Introduction
Have you ever watched highway workers tear up a small section of road to fix a pipe or to simply create a better patching surface? The have a tool that they use called a jackhammer. That thing has some power. It will cut through asphalt and open holes in roads. I would say that it makes an impact on the user as well as the road that it is being used on.
Describing the Biblical Text
As we look at this text, we see Jesus making an impact on people’s lives.
We see Him healing, comforting, and generally meeting the needs of the people who came to Him.
But, he was able to do this at a time when there was concern over the fact that certain people wanted to kill Him.
He had just put together a leadership team which would establish what we call the church.
He is about to deliver a sermon called the sermon on the plain.
But, at this point he is doing ministry and meeting the needs of people.
Narrate the Contextual application
As a church, to what extent are we called to meet people’s needs?
What litmus test do we apply to the people that we help?
What litmus test did Jesus apply here?
He simply helped people where they were and that prepared them to hear his message of living as a part of the kingdom of God.
Life Application (thesis)
When we look around our church at our own neighborhood or even the neighborhoods in which we live I would like us to consider whether or not we are making an IMPACT.
Maybe we should consider whether or not we want to make an impact.
We have been put here for some reason; what to do, what to do.
We need to find the ways to minister.
We need to actively look for ways to meet people’s needs.
The church must IMPACT the community through the power of God.
I want us to look at three characteristics of Jesus ministry and see how we might bring those characteristics to bear on our lives and on our church.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
We are to minister among the people.
When we think about the people who came before us in faith, we can see that God took an active role in their lives as the object of their faith.
God walked with Adam in the garden.
He took Enoch to heaven, protected Noah through calamity, called Abraham from obscurity, wrestled Jacob, led Israel by cloud and fire, wrote for Moses and Daniel, and became a human being for us.
God has never failed to be involved in the lives of His people,
And as the church, it is our responsibility to be involved in the lives of people.
Jesus gave us that little command about loving our neighbors as ourselves and I don’t think you can love people without some kind of involvement in the lives they live.
As we look at this text, we see people here seeking Jesus
We see essentially two groups of people: the disciples and the throng.
Now, the disciples were there because they had just been chosen and they were probably assisting Jesus with the logistics of the crowd management.
But there was a throng of people who knew That Jesus was a teacher who taught with power not like the scribes of the day.
They were coming to Jesus to hear him and they were coming to Jesus to be healed.
The deal was this though; Jesus was accessible.
When we were at Kitty Hawk, the church bought a new computer from a company that you may have heard of called Dell. Well, after a couple of months, it crashed and would not even turn on. One call to the toll free number to the tech support people with the service tag and there was a technician there the next day. She couldn’t fix it. She called Dell who told her that we could return it. They sent us a new computer, a model better than the one we purchased and let us send the old one back in the box the new one came in.
Now, last Christmas, we ordered these little Digital music players for our kids from a company called Creative. Well, long and short of it was they were junk. What’s worse is that you could not find an address or an email address or a website for any help at all. We were stuck with junk.
The difference between those two experiences was that Dell didn’t mind interacting with their customers even when it was to fix a problem.
BTW that what Jesus does; He fixes problems.
Creative, on the other hand doesn’t give the impression that they care about their customers.
When people see our church, do they see a loving caring fellowship that desires to be a part of their lives and wants to minister to the needs that they have or do they see a church that really doesn’t care or want to be involved in their lives?
It is an effort that we must all make if we are to be like Jesus and we are to minister among the people.
Jesus was setting the example for the body of Christ and as the body of Christ; we should follow His example to the tee.
Another characteristic that we see in this passage is that we have the power to do the work that God has sent us to do.
We might look at this passage and see Jesus doing things that we could never do.
I don’t have a gift of healing and have never had the opportunity to cast out unclean spirits. But you know what I have had?
I have had the opportunity to pray with people.
I have been able to stick my hand I my pocket and hand someone 2 or 3 bucks.
I have been able to tell someone struggling with sin and bad habits that there is strength and hope in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know what, these are things that we can all do.
There is so much potential for ministry right here.
All we have to do is tap it.
Think about it.
Jesus came to this earth to be a part of people’s lives.
He came to do the will of God who sent Him.
He came to be a part of your life.
But is he?
How open are we to his voice when it calls us out of the Lazy Boy and into the?
Jesus knew us before the foundation of the world and desired to be a part of you life even then.
The Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory and because of that, we need a savior.
We need Jesus to give us peace with God, forgiveness from sin and a hope for eternity.
I want to ask you all to bow your heads right now.
If you desire to have a relationship with Jesus, won’t you acknowledge that right here this morning?
I will be leading a prayer and if you feel compelled to follow Jesus Christ this morning, won’ you pray with me, repeating the words silently.
If you prayed that prayer, you are ready to begin serving Jesus
We are to minister among the people.
We have the power to do the work that God has sent us to do because we have the Son of God, Jesus who died for them.
If you think that is not important, listen to the words of Jesus
As the Father has sent me so send I you and he breathed on them and said receive the Holy Spirit. John
All authority is given to me on heaven and earth go make disciples and lo I am with you. Matthew
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Acts
We go in the name and in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is no shortage in what we can do as His followers except that we limit ourselves with excuses, prejudices, and we lack the faith that we actually have the power to do something.
We cannot as a church sell ourselves short.
There used to be a cartoon hero named He-man who would raise his sword and declare, “I have the power!”
We have the power; we just have to be willing to use it.
The third characteristic we see here is that effective ministry brings people to us.
Yes we are told to go but often time we see that people come and many times they do not return and you have to ask yourself, “Why?”
I think that it is because they perceive that we do not exhibit a healthy attitude of ministry towards others.
We may appear to be too self-absorbed.
All too often, we approach church like we are consumers and not like we are there to be the arms, hands eyes and ears of Jesus.
Sometime when I go to a restaurant, I watch a table if I am there for a long time I will notice as people come in sit down, eat, and leave. What is interesting is that someone else will come in and sit at that same table. Those people have absolutely no interest in what the people who were there before them ordered and did. No one has ever said, “What did the previous people who sat here eat?” You know why? When we go out to eat, we are self-absorbed consumers. I have a friend in SC who is a real pain to eat with. He finds something wrong with every place you go. If we are not careful, we can take that kind of attitude to church.
Do you know what Jesus’ attitude about His ministry was?
Mark 10:45 tells us this “whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; 44and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. 45“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Jesus was saying that we are the least of our worries especially when we are serving God.
How are we impacting the world around us?
Do we have what it takes in terms of our willingness to go to the people?
Do we have what it takes in terms of the power of God?
Do we have what it takes to do ministry so effectively that others come looking for us.
We have the responsibility to minister.
We must in that ministry share a message.
In that message we will multiply and the Kingdom of God will be increased.
We can make it happen.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Sanctity of Human Life -- The Weaver -- Psalm 139:13-16
Introduction
I am sure that most of you have seen these little kits that come with these stretchy bands that you put on a square rack. Then you take some more of these stretchy band and you put them through each of the band that are on the square and alternate going over and under and then you attach those band to hooks on the edge of the square frame. When it is all said and done, you have a potholder. The principle there is known to us as weaving. Weaving can be used to create many different things. Most of us are wearing clothes from material that was woven. The neat thing about the weaving is that the weaver controls that which is woven. You can see woven blankets that have elaborate patterns and you can find floor mats woven out of straw.
Describing the Biblical Text
In this text, David is simply praising God for his attributes in His glory.
He is seeing God as being omniscient, having all knowledge; omnipresent, being in all places; and omnipotent, having all power.
David then desires that God search him and try him to discern the hurtful ways in heart that he might know the everlasting way
Narrate the Contextual application
As we look at the 4 verses that have our attention this morning, we will see a message that should get our attention.
It is a message of God’s power and his connection to us from the very earliest stages of our development.
If we really believe that we are made by God, then it follows that his purpose lies behind our being made.
Life Application (thesis)
Like the loom weaving the scarf or the child looming the potholder, God knows what He is doing when he puts us together.
In looking at that significant truth, let’s expound 2 truths this morning that show that our lives are important to God.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
The first truth is one that we have already begun to discuss.
God is the weaver who put us together.
Look at the words in verse 13
You formed me
You wove me
The idea of formed is to be bought or purchased.
Inherent in that Hebrew thought is the idea of something new.
You formed me carries the idea of the newness of the substance.
There is also a thought her of uniqueness.
Barney the dinosaur has a song called you are special.
You are special you’re the only one you’re the only one like you.
That is the uniqueness of the baby in the womb.
In 2002 1,293,000 unique individuals were denied the chance to be born.
God’s handiwork was destroyed by the selfish desires of people who wanted to have no consequence sex or who did not want to become parents or grandparents before they thought it was time.
I want us to put that 1,293,000 figure into perspective.
In 2002, there were 1,353,000 students in all of North Carolina’s Government schools from Kindergarten to the 12th grade.
Think about that.
There were enough abortions in 2002 to empty NC government schools to less than 5% of their population that year.
That is a lot children who were never given the opportunity to drink a coke, to look at the stars, to play in the snow, or to simply kiss their moms or dads.
These children, just like King David had begun to be formed and woven in their mothers’ wombs.
My father in law retired from CSX Corporation as a safety liaison between his labor union and the company. In corporate America and in labor unions safety is a primary concern. No one wants to see people hurt or harmed or to see OSHA breathing down their necks or lawsuits from injuries sustained at work. The American workplace is one of the safest places we can be because of the regulation in place to protect people.
Where are some other places we can go to be safe?
We can be locked in our homes; that is pretty safe and I think most of us would feel pretty secure.
Gary Neumann had a song in 1980 called cars. The first line of that song started like this: Here in my car I feel safest of all; I can lock all my doors; it’s the only way to live in cars.
Can you think though of a safer place than mommy’s womb?
It’s so warm; you hear mommy’s heart beating; you can suck your thumb and sleep.
In a few months that will all change and you will enter the cold world.
Unless of course, that is cut short by the suction machine, the saline injections, or the Hemostats.
Abortion invades the place where God makes people and destroys the life being made there.
There is something else that I would like us to see in this text.
The psalmist declares in verse 14 that he was fearfully and wonderfully made
I want us to think about something.
God is in the position to fear and revere no one because He is God.
He is the sovereign creator of the universe and who would He fear.
Yet we see that we are fearfully made.
Our making is revered thing by God.
This word declares the reverence that God has placed in the creation of human life.
There is something reverent about the weaving together of a human being in his or her mommy’s womb.
I was very blessed to see all those people at the city council meeting last Tuesday. We all probably should have stayed to keep them from raising our electric rates. But you know what has happened in America? The sanctity of human life has taken a backseat to the idea of sex without consequences idea. What has happened to let that take place? Too many Christians have remained silent for too long.
The right to kill a preborn baby is simply part of the slope that we on which is moving us farther and farther away from God.
Babies are not seen as blessing but rather as inconveniences and the fact that their weaving in the womb is now something that can be terminated for any reason at any time during the pregnancy takes the fear and the wonder out of it.
Life is no longer sacred.
Human beings are wonderfully made in the image of God.
We spoke a few minutes ago about how we are all unique.
The word wonderfully further denotes that idea as we are the products of God’s craftsmanship.
The wonder is in the distinction of humanity from the rest of Gods creation.
We have a mind, a consciousness an ability to discern right from wrong and to have a relationship with the creator.
No other creature on the planet has that.
Dolphins may be the smartest mammals in the ocean but I bet none of us would go to a dolphin if we were sick.
Humpback whales might be able to communicate through the moans and squeaks but how many of us would want one to run the dispatch at 9-1-1?
We would not get the smart chimpanzee to build our next house.
That is because human beings are unique.
We are created by God with intelligence and the propensity to communicate.
We are wonderfully made in our uniqueness and in our place among all God’s creatures.
Let’s take a look at our second truth.
God had a purpose in the weaving.
When I was a child, my dad made a cool toy. It was a rubber band gun. It was essentially a clothespin tacked to a board with a nail at the front of the board. The purpose for the toy was to shoot rubber bands at stuff and not at people. But of course I was a kid and there were kids who lived next door that would come over and play. Well you can guess what happened. Somehow, one of those neighbor kids got shot with that rubber band gun. They cried and I got in trouble. Dad took my rubber band gun and broke in half.
That gun was made for a purpose and blew the purpose when I shot the neighbor.
Notice the words of verses 15 and 16.
My frame was not hid from you – that is a reference to the strength that we have indicating our ability to serve God.
God saw and knew that in our creation.
In the Westminster confession’s shorter catechism the very first question is what is the chief end of man?
Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
We also see in this passage that God had the book our lives before the very first page was lived.
We need to see that God does nothing without the purpose of receiving Glory from it.
So, if God knows our frame and made our frame and if God knows our lives and made our lives, we are special to Him.
There might be someone hearing this message today that messed up and that had that abortion.
God still loves you and He still heals and forgives.
If God was that close to you in the womb, has he ever really departed from you?
You can call on Him this morning in forgiveness and in hope.
You can serve Him this morning because He did know your frame and your days are still waiting to be fulfilled in him.
Don’t let the sins of the past keep you from a future with God.
The Bible says that if anyone call on the name of the Lord, he shall be saved
But as many as receive Jesus, they have the right to be called a child of God.
We were born once from the womb of a mother it is now time to be born again from the love of God.
I am sure that most of you have seen these little kits that come with these stretchy bands that you put on a square rack. Then you take some more of these stretchy band and you put them through each of the band that are on the square and alternate going over and under and then you attach those band to hooks on the edge of the square frame. When it is all said and done, you have a potholder. The principle there is known to us as weaving. Weaving can be used to create many different things. Most of us are wearing clothes from material that was woven. The neat thing about the weaving is that the weaver controls that which is woven. You can see woven blankets that have elaborate patterns and you can find floor mats woven out of straw.
Describing the Biblical Text
In this text, David is simply praising God for his attributes in His glory.
He is seeing God as being omniscient, having all knowledge; omnipresent, being in all places; and omnipotent, having all power.
David then desires that God search him and try him to discern the hurtful ways in heart that he might know the everlasting way
Narrate the Contextual application
As we look at the 4 verses that have our attention this morning, we will see a message that should get our attention.
It is a message of God’s power and his connection to us from the very earliest stages of our development.
If we really believe that we are made by God, then it follows that his purpose lies behind our being made.
Life Application (thesis)
Like the loom weaving the scarf or the child looming the potholder, God knows what He is doing when he puts us together.
In looking at that significant truth, let’s expound 2 truths this morning that show that our lives are important to God.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
The first truth is one that we have already begun to discuss.
God is the weaver who put us together.
Look at the words in verse 13
You formed me
You wove me
The idea of formed is to be bought or purchased.
Inherent in that Hebrew thought is the idea of something new.
You formed me carries the idea of the newness of the substance.
There is also a thought her of uniqueness.
Barney the dinosaur has a song called you are special.
You are special you’re the only one you’re the only one like you.
That is the uniqueness of the baby in the womb.
In 2002 1,293,000 unique individuals were denied the chance to be born.
God’s handiwork was destroyed by the selfish desires of people who wanted to have no consequence sex or who did not want to become parents or grandparents before they thought it was time.
I want us to put that 1,293,000 figure into perspective.
In 2002, there were 1,353,000 students in all of North Carolina’s Government schools from Kindergarten to the 12th grade.
Think about that.
There were enough abortions in 2002 to empty NC government schools to less than 5% of their population that year.
That is a lot children who were never given the opportunity to drink a coke, to look at the stars, to play in the snow, or to simply kiss their moms or dads.
These children, just like King David had begun to be formed and woven in their mothers’ wombs.
My father in law retired from CSX Corporation as a safety liaison between his labor union and the company. In corporate America and in labor unions safety is a primary concern. No one wants to see people hurt or harmed or to see OSHA breathing down their necks or lawsuits from injuries sustained at work. The American workplace is one of the safest places we can be because of the regulation in place to protect people.
Where are some other places we can go to be safe?
We can be locked in our homes; that is pretty safe and I think most of us would feel pretty secure.
Gary Neumann had a song in 1980 called cars. The first line of that song started like this: Here in my car I feel safest of all; I can lock all my doors; it’s the only way to live in cars.
Can you think though of a safer place than mommy’s womb?
It’s so warm; you hear mommy’s heart beating; you can suck your thumb and sleep.
In a few months that will all change and you will enter the cold world.
Unless of course, that is cut short by the suction machine, the saline injections, or the Hemostats.
Abortion invades the place where God makes people and destroys the life being made there.
There is something else that I would like us to see in this text.
The psalmist declares in verse 14 that he was fearfully and wonderfully made
I want us to think about something.
God is in the position to fear and revere no one because He is God.
He is the sovereign creator of the universe and who would He fear.
Yet we see that we are fearfully made.
Our making is revered thing by God.
This word declares the reverence that God has placed in the creation of human life.
There is something reverent about the weaving together of a human being in his or her mommy’s womb.
I was very blessed to see all those people at the city council meeting last Tuesday. We all probably should have stayed to keep them from raising our electric rates. But you know what has happened in America? The sanctity of human life has taken a backseat to the idea of sex without consequences idea. What has happened to let that take place? Too many Christians have remained silent for too long.
The right to kill a preborn baby is simply part of the slope that we on which is moving us farther and farther away from God.
Babies are not seen as blessing but rather as inconveniences and the fact that their weaving in the womb is now something that can be terminated for any reason at any time during the pregnancy takes the fear and the wonder out of it.
Life is no longer sacred.
Human beings are wonderfully made in the image of God.
We spoke a few minutes ago about how we are all unique.
The word wonderfully further denotes that idea as we are the products of God’s craftsmanship.
The wonder is in the distinction of humanity from the rest of Gods creation.
We have a mind, a consciousness an ability to discern right from wrong and to have a relationship with the creator.
No other creature on the planet has that.
Dolphins may be the smartest mammals in the ocean but I bet none of us would go to a dolphin if we were sick.
Humpback whales might be able to communicate through the moans and squeaks but how many of us would want one to run the dispatch at 9-1-1?
We would not get the smart chimpanzee to build our next house.
That is because human beings are unique.
We are created by God with intelligence and the propensity to communicate.
We are wonderfully made in our uniqueness and in our place among all God’s creatures.
Let’s take a look at our second truth.
God had a purpose in the weaving.
When I was a child, my dad made a cool toy. It was a rubber band gun. It was essentially a clothespin tacked to a board with a nail at the front of the board. The purpose for the toy was to shoot rubber bands at stuff and not at people. But of course I was a kid and there were kids who lived next door that would come over and play. Well you can guess what happened. Somehow, one of those neighbor kids got shot with that rubber band gun. They cried and I got in trouble. Dad took my rubber band gun and broke in half.
That gun was made for a purpose and blew the purpose when I shot the neighbor.
Notice the words of verses 15 and 16.
My frame was not hid from you – that is a reference to the strength that we have indicating our ability to serve God.
God saw and knew that in our creation.
In the Westminster confession’s shorter catechism the very first question is what is the chief end of man?
Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
We also see in this passage that God had the book our lives before the very first page was lived.
We need to see that God does nothing without the purpose of receiving Glory from it.
So, if God knows our frame and made our frame and if God knows our lives and made our lives, we are special to Him.
There might be someone hearing this message today that messed up and that had that abortion.
God still loves you and He still heals and forgives.
If God was that close to you in the womb, has he ever really departed from you?
You can call on Him this morning in forgiveness and in hope.
You can serve Him this morning because He did know your frame and your days are still waiting to be fulfilled in him.
Don’t let the sins of the past keep you from a future with God.
The Bible says that if anyone call on the name of the Lord, he shall be saved
But as many as receive Jesus, they have the right to be called a child of God.
We were born once from the womb of a mother it is now time to be born again from the love of God.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Makin' It Happen -- Face Time With The Father -- Luke 6:6-16
Introduction
One of the current phrases that I hear used for having a conversation with someone is having “face time” with that person. It means that you are talking to someone in person as opposed by IM, text message, or mobile phone. The Bible admonishes us repeatedly to pray or to talk to God in person. This would be our face time with the Father.
Describing the Biblical Text
In this text, we see a lesson.
It is okay to do good deeds on the Sabbath.
Isn’t it funny that a bunch of religious men wanted to harm Jesus for doing the deeds that God sent Him to do?
The scribes and Pharisees became torqued with Jesus and began to plot against Him.
Then Jesus did something extraordinary.
He prayed all night long.
He had some extended face time with the Father.
And then went to work choosing his ministry team.
Narrate the Contextual application
The problem with those scribes and Pharisees was that Jesus was coming in and threatening their status quo.
He was doing something different, introducing good deeds into the worship of God.
They did not want good deeds; they wanted old deeds.
They did not want different no matter how beneficial it might be.
They wanted the same old same old.
After all, healing people just did not feel like worship to them.
So they got hot.
They started the Jesus roast and began their plotting to do Him in.
So Jesus responded.
He pointed His finger and BOOM lightning fell from heaven and consumed them.
Not really
He responded by prayer and sought God’s face.
Life Application (thesis)
What a great picture we see of what we should do when we are confronted by problems.
We should pray.
We should seek our face time with the Father
Instead of dwelling on our problems, we need to dwell on the Lord.
We are a self-absorbed people and we have a tough time looking beyond our own sphere of occupancy.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
This passage holds for us two things that should comfort us so that we will look to the Father in heaven instead of ourselves.
Prayer is important and we will see why.
What are the two comforts of prayer we see here?
The first is this.
Through Prayer we can handle the difficulties of life.
Think about what Jesus was facing here.
What had Jesus come to do?
He had come to do the will of God who sent Him.
He had done a good deed and healed a man with a withered hand.
He is doing everything that He was supposed to do and still the scribes and the Pharisees, the very people who should have recognized Jesus as the Son of God, were critical, gossipy and wanted to do him harm.
I want you to understand something.
That is just real life.
How often do those same types of things happen to us?
We go to work and perform to the very best of our ability and as best as we can see, we do a good job.
Then those ugly office politics come into play and you are submarined.
Or you plan something at home like a nice meal or you buy what you consider to be a great gift only to have it received with criticism or without very much enthusiasm.
“Salt Herring for breakfast is perfectly normal, you could at least try it.”
How do we respond?
Do we get mad?
Are we disappointed?
Do we become whiners against the system or against the people in the system?
Or do we handle it like Jesus did?
Do we simply seek face time with the Father?
Life is going to send difficulties our way and there is no avoiding it but we can handle it.
We can handle because God can handle and we are called to spend time with Him in prayer.
Can you imagine what Jesus was praying?
I think I can because of what he taught on prayer.
He was praying for the scribes and the Pharisees.
How often do we pray for the people who hurt and use us?
Jesus said in Matthew 5, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven”
One thing that I have found to be true is that it is very hard if not impossible to stay angry or embittered against people for whom you are praying.
You will find that your face time with the Father will give you a capacity to forgive others like you have never known because the more time you spend with Him in prayer, the acutely aware of His forgiveness you become.
Something else that we see here is that Jesus did not just utter a couple of words stick a formula “In My name, Amen” at the end.
He spent considerable time in prayer.
It was a prayer without ceasing.
I remember being in cottage prayer meetings as a very young follower of Jesus and someone would begin to pray and they would pray and pray and pray. I was impatient and immature that I would begin to grow weary of the length of their prayers.
You know what though, they just wanted to see revival come to that little church.
They were praying without ceasing.
Jesus shared a parable in Luke 18 where a woman sought protection from an unrighteous judge. The judge got tired of the woman coming to him all the time so he granted her plea. Then Jesus contrasted the unrighteous judge to God and said that God will work quickly for justice for those who beseech Him continually.
Injustices will always be a part of life as will mistreatment.
These are two of the primary difficulties that we face in life.
They can be handled in prayer
A second comfort is through prayer we can handle the decisions of life.
How often do the difficulties of life lead us to the point of having to make serious decisions in life?
Probably, most of the time.
Jesus needed to make a decision.
Who would His team be?
Who would He train to keep things going when He was gone?
At this point, the possibility that Jesus’ ministry would be ended became very real.
These scribes and Pharisees wanted to do harm to Him.
He had angered them and they were seeking to do Him in.
So, the time had come to plan for the future.
He needed a team to continue the work and he chose 12 men that became known as apostles or those sent away.
Jesus was so intent on seeing His ministry continue through then that one of them was even the traitor who turned Jesus over to the Jews who wanted to kill Him.
But, He did not face the decision lightly.
He prayed all night over it.
We can look for man’s wisdom in everything we do but we will never make the decision that truly honors God until we seek His wisdom.
We face small decisions every day and none of them, in and of themselves, amount to very much but all the small decisions that we make, when seen as a whole, define who we are.
So, we need to bathe all of our decisions in prayer from the smallest to the greatest.
Alyson came home the other night discussing how one of her leaders explained that he prays for the spouses of his children even though they are years away from marriage.
I do the same thing.
Decisions like marriage, careers, financial planning, our kids’ futures, our church, and our own calling in the service of Christ are things that we should take seriously enough to make sure that we earnestly pray about them.
There was another time that Jesus prayed earnestly and that was as he faced the cross.
We are told that he prayed so hard that he was sweating drops of blood.
He was looking for the will of the Father.
He even asked that if it was possible that the cup of wrath would be taken from Him.
Yet, he yielded to will of God and the eternal purpose of God in His death.
He yielded to the cross to pay the price for our sins so that we would have life with the Father in heaven.
This was His biggest decision and He made it, as difficult as it was, through prayer.
Are you facing hardship right now?
Are you facing huge decisions?
Don’t face them without serious face time with the Father.
Paul wrote in Philippians that we should be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be known to God and the peace of God which passes understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
The difficulties of life, the decisions of life faced with peace that passes understanding.That is what face time with the Father is all about.
One of the current phrases that I hear used for having a conversation with someone is having “face time” with that person. It means that you are talking to someone in person as opposed by IM, text message, or mobile phone. The Bible admonishes us repeatedly to pray or to talk to God in person. This would be our face time with the Father.
Describing the Biblical Text
In this text, we see a lesson.
It is okay to do good deeds on the Sabbath.
Isn’t it funny that a bunch of religious men wanted to harm Jesus for doing the deeds that God sent Him to do?
The scribes and Pharisees became torqued with Jesus and began to plot against Him.
Then Jesus did something extraordinary.
He prayed all night long.
He had some extended face time with the Father.
And then went to work choosing his ministry team.
Narrate the Contextual application
The problem with those scribes and Pharisees was that Jesus was coming in and threatening their status quo.
He was doing something different, introducing good deeds into the worship of God.
They did not want good deeds; they wanted old deeds.
They did not want different no matter how beneficial it might be.
They wanted the same old same old.
After all, healing people just did not feel like worship to them.
So they got hot.
They started the Jesus roast and began their plotting to do Him in.
So Jesus responded.
He pointed His finger and BOOM lightning fell from heaven and consumed them.
Not really
He responded by prayer and sought God’s face.
Life Application (thesis)
What a great picture we see of what we should do when we are confronted by problems.
We should pray.
We should seek our face time with the Father
Instead of dwelling on our problems, we need to dwell on the Lord.
We are a self-absorbed people and we have a tough time looking beyond our own sphere of occupancy.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
This passage holds for us two things that should comfort us so that we will look to the Father in heaven instead of ourselves.
Prayer is important and we will see why.
What are the two comforts of prayer we see here?
The first is this.
Through Prayer we can handle the difficulties of life.
Think about what Jesus was facing here.
What had Jesus come to do?
He had come to do the will of God who sent Him.
He had done a good deed and healed a man with a withered hand.
He is doing everything that He was supposed to do and still the scribes and the Pharisees, the very people who should have recognized Jesus as the Son of God, were critical, gossipy and wanted to do him harm.
I want you to understand something.
That is just real life.
How often do those same types of things happen to us?
We go to work and perform to the very best of our ability and as best as we can see, we do a good job.
Then those ugly office politics come into play and you are submarined.
Or you plan something at home like a nice meal or you buy what you consider to be a great gift only to have it received with criticism or without very much enthusiasm.
“Salt Herring for breakfast is perfectly normal, you could at least try it.”
How do we respond?
Do we get mad?
Are we disappointed?
Do we become whiners against the system or against the people in the system?
Or do we handle it like Jesus did?
Do we simply seek face time with the Father?
Life is going to send difficulties our way and there is no avoiding it but we can handle it.
We can handle because God can handle and we are called to spend time with Him in prayer.
Can you imagine what Jesus was praying?
I think I can because of what he taught on prayer.
He was praying for the scribes and the Pharisees.
How often do we pray for the people who hurt and use us?
Jesus said in Matthew 5, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven”
One thing that I have found to be true is that it is very hard if not impossible to stay angry or embittered against people for whom you are praying.
You will find that your face time with the Father will give you a capacity to forgive others like you have never known because the more time you spend with Him in prayer, the acutely aware of His forgiveness you become.
Something else that we see here is that Jesus did not just utter a couple of words stick a formula “In My name, Amen” at the end.
He spent considerable time in prayer.
It was a prayer without ceasing.
I remember being in cottage prayer meetings as a very young follower of Jesus and someone would begin to pray and they would pray and pray and pray. I was impatient and immature that I would begin to grow weary of the length of their prayers.
You know what though, they just wanted to see revival come to that little church.
They were praying without ceasing.
Jesus shared a parable in Luke 18 where a woman sought protection from an unrighteous judge. The judge got tired of the woman coming to him all the time so he granted her plea. Then Jesus contrasted the unrighteous judge to God and said that God will work quickly for justice for those who beseech Him continually.
Injustices will always be a part of life as will mistreatment.
These are two of the primary difficulties that we face in life.
They can be handled in prayer
A second comfort is through prayer we can handle the decisions of life.
How often do the difficulties of life lead us to the point of having to make serious decisions in life?
Probably, most of the time.
Jesus needed to make a decision.
Who would His team be?
Who would He train to keep things going when He was gone?
At this point, the possibility that Jesus’ ministry would be ended became very real.
These scribes and Pharisees wanted to do harm to Him.
He had angered them and they were seeking to do Him in.
So, the time had come to plan for the future.
He needed a team to continue the work and he chose 12 men that became known as apostles or those sent away.
Jesus was so intent on seeing His ministry continue through then that one of them was even the traitor who turned Jesus over to the Jews who wanted to kill Him.
But, He did not face the decision lightly.
He prayed all night over it.
We can look for man’s wisdom in everything we do but we will never make the decision that truly honors God until we seek His wisdom.
We face small decisions every day and none of them, in and of themselves, amount to very much but all the small decisions that we make, when seen as a whole, define who we are.
So, we need to bathe all of our decisions in prayer from the smallest to the greatest.
Alyson came home the other night discussing how one of her leaders explained that he prays for the spouses of his children even though they are years away from marriage.
I do the same thing.
Decisions like marriage, careers, financial planning, our kids’ futures, our church, and our own calling in the service of Christ are things that we should take seriously enough to make sure that we earnestly pray about them.
There was another time that Jesus prayed earnestly and that was as he faced the cross.
We are told that he prayed so hard that he was sweating drops of blood.
He was looking for the will of the Father.
He even asked that if it was possible that the cup of wrath would be taken from Him.
Yet, he yielded to will of God and the eternal purpose of God in His death.
He yielded to the cross to pay the price for our sins so that we would have life with the Father in heaven.
This was His biggest decision and He made it, as difficult as it was, through prayer.
Are you facing hardship right now?
Are you facing huge decisions?
Don’t face them without serious face time with the Father.
Paul wrote in Philippians that we should be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be known to God and the peace of God which passes understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
The difficulties of life, the decisions of life faced with peace that passes understanding.That is what face time with the Father is all about.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Faith, The Finest Frontier -- Why Is Faith Tested? -- James 1:1-3
Introduction
Most of us have see video or a special on butterflies that shows them emerging from their cocoons. What is interesting to note is that the struggle to merge is necessary for the butterfly to live. A young child had put a monarch caterpillar in a jar and it formed its chrysalis. When the caterpillar had metamorphed into the butterfly, the child decided to help it get out of the cocoon. As the newly emerged butterfly began to exercise its wings to bring the circulation to them that they would unfold and eventually carry the insect to the winds, something did not happen. The wings never opened. The butterfly never flew. It died clinging to the stick from which the cocoon hung. Had the butterfly struggled to get free of its cocoon, the vital pathways for the blood to reach her wings would have opened and she would have lived.
Describing the Biblical Text
Our test this morning is the opening of the letter to the Jewish followers of Jesus written by the half brother of Jesus.
It is a pretty straightforward text but it is a reminder to the Jews who were suffering persecution for their faith that their plight was not in vein.
They would be better stronger believers for having endured the suffering that the trials of their lives would bring.
Narrate the Contextual application
When you think about it, a Jew who would follow Jesus during this time would be one who be ostracized from his life and community.
Jesus was not recognized as the Jewish messiah and at the time James wrote this letter, the separation between Judaism and Christianity was growing as the Jewish community was trying to convince the Roman Empire that Christianity was not a sect of Judaism.
This meant hat when a Jewish follower of Christ was baptized he was disowned by his family and community.
That would be a tough pill to swallow for many of us.
We don’t do well with rejection or disappointment let alone true persecution or suffering.
But, faith is powerful and James is telling his readers that their suffering will in turn lead to their strength or perfection.
Life Application (thesis)
The validity of our faith serves to strengthen us.
It enables us to be tested and to be challenged and then to stand up to the challenge and finally to be made strong in the challenge.
It is like lifting weights. Your strength allows you to get the weights over your head and then your repetitive lifting of them makes you stronger.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
As we see how the validity of our faith strengthens us, let’s make three observations from our text this morning.
My trials are good for my endurance.
I know a pastor who had come to a place in his life where he was questioning his calling and his service in ministry. One of the considerations that he made was that he felt called to ministry early in his Christian walk. Was his sense of calling simply a response to the exuberance he felt when he first followed Christ?
The Christian life is a race of endurance but here are spurts of sprinting as well as hurdles to be jumped and pitfalls to be slogged through.
In the whole of or faith, we will see seasons of spiritual growth, seasons of spiritual stagnation, mountaintops, and valleys.
Often times we associate the testing of our faith, the trials, as a period of slogging through the pitfalls in the lowest of the valleys.
Look at verse 3
The testing of your faith produces endurance.
The word endurance in this passage is a word that means to stay behind or to wait.
It is often translated patience or perseverance.
Sometimes it is hard to wait isn’t it?
We see a situation and we want to jump into action and to try to correct a problem that we perceive is there.
But we realize that if we are simply enduring until God takes action, things will simply correct themselves through His intervention and our strength is made stronger and better.
It is faith that allows us to wait on God’s timing to handle a problem.
Listen to these verses out of Romans 5.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. 3And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Do you hear how the hope of God’s glory as it is a result of faith is also a product of tribulation?
So trial is connected to faith and it is connected to hope.
That would then bring us to our second observation.
My endurance will help me to be a complete follower of Jesus Christ.
Look at verse 4
Let endurance have its perfect result.
The word perfect here indicated the idea of the ultimate result.
That result is further defined in verse 4
So that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Endurance leads to the perfection of our faith, not that we will ever be perfect, but our becoming complete in Christ depends on our endurance especially our endurance under the pressure of trial and tribulation.
We have already connected endurance or perseverance to faith and hope.
In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul describes 3 things that are constant when all of the other trappings of our faith fall away.
These things are faith, hope and love.
Can endurance be connected to the final of these three things that remain or that are eternal?
Take a look at 2 Peter 1.
Move your eye to verse 5
Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. 8For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. 10Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;
Here we see perseverance or endurance connected to love and through that, we are made useful and fruitful.
This is the perfect commentary on James’ idea of our faith being perfect and complete.
God has called us to be fruitful.
This means that we are bringing people to God through Christ and we are giving God glory in al that we do.
That is what trial are all about.
They enable us to demonstrate the love and glory of God to a world that dying and is on their way to an eternal condemnation without Christ.
An untried faith is a weak or even a useless faith.
An untried faith is a fruitless faith as we are not able to see beyond our current circumstances to point to God’s providence and sovereignty to carry us through to perfection.
Endurance leads to a perfected faith, an enduring Hope, and a love that enables us to be useful and fruitful in the hands of God.
So what will be our response to trials?
It should be the response of Joy
Our third observation then is this.
No matter what my circumstances, I can and should be joyful.
Verse 2 says to count it all joy when we encounter various trials.
The idea behind the word to count or consider is the idea of leading such as a prince would lead and army.
In the book of Hebrews, we see this word used thusly.
Greet all of your leaders
This would show us what our leading response to trial should be.
All too often we face trial with disappointment or with self-pity.
I know how hard it is to be joyful in the face of trial, tribulation, opposition, and heartbreak.
It is hard but it can be done but only through he Lord and what he has given us.
Remember that joy is not some sort of phony baloney smile that simply puts on a false front in the midst of your circumstances.
Joy is the inner peace that comes from knowing that God is ultimately in control of our lives and every ordeal that we face.
Where does that originate?
It comes from the Spirit of God.
The fruit of the Spirit is joy.
Trial comes when we are connected to God and His Spirit gives us joy to face the trial.
The trial then can have its work in brining us the endurance that subsequently leads us to the faith, the hope and love that will reside with us through all eternity.
Speaking of eternity.
Where do you stand on that issue this morning?
God’s love might be reaching out to you here today.
Are you ready to respond to that?
Are you ready to give your heart to Jesus?
He paid the price for your sins in order to provide the way for you to have a relationship with God.
If that is your desire, won’t you pray to receive Him this morning?
Won’t you trust Him for the rest of your life?
That is the only way that your trials will be faced with joy to produce the endurance that perfects your faith for all eternity.
Most of us have see video or a special on butterflies that shows them emerging from their cocoons. What is interesting to note is that the struggle to merge is necessary for the butterfly to live. A young child had put a monarch caterpillar in a jar and it formed its chrysalis. When the caterpillar had metamorphed into the butterfly, the child decided to help it get out of the cocoon. As the newly emerged butterfly began to exercise its wings to bring the circulation to them that they would unfold and eventually carry the insect to the winds, something did not happen. The wings never opened. The butterfly never flew. It died clinging to the stick from which the cocoon hung. Had the butterfly struggled to get free of its cocoon, the vital pathways for the blood to reach her wings would have opened and she would have lived.
Describing the Biblical Text
Our test this morning is the opening of the letter to the Jewish followers of Jesus written by the half brother of Jesus.
It is a pretty straightforward text but it is a reminder to the Jews who were suffering persecution for their faith that their plight was not in vein.
They would be better stronger believers for having endured the suffering that the trials of their lives would bring.
Narrate the Contextual application
When you think about it, a Jew who would follow Jesus during this time would be one who be ostracized from his life and community.
Jesus was not recognized as the Jewish messiah and at the time James wrote this letter, the separation between Judaism and Christianity was growing as the Jewish community was trying to convince the Roman Empire that Christianity was not a sect of Judaism.
This meant hat when a Jewish follower of Christ was baptized he was disowned by his family and community.
That would be a tough pill to swallow for many of us.
We don’t do well with rejection or disappointment let alone true persecution or suffering.
But, faith is powerful and James is telling his readers that their suffering will in turn lead to their strength or perfection.
Life Application (thesis)
The validity of our faith serves to strengthen us.
It enables us to be tested and to be challenged and then to stand up to the challenge and finally to be made strong in the challenge.
It is like lifting weights. Your strength allows you to get the weights over your head and then your repetitive lifting of them makes you stronger.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
As we see how the validity of our faith strengthens us, let’s make three observations from our text this morning.
My trials are good for my endurance.
I know a pastor who had come to a place in his life where he was questioning his calling and his service in ministry. One of the considerations that he made was that he felt called to ministry early in his Christian walk. Was his sense of calling simply a response to the exuberance he felt when he first followed Christ?
The Christian life is a race of endurance but here are spurts of sprinting as well as hurdles to be jumped and pitfalls to be slogged through.
In the whole of or faith, we will see seasons of spiritual growth, seasons of spiritual stagnation, mountaintops, and valleys.
Often times we associate the testing of our faith, the trials, as a period of slogging through the pitfalls in the lowest of the valleys.
Look at verse 3
The testing of your faith produces endurance.
The word endurance in this passage is a word that means to stay behind or to wait.
It is often translated patience or perseverance.
Sometimes it is hard to wait isn’t it?
We see a situation and we want to jump into action and to try to correct a problem that we perceive is there.
But we realize that if we are simply enduring until God takes action, things will simply correct themselves through His intervention and our strength is made stronger and better.
It is faith that allows us to wait on God’s timing to handle a problem.
Listen to these verses out of Romans 5.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. 3And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Do you hear how the hope of God’s glory as it is a result of faith is also a product of tribulation?
So trial is connected to faith and it is connected to hope.
That would then bring us to our second observation.
My endurance will help me to be a complete follower of Jesus Christ.
Look at verse 4
Let endurance have its perfect result.
The word perfect here indicated the idea of the ultimate result.
That result is further defined in verse 4
So that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Endurance leads to the perfection of our faith, not that we will ever be perfect, but our becoming complete in Christ depends on our endurance especially our endurance under the pressure of trial and tribulation.
We have already connected endurance or perseverance to faith and hope.
In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul describes 3 things that are constant when all of the other trappings of our faith fall away.
These things are faith, hope and love.
Can endurance be connected to the final of these three things that remain or that are eternal?
Take a look at 2 Peter 1.
Move your eye to verse 5
Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. 8For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. 10Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;
Here we see perseverance or endurance connected to love and through that, we are made useful and fruitful.
This is the perfect commentary on James’ idea of our faith being perfect and complete.
God has called us to be fruitful.
This means that we are bringing people to God through Christ and we are giving God glory in al that we do.
That is what trial are all about.
They enable us to demonstrate the love and glory of God to a world that dying and is on their way to an eternal condemnation without Christ.
An untried faith is a weak or even a useless faith.
An untried faith is a fruitless faith as we are not able to see beyond our current circumstances to point to God’s providence and sovereignty to carry us through to perfection.
Endurance leads to a perfected faith, an enduring Hope, and a love that enables us to be useful and fruitful in the hands of God.
So what will be our response to trials?
It should be the response of Joy
Our third observation then is this.
No matter what my circumstances, I can and should be joyful.
Verse 2 says to count it all joy when we encounter various trials.
The idea behind the word to count or consider is the idea of leading such as a prince would lead and army.
In the book of Hebrews, we see this word used thusly.
Greet all of your leaders
This would show us what our leading response to trial should be.
All too often we face trial with disappointment or with self-pity.
I know how hard it is to be joyful in the face of trial, tribulation, opposition, and heartbreak.
It is hard but it can be done but only through he Lord and what he has given us.
Remember that joy is not some sort of phony baloney smile that simply puts on a false front in the midst of your circumstances.
Joy is the inner peace that comes from knowing that God is ultimately in control of our lives and every ordeal that we face.
Where does that originate?
It comes from the Spirit of God.
The fruit of the Spirit is joy.
Trial comes when we are connected to God and His Spirit gives us joy to face the trial.
The trial then can have its work in brining us the endurance that subsequently leads us to the faith, the hope and love that will reside with us through all eternity.
Speaking of eternity.
Where do you stand on that issue this morning?
God’s love might be reaching out to you here today.
Are you ready to respond to that?
Are you ready to give your heart to Jesus?
He paid the price for your sins in order to provide the way for you to have a relationship with God.
If that is your desire, won’t you pray to receive Him this morning?
Won’t you trust Him for the rest of your life?
That is the only way that your trials will be faced with joy to produce the endurance that perfects your faith for all eternity.
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