He shared with them the sorrows of slavery and the dreams of deliverance. And going through tough times like that build very strong bonds. And for the last 67 years of his life he was a leader of these people. While Moses was alive Joshua was Moses' right hand man. It was Joshua who led Israel in the defeat of the Amalekites, less than 3 months out of Egypt (Ex 17). And Joshua was also on Mt. Sinai with Moses, when the law of God was given. And when Moses died, Joshua was the one God choose to be the chief leader. And Joshua had been that leader for over 20 years. And now the time had come when Joshua would send these people, his people, the people he had spent his entire life with, the people he had: worked with, dreamed with, cried with, laughed with, fought with and witnessed the Mighty Power of God with. It was time for the Israelites to be kicked out of the nest (so to speak) it was time for them to fly on their own, make their own choices, and decide their own destiny.

And in chapters 23 and 24 Joshua shares with his people some final words of exhortation. Joshua knows that they will have to make a choice now, and that they will make many more in the future.

Kind of, in a small way like the final words a parent shares, before their child leaves to go off to college. Some of you are going through this with your own children. We're doing this with ours and I can tell you, its frightening. Reminding them of the things they should already know and encouraging them to do what's right, and wondering if as a parent you have forgotten anything or left anything out. Once Joshua has had his say, verse 28 of chapter 24 says, "THEN JOSHUA SENT THE PEOPLE AWAY EACH TO HIS OWN INHERITANCE", the people would now be on their own and would have to make their own decisions, their own choices

Then Joshua also says, "as for me and my house." Joshua declares, as he sends his people out, fully knowing that he cannot make the choices for them that they need to make, that they ought to make, makes the declaration of where he stands. Its like Joshua is saying, "I can't tell you what to do, all I am going to tell you is what I am going to do, and what my household is going to do." We're going to serve the Lord! I heard this story about a young man who was being very helpful to a sweet little old lady. He saw her in the supermarket and helped her with her groceries as they were being loaded into her car. After ward, she turned to tip the young college student and he refused, she said, "Your parents must really be proud of you. You are such a nice young man. How I wish there were more young people like you." The boy blushed and then he said, "Well ma'am, this might surprise you but at one time in my life I had a drug problem." The lady looked at him and asked incredulously, "A drug problem? How could such a nice young man like you have a drug problem?" The boy replied, "Because when I was a kid everytime the doors were open, I was drug to church for Sunday School, for church, for Sunday night church, for Wednesday night church, etc!"

Maybe you have a "drug problem" in your attitude about coming to church. You say, "I don't want my kids to have to endure what I had to endure. We were in church every time the doors were open." I contend that what you said was not the real problem. Here's the real issue behind the so-called "drug problem." Most people when I talk with them. What they didn't like was how their parents looked and how they acted at church versus how they really looked and acted at home.

You gotta be real. V. 14 serve God in sincerity and truth. James 1:8 says A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. The world will tell you you have to put on your game face, have to make them think you have more money than you have or more spiritual than you are, etc. We need to understand that if we are going to make a generational impact, if we are going to leave a generational legacy like Joshua was going to leave to our children and to our sons and daughters and to our granddaughters and grandsons- we gotta be real. One of the reasons why this generation is being lost is because they have seen so much insincerity, and inauthentic Christianity- they are utterly fed up with people who act like they are somebody they are not.

When I was in college, I stayed in a friends house who was in the navy. He was deployed for a 6 month cruise. He asked me to drive his 1967 VW Beetle to keep up the carberator. Which was good because when I went out the door I discovered that my 1970 Ford Maverick didn't have any gas in it. Now let me tell you something. When you drive a VW Beetle, what you see is what you get. If you don't see the heater, its because they didn't make one. Same for the radio. Did a little research on this little car and found out that Ferdinand Porsche was commissed by Hitler to build an affordable, practical car for the German people. 22 million Volkswagens built from 1937-2003. They created it, made it what it was, and they didn't try to make it into something it wasn't. They never changed the design, because it worked. If you want to go off road four wheeling, this is not the car you'd want to drive. If you want to go across country with your family- this is probably not the car I would pick to drive, either. Get real. . Why am I telling you this story? Because iF you want to make a difference with your kids, with your families- get real with them! Let them see who you are, because they are going to see it anyway. If you try to put on a false front they will see right through it. Our kids today are far brighter, far more intelligent these days than when we grew up. And if there is anything kids today cannot stand- it's a fraud, a phoney! We could be fooled back then, but today's kids can't be fooled. If you are trying to be something that your'e not your kids will be able to see right through it! They will understand you're a fraud and here's what they will learn- they will learn its okay to be a fraud. And my friends, we shouldn't let our kids see us being frauds. Philippians 4:9- The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you." In other words, say the right things, teach the right things, but most of all be the right things. Then we will make the generational impact like Joshua left his people.

II. Be honest. In truth. We've got to shoot straight with our families. We've got to shoot straight with our kids. We've got to let our children know that we're not perfect. We don't have the answers. Because when you teach your children that you don't have all the answers and that you don't have it all together, that you are just learning right along with them about what this relationship with God is all about. When we are honest, this is something that is going to carry over, this is something we are going to be able to pass on. Job 31:6 Let me be weighed on honest scales, That God may know my integrity Proverbs 12:17. He who speaks truth declares righteousness, But a false witness, deceit. Prov 14:5, A faithful witness does not lie,.Prov 19:5 a false witness will not go unpunished, but he who speaks lies will not escape." What is that punishment? What is that false witness will receive? I think in your family, if you allow your family to see someone who is not what he professes or claims to be, who does not have honesty inside him, integrity inside him- here is the punishment you will get- you will teach your children to live exactly the same way. How many of you would like to raise a generation of liars, raise your hands? No. We want to raise a generation of children who understand what it means to be honest, don't we?

A few years ago one of my children called me up on the phone "Dad, don't get mad! (that automatically tells me that someone is going to say something that is going to make me mad- so I was trying my best to stay calm) But John blew up the pickup!" You don't want to hear the words blown up and car or house in the same sentence, much less in the same breath. A lot of other kids would have gotten scared and ran into their room and hid or when confronted about it, lie about it, etc. Now I wasn't happy about it, but I got to thinking, praise God. At least he had the courage to come to me and be honest about it. I much rather him call me than the police, or the fire department, etc. You let them know that no matter what happens you will love them no matter what, that they can be honest with you- any situation that has happened that you can be there for them. That is the fruit of what it means to be honest because if you are honest with them, they will be honest with you. Joshua is clearly calling his people to make an honest choice, an honest commitment. Because faith is not something that can be compelled or rammed down somebody's throat and they had better like it. Faith is something that is caught, rather than taught. It is taught by our example. Joshua knew in his heart that if he gave his people a choice they would probably serve the Lord, because they had seen what happens to people who serve other gods- those other gods didn't do anything for them. He saw what happened to people who road the fence.

III. We need to be committed- "choose you this day." 15 committed to God, committed to the family. The world is going to tell you everything but that. If you want to make sure you want to make an impact on your families, then you always always, always make sure that they understand that there is no one else you would rather be with than them. Everything is after your relationship with your children. Make sure you tell them that there is nothing else more important than them. Sometimes we got to turn that computer off or turn that game off, or get away from the things we enjoy doing and spend time with them

Be connected to God, be real, be honest, be committed. There is nothing that you can do that will make a difference, but only Christ through you can you hope to make that impact, and get your children to love the Lord the way you love Him. Understand that you have got to be connected to God. Jeremiah 31:3-4 They shall be my people, I have loved you with an ever lasting love…you shall be rebuilt.

A couple of years ago David, my VW owning friend, called us up to wish us a happy thanksgiving. We had not heard from him in several years. I asked David, "Do you still have that VW Beetle?" He said, "Yes- its got over 500,000 miles on it. I was going to get rid of it, but our daughter needed a car she could drive to high school and college. So I rebuilt it, and it now runs better than it ever did!"

This is what God wants to do in your life as well. If you haven't been real, or authentic, and you still want to transform your family, your life into what it should be, the way that God intended it- here's how you do it. Understand that you can't- understand that only God can. This is the simple design that simply works What happens if you make those mistakes in your life, or if you are not honest, not real, not committed, not connected. Jeremiah 31 says, "You will be rebuilt." When you make a mistake, I will love you with an everlasting love. I will rebuild you. You make a mistake with your spouse, your children, or what ever, you make a mistake with them God says I will rebuild you.

Yet Not I But Christ Habbakuk 2:1-3, Galatians 2:20

2008-01-22T08:03:00.001-08:00

Yet Not I But Christ Habbakuk 2:1-3, Galatians 2:20

Have you ever had a moment where an idea, a sense of reality, or the awareness of something just jumped out at you? Its like a light bulb just comes on. Sometimes for me its what I call a “Duh” moment. Some of you never have a “DUH” moment. But I have a lot of those. Those are the times when I am staring at something obvious. It might make sense to others, but not to me- I guess I’m a little slow like that. I’m the kind of guy that when somebody cracks a joke, I might not get it at first and then later on, after the joke teller has moved on to something else, I start snickering and giggling because I finally understood what it meant. This week I had one of those “Duh” moments. As I was in my devotional time this week, a Scripture leaped off the page and very nearly hit me right between the eyes. I mean, it wasn’t one of those obscure passages like you would find in Zephaniah, etc. It was in Galatians 2:20 where I was reading “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives within me.” Look at the last phrase of what I just read to you: “Yet not I, but Christ.”

I. Its Been an Exciting Year: “Yet Not I, But Christ” Galatians 2:20

Alright, let me bring you up to speed. I had been reflecting upon what God did in our church this past year. It was a fantastic year. You already saw some of the highlights in the slide presentation, and I know I can’t highlight everything. But for starters, God enabled us to baptized 19 people as a result of our VBS. We’ve been averaging in the 90s for Sunday School the last couple of months, God prepared us to do something great during the revival in September, and one person surrendered to the ministry. Then, the first part of November, this church launched off in one of the greatest acts of faith this church has done in probably 50 years. Build a new living quarters for your pastor, and then raise $50,000 (about $30 of that has already come in) on top of that- we surpassed the Lottie Moon Offering goal. Now here is where the Duh part comes in- who do you think did this? Did we do this? No- Christ did it. Yet not us, but Christ. That’s the point. Now friends when you think about it, all the church growth people said that what happened in the past year couldn’t happen. Think about it- we’re off a back road, 12 miles from any major population center- we are not even on a road where anyone else is going because it’s a dead end. Only God can do this. Now, God has showed us this for a reason. To show us that we had better fasten our seatbelts because I believe He is going to do something even greater in the next year. What if instead of 19 people saved, 40 or 50 people got saved? What would you think if instead of 95 in Sunday School, we started averaging 130? What if instead of 110 in worship it was 150? What if instead of $1500 it was $3000? Last year, we had 1 surrender to full time ministry. What if we had 5 do that this year? You say, that’s impossible. You are right, it would be impossible if we were doing it, but like Paul said before, yet not I, but Christ. Which is a theme I would like to propose as a theme for this calendar year. You see what is happening here is that God is multiplying His church.

First of all, let me say that I know there will always be those who do not like growth in the church. They may drive up and there’s no place to park except across the street. They come in and there’s no where to sit- at least not in the back where they like to sit. They try to get to the restroom between Sunday School and church and well, lets just say that they should have booked reservations! That’s because they treat the church as their church. They say, “This is my church!” I don’t think so. Last time I looked in Matthew 16, Jesus said, “And upon this rock I will build MY church.” Whose church is this anyway? We won’t have room for all these people- where are we going to put them? My friends, if this is Christ’s church, that’s up to Him where to put them. Ephesians 4 says that God has placed every member of the body into the church just as it has pleased Him. Acts 4:47 says “And the Lord added daily those who were being saved.” You have the idea. Philippians 4 tells us “It is God which works in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” You know this. He just tells us, if you get them here, I’ll find a place for them. Now I don’t know if by this time next year we have 40-50 saved- but if we saw half that amount it is still Christ doing it and not us. But at the same time, we must be available for God to use us and work in us. In other words, even though I said that it is Christ which works in us, that doesn’t mean that all we have to do is just show up here at church its all going to be done for us. That is the attitude of a lot of churches and then they wonder why their churches are crippled up and dying? Do you realize 30 out of 66 churches in this association did not baptize a single soul all last year? And many of those haven’t baptized anybody in several years. I actually went to a church a few months ago where they were using their baptistery to put fake flowers in! I didn’t say this, but I thought- if you fill this thing up with water instead of fake flowers you might get somebody in here.” And here we are, we don’t have the luxury of a baptistery and look what God is doing.

NOT I, BUT CHRIST! Those are powerful words that are going to guide our steps in this new year, focused us in our ministry endeavors, strengthened us when we felt like we couldn’t go on, and gave us hope when things seemed impossible. Those four simple words, from Galatians 2:20, are the words that will serve as our church motto. They will serve as rally cry as we seek to reach this community and the world with the Gospel.

II. If You Glorify Him, He will Come. John 12:32 We have just observed the fact that God has poured out into this church a lot of talent- especially in the way of worship resources. I mean, He has not only given us a lot of it, but He has given us the very best. May I ask you why is it do you suppose God has given us so many talented singer, musicians, choir members, music leaders, audio/visual and so on when there are some churches twice our size can’t even find somebody to play the piano every Sunday? We talked about this last Wednesday night. Because it is Christ that does it, and not we ourselves. Now, why is that. What makes Salem different? Because we have a group of people here at Salem Baptist Church who want to see God glorified, and Jesus Christ magnified. Jesus said, “And I even if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.” It’s what this is all about. Glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and making Him known to people.

A movie that came out about ten years ago illustrates my point. It was called Field of Dreams. The main character, played by actor Kevin Costner, decided to buy a farm way out in the middle of Iowa somewhere, and when he did, he had a vision underscored by this one phrase which was used throughout the entire movie: if you build it, they will come!” What it was referring to was directing the main character to plow under his cornfield and erect a big baseball field right there in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t even owned by a team. But when he did, despite the people around him questioning him and making fun of him about why he would spend so much money and time and effort doing such a thing, the ghosts of baseball players from decades past showed up and started playing- including the character’s own father.

When we give the Lord our best and act in faith, He will show up. He will come when we lift Him up. That’s why we don’t settle for being comfortable, because the more we do that, the more we lose our edge. We become complacent. We quit visiting, we stop witnessing, we let work and a thousand other things crowd out our service. Before long, we become mediocre- just rolling through the motions. And when we roll through the motions in our worship, it will reflect itself in the quality of our service to the Lord. When we don’t show people the Lord in our worship, and do not glorify Him, and don’t show a lot of enthusiasm to find Him- just get in, get through it, and get out fast, our worship becomes about as appetizing to Christ as a bucket of lukewarm saliva. That’s right. I know that doesn’t sound very appetizing, but that’s what Jesus said about a certain church in Revelation “I would that you were either cold or hot…I will spew thee out of my mouth!” Rev. 3:16

Friends let me tell you what, when we make it about Him, and not us, why its like moths drawn to a flame. It creates a passion, a burning fire within us! There is something about fire that gets people’s attention. If there’s a house burning down, or a field on fire, you will have more people there than the fire department, I can tell you that! People are curious. They want to know where’s the fire and who did it happen to? Now that’s not usually a nice thing to happen to somebody. But friends, when we are full of the fire of Jesus Christ, full of the fire of the holy spirit, full of the fire of God- people are going to come out to find out what’s going on! What’s more, they’re going to come out to watch us burn! fan into flame the gift of God that is in you" II Timothy 1:6. God has ignited a spark here in this church caused by His Holy Spirit. But its up to us to fan that spark into a flame of passion and enthusiasm. Passion is important. Do you have Christ’s passion in your blood, pulsing through your veins and coursing from your heart? You don’t have to be jumping over the pews and speaking in tongues to demonstrate that kind of passion, but on the other hand its not going to happen sitting there like a bump on a log, either. Vance Havner used to say that it would amaze him how the same bunch of people could go to a ball game on a Saturday and scream like a bunch of banshee Indians and then come to church on Sunday and sit like a bunch of wooden Indians!

However, the difficult route, the difficult choice, would have been to strengthen our resolve and decide that God is not done with us yet. To stand up, shoulder to shoulder, claiming the promises of Scripture and the protection of the Savior and march forward. That was the difficult choice, but it was the right choice, and it’s the one we all chose.

Not I, But Christ! Four words that have galvanized our spirits and have helped us to see the impact that each of us could make when we put our total dependence in Christ. That’s who is, that’s who we are, and that’s who we will continue to be in the years to come.

III. How to Start the Fire Hab. 2:1 -3 (read) In other words, these things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed. IT will come, and in the coming year God will show us greater and more wonderful things than we have known in years past if we will keep focusing on Christ- keep Him the main thing. A fire doesn’t just happen. When you build a fire, one that you want to last a while you got to start out slowly. Because the quicker you build it, the quicker it will go out. When I was a teenager my grandmother asked to take her trash to the burn barrel and set fire to it, and dispose of it. The problem was, the barrel and some of the old trash in it was damp from rainfall the night. So I poured about 3 gallons of gasoline on it, stood back, and lit a match. The fumes from the gas ignited as soon as I touched off the flame, resulting in a huge explosion that caused the contents of the burn barrel to go roaring and flaming up to about 50 feet in the air. I don’t know how I kept from getting hurt. My baseball cap that I wore also went up in the torrent when the blast knocked me on my behind. And, almost as quickly, the fire was out, at least in the barrel. I was lucky nothing else caught fire. That’s not how to build a fire, friends. You build it a stick at a time, and then throw logs on and then bigger ones, etc.

We have an exciting year ahead of us. Let’s add to the fire God has sparked in us. We can’t add too much or we’ll burn it out, but we don’t want to douse it out with a bucket of water, either. Let’s continue to lift up and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s continue to remember ultimately that it is not us who is doing it, but Christ. God has sparked a flame here at Salem Baptist Church. Let’s do all we can, within His will, and by His grace, to fan that spark into a mighty flame that will draw all men unto Him.

Why I Believe in Sanctity of Human Life

2008-01-22T04:05:00.001-08:00

Why I Believe in Sanctity of Human Life Psalm 139

This morning I want to introduce you to the Tricia and Nathan Lawrenson of Kill Devil Hills. They are a young couple in their late 20s. Two weeks ago, God saw fit to give them a family. When we plan to bring a child in the world, usually we are thinking of going into the hospital, staying a couple of days, and bringing the baby home to his or her new home surrounded by relatives and proud grandparents. Unfortunately, this is not the case for everybody, and was not for the Lawrensons. The picture of the baby that you see there is a tiny, premature baby by the name of Gwenneth Rose Lawrenson. She was born on January 8 at Duke University Medical Center. The reason I am telling her story is because she is a local miracle. Nathan is the minister of music at the church where his father is the pastor: Nags Head Church. Tricia, the child’s mother, is a victim of cystic fibrosis. She has struggled with this disease all her life. Nathan and Tricia wanted children since they were married while students at Liberty University, but they have been told that it would be a medical impossibility, for it would endanger Tricias life. Despite their plans to the contrary, God conceived a baby in Tricia’s womb while Tricia was on the list for a double-lung transplant. The doctors said that the baby’s chances of making it to term would be very slim, and that she would weaken her mother’s already very delicate condition. The medical team suggested very strongly that the pregnancy be terminated- and that the baby be aborted. Nathan and Tricia would not hear of it. Its one thing to be pro-life when you aren’t involved in a decision like the Lawrenson’s, but they elected to go ahead with the pregnancy. In the meantime, over the Christmas holidays, Tricia’s health took a severe downturn. An infection entered her lungs. For a time it appeared that both the mother and the baby would die. Tricia was placed on a respirator immediately, and placed on a drug induced coma so she would not struggle. Again, the doctors urged her to have an abortion, to which she refused. The doctors then elected to try to increase the viability of the baby. She was delivered, extremely premature, but nonetheless a miracle at 6 ½ months. She is not completely out of the woods yet, but she continues to grow and develop normally. In the meantime, Tricia has come out of the coma- though still on the respirator.

Why am I telling you this story? Because God is the author of life. If this event had happened just 5 years ago, it is likely baby Gwenneth would not have survived. I know that the costs and the money involved is exorbitant. But what is the value of a life? Who is it who determines whether a life is worthwhile to be lived?

I. Human life is sanctified by God. (Psalm 139:16)

The image of God means that only human beings can fellowship with the Creator

(Genesis 1:26-27). Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

The image of God means that only human beings are crowned by God with glory and majesty (Psalm 8:4-5). You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:

The image of God means therefore that God should determine life's beginning and end (Psalm 139:16). your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

II. Our Lives Belong to God. (Psalm 139:13-14)

The image of God means that we are not only subservient to God, but that also, contrary to popular belief, our bodies are not ours to dispose of as we please. Since God made us, gave life to us, and sanctified us, it is our responsibility to please God with the use of this sanctified body that he has given us. We don’t have the right to abuse it, and we don’t have the right to say when it ends and when it begins. No life is a throwaway, no precious life is disposable. Paul clearly teaches us I Cor 6:19-20 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

The fact that our bodies and everything about our lives belongs to God. In fact we don’t have one thing that God hasn’t given to us in the first place. This can be illustrated in a conversation I had with one of my children when they were very small. I took them to McDonalds when they were toddlers so Robin could get out and go get her hair done. So I bundled them up and let them play in the little playground, and then ordered their meal. When we were finishing up, it didn’t appear that one of them was going to finish her French fries. She was too distracted about playing with the other kids in the ball pen. So, not wanting to waste them or let them get cold, I reached over and picked a couple of French fries out of her bag, and put them in my mouth. She took her thumb out of her mouth and glared at me, and then said, “Hey! Those are my French fries! You can’t eat my French fries! Gimme back my French fries!” she said. I thought, “Why you little rascal you, I bought those French fries. If I want to eat one, I’ll eat one.” But I didn’t waste that argument on her because she couldn’t have understood the concept of what’s mine is mine and what’s is mine…but anyway.” God gave us our bodies. He gave us not only His breath but has provided every means to sustain it. If He gives life, He gives it, if He takes life, He takes it- and that is up to Him.

Psalm 139: 13-14 For You formed my inward parts;You covered me in my mother’s womb.14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.

Marvelous are your works- the Psalmist says. That means that God don’t make a mistake. He doesn’t goof up. He doesn’t say “Sorry, my bad!” There’s nothing “my-bad” about God- as though God has to explain Himself to any of us. I know what you are thinking, “What about the people who are born with mental deficiencies. What about the ones who are born with physical deformities? What about kids who are born as Conjoined twins, or have Down syndrome, or born with gross abnormalities? Did they somehow fall through the cracks of God’s sovereign quality control?

I can’t begin to explain all that. I wouldn’t even if I could. I know that infirmity and death were not part of God’s original creation. They were a direct result of the fall and man’s disobedience to God in the Garden of Eden. But I do know this. If God gives us His grace to bear up under our own infirmities, He gives us sufficient grace to love and to deal with the infirmities of others.

2 Corinthians 12:7-9. To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

I have a first cousin whose first child was born with Down’s Syndrome. His name is Mark. Mark is now 26 years old. But along with Mark’s deficiencies came all of the love and the joy of what it means to have a kid like Mark around. Mark has enriched all of our lives, and his parents are a wonderful testimony to the strength and sufficiency of the grace of God. God gave 3 other brothers and sisters in that home to care for Mark should Mark outlive his mom and dad.

God in His wonderful Providence, demonstrates and declares His image and creative genius in us everytime we come up with a breakthrough in medical technology to sustain life and give it hope. If we have the means to sustain life through medical technology, the fact that it is a possibility is a gift from God. Jesus said in Luke 12:48 For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

There’s so much more I can share about the Sanctity of Human Life- but let me conclude by saying that this issue is not some isolated thing that we don’t have to deal with. This issue affects all of us. It is very likely that if it doesn’t affect you personally, it affects someone you know and love. Because of this, we bear the witness of a loving, personal God who gets involved personally at every level of life to help us in our times of greatest need. Remember that all of us came into this world deformed- deformed by sin and alienated from God. Yet God spared no expense to save us and to give us eternal life. The gift of everlasting life is the basis by which we define the value of every human life, whether born or unborn, whole or not, because we were made in the image of God to reflect the love and grace of God that He has gives every single one of us.

Continue to pray for Tricia and Nathan and Gwenneth, Lawrenson, and for my cousin Darla and her husband Steve, and for Mark. They know God, and they fully believe that He was greater than their rights, their plans or their inconveniences.

"I Want That Mountain!" Jan 13 '08

2008-01-17T08:39:00.000-08:00

“I Want That Mountain”

Joshua 14:6-13

You may have heard the news that Sir Edmund Hilary, the first white man to ever scale to the peak of Mt. Everest, passed away on Friday at the age of 89. He was the one you might recall, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest in 1953, was reputed to have said, “Because its there!” Dr. Elmer Towns, my professor who taught me this week at Liberty Seminary, had an on-going friendship with Edmund for many years. One thing that most people did not know about him was that he had a strong relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ- and he never actually said “Because its there!” He actually said “I did it for the glory of God.” The press of course, not wanting to give credit where credit is due, changed the story. Edmund Hilary had a vision of what God wanted him to do in his life, and to climb that peak, he could scale anything in life that came his way.

Today we are going to go back to the book of Joshua- back where we left off at thanksgiving. AT that time we left Joshua defeating the Amalekites, and even Balaam got trampled in the victory of Israel’s final conquest. We saw that on the day that the sun stood still and how God turned a defeat into a victory at Ai. Before that we saw the walls of Jericho falling down flat and how Joshua lead the children of Israel across the Jordan on dry ground. We even saw how God transformed a prostitute into the great-great-great grandmother of David. Today, in chapter 14, most of the Israelites are taking possession of the land and settling down. There’s a little mopping up resistance by insurgents here and there but basically the Land of Promise is cleared of her enemies. Here we find a senior saint who is taking possession of his territory, along side of his younger comrades at arms- his name is Caleb.

I. We are as strong as our faith will allow ourselves to be. (V.11)

Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re too old- or young, to do what you know God would have you to do. Caleb was 85 years old when he finally got back to Hebron. He had seen this mountain 40 years before, and thought, when I get done killing the giants, that’s where I’m going, stake out my claim, build me a log cabin, plant me a garden, get me a wife, settle down, and have a family. That was the dream Caleb had for the place until the other ten spies he and Joshua had gone with were too afraid of the giants and the people of the land. Caleb had great faith then, but God punished the entire nation and Caleb was not able to get the mountain then. I’m sure he was disappointed. Disappointment is very difficult to deal with. Disappointment is something that may shatter our dreams. Sometimes people get so discouraged with disappointment that they want to give up- that they quit. Their youthful enthusiasm dies. I know some who are so full of faith and enthusiasm- its amazing what a few short years in the ministry will do to it. Its true that people let us down, people discourage us, people disappoint us, but Caleb never let them do that to his faith. Notice he says, “I am 85 years old and I am just as strong now as I was the first time I ever saw this place.” Was he as strong physically at 85? Possibly- but we can’t deny that Caleb had a heart of a man half his age. He was ready to take it all on and conquer a mountain, when most men his age are ready to hit the casket. This was no easy task. The mountains were where the Canaanite resurgents fled after they were defeated. They could have hid up in those hills for months or even years. Caleb didn’t care. Paul says to Timothy in Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. I Tim 4:12 in the same way- don’t let anyone despise you of your age, either. We have a culture that doesn’t value old age or respect. About the only thing they respect is technology and gadgets. My friend, don’t ever let anybody point out your limitations and try to hold you back. Your’e never too old for God to use you. We have some beloved senior saints in this church that are dear to all of us. They are some of the most progressive and remarkable people I know. Why if it weren’t for them doing the work in this church, we wouldn’t have much going on, I tell you that. We have much to learn from them. Don’t let anyone tell you can’t do anything. Caleb was old, but there was a lot of fight in him. He wasn’t going to the rocking chair. Don’t tell yourself that you are too old and set in your ways. What’s more, Caleb’s faith was just as vibrant- even more so. Caleb fought a lot of battles in the journey to the Promised Land. There was much too much to do to sit in a rocking chair.

He had learned a lot. One thing about his wisdom that we need to learn from Caleb- that I’m having to learn more and more like Caleb:

II. Before you climb a mountain be sure that you will choose the one you are willing to die on. (V.12)

Caleb learned that there was one mountain worth dying on- Hebron- the one he would stay on and live out the rest of his days there. What I find interesting about Caleb was his commitment to the truth in verse 8 Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the LORD my God. In other words, the other spies incited fear in the hearts of the people of Israel. Their words were heard above the mouths of Caleb and Joshua who were crying out- yes its true there are giants in the land, but we can take them on! Fighting them will only make us stronger! They would not listen to them. Disappointed, they followed Israel to wonder for 40 more years. They did not carry the day, but they did not insist on their way. Love is like that. 1 Corinthians 13:5 Love It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.” Notice Caleb did not seem bitter about it- he knew that God would allow him to have it, eventually. "No man who puts hand first to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God!"

Ever notice that when we are young we think that everything is essential, everything is important, everything is such a big deal! We know the cost of everything and the value of nothing! We think we know all the answers. We’re more judgmental, more critical of others, have less patience with people. But as you observe older people- most of them, anyway- the things that used to upset them doesn’t tend to upset them anymore. The things that used to embarrass me or hurt my feelings or make me upset 20 years ago don’t seem to affect me that way. Less trivial things don’t matter, which helps me to give greater focus to the things that really do matter. How do we get that way? By growing in grace. 2 Peter 3:18 “but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” The more you are growing in Jesus, the more your eyes are opened to the things that are really important, what really matters. Some one once said that “not many mountains are worth fussing over, few mountains are worth fighting over, and even fewer mountains are worth dying on.”

The mountain Caleb chose to die on was Hebron. Caleb might have postponed his dream of a mountain, but that did not mean he brushed it off, either. Look at the commitment he had in getting it. The Hebrew Hebron means the “friend of God.” It was the same mountain where Abraham buried Sarah when she died, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are also buried there. Caleb himself wanted to be buried there. It was truly the mountain Caleb chose to die on. There are some things that are worth dying for- essentials. Essentials for life, essentials for faith. But not everything is essential when it comes to getting along with people. I heard two deacons engaged in a heated discussion, going at it over the sound system like two grumpy old men do. Royce was a retired cameraman from NBC Nightly news, so when it came to electronic equipment, he knew his stuff. John, on the other hand, was a musician, and knew the kind of volume he wanted. Royce asked, “John why is it you insist on doing things your way all the time?” John said, Royce I don’t insist I do it my way. If you want to do it your way, go ahead. You do it your way, and I’ll do it God’s way!” Paul said in I Corinthians 15:31- I die daily! He died to himself, his ambitions, the things he had planned and hoped for- many times he had seen the stuff he had sweated and fretted over come to naught. In Hebrews 11^th chapter we read: 3 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.-- 16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. That better place, the place that Caleb found, was that spot God had prepared for him. How blessed he was that he had lived to see it when so many did not get to. Caleb found his mountain, and it was worth it. You see, Caleb already knew the promise God had given him years before: v.9 'The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly. You put your best efforts into the things that really matter.

III. The best way to conquer your enemies, and to be victorious over your critics is this- outlive them! (V.8)

And when Caleb looked at Hebron and looked around, and went down to Joshua and the council and said: “You remember when we were here the last time and what God said to me then? Well, Joshua, I’ll take my mountain, now, thank you very much! The other spies who had gone with Caleb and Joshua, who said they would never get to this place, were gone. They were no where around. They were dead! Nobody was around who said he couldn’t do it. Why wait around and let somebody talk him out of it.

There was a man in the same church I mentioned earlier, his name was Ed Putnal. When I knew Ed, he was approaching 100 years old. He was a navy veteran of World War I. He actually lived to be 101, born in the year 1900. I asked Ed, "Sir, what is the greatest thing about being 100 years old. With a smile and a gleam in his eye, Ed said “No peer pressure!”

That’s one of our problems at times as people of God. When the Calebs and Joshuas and other men and women of faith see the vision for something- usually its going to involve money, time, and in Israel’s case- people-the more people who get involved will sometimes work against the vision instead of supporting it. Just like what happened 40 years before this. The other ten spies treated Joshua and Caleb like they didn’t know anything, like they weren’t being realistic, like they didn’t have any common sense. Sure Caleb knew that some people might have to die to occupy the land, but in comparison to the alternative, it would have been a phenomenal return on their investment.

My friend, don’t ever let anybody else make a decision for you about what you believe in your heart God is leading you to do. Other people can only live their dreams, not yours. You give your dreams to somebody else, and they will probably stomp on them every time. Don’t trust anybody else for them- only trust God for them.

President Ronald Reagan one time told the story of when he was a teenager, he needed a new pair of boots made. In those days, you couldn’t just go to a shoe store, you went to the shoemaker shop. The cobbler asked the young man- “Do you want blunt end toes or pointed end toes?” Reagan shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t care, whatever you think.” When the boots were ready, Reagan examined his new boots and looked at the toes. One of them was flat, the other boot was pointed. Reagan said, “How can I wear a pair of boots like this?” The cobbler said, “You said you didn’t care.” From that day on, Ronald Reagan said “If you don’t make a decision about the things that matter the most to you, somebody else is going to make them for you.” If you live like nothing matters, then don’t be disappointed when you see other people fulfilling what they believe God is leading them to do.

Like Caleb, Jesus was undeterred in his purpose to get to His mountain. Only His mountain was not Hebron. Jesus mountain was Mount Calvary. In Matthew 16, 21From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. 22Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. 23But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Do you want this mountain badly enough? What things in life really matter to you? What mountains in your life are really worth dying for?