Introduction
Call on youth to read portions of Washington’s Thanksgiving proclamation.
Describing the Biblical Text
This is one of the more famous texts from the Bible.
I can even remember in the first grade, our teacher recited it in class every day.
This is a celebration Psalm which ascribes reverence to God through shouting, serving him and singing his praises.
In this Psalm, we have both the description of God relating to His people and our response to Him.
Narrate the Contextual application
I want you to think about something this morning.
Should we be celebrating our relationship to God?
Should our hearts and then our mouths be ringing forth the praises of God before Him and His throne of grace and among his people?
The obvious answer to that question is a resounding YES!!
We have absolutely ruined that first verse haven’t we?
You know what we think it means?
We think it means that it’s okay to sing in the choir when you can’t carry a tune in a bucket.
I bet you heard more than one person say, “I can’t sing very well but the Bible just says to make a joyful noise.”
That is a good sentiment and there is nothing wrong with praising the Lord and serving him and stretching our gifts even to point where they are not but, if we honestly look at this passage, we will see something else here.
Life Application (thesis)
We see a joyful noise, a shout to the Lord just to praise God for who He is.
Life should a celebration for the follower of Jesus Christ.
And our corporate or gathered worship should be no less a celebration when we come together to feast on the riches of the word of God or to life our voices praisefully to Him or to worship in our giving and our tithing to the work of the Lord.
Worship is not the object of a preposition; Worship is not something to which we go; worship is something we do.
Worship in our lives is indeed personal and private but it is also corporate of group.
We gather in this meeting place, this house of worship and when we do, we are the church visible or gathered and then we can worship together.
Every Sunday should be what this coming Thursday is all about.
It should be about worshiping with thanks.
That is because giving thanks is a celebration in which all followers of Christ should participate.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
This text show us two reasons for this but if we read the Bible even casually, we would see that there many many more.
Let’s look at the first reason in the text.
God made us.
Verse 3 makes that very clear doesn’t it?
We are made in His image.
That is a very strong statement because it reveals that we have innately dwelling within us things that God wants us to be able to do simply because He made us.
We possess the powers of reason and the ability to solve problems like no animal on the earth.
We possess things like language, thoughtful survival (as opposed to instinctive behavior), the capacity to make complex decisions, and, we have the capacity to domesticate most of the rest of the creation.
We are also created with a spirit that enables us to know right from wrong and to understand and realize that there is a God who is indeed on His throne in heave and who brought all thing that are into being.
There is no question that we are special in the sight of God as we were the crown of His creation at the very beginning.
Something else that makes us special is that we, followers of Christ, are also made with his purpose in mind.
Sometimes we feel so very random in the universe.
We are so small and it is so big and there are so many bazillions of people out there that how could God notice me or think that I am special.
But I want us to see the second part of the 3rd verse.
We are His people and sheep of His pasture.
When you think about ancient shepherds, they had a very important job as they were overseeing much of the food and clothing supply.
Shepherds were not simply there to watch sheep, they took that task very personally and knew each sheep in the pasture and every sheep in the flock knew the shepherd as well.
The shepherd had a personal stake in the lives of each of the sheep and if something happened to the sheep either it was stolen by wolves or died from disease. The shepherd would miss the sheep.
He tended to its needs and cared for its well being.
That is very much what God does for us.
In Psalm 23, we see the word, “The LORD is my shepherd.”
In John 10, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.”
So, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, we are compared to sheep and the shepherd lovingly cares for us.
Of course, Sheep have a purpose for the shepherd.
The wool provides warmth and the meat provides food and blood provides for the sacrifice given in worship to God.
The sheep would eventually give his all for the shepherd just like we give our all to the savior who loves us and died to save us.
Part of that all that we give is a shout or a joyful noise.
Hallelujah
Praise God
We come before Him with joyful singing.
That means when we sing amazing grace, we smile like it amazes us not pucker like it annoys us.
Something else that we need to see in the overall idea that God made us is that we were made to do His will.
Sheep only go to the pasture where they are led.
When we go to a pasture where the Lord is not leading us, that is disobedience or sin.
That would characterize our lives before we became a part of the flock of Jesus.
All have sinned and come short of God’s glory
But because Of the rich love of the shepherd, He died for us to remove that sin and its burden which is an eternity separated from God.
After He died, Jesus rose from the dead proving that he is indeed the Son of God having the power to conquer death.
Just look at John 10.
It is in the same context that Jesus proclaims himself the good shepherd that he indicates that He can lay down his life and take it up again.
The good shepherd can come into your life and lead you into green pastures beside quiet waters.
He can heal and forgive.
Will you trust Him to do that today?
We have a second reason to thank God regularly,
God is faithful.
Verse 7 describes this as we see that He is good and His lovingkindness endures forever and we see His faithfulness to all generations.
He is the one who knows the end from the beginning and who has brought all things into being according to His purpose.
When God purposed redemption before the foundation for the world, He was faithful to accomplish it on the cross by His son
In His accomplishing redemption on the cross, He was faithful to apply it by His Spirit.
We see God as being faithful and true because His word tells us that He is.
He cannot lie so all of His promises come to pass.
He will not leave or forsake us so he is faithfully present in our lives.
Does anyone know the significance of March 19th?
Besides being St. Joseph’s day and Alyson Waller’s birthday, it is the day that the swallows return to the San Juan Capistrano mission every year. They also migrate away every year on the same day, October 23rd.
Their coming and going is something that can be counted on and has been counted on for many years.
You can count on God in His faithfulness as well.
Like clockwork, He will meet our needs and keep our lives in His hand.
So as we give thanks today, give the Lord a big Hallelujah or a shout to His glory.
As we give thanks on Thursday, let’s be mindful that thanksgiving is not a holiday; it is a way of life for the faithful follower of Jesus Christ.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Power for Living -- Our Mighty God -- Isaiah 41:1-10
1. Introduction
As a culture, we are inundated with bad news. As we drive down the road, we see gasoline in excess of 3.00 a gallon. As we read the papers, we see taxes going up and government bureaucracy increasing with everyone from the city to the federal government regulating us to death. Flip on the news and we see soldiers getting killed, fires burning out of control and the stock market plummeting. We see scandal abounding as sports figures and politicians and even some religious people getting caught up in unsightly behavior.
In the midst of cultural turmoil, we need to know that we have a sustaining God.
Our God is constant in His love for us and his ability to give us peace in a world and in a life that may lack peace.
2. Describing the Biblical Text
In this text, we see pending judgment coming but we also see God issuing some comfort for His people through the prophet.
As we look here we see what I consider to be one of the Bible’s significant verses.
This part of Isaiah, that is anything that is past the 40th chapter, is a pr
3. Narrate the Contextual application
This is an encouraging passage that assures Israel and Judah that God is in control of their situation and even though judgment may be about to fall, that is simply a sign that God’s love for His people is still in place.
We find in the book of Hebrews in the New Testament that God does chasten those he loves.
It goes on to say that if God’s chastening hand is not on us then we are not His.
That should be a scary thought to all of us.
We need God’s discipline for assurance that we are His.
So if we do not see the hand of God bringing discipline into our lives, then we need to seriously look at our relationship with Him.
In His discipline, we can see that his presence is a vital part of our lives.
4. Life Application (thesis)
Let’s take a look at this truth this morning.
God is our keeper and our strength and by Him, we will be upheld.
5. SO WHAT!! (Outline)
In this truth, we will see two certainties this morning as we seek to live our lives in the comfort that God keeps and sustains us.
God has a plan and that plan includes my life.
At the Associational meeting this past Thursday night, Sid Barnett’s son in law told the story of Adoniram Judson the great missionary to Burma.
As the account went, Judson was quite the scholar and fell into a group of deists in college. Deists believe more like God is a clockmaker who built the world, wound it up and just let it go.
There is no personal involvement from God in the affairs of men which as we have seen recently, to believe that is to deny the very essence of God in His sovereign, electing love for us.
In God’s foreknowing us, there is personal involvement from him in our lives from the very foundation of the world.
Look at verse 2
You see a question here. Who has aroused one from the east?
This one from the east is possibly a description of King Cyrus of Persia who would eventually overthrow the Babylonians.
Who lifted him up?
Who put him in his place of authority?
Verses 3 and 4 continue to describe the one who put Cyrus in authority and then answers the question.
Look at the end of verse
BYW if you are following along in our revelation study on Wed night, you will see this term used to describe God there as well.
This is a declaration that God knows it all from the beginning to the end.
Not only is he the one who knows it all, He is the one who causes it all to be.
Remember the name that He gave to Moses in Exodus.
I am that I am.
In that Name, he was stating that He was the one who has always existed.
He was stating that He was the one who brought everything into existence
He was stating that he was the one that caused all things to be as they are.
The God of the Bible is eternal, holy and sovereign.
And, for us to have a relationship with him, we must be brought to a place where there is noting in our lives that would offend a holy, sovereign God.
Yet, we all know that is not the case.
We all have sin in our lives.
It separates us from God and keeps us from having a relationship with Him.
Yet God desires to have a relationship with His people and that is why He sent Jesus to die on the cross.
Jesus when he died on the cross paid the penalty for our sins that we would come to know God through Christ.
The Bible says that there is no one who is righteous.
This unrighteousness separates us from God so God closed that separation by sending His wrath on His son for our sins.
This act of Great love is described in the verse that says, “God demonstrated His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
When Jesus died on the cross for us, he provided to us the forgiveness of God.
If any man will confess with his mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in his heart that Jesus rose from the dead, he will be saved for his sin and the eternal penalty of that sin, separation from God in Hell.
You might be looking right now for that forgiveness and that relationship with God.
Won’t you pray with me?
I’ll lead and you can simply repeat the words but you need to mean them from your heart.
Dear Lord,
I know that I have sinned and lived badly. I am sorry and desire to live for you now. I am receiving Jesus into my heart to be the Lord and savior of my life. Help me to give you control of my life Lord and to live for you. Thank you for dying on the cross for me and for coming back from the dead. Thank you for saving me today.
If you prayed that this morning, I am going to have an opportunity for you to respond in just a few minutes.
Isn’t great to know that God’s way is the best way?
Really, it’s the only way.
God cares for us and our lives are hidden with Him when we are relying on Him and His wisdom and strength to keep us.
Our second certainty is this.
Serving God means that our lives are hidden in Him.
There are a couple of things that we can take the bank.
Our paycheck every Friday and the fact that God’s plans for us and His wisdom are always better than our own
When we look at verses 5-7 we something that should make us take notice.
We see man attempting to control his own circumstances in his own way without consulting God or what is worse, by creating His own God.
We see the feel good mentality of today’s self esteem, culture don’t we. [Read v 5-6]
Then we see the useless pursuit of Idol worship as craftsmen and smelters and solders seek to put some kind of idol together that won’t totter in order to appease some fertility god and to save themselves from the Persians.
But in verse 8 God says that is unnecessary.
God chose them just like He chose us.
The hand of His favor is upon us and we need to serve Him.
But then we come to verse 10.
What a great verse of scripture this is.
I love the rendering in the KJV
Fear thou not for I am with thee
Be not dismayed for I am Thy God.
I will strengthen thee
Yea I will help thee
Yea I will uphold thee by the right hand of my righteousness.
I am going to ask you a question and I wish you would ask me.
Why do we worry and fret when God is in control?
Why do we anxiously look around us when our circumstances are in his hands?
He controls world leaders and governments rise and fall at His hand.
Remember verse 2 He subdues kings and delivers nations.
If God is able to manage the circumstances of the nations, why can’t he handle our little stuff?
He can and He will if we trust Him and stop taking matters into our own hands.
As we leave here this morning, let’s take verse 10 with us.
God is in control and He loves us.
But better than that, He upholds in the righteousness of his right hand.
As a culture, we are inundated with bad news. As we drive down the road, we see gasoline in excess of 3.00 a gallon. As we read the papers, we see taxes going up and government bureaucracy increasing with everyone from the city to the federal government regulating us to death. Flip on the news and we see soldiers getting killed, fires burning out of control and the stock market plummeting. We see scandal abounding as sports figures and politicians and even some religious people getting caught up in unsightly behavior.
In the midst of cultural turmoil, we need to know that we have a sustaining God.
Our God is constant in His love for us and his ability to give us peace in a world and in a life that may lack peace.
2. Describing the Biblical Text
In this text, we see pending judgment coming but we also see God issuing some comfort for His people through the prophet.
As we look here we see what I consider to be one of the Bible’s significant verses.
This part of Isaiah, that is anything that is past the 40th chapter, is a pr
3. Narrate the Contextual application
This is an encouraging passage that assures Israel and Judah that God is in control of their situation and even though judgment may be about to fall, that is simply a sign that God’s love for His people is still in place.
We find in the book of Hebrews in the New Testament that God does chasten those he loves.
It goes on to say that if God’s chastening hand is not on us then we are not His.
That should be a scary thought to all of us.
We need God’s discipline for assurance that we are His.
So if we do not see the hand of God bringing discipline into our lives, then we need to seriously look at our relationship with Him.
In His discipline, we can see that his presence is a vital part of our lives.
4. Life Application (thesis)
Let’s take a look at this truth this morning.
God is our keeper and our strength and by Him, we will be upheld.
5. SO WHAT!! (Outline)
In this truth, we will see two certainties this morning as we seek to live our lives in the comfort that God keeps and sustains us.
God has a plan and that plan includes my life.
At the Associational meeting this past Thursday night, Sid Barnett’s son in law told the story of Adoniram Judson the great missionary to Burma.
As the account went, Judson was quite the scholar and fell into a group of deists in college. Deists believe more like God is a clockmaker who built the world, wound it up and just let it go.
There is no personal involvement from God in the affairs of men which as we have seen recently, to believe that is to deny the very essence of God in His sovereign, electing love for us.
In God’s foreknowing us, there is personal involvement from him in our lives from the very foundation of the world.
Look at verse 2
You see a question here. Who has aroused one from the east?
This one from the east is possibly a description of King Cyrus of Persia who would eventually overthrow the Babylonians.
Who lifted him up?
Who put him in his place of authority?
Verses 3 and 4 continue to describe the one who put Cyrus in authority and then answers the question.
Look at the end of verse
BYW if you are following along in our revelation study on Wed night, you will see this term used to describe God there as well.
This is a declaration that God knows it all from the beginning to the end.
Not only is he the one who knows it all, He is the one who causes it all to be.
Remember the name that He gave to Moses in Exodus.
I am that I am.
In that Name, he was stating that He was the one who has always existed.
He was stating that He was the one who brought everything into existence
He was stating that he was the one that caused all things to be as they are.
The God of the Bible is eternal, holy and sovereign.
And, for us to have a relationship with him, we must be brought to a place where there is noting in our lives that would offend a holy, sovereign God.
Yet, we all know that is not the case.
We all have sin in our lives.
It separates us from God and keeps us from having a relationship with Him.
Yet God desires to have a relationship with His people and that is why He sent Jesus to die on the cross.
Jesus when he died on the cross paid the penalty for our sins that we would come to know God through Christ.
The Bible says that there is no one who is righteous.
This unrighteousness separates us from God so God closed that separation by sending His wrath on His son for our sins.
This act of Great love is described in the verse that says, “God demonstrated His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
When Jesus died on the cross for us, he provided to us the forgiveness of God.
If any man will confess with his mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in his heart that Jesus rose from the dead, he will be saved for his sin and the eternal penalty of that sin, separation from God in Hell.
You might be looking right now for that forgiveness and that relationship with God.
Won’t you pray with me?
I’ll lead and you can simply repeat the words but you need to mean them from your heart.
Dear Lord,
I know that I have sinned and lived badly. I am sorry and desire to live for you now. I am receiving Jesus into my heart to be the Lord and savior of my life. Help me to give you control of my life Lord and to live for you. Thank you for dying on the cross for me and for coming back from the dead. Thank you for saving me today.
If you prayed that this morning, I am going to have an opportunity for you to respond in just a few minutes.
Isn’t great to know that God’s way is the best way?
Really, it’s the only way.
God cares for us and our lives are hidden with Him when we are relying on Him and His wisdom and strength to keep us.
Our second certainty is this.
Serving God means that our lives are hidden in Him.
There are a couple of things that we can take the bank.
Our paycheck every Friday and the fact that God’s plans for us and His wisdom are always better than our own
When we look at verses 5-7 we something that should make us take notice.
We see man attempting to control his own circumstances in his own way without consulting God or what is worse, by creating His own God.
We see the feel good mentality of today’s self esteem, culture don’t we. [Read v 5-6]
Then we see the useless pursuit of Idol worship as craftsmen and smelters and solders seek to put some kind of idol together that won’t totter in order to appease some fertility god and to save themselves from the Persians.
But in verse 8 God says that is unnecessary.
God chose them just like He chose us.
The hand of His favor is upon us and we need to serve Him.
But then we come to verse 10.
What a great verse of scripture this is.
I love the rendering in the KJV
Fear thou not for I am with thee
Be not dismayed for I am Thy God.
I will strengthen thee
Yea I will help thee
Yea I will uphold thee by the right hand of my righteousness.
I am going to ask you a question and I wish you would ask me.
Why do we worry and fret when God is in control?
Why do we anxiously look around us when our circumstances are in his hands?
He controls world leaders and governments rise and fall at His hand.
Remember verse 2 He subdues kings and delivers nations.
If God is able to manage the circumstances of the nations, why can’t he handle our little stuff?
He can and He will if we trust Him and stop taking matters into our own hands.
As we leave here this morning, let’s take verse 10 with us.
God is in control and He loves us.
But better than that, He upholds in the righteousness of his right hand.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Power for Living -- Our Moral Task -- 2 Timothy 3
Introduction
Lynn Anderson was a country singer from the 1970’s.
Her signature song was called Rose Garden. The chorus or refrain of the song made this statement, “I beg your pardon; I never promised you a rose Garden. Along with the sunshine, there’s got to be little rain sometime.”
Describing the Biblical Text
Timothy was a pastor and he was assigned by Paul to take care of the church at Ephesus and if we notice Paul’s description of the times at hand or that will come to Timothy’s ministry, they are perilous.
As we consider the theme of the revival that we had last week, we think about the idea that life is great.
But we must contextualize that.
What is not stated but is assumed is that life in Great when lived in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That was the clear implication of the theme verse from Philippians 3:10.
Paul was issuing a warning to Timothy and then preparing Him to deal with that which he predicted to come.
As we look at the last few verses of this chapter, we see what are some pretty familiar verses as they were the cry of the conservative movement in our denomination.
Narrate the Contextual application
In Timothy’s day, heresy was a very real concern in the church and if you don’t think that it is today, just turn on the TV and watch the preachers in their coliseums and their glass cathedrals and just listen for a few minutes.
They have confused the preaching of the gospel with t eh idea of making people fell good.
Usually the preaching of the gospel does the opposite.
Usually it makes people miserable in the knowledge of their sin and then gives them that peace in forgiveness.
Think about that verse from the song “Amazing Grace.”
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.
Grace brings the conviction and then grace gives comfort to the soul.
What is the best preparation for the perilous times that are to come?
It is the faithfully fulfilling our moral task in Jesus.
But what is that task and how do we find it?
Life Application (thesis)
That question is answered by a simple statement.
The word of God will equip us to follow Christ in our deeds.
I want you to think about 3 s words for just a minute.
Situation
Spirit
Scriptures
Every situation in which we find ourselves is handled by engaging the scriptures through the Spirit for the wisdom of God.
Every situation in which we find ourselves must me approached from a biblical per5spective on how we can handle it in the power of the God’s Spirit and the wisdom of the Bible.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
As we look at this text this morning, we are going to see 2 distinct realities that we will need to confront in order to be equipped by the word for service to God.
Things are not always hunky dory even in church.
Some of us probably remember the Susan Smith story from a few years back. She had a boyfriend that wanted to be with her but did not want to have anything to do with her kids. Her small children were in the way of her having this relationship so she did the unthinkable. She locked her kids in a car and pushed them into a lake.
How could it come to that?
How could someone decide to destroy their own life and the life of the kids and the lives of the father’s family just to be with a boy friend?
Look at our passage.
In the last days, difficult times or perilous times will come.
That word perilous or difficult is only used in one other place in the NT.
In Matthew 8, we have this account given from the ministry of Jesus.
Listen to Matthew 8:28
When He came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed met Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way.
Paul is warning Timothy that the end times will be times of violence
That is not surprising based on the description that we read in verses 1-5.
When people think what they see in the mirror everyday is more important that what they read in the word or who they should worship, it leads to big problems.
There is an attitude of self-gratification that is described here that has the potential to not only come into the church but to ruin it.
Lovers of self is the very opposite of one who loves God and who loves his neighbor.
Lovers of money are the very opposites of those who seek God’s Kingdom and His righteousness.
There list goes on and on but what should really jump out at us is the description found in verse 5
“Holding to a form of godliness and denying its power.”
That is a scary thing.
That means that the world has crept into the church.
I think that many people have become confused about what it means to have a worldly church.
I think that if you polled a group of 100 people and asked them what it means to have a worldly church, the answer you would get would come back to music.
If there is a band that plays music that someone might call Rocknroll, then it is worldly.
But, there might be other answers as well.
The church that handles its finances like they are a business could be seen as a worldly church.
The church that has the country club mentality where the social gospel is preached which is neither social nor is it the gospel could be the worldly church.
But if we look at this text and we look at this context, we see worldliness as something much more sinister don’t we?
This is serious business as we consider what is appropriate behavior for a person who is called a follower of Jesus Christ.
It is a cinch what is not.
We see the list right here in verses 2-5 and then we see the Christian response to it.
Avoid such men as these.
Our lives cannot look like these things because we look like the world and we are not showing to the lost around us what a difference that Jesus Christ has made in our lives.
These people have nothing to offer the follower of Jesus Christ except to tear him down and lead Him to stumble into sin.
Look at the results of lives lived like this.
They are impulsive making decisions without any input let alone God’s wisdom.
They claim to be seeking truth but never come to grips with any real truth in that they cannot comprehend the Gospel of Jesus as their eyes are blinded to it.
And what is worse, they ridicule and criticize the true church.
Look at verse 12.
These people who are described in the early verses of this text are shown in verse 13 as actually persecuting the true followers of Jesus.
But, we can’t think that we are too good for persecution or struggle.
We cannot think that we are above receiving any trouble.
Our faith demands that we be troubled.
We will be squeezed for it if we truly desire to live for Jesus Christ.
But, In spite of those who seek to trouble us and to deceive us with partial truth and falsehood, there is something that we can do.
Our second reality tells us that things are always handled well when we allow God’s word to inform us.
There are things that always go better when we have some kind of instructions to guide us.
I almost never go anyplace unfamiliar that I don’t Google a map for the trip.
I hate getting lost and even hate stopping to ask for directions even more.
When we look at our text there we see Paul giving Timothy some very basic instruction
Stick with what you know.
Continue in the things you have learned.
Remember where you got the good stuff
You have known it from childhood.
What is it?
It is the Holy Scriptures, that which teaches you and corrects you.
But, it does something else.
It completes us in so far as is possible in this life.
It makes us perfect and throughly furnished for all good works.
When the violent times come, how do we cope?
When the persecution comes, how do we cope?
We trust that what we have learned from the word of God will be there to inform us and to encourage us.
But, it is also preparing us to do the Lord’s work.
In the midst of tribulation and in the midst of the church becoming that form of godliness without any power, the follower of Jesus is still able to change the world through the power of Jesus and the teaching of the word of God.
But we have to spend time in the Bible.
Psalm 5 tells us that the Lord will hear us in the morning.
I want to challenge you to give the Lord the firstfruits of your day and take some time to read the word in the morning and then meditate on what you read for the rest of the day.
Then as you pray, ask God to give you the wisdom you need to apply the truth of the Word of God.
Our moral task is to know the Bible and to live the Bible that we will bear the fruit that God has called us to bear.
Lynn Anderson was a country singer from the 1970’s.
Her signature song was called Rose Garden. The chorus or refrain of the song made this statement, “I beg your pardon; I never promised you a rose Garden. Along with the sunshine, there’s got to be little rain sometime.”
Describing the Biblical Text
Timothy was a pastor and he was assigned by Paul to take care of the church at Ephesus and if we notice Paul’s description of the times at hand or that will come to Timothy’s ministry, they are perilous.
As we consider the theme of the revival that we had last week, we think about the idea that life is great.
But we must contextualize that.
What is not stated but is assumed is that life in Great when lived in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That was the clear implication of the theme verse from Philippians 3:10.
Paul was issuing a warning to Timothy and then preparing Him to deal with that which he predicted to come.
As we look at the last few verses of this chapter, we see what are some pretty familiar verses as they were the cry of the conservative movement in our denomination.
Narrate the Contextual application
In Timothy’s day, heresy was a very real concern in the church and if you don’t think that it is today, just turn on the TV and watch the preachers in their coliseums and their glass cathedrals and just listen for a few minutes.
They have confused the preaching of the gospel with t eh idea of making people fell good.
Usually the preaching of the gospel does the opposite.
Usually it makes people miserable in the knowledge of their sin and then gives them that peace in forgiveness.
Think about that verse from the song “Amazing Grace.”
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.
Grace brings the conviction and then grace gives comfort to the soul.
What is the best preparation for the perilous times that are to come?
It is the faithfully fulfilling our moral task in Jesus.
But what is that task and how do we find it?
Life Application (thesis)
That question is answered by a simple statement.
The word of God will equip us to follow Christ in our deeds.
I want you to think about 3 s words for just a minute.
Situation
Spirit
Scriptures
Every situation in which we find ourselves is handled by engaging the scriptures through the Spirit for the wisdom of God.
Every situation in which we find ourselves must me approached from a biblical per5spective on how we can handle it in the power of the God’s Spirit and the wisdom of the Bible.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
As we look at this text this morning, we are going to see 2 distinct realities that we will need to confront in order to be equipped by the word for service to God.
Things are not always hunky dory even in church.
Some of us probably remember the Susan Smith story from a few years back. She had a boyfriend that wanted to be with her but did not want to have anything to do with her kids. Her small children were in the way of her having this relationship so she did the unthinkable. She locked her kids in a car and pushed them into a lake.
How could it come to that?
How could someone decide to destroy their own life and the life of the kids and the lives of the father’s family just to be with a boy friend?
Look at our passage.
In the last days, difficult times or perilous times will come.
That word perilous or difficult is only used in one other place in the NT.
In Matthew 8, we have this account given from the ministry of Jesus.
Listen to Matthew 8:28
When He came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed met Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way.
Paul is warning Timothy that the end times will be times of violence
That is not surprising based on the description that we read in verses 1-5.
When people think what they see in the mirror everyday is more important that what they read in the word or who they should worship, it leads to big problems.
There is an attitude of self-gratification that is described here that has the potential to not only come into the church but to ruin it.
Lovers of self is the very opposite of one who loves God and who loves his neighbor.
Lovers of money are the very opposites of those who seek God’s Kingdom and His righteousness.
There list goes on and on but what should really jump out at us is the description found in verse 5
“Holding to a form of godliness and denying its power.”
That is a scary thing.
That means that the world has crept into the church.
I think that many people have become confused about what it means to have a worldly church.
I think that if you polled a group of 100 people and asked them what it means to have a worldly church, the answer you would get would come back to music.
If there is a band that plays music that someone might call Rocknroll, then it is worldly.
But, there might be other answers as well.
The church that handles its finances like they are a business could be seen as a worldly church.
The church that has the country club mentality where the social gospel is preached which is neither social nor is it the gospel could be the worldly church.
But if we look at this text and we look at this context, we see worldliness as something much more sinister don’t we?
This is serious business as we consider what is appropriate behavior for a person who is called a follower of Jesus Christ.
It is a cinch what is not.
We see the list right here in verses 2-5 and then we see the Christian response to it.
Avoid such men as these.
Our lives cannot look like these things because we look like the world and we are not showing to the lost around us what a difference that Jesus Christ has made in our lives.
These people have nothing to offer the follower of Jesus Christ except to tear him down and lead Him to stumble into sin.
Look at the results of lives lived like this.
They are impulsive making decisions without any input let alone God’s wisdom.
They claim to be seeking truth but never come to grips with any real truth in that they cannot comprehend the Gospel of Jesus as their eyes are blinded to it.
And what is worse, they ridicule and criticize the true church.
Look at verse 12.
These people who are described in the early verses of this text are shown in verse 13 as actually persecuting the true followers of Jesus.
But, we can’t think that we are too good for persecution or struggle.
We cannot think that we are above receiving any trouble.
Our faith demands that we be troubled.
We will be squeezed for it if we truly desire to live for Jesus Christ.
But, In spite of those who seek to trouble us and to deceive us with partial truth and falsehood, there is something that we can do.
Our second reality tells us that things are always handled well when we allow God’s word to inform us.
There are things that always go better when we have some kind of instructions to guide us.
I almost never go anyplace unfamiliar that I don’t Google a map for the trip.
I hate getting lost and even hate stopping to ask for directions even more.
When we look at our text there we see Paul giving Timothy some very basic instruction
Stick with what you know.
Continue in the things you have learned.
Remember where you got the good stuff
You have known it from childhood.
What is it?
It is the Holy Scriptures, that which teaches you and corrects you.
But, it does something else.
It completes us in so far as is possible in this life.
It makes us perfect and throughly furnished for all good works.
When the violent times come, how do we cope?
When the persecution comes, how do we cope?
We trust that what we have learned from the word of God will be there to inform us and to encourage us.
But, it is also preparing us to do the Lord’s work.
In the midst of tribulation and in the midst of the church becoming that form of godliness without any power, the follower of Jesus is still able to change the world through the power of Jesus and the teaching of the word of God.
But we have to spend time in the Bible.
Psalm 5 tells us that the Lord will hear us in the morning.
I want to challenge you to give the Lord the firstfruits of your day and take some time to read the word in the morning and then meditate on what you read for the rest of the day.
Then as you pray, ask God to give you the wisdom you need to apply the truth of the Word of God.
Our moral task is to know the Bible and to live the Bible that we will bear the fruit that God has called us to bear.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Power For Living -- Our Mortal Enemy -- Romans 8:28-39
Introduction
Back in the 1970’s there were commercials for a little booklet called power for Living.
To be honest, I borrowed the title of this series from that little booklet.
I remember the commercials were usually played with an announcer making the pitch and a celebrity like Tom Landry giving some kind of endorsement.
As it turned out, the booklet was a copy of the gospel of Jesus Christ and it was intended to give people real power for living.
As followers of Christ we have power for living but we have a real mortal enemy to that power which is our own attitude of doubt in the ability of God to keep us and bless us according to His will.
Describing the Biblical Text
Romans 8 is really a very important chapter in the Bible but here in the context of the book of Romans it is the climax of the doctrinal section of the book.
This chapter gives the essence of justification by Faith and this section puts it in the hands of a loving sovereign God.
So, where is there room to doubt that God loves us or cares for us?
Where is there room to doubt that God can and will take care of those for whom Jesus died and are now following Christ in the kingdom of God.
Narrate the Contextual application
As we look at this text. We can see that we have a passage of great comfort.
It is a passage of great wealth for the follower of Christ as it declarers an important truth for us.
All things work together for Good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Yet, this comfort is lost on so many followers of Jesus because we fail to view life with the eternal perspective that God is in control and our salvation has been His work from its beginning to its fulfillment.
We have been bought by the shed blood of Christ and the sight of God, that is not only adequate for salvation but it is that which has made our salvation complete in the eyes of God.
Life Application (thesis)
So, if our salvation would be seen as complete if viewed through the eyes of God, what can change that?
Is Jesus going to make an offering for us and then rescind it?
The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus died once for all.
The implication behind that statement is that Jesus did the work and completed the process.
The priests of the Old Testament had to repeatedly offer their sacrifices but the sacrifice of Jesus was once for all time.
Even on the cross He made the statement, “It is Finished.” To indicated that the atonement for sins was a done deal.
Since Jesus has therefore purchased us by His blood, what can take place to change or remove our standing with Him?
Since Jesus has purchased us, nothing can separate us from God.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
As we look at that idea this morning we are going to develop it in terms of factors in which we can take comfort knowing that God is keeping us.
The first factor is that we can take comfort in the providence of God.
One of the nicest feelings is to know that you don’t have anything to worry about. Several years ago, we had some family members give a gift of a vacation that was all inclusive. That means that everything was provided including meals and room cleanup and every thing. We had absolutely nothing to worry about. We could about our business each day and have fun and just show up at the restaurant at supper time and a meal would be ready for us. It was cool just to know that someone else was handling everything and that there was simply nothing to worry about.
As we look at verses 8:28-30, we are looking at 3 of my very favorite verses in the New Testament.
Why?
It is because these verses point out to us something very important.
In regards to our salvation, God handled it all.
Our salvation is simply a part of the providential plan of God that included some very important details in so far as we can see in this passage.
All things are working together because God’s providential purpose is fulfilled in our salvation.
Things are working for good to those who love God.
Those who love God are further defined as the one being called according to God’s purpose.
So everyone who is called according to God’s purpose loves Him.
Now, let’s look a little deeper into this passage
Verse 29 begins with the words, “For whom He did foreknow.”
This is the same group as the called that we find in verse 28.
If someone loves God and has been called according to His purpose, that same person was foreknown by God before the foundation of the world.
This is not a general type of knowledge either this is the knowledge that begins a relationship with God.
According to this passage, everyone that God has foreknown will become a follower of Jesus Christ.
We can see that in the following statement: For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.
This is important because it shows us that when God predestined us to salvation it was for the purpose of seeing us conformed to the image of Christ.
So, all those that God foreknows are predestined to be conformed to the image of His son.
This means that our salvation began in the mind of God and was determined by Him for the purpose of bringing us to Christlikeness.
Somehow, many followers of Jesus have gotten the idea that predestination is something that the church should avoid or something that is killing churches.
But, how can we avoid that which the Bible clearly teaches.
As a matter of fact, it should be encouraging to us that because we were predestined by God, we are secure in Him and what Christ accomplished for us on the cross.
There has also been the argument that believing in predestination would kill missions and evangelism.
I hope no one here believes that because that would be that William Carey the father of Modern missions couldn’t have been a missionary.
It would mean that James Petigru Boyce couldn’t have been the founder of Southern Seminary, the training ground of pastors and missionaries alike.
It would mean that Charles Spurgeon couldn’t have been the pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, the greatest Baptist church in English History.
It would mean that Jonathan Edwards could not have been the greatest preacher in the Great Awakening.
All of these men had a very high view of the Sovereignty of God as it related to salvation.
We would call them Calvinists and much of their theology would have been informed by this very passage of scripture.
The next statement is telling: these whom He predestined, He also called
Remember how verse 28 is worded God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him who are the called according to his purpose.
The predestined are the called and they are called to conformity in Christ.
These whom He called, He also justified;
In other words, those foreknown, predestined, and called have done what?
They have exercised faith because justification or being made righteous with God is by faith or trusting Christ.
Then finally: and these whom He justified, He also glorified
Paul is writing as though our glory is already accomplished.
Think about it.
If we have been justified or declared righteous by Christ what can impede God’s glory?
There is nothing.
So if God has foreknown us, then he has glorified us in Christ as well.
So, in the Providence of God, there is great comfort in knowing that if we have called of God we are secure in Him until the day we are glorified in Christ
A second factor that we see here is
We can be comforted in the protection of God.
Look at the next several verses.
31-37
My brother in law had gone out to buy some gas and was run off the road by another car. The other car kept driving and he went home too. Later that night, the police showed up at his door and arrested him for causing an accident and leaving the scene. At the trial every thing that the other driver said and the policeman tried to prove was disproved and my brother in law was cleared and the charges were expunged from his record.
Who can bring the charge when the sin is expunged or removed from our record by God?
No one can bring a charge against us because God has been for us from before the foundation of the world when he foreknew us and will be for us in eternity when we are resting in His glory.
We rest in his protection now because if God purposed to save us and to have the blood of Christ shed on our behalf, then the point that Paul is making here is that nothing can come against that which God has secured for his own glory and conformity to the image of His son.
And, there is a third factor that we must see here.
And that is we are comforted in the promise of God.
Look at verses 38-39.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Think about that.
He foreknew us by His grace because He loves us.
He predestined us by His grace because He loves us.
He called us by his grace because He loves us.
He justified us by His grace because he loves us.
He glorified us by His grace because He loves us.
God demonstrated His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Everything that God has done to secure our salvation from eternity past to eternity future was done because He loves us.
And because of what he has done, nothing can separate us from that love.
Do you know the love of Christ today?
Are you feeling that call this morning to become a follower of Jesus Christ?
He shed his blood on the cross to give you an eternity with God.
He has taken away the sin that so desperately left you condemned and has replaced it with a perfect righteousness conforming you to the image of His son.
Won’t you receive Christ and follow Him today?
Back in the 1970’s there were commercials for a little booklet called power for Living.
To be honest, I borrowed the title of this series from that little booklet.
I remember the commercials were usually played with an announcer making the pitch and a celebrity like Tom Landry giving some kind of endorsement.
As it turned out, the booklet was a copy of the gospel of Jesus Christ and it was intended to give people real power for living.
As followers of Christ we have power for living but we have a real mortal enemy to that power which is our own attitude of doubt in the ability of God to keep us and bless us according to His will.
Describing the Biblical Text
Romans 8 is really a very important chapter in the Bible but here in the context of the book of Romans it is the climax of the doctrinal section of the book.
This chapter gives the essence of justification by Faith and this section puts it in the hands of a loving sovereign God.
So, where is there room to doubt that God loves us or cares for us?
Where is there room to doubt that God can and will take care of those for whom Jesus died and are now following Christ in the kingdom of God.
Narrate the Contextual application
As we look at this text. We can see that we have a passage of great comfort.
It is a passage of great wealth for the follower of Christ as it declarers an important truth for us.
All things work together for Good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Yet, this comfort is lost on so many followers of Jesus because we fail to view life with the eternal perspective that God is in control and our salvation has been His work from its beginning to its fulfillment.
We have been bought by the shed blood of Christ and the sight of God, that is not only adequate for salvation but it is that which has made our salvation complete in the eyes of God.
Life Application (thesis)
So, if our salvation would be seen as complete if viewed through the eyes of God, what can change that?
Is Jesus going to make an offering for us and then rescind it?
The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus died once for all.
The implication behind that statement is that Jesus did the work and completed the process.
The priests of the Old Testament had to repeatedly offer their sacrifices but the sacrifice of Jesus was once for all time.
Even on the cross He made the statement, “It is Finished.” To indicated that the atonement for sins was a done deal.
Since Jesus has therefore purchased us by His blood, what can take place to change or remove our standing with Him?
Since Jesus has purchased us, nothing can separate us from God.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
As we look at that idea this morning we are going to develop it in terms of factors in which we can take comfort knowing that God is keeping us.
The first factor is that we can take comfort in the providence of God.
One of the nicest feelings is to know that you don’t have anything to worry about. Several years ago, we had some family members give a gift of a vacation that was all inclusive. That means that everything was provided including meals and room cleanup and every thing. We had absolutely nothing to worry about. We could about our business each day and have fun and just show up at the restaurant at supper time and a meal would be ready for us. It was cool just to know that someone else was handling everything and that there was simply nothing to worry about.
As we look at verses 8:28-30, we are looking at 3 of my very favorite verses in the New Testament.
Why?
It is because these verses point out to us something very important.
In regards to our salvation, God handled it all.
Our salvation is simply a part of the providential plan of God that included some very important details in so far as we can see in this passage.
All things are working together because God’s providential purpose is fulfilled in our salvation.
Things are working for good to those who love God.
Those who love God are further defined as the one being called according to God’s purpose.
So everyone who is called according to God’s purpose loves Him.
Now, let’s look a little deeper into this passage
Verse 29 begins with the words, “For whom He did foreknow.”
This is the same group as the called that we find in verse 28.
If someone loves God and has been called according to His purpose, that same person was foreknown by God before the foundation of the world.
This is not a general type of knowledge either this is the knowledge that begins a relationship with God.
According to this passage, everyone that God has foreknown will become a follower of Jesus Christ.
We can see that in the following statement: For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.
This is important because it shows us that when God predestined us to salvation it was for the purpose of seeing us conformed to the image of Christ.
So, all those that God foreknows are predestined to be conformed to the image of His son.
This means that our salvation began in the mind of God and was determined by Him for the purpose of bringing us to Christlikeness.
Somehow, many followers of Jesus have gotten the idea that predestination is something that the church should avoid or something that is killing churches.
But, how can we avoid that which the Bible clearly teaches.
As a matter of fact, it should be encouraging to us that because we were predestined by God, we are secure in Him and what Christ accomplished for us on the cross.
There has also been the argument that believing in predestination would kill missions and evangelism.
I hope no one here believes that because that would be that William Carey the father of Modern missions couldn’t have been a missionary.
It would mean that James Petigru Boyce couldn’t have been the founder of Southern Seminary, the training ground of pastors and missionaries alike.
It would mean that Charles Spurgeon couldn’t have been the pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, the greatest Baptist church in English History.
It would mean that Jonathan Edwards could not have been the greatest preacher in the Great Awakening.
All of these men had a very high view of the Sovereignty of God as it related to salvation.
We would call them Calvinists and much of their theology would have been informed by this very passage of scripture.
The next statement is telling: these whom He predestined, He also called
Remember how verse 28 is worded God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him who are the called according to his purpose.
The predestined are the called and they are called to conformity in Christ.
These whom He called, He also justified;
In other words, those foreknown, predestined, and called have done what?
They have exercised faith because justification or being made righteous with God is by faith or trusting Christ.
Then finally: and these whom He justified, He also glorified
Paul is writing as though our glory is already accomplished.
Think about it.
If we have been justified or declared righteous by Christ what can impede God’s glory?
There is nothing.
So if God has foreknown us, then he has glorified us in Christ as well.
So, in the Providence of God, there is great comfort in knowing that if we have called of God we are secure in Him until the day we are glorified in Christ
A second factor that we see here is
We can be comforted in the protection of God.
Look at the next several verses.
31-37
My brother in law had gone out to buy some gas and was run off the road by another car. The other car kept driving and he went home too. Later that night, the police showed up at his door and arrested him for causing an accident and leaving the scene. At the trial every thing that the other driver said and the policeman tried to prove was disproved and my brother in law was cleared and the charges were expunged from his record.
Who can bring the charge when the sin is expunged or removed from our record by God?
No one can bring a charge against us because God has been for us from before the foundation of the world when he foreknew us and will be for us in eternity when we are resting in His glory.
We rest in his protection now because if God purposed to save us and to have the blood of Christ shed on our behalf, then the point that Paul is making here is that nothing can come against that which God has secured for his own glory and conformity to the image of His son.
And, there is a third factor that we must see here.
And that is we are comforted in the promise of God.
Look at verses 38-39.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Think about that.
He foreknew us by His grace because He loves us.
He predestined us by His grace because He loves us.
He called us by his grace because He loves us.
He justified us by His grace because he loves us.
He glorified us by His grace because He loves us.
God demonstrated His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Everything that God has done to secure our salvation from eternity past to eternity future was done because He loves us.
And because of what he has done, nothing can separate us from that love.
Do you know the love of Christ today?
Are you feeling that call this morning to become a follower of Jesus Christ?
He shed his blood on the cross to give you an eternity with God.
He has taken away the sin that so desperately left you condemned and has replaced it with a perfect righteousness conforming you to the image of His son.
Won’t you receive Christ and follow Him today?
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Life is Great -- Pierced to the Heart -- Acts 2:37-41
Introduction
Most of you know that I like to shoot. I like to hunt and I like to see bullet holes in targets. It takes a several things to be a decent shot. First of all, you have got to be steady. I prefer to prop on something that is stable just so I can keep the gun steady but when I can’t, I use a certain breathing rhythm that enables me to be steady on my hand. Next, you got to be smooth. In other words, when you are ready to shoot, you can’t be herky jerky or yank back the trigger. Just a squeeze and the shot fires. The third thing you need to have is aim. You have to line up your eye with two sights on the barrel of the gun. You have got to keep your eye on the target and when you do that, it is sweet to see that bullet hit the mark.
Following Jesus is very much like that steady smooth and keeping your eye on one thing and that is Him.
Describing the Biblical Text
We are looking at the end of a sermon.
There is no invitation playing and yet there are people responding.
No one has made an altar call and we see people responding.
As a matter of fact, they are more than just responding they are down right under serious conviction.
The text tells us they were pierced to the heart.
This carries the connotation of a violent stabbing.
There is a difference between getting a shot and then being punctured by a nail.
As Peter preached this sermon, people’s hearts were shaken and they were ready to repent.
Peter’s response was simple.
Repent and be baptized.
We see an inner response and an out sign of that response.
Repentance is what we do after the Holy Spirit has regenerated our hearts and turned us toward Christ.
Repentance is the natural response to the salvation which has come and these people were pierced to the heart.
They were ripe for the turning that would take place in their lives.
Narrate the Contextual application
In this passage wed see something very basic to Christianity and it is something so basic that we can never lose sight of it.
People respond to the preaching of the gospel.
There were a bookoo of people in Jerusalem because of the Pentecost Feast
There were plenty of people to hear Peter’s sermon.
Peter made a cultural appeal and he made a spiritual appeal and people responded.
There were 3000 added on that day.
Can you imagine 3000 people coming to Christ at one time?
Can you imagine the baptismal service that it would take to accommodate all those baptisms?
Yowley!!
All that happened because the people came under conviction.
When was the last time any of us came under conviction for something?
When was the last time God moved us to the altar in a time of genuine repentance?
When have we seen people coming to Jesus in droves like in this passage?
Something very special happened to that crowd of people and you know what, we can seek that very same thing here.
I think if we are diligent to pray, we will see it happen here.
Revival could break out and people could get saved and people could simply love each other and we could be the growing vibrant fellowship of High Point.
Life Application (thesis)
Based on this text and what we see happening here, I want to challenge us to do something between now and October 19
We need to pray for the conviction of the Holy Spirit on our Revival services.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
This means we will have two goals as we approach the meetings in two weeks.
The first goal is that we must make sure that our Revival is ALL ABOUT Jesus.
When I was a kid, I used to drink the coffee that my mom would fix for me and she only fixed it on the weekends when she cooked breakfast. She would always give me coffee that was about the color of a pair of khakis and that was so sweet you could put it on pancakes. When I got to High School, I started reading Louis L’amour books which are cowboy novels. In all those books, the hero would always drink coffee from a pot on a campfire and always drank his coffee black. He would throw the grounds on the ground, say something profound and either go to bed or ride away.
You know what I had to do. I had to start drinking black coffee. At first, yuck, now I don’t want it any other way unless it has been on the burner for several hours and is thick enough to paint chalkboards. Nothing but coffee in the cup is what I want.
Nothing but Jesus in the church is what we need.
If we look at the sermon that Peter Preaches here, we see Hi.
We see him talking about Jesus all through the sermon that he gives.
But, what else is there.
When we start diluting Jesus with other things, we begin to see the Gospel lose its effectiveness in the church and in the world we are trying to reach.
When we back our eyes up into the sermon of peter, we see him preaching Christ and Christ alone.
Even in the New Testament though, we see people trying to mix the message of Jesus with other stuff
The entire book of Colossians was written to keep the gospel pure as was Galatians.
Though they faced different pollutions, the idea is essentially the same.
The Gospel of John was written to keep the Gospel of Jesus from being diluted by the cult of knowledge or the Gnostics as we would see them called.
It is so easy to take our preferences or our traditions and to try to dilute the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them.
That is why almost every cult and every false religion has at its base a works based merit system for getting to heaven.
What about churches today?
I think we could probably find churches today that do not preach Christ alone in order to enter the kingdom.
What is funny is that they would deny it the whole time.
There are many churches that share the gospel in order to produce conformity.
So, if you believe in Jesus but then fail to conform to our standards, then your salvation is probably not legitimate.
Steve Taylor, a Christian Recording artist from the early 1980’s recorded a song called, “I Want to Be a Clone.”
I'd gone through so much other stuff that walking down the aisle was tough
But now I know it's not enough
I want to be a clone
I asked the Lord into my heart
They said that was the way to start but now you've got to play the part
I want to be a clone
Be a clone and kiss conviction goodnight
Cloneliness is next to Godliness, right?
I'm grateful that they show the way' cause I could never know the way to serve him on my own
I want to be a clone
They told me that I'd fall away unless I followed what they say
Who needs the Bible anyway?
I want to be a clone
Their language it was new to me but Christianese got through to me
Now I can speak it fluently
I want to be a clone
This is the same thing that Dude from Charlotte says on his radio network every day.
You have to have a church that conforms to his standards or you are not a Christian church.
His message is Jesus plus the right kind of music.
Just ask David Jeremiah.
So, we cannot let anything dilute or pollute the gospel message.
If we come here in two weeks looking for something other than Jesus, there isn’t any way that we can expect revival to come.
Another thing we need to consider is that we need to make sure that Jesus has made a difference in our lives to make a difference in the lives of others.
What do we mean when we say that Jesus has made a difference in our lives?
Does it mean that we have assumed a religious posture in front of friends and family?
Does it mean that we tithe?
Does it mean that we don’t swear at the driver in the little red car that just missed you when tried to change lanes and apply mascara?
It could mean that but in reality, it mans that you are living your life for one thing and one thing only and that is to glorify Jesus.
We have probably heard it1000 times.
It’s all about Jesus.
When we hear it, does it resonate with us?
I want us to consider this.
Just a simple, “Why am I here this morning?”
Our answer to that question will speak volumes.
Because I am supposed to be is a terrible answer.
It is the right thing to do is a terrible answer.
Because I always come is a horrible answer.
This has been my church for years is terrible.
There is only one answer.
Because I love Jesus so much that nothing could keep me away.
It is time for us to be on our knees bowed before our father in heaven begging for forgiveness for allowing something other than Jesus to reign in our lives.
We should probably do the same thing for our church.
Life is great if your life is in Christ, it is fantastic.
Jesus is all you need.
He is all you need for fulfillment, joy and peace.
Won’t you reach to Him this morning and say, Jesus you are all I want, you are all I need.
Today and forever, you are my life.
Most of you know that I like to shoot. I like to hunt and I like to see bullet holes in targets. It takes a several things to be a decent shot. First of all, you have got to be steady. I prefer to prop on something that is stable just so I can keep the gun steady but when I can’t, I use a certain breathing rhythm that enables me to be steady on my hand. Next, you got to be smooth. In other words, when you are ready to shoot, you can’t be herky jerky or yank back the trigger. Just a squeeze and the shot fires. The third thing you need to have is aim. You have to line up your eye with two sights on the barrel of the gun. You have got to keep your eye on the target and when you do that, it is sweet to see that bullet hit the mark.
Following Jesus is very much like that steady smooth and keeping your eye on one thing and that is Him.
Describing the Biblical Text
We are looking at the end of a sermon.
There is no invitation playing and yet there are people responding.
No one has made an altar call and we see people responding.
As a matter of fact, they are more than just responding they are down right under serious conviction.
The text tells us they were pierced to the heart.
This carries the connotation of a violent stabbing.
There is a difference between getting a shot and then being punctured by a nail.
As Peter preached this sermon, people’s hearts were shaken and they were ready to repent.
Peter’s response was simple.
Repent and be baptized.
We see an inner response and an out sign of that response.
Repentance is what we do after the Holy Spirit has regenerated our hearts and turned us toward Christ.
Repentance is the natural response to the salvation which has come and these people were pierced to the heart.
They were ripe for the turning that would take place in their lives.
Narrate the Contextual application
In this passage wed see something very basic to Christianity and it is something so basic that we can never lose sight of it.
People respond to the preaching of the gospel.
There were a bookoo of people in Jerusalem because of the Pentecost Feast
There were plenty of people to hear Peter’s sermon.
Peter made a cultural appeal and he made a spiritual appeal and people responded.
There were 3000 added on that day.
Can you imagine 3000 people coming to Christ at one time?
Can you imagine the baptismal service that it would take to accommodate all those baptisms?
Yowley!!
All that happened because the people came under conviction.
When was the last time any of us came under conviction for something?
When was the last time God moved us to the altar in a time of genuine repentance?
When have we seen people coming to Jesus in droves like in this passage?
Something very special happened to that crowd of people and you know what, we can seek that very same thing here.
I think if we are diligent to pray, we will see it happen here.
Revival could break out and people could get saved and people could simply love each other and we could be the growing vibrant fellowship of High Point.
Life Application (thesis)
Based on this text and what we see happening here, I want to challenge us to do something between now and October 19
We need to pray for the conviction of the Holy Spirit on our Revival services.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
This means we will have two goals as we approach the meetings in two weeks.
The first goal is that we must make sure that our Revival is ALL ABOUT Jesus.
When I was a kid, I used to drink the coffee that my mom would fix for me and she only fixed it on the weekends when she cooked breakfast. She would always give me coffee that was about the color of a pair of khakis and that was so sweet you could put it on pancakes. When I got to High School, I started reading Louis L’amour books which are cowboy novels. In all those books, the hero would always drink coffee from a pot on a campfire and always drank his coffee black. He would throw the grounds on the ground, say something profound and either go to bed or ride away.
You know what I had to do. I had to start drinking black coffee. At first, yuck, now I don’t want it any other way unless it has been on the burner for several hours and is thick enough to paint chalkboards. Nothing but coffee in the cup is what I want.
Nothing but Jesus in the church is what we need.
If we look at the sermon that Peter Preaches here, we see Hi.
We see him talking about Jesus all through the sermon that he gives.
But, what else is there.
When we start diluting Jesus with other things, we begin to see the Gospel lose its effectiveness in the church and in the world we are trying to reach.
When we back our eyes up into the sermon of peter, we see him preaching Christ and Christ alone.
Even in the New Testament though, we see people trying to mix the message of Jesus with other stuff
The entire book of Colossians was written to keep the gospel pure as was Galatians.
Though they faced different pollutions, the idea is essentially the same.
The Gospel of John was written to keep the Gospel of Jesus from being diluted by the cult of knowledge or the Gnostics as we would see them called.
It is so easy to take our preferences or our traditions and to try to dilute the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them.
That is why almost every cult and every false religion has at its base a works based merit system for getting to heaven.
What about churches today?
I think we could probably find churches today that do not preach Christ alone in order to enter the kingdom.
What is funny is that they would deny it the whole time.
There are many churches that share the gospel in order to produce conformity.
So, if you believe in Jesus but then fail to conform to our standards, then your salvation is probably not legitimate.
Steve Taylor, a Christian Recording artist from the early 1980’s recorded a song called, “I Want to Be a Clone.”
I'd gone through so much other stuff that walking down the aisle was tough
But now I know it's not enough
I want to be a clone
I asked the Lord into my heart
They said that was the way to start but now you've got to play the part
I want to be a clone
Be a clone and kiss conviction goodnight
Cloneliness is next to Godliness, right?
I'm grateful that they show the way' cause I could never know the way to serve him on my own
I want to be a clone
They told me that I'd fall away unless I followed what they say
Who needs the Bible anyway?
I want to be a clone
Their language it was new to me but Christianese got through to me
Now I can speak it fluently
I want to be a clone
This is the same thing that Dude from Charlotte says on his radio network every day.
You have to have a church that conforms to his standards or you are not a Christian church.
His message is Jesus plus the right kind of music.
Just ask David Jeremiah.
So, we cannot let anything dilute or pollute the gospel message.
If we come here in two weeks looking for something other than Jesus, there isn’t any way that we can expect revival to come.
Another thing we need to consider is that we need to make sure that Jesus has made a difference in our lives to make a difference in the lives of others.
What do we mean when we say that Jesus has made a difference in our lives?
Does it mean that we have assumed a religious posture in front of friends and family?
Does it mean that we tithe?
Does it mean that we don’t swear at the driver in the little red car that just missed you when tried to change lanes and apply mascara?
It could mean that but in reality, it mans that you are living your life for one thing and one thing only and that is to glorify Jesus.
We have probably heard it1000 times.
It’s all about Jesus.
When we hear it, does it resonate with us?
I want us to consider this.
Just a simple, “Why am I here this morning?”
Our answer to that question will speak volumes.
Because I am supposed to be is a terrible answer.
It is the right thing to do is a terrible answer.
Because I always come is a horrible answer.
This has been my church for years is terrible.
There is only one answer.
Because I love Jesus so much that nothing could keep me away.
It is time for us to be on our knees bowed before our father in heaven begging for forgiveness for allowing something other than Jesus to reign in our lives.
We should probably do the same thing for our church.
Life is great if your life is in Christ, it is fantastic.
Jesus is all you need.
He is all you need for fulfillment, joy and peace.
Won’t you reach to Him this morning and say, Jesus you are all I want, you are all I need.
Today and forever, you are my life.
Monday, October 01, 2007
CROSSroads -- The CROSSroad of Concern -- Nehemiah 1
Introduction
I don’t know haw many of you know much about the Waller name. To be honest, I don’t know that much. But let me tell you a little of what I do know. There are basically two strains of Wallers in America. The first and most numerous is the British strain. The second and not so numerous is the Dutch strain. My family came offer from Holland so we are of the Dutch variety. But even with all the political turmoil in the Netherlands, I really don’t pay that close attention to what goes on over there even though they are “My people.”
That is not what we see in Nehemiah.
Describing the Biblical Text
We see our main character entertaining guests, namely his brother and others from Jerusalem.
It is amazing how such an innocent inquiry could have led him to such a heartfelt response.
“How are the folks back home?” was the question.
The answer: They are in bitter distress.
They are the shame or reproach of the land.
The walls of the city are ruined and gates are burned.
We see responses on several levels here.
They are emotionally whipped.
Their Character is defeated.
They cannot defend themselves.
There was no good news out of Jerusalem and it broke Nehemiah’s heart.
Narrate the Contextual application
In this text, Nehemiah had come to understand the idea of calling.
He had come to a place where he saw that ultimately his burden would become his mission.
Over the last several weeks, we have seen the idea of being called by God and what hat could and should mean in our lives.
I want to summarize the idea of biblical calling into one statement that I read in a leadership manual.
A call from God always is designed to move people from where they are to where God intends them to be.
God’s call to Abe created a covenant people.
God’s call to Isaiah readied a people for destruction and captivity.
God’s call to Jonah turned a pagan city to God.
God’s call to Simon, Andrew, John and James was the embryonic formation of the church.
Now we see the call to Nehemiah.
Yet, this call is different from all the rest in the sense that we don’t see a thus saith the Lord moment.
We don’t see God speaking to Nehemiah and telling him to go anywhere or to do anything.
But, we do see something else.
We see the burden of a man so intense that it drives him to his knees and it brings to the place of repentance but not for his sins, but for the sins of Judah.
He repents on behalf of his people.
His heart is so moved by the report of Jerusalem’s situation that he finds his knees.
Suddenly, Nehemiah went from being a casual inquirer to being a concerned leader.
Life Application (thesis)
As followers of Christ, we have been called.
Romans 8 makes that abundantly clear.
We would look at Matthew 28 and see a commission to make disciples through three things – going, baptizing, and teaching.
Everything we do as a church actually revolves around those three things.
So as you sit here this morning, you will be looking to answer several questions
1) Am I a goer, a witness, or a teacher?
2) How have I affected the moving of people from where they were to where God wanted them to be?
3) Do I have the burden to do what I need to do to fulfill God’s calling in my lie?
Hopefully your heart will know the answers to those questions as you leave this place this morning.
What do we then see about Nehemiah’s calling?
A calling from God requires that we concerned about the object of the calling.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
How does that happen?
We see that it happened in Nehemiah’s case and he fell to his knees.
Nehemiah suddenly saw people in a different way.
This would be the first thing that we need to see this morning.
I have to see people the way Jesus sees them.
Grinch has a heart change
No longer hated whos
Think about this.
Nehemiah is praying for people that he never met.
These are people a thousand miles away and yet his heart is burdened.
He is weeping and is emotionally distraught over people he does not even know.
He is weeping tears for the souls of those people.
Nehemiah was a well to do man.
He was in the court of the Persian Kind and he had some authority and some power.
He had reached a station in life where he could be comfortable to live out his days and never have any worries.
Yet Nehemiah had not become jaded by cynicism and he had not become self-absorbed.
He had a legitimate concern for others and he wanted to see his fellow Jews as well off as he was.
The home folk were not doing well.
Hanani shared some pretty dismal news with Nehemiah.
First of all he described them as being in great distress.
What was being said was that their lives were nothing but misery.
Some of us can probably relate to that in some measure.
You lose your job or your family falls apart or your life for some unknown reason takes a turn to the south.
Misery happens to people
For Jerusalem, it was citywide.
Then Hanani dropped another bomb on Nehemiah.
They are in reproach.
They have no standing in the land.
Judah had become the laughing stock of the Middle East.
The city is in ruin and the plunderers can come and go at will.
There was really no good news to report which for Nehemiah was probably surprising since Persia had released the Jews from their captivity.
A number of the captives including priests had already returned and yet there was still anguish among the people.
I wonder how many of us when we look at the world around us see great distress.
I think all too often followers of Jesus are blind to the spiritual blindness that is all around us.
We look at people who are successful and beautiful and somewhere within ourselves, we begin to envy them.
Or we look at the gangs and the druggies and we go to great lengths to avoid those kind of people.
Or, we look at the people around us every day.
They are nice people. We work with them. We see their kids at basketball or football practice and they seem okay.
But, they are in great distress and they are in reproach.
If we see these people through the eyes of Jesus, our hearts would be moved.
All of a sudden you realize these people are not where God wants them to be and your heart cries out to God.
Then it happens. You come to the conclusion that you have not done all you can do to move the pretty people or the thugs any closer to Jesus.
But wait it has to start someplace doesn’t it.
It starts exactly where Nehemiah started.
Look at verse 4
Nehemiah went to God in Prayer.
This is our second point this morning.
I have to spend time in prayer for the people that Jesus loves.
That is no secret formula.
It is basic to the lives we ought to be living as followers of Jesus Christ.
But we don’t pray like we should.
Our prayers become wish lists and sick lists and we fail to ask God to make us useful to Him.
Our Prayer should be to be used by God because we are all goers.
Life takes us places every day but are we concerned with Jesus’ concern for the people we meet?
Nehemiah, when he prayed for the people of Jerusalem, he did so with some very poignant recognitions.
The first was that they had forsaken their covenant standing with God.
Nehemiah repented on their behalf.
“How does that work?” you might be asking.
Romans 9:1 gives us that answer.
The crossroad of concern is reached and the road achieved when we cease to be concerned for ourselves and start being concerned for others.
Our prayer lives become focused on how we can connect others to Christ rather than how we can be connected health, wealth, and happiness.
God does not want us to be happy, he wants us to be content in Him.
He wants us to be burdened for the things that burden Him and that only happens when we are contrite in prayer before Him.
Jesus said we are to love our neighbors as ourselves which is the second great commandment.
CS Lewis made the observation that every mortal human being is actually immortal.
They will either be an eternal glory for God or they will be in everlasting torment.
I would ask you to come to the altar this morning and pray for the calling to keep people from eternal torment.
There is distress all around.
Eternal Reproach faces most of the people we know.
Do we care enough to do something about it?
I don’t know haw many of you know much about the Waller name. To be honest, I don’t know that much. But let me tell you a little of what I do know. There are basically two strains of Wallers in America. The first and most numerous is the British strain. The second and not so numerous is the Dutch strain. My family came offer from Holland so we are of the Dutch variety. But even with all the political turmoil in the Netherlands, I really don’t pay that close attention to what goes on over there even though they are “My people.”
That is not what we see in Nehemiah.
Describing the Biblical Text
We see our main character entertaining guests, namely his brother and others from Jerusalem.
It is amazing how such an innocent inquiry could have led him to such a heartfelt response.
“How are the folks back home?” was the question.
The answer: They are in bitter distress.
They are the shame or reproach of the land.
The walls of the city are ruined and gates are burned.
We see responses on several levels here.
They are emotionally whipped.
Their Character is defeated.
They cannot defend themselves.
There was no good news out of Jerusalem and it broke Nehemiah’s heart.
Narrate the Contextual application
In this text, Nehemiah had come to understand the idea of calling.
He had come to a place where he saw that ultimately his burden would become his mission.
Over the last several weeks, we have seen the idea of being called by God and what hat could and should mean in our lives.
I want to summarize the idea of biblical calling into one statement that I read in a leadership manual.
A call from God always is designed to move people from where they are to where God intends them to be.
God’s call to Abe created a covenant people.
God’s call to Isaiah readied a people for destruction and captivity.
God’s call to Jonah turned a pagan city to God.
God’s call to Simon, Andrew, John and James was the embryonic formation of the church.
Now we see the call to Nehemiah.
Yet, this call is different from all the rest in the sense that we don’t see a thus saith the Lord moment.
We don’t see God speaking to Nehemiah and telling him to go anywhere or to do anything.
But, we do see something else.
We see the burden of a man so intense that it drives him to his knees and it brings to the place of repentance but not for his sins, but for the sins of Judah.
He repents on behalf of his people.
His heart is so moved by the report of Jerusalem’s situation that he finds his knees.
Suddenly, Nehemiah went from being a casual inquirer to being a concerned leader.
Life Application (thesis)
As followers of Christ, we have been called.
Romans 8 makes that abundantly clear.
We would look at Matthew 28 and see a commission to make disciples through three things – going, baptizing, and teaching.
Everything we do as a church actually revolves around those three things.
So as you sit here this morning, you will be looking to answer several questions
1) Am I a goer, a witness, or a teacher?
2) How have I affected the moving of people from where they were to where God wanted them to be?
3) Do I have the burden to do what I need to do to fulfill God’s calling in my lie?
Hopefully your heart will know the answers to those questions as you leave this place this morning.
What do we then see about Nehemiah’s calling?
A calling from God requires that we concerned about the object of the calling.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
How does that happen?
We see that it happened in Nehemiah’s case and he fell to his knees.
Nehemiah suddenly saw people in a different way.
This would be the first thing that we need to see this morning.
I have to see people the way Jesus sees them.
Grinch has a heart change
No longer hated whos
Think about this.
Nehemiah is praying for people that he never met.
These are people a thousand miles away and yet his heart is burdened.
He is weeping and is emotionally distraught over people he does not even know.
He is weeping tears for the souls of those people.
Nehemiah was a well to do man.
He was in the court of the Persian Kind and he had some authority and some power.
He had reached a station in life where he could be comfortable to live out his days and never have any worries.
Yet Nehemiah had not become jaded by cynicism and he had not become self-absorbed.
He had a legitimate concern for others and he wanted to see his fellow Jews as well off as he was.
The home folk were not doing well.
Hanani shared some pretty dismal news with Nehemiah.
First of all he described them as being in great distress.
What was being said was that their lives were nothing but misery.
Some of us can probably relate to that in some measure.
You lose your job or your family falls apart or your life for some unknown reason takes a turn to the south.
Misery happens to people
For Jerusalem, it was citywide.
Then Hanani dropped another bomb on Nehemiah.
They are in reproach.
They have no standing in the land.
Judah had become the laughing stock of the Middle East.
The city is in ruin and the plunderers can come and go at will.
There was really no good news to report which for Nehemiah was probably surprising since Persia had released the Jews from their captivity.
A number of the captives including priests had already returned and yet there was still anguish among the people.
I wonder how many of us when we look at the world around us see great distress.
I think all too often followers of Jesus are blind to the spiritual blindness that is all around us.
We look at people who are successful and beautiful and somewhere within ourselves, we begin to envy them.
Or we look at the gangs and the druggies and we go to great lengths to avoid those kind of people.
Or, we look at the people around us every day.
They are nice people. We work with them. We see their kids at basketball or football practice and they seem okay.
But, they are in great distress and they are in reproach.
If we see these people through the eyes of Jesus, our hearts would be moved.
All of a sudden you realize these people are not where God wants them to be and your heart cries out to God.
Then it happens. You come to the conclusion that you have not done all you can do to move the pretty people or the thugs any closer to Jesus.
But wait it has to start someplace doesn’t it.
It starts exactly where Nehemiah started.
Look at verse 4
Nehemiah went to God in Prayer.
This is our second point this morning.
I have to spend time in prayer for the people that Jesus loves.
That is no secret formula.
It is basic to the lives we ought to be living as followers of Jesus Christ.
But we don’t pray like we should.
Our prayers become wish lists and sick lists and we fail to ask God to make us useful to Him.
Our Prayer should be to be used by God because we are all goers.
Life takes us places every day but are we concerned with Jesus’ concern for the people we meet?
Nehemiah, when he prayed for the people of Jerusalem, he did so with some very poignant recognitions.
The first was that they had forsaken their covenant standing with God.
Nehemiah repented on their behalf.
“How does that work?” you might be asking.
Romans 9:1 gives us that answer.
The crossroad of concern is reached and the road achieved when we cease to be concerned for ourselves and start being concerned for others.
Our prayer lives become focused on how we can connect others to Christ rather than how we can be connected health, wealth, and happiness.
God does not want us to be happy, he wants us to be content in Him.
He wants us to be burdened for the things that burden Him and that only happens when we are contrite in prayer before Him.
Jesus said we are to love our neighbors as ourselves which is the second great commandment.
CS Lewis made the observation that every mortal human being is actually immortal.
They will either be an eternal glory for God or they will be in everlasting torment.
I would ask you to come to the altar this morning and pray for the calling to keep people from eternal torment.
There is distress all around.
Eternal Reproach faces most of the people we know.
Do we care enough to do something about it?
CROSSroads -- The CROSSroad of Readiness -- Matthew 4:18-22
Introduction
Back in the late 1990’s, I used to watch a little CMT and got hooked on the Dixie Chicks. Later on they did the music for the movie “Runaway Bride” and one of the songs was “Ready to Run” The song’s implication was that the girl walking down the aisle was not ready to marry but ready to run from the marriage and have some more fun before tying that knot.
I think that we all want to be ready to have a little fun. It doesn’t take much to pull me away from something and to get me going down the path of jocularity.
Describing the Biblical Text
As we look at this text this morning we see 4 fishermen and a number of people hard at work trying to make a living.
Yet as they were trying to make their living, they were confronted by a calling to follow Jesus and to serve Him.
Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee which makes some sense considering that his ministry headquarters was in Capernaum.
So, as He passed through a fishing village the boats were in the water and some were fishing and some were preparing to fish but Jesus was not interested in Fish; He was interested in people.
So he called the fishermen from the life of catching fish and mending nets to a life of reaching people and building the kingdom of God.
Narrate the Contextual application
For the last 3 weeks, we have been looking at people who were called to follow God and to serve Him in ministry.
Some followed willingly and some did not.
Some were indued with vision and some were not but in every case, God clearly expressed to the called what they were to do.
This calling is really no different but in this case, there was three years of schooling involved to see how to serve and what to do.
Another thing that we might point out at this point was that we see the calling of Jesus’ inner circle.
Peter, James, and John were His confidants and those who received the special instruction and training.
Andrew was the one who brought people to Jesus to become followers.
But as we look at the text, we see that they quickly responded to the call of Jesus.
Life Application (thesis)
The question we need to ask this morning is this.
If we are called to serve Jesus how quickly would we respond and how willingly would we go?
Several months ago, we had a message in this service that called on us to respond if we were willing to do whatever it takes to see this church grow to reach the next generation for Christ.
I wrote the respondents to that message down and prayed for them.
That list is in my office at home and they are waiting to be called to a task and I am praying for the right task or that Jesus would just call them into service.
But, since they came forward that Sunday, I believe they are ready for that calling and they are looking for that whatever it takes moment.
A calling from God requires us to be ready at all times.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
Being ready at all times, that would be hard wouldn’t it?
When we think of people who are ready at all times, we think of people with expectations.
Several weeks ago when we looked at availability, I told you about my wife’s obstetrician who made himself available to us by giving us his home phone number. When we think of readiness we would expect that he would be ready to be called at a moments notice when a mom goes into labor.
How about a police officer who is on duty, He might be sitting in a parking lot writing the night’s reports when the radio blares out his unit number and he has to be ready to roll into whatever situation he might find at the address given by the dispatcher. My dad was a policeman and he said that he did mind any call except on and that was the domestic disturbance. But he still had to be ready.
So we need to be ready for Jesus to call us into his service and we can take a couple of steps to make sure that we have come to that place of readiness.
I cannot allow my life to distract me from hearing the voice of God.
I think of all the distractions that we can have, life is the most significant.
Life is something that often times we don’t notice happening around us yet it is always happening and sometimes it keeps us from seeing things that are truly important.
There was a song called 2 Sets of Joneses by Big Tent Revival that came out in the mid 90’s.
Here is a quote of a verse from that song.
Evelyn's daddy was proud of young Rothschild,
He worked the late hours to be number one
Just newly weds and their marriage got rocky,
He's flying to Dallas; she's having a son.
In looking at our text, we see two families involved in the family business of fishing.
Simon Peter and Andrew bar Jonah were actually casting the nets seeking a catch of fish in the Sea of Galilee.
They were hard at work on their jobs.
Think about our own jobs when we are hard at work. On Thursdays, I am spending most of the day in the office working to get Sunday’s sermon finished so my Friday and Saturday can be spent with my family. Sheila screens my calls on Thursdays a little more carefully for that reason.
But here we see two men in the boat actually pitching the nets for the fish and Jesus says follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
So they rowed to the shore, actually, it doesn’t say they were in a boat. They may have been pulling a seine.
They rolled up the nets; they moored the boat, kissed their wives goodbye and left.
Bonnnnnk
Nope, not the way it happened
Look at verse 20, “immediately they left their nets and followed Him.”
There were no meeting no, decisions about where to leave the net, no goodbye kisses.
They just left and followed Jesus.
We move to the next situation.
These boys are not fishing but they are in the boat.
They are mending or repairing their net.
What else do we see about their situation that is significant?
There is some money involved here since the Zebedee family had a boat and they had something else we don’t see with Peter and Andrew: Servants
In this case we see them not only leaving jobs to follow Jesus, they are leaving the family fortune.
Again, where is the discussion?
Where is the debate?
It’s just not there.
Once the will of God became clear, the debate was over.
That is the way it should always be; our determination is made the very second that the voice of the Lord is discerned.
But what gets in the way.
Life
Things like money and family and careers and homes and property and tradition and a myriad of other things.
But, I think there is an even bigger problem than simply ignoring the Lord.
I think a lot of us really don’t know what we are trying to hear or what we are listening for.
To be honest, there are too many people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ that would forsake Him instantly if it came down to their inconvenience or their simply not getting their way.
I think the reason for that is that too many people who claim to followers of Jesus Christ are merely church members and not followers of Jesus Christ at all.
This would bring us to our next step.
I must seek to be familiar with the voice of God so I can hear it when he calls me.
If we are going to hear the voice of God, we have to know Him first.
I would like you to roll the pages of your Bible to John 1:35.
This is a very intriguing passage because of who we see here.
We see John the Baptist with two of His disciples, Andrew and one other. Now who could that have been?
Hang on and we will postulate a logical guess.
John the Baptist is baptizing in the Jordan River and here comes Jesus and John proclaims him to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Two of John’s followers are there and they hence desire to follow Jesus. We see Andrew introducing Jesus to Simon Peter and then to Philip.
So, we see here that Andrew and Peter knew Jesus from about the time of His baptism.
Now what about John and James?
You see, there is a second unnamed disciple of John the Baptist and I would postulate that this was John the disciple.
John the disciple who wrote the gospel of vv35, 37, 40
John makes sure that we know that there were two disciples of John the Baptist.
Later in the Gospel of John, the writer avoids naming himself by using clichés like “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”
I honestly believe that John was with Andrew.
We also have one of the Zebedee brothers knowing Jesus as well.
How can we better recognize the voice of God than to know him?
How can we better understand God’s calling in our lives than to have a relationship with Him?
Jesus met our fishermen before he ever went to Galilee to call them into service.
Has Jesus ever met you?
Jesus said that his sheep hear His voice.
Would we hear his voice or would it become clouded behind fifty years of tradition?
Would the voice of Jesus be dulled by the fear of a budget shortfall?
I remember reading a joke in a Christian joke book that said this, “It says in our constitution and by laws that the will of God can only be overturned by a 2/3 vote.”
When we are listening for Christ in order to hear His voice, then nothing he says is too much for us or will be denied for any reason.
Do you know Christ through a personal relationship?
Or is it possible that you just know about Him because you have been in church all your life because that was just the right thing to do?
If we know Him, then we will hear His voice.
If we just know about Him then nothing he says will ever influence any decision that we make because we will never hear His voice.
And no matter what happens, we will never be ready to follow Him.
Back in the late 1990’s, I used to watch a little CMT and got hooked on the Dixie Chicks. Later on they did the music for the movie “Runaway Bride” and one of the songs was “Ready to Run” The song’s implication was that the girl walking down the aisle was not ready to marry but ready to run from the marriage and have some more fun before tying that knot.
I think that we all want to be ready to have a little fun. It doesn’t take much to pull me away from something and to get me going down the path of jocularity.
Describing the Biblical Text
As we look at this text this morning we see 4 fishermen and a number of people hard at work trying to make a living.
Yet as they were trying to make their living, they were confronted by a calling to follow Jesus and to serve Him.
Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee which makes some sense considering that his ministry headquarters was in Capernaum.
So, as He passed through a fishing village the boats were in the water and some were fishing and some were preparing to fish but Jesus was not interested in Fish; He was interested in people.
So he called the fishermen from the life of catching fish and mending nets to a life of reaching people and building the kingdom of God.
Narrate the Contextual application
For the last 3 weeks, we have been looking at people who were called to follow God and to serve Him in ministry.
Some followed willingly and some did not.
Some were indued with vision and some were not but in every case, God clearly expressed to the called what they were to do.
This calling is really no different but in this case, there was three years of schooling involved to see how to serve and what to do.
Another thing that we might point out at this point was that we see the calling of Jesus’ inner circle.
Peter, James, and John were His confidants and those who received the special instruction and training.
Andrew was the one who brought people to Jesus to become followers.
But as we look at the text, we see that they quickly responded to the call of Jesus.
Life Application (thesis)
The question we need to ask this morning is this.
If we are called to serve Jesus how quickly would we respond and how willingly would we go?
Several months ago, we had a message in this service that called on us to respond if we were willing to do whatever it takes to see this church grow to reach the next generation for Christ.
I wrote the respondents to that message down and prayed for them.
That list is in my office at home and they are waiting to be called to a task and I am praying for the right task or that Jesus would just call them into service.
But, since they came forward that Sunday, I believe they are ready for that calling and they are looking for that whatever it takes moment.
A calling from God requires us to be ready at all times.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
Being ready at all times, that would be hard wouldn’t it?
When we think of people who are ready at all times, we think of people with expectations.
Several weeks ago when we looked at availability, I told you about my wife’s obstetrician who made himself available to us by giving us his home phone number. When we think of readiness we would expect that he would be ready to be called at a moments notice when a mom goes into labor.
How about a police officer who is on duty, He might be sitting in a parking lot writing the night’s reports when the radio blares out his unit number and he has to be ready to roll into whatever situation he might find at the address given by the dispatcher. My dad was a policeman and he said that he did mind any call except on and that was the domestic disturbance. But he still had to be ready.
So we need to be ready for Jesus to call us into his service and we can take a couple of steps to make sure that we have come to that place of readiness.
I cannot allow my life to distract me from hearing the voice of God.
I think of all the distractions that we can have, life is the most significant.
Life is something that often times we don’t notice happening around us yet it is always happening and sometimes it keeps us from seeing things that are truly important.
There was a song called 2 Sets of Joneses by Big Tent Revival that came out in the mid 90’s.
Here is a quote of a verse from that song.
Evelyn's daddy was proud of young Rothschild,
He worked the late hours to be number one
Just newly weds and their marriage got rocky,
He's flying to Dallas; she's having a son.
In looking at our text, we see two families involved in the family business of fishing.
Simon Peter and Andrew bar Jonah were actually casting the nets seeking a catch of fish in the Sea of Galilee.
They were hard at work on their jobs.
Think about our own jobs when we are hard at work. On Thursdays, I am spending most of the day in the office working to get Sunday’s sermon finished so my Friday and Saturday can be spent with my family. Sheila screens my calls on Thursdays a little more carefully for that reason.
But here we see two men in the boat actually pitching the nets for the fish and Jesus says follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
So they rowed to the shore, actually, it doesn’t say they were in a boat. They may have been pulling a seine.
They rolled up the nets; they moored the boat, kissed their wives goodbye and left.
Bonnnnnk
Nope, not the way it happened
Look at verse 20, “immediately they left their nets and followed Him.”
There were no meeting no, decisions about where to leave the net, no goodbye kisses.
They just left and followed Jesus.
We move to the next situation.
These boys are not fishing but they are in the boat.
They are mending or repairing their net.
What else do we see about their situation that is significant?
There is some money involved here since the Zebedee family had a boat and they had something else we don’t see with Peter and Andrew: Servants
In this case we see them not only leaving jobs to follow Jesus, they are leaving the family fortune.
Again, where is the discussion?
Where is the debate?
It’s just not there.
Once the will of God became clear, the debate was over.
That is the way it should always be; our determination is made the very second that the voice of the Lord is discerned.
But what gets in the way.
Life
Things like money and family and careers and homes and property and tradition and a myriad of other things.
But, I think there is an even bigger problem than simply ignoring the Lord.
I think a lot of us really don’t know what we are trying to hear or what we are listening for.
To be honest, there are too many people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ that would forsake Him instantly if it came down to their inconvenience or their simply not getting their way.
I think the reason for that is that too many people who claim to followers of Jesus Christ are merely church members and not followers of Jesus Christ at all.
This would bring us to our next step.
I must seek to be familiar with the voice of God so I can hear it when he calls me.
If we are going to hear the voice of God, we have to know Him first.
I would like you to roll the pages of your Bible to John 1:35.
This is a very intriguing passage because of who we see here.
We see John the Baptist with two of His disciples, Andrew and one other. Now who could that have been?
Hang on and we will postulate a logical guess.
John the Baptist is baptizing in the Jordan River and here comes Jesus and John proclaims him to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Two of John’s followers are there and they hence desire to follow Jesus. We see Andrew introducing Jesus to Simon Peter and then to Philip.
So, we see here that Andrew and Peter knew Jesus from about the time of His baptism.
Now what about John and James?
You see, there is a second unnamed disciple of John the Baptist and I would postulate that this was John the disciple.
John the disciple who wrote the gospel of vv35, 37, 40
John makes sure that we know that there were two disciples of John the Baptist.
Later in the Gospel of John, the writer avoids naming himself by using clichés like “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”
I honestly believe that John was with Andrew.
We also have one of the Zebedee brothers knowing Jesus as well.
How can we better recognize the voice of God than to know him?
How can we better understand God’s calling in our lives than to have a relationship with Him?
Jesus met our fishermen before he ever went to Galilee to call them into service.
Has Jesus ever met you?
Jesus said that his sheep hear His voice.
Would we hear his voice or would it become clouded behind fifty years of tradition?
Would the voice of Jesus be dulled by the fear of a budget shortfall?
I remember reading a joke in a Christian joke book that said this, “It says in our constitution and by laws that the will of God can only be overturned by a 2/3 vote.”
When we are listening for Christ in order to hear His voice, then nothing he says is too much for us or will be denied for any reason.
Do you know Christ through a personal relationship?
Or is it possible that you just know about Him because you have been in church all your life because that was just the right thing to do?
If we know Him, then we will hear His voice.
If we just know about Him then nothing he says will ever influence any decision that we make because we will never hear His voice.
And no matter what happens, we will never be ready to follow Him.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
CROSSroads -- The CROSSroad of Priority -- Jonah 1:1-3; 4:5-11
1. Introduction
There is something that every single one of us does every single day and that is we evaluate our priorities.
We plan a day that ordered by our priorities.
For instance, I was scheduled with my family to work at the 4-H fair earlier this week but, I did not make it because Kirstyn got sick on Monday and Valerie had to take her to the doctor.
Just Friday, I was heading to Kernersville to a book sale when a friend called with a particular need. I detoured for a couple of hours to see if there was some way to help meet that need.
2. Describing the Biblical Text
Our text is from two different parts of the book of Jonah but they show us one thing.
They show us someone who is patently dissatisfied with the calling of God on His life.
God calls Him and he runs.
God uses him and he whines.
Jonah was just an unhappy person who did not want to be inconvenienced by the calling of God.
Jonah was just so pitiful that when God finally got his attention and really used him in power, he was unable to even recognize how significant his ministry was.
3. Narrate the Contextual application
I think we all have a general understanding of the Jonah account.
He was called by God and rand the other way
The storms struck the ship he was on and the crew threw him overboard at his own request.
They then worshiped Jehovah.
Then Jonah was swallowed by the great fish and had a repentant moment in the bell of that fish and prayed a great prayer.
Then voile, the Ipecac syrup kicks in and the fish gets sick and deposits Jonah on the beach.
Then Jonah proceeds to Nineveh and preaches repentance for all his worth and revival break out and the people repent.
As they repent, Jonah leaves town and watches from afa but rather than equipping these new disciples he has made, he forsakes them.
He is now upset that they did repent and that the Lord is choosing to spare them.
Jonah had his own agenda.
Jonah was about Jonah and not about what God wanted.
He was a racist and he was a spoiled brat.
4. Life Application (thesis)
This is why a calling from God requires that the cares of the world lose their luster.
5. SO WHAT!! (Outline)
Let’s take a look at a couple priorities that we need to make sure that we have in place as we come to the crossroads of life and we sense the Lord calling us into His service.
I need to be where God wants me to be.
When we look at Jonah, he is all about being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Arnold Spaugh and I are a different as night and day. I hate to be lost and he just figures he is out to see some new scenery. When I miss an exit on the interstate, I get all over myself. It actually took me a year to figure out new 85 and old 85 south of town. I even missed a church renewal conference because I couldn’t figure out the directions. Bob Allen and I were going to see Glen Pierce at Britthaven and we never found it because of that. Nothing frustrates me more than being lost. You wouldn’t know it by my record, but I hate to be late also. I try to do everything I can to be on time.
Jonah did not.
He just did not want to be where God wanted Him to be.
God said Go to Nineveh which on the map was east of where Jonah was and took a ship headed to Spain.
Jonah is taking ship in the rain
I can see the rudder boards heading for Spain
Oh I can see Jonah waving goodbye.
I think that there are times when we don’t want to be where God wants us to be either.
I know you know what I mean. It is another ten days before payday and a friend calls you and need a couple of hundred dollars to make ends meet. This friend knows that you are Christian and that you try to be a loving and helpful Christian. With all your heart, you want to be somewhere else for the next ten days just so they won’t ask you to help.
Or, you know that the future of your church depends on you and your response to the Holy Spirit. Yet, you have a couple of kids who will soon be in the youth group and you don’t see as vital a youth program as you want to see so you look to other churches even though the Lord may not have told you to.
I think it is interesting that Rick Warren says that the average pastor leaves a church over the grumbling of 6 or less people.
It is so easy to run from God
You never really get away and that is where the difficulty really begins.
God is there wherever you are and he hounds you and he hounds you until you either get back into his will or you just unplug the spiritual phone line.
You can kind of tell when it is happening, when people are feeling that tug. They kind of hang around. They find excuses to show up for special occasions. Then they talk about how wonderful it is at the new place not to convince you but to convince themselves.
That is what Jonah had done. I am going to take off on this cruise and I am going to get some rest and just enjoy myself.
In Spain, I won’t have to see a merciful God do anything because the Tarshishites are not being called by God anyway.
Obviously, Jonah was not going where God wanted Him to go.
Jonah was about to find himself miserable.
Move Forward to 4:5-11.
It is so cool when God teaches a lesson
As we see what God is doing with Jonah, let’s keep this priority in mind.
My contentment is from my obedience, not from results or circumstances.
When we look at those first 4 verses, we see Jonah getting ticked so again he leaves the scene.
But, this time, he has preached and a great revival has taken place.
Chapter 3 tells us that people believed the Lord.
Most of us lament because more people don’t believe but Jonah was just the opposite.
I wan to tell you something.
Jonah was too busy being focused on Jonah.
First of all, He had problems with God’s nature.
People are the same today.
I was listening to a story about a preacher on an airplane who was talking to a woman about God. He asked her what God was like. When she described her opinion of God as she saw it, he told her that she just made herself God. When she seemed confused, he simply explained that as long as we can make God what we want him to be, rather than what the Bible teachs that He is, we are making ourselves God.
That’s what Jonah did.
He wanted God to be vengeful and destructive in His wrath against the Assyrians in Nineveh but God was being merciful to them.
Now days it’s just the opposite.
God is seen as some heavenly Santa Claus who sits around tolerates anything and everything because he is loving.
The only people who don’t identify with Him would be the faithful followers of Christ because they are judgmental.
What else has Jonah done here?
He is whining about his circumstances.
How often do we in the church do that?
All the time.
In Philippians, Paul says that he has learned to be content.
Most people who listen to Christians are leaning how to be malcontents.
We are a bunch of whiney people.
We complain about everything. And argue about even more.
We were at the pool about two weeks ago when a lady just began to caricature a particular strain of evangelical theology and two of us sitting there happen to embrace that set of teachings.
What does that look like?
It looks like followers of Jesus cannot get along.
So what do we need to do?
We need to focus our lives on being obedient to Christ.
We need to focus our lives on serving the God who sent His son to die for us.
If we were as worried about whether or not our lives were giving glory to God as much as we worry about some of the meaningless tripe in our lives and on our minds, we could actually get something done.
I think that it is especially true in church.
We really do haggle and discuss things that have very little if any eternal value as though they were issues of great importance.
Tony Compolo, a sociologist was once telling about a church in New York that split and do you know what issue was?
It was over stained glass windows.
Not that they were too expensive, the issue was that there was going to be a picture of Adam from the creation account in the Bible. Someone raised the question of whether or not Adam should have a belly button on the stained glass.
Now we all know that if he did not have a belly button, his birthday suit would fall off.
Why would a church let something like that split them up?
It is because their eyes are on gourds and vines and stained glass and not on the lost souls that God prepared for their ministry to reach.
Look at verse 9.
God is telling Jonah
Here you are missing a vine that you had nothing do with and you want that I should abandon people that I created.
But we do that all the time.
We spend so much time looking inward that we fail to focus our attention on mission.
The lost world is out there and out there is where we are going to look
There is something that every single one of us does every single day and that is we evaluate our priorities.
We plan a day that ordered by our priorities.
For instance, I was scheduled with my family to work at the 4-H fair earlier this week but, I did not make it because Kirstyn got sick on Monday and Valerie had to take her to the doctor.
Just Friday, I was heading to Kernersville to a book sale when a friend called with a particular need. I detoured for a couple of hours to see if there was some way to help meet that need.
2. Describing the Biblical Text
Our text is from two different parts of the book of Jonah but they show us one thing.
They show us someone who is patently dissatisfied with the calling of God on His life.
God calls Him and he runs.
God uses him and he whines.
Jonah was just an unhappy person who did not want to be inconvenienced by the calling of God.
Jonah was just so pitiful that when God finally got his attention and really used him in power, he was unable to even recognize how significant his ministry was.
3. Narrate the Contextual application
I think we all have a general understanding of the Jonah account.
He was called by God and rand the other way
The storms struck the ship he was on and the crew threw him overboard at his own request.
They then worshiped Jehovah.
Then Jonah was swallowed by the great fish and had a repentant moment in the bell of that fish and prayed a great prayer.
Then voile, the Ipecac syrup kicks in and the fish gets sick and deposits Jonah on the beach.
Then Jonah proceeds to Nineveh and preaches repentance for all his worth and revival break out and the people repent.
As they repent, Jonah leaves town and watches from afa but rather than equipping these new disciples he has made, he forsakes them.
He is now upset that they did repent and that the Lord is choosing to spare them.
Jonah had his own agenda.
Jonah was about Jonah and not about what God wanted.
He was a racist and he was a spoiled brat.
4. Life Application (thesis)
This is why a calling from God requires that the cares of the world lose their luster.
5. SO WHAT!! (Outline)
Let’s take a look at a couple priorities that we need to make sure that we have in place as we come to the crossroads of life and we sense the Lord calling us into His service.
I need to be where God wants me to be.
When we look at Jonah, he is all about being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Arnold Spaugh and I are a different as night and day. I hate to be lost and he just figures he is out to see some new scenery. When I miss an exit on the interstate, I get all over myself. It actually took me a year to figure out new 85 and old 85 south of town. I even missed a church renewal conference because I couldn’t figure out the directions. Bob Allen and I were going to see Glen Pierce at Britthaven and we never found it because of that. Nothing frustrates me more than being lost. You wouldn’t know it by my record, but I hate to be late also. I try to do everything I can to be on time.
Jonah did not.
He just did not want to be where God wanted Him to be.
God said Go to Nineveh which on the map was east of where Jonah was and took a ship headed to Spain.
Jonah is taking ship in the rain
I can see the rudder boards heading for Spain
Oh I can see Jonah waving goodbye.
I think that there are times when we don’t want to be where God wants us to be either.
I know you know what I mean. It is another ten days before payday and a friend calls you and need a couple of hundred dollars to make ends meet. This friend knows that you are Christian and that you try to be a loving and helpful Christian. With all your heart, you want to be somewhere else for the next ten days just so they won’t ask you to help.
Or, you know that the future of your church depends on you and your response to the Holy Spirit. Yet, you have a couple of kids who will soon be in the youth group and you don’t see as vital a youth program as you want to see so you look to other churches even though the Lord may not have told you to.
I think it is interesting that Rick Warren says that the average pastor leaves a church over the grumbling of 6 or less people.
It is so easy to run from God
You never really get away and that is where the difficulty really begins.
God is there wherever you are and he hounds you and he hounds you until you either get back into his will or you just unplug the spiritual phone line.
You can kind of tell when it is happening, when people are feeling that tug. They kind of hang around. They find excuses to show up for special occasions. Then they talk about how wonderful it is at the new place not to convince you but to convince themselves.
That is what Jonah had done. I am going to take off on this cruise and I am going to get some rest and just enjoy myself.
In Spain, I won’t have to see a merciful God do anything because the Tarshishites are not being called by God anyway.
Obviously, Jonah was not going where God wanted Him to go.
Jonah was about to find himself miserable.
Move Forward to 4:5-11.
It is so cool when God teaches a lesson
As we see what God is doing with Jonah, let’s keep this priority in mind.
My contentment is from my obedience, not from results or circumstances.
When we look at those first 4 verses, we see Jonah getting ticked so again he leaves the scene.
But, this time, he has preached and a great revival has taken place.
Chapter 3 tells us that people believed the Lord.
Most of us lament because more people don’t believe but Jonah was just the opposite.
I wan to tell you something.
Jonah was too busy being focused on Jonah.
First of all, He had problems with God’s nature.
People are the same today.
I was listening to a story about a preacher on an airplane who was talking to a woman about God. He asked her what God was like. When she described her opinion of God as she saw it, he told her that she just made herself God. When she seemed confused, he simply explained that as long as we can make God what we want him to be, rather than what the Bible teachs that He is, we are making ourselves God.
That’s what Jonah did.
He wanted God to be vengeful and destructive in His wrath against the Assyrians in Nineveh but God was being merciful to them.
Now days it’s just the opposite.
God is seen as some heavenly Santa Claus who sits around tolerates anything and everything because he is loving.
The only people who don’t identify with Him would be the faithful followers of Christ because they are judgmental.
What else has Jonah done here?
He is whining about his circumstances.
How often do we in the church do that?
All the time.
In Philippians, Paul says that he has learned to be content.
Most people who listen to Christians are leaning how to be malcontents.
We are a bunch of whiney people.
We complain about everything. And argue about even more.
We were at the pool about two weeks ago when a lady just began to caricature a particular strain of evangelical theology and two of us sitting there happen to embrace that set of teachings.
What does that look like?
It looks like followers of Jesus cannot get along.
So what do we need to do?
We need to focus our lives on being obedient to Christ.
We need to focus our lives on serving the God who sent His son to die for us.
If we were as worried about whether or not our lives were giving glory to God as much as we worry about some of the meaningless tripe in our lives and on our minds, we could actually get something done.
I think that it is especially true in church.
We really do haggle and discuss things that have very little if any eternal value as though they were issues of great importance.
Tony Compolo, a sociologist was once telling about a church in New York that split and do you know what issue was?
It was over stained glass windows.
Not that they were too expensive, the issue was that there was going to be a picture of Adam from the creation account in the Bible. Someone raised the question of whether or not Adam should have a belly button on the stained glass.
Now we all know that if he did not have a belly button, his birthday suit would fall off.
Why would a church let something like that split them up?
It is because their eyes are on gourds and vines and stained glass and not on the lost souls that God prepared for their ministry to reach.
Look at verse 9.
God is telling Jonah
Here you are missing a vine that you had nothing do with and you want that I should abandon people that I created.
But we do that all the time.
We spend so much time looking inward that we fail to focus our attention on mission.
The lost world is out there and out there is where we are going to look
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
CROSSroads -- Isaiah 6 -- The CROSSroad of Availability
Introduction
It was about 8:30 at night on July 8.1996. Valerie and I were meeting with a doctor because something sign9ificant was happening. She had started labor. And we were waiting for Kirstyn to be born. But, the labor was starting to puke out a little and we kind of thought it might be a false alarm. The Dr. told us to go home and to grab some supper and before we left he handed us something. It was piece of paper with his home phone number on it. What was that saying to us?
He was saying I am available whenever you need me. Just call.
In our fast paced got to get the kids here and there and then show up for this and be there for that world, it is very difficult to make ourselves available to anyone and to everyone who needs us.
But even more important than that is that we are available to God.
Describing the Biblical Text
We see that availability in this passage and it is summed up in 5 words, 5 one syllable words. Here I am, send me.
This is the calling of the prophet Isaiah. He was a member of Israel’s royal family or had some connection to the royal family and was visiting the temple of God in the year that King Uzziah Died.
But he as an encounter that is really not like anything else in the Bible.
We see God and His attendants in a way that is actually comprehensible to us.
We see the chief attribute of God, holiness, exclaimed by the angels.
We see a cleansing of the mouth of Isaiah with fire.
We see a calling and a sending.
Narrate the Contextual application
Isaiah was willing to do something that very many people would never do and that is to admit and to acknowledge his own sinfulness.
He did not decide that he was too good to be approached by God but he responded, “Woe is me I am undone.”Isaiah was coming unglued and it was by the vision of God’s holiness.
In contrast to God’s holiness, we find ourselves in a cesspool.
We are unholy and impertinent creatures that refuse to admit our fault and our sin.
Yet, we are called much like Isaiah.
We are called to acknowledge our shortcomings in order to rely on God to make us adequate.
Life Application (thesis)
Yet here, Isaiah shows us something more.
He shows us availability to God.
He shows us that God’s call can profoundly impact our lives.
What we see here is this.
A calling from God requires availability to God.
That being the case, we need to look at this passage and see what that means.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
We need to comprehend the work of God in our lives.
In the first place, it is difficult for us to actually comprehend that Gods would want us to have fellowship with Him.
Just look at these angels
Holy Holy Holy they exclaim yet the Bible say that our hearts are wicked above all things.
In the Disney Movie, Oliver and company, there is a little Chihuahua Named Tito who is desperately trying to woo the affections of a very high class French poodle. At first this poodle wants absolutely nothing to do with the little dog but wants to ignore it.
Truth be known, that is really how God should be treating us.
He is perfectly holy and we are not.
We are scarred and stained with Sin.
Yet, God does desire to have fellowship with us as His people but we need to really understand how that is accomplished.
His son Jesus came to accomplish that on our behalf.
The Bible tells us that we are all sinful and gone astray which translates into the idea that we can never be holy enough to come to God on our own merit.
God therefore did something very important.
He transferred to us His merit.
He did that by offering His son Jesus to die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins.
This what Peter meant when he wrote that the just died for the unjust.
The righteous replaced the unrighteous.
Jesus replaced us.
Therefore His holiness replaces our unholiness when we come to him.
Isaiah found himself in the presence of a holy God and completely fell apart but who can blame him.
Should not we all fall apart in the presence of the Holy Creator?
Woe is me for I am undone.
I am a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips.
And then what happened?
God cleansed him.
He did the same for us in Jesus Christ.
Do you know Jesus here this morning?
I want to give you that opportunity right now, today.
If you want to know Jesus, his forgiveness, his love and his holiness, call on Him at this moment as we pray together.
Dear Lord I am a person who is unclean but I knowe you can cleanse me. I would like to receive Jesus into my life now for that cleansing. Thank you Lord for saving my sould in Christ and now help me to live for you. Amen
The work of God in our lives is marvelous and it is supernatural and when we comprehend the depth of it we cannot respond any other way than to make our selves available to God.
Another reality that we would consider is this.
We must be faithful with the message.
What if God told us that LABC would never reach anyone and we would never baptize anyone?
But, he told us to stay right here and to continue to preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Essentially, that is what he told Isaiah.
It is said that preachers should never make life decisions on Mondays.
There is real truth to that. I cannot tell you how many times I have wanted to throw my hands up and say that’s it I quit.
But, there are two things that always come into consideration when that happens.
The prayer, “God, are you done with me here?”
And the question, “Can I continue to take care of my family.”
In all honesty, it does come down to that.
In ministry discouragement does come.
It came to Isaiah here before he ever began.
Listen to the Lord describe Isaiah’s ministry and then listen to the question that he asks.
God told Him it would not be a fruitful ministry so Isaiah as how long?
I think we would all probably ask that question but in God’s answer to that question we find a new and even more exciting reality.
We may not have the message for the masses but we can reach the remnant.
After there is a judgment, there will still be a faithful remnant.
That remnant will continue to hear the word and to react to the covenant of God.
That is what we are being called to reach right now at LABC.
There is a remnant that we must reach in order to see this church reach her future potential.
But, we have to be ready to reach the People that God has called us to reach.
Last year in the spring I was emailing two of our former members about planning and as we shared emails, I shared a statement with them about what I saw the future of LABC to be.
Last October the deacons were discussing something in a meeting and one of the deacons made the statement about our church, the people we have and our facilities. This is what I had prayed for as I had taken this very same vision statement into the meeting only to be shared if the Lord opened the door for it and the door not only opened, it was like a screen door in The Wizard of Oz blowing off the house.
I am going to share some of that statement with you this morning, because I believe that we are at a crossroad.
We are at a place in the life of this church where we can all see that we must move boldly and drastically if we are to see tomorrow as a church.
AWANA could be small part of that or a big part.
What would we do if we as a congregation we had nothing but the buildings we occupy and the people who are here and we were going to start a new church.That is fun to think about
It was about 8:30 at night on July 8.1996. Valerie and I were meeting with a doctor because something sign9ificant was happening. She had started labor. And we were waiting for Kirstyn to be born. But, the labor was starting to puke out a little and we kind of thought it might be a false alarm. The Dr. told us to go home and to grab some supper and before we left he handed us something. It was piece of paper with his home phone number on it. What was that saying to us?
He was saying I am available whenever you need me. Just call.
In our fast paced got to get the kids here and there and then show up for this and be there for that world, it is very difficult to make ourselves available to anyone and to everyone who needs us.
But even more important than that is that we are available to God.
Describing the Biblical Text
We see that availability in this passage and it is summed up in 5 words, 5 one syllable words. Here I am, send me.
This is the calling of the prophet Isaiah. He was a member of Israel’s royal family or had some connection to the royal family and was visiting the temple of God in the year that King Uzziah Died.
But he as an encounter that is really not like anything else in the Bible.
We see God and His attendants in a way that is actually comprehensible to us.
We see the chief attribute of God, holiness, exclaimed by the angels.
We see a cleansing of the mouth of Isaiah with fire.
We see a calling and a sending.
Narrate the Contextual application
Isaiah was willing to do something that very many people would never do and that is to admit and to acknowledge his own sinfulness.
He did not decide that he was too good to be approached by God but he responded, “Woe is me I am undone.”Isaiah was coming unglued and it was by the vision of God’s holiness.
In contrast to God’s holiness, we find ourselves in a cesspool.
We are unholy and impertinent creatures that refuse to admit our fault and our sin.
Yet, we are called much like Isaiah.
We are called to acknowledge our shortcomings in order to rely on God to make us adequate.
Life Application (thesis)
Yet here, Isaiah shows us something more.
He shows us availability to God.
He shows us that God’s call can profoundly impact our lives.
What we see here is this.
A calling from God requires availability to God.
That being the case, we need to look at this passage and see what that means.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
We need to comprehend the work of God in our lives.
In the first place, it is difficult for us to actually comprehend that Gods would want us to have fellowship with Him.
Just look at these angels
Holy Holy Holy they exclaim yet the Bible say that our hearts are wicked above all things.
In the Disney Movie, Oliver and company, there is a little Chihuahua Named Tito who is desperately trying to woo the affections of a very high class French poodle. At first this poodle wants absolutely nothing to do with the little dog but wants to ignore it.
Truth be known, that is really how God should be treating us.
He is perfectly holy and we are not.
We are scarred and stained with Sin.
Yet, God does desire to have fellowship with us as His people but we need to really understand how that is accomplished.
His son Jesus came to accomplish that on our behalf.
The Bible tells us that we are all sinful and gone astray which translates into the idea that we can never be holy enough to come to God on our own merit.
God therefore did something very important.
He transferred to us His merit.
He did that by offering His son Jesus to die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins.
This what Peter meant when he wrote that the just died for the unjust.
The righteous replaced the unrighteous.
Jesus replaced us.
Therefore His holiness replaces our unholiness when we come to him.
Isaiah found himself in the presence of a holy God and completely fell apart but who can blame him.
Should not we all fall apart in the presence of the Holy Creator?
Woe is me for I am undone.
I am a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips.
And then what happened?
God cleansed him.
He did the same for us in Jesus Christ.
Do you know Jesus here this morning?
I want to give you that opportunity right now, today.
If you want to know Jesus, his forgiveness, his love and his holiness, call on Him at this moment as we pray together.
Dear Lord I am a person who is unclean but I knowe you can cleanse me. I would like to receive Jesus into my life now for that cleansing. Thank you Lord for saving my sould in Christ and now help me to live for you. Amen
The work of God in our lives is marvelous and it is supernatural and when we comprehend the depth of it we cannot respond any other way than to make our selves available to God.
Another reality that we would consider is this.
We must be faithful with the message.
What if God told us that LABC would never reach anyone and we would never baptize anyone?
But, he told us to stay right here and to continue to preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Essentially, that is what he told Isaiah.
It is said that preachers should never make life decisions on Mondays.
There is real truth to that. I cannot tell you how many times I have wanted to throw my hands up and say that’s it I quit.
But, there are two things that always come into consideration when that happens.
The prayer, “God, are you done with me here?”
And the question, “Can I continue to take care of my family.”
In all honesty, it does come down to that.
In ministry discouragement does come.
It came to Isaiah here before he ever began.
Listen to the Lord describe Isaiah’s ministry and then listen to the question that he asks.
God told Him it would not be a fruitful ministry so Isaiah as how long?
I think we would all probably ask that question but in God’s answer to that question we find a new and even more exciting reality.
We may not have the message for the masses but we can reach the remnant.
After there is a judgment, there will still be a faithful remnant.
That remnant will continue to hear the word and to react to the covenant of God.
That is what we are being called to reach right now at LABC.
There is a remnant that we must reach in order to see this church reach her future potential.
But, we have to be ready to reach the People that God has called us to reach.
Last year in the spring I was emailing two of our former members about planning and as we shared emails, I shared a statement with them about what I saw the future of LABC to be.
Last October the deacons were discussing something in a meeting and one of the deacons made the statement about our church, the people we have and our facilities. This is what I had prayed for as I had taken this very same vision statement into the meeting only to be shared if the Lord opened the door for it and the door not only opened, it was like a screen door in The Wizard of Oz blowing off the house.
I am going to share some of that statement with you this morning, because I believe that we are at a crossroad.
We are at a place in the life of this church where we can all see that we must move boldly and drastically if we are to see tomorrow as a church.
AWANA could be small part of that or a big part.
What would we do if we as a congregation we had nothing but the buildings we occupy and the people who are here and we were going to start a new church.That is fun to think about
Monday, September 03, 2007
CROSSroads -- The Crossroad of Obedience -- Genesis 12:1-8
Introduction
Family plans sometimes just don’t work out do they? We have all had plans go awry. There was a guy who had a date with a girl that he wanted it to be kind of special. Well, the date was anything but special. He had a terrible meal and just had a terrible time. And to end things, they had gotten milkshakes and wouldn’t you know that the lid on his was not on correctly and it fell open and spilled all over her dress. It was a terrible date and the night though not special was certainly memorable. I believe that God used that to help that relationship fall apart for something better that he had planned.
Describing the Biblical Text
Abram’s life at this point was probably just as memorable with his family’s plans changing.
We are finding Abram in Haran with his family and they are settled pretty comfortably there.
It is one of those situations where they have been there a while and they are settled in and going through the normal things of life.
For instance, while in Haran, Abram’s dad passes away.
Narrate the Contextual application
So, the family is just kid of sitting around minding their own business and all of a sudden, they hear form God.
Well, they don’t but Abe does.
He hears God tell Him to do something that is slightly out of the ordinary, like it was an everyday thing to hear from God.
Abram is at a crossroad in His life.
God is calling him and he is having to look both back and ahead to see if this is a calling that He wants to accept.
Life Application (thesis)
Has there been a time in our lives when we have heard from God?
Has there been a time in our lives that we have had to examine everything and then determine that we are going to follow Him and do His will no matter what it might take or where it might take us.
There is something here that is so important that if we miss it, the meaning of this passage will be lost to us.
A calling from God requires a surrender to God.
That is a big statement because surrender always means that you have lost a battle or a war.
So why do we surrender?
We surrender because any other response to God is making ourselves arrogant and disobedient thinking more of ourselves that we should.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
Surrender to God certainly requires something from our lives doesn’t it?
Actually, it requires everything.
We really cannot keep anything back and legitimately claim to be surrendered.
This is why I cannot let my life get in the way of hearing God.
Life can really take some curves and twists.
I will never forget Palm Sunday 2006. I was talking to someone in the FLC following our early service that day when I saw Randy Robinson bolt out the door and down the sidewalk. What I did not realize was that Valerie had fallen on the sidewalk between the buildings and had broken her knee. That event changed our lives. She had to wear a cast for several weeks, she could not drive a car, deliver the kids to any of our practices. As you can imagine, it disrupted our live tremendously.
This word from God was something more to Abe than just a disruption
It was in fact a calling but it was very much more than that as well.
There is a passage in the book of Joshua that rolls us back to this very day in a sense.
Listen to the words of Joshua as he calls the people into obedience.
Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River, namely, Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods.
It is interesting to note that even though Abram was a descendant of Shem, he had apparently inherited as heritage of paganism and polytheism.
So what really happened at Haran when God visited Abram and called him to Canaan?
This is where Abe was converted.
This is when he believed and his measure of faith was received and he followed Jehovah God.
How many times have we heard someone tell us that they have been called into some ministry or they felt God leading them to do something significant for Him?
What we need to see is that this in a very real sense is a conversion experience.
It may not be when they first follow Christ but at this point, they are being instructed by God to essentially cancel the rest of their lives regarding the plans and the reservations they have made and simply let the Lord start leading the way.
Verse 1 so clearly says, “To the land that I will show you.”
My life cannot get in the way of my following the Lord
If it does, then am I really following?
Am I really letting Him lead the way?
It’s like Spiritual ADD; God calls us and he tells us what we need to do and we respond to Him in a series of distractions.
It is like one of us men when the wife asks us to vacuum. All of a sudden the nails on the deck steps need to be resunk, the car needs washer fluid, it’s time to return that screwdriver to the neighbor that you borrowed last year.
Well, God, I have sort of planned this career thing and a marriage and I was hoping to put a couple of kids in college.
None of that is bad stuff but it is stuff that will get in the way of truly hearing God if we let it.
I can’t let my life get in the way of hearing God, because, surrender means trusting God even when I don’t know where I am going.
Blind faith is a hard thing.
Stepping out on faith is very difficult to do.
When we think about when a church calls a pastor. There are some things that you can know about him before he comes but the future of His leadership is really a mystery. Most people don’t like that so there are all kinds of checks and balances in churches to keep a pastor from leading in an unpopular direction. There are boards, committees, business meetings and other less formal entities.
It is like when we give a large sum of money to a cause. We don’t just Willy-nilly give money. We discuss it and pray about it and make sure it is what we are supposed to do.
We take a logical approach.
But, what about when we step out on faith?
Can we logically step out on faith?
I don’t think so.
If we can see it, if we can figure it out, it is not faith and neither is it following the call of God in our lives.
Look at verse 4
So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.
No meetings, no discussions, they just picked up and went.
Now what is ironic is that God finishes the journey that they started before.
Back your eyes up to the last verse of chapter 11. They were headed to Canaan. According to Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7, God visited Abe before to instruct Him to Go to Canaan.
But, here is where he got self out of the way and obeyed.
Why stop in Haran on the way?
Why there? There was family there.
Move your eye up one more verse.
There is Haran, the father of Lot who was born and died in Ur.
That is the land of his kinsmen but Haran left a legacy far away from where he died and that is where Terah and Abe stopped on their journey to Canaan.
Maybe they were just going to drop Lot off in Haran.
They are in the land now of Lot’s inheritance.
Can you imagine how much harder that made it to leave Haran?
But when Abe left Haran, something was clear to Him.
Trusting God means believing that God is doing His best for us.
There is no other way to follow Him.
If we think that God might not do what is best for us, then we are going to look to whom to do it better?
We will look to ourselves.
That would and does make us most pathetic as we claim to be the people of God.
So we cannot let our lives keep us fro hearing God.
Surrender means trusting God when I don’t know where I am going.
Here is something else we need to think about.
My surrender today bears on my life tomorrow.
Really and truly, there is not a lot in life that does not come to bear on our tomorrows.
If we buy a car today, we are agreeing to make payments for the next 4 years.
If you have a baby, you are committing your life to raising the child for the nest 18-20 years.
But, what about when you surrender to the call of God.
There are eternal consequences involved.
Abram’s name was changed to Abraham.
He fathered Isaac who fathered Jacob who fathered Judah whose line led to Jesus.
We might be thinking that God won’t do anything that significant in my life.
Really?
I have never pastored a mega church but under my ministry, 5 men have been called to the ministry and one has been called to the mission field.
As far as we know, all of us have lives with several tomorrows left.
But those tomorrows depend on what we do today.
They depend on our willingness to be obedient to leave Haran and to go to Canaan.
Living for Christ, following Christ mans that we are stepping out in faith everyday as we seek to obey him and we serve Him.
If we are walking by sight, we are not surrendered and if we are not surrendered, we are not serving and if we are not serving it is very possible that we are not saved.
Are you feeling that call today?
Is there that sense that God wants you to step out and to follow Him in faith without looking back to Ur or Haran?
Maybe you are hearing his voice for the first time today saying come unto me you who are tired and carrying that heavy load and I will give perfect rest.
You can come to Jesus Christ this morning and you can surrender your life to following him today.
Family plans sometimes just don’t work out do they? We have all had plans go awry. There was a guy who had a date with a girl that he wanted it to be kind of special. Well, the date was anything but special. He had a terrible meal and just had a terrible time. And to end things, they had gotten milkshakes and wouldn’t you know that the lid on his was not on correctly and it fell open and spilled all over her dress. It was a terrible date and the night though not special was certainly memorable. I believe that God used that to help that relationship fall apart for something better that he had planned.
Describing the Biblical Text
Abram’s life at this point was probably just as memorable with his family’s plans changing.
We are finding Abram in Haran with his family and they are settled pretty comfortably there.
It is one of those situations where they have been there a while and they are settled in and going through the normal things of life.
For instance, while in Haran, Abram’s dad passes away.
Narrate the Contextual application
So, the family is just kid of sitting around minding their own business and all of a sudden, they hear form God.
Well, they don’t but Abe does.
He hears God tell Him to do something that is slightly out of the ordinary, like it was an everyday thing to hear from God.
Abram is at a crossroad in His life.
God is calling him and he is having to look both back and ahead to see if this is a calling that He wants to accept.
Life Application (thesis)
Has there been a time in our lives when we have heard from God?
Has there been a time in our lives that we have had to examine everything and then determine that we are going to follow Him and do His will no matter what it might take or where it might take us.
There is something here that is so important that if we miss it, the meaning of this passage will be lost to us.
A calling from God requires a surrender to God.
That is a big statement because surrender always means that you have lost a battle or a war.
So why do we surrender?
We surrender because any other response to God is making ourselves arrogant and disobedient thinking more of ourselves that we should.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
Surrender to God certainly requires something from our lives doesn’t it?
Actually, it requires everything.
We really cannot keep anything back and legitimately claim to be surrendered.
This is why I cannot let my life get in the way of hearing God.
Life can really take some curves and twists.
I will never forget Palm Sunday 2006. I was talking to someone in the FLC following our early service that day when I saw Randy Robinson bolt out the door and down the sidewalk. What I did not realize was that Valerie had fallen on the sidewalk between the buildings and had broken her knee. That event changed our lives. She had to wear a cast for several weeks, she could not drive a car, deliver the kids to any of our practices. As you can imagine, it disrupted our live tremendously.
This word from God was something more to Abe than just a disruption
It was in fact a calling but it was very much more than that as well.
There is a passage in the book of Joshua that rolls us back to this very day in a sense.
Listen to the words of Joshua as he calls the people into obedience.
Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River, namely, Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods.
It is interesting to note that even though Abram was a descendant of Shem, he had apparently inherited as heritage of paganism and polytheism.
So what really happened at Haran when God visited Abram and called him to Canaan?
This is where Abe was converted.
This is when he believed and his measure of faith was received and he followed Jehovah God.
How many times have we heard someone tell us that they have been called into some ministry or they felt God leading them to do something significant for Him?
What we need to see is that this in a very real sense is a conversion experience.
It may not be when they first follow Christ but at this point, they are being instructed by God to essentially cancel the rest of their lives regarding the plans and the reservations they have made and simply let the Lord start leading the way.
Verse 1 so clearly says, “To the land that I will show you.”
My life cannot get in the way of my following the Lord
If it does, then am I really following?
Am I really letting Him lead the way?
It’s like Spiritual ADD; God calls us and he tells us what we need to do and we respond to Him in a series of distractions.
It is like one of us men when the wife asks us to vacuum. All of a sudden the nails on the deck steps need to be resunk, the car needs washer fluid, it’s time to return that screwdriver to the neighbor that you borrowed last year.
Well, God, I have sort of planned this career thing and a marriage and I was hoping to put a couple of kids in college.
None of that is bad stuff but it is stuff that will get in the way of truly hearing God if we let it.
I can’t let my life get in the way of hearing God, because, surrender means trusting God even when I don’t know where I am going.
Blind faith is a hard thing.
Stepping out on faith is very difficult to do.
When we think about when a church calls a pastor. There are some things that you can know about him before he comes but the future of His leadership is really a mystery. Most people don’t like that so there are all kinds of checks and balances in churches to keep a pastor from leading in an unpopular direction. There are boards, committees, business meetings and other less formal entities.
It is like when we give a large sum of money to a cause. We don’t just Willy-nilly give money. We discuss it and pray about it and make sure it is what we are supposed to do.
We take a logical approach.
But, what about when we step out on faith?
Can we logically step out on faith?
I don’t think so.
If we can see it, if we can figure it out, it is not faith and neither is it following the call of God in our lives.
Look at verse 4
So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.
No meetings, no discussions, they just picked up and went.
Now what is ironic is that God finishes the journey that they started before.
Back your eyes up to the last verse of chapter 11. They were headed to Canaan. According to Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7, God visited Abe before to instruct Him to Go to Canaan.
But, here is where he got self out of the way and obeyed.
Why stop in Haran on the way?
Why there? There was family there.
Move your eye up one more verse.
There is Haran, the father of Lot who was born and died in Ur.
That is the land of his kinsmen but Haran left a legacy far away from where he died and that is where Terah and Abe stopped on their journey to Canaan.
Maybe they were just going to drop Lot off in Haran.
They are in the land now of Lot’s inheritance.
Can you imagine how much harder that made it to leave Haran?
But when Abe left Haran, something was clear to Him.
Trusting God means believing that God is doing His best for us.
There is no other way to follow Him.
If we think that God might not do what is best for us, then we are going to look to whom to do it better?
We will look to ourselves.
That would and does make us most pathetic as we claim to be the people of God.
So we cannot let our lives keep us fro hearing God.
Surrender means trusting God when I don’t know where I am going.
Here is something else we need to think about.
My surrender today bears on my life tomorrow.
Really and truly, there is not a lot in life that does not come to bear on our tomorrows.
If we buy a car today, we are agreeing to make payments for the next 4 years.
If you have a baby, you are committing your life to raising the child for the nest 18-20 years.
But, what about when you surrender to the call of God.
There are eternal consequences involved.
Abram’s name was changed to Abraham.
He fathered Isaac who fathered Jacob who fathered Judah whose line led to Jesus.
We might be thinking that God won’t do anything that significant in my life.
Really?
I have never pastored a mega church but under my ministry, 5 men have been called to the ministry and one has been called to the mission field.
As far as we know, all of us have lives with several tomorrows left.
But those tomorrows depend on what we do today.
They depend on our willingness to be obedient to leave Haran and to go to Canaan.
Living for Christ, following Christ mans that we are stepping out in faith everyday as we seek to obey him and we serve Him.
If we are walking by sight, we are not surrendered and if we are not surrendered, we are not serving and if we are not serving it is very possible that we are not saved.
Are you feeling that call today?
Is there that sense that God wants you to step out and to follow Him in faith without looking back to Ur or Haran?
Maybe you are hearing his voice for the first time today saying come unto me you who are tired and carrying that heavy load and I will give perfect rest.
You can come to Jesus Christ this morning and you can surrender your life to following him today.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Blueprints for Life - Psalm 1 - A Practical Truth
Introduction
In the movie The Empire Strikes back, young Luke Skywalker has flown his x wing fighter to a planet called Degaba in order to begin his training as a Jedi knight. He had to learn to control every area of his environment in order to grasp using the mystical power called the force. He carried the teacher on his back during the training and learned to fight with a laser sword called a light saber. He had to learn the basics of the force and the Jedi way in order to become a full fledged Jedi knight.
Practically speaking, that is the way all of life is.
We have to learn the basics of anything before we can ever become accomplished at it.
Describing the Biblical Text
This text is the first of 150 Psalms in the Bible.
There are different kinds of psalms like this one which is an admonishing or instructional psalm. There are lament Psalms, psalms that were sung on the way to the temple, psalms that described battles or other events, and praise and worship psalms.
The psalm before us this morning sets the tone for the entire book of psalms in that it points the reader to the law of the Lord which is to be the object of our meditation both day and night.
Narrate the Contextual application
We see at the beginning of this psalm a beatitude blessing a certain man and then we see from whence the blessing comes.
But, it is the 2nd verse that draws our attention for this message.
It describes an approach to the truth.
There are three things that we need to see
Delight – this indicates that someone takes pleasure in the law of the Lord.
It is read and appreciated for what it is: the word of God.
It is enjoyed and savored like a fine chocolate or a prime filet mignon.
Then, we see meditate – I like this word as it connotes the idea of groaning or more relevant to me, talking to one’s self.
Valerie can always tell when a deacon’s meeting is just a day or two away because I amble around the muttering and then she says, “Who are you talking to?”
What is happening?
I am meditating on the things that I either predict we will be discussing or the things that I know I will be bringing to the floor.
We meditate on the things that are pressing, the things that are important to us.
We meditate on that new relationship as we can’t get him or her out of our minds.
We meditate on that new favorite song, singing it in the car and the shower, searching the radio presets to find it or logging onto the internet to download it so we can listen to it any time we want.
The big difference of course is that a song is not going to affect the way we live life.
A new relationship might change our lives if we get married but the early infatuation is replaced by the practicalities maintaining the bond.
Life Application (thesis)
With the Bible, that is different.
You see, the Bible has a power behind it that we don’t find in other things.
The Bible is called the word of God.
It is inspired by God.
It accomplishes God’s purpose.
God has exalted it above his name.
It endures forever.
That means that it has an eternal value in and for our lives.
We might sum it up this way.
God’s truth is efficient.
SO WHAT!! (outline)
As we develop that idea this morning, we are going to see 2 standards that the word of God sets for us and I hope as we see these standards, we will be more and more like Jesus every day.
The truth sets the standard for the characters we know.
Verse one is a very interesting verse.
It describes a progression of sorts concerning sin.
Most things in life are progressive as we know them.
Think about a job. You start at the bottom of the ladder and you begin to work your way up through the company. Mail room, mail supervisor, Office Manager, Section Manager, District Manager, Vice President, CEO
What do we see in this text?
We see a progression of movement
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.
The idea with walking is that you are still moving.
This person has visited the counsel of the wicked but did not hang around.
To walk in the counsel does not men that your feet are planted there but it does mean you’re traveling down the road and flirting with disaster.
Unless someone walks away from the counsel of the wicked, they will eventually stop for a better look and listen.
Notice the next line of this psalm.
Nor stand in the path of sinners.
There are two things we need to see here.
No longer is there movement.
The walking has turned to standing so the progress down the path to the darkside is marked by an arrival of sorts.
Something else has changed.
The counsel or the words of the ungodly has changed to sinners.
The act of standing is accompanied by the act of sinning.
There is no listening any more, now it is doing.
The flirting with sin has become sinning.
The look at the evil has turned into a prolonged stay with the evil.
But, there is more
Notice the next line nor sit in the seat of the scoffer.
In this we see a furtherance of the progression.
There no longer walking where leaving would be easy.
There is no longer standing where walking away could be easy.
There is now sitting where it is much more difficult to stand up and leave the situation.
I remember when Valerie was expecting Alyson and Her dr. left the group he was in and started his own practice. He was so new that our patient account # was 0009. During the visit one day, Valerie commented to the Dr. about the chairs in the waiting room. The chairs in the new office had arms and they were pretty high off the floor.
Why would that be?
They were like that so a woman who was expecting could stand up.
In the old offices there were some pretty low sofas and when the ladies would get called back, they would look like they were doing a turtle dance.
If we sit in the seat of the scoffer, it is very easy to get ourselves stuck there.
Now, notice this
The one who is blessed does not walk among ungodly, stand with the sinner, or sit with the scorner or critic of the faith.
It does not mean that he loses all associations but his time is devoted to Godly things.
He is blessed when he avoids the ungodly, the sinner and the scoffer.
The truth sets the standard for the characters we know.
The truth sets the standard for our character to be known.
So the person who loves God, delights in His word and he spends time with it day and night.
We kind of chew the cud on the Bible don’t we?
We roll it over in our minds and let it sit in our hearts and then bring it back up again for some more thought.
For the follower of Jesus Cherist who is spending time in the word of God, there is something about that character that is very obvious.
That person is consistent in the way he or she lives life.
Look at verse 3
Yielding fruit in season means a couple of things as we look at it.
First of all, the kind of fruit that is being yielded is understood.
Remember what Jesus said about a good tree yielding good fruit?
You are not going to get kumquats from a peach tree and most people understand that.
So, follower of Christ, What is our fruit?
Is someone who works with us going to be able to look at our lives and know that we will produce the same kind of fruit every single time?
What about the consistency of our fruit?
Maybe we understand what kind of fruit that we are to yield but you something else?
It is supposed to be consistent.
There should be no paring process for us because our fruit comes consistently in season, the size and shape it is supposed to be and it is always perfect.
How many of us can boast in that?
Others see our character by the fruit we bear and the furit we bear is determined by the time we spend meditating on the word and you know what else?
Listening to our Bible teachers.
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 14As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16from 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.
In case you are asking how that is relevant look at verse 4.
It is my job to equip you in the word so that the world cannot toss you around.
Are you ready to live for Christ?
That will mean spending time in His word.
I want you to commit this morning to spending time in the word that we can be that tree planted and bearing God’s eternal fruit.
In the movie The Empire Strikes back, young Luke Skywalker has flown his x wing fighter to a planet called Degaba in order to begin his training as a Jedi knight. He had to learn to control every area of his environment in order to grasp using the mystical power called the force. He carried the teacher on his back during the training and learned to fight with a laser sword called a light saber. He had to learn the basics of the force and the Jedi way in order to become a full fledged Jedi knight.
Practically speaking, that is the way all of life is.
We have to learn the basics of anything before we can ever become accomplished at it.
Describing the Biblical Text
This text is the first of 150 Psalms in the Bible.
There are different kinds of psalms like this one which is an admonishing or instructional psalm. There are lament Psalms, psalms that were sung on the way to the temple, psalms that described battles or other events, and praise and worship psalms.
The psalm before us this morning sets the tone for the entire book of psalms in that it points the reader to the law of the Lord which is to be the object of our meditation both day and night.
Narrate the Contextual application
We see at the beginning of this psalm a beatitude blessing a certain man and then we see from whence the blessing comes.
But, it is the 2nd verse that draws our attention for this message.
It describes an approach to the truth.
There are three things that we need to see
Delight – this indicates that someone takes pleasure in the law of the Lord.
It is read and appreciated for what it is: the word of God.
It is enjoyed and savored like a fine chocolate or a prime filet mignon.
Then, we see meditate – I like this word as it connotes the idea of groaning or more relevant to me, talking to one’s self.
Valerie can always tell when a deacon’s meeting is just a day or two away because I amble around the muttering and then she says, “Who are you talking to?”
What is happening?
I am meditating on the things that I either predict we will be discussing or the things that I know I will be bringing to the floor.
We meditate on the things that are pressing, the things that are important to us.
We meditate on that new relationship as we can’t get him or her out of our minds.
We meditate on that new favorite song, singing it in the car and the shower, searching the radio presets to find it or logging onto the internet to download it so we can listen to it any time we want.
The big difference of course is that a song is not going to affect the way we live life.
A new relationship might change our lives if we get married but the early infatuation is replaced by the practicalities maintaining the bond.
Life Application (thesis)
With the Bible, that is different.
You see, the Bible has a power behind it that we don’t find in other things.
The Bible is called the word of God.
It is inspired by God.
It accomplishes God’s purpose.
God has exalted it above his name.
It endures forever.
That means that it has an eternal value in and for our lives.
We might sum it up this way.
God’s truth is efficient.
SO WHAT!! (outline)
As we develop that idea this morning, we are going to see 2 standards that the word of God sets for us and I hope as we see these standards, we will be more and more like Jesus every day.
The truth sets the standard for the characters we know.
Verse one is a very interesting verse.
It describes a progression of sorts concerning sin.
Most things in life are progressive as we know them.
Think about a job. You start at the bottom of the ladder and you begin to work your way up through the company. Mail room, mail supervisor, Office Manager, Section Manager, District Manager, Vice President, CEO
What do we see in this text?
We see a progression of movement
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.
The idea with walking is that you are still moving.
This person has visited the counsel of the wicked but did not hang around.
To walk in the counsel does not men that your feet are planted there but it does mean you’re traveling down the road and flirting with disaster.
Unless someone walks away from the counsel of the wicked, they will eventually stop for a better look and listen.
Notice the next line of this psalm.
Nor stand in the path of sinners.
There are two things we need to see here.
No longer is there movement.
The walking has turned to standing so the progress down the path to the darkside is marked by an arrival of sorts.
Something else has changed.
The counsel or the words of the ungodly has changed to sinners.
The act of standing is accompanied by the act of sinning.
There is no listening any more, now it is doing.
The flirting with sin has become sinning.
The look at the evil has turned into a prolonged stay with the evil.
But, there is more
Notice the next line nor sit in the seat of the scoffer.
In this we see a furtherance of the progression.
There no longer walking where leaving would be easy.
There is no longer standing where walking away could be easy.
There is now sitting where it is much more difficult to stand up and leave the situation.
I remember when Valerie was expecting Alyson and Her dr. left the group he was in and started his own practice. He was so new that our patient account # was 0009. During the visit one day, Valerie commented to the Dr. about the chairs in the waiting room. The chairs in the new office had arms and they were pretty high off the floor.
Why would that be?
They were like that so a woman who was expecting could stand up.
In the old offices there were some pretty low sofas and when the ladies would get called back, they would look like they were doing a turtle dance.
If we sit in the seat of the scoffer, it is very easy to get ourselves stuck there.
Now, notice this
The one who is blessed does not walk among ungodly, stand with the sinner, or sit with the scorner or critic of the faith.
It does not mean that he loses all associations but his time is devoted to Godly things.
He is blessed when he avoids the ungodly, the sinner and the scoffer.
The truth sets the standard for the characters we know.
The truth sets the standard for our character to be known.
So the person who loves God, delights in His word and he spends time with it day and night.
We kind of chew the cud on the Bible don’t we?
We roll it over in our minds and let it sit in our hearts and then bring it back up again for some more thought.
For the follower of Jesus Cherist who is spending time in the word of God, there is something about that character that is very obvious.
That person is consistent in the way he or she lives life.
Look at verse 3
Yielding fruit in season means a couple of things as we look at it.
First of all, the kind of fruit that is being yielded is understood.
Remember what Jesus said about a good tree yielding good fruit?
You are not going to get kumquats from a peach tree and most people understand that.
So, follower of Christ, What is our fruit?
Is someone who works with us going to be able to look at our lives and know that we will produce the same kind of fruit every single time?
What about the consistency of our fruit?
Maybe we understand what kind of fruit that we are to yield but you something else?
It is supposed to be consistent.
There should be no paring process for us because our fruit comes consistently in season, the size and shape it is supposed to be and it is always perfect.
How many of us can boast in that?
Others see our character by the fruit we bear and the furit we bear is determined by the time we spend meditating on the word and you know what else?
Listening to our Bible teachers.
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 14As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16from 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.
In case you are asking how that is relevant look at verse 4.
It is my job to equip you in the word so that the world cannot toss you around.
Are you ready to live for Christ?
That will mean spending time in His word.
I want you to commit this morning to spending time in the word that we can be that tree planted and bearing God’s eternal fruit.
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