The Chief End of Man
Romans 15:1-7

Someone once commented that Socrates was considered wise, not because he knew all the right answers but because he knew how to ask the right questions. 

Questions—the right questions—can lead to very profound answers.  They can expose hidden motives as well as enable us to face truth we had not admitted even to ourselves.

Dr. Gregory Stock wrote a book simply entitled: The Book of Questions. It is simply that.  A book of 275 thought-provoking questions that pull us out of our shell.  For example:

If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash and save any one item. What would it be?

If you were at a friend’s house for Thanksgiving dinner and you found a dead cockroach in the salad, what would you do?

Funny thing about questions, they force us to come to terms with the issue.  I find it interesting

that the least asked questions in Stock’s book were the “Why” questions.  Yet I believe these are the most critical.  In my Strong’s Concordance-an alphabetical listing of every word in the Bible, when you turn to the term Why you find almost a page of the tiniest print dedicated to the places in scripture where this Why question is raised.  Like: God asked Cain, “Why are you angry?”  The angels asked Abram, “Why did Sarah laugh?”  JOB asked God, “Why did I not die at birth?”

            The Why question seemed to be Jesus’ favorite.  Why do you worry?”  Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye and not at the log in your own eye?  Why do you not believe Me?

So, when I wanted to arrive at the foundational reason the church exists, I asked “Why?”  Why indeed, has the church been called into existence?  Why do we occupy this piece of ground and this building? Why do we have a music ministry? Why are sermons preached?  Why do we support missions and ministries here and around the world?  Some of you have answered these questions as I’ve asked them.  Do our answers hit at the primary purpose of the church?  If I were to ask each of you: What is the primary purpose of the church?, what would you say?  We find the answer clearly stated in several places in the New Testament. I Cor. 10:31 – “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” 

            What is the purpose of the church? To glorify the Lord our God.  Look at it.  “WHETHER…”  Whether we are eating or drinking, hurting or helping, serving or struggling the activities are limitless).

            Look further: “WHATEVER….” Again, it is as broad as we wish to make it.  Whatever you are—male or female; whatever country you find yourself; in whatever circumstance-the goal is God’s glory.

A few chapters earlier in the same letter, we find this probing question: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?  For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body (Cor. 6:19-20).   God is concerned that we glorify Him even in our body.  The way we treat it. What we put into it. What we allow it to say.  Where we go and what we do with it.  Even our physical existence is to bring glory to God.  (Read Rom. 15:5-6) 

            The Bible is full of statements like this.  Our sole purpose, our basic reason for existence, is to bring maximum glory to our God.  To make this practical, the question needs to be asked on a regular basis: Why am I doing this? Why did I say yes? Why did I agree to that? Why am I teaching? Why do I sing in the choir? Why do I help the church plan and spend its budget? Why? Why? Why?  When those questions are asked, there must be one and only one answer: To glorify God. 

Jesus said: “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven(Matt 5:16). So, if your life is an example of glorifying God, others won’t see your good works and glorify you, because they’ll know what you are doing is for God’s glory.  I’m not able to explain how they can tell. I just know Jesus said they can.

In 1647 the Westminster Shorter Catechism was devised.  In preparing for joining the church, teachers would ask their students: What is the chief end of man?  Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.  What then, does that word glory or glorify mean?  Briefly, when you study the Scriptures, the word glory is used in 3 major ways.  First of all, glory refers to light; the light of God’s presence, a bright and shining light from heaven like in Exodus 40:34 – “…the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.  The sense is of a blinding light.  It is what emanates from God’s presence.  It was sometimes called the shekinah of God.  So awesome was the light that to step into it inappropriately meant sudden death. Secondly, we find there is a glory that refers to a distinctive appearance used of the celestial bodies.  But that is not what Paul was talking about in our giving God glory.

            Thirdly: that glory means to magnify, to elevate, to shed splendor on Another.  So for us, to glorify God means to lift up, to elevate God as we humble ourselves.

            IN the Bible, John the Baptist is a great example of what we mean.  John once said of Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).  John was the voice of one crying in the wilderness; but to him, Jesus was the Word.  John the Baptist willingly lost his followers to the Lord Jesus.  Not once did John seek the glory that belonged only to the Messiah.  In his own words, he considered himself unworthy even to loosen the leather thong on the Messiah’s sandal.  Glorifying God means being occupied with and committed to God’s ways rather than preoccupied with and determined to go my own way.  It is being so thrilled with the Lord, so devoted to Him, so committed to Him that we cannot get enough of Him!

            Isaiah 55 is a wonderful chapter of Scripture.  It is not addressed to people who are satisfied with a little sip of God.  It is an invitation to those who are thirsty for Him…who are ready to gulp down all that God has.  That is why the prophet begins, “Ho!”  That means, “Listen up!” (Vs1) 1"Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat
         Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost.

            Is it possible to run a church that will have wide public appeal and gather a crowd without giving God the glory?  You betcha!  You see, we can do all the slick things that work in the marketing realm and cater to people’s every whim, and get great results.  But, if we are trying to follow Jesus, we have to do things for His glory not ours.  His ways are not our ways.”  His ways are so much higher and purer.  Our goal should be God’s glory.  God being recognized and raised up.  Not us. 

King David in Psalm 145:1-7 expresses this in a little different manner.  Here in these words we can see that exalting the living Lord is literally David’s greatest delight.

            1  I will exalt you, my God the King;  I will praise your name for ever and ever.  2 Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever.  3 Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.  4 One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts. 5 They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works.  6 They will tell of the power of your awesome works,
       and I will proclaim your great deeds.  7 They will celebrate your abundant goodness
       and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

Here is a man who truly understood what it meant to give God the glory.  Would that all of us were cut from the same piece of cloth!

In Psalm 86, things were not as good for David.  The bottom seems to have dropped out of his life.  Yet, he is the same man addressing the same God, but affliction and trouble have come upon him.  Notice, circumstances did not change his attitude towards God.

             1Incline Your ear, O LORD, and answer me; For I am afflicted and needy.
    2 Preserve my soul, for I am a godly man; O You my God, save Your servant who trusts in You.
    3Be gracious to me, O Lord,  For to You I cry all day long.  4Make glad the soul of Your servant,
         For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. 5For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,
         And  abundant in loving kindness to all who call upon You.  6Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer;
         And give heed to the voice of my supplications!  7In the day of my trouble I shall call upon You,
         For You will answer me.  8There is no one like You among the gods, O Lord,  Nor are there any works like Yours.  9All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord,
         And they shall glorify Your name.  10For You are great and do wondrous deeds;
         You alone are God.

            Whether in days of delight (Ps. 145) or days of distress (Ps.86) the glory went to the Lord, his God.

So, HOW DOES ALL THIS APPLY?   Can I encourage us by lifting up the importance of glorifying God on a personal basis?  All of this could apply to the church in general, but it must begin with you and me.  When we finally see and embrace our purpose for being, we come to the realization that glorifying God applies to every detail of living our lives.  Let’s start with the “whens” in life.

            When I am unsure, I glorify Him by seeking to know God’s will and then waiting for His guidance.  When I need to make a decision, I lean on God’s Word for direction and the godly counsel of those I know can help me.  I lean on His Spirit of strength.  You want an example?  How about selecting a job or a major in college, determining which car to buy, focusing on a goal to accomplish.  I decide on each one of those things only for God’s glory.  How about this one? When suffering and affliction assault me.  Or when pursuing an education—all for God’s glory, not mine.  The same applies to the school I attend, the courses I take, the degree I seek, the career I ultimately embrace.  When any subject surfaces that calls for my response, God’s glory is to be in my attitude and woven through my direction.  When I am thinking and planning.  When I win or lose.  When I must give up a dream, I willingly surrender.  Why?  Again for the same reason—for God’s glory.

            Next, let’s apply this to the “ins” in life.  In my public life or private affairs, I seek God’s glory.  In relationships that please me or challenge me, they are all for God’s glory.  In my home, in my work, in my school, in traveling, in a crowd, or in my room or office alone.  In my research, my studies, exams, my day to day routine, all for His glory.  In fame and fortune, public applause and appreciation, or on days when none of that occurs, it is to be done for His glory.

            Let’s take this one step further to include all the “ifs” in life.  If a person I love stays or leaves, God gets the glory.  If a cause I support captures the hearts of others or dies for lack of support, God gets the glory.  If the plans I arrange succeed or fail or must be altered, I focus on God being honored and exalted, regardless.  If the church I am involved with grows or stops growing, God gets the glory.  If I get my way or If I don’t, God gets the glory.  My theme in life, your theme in life is to be: “To God be the glory for the things He has done.”

            Finally, HOW DOES IT OCCUR?  How do we make it happen.  Obviously you can’t accomplish your purpose simply by getting a copy of this sermon and reading it over and over again.  The goal is to personalize these truths so effectively that you end your life like Jesus who said at the end of His, “I glorified You on the earth.” (John 17:4a).  There are 3 suggestions that people I trust and respect for their faithfulness give over and over.  So, how does glorifying God happen?

First, by cultivating the habit of including the Lord God in every segment of your life. 

This is to be a conscious and constant thought.  Habits are formed that way.  It may help to write this probing question on 3X5 cards: IS GOD GETTING THE GLORY?  Put a card on the visor of your car, on your computer screen saver, on the mirror in your bathroom, on the refrigerator and in front of the sink.  The Christian faith is NOT supposed to be limited to Sundays and Wednesdays.  I urge you to open every closet, every room in your life and allow God’s glory in.  How does it occur?

Second: By refusing to expect or accept any of the glory that belongs to God.  It is helpful to remember that what the Bible calls your flesh or your human sinful nature is very creative and selfish.  It is like a sponge, ready and willing to soak up all the glory.  It looks for opportunities to grab the glory that belongs to God alone.  You see, I can hide my motives and try to manipulate people I am supposed to be serving.  I can make it seem that they are doing a God thing when in fact they are doing a Keith-thing.  I, like any of you, can take the glory God alone deserves.  I am suggesting a better way—that we no longer expect or accept any of the glory that belongs to God.  His glory is His alone, so let’s be sure He gets it all from now on!  Again, how does it occur?

By maintaining a priority relationship with God that is more important than any other on earth.  You may be closer to your child than you are to God.  You may spend more time with your spouse than you ever have with God.  You could be more concerned with your family’s safety and security than you are about the will of God in your life.  Nothing wrong with loving your family or planning their future, but if it is your sincere desire to follow Jesus, then I need to say again: make spending time with Him a priority.  This question: Will this bring glory to God or to me? must be asked often. 

            The Good News is that we, you and I can do this.  God doesn’t mock us.  He never gives a command that we cannot accomplish with His strength.  But you have to determine that you will do all things for His Glory and His alone.  When we do, our lives and our church will be filled with evidence and displays of His magnificent glory.

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"Fearfully and Wonderfully Made"
Text: Psalm 139:13-18

            I had the privilege of witnessing the birth of my children, and the memories still fill me with a sense of how awesome our God is.

Psalm 139 is a lament that tells us that God gave King David the ability to endure the struggles in his life. David was surrounded by enemies determined to destroy him, just as we are surrounded by the powers of death. This psalm reveals the resources which will help us cope with our crises. The psalm consists of four paragraphs, each composed of six verses, and each pointing to an attribute of God. Those four attributes are the omniscience, the omnipresence, the sovereignty, and the holiness of God, as they relate to our personal experience. In other words, God knows us completely (that's omniscience). He is with us no matter where we are (that's omnipresence). He is in control of our life (that's sovereignty). And He is our guide to holiness. I want to focus mainly on the third paragraph, our reading for today, but I want to put it in context by briefly addressing the first two paragraphs which speak of our security in God. This is an important message for children today, who, unlike their parents in their childhood, suffer the absence of security. When I was a kid, we didn't worry about our parents getting divorced, or about the possibility of getting shot dead on the way to school, or being the victim of some other violence. Let's look now at the psalm. 

A. The first paragraph speaks of God's omniscience, that fancy theological word that means God knows everything. We can find strength and security in the midst of any crisis because God knows us intimately.

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O Lord.
You hem me in--behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

            You get the point. God knows our motives and our thoughts, our every action. He searches us like a miner digs for gold. He knows us better than we know ourselves. Everywhere we go, God is there, surrounding us, with His hand on our shoulders. Don't cringe under this wonderful, awesome, and incomprehensible knowledge, but rather find comfort in it. Like Jesus said, God counts the hairs on your heads, so concerned is He about you. The Hebrew concept of "knowledge" implies not only information, but intimacy and love. It is a personal knowledge, a love that is patient and kind, that protects us in a tender embrace. Therefore, we are comforted when in trouble.

B. The second paragraph speaks of God's omnipresence, meaning that God is everywhere. He is always with me. Even if I wanted, I couldn't escape God.

“Where Can I go from your Spirit?”

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
(that is, "your face," your personal presence)
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

            Paul writes, "Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 8:39). By His Holy Spirit, God is everywhere. If we could fly with the speed of light to a distant land, God would be there, guiding and upholding us with his right hand. Remember, it is Jesus who sits at God's right hand. No matter what darkness may surround us, whatever evil seeks to crush us, whatever depression or grief or oppressive power, God still sees us and cares for us, for the sake of Christ. How do we know that God knows so much about us, that God is ever present with us, that God personally cares for us? We have only to consider how wonderfully we are made.

THE WONDER OF MY OWN BODY CONVINCES ME THAT GOD IS LOVING AND PRESENT WITH ME.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

            This third paragraph begins with the word "for," because it gives the basis for declaring those two truths about God that give us strength in the midst of crises: God knows us intimately because it was by His design that we came into being. It was the creative power of our sovereign God that controlled and sustained the development of our physical lives. Look at yourself!! You are not some chance accident of an impersonal universe. Consider how complex is your physical being. How can we do anything other than respond to this wonder by saying, "I will give thanks to you [God], for I am wonderfully and fearfully made. Isaac Newton said, "In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence."

A. The third paragraph speaks of God's power. God controls our psychological and physical development by His "wonderful," or supernatural, power. He "created my inmost being," literally, "my kidneys." For the Hebrew, this was the seat of emotions and affections; today we'd say "you created my heart," my psyche. And, "He knit me together (or 'covered' me) in my mother's womb." He was directly involved in our physical formation from the beginning. God is concerned about our psychology and our physiology. He knows beforehand how many days we are to live, the experiences yet in store for us. God does not push out the boat of my life into the lake of time so I can get along as best I can. He has a plan for me. He ordained my days, or "formed" them like a potter gives shape to clay. There is comfort for us in the knowledge that our Creator has a plan for our lives, and our experiences are under His sovereign control. That He is the potter and we are the clay.  Some people teach that we are gods, but we are not. We are dust, mixed with water and given life by the only true God, our Creator.  If we let Him, He can make something beautiful and useful out of our lives.  Don't for a moment think that you or anyone else is lacking in worth or dignity in the eyes of God, or that God does not care for you.

B. Consider how you were knit in the womb. Consider how wonderfully and fearfully you were made. In 1965, Life magazine printed the first photos of the unborn child in various stages of development. It was wonderful. You may not agree with me, but I think the unborn child is beautiful. Now, I need to take a sharp right turn and mention two things at this point. Fasten your seatbelts.     First,1. We unfortunately have some confusion in our Church over when human life begins.       The General Conference of our Church  in the 2008 Discipline states: the beginning of life and the ending of life are the God-given boundaries of human existence…Our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to approve abortion.  But we are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of the mother and the unborn child. Because these statements are somewhat vague, United Methodists argue over whether or not abortion is okay.  Science, however, has clearly shown that human life begins at the moment of conception. 2. Science is not confused about when human life begins. In 1989, Dr. Jerome LeJeune--the world renown professor of genetics in Paris, France, who discovered the genetic cause of Downs Syndrome, testified at a trial in Tennessee, that no one can claim property rights on a frozen embryo because it is a human being. He said, and I quote in part:  Each of us has a unique human beginning, the moment of conception. Inside the chromosomes is written the program and all the definitions, so to speak, of the table of the law of life...when this information carried by the sperm and by the ovum has encountered each other, then a new human being is defined because its own personal and human constitution is entirely spelled out...science has a very simple conception of man; as soon as he has been conceived, a man is a man. ...Around twelve days after fertilization, the beginning of [the neural tube is formed]. Then, within...three weeks, the cardiac tubes will begin to beat, so that the heart is beginning to beat after three weeks. ...[At] two months of age, he is two centimeters and a half from the crown to the rump, and if I had him in my fist, you would not see that I have something, but if I opened my hand you would see the tiny man with hands, fingers, and toes. Everything is there.  At this stage, we change the name from "embryo" to "fetus" because, now, the visible evidence clearly shows that we are looking at a man and not a chimpanzee or other primate. A cytogenesis student could easily tell if the original zygote was a human being. 3. Only one question remains.         Our current governmental policy holds us to the objective biblical standard that killing an innocent human being is sin, but allows us to ignore the objective scientific standard that human life begins at conception, thus allowing us to justify abortion by saying we are not sure whether the one being killed is human. That ambiguity is unconscionable. When human life begins is no longer a question; science answered that question. The only question that remains is philosophical: whether or not we will value that human life above the modern gods of Comfort and Convenience. Those who framed our government's Constitution valued life. Thomas Jefferson wrote: "The care of human life and not destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government." I sincerely believe God's judgment awaits us if the laws of our land do not, once again, seek to protect the life of the weakest members of our society. You don't have to agree with me on this, but I want you to know that this is one of those beliefs I will not back down from nor apologize for.  I will fight for the right of the unborn to life as long as I am able.  Whether you agree with me or not, I do hope you will consider how wonderfully and fearfully we are made, and find comfort in the realization that the God who knit you together in the vast complexity of your physical and psychological design, is the God who is near to you and who loves you even in the dark times, the crisis moments, of your life. And, if what I am saying disturbs your conscience, know still that God loves you and invites you to draw near to Him, so that you can C. Praise God for the wonder of His work. Part of the wonder is the amount of information stored in the DNA of a single human zygote. It is so vast that no supercomputer in the world has enough storage space to contain the data. Can you fathom that??

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake, I am still with you.

            The knowledge of God is precious, inexhaustible. His creative ideas are utterly vast in number. The more a scientist discovers, the more he realizes how much he doesn't know. Just thinking about what God has done could put you to sleep, like counting sheep. Yet, God's presence is a changeless reality. As I awaken, day by day, I can know I am in God's presence, for I have considered how I am made and I have met God through faith in Jesus Christ. Someday, I know I will awaken even from death, and still I will be with God. You can know this, too.

            I hope I am a good citizen, a patriot, a lover of this great nation.  As I free-born American and a born-again Christian, I will be honest: I am scared of what some of President Obama’s plans are.  Whether you voted for him or not, I believe we should stand up for what is right.  Look at your insert.  There are ways to stand for the unborn.  It is not time to shrug and say, oh well, that’s the way it goes.  NO! Fight through signing petitions, calling your representatives, and praying that God’s righteousness will defeat evil wherever it is found. I don’t believe my tax dollars should be used to take innocent life.  Do you??                                                                                                                                 Someday, when Christ comes again, the wicked will want to hide from the wrath of the Lamb (Rev. 6:16). In the meantime, we ought not to compromise with those who seek, in the name of God, to justify the shedding of innocent blood by twisting or ignoring God's Word. Like David, we should be filled with revulsion for the moral and spiritual values they embody. Christ will forgive me if I get angry and disgusted over some of the things promoted by our own Church or our own Government.  But, the Lordship of Christ demands that we                                                                         III. Choose sides.
            Is this issue of God's creative sovereignty clear in your life? Is it clear that you have chosen the Lord's side? Pray this prayer often.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way of everlasting.

            That can be your prayer. Open your heart to God. Ask him to search you. Not just about this issue, but to search you for any sin in your life.  The psalmist had some anxious thoughts about his commitment to God and was willing to have God expose anything in him that might be offensive to God, that he might deal with it and that God might lead him in the way of eternal life. God calls us to be holy because He is holy. Maybe you are realizing you really don't have a personal and intimate relationship to the God of all creation. I want you to know that your life has meaning and purpose, worth and dignity, because you are wonderfully and fearfully made by our loving Creator-God. He knows you better than you know yourself, and He is here with us now. And, you can ask him to reveal Himself to you, even now. Join me in praying as the Psalmist would pray:     O God, you know me. Let me know your loving presence. I thank you that I am wonderfully and fearfully made. Search me and know my heart. See if there is any offensive way in me and forgive it, for Christ's sake, who died for me. And, lead me in the way of eternal life; lead me in Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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"God's Magnificent Orchestration"
Luke 1:5 - 45

A woman was doing her last-minute Christmas shopping at a crowded mall. She was tired of fighting the crowds. She was tired of standing in lines. She was tired of fighting her way down long aisles looking for a gift that had sold out days before.  Her arms were full of bulky packages when an elevator door opened. It was full. The occupants of the elevator grudgingly tightened ranks to allow a small space for her and her load.  As the doors closed, she blurted out, "Whoever is responsible for this whole Christmas thing ought to be arrested, strung up, and shot!" A few others nodded theirs heads or grunted in agreement.  Then, from somewhere in the back of the elevator, came a single voice that said: "Don't worry. They already crucified him."

            The world system that you and I are part of has been celebrating the holiday called Christmas. And on this holiday, people, we have benefited by it. Gifts that they would not have received, we've received, because Jesus had a birthday. Time off that we would never have received, we've received, because Jesus had a birthday. Bonuses, perhaps that have come because of profit sharing at the end of the year, have come because someone else, Jesus, had a birthday. But on Jesus' birthday, on the birthday of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, that day when he ought to be recognized for his coming into the world, when Christ might not enter their minds at all,  they're still going through the parade of Christmas. And yet when the Bible talks about Christmas, it talks about one who not only was born in a manger, but owned the ground on which the manger laid; one who knew nothing but yet in the manger knew everything; one who was powerless because he was an infant, yet powerful, because he has the power of life and death in his infant hands. Christmas is about Christ.  There's a whole scene that Luke paints for us, relating to the birth of Jesus Christ, which we  tend to miss. For you see, Jesus' birth was interwoven into a whole political as well as personal scene, that if you ripped that away, you missed some of the beauty that surrounded the birth of Christ. Now we are aware of the event that speaks for itself, but are we aware of the circumstances that surrounded that event, that gives that event power? You see, the Christmas story surrounds real people living in a real world who had a real problem. And God did not bypass that real world and those real people and those real problems to just plan a Christmas story. The Christmas story was planted in the midst of those real people, going through real problems, living real, everyday lives. To fully understand the Christmas story, we must  lay side by side two stories. It is the story of the birth of John, and the story of the birth of Jesus. Those two are placed, by the author Luke, because as far as Luke was concerned, to get the impact of Jesus in the manger, you've also got to get the impact of John in Elizabeth's womb. In order to get the impact of Mary being a virgin, you have to also nave the impact of Elizabeth being barren. In order to get the impact of Joseph being the espoused husband to Mary, you're going to have to also get the impact of Zacharias going to the temple on his appointed day. In order to get the impact of Gabriel coming with the message to Mary, you must first see Gabriel being sent by God to Zacharias. In order to get the impact of the Jesus story, Luke, the investigative doctor, says you must also have the impact of the birth of John. And so he gives us the story of the birth of John. Then he goes to the event of the birth of Christ. Let's see how they interrelate. God's grace was shown to Zacharias and Elizabeth.  First we're told that there was this priest (in verse 5), whose name was Zacharias. He was of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron and her name was Elizabeth. Now it's very interesting that when you combine the meaning of the name Elizabeth with the meaning of the name Zacharias, you come up with the phrase "the Lord keeps his covenant." Zacharias means that the Lord is faithful, he keeps his word. Elizabeth means "the oath" or "the covenant." So when Zacharias married Elizabeth and the two became one, the Lord keeps his covenant. It was not chance that the ones whom the Lord honors with this miracle were people who were blameless, who were faithful, who were obedient, and guess what, they were doing what they were supposed to be doing when they were supposed to be doing it. See all Zacharias did was go to do his priestly job. He was just being faithful, that's all, and God met him there.  Well, he tells him the greatness John will have. John raises the question (verse 18): "Now wait a minute, angel, how shall I know this for certain, for I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years. We have a practical problem here, angel." Do you get the conflict here? Zacharias has been praying for a miracle. God says, "Prayer granted." Zacharias raised the question, "Now how is going to be?" And now he says, "Look, this cannot be. God can't do that." And the angel answered, "Number one. you don't know who you're talking to." In the words of contemporary jargon, the angel said, "Do you know who I am?" And his answer was, "I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God." We have an unusual statement here. Here we have an angel saying, "You do not know who I am." Now why does the angel say that? Because Zacharias raised the question, "How? I know I prayed for a miracle but I don't understand how you can possibly do it." Is that how we pray sometimes? The angel responds, "You don't know who I am. nor do you know where I come from. I am Gabriel, and I come from the presence of God. I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news." In other words, "God wasn't wasting his time when he sent me. I'm not wasting my time by coming, so don't you waste my time with that question!"  Well anyway, to make a long story short, "Behold, since you want to know how we're going to do it, let me tell you how we're going to do it. We're going to do this the same way we're going to stop you from speaking. It’s not going to be any different. Same thing. I tell you what we're going to do. So you know that God can bring babies when babies can't be brought, to help you out here I'm going to close your mouth for a little while. That'll let you know that I'm dead serious about this other thing. So the fact that I can close your mouth means I can open Elizabeth's womb. So be silent. I know what you're saying, "Well, they did this kind of stuff way back then." Folks, God is working miracles every day. He may not do them the same way, and I doubt if any of us have seen angels that we can strictly identify as angels. But folks, he is still doing miracles. Perhaps we're just not close enough to him to see them.  So anyway, Zacharias comes out and he can't say a word. He wants so bad to tell these folks what's been going on. You've got to understand that the folks outside are worried, because the priests don't stay in this long. What is going on? What is that man doing in there? Is he still alive? To add fuel to the fire, he can't talk. Now you know the brother has done something wrong. He came out, verse 22 says, and "he was unable to speak to them and they realized he had seen a vision in the temple; and he kept making signs to them." The man is disoriented. He's trying to make signs, but everything is incomprehensible. But he went back home.  Verse 24: "After these days Elizabeth his wife became pregnant" so he at least tested the Lord" and she kept herself in seclusion for five months." But she stayed hidden. "This is the way the Lord has dealt with me in the days that he looked with favor upon me, to take away my disgrace among men. Now why does she stay away five months? She had waited on the Lord, and she just wasn't going to say, "Thank you, ." She got behind closed doors, and for five months, every time she thought about the pregnancy in her womb, it was the means to praise. And if God’s blessing in our lives doesn't bring us praise and adoration so that we want to walk with him, spend time with him, serve him, glorify him, we've missed the whole purpose. God's grace was shown to Mary.  Now Luke jumps stories. He changes channels. "Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent..." That's our link, the angel Gabriel. Gabriel was sent "from God to a city in Galilee, called Nazareth." You have to understand, Nazareth grew as a crooked city, and it just had a bad reputation as a very materialistic city. “So Gabriel was sent to Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph.” Luke wants to make sure all of us understand that Mary had never been with a man. What was God getting ready to do? He was getting ready to do a holy thing.  So if God was going to do a holy thing, guess who he was going to use? A holy woman. The logic here is very simple: God was not going to have his holy program made impure by an unholy person. That's nothing different than what the New Testament says: "Be  holy as I am holy." Live up to divine standards. Now all Mary knows growing up is to keep herself pure. She's been taught by her parents righteous living. Her parents didn't tell her "because you are going to be the mother of the Messiah." All they did was say, "Honor the Lord, and the Lord will honor you." So guess what she had to hold on to? Nothing. She was being righteous simply because that was what God required. Well, she's ' a virgin, engaged to Joseph who is a descendant of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. "Coming in, he said to her (verse 28), 'Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.' But she was greatly troubled (verse 29) at this statement, and she kept pondering...." What does this mean? I don't understand what's going on. And he says, "Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God." In other words, from the human standpoint. God has put on his binoculars, Mary, and he's been looking over the Jewish nation because he wants to do a big thing. Now you have to understand, if you were a Jew, the coming of the Messiah was the hottest thing in town because their whole history was waiting for this. The binoculars of heaven start looking, and, in the words of a contemporary gospel song, "looking for somebody he can use." He looked over there: "No, I can't use her. Oh well, I could have used her but I know what's going to happen next year. I can't use her." God looking for somebody says, 'You have found favor in the sight of the Lord." And our Lord knew who he was going to use all the time from a sovereign perspective.  But from a human perspective, God wanted something he could depend on. So you found favor. God has chosen you. "And you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son, and you will call his name Joshua, Jesus." Joshua is the Old Testament word for the same word that's Jesus here in the New Testament. You shall call his name Jesus. "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David." Mary raises the question in verse 34, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" Now where have we seen a question like that? You remember a few verses ago, Zacharias said, "How can this thing be?" Now here's the link: God knew Mary was going to raise that question and that's not a bad question to ask. "I've never been with anybody. You tell me I'm going to have a son. How can this thing be?" Now the Lord knew Mary was going to ask this question, and the whole sermon really comes down to this point here: "He said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God. " Now he says to her, "Look, I know you're right. You've never been with a man. Don't worry. That egg will be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit or shall we call it the seed of God. The seed of God will link with that human egg, and therefore you shall be able to call him not only your son, the son of man, but you shall call him Son of God, because he will be divine in nature as well as human." But this still is inconceivable to Mary. Therefore, verse 36 is our key verse: "And behold, even your relative Elizabeth (now the link) has also conceived a son (key) in her old age; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month." How? Verse 37: "For nothing will be impossible with God.” Now get the point. Mary has raised the question: How can this be? "Well, in terms of academic explanation, Mary, the Holy Spirit is going to overshadow the egg, and you're going to have a child." 'But I still don't understand." 'If you don't understand, Mary, go visit Elizabeth because you know about Elizabeth. Tell me about Elizabeth, Mary." 'Elizabeth is an old, old lady." 'Guess what? Elizabeth's six months pregnant!" 'No. Wait a minute. People cannot have kids as old as Aunt Liz is." 'Elizabeth is not here is she?" "Well guess what, Mary, guess what? No more impossible than what's getting ready to happen to you. And if you doubt me, go visit Elizabeth." God orchestrated Jesus' birth to bring grace to us.                                                   What has God done? Luke tells us God created a situation that not only gave birth to John, who the Old Testament predicted (notice the marvelous mastery of God's thinking), he came up with a plan that miraculously produces John through Elizabeth and Zacharias. He also makes sure that Elizabeth and Zacharias are related to Mary, because Mary's going to need Elizabeth and Zacharias to validate what's getting ready to happen to her. So he makes sure that they're relatives. What I'm saying to you, is that the birth of Jesus Christ, while miraculous in and of itself, if there were no other material given to us, the fact that a virgin conceived would be a miracle by the will of God. It not only responded to human needs of prayer, it also responded to the relationship that was needed between John and Jesus. It also responded to the needs for a sign that Mary would have.  So when Mary hooked up with Elizabeth, the two kids hooked up with one another, and God, through the resource of Luke, says a masterful plan was orchestrated at the birth of Jesus Christ. Is that a reason to praise God? Is that a reason to serve God? Is that a reason to submit to the Messiah of God? Yes it is. Do you know, God still is in the business of orchestrating His perfect will and plan in the world.  I believe when I run into someone or end up in a place I would not have dreamed, God is about His magnificent orchestration.  Let's praise God. Take a moment for personal thanksgiving, would you, that God sent Jesus to be your Messiah. Born in that manger, is God, who came to die for you. He came to take your place, to be your substitute. Perhaps you're here this morning and you never met the Savior. If you're here this morning and the miracle has never gripped you, that this Savior grew up and became a man. And he died, he died in your place for your sins. He died to be your substitute. Would you accept him as your substitute right now? Would you praise Him with me?  And if your life is at a crossroads or you are wondering what in the world God is doing allowing this or that in your life, praise Him.  He indeed has the whole world in His hands and that includes you and everything about you.  Would you stand with me in praise of our Mighty God as we sing: What Child is This?

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“In the Fullness of Time”
Isaiah 53

            When you hear the word sin, what is the first picture or thought that comes to your mind? We are so bombarded by media and a culture that does not believe in absolutes. The message we receive is what is right for me is not necessarily what is right for you, and what is wrong for me is not necessarily wrong for you. We see absolute truth as outdated. There is a real danger with seeing absolute truth as antiquated in that our conscience begins to be worn down. So many times in our culture we tend to trivialize sin and make it the same as just orneriness or just a little mistake.

            Jesus claimed to be absolute truth. (John 14:6) Open your Bibles to Isaiah 53. Again, remember this book was written 700 or 800 years before Jesus’ birth. It perfectly describes his life and death and gives the description of Jesus being the wounded healer. I want to focus on the purpose of Jesus’ mission as it relates to this whole issue of sin. Isaiah 53 starting in verse four, “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions . . .” Another word for transgression is sin. “. . . he was crushed for our iniquities.” Notice those two words - pierced and crushed. That is radical action on God’s part. For God to take such radical action, I think sin is something more than orneriness. “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him . . .” Punishment is not something I ever like to hear. “. . . and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray . . .” They tell me a sheep is a dumb animal. If the lead sheep walks off a cliff the whole herd will follow. Sounds kind of human, doesn’t it? “. . . each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

            I want us to see from God’s perspective the deadly nature of sin. I am basically talking to people who believe in God, which is the majority of American people. When we talk about sin, we do two things: we trivialize it and we put it in a religious box. If you had cancer, you wouldn’t want the doctor to misdiagnose it as a bad cold, right? If you needed surgery, you wouldn’t want God to hand you a tissue. So we tend to trivialize sin or we moralize sin by reducing faith to rules and regulations. Any time you reduce faith to keeping rules or regulations, it always results in an attitude of moral superiority. What is going on in Islam right now? Islam reduces faith to keeping rules and regulations so those who keep those rules are superior to those who don’t keep those rules.

            I want us to understand that sin is a deep brokenness. It is as deadly to our eternal well being as cancer is to our earthly well being. Please hear that. It is deadly! It affects us in three ways. It affects us spiritually; it is deadly spiritually. It causes brokenness in our relationships, and it brings brokenness in our physical well being. Let’s look at those one at a time.

              Spiritually - why does God seem hidden? Am I the only one that feels this way? We believe in God, but God is playing hide 'n seek with us. If you go back to the book of Genesis, we read about Adam and Eve. Because of their feeling of shame and guilt, Adam and Eve created an emotional distance from God and hid from God. Anytime you feel rejected, what are you going to do? You are going to say to that person you feel rejected by, “Heck, I don’t need you! So you didn’t choose me for your team, big deal. I don’t want to be on your team anyway.” From childhood you learn to create this emotional distance to protect yourself. You will rationalize, and you will deny. A whole lot of people have gone into a spiritual sleep; every time they go into a church and the word of God is read, they go to sleep. You know people like that. Some of you are married to people like that, right? The reason you go to sleep is that you have subconsciously created an emotional distance. It is not that you don’t believe in God, but it is kind of like divorce. There is this distant connection that never goes away; you live separate from it, but it’s always there. There are a whole bunch of people in the church that live as practical atheists…people who are in the church and believe in God, but all during the week you have had this emotional distance from God. Instead of being dependent upon God and serving God, you are dependent on yourself and you serve yourself.

            Sin causes relational brokenness. The greatest example I know is marriage. Why is marriage so hard? Any time you have two people come together, it is going to be hard. The consequence of sin in our lives is that we have replaced God as the center of meaning and placed ourselves as the center of meaning. So you have two selfish people come together. No wonder it’s hard!

            In marriage counseling, one of the questions you hear often is: Why is marriage so hard?  One couple explained:  “Just last night, we were packing our car…” She said, “I know what I think is best about packing a car and he knows what he thinks is best, and we went to war over such a simple issue as packing the car.” Can you relate? What self centeredness has done in our relationships! We have to work our butts off in marriage.

            Today there are about forty wars going on in the world. This is the third millennium; we are an intelligent planet, but intelligence has nothing to do with this. There is brokenness in our relationships. We are created in the image of God. We have power to heal, and yet we create weapons of mass destruction. Look at the brokenness in our relationships racially. We can’t get along with each other. Families can’t get along, nations can’t get along, we are broken relationally.

            We are also broken physically. Monday Carolyn and I went Christmas shopping. You know how crowded the malls are, and I stopped my car in the parking lot for an older woman to pass by. It was really cold Monday and I saw this older woman running across in front of our car and I thought, “Why do we get old and die?” Look how I have changed in the last ten years. My body is heading toward decay. When I came here in 1998, I had a pretty good head of hair! What is happening? And in such a short period of time. The best of us in this room might get some ninety years to live. There is nothing we can do to stop death and deterioration in our lives. Isn’t there something in your mind that says, “I’m supposed to live forever?” You look in the mirror and say, “I’m this youthful guy, what happened to me?” The Bible tells us that death was not God’s intention, death is the consequence of sin. What we have going on here is this absence of peace, a gnawing sense of uneasiness or restlessness that is both personal and social. And God in his aggressive, pursuing love comes as the Prince of Peace.

            Of all the religious leaders in the world, Jesus Christ is unique. Unlike any other religious leader, there were hundreds of prophecies written about Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection before he ever came into the world. We have all those prophecies today, recorded in the Bible. Here are just a few that were written hundreds of years before his birth. In Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and you will call him Immanuel.” Immanuel means God with us. Isaiah wrote this in chapter nine, verse six, 700 to 800 years before Jesus was born: SLIDE OF: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” And what is our need? Peace. There is an absence of peace that is both personal and social. The prophet Micah said he would be born in Bethlehem. Psalm 22, written hundreds of years before crucifixion was even invented, describes Jesus’ crucifixion perfectly. It says, “They have pierced my hands and my feet…They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.” What are you doing with Jesus?      

         I promise you this: no one will ever be able to stand before God and say, “I never heard,” because there were signs all over the place. Here is the one problem I have in this Isaiah passage concerning this whole issue of justice and judgment, and the necessity of punishment. SLIDE OF: Look at Isaiah 53:5, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Why does someone have to be punished for our mess-ups? Don’t people say: “Let boys be boys.” Why can’t you just forgive and forget?

            I want to tell you that you are so broken that your life misses the mark, which is literally what sin means. Your life is missing the mark for which God created you. Why do wrongs have to be made right? You have to deal with your brokenness or your brokenness will bleed out into everything else you do. If I don’t deal with my brokenness then it will bleed out into every relationship. What amazes me is how quickly some people rush from divorce to another marriage; they have never dealt with their own brokenness and they think they keep meeting the wrong person. Until you deal with your brokenness, it will bleed out into every job you have. Some of you keep changing jobs and you think it is your boss. It is not your boss; it is your brokenness. In every reoccurring situation your brokenness will bleed over. The gospel doesn’t allow us to rationalize our sin or deny our sin. The gospel names the sin and points the way to forgiveness and freedom. If you don’t deal with your stuff, if you don’t name your demons and deal with your demons, then those demons will keep coming back and bring their friends. The purpose of judgment is not your destruction; the purpose of God’s judgment in our lives is to bring us to a place of repentance so there can be healing.

“Sin is not…”   When I was a kid I stole some candy from a store.  My dad found out about it and it wasn’t pretty.  He didn’t say, “Boys will be boys.”  No.  He marched me out to the car and back to that store where he made me apologize to the store manager.  That store manager looked at me and said, “What if everybody just came in here and took what they wanted without paying for it?  Pretty soon there wouldn’t be a store where you could get the food you need.”  As a result, I never wanted to steal another thing in my life.  What if dad had done nothing.  Where would I be?  I would be self-confident that I could get away with anything.  Dangerous thinking.  That is why Jesus says deal with your own stuff, not your brother’s and sister’s stuff. I wouldn’t have married Laurie. You know how I know I wouldn’t have married Laurie? She wouldn’t have had anything to do with me. I wouldn’t have my kids. It’s kind of like that  It’s A Wonderful Life story. God’s judgment is not about destroying your life, but to bring you to a place of repentance to heal your life. I wouldn’t have this job. Did I ever touch any lives? And what would have happened there? You see what happens if we don’t deal with our stuff? We keep rationalizing, denying, keeping this emotional distance with God, and we miss the blessing of God. What is the fulfillment? The Prince of Peace will establish a people of peace who will live as an expression His love. This is God’s plan…not that we have these little religious clubs, but that we be a community of Shalom. It’s not that our communities or families will have an absence of conflict. Some people think if you accept Jesus all conflict goes away, all pain goes away and you are not supposed to get cancer or suffer or die. No, all of that stuff happens to Christians. Jesus said, “I have told you these things so that in me you have peace.” It doesn’t say if you believe in me, it says “if you are in me.” “In this world you have trouble but take heart, I have overcome the world.” So what difference does it make? Look at our marriages. We will have conflict in our marriage; we will have pain in our marriage. I told you the definition of marriage two weeks ago: marriage is joy in suffering. When you come to me for counseling, I hear two things. “I’m not getting all my needs met,” to which I say, “Then get rid of some of your needs.” The other thing I hear is “Well, we have irreconcilable differences.” Laurie and I figured it out. We are always going to have irreconcilable differences. In other words, there are some things we simply agree to disagree about and then we go on.  What difference does Christ’s peace make? We will demonstrate the character of Christ in our marriages. We demonstrate the grace of Christ in our relationships and we have the quality of Christ-like love in our actions toward all people. Here is the power: God frees us to live in Christ and exist for others. The greatest evidence for me, the greatest evidence in the world, for the claims of Jesus Christ is the way he changes lives…and let me tell you, I am one of them. It is amazing how he changes our focus from a life of direness to achieve and acquire,  to a life of mission, contribution and service. A lot of you are waiting for circumstances to change. Guess what? In the world you will have trouble. Circumstances may not change. You are going to have peace not by trying harder, not by just believing in Christ, but by being in Christ; committed to Him and His ways.  But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, (Gal. 4:4)  You see, God sent Jesus to pay the penalty of sin so that we could live abundantly free and forgiven.

Closing Prayer

            What is the difference between believing in and being in? To be in Jesus, you have to deal with your rationalization and denial. I am going to ask you to do that right now by agreeing with God that sin is not just orneriness or bad decisions, it is a deadly spiritual DNA that exists within me. I agree with God that I am powerless over sin, and that sin is a violation of his creative purpose and a violation of my humanity. Then you don’t just believe, you surrender. The only way you can know the peace of Christ in your life is to surrender who you are to who he is. To trade who you are, your wants and wishes, for his. Will you bow your head with me in prayer right now? If that is where you are, then pray this prayer with me. Jesus, not my will, but our will be done. Jesus, not my way, but Your way in my life, and not my wants, but Your wants done in me and through me. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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Christmas is especially for those who love the Lord
Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 2:1-7

Many of us have heard the story of Martin the Cobbler.  I want to share it with you this morning.  In a certain town there lived a very honest shoe cobbler called Martin. He lived in a tiny basement room. Its only window looked out onto the street. Of the passers-by all he could see was their feet. But since there was hardly a pair of boots or shoes that had not passed through his hands at one time or another for repair, Martin was able to identify the passers-by by looking at their shoes.

But life had been hard on Martin. His wife died, leaving him with a young son. However, no sooner had the son reached the age when he could be of help to his father than he fell ill and died. Martin buried him and gave way to despair, taking to the bottle at the same time. He gave up the practice of his religion. But one day an old friend of his dropped in. Martin poured out his soul to him. At the end of it his friend advised him to do a little reading from the Gospels each day, promising that if he did so, light and hope would come back into his life. Where Love is, there God is also. Where Love is not, we are called to make the appropriate sacrifices, to go out of our way, to put it there. Martin took his friend's advice. At the end of each day he would take down the gospels from the shelf and read a little. At first he meant only to read on Sundays, but he found it so interesting that he soon read everyday. Slowly his life changed. He gave up drink. The words of Christ created new hope for him and the deeds of Christ were like lights that drove out his darkness. One night as Martin sat reading he thought he heard someone calling him. He listened and heard clearly: "Martin, Martin, look out into the street tomorrow for I will come to visit you." He looked around the tiny room, and since there was no one to be seen he reckoned it must be the Lord Himself who had spoken to him. So it was with a great sense of excitement that he sat down to his work the next day. As he worked he kept a close eye on the window. He was looking for something or someone special. But nothing exciting happened. Just the usual people passed by going about their everyday business. The day wore on and nobody special passed by. In the early afternoon he saw a pair of old boots that were very familiar to him. They belonged to an old soldier called Stephen. Going to the window he looked up and saw the old man hitting his hands together for it was bitterly cold outside. Martin wished that he would move on, for he was afraid he might obstruct his view and that he would not see the Lord when he passed. But old Stephen just stood there by the railing. Finally it occurred to Martin that maybe Stephen had nothing to eat all day. So he tapped on the window and beckoned him to come in. He sat him by the fire and gave him tea and bread. Stephen was most grateful he said he hadn't eaten for two whole days. As he left Martin gave him his second overcoat as a shield against the biting cold. 

But all the time Martin was entertaining Stephen he had not forgotten the window. Every time a shadow fell on it he looked up but nobody extraordinary passed . Night fell, Martin finished his work and very reluctantly closed the window shutters. After supper he took down the Gospels and as was his custom he opened the Gospels and read at random. After reading for some time Martin put down the book and reflected. The words of the Lord came to him: "I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was naked and you clothed me." It suddenly occurred to him that Christ had indeed come to him that day in the person of Stephen, and that he, Martin, had made him welcome. And his heart was filled with a peace he had never before experienced. This story was originally written in 1885 by Leo Tolstoy. The Original title is very interesting. Tolstoy entitled this children's story: Where Love is There God is also!           
Of all the events that have shaped human history, one moment stands above the rest. The moment was not filled with fanfare or frills but fantastic nonetheless. It is a moment when the temporal and the eternal came together. It is a moment that seems so utterly absurd that it could not be real but it was. It is a moment too good for this world because it was touched by the next. It is a moment when two worlds came together to create a hope that has never died. It was the day when God became a man.
            What was this moment? The birth of Jesus called the Christ. The reason we celebrate Christmas. What lessons do we learn about life in this one amazing moment in time? What do we learn about life from that stable in the backwater town of Bethlehem?  There are a number of priceless things. 

I. Christ came as a servant.  Throughout Jesus’ life, he made it plain that He had come not to be served (as He certainly deserves), but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.  Matthew 20:25-28 says: 25. Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27. and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28. just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."  There are so many Christians who somehow have missed this very essential truth in Jesus’ teaching.  Somehow we get the notion that it is all for us to enjoy and keep to ourselves.  The blessings are ours.  The truths are ours.  Nothing could be further from the example and teaching Jesus gave.  If the Son of God, ruler and creator of the universe came to serve us, how can we do anything but desire to serve Christ with everything He has given us?  The Lord of Lords was born a peasant in a stable so that we might understand how much He loves us, but also how great is the call to serve.  I hear too many people exclaim: “I don’t have much to give.”  Whether they are talking about money,  talents, or abilities, God calls us to use what He has given us to serve and help others.  That is how they will know our faith and love are genuine and from the Lord.  There is absolutely NO excuse for failing to serve others.  Serving God by serving others is one of the central truths of the Gospel.  Evie Karlsson wrote a song entiltled: “Christmas is Especially (For Those Who Love the Lord).”  The first stanza goes: Christmas is a lovely time of quiet peace and rest. Everybody gets a little break. But the baby in the manger and the smile upon His face call us to a deeper life of faith.  Christmas is especially for those who love the Lord and will follow close to Jesus from the stable to the throne.  Those who love Him sow that they will always try to make every day of every year a celebration of his birth.   Think about that.  That deeper life of faith is what Martin the cobbler discovered was what the Lord called each of us to live.  Where Love is There God is also!  That is the essence of Christmas.  Not what we get or hope to get, but what we give.  One lesson we get from the manger is that Christ came as a servant.

The second lesson is:
II. The manger was filled with Good News
But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Luke 2:10
The chill of the night air was pierced with the cries of a young mother in the pains of labor. With pain in her body and perspiration on her brow, Mary gave birth to her firstborn, a son named Jesus. We must remember that Mary gave birth not in a hospital, nor the in comforts of her home or even the home of a friend or a relative. Mary delivered Jesus in the midst of the sights, sounds and smells of the Bethlehem stable.
            The more I think about this, the more questions come to mind. Here are just a few: Were the cries of Mary mixed with the bleating of sheep? Did Joseph try to comfort her while pushing away the cattle? Was Mary nauseated by the smells of the stable?
            The first Christmas we were given a matchless gift. Jesus traded the glory of heaven for the grime of earth. Jesus exchanged the majesty of His Kingdom for the humility of the manger.
Jesus is the embodiment of the good news of salvation. His name literally means God saves. When the angel appears to the shepherds out in the fields of Bethlehem, he tells them: I bring you good news of great joy. The message of the angel to the shepherds was essentially this: We have good news, the Messiah has arrived; the savior had been born. The stable that held goats and the manger that held grain, now held the good news of God.
            All of humanities wildest dreams came true the night that Jesus was born. Jesus had come to mend the rift that existed between God and humanity. He came to do what no one else could, bring us back to a right relationship with God. The news just keeps getting better and better.
III. Jesus loves you with an indescribable, incredible love
            The first Christmas we were given a matchless gift. Jesus traded the glory of heaven for the grime of earth. Jesus exchanged the majesty of His Kingdom for the humility of the manger. This raises one more question: why? What would motivate God to do such a thing? Why take the risk of rejection? Why bother with us at all? The answers to my final Christmas questions are not found in the manger but at the cross.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3:16-17

            This question comes to one simple answer. Jesus would rather die than be without you. You cannot remember the cradle of Christ without remembering the cross. Jesus came to demonstrate the love of God in living and in dying. Jesus came to give all people the gift of grace, the gift of hope and the gift of love. Christmas is about Jesus giving us more than we could ever ask for, He gave us Himself.  But if we have received Him, Christmas is about giving everything we have to help others come to this same faith.  Like Martin the Cobbler, the words of Christ create new hope for us and doing the deeds of Christ is like lights that drive out our darkness.             

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“The Immortal, Invisible, God”
Acts 17:16-34

One of the most often heard challenges to Christianity is that it is not a rational or intelligent religion.  Some people feel you have to be a bit on the slow side to believe that God would become a man, be born of a virgin, then after dying a horrible death, rise again, then rise to heaven in a cloud. Increasingly, over the past several decades, our faith has come under attack.  People have suggested that you would have to be isolated, a country hick, or just plain empty headed to believe in the basics of Christianity.

            Our passage of Scripture for today refutes that assertion. Paul, an intellectual if there ever was one, meets some other intellectuals on their turf, and lays down a defense of God that leaves them spinning. Please turn in your Bibles to Acts 17:16-34. I want us to explore three facts about God that Paul lays out to these people in Athens, and three responses we can have to these facts.  And in doing so, I want to help you to see that our faith is a reasonable one.  In other words, to have a belief in the Christian faith does not require you to check your brain at the door.
            Let’s start off by looking at three facts about God, and the first is that…
I. God is more than a mere philosophy. (vv. 16-21)
            In talking to these philosophers, Paul makes a point of distinguishing God from the idolatry and philosophies of the culture.  In effect Paul claims that the “Unknown God” is not just another deaf and mute idol made of metal, wood, or stone.  An idol is not just what we worship, but what we put stock in, and what in turn gives us some sense of security, however fleeting. Dick Keyes has written extensively on this subject. He says, “Since we were made to relate to God, but do not want to face Him, we forever inflate things in this world to religious proportions to fill the vacuum left by God’s exclusion. . . . An idol is something within creation that is inflated to function as a substitute for God.” And because an idol is a counterfeit, notes Keyes, it is a lie; deception is its very identity.
God is beyond human comprehension.  The key verse here is verse 21: (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) Athens was the intellectual center of the world. They were the ones who anticipated new trends in modern thought. And as the passage shows, they were always looking for new ideas. It is interesting that in the culture shown here, religion was not a topic to be avoided, as in our culture.  Rather, religion was a hot topic. Everyone who was anyone had opinions on religion, and the more opinions the better!
            But while that setting was different in that religion was freely discussed, it was very much like our culture in that the attitude toward religion was about the same: you can take it or leave it, whatever suits you.  Religion was merely a branch of philosophy to them, and if your philosophy didn’t have room for religion, then that was just fine.  In fact, it was almost viewed that it was better to have a philosophy that excluded the need for religion, because reason was all a person really needed to get a grip on life.
Religion, then as now, was seen as just a crutch for the weak. Philosophies such as those given by Socrates and Plato were seen as the paths to wisdom and fruitful living. We are told to look to ourselves to find our highest ideal; to look to ourselves to find our god, or the highest good.  In Colossians 2:8 we read: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”
            Notice the phrase, “which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of the world rather than on Christ.”  The problem with most philosophies is that they are dependent on the world and human tradition.  When we use our human selves as the standard for what’s good and bad, we run into trouble, because what’s good for me may be bad for you.  When there is no standard outside of our human intellect, that, my friends is dangerous.
            It might interest you to know that the Greek culture of Paul’s time was one of the most degenerate and immoral in human history.  Sexual immorality and corruption in government was at an all-time high. Adultery and homosexuality flourished. But their philosophies allowed that. It was these very things that contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire.
              Philosophies based on human traditions and the principles of this world are hollow and empty.  But when we base our philosophies on the unchanging, perfect Word of God, we have something we can depend upon.  I am not against philosophy, and I don’t think Paul was. I think it is important to have thinkers in the Christian world who wrestle with the mysteries of life and of Christ, as much as humanly possible, and be able to explain them in terms familiar to the common person.  Ravi Zacharias is one of these.  C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer also come to mind.
            But the bottom line is that God is more than a philosophy, He’s a fact that cannot be ignored, and will eventually be reckoned with at judgment. God is real. His word is real. His love is real. His working in the world is real.  He is real.
            I want to end this section with a bit of a footnote: it says in verse 21 that all these guys did all day was to discuss the latest ideas.  Their religious philosophies had such an impact on their lives they went out to spread these ideas in hopes of bringing about real change, right?  Wrong. It had no impact on them whatsoever. Their philosophies were merely topics of lunchtime conversation – nothing more.
            They were all talk and no action.  We who claim that Jesus is the only way need to heed this. We cannot be like these men who just sat around and talked about it. We need to be like Paul, and take the message of a home in heaven and a changed life on earth to the people.  We can’t hole ourselves up in our cliques or even our church. We have to be out where we can touch lives with the Good News of Christ. Because God is more than just a nice idea.  God is more than a philosophy.
God is active and He is near. (vv. 22-28)
            Paul uses this opportunity to explain that not only is God more than some human philosophy, he goes on to explain that God has been active in the affairs of men from the beginning.  He created the heavens and the earth, and places people where He wills. He is outside His creation and cannot be contained by it.  He made men of every nation from one man to inhabit the earth.  And why did He do it? Verse 27 gives us the answer:
God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
            Unlike the gods of Greek and Roman theology who really had no use for man except to be used and exploited, the God of creation is actively involved in our lives, hoping that we will reach out to Him.  God is near to any who would have Him. Jeremiah 29:13 - You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
            Folks, you’ve got to understand that though God is greater than all of creation, He wants to be known by you as a person.  He wants to be involved in your life at its most intimate level.  He wants to offer you a relationship not possible with any person, only God. No one else can offer you forgiveness of sins and eternal life. No one else can offer you a personal relationship with the divine Creator; only the Creator can do that.  No one else can offer to touch you at the deepest level of your being and bring healing from heartache and despair.  And no other God can offer you the unconditional love we all crave.
Reach out. He’s waiting.
God is active and He is near.
Lastly, I want to point out that…
God will judge according to His standards, not men’s.
            Since God created us, He has the right to decide how to deal with us, whether on earth or in the final judgment. This passage tells us that one day God will judge, and Jesus will be the judge.  The standard will be Jesus.
            Keep in mind that Jesus is all-holy. He is all-loving. He is perfect in every way. He never sinned. He was the only sinless person to ever walk the earth.  And if He is the standard, we are in a heap of trouble. We cannot possibly meet the standard because we have all sinned before God. By itself, that’s not very good news, because us against perfection leaves us wanting big time.
            But there is good news there, because Jesus is more than the standard we must live up to in order to gain heaven. He is the way in.  God provided the pardon for our sins, so we could stand blameless before God. God, knowing we could never get to heaven on our own, provided the way in, and it cost Him His dearest possession – His Son. During the time in the upper room, hours before He was to be arrested and tried, Jesus proclaimed John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
            The immediate outcry from the philosophers is, “You can’t say that! There are many ways to God, if there even is a God.”  Not so! Remember who the Creator is – God. Remember who the creation is – us. Can the clay complain to the potter that it didn’t do the job right?  The Creator makes the rules. The creation belongs to Him and He deals with it as He sees fit.
            Before you think that sounds harsh, let me fill you in on something: We, outside of Christ, are sinners. And we are so good at being sinners, that we could not begin to count our sins against God and each other. And they are not just teeny tiny ones, either. Some might be thinking, “Come on, Preacher! It’s not like I’ve cheated on my wife or killed anybody!”
            Oh yeah?
            Have you ever looked at a woman with eyes that should be reserved for your wife? Jesus says you have committed adultery.  Have you ever called in sick when you weren’t really? Scripture says you are a liar.  There is a story of a minister who called in sick on a Sunday morning because he felt he needed a round of golf instead. While he heads out to the golf course, the angels come to God and ask Him why He is not punishing the minister.
            God just tells them to be patient.
            The minister is having a beautiful round, but on the last hole, gets his first-ever hole-in-one.  The angels are incredulous. “How could you let him have a hole-in-one when he is being disobedient?” 
            The Lord quietly said, “Who’s he going to tell about it?”
Have you ever hated someone? Scripture says you are a murderer.  Still not convinced? James tells us that if we know the good we are supposed to do and don’t do it, it is sin.
How many times have you not done something you knew you should have done?  Folks, if we were hauled in front of a judge for all the sins we have committed, he would toss us in jail and throw away the key.  We would be punished for the rest of our existence. Justice would demand it.  Justice demands our eternal punishment for our sins.
But God doesn’t stop at justice. He moves on to mercy, and then to grace.  Justice demands punishment. God sent His Son to take the punishment for us. His perfect sacrifice makes it possible for us to appear before God, the holy judge, not as a shameless criminal, but as a clean child of God.  God will judge according to His standard, not men’s and He has provided the way to meet that standard.
            God is more than a mere philosophy. He is active, and He is near. And He will judge according to His standards, not men’s. Well how can we apply what we have learned today? I find three different applications, and they are displayed in the 3 different responses of the listeners to Paul.  The first response was…
1. Rejection.
Verse 32 says that when Paul was finished speaking, they sneered.  The attitude was that this was just a bunch of hogwash that a thinking man couldn’t possibly accept.
            They chose to reject it. My prayer is that you do not do that. It is a mistake, and it will have eternal consequences, unless you come to your senses before it’s too late. Because there will be plenty of second guessing after you die, but there will be no second chance.  But if you have rejected God’s offer in Jesus in the past, you have another opportunity this morning to change that. Don’t leave here today holding God at arm’s length.
            The second response, which gives us our second application is…

2. They made a request. (more info)  Along with those who sneered, there were those who say, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”  That is a good option. If you are not yet ready to accept the claims of Christ as Savior, but want more info, then I will do everything in my power to get you the information you need.  I love helping people see how Christ is everything He promised and how it not only gives us a guarantee of heaven, but changes lives as well.
            Please visit with me about that. You can call me here at the church, or you can leave a note for me on the response card in your bulletin.
The third option, and the best is…
3. They Received Him.  Look again at verse 34: A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.
            Some were convinced that what Paul said was true, and they acted on it. They decided that this Jesus was really the Messiah, and that He held the keys to heaven.  If that is what you would like to do this morning, you will have the opportunity in just a moment.
            I want to invite you to make Christ your only Lord and Savior today by repenting of your sins and putting away the foolish idols in your life.  Call on Him for forgiveness and eternal life.  Believe that He died for you and rose from the grave.  The Bible says that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. And that is the very best news I’ve ever heard!

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At the Right Place At the Right Time
Acts 16:11-40

Kathy Lang's first day on the job was met with angry stares, bitterness, and harsh words.   "I hate you!" one girl shouted. "I love you," Kathy replied. So it goes when your workplace is a prison, a place Kathy never thought she'd be. But God clearly had other plans. A veteran surgical nurse for over 25 years, Kathy was looking for a new job. An agency that staffs nurses offered her a position at a prison. Without hesitation, Kathy replied emphatically, "No!"    A few days later in the car, she was listening to a Keith Green CD when her ears were startled by the lyrics: "I was in prison, and I rotted there; I'd prayed that you'd come." Over the next ten days she was bombarded with prison references everywhere she turned. On the TV and the radio—prison news. Her devotion book had references to prison. Kathy finally relinquished: "Okay, God, I get it!" When she arrived home, she called the agency, but the job had been filled. Undaunted, she visited a local youth detention facility to inquire if they needed a nurse, only to learn there was a hiring freeze. For the next four months she kept calling agencies to inquire. And she prayed. One night, Kathy and her daughter Jessica were driving home from the store. As they passed the prison at exactly 9:00 p.m., she and Jessica prayed, asking the Lord to open the door if it was truly his will for Kathy to work there. She promised to never stop praying for those girls. Exactly 12 hours later, at precisely 9:00 the next morning, the agency called to offer her that job. 

[As Kathy worked in the clinic,] she had the idea to give every girl a Bible. But which version? Some of the girls could barely read. After much research, she discovered the Easy-to-Read Version (ERV) of the Bible produced by World Bible Translation Center. The translation is written at a third-grade level with cross-references and Bible helps. Through a small grant, Kathy was able to get a few hundred for the cost of shipping. At the end of each appointment [Kathy had with a female prisoner], she offered the girl an ERV Bible, briefly explaining how to use it. Their responses were mixed between joy and refusal. Kathy's heart ached for these girls, most of whom were from difficult backgrounds with little hope for change. Some had lived on the streets for a long time before being incarcerated. One girl told Kathy that her family never paid for anything—they just stole it. Not only was this girl serving time for theft, but so were her parents. Sometimes girls call out from their rooms as Kathy passes: "Ma'am, what chapter should I read today?" Kathy replies, "Pick a number between 1 and 150." Whatever number that girl chooses is the Psalm she recommends.After [Kathy] gave out the first batch of Bibles, her vision was expanded to do more. She contacted various prison chaplains and was able to place more than 6,000 Bibles in four years. Kathy's goal is to see a Bible in the hand of every prisoner. And she has kept her promise to God—she never stops praying for them.                                                                                                           Kathy's guiding verse for her mission with these troubled youth comes from Isaiah 9:2: "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."

{Condensed from our sister publication Today's Christian, © 2008 Christianity Today International. For more articles like this visit Todays-Christian.com  Cindy Huff, "Taking Jesus to Jail," Today's Christian (July/August 2008)}

Faith is embracing the uncertainties of life. … It is recognizing a divine appointment when you see one.

I love traveling. There’s nothing like getting out to explore the world God has created. Before I head out on any trip, however, I like to consult a guidebook or two. Written by someone who knows the area, a guidebook will point you to things that you won’t want to miss and steer you from those sights and activities which really aren’t that great. A good guidebook can save you time and money, and generally make any trip more enjoyable.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a guidebook for doing ministry? Wouldn’t it be so much easier if God told us exactly where and how he wants us to carry out each day?  We’re going to learn this morning that God does guide us – not always where we expect, but always where his work awaits.
            On his second missionary journey Paul learned first hand how God was guiding his gospel outreach. After returning to the congregations he had started in Asia Minor on his first missionary journey, Paul looked for new territory in which to share God’s Word. The logical place to go was due west to the province of Asia. There lay some big cities like Ephesus and Smyrna. The Holy Spirit, however, prevented Paul and his companions from going into that province so Paul turned his attention north to Bythinia. But again the Holy Spirit prevented Paul from going where he thought he should go.
            While we don’t know how the Holy Spirit made his will known, we do know that he didn’t hinder Paul from entering into those territories because the souls there were unimportant. Later, churches would be established in Asia - churches in Ephesus, Colosse, Pergamum, Laodacia, Philadelphia, and other cities. By directing Paul away from that area God was simply telling him, “Not now.”
            God continues to guide his people just like He did in Bible times,  and although he has told us to go into all the world, there are times when he closes doors to certain areas or what we see as opportunities.  When God closes a door, please know He always has a perfect reason. After being turned away from Asia and Bythinia, Paul and his companions ended up in Troas, an out of the way port town in the northwest corner of present-day Turkey. Paul must have wondered what God had in mind and he didn’t have to wait long to find out, for while God doesn’t always guide us to where we expect, he always leads us to where his work awaits. Paul found that out in a vision he received in Troas. In this vision Paul saw a man from Macedonia begging him to come over and serve them. God sent this vision to lead Paul to expand his ministry into Europe.
            God still works that way to guide our outreach and ministry as a church and as individuals. We may not receive visions but we do receive requests from people to serve them. When we do we try to discern what our response should be.  Keep your eyes and ears open for such calls for help and be ready to share God’s Word with those whom God has put you into contact.
When God guides us to where he wants us to work it’s not always under the circumstances that we imagined. For example when Paul arrived in Macedonia he went to the city of Philippi – the most important city in the region. Based on his vision I wonder if Paul didn’t expect to find a large group of people just waiting to hear the gospel. Paul, however, couldn’t even find a synagogue – the place he usually started his ministry. Instead, Paul found a few gentile women who regularly met down by a river to pray. He went to that group, shared God’s Word and through that ministry God opened the heart of a woman by the name Lydia. Lydia’s conversion reminds us that although God carries out his ministry through us, it’s still his ministry. He is the one that brings people to faith. We only share the message that saves. I mean, we never know when God has made a person’s heart receptive to His truth until we make the attempt to share our faith with them.
            What was Paul thinking after only Lydia seemed to respond to his message.  Had he heard God wrong?  What else could he do?  Where else could he share the Gospel? While things seemed to go well at first in Philippi I wonder what Paul thought when he and Silas ended up in prison there. You’ll remember that they were jailed for driving out a demon from a slave girl. Did they wonder if this was also part of God’s plan?   When they were arrested they could have responded in many ways.  They could have cried out to God in anger for the brutal way they were mistreated when it was God’s idea that they go to Philippe in the first place.  They could have accepted it as a sign that this was there last journey.  They could have questioned God on now what??  Instead, Luke tells us that they began to sing.  Now what was that all about?  How could two men almost beaten to death sing?  Primarily for one reason:  They decided to trust God no matter what the circumstances and to just wait for what God would do next.  Paul believed that when we are led by God, we are always at the Right Place, at the Right Time. Well it was, for God used that experience to put Paul into contact with the jailer who was converted after hearing Paul and Silas sing hymns and share with him what Jesus had done. God still uses trials, tough situations we find ourselves in, extraordinary circumstances and even illness to put us into contact with the people with whom he wants us to share his Word. (Have Doug Share)

            A couple of weekends ago at the Men’s Walk to Emmaus, one of the attendants began to get ill.  In fact, by Saturday night he felt so bad and his chest hurt so bad they had to call 911.  The group prayed for him again and I am sure they mainly prayed that God would heal him so he could get back to the retreat or at the very least get back to his family.

            They took him to NE Georgia Medical Center.  While there a nurse who was working with the doctor to get him stabilized, noticed that he did not seem anxious or afraid.  In fact, he had a smile on his face that made her have to ask, “How can you smile at a time like this?”  He then began to tell her he had been attending a Christian men’s retreat when all this with his body happened.  She said she did not understand for she was a Muslim.  Before she could avoid further conversation, he took out a piece of polished red rock that had been given him at the retreat and he said, “No matter what you are facing or the struggles you have, one drop of Jesus’ blood represented here by this polished glass, one drop of Jesus’ blood can change everything.”  The woman suddenly broke down and began to weep and this man who would have rather been anywhere than a hospital, led this Muslim woman to Christ.  He could have moaned and groaned.  He could have shook his fist at God and said “Why did you take me away from that wonderful retreat.  I thought you wanted me there.”  But instead, he chose to trust God and in so doing realized he was at the exact place at the exact time God needed him.

            Do you really understand what trusting God means?  Here you have a Muslim woman who God knows in at the right place to receive His Word.  The man who needs to bring that word is nowhere near.  So God gets him to the Emmaus weekend and from there he uses chest pains and other symptoms to get him down to that hospital where he can very simply share the gospel.  Glory to God!  And you know what else, once they ran their tests, NOTHING SHOWED UP!  God faked a heart attack to get him where he wanted him.  Amazing.  Just as amazing as an earthquake that gives two faithful men, Paul and Silas, the privilege of leading the jailer to Christ.

            Although the church in Philippi had humble beginnings it turned out to be the crown jewel of the churches Paul started. The Philippians often sent Paul financial support and encouragement even when he no longer directly served them. We see that eagerness to serve in Lydia who, after being baptized, insisted that Paul and his companions make her home their base as they went about their business in Philippi.
            No, we don’t have a guidebook that tells us exactly where Jesus wants us to go and tell others about him, but as we make our plans we can expect that he will guide and direct our paths in the way he wants. He may even take us places we would rather not go.  But there is a promise we must learn and believe.  It comes from Proverbs 3:5-6 which says: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not you’re your own understanding.  Acknowledge Him in all your ways, and He will direct your paths.”  Do you believe that and will you give yourself to honor Him and speak for Him in every situation He brings or allows in your life? There is another message here:  don’t become discouraged if our ministry as a congregation or your personal ministry isn’t going the way you expected. God guides his work and he is leading us where his work awaits.  So whenever you find yourself in a situation you would rather not be in, don’t gripe and complain.  Instead praise God and look around you for the reason He placed you there.  You can be sure it is so that you will be at the right place at the right time.


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By the Lord's Election
Acts 13:13-52

Everyone knows we are in the last days of the 2008 elections.  No matter whom you talk to, most agree that a lot is at stake.  For different folks there are different issues that matter most.  For some it is the economy (jobs, gas prices, the stock market, you name it).  For others, the war in Iraq.  For still others it's health care or health insurance.  And for still others, it is to promote candidates that take a stand for life (i.e. pro-life, seeing value in all people whether they are “inconvenient, handicapped or disabled, or have no “quality of life.)

            Today I want to talk to you about God’s election that I believe is more comprehensive and all encompassing than any program or strategy any elected official or candidate for office can offer.

            Paul and Barnabas are in Antioch of Pisidia as opposed to the Antioch where followers of Jesus were first called “Christians.”  According to Luke, they go to the synagogue and preach Christ.  They are initially received well.  The wonderful thing Luke does in Chap. 13 is to actually give us a sermon Paul preached. 

I think the key verses in this passage are Vss. 38-39.  Everything Paul had said up to that point led to the eternal message he now preaches.  In the first part of his message, he shows how Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah promised by David, predicted by the prophets, and foretold by John the Baptist.  And then Paul presented to them something the Lord had enabled him to understand from the Old Testament Scriptures and the witness of Christ.  He combined the essence of Jesus’ teaching on faith and the Old Testament concept of justification.  Vs 38-39: “Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him everyone who believes is  justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.” 

And so Paul offers them and us forgiveness and true freedom.  In Christ’s death and resurrection God has established our acceptance by Him, something that the Law and the sacrificial system of Israel could NOT do.  This is justification by faith: Just as If I’d Never Sinned. 

            You see, God’s basic offer to us is this: It is by faith (trusting in God not ourselves and accepting His sacrifice for us in Christ) NOT the works of the Law of Moses or the good deeds we do from time to time, but by faith that a person is acquitted, forgiven, and set free from sin.  The Law cannot justify anyone.  No set of religious rules, no matter what religion you are talking about, can justify anyone, because all have broken it.  But, forgiveness is offered through the death and resurrection of Jesus. “by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things.”  All Things is inclusive grace.  The Law was not offered to be our justification.  By its very nature law cannot justify anyone because the Law establishes the way a righteous God wants His people to live with Him and each other.  That’s the ideal.  But no person is perfect.  But God is Holy and Perfect and tells us we must be the same or we are Condemned.

Ideally, living the Law to perfection, a person would not need to be justified, but no one has ever lived it to perfection except Jesus Christ.  The sacrifices made in the Old Testament were an incomplete source of justification. Sacrificing an animal cannot change a person’s heart or make them a better person. If you have wondered why the Old Testament spends so much time describing the sacrifices and what animal to offer for what sins, let me just say it was God’s way of showing us our need for a Savior who would make the one time supreme sacrifice for all sin on our behalf.

Therefore, Paul preaches that the prophets were led by God to predict that God Himself would provide the way of a complete acquittal for sins.  This, says Paul, has been done in Jesus Christ, God’s Messiah, the ultimate sacrifice for sins and the freedom from the failure every person has incurred in trying to live the perfect rules of the Law. This was and still is a revolutionary Truth.  Paul develops these thoughts further in Romans 3 and in Galatians 2:16; 3:10-11; 5:1-4.  But here, in its unpolished form, it is the cause of a tremendous response in the city.  The people in the synagogue, Jews and Gentile proselytes, hear him gladly and ask him to speak in the next synagogue service the following week.  The news of this liberating gospel spreads throughout the city.  When the synagogue meets again, almost the whole city turns out to hear more of this good news.  The difference is that the crowd, which was attracted, included Gentiles in addition to the proselytes to the Jewish religion.  The Jews became enraged because so many of them felt that God had called them and them alone to be in fellowship with God.

            The violence, which erupted, led Paul to a new direction.  vs. 46 – Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but seeing you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.”  Note that Paul says that it was necessary that the Word of God should first be spoken to the Jews.  If he had begun with the Gentiles, he would never have had any hearing from the synagogue. 

            With the violence, Paul and Barnabas decide to leave and to do what Jesus teaches that when an authentic effort is made to share Christ with others and hostile rejection is their reaction, one should shake the dust off his feet and go to people waiting to hear the Gospel.

But there is no need for Paul to shake the dust off his feet in response to our reaction to his words.  We hear him gladly for this is liberating news we need to hear repeatedly so that we live daily the freedom God offers us in Christ.

Luke reminds us that the ability to hear and appreciate our freedom through faith in the justification of the cross is by the Lord’s election. Verse 48 tells us that those who “had been appointed to eternal life believed.”  Folks, that too is a part of the work of the Holy Spirit.  We choose Christ and receive His gift of salvation and justification and eternal life because we were declared accepted on Calvary.  We reach out to grasp the gift because the Lord already had a firm grasp on us and we are filled with His Spirit because it was His good pleasure to give Himself to us.  It is all God’s doing from beginning to end.  John Wesley called that: prevenient grace: grace that is at work from the moment of conception to bring us to a point where we desire to receive the gift of God in Jesus Christ.

            When we do receive it we become a new creation in Christ.  Our desires change.  God begins to mold our thoughts and actions from His agape love.  Agape is that love of God He pours out on us not because of anything we do but just because He chooses to love us.  That is what election means to me.  Furthermore, it means I have been bought with a price—Christ’s precious, perfect blood.  Therefore I am to honor God by what I do, think, and how I act in public and in private.  It means I serve others out of gratitude for what He has given me for free. 

            That is why I get so upset at the number of Christians who decide to try sex before marriage or live together before marriage or deliberately cheat on their taxes or cheat on their spouses.  God died for us so that we might learn how to truly LIVE.  A part of that lesson is learning to live a life that pleases God.  We will never by perfect, but we are to strive to let God live His perfect life through us. For those who may think you haven’t sinned all that much, did you listen to what you were singing this morning.  Charles Wesley, son of a preacher who grew up in the church says: Murderers and all ye hellish crew, ye sons of lust and pride, believe the Savior died for you; for me the Savior died.

 When we deliberately ignore the 10 commandments or any other command in scripture for our own gain or personal pleasure, it is like we crucify Christ all over again.  We separate ourselves from His love and power and give ourselves back to the Sin He has delivered us from.  How tragic!  I wonder,  

Does he still feel the nails Every time I fail
Can he hear the crowd cry "Crucify" again
Am I causing him pain
Then I know I've got to change
I just can't bear the thought of hurting him. (Ray Boltz, “Feel the Nails”).  Do we know our lives are not ours any longer?  We are His.  God has saved us for Himself.  We are His!  Hallelujah! 

            Let me raise some questions for us:

1. Has the fact that you are justified by faith (made right with God as if you had never sinned) become the basis for your inner security with the Lord?  In other words, on what do you base your self-esteem or your value?  God or some person who treated you or treats you wrong?

2. Do we live as people who know that we’ve been forgiven, reconciled to God once and for all by Christ’s death and resurrection?

3. Has this allowed you to experience freedom from guilt and trying to make yourself right with God by your own efforts?

4. Do you know you are liberated from the power of Sin and thus from having to win God’s approval?  God loves you right now as much as He loved the Apostle Paul.  It is not based on anything you and I can do.  When you know that, what joy floods your soul!!!  One final thought:

Dr. Lloyd Ogilvie, former Chaplain of the US Senate once remarked: just as breakfast cannot suffice for the hunger of noontime or our present breath for the next, our continuing freedom and joy in Christ is dependent on a constant rediscovery of our forgiveness, that we are loved unconditionally, and that there is no need to justify ourselves.  That alone is the source of that fountain of joy in Christians that flows from the limitless grace of Jesus Christ.

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Marks of a Christian
Acts 11: 19-30

              Several years ago Time magazine carried a story about a controversy that once raged in a Waterloo, Iowa courthouse over the question, “What is a Christian?” It all started when a local doctor who had been very wealthy died, and when his will was read it was discovered that he had left a large sum of money to be distributed to the Christians in town, specifically—and I quote, “...to persons who believe in the fundamental principles of the Christian religion, and in the Bible, and who are endeavoring to propagate the same.”
            Well, when the will became public, a dispute grew over exactly who in town were Christians and therefore worthy of a share of the doctor’s money. Suits and countersuits were filed, and eventually the court was given the responsibility of settling the issue. Each of the ministers in town who had staked a claim was called in to appear before the judge to be interviewed in order to see if they were in agreement when it came to exactly what, “Christianity’s fundamental principles” were. There were representatives of all the various denominations, Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists. In fact, even a few Unitarians showed up.
            So, as you can imagine, there was a great difference of opinion in that courtroom about what it meant to be a “Christian.” I’m sure the discussion of who deserved the money was very interesting!
            As you probably know, there is STILL quite a variety of opinion as to what a CHRISTIAN is or is not. Many people say being a Christian has something to do with the country you live in.
Some believe that the political party you choose or the family you are born into determines whether or not you are a Christian. Some people even seem to refer to themselves as Christians by default — they’re not Buddhist or Muslim or Jewish or Hindu—so they must be Christian.
            Still, others think only members of their particular denomination are Christians. And that can be very confusing because there are so many kinds of denominations. For example, someone has stated that there at last count there were 267 types of Baptists!  Well, today, I want to talk about what Christians should be known for. According to the Bible there are some things that others should know about Christians.
I. Christians Should be Known for their DECLARATION OF THE GOSPEL (19-21)
THEY SPEAK OUT!
            The passage begins in verse 19 by reminding us about what happened back at the end of chapter 7 and the beginning of chapter 8.  Do you remember Stephen? He was sharing his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and what happened? He was killed by stoning. And the Bible says that, after his death, a great persecution arose so that Christians fled out of Jerusalem and began going all over the place. So God took what the enemy meant for bad and turned it for good. That’s what verses 19 and following are talking about, the spread of the church as a result of the persecution
            Now Antioch was the third-largest city in the Roman Empire only after Rome and Alexandria. It was a big city of some 200,000 people. There were a lot of pagans there, a lot of people who needed to hear about Jesus. As they fled Jerusalem for our own safety, they took the gospel with them since that’s what Jesus told them to do. So they went as far north as Antioch. Just to give you an idea, Antioch is about 400 miles north of Jerusalem.
            As they went, they “preaching the word to no one but the Jews only.” They were unaware of the changes God had wrought through Peter’s experience with Cornelius.  But “some” preached to the Grecians - Gentiles, non-Jewish persons. Not only is the gospel being shared with Jews, but also with non-Jews. The Greek word for "speak" (11: 20) here is the word for normal conversation. The implication is that these men didn’t preach as orators in the marketplace. Rather, in their everyday contacts, they told others about Jesus Christ.
            We all can do what they did. If the spreading of the gospel or the functioning of the church depends on the labors of full-time missionaries or pastors, the ministry will be severely limited. But if every person who has trusted in Christ as Savior and Lord feels the obligation of serving Him and of telling others the good news about Him, the gospel will spread and the church will be built up. Every Christian should sense his or her responsibility to serve Christ and bear witness of Him.
            “And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.”
            How did the church grow? They got the message right and go it out. The Bible says in these verses that they were “preaching the word” and “preaching the Lord Jesus.” The written word and the incarnate word must go together.
            So they grew because they had a powerful message of a powerful, holy, loving God. That’s the main thing we’re to be doing here.  If we’re not sharing the gospel we have received, we have no right to be called a Christian. Christians should be and actually are known for the Gospel they proclaim.
            A Chinese farmer who had cataracts removed from his eyes at a Christian mission clinic. A few days later, the missionary doctor looked out his window and noticed this farmer holding the end of a long rope. In single file holding to the rope were several dozen blind Chinese who had been rounded up and led for miles to the doctor who had worked a miracle on this farmer’s eyes.
That’s how we who have received God’s gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ should be. We are so blessed that we want everyone to know, so that they can receive the same good news.
II. Christians Should Be Known For Their DEMONSTRATION OF GRACE (22-26)
THEY STAND OUT!
            The Bible says in verse 22 that “tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem, and they sent forth Barnabas that he should go as far as Antioch.”  What did Barnabas see when he traveled the 400 mile journey north from Jerusalem? What did he see in Antioch?   He saw the grace of God.
            That is a fascinating statement, isn’t it? Barnabas saw in the new believers at Antioch “the grace of God.”
            When I first read that phrase in verse 23 I thought to myself, “How do you see the grace of God?” We talk about grace. How do you see the grace of God in a people? Where the grace of God is, it will be seen
A. Displayed in the countenance.  B. Declared in the conversation  What is the well of the heart comes up in the bucket of speech. C. Demonstrated in the conduct
            Notice they were called Christians first at Antioch. The word Christian was coined by the heathen population of Antioch to distinguish the followers of Christ from the worshipers of Caesar. It was at first a nickname given in derision. It was a name given in contempt then, and today should be worn in honor.
            It was given at the first by the inhabitants of Antioch, to a new sort of people that had sprung up among them, and whom they could not quite make out. These people were different..
III. Christians Should Be Known Their DEDICATION TO GIVING (27-30)
THEY SHELL OUT!
             Christian should be giving people…  Agabus prophesied that a famine that will come soon and spread across the Roman Empire. So what do these new Christian believers in Antioch do?
They took up an offering to help the church at Jerusalem
            1 John 3:17,18 “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.”
            This is pretty remarkable when you think about it. I mean, for a long time, the Jews sort of looked down their noses upon the Greeks, the non-Jews. But here you’ve got these non-Jews, these Greeks, in Antioch and they’re like, “Hey, those guys down there need help, let’s send it.” Imagine when the Jews in Jerusalem received that money gift from Barnabas and Saul. They’re like, “Where’d you get all this money?!” And Barnabas and Saul say, “From the Gentiles.” They were stunned.  God will bless the individuals that see a brother or sister in need and quietly, spontaneously, without pressure, give to meet that need. The famine easily could have hit Antioch as well as Judea.
            The church members in Antioch could have said, "We need to look out for our own needs; let the Jewish brethren take care of themselves." But they trusted God and gave to meet the needs of others. God will pour out His blessing on a generous people.

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An Epicenter in the Rock
Acts 10:1-45

Back in 1912, Ford Motor Co. had a production manager named William Knudsen - considered one of the best in his field. Knudsen became convinced that the Model T (which had been in production for 4 years) had to be updated. But, the only problem was - Henry Ford loved his creation so much it was well known that he opposed changing anything about the car.
According to Robert Lacy (in his best selling biography, Ford: The Man and the Machine) Knudsen thought to convince Ford by building an updated and impressive model to show what could be done with a few changes in color and design.
Ford had just returned from a European vacation, and he went to a Highland Park, Michigan garage and saw the new design created by Knudsen. On-the-scene mechanics later revealed how Ford responded.
They say that the car was a four door job, and the top was down, painted gleaming red and built on a new, low slung version of the Model T. One eyewitness tells how "Ford had his hands in his pockets, and he walked around that car 3 or 4 times…. Finally, he got to the left hand side of the car, and he takes his hands out, gets hold of the door, and bang! He ripped the door right off!… How the man done it, I don’t know! He jumped in there, and bang goes the other door. Bang goes the windshield. He jumps over the back seat and starts pounding on the top. He rips the top with the heel of his shoe. He wrecked the car as much as he could."
Knudsen later left for General Motors. Henry Ford nursed along the Model T, but design changes in competitor’s models made it more old-fashioned than he would admit. Competitive necessity finally backed him into making the Model A, but his heart was never in it.
Henry Ford was one of the most creative men of his age. And yet… Henry Ford - one of the great minds of his day - resisted the obvious need for change.  Most people don’t like change in their lives any more than he did. One man once observed that the only people who DO like change are "wet babies" … and even they aren’t too excited about it. And yet the God we serve is a God of change, of transformation.  While the Lord was working change in Saul of Tarsus, he was also at work in the other towering figure of the early church, Simon bar-Jonah.  The Lord Jesus had given Simon a new name years before. He was called Petra, the rock. Jesus had said, “On this rock I will build My church” (Matt 16:18). He did not mean just Simon the man alone, but his faith.  That faith would be an example of the foundation of the church.  In Chp. 10 of Acts, we see this rock split open and an extraordinary change/transformation take place. We saw the beginning of this change at Pentecost when Simon who had betrayed and abandoned Jesus stood up and professed Jesus was risen!  Peter’s faith became more Christ-centered.  But that was not the only change the Lord had in store for him.  The epicenter of an earthquake is usually the location of greatest damage. However, in some cases the epicenter is above the start of a much larger event. In these cases, damage may be spread across a larger area with the greatest damage possibly occurring some distance from the epicenter. At the very least a great rending of the earth’s crust occurs. God was doing a new and amazing work in the followers of Jesus.  Old molds were shattered, walls of separation between people were demolished and the church was being led beyond its very Jewish roots to the place where its message would be to all races, nations, and peoples.  You see, Jesus Christ had not come in the flesh nor returned in the power of the Spirit to establish a new religion, one among many, but to save the world.  He came to indwell people in order to transform them.                                                                                                                                    Now, things weren’t a whole lot different back in the days of the early church.   People back then didn’t like change anymore than we do.
When we read about the events in Acts 10, it may be hard visualize how earth shaking the events actually were.   If you had any question about how monumental this event was, you’d at least get a hint about how disturbing it must have been for the New Testament Christians by the way in which God introduced the idea to Peter.
Look with me at  Acts 10:10-17 (Peter) became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air.
Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat."
“Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean."
The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."
This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven. While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon’s house was and stopped at the gate.  In these dreams, God was telling Peter – He was going to do something new. And that “new thing” was waiting at the gate.
Now, Peter was a good Jew. He had been raised to obey the Law of Moses, and one very prominent part of that law dealt with what animals you could eat…and what animals you couldn’t.
In Deuteronomy the Israelites were told: “You may eat any animal that has a split hoof divided in two and that chews the cud. However, of those that chew the cud or that have a split hoof completely divided you may not eat the camel or the rabbit .  Although they chew the cud, they do not have a split hoof; they are ceremonially unclean for you. The pig is also unclean; although it has a split hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses….
… anything that does not have fins and scales you may not eat; for you it is unclean.
(and, of the birds) you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the red kite, the black kite, any kind of falcon, any kind of raven,…" And the list goes on and on and on. (Deuteronomy 14:6-8,10,12-14)
From their childhood, every Jewish child learned which foods were clean for them to eat… and which were not.
Now, at the time Acts 10 was written, the church has existed for somewhere between 3 or 4 years on up to maybe as many as 10 years. And ALL during that time, the church pretty much consisted ONLY of Jewish believers.
NOW, they no longer offered sacrifices… because Jesus was the perfect Sacrifice
And they no longer kept  Saturday as their only Sabbath holy day… because they now celebrated Sunday to remember Jesus rising from the dead on the 1st day of the week.
But, in spite of these changes, the Christians in this early church were still - very much - good Jews. And they still thought like Jews.  And so they still avoided things like the unclean foods listed in the Law of Moses
But… they also avoided something else. After Peter returned to Jerusalem from baptizing Cornelius & his household, we read:
“…the circumcised believers criticized him and said, ‘You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.’” Acts 11:2-3  From their birth, good Jewish boys and girls were taught that the Gentiles (that’s everybody that wasn’t a Jew) were unclean. Jews referred to non-Jews as "Gentile dogs" (this was not an affectionate term – it was an insult)  They wouldn’t sit down to eat with Gentiles.  They wouldn’t spend the night in a Gentile home.  And, if they had to buy something from a Gentile merchant, a good Jew would wash that item before they ever used it.
Jews would accept Gentiles ONLY on one condition: they had to convert to Judaism. And that meant that the men had to go under the knife… get circumcised.
Now, however, God intended to change all of that.  God planned to bring the Gentiles into His church. And He had NO intention of requiring them to be circumcised before they were baptized. 
Circumcision was the mark of the Old Contract… baptism was the mark of the New.
So God intended to bring about a major change in His church. And God knew that most people hate change. So, He had to bring about this transformation in a powerful way.
This is how God did it:  1st He chose a man named Cornelius: a man who was “a righteous and God-fearing man… respected by all the Jewish people…." Acts 10:22  

- Cornelius was someone that the Jews knew and liked
- Cornelius was NOT some stranger to their country
- He was a man who known as a man of prayer and a man who gave to the poor
- This was a man the Jews could respect
Then, God chose the most obstinate, stubborn, hard headed, uncompromising man in the entire church to witness what He intended to do – the Apostle Peter.
Now how do I know that Peter was an obstinate, stubborn, hard headed man???
Because God had to repeat His dream for Peter 3 separate times.  Nowhere else in Scripture does God repeat a dream 3 times. Sometimes God would repeat a dream twice… and sometimes God would give the same kind of vision in different forms… BUT NOWHERE else in Scripture did God repeat the same vision 3 separate times.
God said “kill and eat”… and Peter said “NO!”  And 3 separate times God had to tell Peter “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” Acts 10:15
Now… in spite of the fact that God had softened Peter up with this dream God still didn’t explain to Peter that the Gentiles didn’t need to be circumcised…
God left that lesson for later. God waited until Peter and his friends actually got to Cornelius’ house to show him that circumcision was no longer necessary.
When Peter got to Cornelius’ house along with 6 circumcised Christians brothers (the text emphasizes that these men were “circumcised”) he preached about Jesus. How He had lived and died, and rose from the dead. And Peter preached about what God had done in the church since that day.
BUT while Peter was still preaching, before he got the invitation… before the audience is said to have believed or repented or confessed Jesus, God interceded and poured out His Spirit on the entire audience. Cornelius and his household began speaking in tongues and praising God.
Now that hadn’t happened like that since Pentecost (In Acts 11:15 Peter said "As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us AT the beginning.)
Then Peter asks this question: “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water?” Acts 10:47 Now… why would Peter ask that question?  Who on earth would want to “keep these people from being baptized?”
Well that thought had crossed the minds of Peter’s companions.  Acts 10:45 tells us: The CIRCUMCISED believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.
Why would these ‘circumcised believers be “astonished?”  Because, there was ONE MINOR DETAIL that hadn’t been dealt with yet.  (circumcision)  They intended to circumcise these Gentiles before ever allowing them to be baptized. That was their intention…But, here, in Acts 10 - we find that God short circuited the entire process, and showed that He accepted the Gentiles without circumcision. That’s what Peter told the conference held at Jerusalem about a year later. This was such a divisive issue, that they had to hold a gathering to deal with the objections to Gentiles being allowed into the kingdom with circumcision. And even after that conference, there were Jewish Christians that went around to the Gentile congregations attempting to convince them that they still needed to be circumcised. 
Towards the end of that conference Peter stood up and said: “God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted (Cornelius and his household) by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.” Acts 15:8
People are afraid of change.  It makes them anxious.
Yet, in this passage we are shown that we can learn NOT to be afraid of change. Our God is a God of change.  In Revelation 21:5 He declares “Behold, I make all things new” God does all kinds of “new things” in our lives every day. When we first become Christians, we die to our past, are buried in the water’s of Christian baptism and rise up a “changed” person. A new creature in Christ.
Our God is God of change, and God can do great things when His people allow Him the freedom to change their lives and their church. 
2ndly we learn that God wants His church to reach out beyond its comfort zones to reach more and more people for Christ. The early Church was repeatedly challenged by God to do things they were uncomfortable doing so that more and more of the lost could be saved.
That’s one reason why I’m so proud of this church.  So many of us are not afraid of change.
We are a church who is beginning to look with anticipation of what God is going to do NEXT.  For example, I don’t know how to explain how this entire year we have averaged around 115 to 120 people in worship when last year we only averaged 95.  God is demonstrating that when we pray for growth, HE IS ABLE TO ADD TO OUR NUMBER. 
This morning, I got to asking myself why people fear change, and my mind went back to the day that the Israelites were at the border of the promised land for the first time… and they were afraid of the change. What made them afraid? The size of the giants and strength of the walled cities. They were afraid of change because they had their eyes on the giants, and not on God. Their fear came from their fear that their God wasn’t big enough to face the challenges they were faced with.
John Huffman in his book, "Who’s In Charge Here?", tells about Robert Dick Wilson, a great professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. One of Dr. Wilson’s students had been invited back to preach in Miller Chapel twelve years after his graduation.
Old Dr. Wilson came in and sat down near the front. At the close of the meeting the old professor came up to his former student, cocked his head to one side in his characteristic way, extended his hand, and said, "If you come back again, I will not come to hear you preach. I only come once. I am glad that you are a big-godder. When my boys come back, I come to see if they are big-godders or little-godders, and then I know what their ministry will be."
His former student asked him to explain, and he replied: "Well, some men have a little god, and they are always in trouble with him.
He can’t do any miracles.
He can’t take care of the inspiration and transmission of the Scripture to us.
He doesn’t intervene on behalf of his people.
They have a little god and I call them little-godders.
Then there are those who have a great God. He speaks and it is done.
He commands and it stands fast.
He knows how to show Himself strong on behalf of them that fear him.
You have a great God; and He will bless your ministry."
He paused a moment and smiled, and said, "God bless you," and turned, and walked out.

Which are you?  A little godder or a big godder? What kind of changes is God seeking to make in your attitude towards others, towards changes in worship, in structure, …???  God is not finished with any of us.  There are changes, big and small, God seeks to make in everyone of us all the time.  Are you letting God be God in your life?  Who or what do you fear?  What kind of people do you stay away from because they think different or act different?  God wants to do a change in us whereby our greatest desire is to serve Him and to reach others for Him.  Are you everything God wants you to be?  Is there something specific He has been calling you to do or be that you have NOT responded to?  Today is the day!

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The Gift of Boldness
Acts 4:1-31

In today's politically correct environment where you have to be so careful to keep from offending anyone, we might all have to give reports like this fourth grader who reported on the origins of the Thanksgiving holiday. "The pilgrims came here seeking freedom of you know what. When they landed, they gave thanks to you know who. Because of them, we can worship each Sunday, you know where."

            Today, I want to proclaim to you the undeniable sign of the Holy Spirit: Boldness.  The image on the screen was taken from the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 5, 1989. Most of us remember the courage of thousands of Chinese students crying out for democratic reform in China.  The revolt, as China called it, which began April 27, 1989 was finally squashed on June 5th when China sent tanks and soldiers with live ammunition to disperse the protesters. The man in front of the tank can definitely be described as bold. The word boldness from the Greek is parresia, “telling all.”  It means the conviction, communication, and the character of a contagious life based on undeniable truth and experience.  Boldness gets people’s attention and compels them to listen. It is rooted in Scripture and personal communion with the Lord.  These early Christians had a holy boldness.  They were empowered by the Holy Spirit.  Someone, not just something, had happened to them both before and after Pentecost.  Let’s unwrap these verses in Chapter 4 of Acts to find out more.

The Boldness of the Resurrection  Look with me at verses 1-4.  Remember, this crowd is gathered due to the healing of the lame man in chapter 3.  Notice verse 2.  The motive of the boldness of the apostles was the resurrection--Christ’s and their own.  They were now the Easter people for whom Christ’s resurrection was the central fact of history and the focus of their faith in a living Lord.  The experience of the empty tomb and the coming of the Holy Spirit into their lives gave them a mission and a message.  The more they focused on the victory of the empty tomb, their daily experience of the resurrected Jesus, and the fire of His Spirit burning in them, the more they sensed a freedom from pride, defensiveness, or even self-centeredness.  What had happened to them they wanted to happen to everyone. 

            They had been set free!  Christ’s resurrection destroyed their previous illusions.  Think of the false illusions about God, life now and forever, death and the power of Satan, that Christ’s resurrection smashes!  They now knew that the worst that man can do is only a prelude to the best God has to offer.  Sinful man thought they had stopped Jesus and His teaching forever, only to find that God had the last word on Easter morning.  The illusion that death had the ultimate power over life was exposed as false.  The resurrection made death helpless and reminds us that we live with an eternal hope! 

            Note that the apostles “taught the people and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead” (vs. 2).  They preached Christ’s resurrection from the dead and that everyone who believed in Him would also be resurrected from the dead.  They preached how different life is with Christ at the center and God’s power filling us to face life’s problems and perplexities with faith in the all-powerful Creator of the universe.  No wonder those who believed numbered in the thousands that day.

            It also explains why “the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed” (vs. 1).  These were the same leaders and temple personnel who had worked together to have Jesus crucified.  The Sadducees were the wealthy and wielded great influence they could buy.  The Pharisees were strict and forbade anyone from forming an interpretation of faith that differed from their view of Scripture and the Law.  These people were alarmed by the preaching of the apostles in the name of some dead carpenter and the miracle that was stirring up the people.

The Boldness of the Holy Spirit

            Imagine this awesome confrontation.  Here were two common uneducated fishermen face to face with the most powerful authorities in Israel.  What did they feel?  Any normal person would have felt at least some anxiety.  Feel the conflicting emotions, which surged within them as they looked into the faces of the very people who had condemned their beloved Lord to death less than two months before. 

            The drama of this scene gets even more intense as we feel the rage of Annas and Caiaphas.  They had assumed they had dealt with Jesus and His followers once and for all.  Not so!  These two disciples claimed Jesus was alive and that it was His power, which had healed the lame man.  Then the High Priest shouted: “By what power or by what name have you done this?” (vs. 7). These Jewish leaders have the power to put Peter and John to death.  Their lives hung in the balance.

            Then Peter, “filled with the Holy Spirit,” spoke.  Only the Holy Spirit could give them the courage they displayed.  This alone can explain Peter’s daring capacity to speak in that frightening situation.  The Spirit filled his mind, calmed his emotions, and compelled his will. Now listen: In Acts, there is a difference between being “full of the Holy Spirit” and “filled with the Holy Spirit.” To be full of the Holy Spirit happens when we surrender our lives and open ourselves to be both containers and transmitters or spokesmen of the living Spirit of God. To be “filled with the Holy Spirit” happens when there is special need for witness or ministry.  As Peter stands before the Jewish authorities he is “filled” with the Holy Spirit, so that God could speak His perfect Word for this delicate situation.  Did Peter at that moment recall Jesus’ promise to the disciples from Luke 12:11-12?  “And when they bring you to the synagogues and to magistrates and authorities, do not worry about how or what you will answer, or what you will say.  For the Holy Spirit will teach you in the same hour what you ought to say.”  The need before Peter brought forth the power of God’s Spirit and promise at this precise moment.

The Holy Spirit is both the sanctifier (making us more and more like Jesus) and the strengthener for every situation.  He brings to our remembrance what Christ did and said, gives us faith to trust Him, and enables us to grow in Christ like character.  However, it is in special circumstances that we are filled with the HS for boldness in a unique situation, pressing problem, or difficult challenge.  Peter and John’s boldness as they stood before these authorities gives us the assurance that we will be given the wisdom, discernment, knowledge, and power to be faithful and obedient in any circumstance or relationship.  Listen: the anointing of God’s Spirit will more than match the danger or opportunity. 

            I have heard many of you question whether you could stand before this congregation and give a witness of what God has done in your life or words to share your faith with a friend.  This passage teaches us that if we will rely on God’s Holy Spirit that power will be given!  The question comes to mind: what are we attempting in our lives, which cannot be accomplished without the Holy Spirit?  What is there about our lives that demand an explanation? We will never know the experience of being “filled” with the Holy Spirit for extraordinary circumstances until we dare to do what could never be accomplished on our strength alone.  DO YOU HEAR ME?

The Boldness of the Name (vss 9-11)

            These verses tell us that the name of Jesus was the secret of the boldness of Peter & John.  The Lord had promised that He would be with them and whatever they asked in His name would be given them.  As we have seen, it was through the name of Jesus that the lame man was healed.  Yet the High Priest mocks that name by demanding by what name have you done this?  The High Priest implied that some magic or spell had been invoked.  Peter’s response was more than these officials had bargained for.

            In Peter’s day, the word “name” meant the nature, personality, authority, and power of the person whose name you used.  Thus, in Hebrew, the name of God was synonymous with His presence.  According to Jeremiah   God swears by His own name.  To speak or act in the name of another was to invoke his presence and power. 

            Note that when Jesus healed or did a miracle, He did not do it by God’s name.  He was the name!  Immanuel, God with us!  The authority and power which was in Him was now entrusted to the apostles and the church.  By His name--His presence--they were empowered to do what He had done during His ministry on earth.  Notice: they are not afraid.  Peter, the common fisherman, begins to give a powerful witness.  He wants no mistake as to what name healed the lame man.  It was Jesus of Nazareth.  And in the off chance that someone present wasn’t sure which Jesus he referred to, Peter adds: the same Jesus whom you crucified.  Peter actually accused these leaders of the death of Jesus.  Bold.  Then before they can shout him down, Peter declares that this Jesus was none other than the Jewish Messiah. He quoted Ps. 118:22 - “the stone which builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”  The Scripture came alive for Peter as the Spirit brought to his remembrance verses which pointed to Jesus as the Messiah/Savior.  The point for us is this: when scripture is our foundation of faith and practice instead of our own subjective ideas, feelings, or experiences, we are able to speak with unfettered audacity.  The power of the Holy Spirit present as teacher and authority gave Peter absolute confidence and powerful persuasion as he spoke.  This same Holy Spirit is available to us.  This same name that healed this lame man is the same Name we are to pray in; the same Name we are to witness about; the same Name that imparts through us the power of the Creator of the Universe.  Can somebody say “Amen?!”  When we pray for someone or ask God to directly speak through us, God wants us to believe boldly that He is at work in that person or circumstance to do His perfect will.  However, why do we seem so often lacking in this kind of spiritual power?  Why do we wring our hands so often as if we are alone or God is asleep?

            1.  Do we believe that Jesus is who He said He was?

            2.  Did he do the miracles we read about in the gospels?

            3.  Do we believe that what He did as Jesus of Nazareth He continued to do through the

                 Apostles and the early church?

            4.  Is He ready and willing to do the same through you and me and this church?  Do we

                 believe He can and will do miracles today if we dare to believe and pray boldly in the name

                 of Jesus?

            5.  What is it in me and you which has led us to expect so little from God and settle for it?

                 This presses us on to my last point.  Peter goes on to express that there is only one way               

                  this can happen!

The Boldness of Jesus Only (vss 12)

            Peter’s boldness is based in the belief NOT that Jesus saves but only Jesus saves!  Peter declares that salvation: the free gift of deliverance from sin, real healing, and wholeness comes through Jesus alone!  Through His life, death and resurrection we are reconciled to God.  The cross was a one-time, never-to-be-repeated sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.  When we accept His death for our sin, we are forgiven and set free of guilt and self-condemnation.  We are born again; begin life anew as a loved and forgiven new person.  The Holy Spirit comes to live in us and the healing process of making us whole and like Jesus begins.  Thus we learn to love God unreservedly and others unconditionally because that is how God loves us!  Listen, we then have a lively hope that this life is NOT all there is.  Problems can then be seen as preludes to fresh discoveries of what God is doing in us and others.  The aching needs in our hungry hearts are fed by a daily, moment-by-moment companionship with God through His Spirit.  Layer by layer, day by day, God’s love penetrates our minds and souls reorienting us to think and act like Jesus. The will to live only for ourselves is replaced by a will to live the abundant life God provides and to share it with others.  No other religion or cult can promise that!

            The reason church can become boring or lose power is that we often water down or choose not to believe that Christ is the only way.  Peter’s boldness and the power of the early church stemmed directly from the truth and power of verse 12: “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” In Peter's amazing statement he brushes aside the sacrificial system of the Jewish religion and the rules and regulations of religion that lead people to believe they can earn their way to God. What God desires is an intimate, personal relationship with each and every one of us. Christ is all or not at all.  He alone can save us.  The aching need of the church in America, our church is a fresh experience of God's amazing grace, the transformation of human personality and a Holy Spirit-empowered life. 

1.  Do we believe that Jesus is who He said He was?

            2.  Did he do the miracles we read about in the gospels?

            3.  Do we believe that what He did as Jesus of Nazareth He continued to do through the

                 Apostles and the early church?

            4.  Is He ready and willing to do the same through you and me and this church?  Do we

                 believe He can and will do miracles today if we dare to believe and pray boldly in the name

                 of Jesus?

            5.  What is it in me and you which has led us to expect so little from God and settle for it?

                 This presses us on to my last point.  Peter goes on to express that there is only one way               

                  this can happen!

Our closing hymn is “I Surrender All.”  Make this your prayer as we sing.  The altar is open to receive answers to prayer and power to live.

The Meaning of Membership
Ephesians 2:19-2:19

New Members Sunday
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household” (Eph 2:19)
“…so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually * members one of another.” (Rom 12:5)
When you become a believer in Jesus Christ and receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior you become:
a new person in Christ born again part of the “household / family of God a member of the church universal of Jesus Christ, made up of all believers all over the world, throughout all cultures
It is the church made up of every tribe, tongue, nation, people, who call upon the name of the Lord
You are no longer strangers or aliens as Paul says, you are fellow citizens with the saints. You “belong” – hallelujah
But what does it mean to be a “member of the Church?”
       Rick Warren in his book “The Purpose Driven Church” says, “Many American Christians (lets make that North American) are what I call ‘floating believers.’ Any where else in the world, being a believer is synonymous with being connected to a local body of believers. Your rarely find a lone ranger Christian in other countries. Many American Christians, however, hop from one church to another without any identity, accountability or commitment. This is a direct expression of America’s rampant individualism. They have often not been taught that the Christian life involves more than just believing – it also includes belonging! We grow in Christ by being in relationship to other Christians. Romans 12:10 says, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.” (pg 309)
Many people have a wrong concept of Church membership.
Membership in the Church is not something you have, it is something you do.
a social club issues a membership, all you need to do is pay your annual dues, show up a the occasional meeting
Sometimes we the church are guilty of the same kind of thinking
Is so and so a member of your church?  We say: “We yes, he / she attends Sunday service and gives tithes or offering.”
But is that what membership is?
MEMBERSHIP IS FIRST BELONGING TO CHRIST
1. It is relationship entered into by faith.  Not by merely accepting a creed or truth, but entering into a personal one on one relationship with Jesus Christ the risen living Son of God.   Paul wrote, “I know in whom I have believed.”   He didn’t just acknowledge some essential truth; rather he entered into a very personal relationship with Christ that transformed his very life.  Therefore, to be a member is to be in relationship with him. It is to belong to him!  We used to sing that old chorus, “Now I belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to me...”
2. Membership is Belonging to the Body of Christ
It is one body, yet made up of many members.  Paul says in Romans 12:5 that “each member belongs to all the others.   There is an ‘interdependent relationship established when we become members of the body of Christ – His Church:
You belong to me and I belong to you
I need your gifting and you need mine
We all need each other
     It is not about having membership or being on the role.  It is about being a member and belonging to Christ and each other.  I have seen that work in many ways here.  And of course, our C.A.R.E. ministry is an attempt to keep this as a priority.  When you receive a card, phone call, and/or visit when you are sick, are facing a crisis, have experienced a loss, are struggling spiritually, what a difference it makes.  Your many expressions to me this week when I learned my brother, Joey died, has been such a blessing to me.  I cannot find the words to adequately tell you how glad I am that you are my brothers and sisters in Christ.  Your prayers, calls, cards, food, and the prayer shawl so ministered to me.  Thank you so much.  I love you and my faith in Christ has been strengthened by your expressions of His love to me. That is what it means to belong to the Body of Christ.  When Paul writes his N.T. letters
Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, etc.
He is identifying the ‘local church’
They were identifiable churches
I believe the Bible makes very clear that the local church is God’s instrument for nurturing new born babes in Christ, seeing them raised to mature men and women of God, equipped for service and invested in the work of the Kingdom.  God doesn’t have any orphans, every one of His children born of His Spirit are to be part of the family of God and cared for.
You might ask…
What Value Is There In Being A Member Of A Local Church?
People in the greater community of society when they talk about church say, ‘That church,’
Those who visit here at Memorial UMC would refer to the church as ‘ this church.’  But those who are members of the local church Memorial UMC refer to Memorial as “Our Church,” or “My Church.”
To be a member is to belong
To be a member is to be a contributor to the work of the Kingdom and not just a consumer
Some of the Benefits of Membership according to Rick Warren in his book, “The Purpose Driven Church” are:
1. Membership Identifies a person as a believer
2. Membership Provides a Spiritual family to support and encourage a personal walk with Christ
Gal 6:1-2 Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.
      Growing in Christ is not easy, nor is it automatic. There are many traps along the road, and pitfalls set up by the enemy to discourage, defeat and destroy the believer. God has established the local church as a means whereby to overcome and defeat the schemes of the enemy in the life of the believer.  We are here to help, support, strengthen, correct, and restore one another
Heb 10:24-25
“and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”  Being a member of Christ’s universal church is also realizing that our relationships with other believers are not temporary, but eternal.  Christ has promised every believer that he has prepared a place for us in God’s Kingdom.  One day we will all be together there continuing to serve this risen and glorious Lord.
 The Church is Given by God as A Place To Discover And Use Spiritual Gifts in Ministry
     1Cor. 12:4-27 teaches that every believer has a gift and is responsible to use it for the mutual edification or growth of the whole body of Christ.  Here at Memorial we are committed to helping people grow and use their gifting for God. We offer from time to time different methods for discovering one’s gifts where we instruct about spiritual gifts.  Once you know your spiritual gifts we hope to give you a way to use them in ministry in and through this church.
Another important and valuable reason to be a member of a local church is..
4. Membership Provides Accountability Which is Needed For Growth & Maturity
Eph 5:21  “and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”
In part – we help one another in our accountability by asking members to make certain biblical commitments in becoming a member of Memorial Church
1. Protect the Unity of the Body of Christ:
By acting in love towards one another - Rom 14:19; Rom 15:5
By refusing to gossip - Eph 4:29
By following the Leaders – Heb 13:7
2. Share In the Responsibility of Memorial Church
By Praying for it’s growth – 1Thess 1:2
By inviting the unchurched to attend – Luke 14:23
By warmly welcoming those who visit – Rom 15:7
3. Serve the Ministry of Memorial
By discovering your gifts and talents – 1 Peter 4:10
By being equipped to serve – Eph 4:11-12
By developing a servants heart – Phil 2:3-4, 7
4. Support the Testimony of Memorial UMC
By attending faithfully – Heb 10:25
By living a godly life – Phil 1:27
By giving regularly – Lev. 27:30

Now it gives me great pleasure and honor to present to you today some of those who have accepted this responsibility and are ready to live together with you as “Members of Memorial/Patton United Methodist Church:  To introduce them, first let’s watch a clip of one of them talking about his faith in Christ:

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Why Christ Had to Die
Romans 5:1-11

Not until we fully understand our human condition—that of total depravity—can we fully appreciate what God did for us through Christ's death and resurrection.
Stuart Briscoe

Charles Haddon Spurgeon said that preaching is like throwing a bucket of water at a row of bottles. Some of the water goes in some of the bottles. But by talking to people personally, you have the opportunity of topping off every bottle and making sure none of the water spills.   

If I had the chance to go back over the 29 years that I've been preaching, I'd like to sit down with all the people I've ever preached to and ask them, "Do you really feel that Christ is your Savior and your Lord?" Do you really know He died for you? I can't do that. But I want to explain to you in the simplest possible terms why Christ died for you, the significance of that, and what it should mean to you.

The Bible explains carefully that the human condition is serious indeed. We could live our lives as reasonably happy people. We can get things reasonably well organized. We can get ourselves into a relatively comfortable situation and never really feel that life is all that serious, that the human condition before God is all that drastic. Yet, if we are to take what the Scriptures say seriously, we have to come to terms with the fact that the human predicament is extreme.  What we are in ourselves is fundamentally at odds with God. That's the root problem. The technical term for it is total depravity. It's not a biblical term, but it's an accurate one, provided we understand it correctly. 

Dr. J. I. Packer put it this way: "Total depravity means not that at every point man is as bad as he could be, but that at no point is he as good as he should be." That is the fundamental human condition in a nutshell, according to Scripture. Some people try to persuade people they are totally rotten and despicable, utterly, thoroughly, totally without any good in them!. People, understandably, react to that!  They think the preacher is saying, "At every point of your life you are as bad as you possibly could be." Rather, there is no point in our lives at which we are as good as we should be. We have come short of God's glory. In this passage, there are various words that describe the human condition. In verse 6 it says we are "powerless." In the same verse it says we are "ungodly." In verse 8 it says we are "sinners." In verse 10, we're "enemies." These all point again to this fact: At no point are any of us as good as we should be. We have fallen. We have failed to be what we were created to be. That is the meaning of the word sinner: someone who comes short, someone who fails to live up to a given standard. In this case God gets to set the standard. One of the sad tragedies of our being sinners is that there is a certain powerlessness about us. This powerlessness manifests itself in different people in different ways. Martin Alfonse, a Methodist pastor in Madras, India, told an interesting story: His father, an orthodox, dedicated Hindu, became seriously ill. As a result of his illness, he went around trying hard to get proper medical care; none was available to him. In desperation, he turned to some Christians. They prayed quite specifically for his healing, and he was healed by a dramatic, divine intervention. At that point he became convinced that Jesus Christ was Lord. As a result of a specific, physical need being met, he  acknowledged Christ as Savior. Now, there was a certain physical powerlessness about him that was the direct or indirect result of sin. But Christ was able to intervene. Martin Alfonse's experience was totally different. He had an overwhelming sense of inferiority. It was so severe that he was practically crippled in his everyday relationships with people. But somebody told him that Jesus Christ could heal him in the area of his inferiority complex, that he would begin to understand his true worth as somebody whom Christ loved. When he heard this message, he turned to Christ, and Christ became his Savior and Lord. He was met not like his father at the point of physical need but at the point of his deep psychological need. Both were powerless as a result of sin. It manifested itself in different ways.            Pastor Alfonse went on to tell about a delightful family in his congregation. As is normal for Hindus, they had been looking for inner peace. They went through all the rituals of their religion. They were totally committed and deeply involved, but at no point did they ever get close to the sense of an inner peace. Someone told them it was possible for people to experience peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. They heard it, and they believed it; Christ became their Savior and Lord. They were met not at a point of physical need or the point of psychological need but a point of clear, acute spiritual need. All were the result of sin, powerlessness manifesting itself in different ways.         That is the human predicament—not that at every point we are bad as we could be but that at no point are we as good as we should be. As a result of this, there has been a debilitating impact of sin in our lives. We're sinners, and we're powerless. This powerlessness can manifest itself not just in passive inability but in active hostility. We engage in ungodly behavior. We behave as those who are at enmity with God. We become rebellious. We shake our fists in the face of God. We deride his name. We disobey his commands. We go about showing that we have no time for God at all. We enthrone ourselves, and we dethrone God, and we do all we can to resist him in our lives.   Not that at all points we're as bad as we could be, but at no point are we as good as we should be, manifested in powerlessness, ungodliness, hostility, and sin. That's basically the human condition. Do we see ourselves as totally depraved? Has that sunk in? Do we believe it?   Now, I wonder, honestly, if deep down you see yourself in those categories. I wonder if deep down you acknowledge that there is something fundamentally wrong with who you are as a person. Has that sunk in? Do you believe it? What we do is a manifestation of what we are. If you look at the terms "sinner" and "powerless," this will give you the impression that what we do is wrong because we fail to do what we're required to do.  If you look at the terms "ungodly" and "enemy," you'll see that that suggests we do the things that we are forbidden to do. We call these "sins of omission" and "sins of commission." Now some people who have lived rebellious lives have no difficulty whatsoever identifying specific sins of commission. They have no difficulty understanding that they have insisted on doing what is forbidden. I've had people say, "As you took us through the Ten Commandments, I realized I have broken every single one of them."

But the majority of people who go to church don't see themselves as sinners by commission because they live reasonably respectable lives. But every one of them, if they're honest, will admit to being a sinner of omission. Have we truly loved God with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength, and our neighbor as ourselves? Of course not.

That is evidence that what we are is fundamentally wrong. God pays us the incredible compliment of making us accountable.  Why do I say that?  This proves to us conclusively that God regards us as significant and valuable. If God is keeping track of what we do and what we shouldn't do, that proves that what we do and what we don't do is worth keeping track of in heaven. Which proves that what I do is significant in the highest court of evaluation.  If that is true, then I cannot fail to recognize that I am significant too. God has paid us the inestimable compliment of making us accountable. Whether I see myself either as a powerless sinner or a hostile, ungodly enemy, God wants me to know three things:

1. I'm accountable to him. 
2. He is just and holy and righteous.
3. He is offended by our sin. 
We come under what the Bible calls "the wrath of God." Here again, I realize that this is not a popular subject for polite conversation. But it is a subject that needs to be addressed carefully and understood thoroughly. The wrath of God is not to be seen as something like the wrath of man ballooned up to divine proportions. Man’s anger is often totally unwarranted, utterly hypocritical, thoroughly unreasonable, given to extremes.   The wrath of God, John Stott says, "is his righteous hostility to evil, his refusal to condone it, and his just judgment upon it." It's as if you've stood in the court of God, he has presented the evidence, then the judge looks at you and asks, "Do you have anything to say for yourself?" At that moment, you can't say a word. The evidence against you is so overwhelming and so utterly irrefutable, there's not a thing you can say. You are utterly without excuse. That is the human condition. I wish I could sit down with each one of you and make sure that each one of you understands that. God's divine compassion is the cure to our total depravity, to our sin.  As this diagram shows, only Christ could bridge the void between us and God.  Please notice in the passage of Scripture before us in verse 6, "While we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." Verse 10, "God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." It was while we were still in this condition that the divine compassion was poured out toward us. God is not in the business of saying, "Reform yourself, and I'll see what I can do." Neither is God saying, "You're a good kid." God is looking into our hearts, knowing we are without excuse. Yet, while we're still sinners, still powerless, he is moved with compassion toward us!  Compassion isn't just a feeling. Compassion is demonstrated by action. The action that demonstrates the divine compassion for people like you and me is this—Christ died for us. Paul said, "The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me." God loves to such an extent that he moves out and empties heaven of its greatest treasure—Christ—and gives Christ to die on a cross for us. That word "for" can mean Christ died instead of us. It can mean Christ died on behalf of us. I stand before you as somebody who thoroughly understands that in and of myself, I deserve nothing more than the righteous wrath of God and banishment from his presence for the whole of life and the whole of eternity. Yet God took the initiative and said, "Newell, it is not necessary for you to live in the condition that you deserve. My Son will take it on behalf of you, instead of you, and die for you." Incredible, but true. 

Where do these great truths leave us, then? Where does that leave me, then? Well, the apostle Paul sums it up brilliantly in verse 9: "Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him. For if when we were God's enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life." If I'm to understand what the cross is all about, I not only need to understand my condition and the divine compassion, but the eternal conclusion. The eternal conclusion is this: It is possible for me to be justified by his blood. All that I have done has been blotted out, utterly forgiven. I stand now just as if I'd never sinned. Not only has he taken away my accountability for sin, he has also taken away the guilt of my sin and purged eternity of all record of my sin. I have been justified by Christ's blood. Incredible, but true. It is incredible to think that I have been justified by his blood. But over and above that, he says that I will be saved from wrath through him. In other words, instead of there being that fearful looking forward to a judgment, that horror of death, the agony of wondering what will happen to me after I die, and that dreadful sinking feeling that if God judges me I won't have a leg to stand on—instead of all that, I can say, having been justified by his blood, I am invited to spend eternity with God my Savior!  When the day comes for me to stand before God, I will be saved from God's wrath, not through what I have done but through him. He will intercede for me. Which means that in the same way that being justified by his blood saves me from the consequences of what I've done, being saved from wrath through him means I have been saved from where I'm heading. But there's much more. Much more. Incredible, but true. If being justified by his blood wasn't enough, if my being saved from wrath through him wasn't enough,

Paul says, "I will be saved by his life." God has raised up the crucified Christ and sent his Spirit into the hearts and lives of the justified. Having been justified by his blood, we will be saved from wrath through him. In the interim we can know the presence and power of the living Christ within us even more personally than those first disciples. Incredible, but true. Many years ago when the children were small, and it snowed, after a good snow we would go outside.  As I ran around I would notice that at times the children would be trying to follow my footsteps.  It became all too apparent that they could not.  So I would stand Matthew on my feet facing the same way I was.  As I would do this, I began to stride one big stride at a time with my hands under his armpits and his feet lightly on mine.                      Well, who was doing it? In a sense, he was doing it because I was doing it. In a sense there was a commitment of the little boy to the big dad, and some of the properties of the big dad were working through the little boy. In exactly the same way, in our powerlessness we can't stride as wide as we should. We don't walk the way we should. We don't hit the target the way we ought. It isn't that at every point we are as bad as we could be. It's just that at no point are we as good as we should be. Something's got to be done.                                                                                                                                                             LISTEN: The message of Easter is it has been done. You can be justified. You can be saved from wrath. You can be saved by his life. All that is the message of grace—God offering you what you don't deserve. Don’t leave here today thinking you have a lot of time to think about what I’ve said.  You may and you may not.  God wants to justify you today and fill you today with His Life!  If you already have invited Him into your life, you know the resurrection power of Christ that makes all things new and fills you with joy and peace no matter the circumstance.  BUT, if you haven’t turned from your sins and asked Jesus into your life, you are still in your sins, and God’s wrath will be poured out on you.  Don’t leave here in that state.  Turn to Christ and know the power of His forgiveness and life living in you!

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This Sunday's Sermon - March 09, 2008

Greedy as a Pig - When Enough is Enough
1 Timothy 6:3-6:12

We’ve been looking at the various viruses that infect and destroy our lives along with the antidote God supernaturally provides through the Holy Spirit and His Word. We looked at laziness, anger, pride, and envy.
              Several years ago, Millard Fuller of Habitat for Humanity addressed the National Press Club on public radio, and he recalled a workshop at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary with 200 pastors in attendance. The assembled pastors quickly pointed toward greed and selfishness as the reason the church never had enough money to assist others creatively. Millard then asked this seemingly innocent question: "Is it possible for a person to build a house so large that it's sinful in the eyes of God? Raise your hand if you think so." All 200 pastors raised their hands. "Okay," said Millard, "then can you tell me at exactly what size, the precise square footage, a certain house becomes sinful to occupy?" Silence from the pastors. You could have heard a pin drop. Finally, a small, quiet voice spoke up from the back of the room: "When it is bigger than mine."
The ROOT of Greed
Greed is not the appreciation of money or the accumulation of things. Its not extravagance, b/c all that is relative. The fact of the matter is: if you have more than one pair of shoes and a coat then you live more extravagantly than most of our world.
Greed is human desire gone awry. It’s consumption out of control. It is when we allow ourselves to be controlled and devoured by some desire for material things.
Greed is the reason consumer debt has doubled in the last 10 years and why most Americans go into debt at a rate of $400 per paycheck. It is why credit card debt in US stands at $1.6 trillion and why Citibank commercial now bids us to, “Live rich!”
Greed is well described by a gravesite in England. One stone read, “She died for the want of things.” Next to her was a 2nd stone reading, “He died trying to give it to her!”
The Truth: Greed gives permission for possessions to possess us. It’s a cancer to contentment that eats away at its victims fostering an insatiable craving for money and things. Greed is the love of money. It’s the condition where enough is never enough.
In I Timothy 6:10, Paul says: For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Love of money – money isn’t the root evil – it’s the love of money. Money is never a problem until you don’t have any or until you fall in love with it. But those who fall in love with it end up lying for it, lusting for it, killing for it, and going to hell for it. Col. 3:5  Don’t be greedy, which is the same as worshiping idols. Note: Col. 3:5 says greed is idolatry. Greed is to love something more than God.  Look deep inside: is there anything more important to you than God?                                                                                                                   

Greed is COMMON
Greed is everywhere! That’s the problem with sin, isn’t it?  It infects everybody. God knew it would, so He addressed the issue of money more than any other topic in the Bible except the Kingdom of God. Of the 30 parables Jesus told 16 of them dealt w/ money. To put it into perspective, there are about 500 verses on prayer, 500 verses on faith, but over 2000 on money. Why? B/c greed is a common problem and what people are willing to do for it is crazy.
A survey was taken asking people what they’d be willing to do for $10 million.
– 3 % of parents said they would put their children up for adoption
– 16% said they would leave their spouse
– 25% said they would abandon their family forever
A 2nd survey was given a few weeks later dropping the amount to $1 million.
– 65% they would live on a deserted island for a year
– 30% they would spend 6 months in jail for a crime they didn’t commit
Then the survey dropped the amount to $3000.
– 24% said they would reveal a friend’s secret even though they promised to keep it.
For $500 – 66% said they would kiss a total stranger – how many of you would?             Our love for money will determine what we would be willing to do to obtain it.  Our commercials, our sports heroes so often portray that money is the key to happiness.  I do not know of one person that has found that to be true.
Greed can infect anyone
You Pharisees and teachers are show-offs, and you’re in for trouble! You wash the outside of your cups and dishes, while inside there is nothing but greed and selfishness. Mt. 23:25  The Pharisees in Jesus’ day were the spiritual superstars – teachers and keepers of the law and everyone knew it. They blew the trumpets when money was given at the temple; they were to ones who prayed long, loud prayers in public – praying, “Thank God I am not like these sinners around me.” They were the pious people of the day. Yet Jesus says they were driven by greed.
They knew the Law but they couldn’t see their greed. This ought to send a message to us – regardless of how well we know the Bible, it’s possible to be blind to greed.
We need to be concerned about our struggles w/ greed.  Even Christians can be as greedy as a pig.                                                                                                                                                           Greed has nothing to do w/ what you OWN
Greed isn’t limited to the rich. People w/ less often struggle more w/ greed than those w/ more. They spend hours dreaming and scheming how to make more money. They’re consumed by how to make a quick buck, buying a lottery ticket, gambling, or criticizing people who have more than they have. They’re convinced money will solve their every problem and make them deliriously happy. (Ecl. 5:10, 14-15   Your level of satisfaction and fulfillment in life is the greatest indicator of how greed is affecting or not affecting you. Greed struggles w/ contentment and when it has its talons in your heart, mind, and wallet enough is never enough.
Greed is COMPULSIVE
Greed can be summed up in a word: MORE!  We want more. Like most sins, greed is always out for more. What used to be a vice is now seen as a glamorous virtue.  Americans compulsively buy $1300 on credit for every $1000 they make.
This is a society that tends to judge people by the way they spend money and there is little psychological reward for being a saver. Most of the debt we get into isn’t caused by our needs, but by our wants. We have an epidemic case of the “want-itis.”
Look around you.  Greed is ruining people’s lives.  3rd and 4th graders now own their own cell phones.  They have their own TV’s.  Even we Christians often set a poor example for our kids.  We present a picture that teaches that we need things; things make us happy.  The more money the merrier. Yet can all the money in the world bring a loved one back from the dead?  Money and things cannot add one day to our lives.  They cannot comfort us when we are sad.  They cannot buy true committed love.  They absolutely cannot buy happiness.
Someone once remarked: It’s funny how People spend money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like – it shows us the compulsiveness of greed.
Greed is DECEPTIVE
Someone said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to give me my share of my father’s inheritance." Jesus said to him, "Who appointed me to be your judge or to divide your inheritance?" He told the people, "Be careful to guard yourselves from every kind of greed. Life isn’t about having a lot of material possessions." Lk 12:13-15
This is a contrary truth to our the ideas of our culture, but in this story Jesus is talking to some people about God’s Kingdom when this man interrupts and asks Jesus to tell his brother to give him his share of the family inheritance. Jesus uses this opportunity to talk to the people about greed.
Beware (be on your guard) – life doesn’t have anything to do w/ possessions. Most of us have been duped into thinking, “Whoever has the most toys wins.”
Story: A woman (Kristen Clawbury) announced to her friends she had ovarian cancer – her friends rushed to her side, prayed w/ her, cried w/ her, and helped her in every way. After a few mo., she told them the treatment at the Dana Farber Institute had failed and she was going to have to go out of state for experimental treatments and that wasn’t going to be covered by insurance. Her friends got together and held fund-raisers to raise over 40k. Then they found out it was a scam. She had cut her hair to make it look like she had gone through chemo. She took the money and bought a car, went on a vacation and had plastic surgery. At the trial, one of her friends said, “She had a disease far more deadly than cancer – she had the disease of greed.”
Greed is a Struggle for All of us
“Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be. Mt. 6:19f
Jesus is talking about the attitude and activity people have towards money. Nothing reveals the condition of our heart more quickly than how we respond to financial struggles – it is an indicator of our spiritual maturity.
Greed blurs the lines and blinds us to reality. It prevents us from viewing anyone or anything accurately. When we look at life through the lens of greed, Jesus says we will be walking in darkness and that will we not be able to think straight.  We Forget Things are TEMPORARY.
Jesus is challenging us to see how temporal and fruitless money and possessions are. They’ll eventually turn to rust or dust. Who wants to spend their life on rust & dust? But do you see the principle – anything that isn’t of eternal value is going to turn to rust or dust. Greed corrupts our thinking that rust and dust are all that matter.  Greed also breeds conflict. Do you have any clue of how many family fights are the result of conflict over money and greed? How many fights have you and your spouse had over money?
Stat: 56% of all marriages that end in divorce are the result of financial disagreement.
Verse: A greedy person stirs up a fight, but whoever trusts the Lord prospers. Pr. 28:25
            Here is the point: Greed is the opposite of trust. It can’t wait for God to provide b/c it is obsessed w/ getting what it thinks it needs even at the expense of hurting others.    Greed reveals your priorities. It reveals the idolatry in your heart.   When Jesus said, “Where your heart is there your treasure will be.” He was voicing an important principle – your attitude and love for money will tell everyone what is really important to you and what or who is on the throne of your life.
How to Fight Greed
A.  Cultivate GRATITUDE
Verse: Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Th. 5:16-18
Note: We’re to cultivate a thankful attitude (an attitude of gratitude). Paul says that so long as you have food and clothes then you have a reason to be thankful. Personally I would add a house, a car, and fishing and hunting equipment – but God didn’t ask me!
             Greed gripes about what it doesn’t have instead of rejoicing in what it does have. We need to understand that gratitude sets us free to enjoy what we do have.
B Cultivate GENEROSITY
Verse: Tell them to do good, to do a lot of good things, to be generous, and to share. By doing this they store up a treasure for themselves which is a good foundation for the future. In this way they take hold of what life really is. 1 Tm 6:18-19
Our trust should be in God alone and we’re to use our money for good – real life. If you have it, it is only b/c God gave it and you should seek to enjoy it provided you never love it more than you love God.
C Cultivate CONTENTMENT
I am not saying this b/c I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Ph 4:11-13
This verse explains that contentment is learned – it’s not standard human equipment obtained in our mother’s womb. Just spend a day w/ a newborn.  Paul was a wealthy, highly educated, and respected man at the top of his game when he first encountered Jesus and his disciples but when he’s writing this text, he was broken, abandoned by his family and friends, and was a prisoner on death row. And he had the nerve to say that he has learned to be content.
The Word: learned – to direct one’s mind toward – it means to enter into a new condition  that is beyond my present circumstances.  It is a CHOICE to trust God no matter what.  In other words, we change the way we feel by changing the way we think.
The phrase is in the Greek aorist tense meaning it’s a once for all decision. As Christians we must learn once for all to be content w/ life and God.
Philippians 4:19 :   I can be content b/c Christ strengthens me to do it. I can do all things through Christ… God, you are all that I need.  Like the song we sang this morning.  Listen to the words again:

All of You is more than enough for -  All of me, for every thirst and -

Every need; You satisfy me - With Your love;  And all I have in You is more than enough.

Greed – it is the most socially acceptable condition of the (7) deadly viruses b/c it is the most subtle and pervasive of the lot. To overcome it will require the super-natural assistance of the Holy Spirit and a commitment to focus on the things of God. But in doing so, we allow God to be our source as we trust in His great love.
Story: A young man from a wealthy family was about to graduate from school. The custom of his neighborhood was to bestow a car upon the graduate. The boy expected the norm would hold true for him. He’d spent months talking about and looking at cars w/ his dad. A week before graduation the father and son found the perfect car. The young man was certain he’d see the car in his driveway on graduation. Yet, when he opened his father’s gift it was a Bible instead of keys. He was so mad he threw down the Bible and stormed out of the house, never to reconcile w/ his dad remaining estranged until his dad’s died. As the son went through his dad’s belongings, he came across the Bible his dad had given him years before. He brushed off the dust and opened it. To his surprise and horror he found a cashier’s check b/w the pages of Bible. It was dated the day of his graduation for the exact amount of the car he and his dad had chosen together. with Houston Post, 9/2/92
            Many times God’s greatest gifts are still found in the pages of Scripture but we sometimes allow greed to destroy relationships and divert our attention elsewhere causing us to miss out on life. God is calling us today to a life of contentment and trust.  Contentment with whatever God has blessed you with and trust that whatever you NEED He will provide. 

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9

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This Sunday's Sermon - February 17, 2008

Green with Envy 
Matthew 20:1-16

Review: We’re in a study of the (7) deadly sins – we’ve looked at laziness, lust, anger, and pride. This morning we’re going to examine the virus of envy. The Bible provides many examples of envy: Cain envied Abel so he killed him; Jacob’s sons envied Joseph, so they hated him and sold him into slavery.   It is as if every time envy appears in the Bible, we see deception, destruction, and violence fostered by a jealous sense of entitlement.
            Today, many people share this same jealous sense of entitlement. I think it is because our sense of self-worth is based on the possessions and accomplishments we’ve accumulated. And in the instance someone else has accomplished or possessed more, we envy what they have gained wanting it for ourselves.
            How else do you explain an 11 year old being beaten and strangled to death for a pair of Jordan Basketball shoes?
Envy – we tend to think that there isn’t much too it, after all, everyone does it, but the Bible says that envy is a deadly toxin that will destroy your life.  Envy is not pretty.  Maxie Dunnam, retired President of Asbury Theological Seminary, says that envy is the sin that no one confesses. We will confess to being proud, for example. Jimmy Carter confessed to lusting in his heart. We might as well confess to the sin of anger because it is so easy to see. But envy…that’s another story. That one is so hard to admit. Proverbs 14:30 says, “A sound heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the bones.”

            If I could again quote Maxie Dunnam: “Envy is the sin of the evil eye. It always sees and desires what it doesn’t have. Its punishment is that it will never have what it sees and desires, because there will always be more to see than to possess.”
Paul writes to the Galatians and says this: The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. (Galatians 5:19-21).
            In the first chapter of Romans, Paul is talking about God’s punishment of humankind because of their disobedience.  Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil, they disobey their parents, they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (Romans 1:28-31).       
            Can I be honest with you for a minute? I’ll admit that I am envious of Michael W. Smith and many other great singers. But somehow, that doesn’t seem to be in the same league of sins as witchcraft, drunkenness, orgies, murder, depravity, debauchery, fits of rage, heart-lessness, or ruthlessness. But there it is in black and white in the Bible. I guess that I am really in more trouble than I realize.
Now when we think of envy as a color we generally think of the color green. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Green w/ envy.” Some people may think they look good in green, but you never look good when you’re envious. No matter what shade it might be – from lime green to dark pea green, envy is always ugly. When you are envious, you’re really just gangrene w/ evil.
The ROOT of Envy
              Define: Envy – to have an evil eye – It is a sin that begins in the eyes and longs to possess what others have. It is jealous attitude that fosters disorder and chaos.  Like in the story Jesus told about the workers.  As soon as one got more for his effort, there was disorder and chaos in the ranks.  The workers had all agreed on a certain wage and thus expected to get paid more than someone who just came to work.  Maybe we would feel that way too.  But Jesus said,  the owner has a right to pay what He wants because it all belongs to Him.  But envy is a destroyer of anything good.
            The most common destroyer of relationships and reason isn’t anger, frustration, pride, or lust – it’s envy. It rots your reasoning and ruins your relationships.  Note: Nothing good comes out of envy – it destroys everything in its wake – friendships, families, business, family business, churches b/c it fosters an entitlement mentality. It feeds on suspicion and assumption and it fuels gossip and slander. It often masquerades itself as being spiritual.
            Note: Envy seeks to level the playing field – either “up” for self or “down” for others.
            Note: The light green shade of envy is being jealous of someone else’s blessings thinking that they should belong to you instead. The dark green shade of envy is the attitude that says, “If I can’t have it then neither can they.” As a result, envy seeks to steal the blessings and joy of others.
Resenting God’s Goodness
When we’re envious, we’re really in a battle w/ God. Because envy resents God’s decision to bless someone w/ something we want or think we deserve as in the parable.
Envy is resenting God’s goodness to others. You have it – God gave it – and I don’t like it – that’s envy.

Making God’s Business Our Business.
             I can guarantee this truth: When you were young, you would get ready to go where you wanted. But when you’re old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will get you ready to take you where you don’t want to go." Jesus said this to show by what kind of death Peter would bring glory to God. After saying this, Jesus told Peter, "Follow me!" Peter turned around and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved. That disciple was following them. He was the one who leaned against Jesus’ chest at the supper and asked, "Lord, who is going to betray you?" When Peter saw him, he asked Jesus, "Lord, what about him?" Jesus said to Peter, "If I want him to live until I come again, how does that concern you? Follow me!" Jn. 21:18-21.

            Jesus has just finished forgiving Peter of his betrayal and denial and before the conversation is finished, Peter is comparing his fate with John’s fate. From the beginning, the disciples were always jockeying for position trying to see who was going to be Jesus’ main man. At one point, James’ and John’s mother pleaded w/ Jesus to give her sons the royal treatment. Yet here Peter receives the news that he will one day surrender his life on behalf of following Jesus and all he can do is ask, “Well what about John?”
            Peter put himself in a position to make God’s business his business by comparing his fate with John’s fate. This reality is at the core of envy.
The REALITY of Envy
            Envy is resenting someone who has what you want. It looks at someone who is beautiful and says how come them. At someone who is rich, why not me. It doesn’t care how hard someone might have had to work or sacrifice. Envy paints the inside of the heart an ugly black.
IT IS Un-HEALTHY

Verse: It is healthy to be content, but envy will rot your bones. Pr. 14:30
             Think of envy in the same terms as bone cancer. Rot means to decay – In Hebrew culture life was found in the bones. Thus, envy is a slow death of gangrene that rots you from the inside out.
 It kills your contentment.Ø
 It slowly siphons the joy out of yourØ life.
 It abducts the ability to enjoy what you haveØ
 It rots yourØ reasoning
 It ruins your relationships
Un-WISE
            Verse: Envy and jealousy will kill a  fool. Job 5:2
            Notice that envy is the characteristic of a fool – of someone who is empty headed. Also notice that it kills the fool. It will murder you, your reasoning, your relationships, and anything associated w/ you. But the idea is to Slay which places an emphasis on the means of death. It’s a capital offense that puts a person on death row. Only a foolish person envies what someone else has.
Un-LOVING
Verse: Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. 1 Cr. 13:4
Love looks through a telescope; envy looks through a microscope. Unknown
It is impossible to envy someone and love them. The Bible calls us to love one another. Now here is the problem. Envy isn’t just jealous it wants to see the demise of another so that if I can’t have it, no one else should have it either.
The REMEDY of Envy
            Verse: Therefore rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. 1 Pt. 2:1–3
Stop COMPARING
            The Bible condemns comparison (see 1 Cr. 4). When we compare it either leads to pride – I am better than you; or it leads to envy – I want what you have.
            Story: There is a true story behind the 1st hole-in-one on the 12th hole at Augusta, during the Masters. In 1947, Claude Harmon and Ben Hogan were paired together. While they were good friends, their personalities were worlds apart. Harmon was outgoing and charismatic. Hogan was professional and business-like. Harmon had the honors that day as they came to the 12th. He stepped up to the tee and hit the ball into the cup for the 1st ever hole-in-one on that hole. The crowd went wild. Hogan didn’t say a word. No congratulatory shake of the hand, no tip of the hat, no acknowledgment of any kind. He simply stepped up to his ball in business-like manner and knocked it a few feet from the hole. As they walked from the tee to the green, the crowd roared for Harmon. When he retrieved his ball from the cup, again the crowd cheered. All the while, Hogan was in deep concentration, seemingly oblivious to the historic event he had just witnessed. He surveyed his putt, read the green, and in typical Hogan manner, stroked the ball into the cup for the birdie. As they made their way to the 13th tee, the crowd still buzzing from Harmon’s feat, Hogan finally spoke up. He said, "You know Claude that is the first ’2’ I’ve ever made on that hole."
            There is a lesson to be learned from Hogan. We may get so caught up in the achievements and blessings of others that we fail to focus on our own potentials and forget to strive to achieve all that we are capable of achieving. We may not remember to thank God for all the blessings he has given us.
God’s PERSPECTIVE
            Isn’t that our problem? From our finite perspective we can’t see God’s larger picture. We get ensnared in our own circumstances. We need God’s view. God’s perspective shows that envy is not a sickness, it is a sin. We must treat sin w/ the proper therapy. 1 John 1:9 is God’s prescription.
God’s PURPOSE
            God created us to serve an important role in His kingdom. In a word, God desires us to be people of love. Love doesn’t look over your shoulder at what you don’t have. Love focuses on the blessings you do have and seeks ways to use those blessings to bless others. His purpose is that our lives count for eternity.
God’s PREROGATIVE
            Envy distorts our vision. We must comprehend what the Father is like, and recognize His prerogative. God’s choices are based on His righteousness, love, and wisdom. Therefore, they are Holy and just. We are locked into the present; God is eternal. You and I are limited in knowledge; He is omniscient.
              Defeating envy requires that we stop comparing ourselves w/ others, especially in the areas that are most sensitive to us.
Stop COMPLAINING
               Complaining compounds envy. It is like throwing gas on the fire. It is allowing the gangrene to spread.  The workers in the parable grumbled b/c they didn’t think it was fair and that they deserved more than the latecomers.  NOTE: Griping and complaining is the first sign of an envious life.
            If you will just stop and listen to yourself you can determine if you have envy in your heart. The core is that someone else got a better deal in life than I did.
BE CONTENT
             Be content w/ what you were promised. The men should have walked up and given the other guys high 5’s and said, “Good for you.” We have to learn how to replace criticism w/ contentment.  It is better to be satisfied w/ what you have than to be always be wanting something else. To be content, you have to learn to be thankful for what you have and to rejoice w/ others in what they have.  Romans 12:15 says: “Rejoice w/ those who rejoice.”
            If you let God fill you with Contentment, when your friend drives up in the car of your dreams,  you can you rejoice.   When someone you don’t like gets a break can you rejoice.
Note: You can REJOICE or RESENT – but to rejoice is the only godly option.
            In his short story, "The Window," author G.W. Target tells of two seriously ill men who occupied the same hospital room. The man by the window was propped up for an hour each day to drain fluid from his lungs. The other man spent his entire time on his back. The two men enjoyed each other’s company and talked for hours about all different types of subjects. During the hour one man sat up in his bed, he would describe all the things he saw to his bedfast roommate. Each day great detail would be given to the activities going on outside. He described the park with its lovely lake and grand old trees. He would tell of children playing and lovers walking through the park outside their window. One day, a beautiful parade went by. Even though he couldn’t hear the music, the man on his back could see it all in his mind as his roommate gave exquisite details. But somehow, it didn’t seem quite fair. Although he enjoyed listening to his friend describe the sights, he began to grave the view of his comrade. His desire for the bed by the window became a consuming thought. It even kept him awake at night. Then, in the darkness of one sleepless night, his roommate began to cough. He was choking on the fluid in his lungs and was desperately groping for the button to call for help. The covetous roommate could have easily pushed his button to summon a nurse, but instead, he watched the old man die. The following morning the nurse discovered the man’s death. The standard procedure was carried out and the body was removed. The surviving man then asked that his bed be switched so he could see out the window. At last, he would have what he felt he deserved. Painfully and slowly he struggled to prop himself up for that first look at the park. To his disappointment, the window looked out to a blank wall. The venom of covetousness never achieves fulfillment in life. (Laugh Again, Charles Swindoll, 1992, pgs. 50-51)   What about us?  Where does envy most often strike us?  We need to place this sin on the Cross and ask Jesus to make us content with what we have.  To be so grateful knowing we deserve nothing.  “Beneath the Cross of Jesus”
RESOURCES

Books: Tony Campolo – The Seven Deadly Sins


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This Sunday's Sermon - February 10, 2008

“Pride Goes Before the Fall”
Proverbs 16:16-18

Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust.  These are the seven deadly sins as the early church of the 4th Century saw it.  I will be preaching on these during this season of Lent.  No where in the Scripture does it suggest that some sins are “deadlier” than another except for Jesus’ mention of the sin of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.  But, as I shared Wednesday night, what leaps out at me from this list of 7 is how utterly ordinary and unspectacular they are.  These are the mundane, all-too-human shortcomings of the human race in general, not of the few really big sinners all of us know.  Perhaps there is something in us that wants to believe that “sin” must apply to someone other than ourselves.  Notice with me, if you will, that these so called Seven Deadly Sins don’t seem so deadly.  Why worry about gluttony when murder is so prevalent among us?  Surely there are more serious sins than these 7.  The striking thing is that their seriousness is not so much within themselves but in their ability to generate even more serious sin.  Let’s look at the first one in the list: PRIDE.

At first glance we might say, “Wait a minute.  You mean a healthy sense of achievement or ambition is a sin?”  “You mean if I’m good at something and know it I’m supposed to pretend I don’t realize I’m that good?”  Bear with me a few minutes and I’ll let you decide.  I think most of you will agree that too much Pride is arrogance.  But a desire for excellence, an aspiration to do the best that you can do are good things, aren’t they?  Recently, a corporate head declared, “There is no more important quality to cultivate among workers in a company than pride in their products.”  Many call Pride a “healthy human virtue.”  Black Pride, Southern Pride, Gay Pride, Team Pride.  Philosopher Adam Smith believes Pride is enlightened self-interest and creativity that can be the engine that drives society toward human betterment.  Take away Pride, Smith says, and you have a society of lethargic, lazy creatures who are content to live in the mud. Right?  I mean isn’t low self-esteem, a low idea of our value, something to guard against?  I, for one, am not so sure that low self-esteem is one of our greatest problems.  Think about it. Did the Nazis build on low German self-esteem in order to get power in Germany or just the opposite?  Is it low self-esteem that leads many into crime.  A crusty old prison chaplain once answered this question to Bishop Will Willemon this way: “Most guys are not in jail because they think too little of themselves, but because they think too much of themselves.  Every one of them thinks he’s a brilliant mind who is above the poor saps who obey the rules, go to work, follow the law.  Every one of them thinks he’s a genius and his victims are stupid.“

            Yet there are those who have thought of Pride as more of an error of judgment, the mistake we make in judging ourselves in far too positive a way, than as a sin.  In fact, most self-help psychologists insist that self-love is a recondition of a happy life.  But herein lies the problem as far as the Bible is concerned: When we take too much credit for our lives and our achievements, when we come to look at our lives as something we alone have made of our own striving rather than gifts, we are moving close to that idolatry in which the creature refuses to give honor to the Creator. 

            You see, this is the sort of “Pride that goes before destruction.”  In fact, arrogance and conceit are two of the sins that are fathered by the sin of Pride.  Self-respect is one thing; self-infatuation is another.  In noting that Pride is the first of the deadly sins, the root, if you will, we are reminded that these are the sins of the community; the sins that make life together difficult.  My Pride usually poses no real problem to you, as long as we remain strangers.  But if we should attempt to get together to work on something, then Pride is a problem. 

            For one thing, Pride can lead me to some very bad judgments.  The person who thinks of himself or herself as a genius is on their way to some really stupid mistakes.  The warrior who thinks of himself as invincible isn’t a warrior for long.  The gambler who is convinced he is a genius is on his way to the poor house.

Yet, when all is said and done, most people can’t think of much that is wrong with a healthy-within limits-sense of Pride except that Jesus was against it.  Only a faith that believes that Jesus was the full revelation of God would consider Pride a sin.  The stories of the temptations of Jesus are great examples of this.  At His baptism, the heavenly voice proclaimed, “You are my Son, whom I love: with You I am well pleased.”  Yet though he was “full of the Holy Spirit,” that same Spirit led him into the wilderness where for “forty days he was tempted by the devil.” 

            In the desert there are no clear paths, so you have to make your own way.  Without city walls and protection, you are on your own in the desert.  This is one reason why most of us fear being alone for too long, and why we must always have music pumping into our ears.  Alone, in the quiet, in the desert, voices come, and for Jesus, the voice that comes, after the heavenly voice, is that of the devil. 

            Here the devil constantly appeals to Jesus’ Pride.  “If you are the Son of God command this stone to become a loaf of bread.  Think about it.  The person who could turn stones into bread could do a lot for the poor.  Jesus says, “NO.” 

            Then Satan promises that if only Jesus will worship him, he will give him the kingdoms of the world.  Again, Jesus says “NO.”    And then he refuses to do a spectacular feat, sure to leave everyone with wide open eyes of surprise and admiration—throwing himself off the Temple.

            This battle between Jesus and the devil is a battle over who Jesus is.  Is he who God proclaims?  If He is the very Son of God, then he ought to act like God.  This is what the serpent offered us in the Garden: “Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God" Genesis 3:5).  And yet, Jesus says “NO.”   

Luke says that Satan sulked away, leaving Jesus “until an opportune time” (Lk 4:13).  We hear no more of the devil or his temptations until the end of the Jesus story.  As Jesus hangs on the cross in mortal agony, the devil’s words are used by the soldiers when they mock Jesus saying: If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself” (Luke 23:37). And the criminal (that’s us) screams, “If you are the Messiah, save yourself and us.”  This time the devil’s words are on our lips.

            If you are the Son of God, then act like it!  Act like our definition of God.  Don’t be who God says you are, be who we say your are!  Jesus is silent. He hangs there in pain and humiliation and shame.  He says no to the devil with his silence.  As Will Willemon says it, “The last temptation of Christ is to be the God we thought we deserved.”  Again, Jesus says “NO.”     Even the all powerful, all-knowing Savior sees Pride as sin.

            This is why the Apostle Paul after telling the Philippian Christians and us “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves”  to have the same attitude of Christ.  This attitude was the humility that led Jesus Christ to leave heaven, humble Himself, take the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:3-7).   This is not at all what we expected of God or of God’s Messiah.  And if this self-emptying humble servant hood is the shape of God, how is it possible for us frail, vulnerable creatures to have this Christ-like mind?  To obey Him even when it is the hardest thing we could ever attempt.  To realize that Pride is love perverted and misapplied.  To realize we are sinners who by our very nature cannot achieve even the tiniest Christian virtue. 

We are sinners.  We want to be like God but on our terms, not God’s.  Scouts: (Boy, Cub, Girl) are taught the Law of the Pack and the Scout Law.  The teaching of the Bible consistent from cover to cover is that we are susceptible to Pride.  We have selfish ambition.  We too often think more highly of ourselves than we ought. We too often say, “We’re #1!”  When someone points that out we always want to say,  “we may not be the best person in the world but at least we are better than this person or that person or those hypocrites in the church.”

            In Luke 18:9-14 Jesus tells the story of two men who went to the Temple to pray.  One, a good-for-nothing tax collector, collaborator with the Romans, and swindler of his own people, prayed, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'  He had nothing, claimed nothing, and sought everything.  He wasn’t acting humble, he was publicly humiliated.

            The other man, an outstanding righteous, sacrificial Bible-believer, prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'  Look at him.  He is not only a good man, but a really good man who does what Jesus urged and goes the second mile in his living and his giving.  His virtues he regards as gifts (“God, I thank you…”).

            Still, Jesus shocks us by saying: “This man, (the cheating scoundrel) went to his home justified rather than the other; For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

            WOW!  What on earth are we supposed to do with that?  Okay gang, let’s get out there and really be humble this week.  Listen: The tax collector’s humility wasn’t a virtue, something he had worked at. It was simply a realistic assessment of his situation.  He was a failure at being righteous.  He had no hope of setting things right between himself and God, except God. 

            Perhaps the early Church Fathers called Pride the chief sin in an honest attempt to address that particular sin of “good” people first; the sin one most likely would find hanging out at the church.

            We are what we worship.  Thomas Aquinas noted that Pride is a turning away from God.  It is worship wrongly ordered.  It is thinking of oneself as the “captain of my own destiny.”  This is why Paul writes in Colossians: “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (Col. 3:17).

            If you are not attempting to be a Christian, I can’t imagine why you would be troubled by our sense of Pride.  If there is no God, then Pride can be a healthy, creative response to the emptiness of the world. 

But for those of us who are following the way of Christ, then our Pride—our subtle, deceitful, Pride is the first sin that we must consider and confess.  There is something incredibly pitiful about modern, 21st century North Americans telling ourselves that our greatest need is for more self-esteem, more self-confidence, more self-assurance—revealing how little esteem, confidence, and assurance we have in ourselves.  Of course, from a Christian point of view, that is precisely the problem—ourselves.  And we would not have had such a problem with ourselves, would not have had to worry so much about a matter like Pride, had we not been encountered by Jesus.  He told us we were in need of a Savior. 

            You know, some of the most moving moments in worship is when we come forward and hold out our empty hands to receive an ashen cross on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday or bread and juice at Communion.  What is normal and natural, is the clinched fist, the hands grabbing and holding tight to what they can get.   Here we are with outstretched empty hands requesting grace.  It is a stark reminder of our need; of our weakness and frailty reaching out to the only one who can save us---Jesus, our Savior.  Pride may be something we have to struggle against often, but it is forgivable.  Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of which I am the worst.  Jesus comes to forgive me when I stretch out my empty hands and ask.  There is not one of us who has not fallen into the sin of Pride.  As we sing “The Old Rugged Cross” I invite you to let the power of the cross draw you to confess your Pride and ask for God’s love and mercy.  If you mean it, you will receive forgiveness.

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The Light Has Dawned!
Matthew 2:1-2:12 

Have you ever read Barbara Robinson’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever?  It is the story of a church, which is faced, with the drudgery of putting on the Christmas pageant for yet another year. The woman in charge breaks her leg and no one wants to take it over. It falls to one particular woman who would rather do anything else, but she agrees.
A family named the Herdmans has found their way to Sunday School because they heard there was food there, much to the chagrin of all the other children because that was the best thing about Sunday School – no Herdmans.  Imogene Herdman smoked cigars and they were always fighting with someone.
At the first rehearsal no one wants to volunteer for the part of Mary, Joseph, the Wise men, or the angel of the Lord. It was always the same people who needed to be coerced and they were waiting to be begged. But before that could happen the Herdmans all volunteered. Imogene was to be Mary, Ralph was Joseph, Gladys was the angel of the Lord, and the other brothers the wise men.
This was scandalous. Whoever heard of a cigar smoking Mary or an unwashed Joseph? The congregation was in an uproar – all waiting for the pageant to collapse in a fist fight. It was truly scandalous. As the rehearsals unfolded it was necessary to explain the story because the Herdmans knew none of it. How dare the inn keeper refuse them room, didn’t he know it was Jesus. Herod should be taken out. The shiny veneer of the Christmas story dissolved, much to the offense of the congregation. You didn’t say Mary was pregnant in church!
Well the pageant unfolds, and I would like to read you parts of the ending. (p.72 ff selected passages)  “Ralph and Imogene were there all right, only for once they didn’t come through the door pushing each other out of the way. They just stood there for a minute as if they weren’t sure they were in the right place – because of the candles, I guess, and the church being full of people. They looked like the people you see on the six o’clock news – refugees, sent to wait in some strange ugly place, with all their boxes and sacks around them.
            It suddenly occurred to me that this was just the way it must have been for the real Holy Family, stuck away in a barn by people who didn’t much care what happened to them. They couldn’t have been very neat and tidy either, but more like this Mary and Joseph (Imogene’s veil was cockeyed as usual, and Ralph’s hair stuck out all around his ears). . ..
            Next came Gladys, from behind the angel choir, pushing people out of the way and stepping on everyone’s feet. Since Gladys was the only one in the pageant who had anything to say she made the most of it: “Hey, unto you a child is born!” she hollered, as if it was, for sure, the best news in the world. And all the shepherds trembled, sore afraid – of Gladys, mainly, but it looked good anyway. . . . .
            As for ruining the whole thing, it seemed to me that the Herdmans had improved the pageant a lot, just by doing what came naturally – like burping the baby for instance, or thinking a ham would make a better present than a lot of perfumed oil. Usually by the time we got to “Silent Night”, which was always the last carol, I was fed up with the whole thing and couldn’t wait for it to be over. But I didn’t feel that way this time. I almost wished for the pageant to go on, with the Herdmans in charge, to see what else they would do that was different.
Maybe the Wise Men would tell Mary about the problem with Herod, and she would tell them to go back and lie their heads off. Or Joseph might go with them and get rid of Herod once and for all. . . .
            I was so busy planning new ways to save the baby Jesus that I missed the beginning of “Silent Night”, but it was all right because everyone sang “Silent Night”, including the audience. We sang all the verses too, and when we got to “Son of God, Love’s pure light” I happened to look at Imogene and I almost dropped my hymn book on a baby angel.
              Everyone had been waiting all this time for the Herdmans to do something absolutely unexpected. And sure enough, that was what was happening.
             Imogene Herdman was crying.  In the candlelight her face was all shiny with tears and she didn’t even bother to wipe them away. She just sat there – awful old Imogene – in her crooked veil, crying and crying and crying.  Well, it was the best Christmas pageant we ever had. . . .
            And this was the funny thing about it all. For years, I’d thought about the wonder of Christmas, and the mystery of Jesus’ birth, and never really understood it. But now, because of the Herdmans, it didn’t seem so mysterious after all. . . . .
            But as far as I am concerned, Mary is always going to look a lot like Imogene Herdman – sort of nervous and bewildered, but ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her baby. And the Wise Men are always going to be Leroy and his brothers, bearing ham.” Robinson, Barbara, Avon Books, 1972
Today we celebrate the coming of the Wise Men to see the one for whom the stars told to look. Imagine exotic foreigners arriving at a barn bearing gifts. Speaking foreign languages to peasants. These were not friendly neighbors speaking gentle English dressed in our father’s bathrobe. A whole new world broke in upon Mary and Joseph. We know the story so well we skip to the end, in the process sanitizing it from all that would appear remarkable or earth shattering. I can only imagine what a similar event would need to be today to represent the same degree of wonder – aliens from a space ship?
            We need to recover the wonder of the Epiphany, God being revealed to us in God being born into our world, for the salvation of the world! It is so easy to become like the congregation at the Christmas pageant – Yea! We know the story, get it over with and with as little fuss as possible.

But, imagine “Hey, unto you a child is born!”    This is Epiphany – when someone trapped in the darkness of sin sees and believes in the glory of Jesus Christ. When someone finally stops trusting in himself for salvation, and starts trusting in Christ. This is what happened to the wise men from the East. Every year, these Gentiles from a far away land are the focal point of the Epiphany season. They came from a place where no one knew about the Christ. No one knew about the true God who was sending a Savior. But somehow,  they knew.  And when they saw his star, somehow they knew that the Messiah had come. And so these men left their land of spiritual darkness because they wanted to see and worship the Christ. They made the long trip to Jerusalem, and they were probably surprised to see that this city was just as spiritually dark as the land they had come from.
But finally, they found the Messiah. Isaiah 60 talks about the wise men in verse 3: “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” Later in verse 6 it says, “… all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord.”  There, in the form of a little child, the wise men saw the light of the world. There they saw the glory of God, and this is what filled them with a spirit of awe and worship. They had gone from darkness to light, and they rejoiced, and gave this child who was their God their gifts from afar.
            People once called Epiphany the “Gentile Christmas,” because one of the main themes of the Epiphany season is that Christ is the light, not just for a select group of people like the Jews, but for all people, all over the world. Epiphany is when anyone living in the darkness of sin, people like you and me and those wise men from the east – anyone can come and see the glory of God, as he reveals it through the person of Jesus Christ. Just as the sun rises on every nation, on every kind of people, no matter who you are or what your background is, just as the sun, every morning, rises on you, so it is with Christ. His grace, his forgiveness, his salvation, rises and shines on the Jews in Bethlehem, but also on the wise men from the east. His grace and forgiveness rises and shines on every person on this earth – every person is invited to believe in this child, to worship him, to find their salvation in him. No matter who you are, you too, can go from darkness to light. DO YOU BELIEVE THAT?  I do.  Yesterday I spoke with a mom whose stepdaughter is into alcohol and pills.  She has a young son.  The man this young woman is living with is not her husband or the father of the child.  They fight and fuss and party and get into trouble and straighten up for a while and then get drunk or high and start the whole cycle over again.  I told that mother that only Jesus could bring light into that darkness.  I believe that.  DO YOU??
One of the priorities this congregation has placed before itself this year is “Outreach”and “Growth.”   One of the methods we are going to use to enable us to be more intentional about this is the Welcome Basket Ministry/C.A.R.E. (Christians Actively Reaching Everyone) This ministry is about meeting as Teams one night each week to pray, address cards to sick, shut-ins, and first-time visitors, to plan how to give long-term care to those who are in painful circumstances, and to visit those in our congregation and community who need to know the love and compassion of Christ.  It will require all of us to recover some of the wonder of what God has done for each of us.  All of us can be more “Invitational.” “Hey, unto you a child is born!” To often we have become like the congregation expecting Wise Men in our father’s bathrobes, and a baby in a clean smelling manger. The Gospel is sanitized to the point of losing all offense but also all grace and wonder.
            There have been times when people have walked into our church looking for “this baby” – this Jesus who promises to give them hope”, only to be turned away because few of us greet them or we seem very indifferent to the message and indifferent to this baby. Not intentional, simply that it has become old hat. Others come with so many words and say like the Wise Men, “Where is the child who has been born the King of the Jews?  For we have come to pay him homage.” We live, more and more among an alien people who have not heard of Jesus. They get glimpses of Jesus and the hope and go looking. Will we have the words and the welcome to help them pay homage to the one they seek?  Will our hope be fresh enough for us to share the good news that here is the one who promises life and hope?
            Often we stay away from people like the Herdmans or this young woman I spoke about a moment ago, because they are different than us.  Yet  they may be the ones to help us rediscover the hope that has become old news. We keep them out by our own private vocabulary, our little groups of friends and way of doing things that can make them feel like foreigners who are not welcome.  I don’t think we do this intentionally, but the result is the same. We miss an opportunity to connect someone with Jesus, the Light of the World.  When you and I hear of people in darkness, we are called to bring His light into their darkness.  The question is: will we?
            We have set before us a priority “to provide an outreach ministry designed to encompass God’s children who are unable to participate, or are not involved or active in the membership of Memorial/Patton UMC.”

To do this all of us need to try to:
· Demonstrate unconditional love and acceptance for all people, regardless of race, age, ability, etc.
· Minister to people in their times of need
· Create a greater awareness of our church within the larger community through our Welcome Basket / C.A.R.E. Ministry.
· Acknowledge the lack of attendance / involvement of congregational members and seek to determine their needs
It requires that we renew the awe and wonder of a God who would break into our world. It requires that WE be willing to be on a TEAM or active in inviting others who look for the Wise Men among us, foreigners who come with awe and wonder at the birth of this child. It requires that we allow the Herdmans among us to rekindle the wonder.

             Outreach then becomes only natural. We have been chosen to be God’s children and we want more brothers and sisters! Not only those who find there way through our doors, but all those whom we touch each day.

            “Hey! Unto you a child is born!”


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The Ugliness of Christmas
Timothy 1:15

For many years now here at (Memorial & Patton), it's been my challenge and joy to preach Christmas messages.  This year for whatever purposes in the mind and heart of God, I have felt strongly the need to preach on what I have chosen to call "The Ugliness of Christmas." The title and actual sermon idea comes from a broadcast of Grace to You which aired recently.  I was intrigued and convicted by what John McArthur taught that day and I hope to convey in my own words the message God inspired me with that day.  Having said that, I don't intend to depreciate your joy at this time of year, but to enhance your joy, to create within you a true joy by understanding another one of the marvelous facets of the birth of the Savior.                                                                                                                                            

I suppose the most famous popular song about Christmas is "White Christmas."  "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas."  But if we may, I'd like us to talk about the blackness of Christmas, the other side.  And I suppose that most people when they think of this time of year think only of the beauty of it, and we're surrounded by the beauty, lovely trees with bright lights and decorations, colorful ornaments, beautiful candles, wreaths, snow scenes, warm fire places and a hearth in a family home, beautifully wrapped presents, everything is bright and light and cheery and happy.  And I guess that all of that symbolism is conveyed to us most significantly in the Christmas cards that we receive which present to us almost a world of fantasy, beauty, wonder, and loveliness, that is one side of Christmas, without question. But there's also another side.  There's a very ugly side. And there are a lot of ways we could approach that.  I mean, we could talk about a dark, cold night in a small non-descript village in Palestine where a lovely young woman gave birth to a baby in the most unsanitary wretched conditions imaginable, standing in the filth and manure of a stable.  We could talk about the ugliness of a man named Herod who because he feared the loss of his control and power massacred all the babies in that region.  Christmas does have some ugly aspects.  We could talk about an indifferent population in Jerusalem. But there's something even beyond those things.  There is lurking behind every beautiful scene on every Christmas card, every lovely sentiment of Christmas somewhere behind all of that is something very vile and very ugly, the most wretched heinous hideous reality in all the universe.  And I really believe that to have a proper understanding of the beauty of Christmas, you must have a proper understanding of the ugliness of Christmas. Let me see if I can't help us to focus in on what I'm referring to.  In Matthew chapter 1 and verse 21 we read very familiar words, "And she shall bring forth a son and thou shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sin."  First John 3:5 says, "And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins."  First John 4:14, "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world."  And then I want us to focus on one very specific text, 1 Timothy 1:15 where Paul says, "This is a faithful saying, a true word, a trustworthy word and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

The dark and ugly side of Christmas is sin...Sin.  The heart of Christmas is this: Christ came into the world to save sinners.  "You shall call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sin."  And the real beauty of Christmas is to understand the ugliness that it cures.  And that is my concern today, to demonstrate the power of sin, to demonstrate the power of Christ's living and dying and rising again to deal with that which blights all of human life: SIN.  That which pervades the entire world, and because of sin there are tears and pain and war and fighting and anxiety and discord and unrest and fear and worry and sickness and death and famine and earthquakes and pollution and poverty. All those things which mar our existence are the direct result of sin.  Sin disturbs and disrupts every human relationship, whether between man and man, man and creation or man and God.  Thomas Watson, the great Puritan writer once said, "Sin has turned beauty into deformity and the wicked takes more care to have his sin covered than cured."  Men are much more prone to excuse their sin then they are to examine it.  And so it's fitting that at this time of the year when men would cover their sin with all the beauty of Christmas that the covering be torn off if but for a brief moment to reveal the ugliness that is behind it all.  You see, the reason that Christ was born was to be the Savior who came to deliver us from sin.  If there were no sin there would need to be no Christmas. It is that which generates cosmic chaos.  It is that from which no one escapes.  And all who die in childbirth or from heart disease or cancer or war or murder or accidents or old age or whatever else, all are dying and all are dying because of sin.  The Bible says, "The wages of sin is death."  And every person on the earth will die. But the Bible says Jesus Christ came into the world to save us from sin.  That's the reason for His coming.  Sin is the ugliness of Christmas.  It is the reason for Christmas.  Every broken marriage, every disrupted home, every shattered friendship, every argument, every disagreement, every evil thought, evil word, evil deed, every good deed undone, good thought unthought-of, good word unsaid can be attributed to sin.  And that is why in Joshua 7:13 it is called the accursed thing.  It is compared in Scripture to the venom of snakes and the stench of a grave.  And anything that is that sinister and that powerful and that totally debilitating for the whole human race must be dealt with if God who was infinitely holy is to bring man to Himself.  Thus Christ came into the world to deal with sin.    

Sin is the ugliness of Christmas.  It stands behind the scene and is the reason the Savior came.  "This is a true statement and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," that's the issue.    Now I want us to face some questions regarding sin.  Question number one, what is sin?  What is it of which we speak that has so blighted the world?  John Bunyan said, "Sin is the dare of God's justice.  Sin is the rape of God's mercy.  It is the jeer of His patience, the sleight of His power and the contempt of His love."  But more than that, what is sin in simple terms?  I believe the definition of 1 John 3:4 puts it as clearly as any, "Sin is the transgression of the law."  Sin is breaking God's law, any violation of God's law.  In the Greek text of that verse, sin equals lawlessness, lawlessness equals sin. It is living as if there were no God and no law, no authority, no standard, just like people live today and have always wanted to live.  It denies the reality of God's authority.  It says God is not in charge and cannot put on me a binding rule.  It is living beyond the boundaries God has set.

And God has given His law.  He has written His law in our hearts, the Bible says in Romans 2.  He has written His law in the pages of holy Scripture and the law according to Romans 7:12 is holy, just and good.  In it there is nothing impure, nothing unfair and nothing wrong.  It is holy, just and good.  And there is no sane reason to violate God's law other than the fact that men desire to run their own lives, to do what they will and they deny God His rightful place.  All of God's law is for man's blessing.  All of God's law is for man's good.  All of God's law is for man's happiness, man's salvation, man's eternal joy.  But mankind are fools and have defied the beauty of what God has provided within the framework of obedience to His law, he has leaped the fence, overstepped the boundaries and landed deep in the quagmire and muck of his own sin and cannot extricate himself.   In its simplest term, Sin is a violation of God's law. Now that leads us to a second question, what is sin like?  What is the nature of sin?

We need to understand that its nature is that it defiles. It is not only a defection,  that is it is not only a rebellion, it is not only a transgressing of God's law or stepping over the boundaries, but it is a pollution.  It is a defiling.  It is to precious metal what rust is.  It is what stain is to silk cloth, what smog is to a blue sky.  It is a defiling thing.  It makes the soul red with guilt and black with evil.  In 1 Kings 8:38 the sin of man's heart is compared to oozing sores of a deadly plague.  In Zechariah 3:3, compared to filthy garments.  It is a defiling polluting staining thing.  It stains the soul and blots out the image of God.  And according to Zechariah 11:8 it makes God loathe the sinner.  And according to Ezekiel chapter 20 verse 43, when the sinner sees his own sin, it makes him loathe himself. Sin pollutes and defiles and stains and mars everything it touches.  And it touches everything in the human realm.

Secondly, sin is also defiant.  It is defiant in its nature.  In Leviticus 26:27 God speaks of those who choose to walk in opposition to GOD.  It is defying God.  It is clenching your fist and striking a blow in the face of Jesus Christ.  Sin drives a nail in His hand.  Sin crushes a crown of thorns on His head.  Sin jams a spear into His side.  Sin spits on Him.  Sin mocks Him.  Sin says "I will do what I will do, I don't care what Your claims are or who You are."                                                                                                                                                  In Jeremiah when he was indicting the people of Israel for their evil against God, he says in chapter 2 verse 31 that the people say, "We are lords, we will come no more to Thee."  And that is the statement of every sinner, we are lords, we come no more to Thee, we're not interested in Your sovereignty and Your rule.  We rule.  We're in charge.  And Jeremiah 44:17 says, "We will certainly do whatsoever thing goes forth out of our own mouths."  In other words, it is the characteristic of the sinner that he does exactly what he desires to do. 

Thirdly, sin is Ungrateful...sin is ingratitude.  You see, according to Acts 17:28, the Bible says, "In Him...that is in God...we live and move and have our very being."  You know, of course, that without God you wouldn't be here.  You were created by God, you live and breathe because God made you as He made the whole world.  And whatever it is in this world that you have and whatever it is that you enjoy and whatever it is that you possess, you have because of God and because He is a merciful God and providentially kind and gracious.  He has created a good world for us and blessed us with His favor.  And we have another breath because there's God and He gives that breath to us. In Matthew 5...chapter 5 verse 45 it says of God, "He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and He makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust."  In other words, He has blessed the world...the world of sinful men with His kindness and His favor.  It is God who has provided all the food the sinner eats.  Every delicacy, every taste you enjoy, every beautiful scene you've ever seen, every good feeling you've ever felt God gave you that.  It is God who has granted every beauty, it is God who has given wisdom to our minds, coordination to our bodies, to allow us to think and to feel and to work and to play and to rest that life might be full and useful.  It is God who made love.  It is God who made laughter.  It is God, of course, who gives us joys in life, little children, friends.  It is God who gives each man the special skill, each woman the special ability that makes him and her who they are and no one else.   It is God who made man to have a basic care for himself and each other so that life is filled with those kinds of good things that we all enjoy.  It is God who preserves us from getting every disease and dying every death.  God literally surrounds the ungrateful sinner with His providential care and when we continue in sin, we defy that goodness and we express ingratitude for that kindness. Sin is such gross ingratitude.  It seeks to dethrone and destroy the one who gave us all we have...unbelievable.  That's the nature of sin. Sin is also incurable.  Sin is humanly incurable.  In Jeremiah 13:23 the prophet said, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?"  The answer to that rhetorical question is NO!  The Ethiopian can't change his skin, the leopard by thinking by doing something cannot change his spots.  And then the prophet says, "Then may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil."  As the Ethiopian cannot change the color of his skin and the leopard can't change the color of his spots, nor can you do good who are bent to do evil.  There's nothing human that can change that...not all the resolution in the world, not all the self-effort, not all the religion, sin is humanly incurable.

That is why Jesus said, “No one is good, no not one.” Sin is the incurable leprosy of the soul.  It can't be legislated out.  It can't be philosophized out.  It can't be psychologies out.  It can't be wished out.  It can't be pushed out by self-effort.                                                                                                                                       And so, Christmas is this, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.  There's no other way.  There's no other cure.  Sin is a disease cured only by one thing, and that is the blood of the divine physician Himself.  Further in understanding what sin is like, we ought to say that sin is also hated by God.  It is detestable to God.   Sin is the only thing that God has eternal antagonism against.  He condemns no one except a sinner.  That's all.  That's the very narrow category in which God has eternal hatred.  God does not resist a man because he's poor.  God does not resist a person because they are ignorant or crippled or ill or despised by the world or limited in ability or because they seem to have little to offer.  No, there's only one thing that alienates a person from God and that is sin...that is it.  God is antagonistic only to the sinner. In Jeremiah 44:4 God says, "O do not this abominable thing that I hate."  That's God's word to wayward rebellious defiant defiled sinners.  You see, our God is holy, all holy, only holy, altogether holy and always holy.  And the sinner is sinful, all sinful, only sinful, altogether sinful and always sinful.  And how the two can be brought together?  Only when sin is eliminated.  And that is done by the work of Jesus Christ who came to save sinners.   So, sin is defiling and defiant and ingratitude, it is humanly incurable, it is hated by God. How many people does sin effect?  That's our third question.  The answer is in Romans 3, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  For there is none righteous, no not one."  That's just for you who think you're the one.  No, not one.  Sin entered the world through one man, Adam.  And by Adam then came a whole civilization of sinners.  Like produces like. Original sin in Adam contaminated the entire human stream.  And if you have a question about it, it's very simple to answer...the wages of sin is death and if you die you die because of sin, that is simple and clear.  If you look at your life and you want to know whether you're a sinner, ask yourself if you've ever been ill, if you're growing older, if you will die.  The answer is yes and sin is the reason.  You cannot deny that.  And the roots of sin are so deep, they are so deep that even after salvation, sin remains a struggle for the Christian.  Paul cries out, "The things I want to do I don't do, the things I don't want to do I do, I see this sin that is in me". Listen, sin brings the worst things in life.  It exposes men to all the ultimate misery.  The final result of sin is that it damns people to hell.  In Revelation chapter 20 it says in the end at the Great White Throne Judgment the Lord will gather all the unbelieving and cast them into the lake of fire that burns forever.  Jesus taught the doctrine of hell.  He was the one who framed it and articulated it in the gospels.  And we need to know this, dear friends, that of the six billion, two- hundred and twenty-five million or so people living on the earth today, all of them will die...all of them will die and all of them will face hell if they die without Christ. Now why all of this?  Because this, dear friends, is the ugliness of Christmas that brings us to the point of its beauty.  You see, the beauty of Christmas is that Christ came into the world to...what?...save sinners.  Now isn't that the beauty of Christmas.  And who can understand the beauty of Christmas without the ugliness.  It isn't the cards and the trees and the lights and the presents and the fantasies and the snow scenes and the warm fires, the beauty of Christmas is that Christ came to cure the ugliness of the world.  God determined to send His Son into the world, the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person, partaker of the divine perfection to die for us.  That's Christmas.  That's the meaning of Christmas.  And no matter what you may think and what sentiments you may have and what warm feelings you might have about Christmas, unless you understand the ugliness of your own sin and embrace Jesus Christ who alone by His death and resurrection can save you from that sin, you don't have any connection with Christmas. Joseph Hart(?) wrote, "Come ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore, Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love and power.  He is able, He is able, He is willing, doubt no more.  He is able, He is able, He is willing, doubt no more.  Come ye weary heavy laden, bruised and mangled by the Fall, if you tarry till you're better you will never come at all.  Not the righteous, not the righteous, sinners Jesus came to call.  Not the righteous, not the righteous, sinners Jesus came to call."  Shall we pray.                                                  

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How You Can Know the Bible is the Word of God
2 Timothy 3:14-4:4

          Two old friends met one day after many years. One attended college and now was very successful. The other had not attended college and never had much ambition, yet he still seemed to be doing well.      Curious as to why, the college graduate asked his friend, "How has everything been going with You?"
The less-educated, less ambitious man replied, "Well, one day, I opened my Bible at random, and dropped my finger on a page. The word under my finger was oil. So, I invested in oil, and boy, did the oil wells gush. Then I tried the same method again, and my finger stopped on the word gold. So, I invested in gold, and those mines really produced. Now, I'm as rich as Rockefeller." The successful friend was so impressed that he rushed to his hotel, grabbed a Gideon Bible, flipped it open, and dropped his finger on a page. When he opened his eyes, he saw that his finger rested on the words, "Chapter Eleven."

I. Scientific Accuracy
            How do we know the Bible is true?  There are actually several pieces of evidence we need to know. Scientific and medical evidence; astronomy, historical accuracy, and prophesy. Let’s begin with the scientific evidence.  The Bible revealed scientific facts hundreds and thousands of years before science learned about them. While it is true that the Bible is not primarily a science book, not a text book designed to speak to your mind, but rather a love letter to speak to your heart, we should remember that the God of salvation is the God of creation…and when the Bible does speak on scientific matters, it speaks with complete authority and absolute certainty and accuracy.
            Every once in a while you’ll hear about modern science disagreeing with the Bible. What should we do when this happens? Be patient, and give science time to catch up! Science has always needed to catch up w/ the Bible. Some examples:
Medicine:
            As recently as 1600 doctors and scientists still believed that many ailments and diseases were a result of the human body having too much blood. Barber shop/pole out front/red and white stripe/it’s not a candy-cane!/the red stripe signified that you could go there to be “bled”. Doctors would prescribe that you go to the barber to be bled! (I’ve been to some barbers recently who must have the same opinion)
            When George Washington became ill, his doctors bled him 3 times, the 3rd time they removed almost a quart of blood, and he died! But now, science knows, it’s the blood that fights diseases/brings nourishment/repairs tissue/promotes growth. If only they had read Lev. 17:11, “the life of the flesh is in the blood.”
            14th C./black plague/decimated the population in Europe, as 1 in 4 people died!
It wasn’t the scientists/doctors who brought the plague under control, it was the church. The church applied a principle to the situation that was unheard of in that day, but which we take for granted today…quarantine! Lev. 13:46 "As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp."  People in Moses’ day didn’t know anything about microbiology. They didn’t know what a germ was/virus was! But God gave them the principle of quarantine.
             1800’s/physician in Vienna named Semovice, in charge of a hospital there/pregnant women were coming in for routine exams/immediately after exams, many of them were dying of infection. Semovice noticed that doctors were entering the OB area from all other areas of the hospital, including the morgue, w/out washing their hands/he made it a rule/the doctors had a fit!/ “this is ridiculous, it will slow us down!”
            The medical field today knows to wash up, but only because science has caught up w/ the Bible in this area.  Thousands of years ago, Moses said in Numbers 19:14 - 19
14 "This is the law that applies when a person dies in a tent: Anyone who enters the tent and anyone who is in it will be unclean for seven days, 15 and every open container without a lid fastened on it will be unclean. 16 "Anyone out in the open who touches someone who has been killed with a sword or someone who has died a natural death, or anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days. 
17 "For the unclean person, put some ashes from the burned purification offering into a jar and pour fresh water over them. 18 Then a man who is ceremonially clean is to take some hyssop, dip it in the water and sprinkle the tent and all the furnishings and the people who were there. He must also sprinkle anyone who has touched a human bone or a grave or someone who has been killed or someone who has died a natural death. 19 The man who is clean is to sprinkle the unclean person on the third and seventh days, and on the seventh day he is to purify him. The person being cleansed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and that evening he will be clean.

Principles here: quarantine/washing w/ water/changing clothes/time interval for bacteria to die.  How did Moses know these things? “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” So far we’ve been looking at the medical field, and all the verses we’ve looked at so far are from the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Bible, written down by Moses. Where was Moses from? Egypt! Egypt was the leader in the medical trade in those days. The ancient Egyptians were considered to be brilliant in the area of medicine. Archaeologists found a medical book in 1855, “Papyrus Eburs”: a comprehensive book containing virtually all the medical info they had in the time in which Moses lived. Some of the info it contained were simply outlandish. “to prevent the hair from turning gray, you anoint your head w/ blood of a black cat boiled in oil, or with the fat of a rattlesnake”
baldness: “apply a mixture of 6 fats, namely those of the snake, to strengthen it, anoint with the tooth of a donkey, crushed in honey.”
Another cure: (soak head in persimmon juice/won’t grow hair, but will shrink your head to fit the hair you’ve got!) This is from the brilliant ancient Egyptians, in whose schools Moses was educated. I’m glad in Moses’ writings we don’t find these instructions! I’m glad that when you read the dietary code/sanitary code Moses wrote down, you find the highest standards anywhere, and w/out medical contradiction…why? Because all scripture is given by inspiration!
Astronomy: We take for granted that the earth is suspended in space, hanging from nothing. Ancient Egyptians believed and taught that the earth was supported by 5 marble pillars.  Greeks believed earth rested on the shoulders of the god Atlas.  Hindus believed earth rested on the backs of elephants, when they shook, that was an earthquake…and the elephants rested on the back of a huge tortoise, which was on top of a coiled serpent in the midst of a cosmic sea. Aren’t you glad you don’t read that foolishness in the Bible!  Job said in the oldest of Biblical writings:  Job 26:7  7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. That was a radical thought until just a few hundred years ago. How did Job know that perhaps 8000 years ago? All scripture is given by inspiration!
             Nobody believed the earth was round until 1492. “Columbus, you’re gonna sail off the end of the earth…but 700 years before Christ, Isaiah 40:22 said that  God sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,  and its people are like grasshoppers.  Circle in Hebrew means globe or sphere.
            In 150 B.C., an Astronomer named Hipparchus laid down his pencil and smiled, “it’s done”! He believed he had counted all the stars in the sky. 1,022! That was the number used in Universities for 250 years. Then Ptolemy came along and laughed, 1,022, that’s ridiculous, there’s 1,026! He found 4 more! And that was science for 1,300 years. Then Galileo came along with his invention, the first crude telescope, he looked thru it for the first time, and gasped. We know now that there are billions and billions of stars in each of the galaxies, which are innumerable!
            What did the Bible say long before any of them were even born?
Jer. 33:22  As the host of heaven cannot be numbered.  God said to Abraham, your seed will be innumerable, (then used an illustration) like the stars of heaven. Science has always needed to catch up w/ the Bible.   

II. Historical Accuracy:  Another body of evidence for the authority of the Bible is History.
            The Bible is not a history book, but it is “His Story”. And historians have always needed to catch up with the Bible. The Bible records the fact that Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible, and Jesus verified that in the NT. For many years, unbelieving historians laughed at the thought that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. ‘that’s impossible’, they said, for there was no written language when Moses lived!
             Archaeologists continued their work, and in 1887 in N. Egypt 300 clay tablets were unearthed, we know them as the “tel-el-armana” tablets. What were they? Letters and business transactions between Egypt and Palestine, dated centuries before Moses was even born. And now it has been proven not only did they have a written language, they had a postal service! (it might have been quicker than the one we’ve got today!)
             Remember the story in the book of Daniel of Belshazzar seeing the handwriting on the wall? For centuries histories mocked that story as mythology, stating that they have the Babylonian records, which show that the last king of Babylon was NOT Belshazzar, but was Nabonitis. As a matter of fact, they say, we have no record anywhere that any Belshazzar ever lived! One day a clay tablet was found by archaeologists which revealed the truth: Nabonitis was the father of Belshazzar, and they were co-regents, ruling together! Nabonitis traveled the world, his son ruled the kingdom. Now we have a better understanding of Daniel 5:16
            16 Now I have heard that you are able to give interpretations and to solve difficult problems. If you can read this writing and tell me what it means, you will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around your neck, and you will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom."

            What if that tablet had never been found? Should we doubt the Bible, no! But isn’t it fantastic how God makes His truth known, often times w/ an exclamation point tacked onto the end!
            In the late 1800’s/early 1900’s Sir William Ramsey was a well-known archaeologist and historian. He was professor of humanities at Aberdeen University. He was considered to be the world’s most imminent scholar on Asia-Minor, and its geography and history. He read the book of Acts and said,  “the book of Acts is a highly imaginative and carefully colored account of primitive Christianity” (in essence, “of my knowledge of history, I have no respect for Luke as a historian”)
            Then he went to the middle east for the express purpose of proving the Bible wrong in its history. He came home and wrote the book, “Luke, the beloved physician” in which he proclaimed Dr. Luke to be one of the world’s foremost historians.
            Here’s a quote from Sir William Ramsey…this was after looking carefully at the evidence:
            “I take the view that Luke’s history is unsurpassed in its trustworthiness. You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian, and they will stand the keenest scrutiny, and the harshest treatment.”
            History is still catching up with the Bible/Science, too.  Scientific Accuracy…Historical Accuracy
Finally, consider the 3rd category:
III.Prophetic Accuracy No book in history has dared to predict the future to the degree the Bible has, without being proven wrong.  For the sake of time, let’s narrow it down to just the prophecies that dealt w/ the coming of Christ, 2000 years ago. Over 300 direct prophecies in question, like,

Is. 7:14 He would be born of a virgin Lk. 1:7 it happened!
Micah 5:2 born in Bethlehem Lk. 2:4 that happened!
Gen. 49:10 born of tribe of Judah Mt. 3:3 that happened!
Psalm 78:2 speak in parables Mt. 13:34 that happened!
Zech. 9:9 ride on colt of a donkey Mt. 21 that happened!
Is. 61 heal broken-hearted Lk. 4:18 that happened!
Is. 53:3 rejected by own Jn. 1:11 that happened!
Is. 53:7 stand silent before accusers Mk. 15:5 that happened!
Ps. 22:18 cast lots for His robe Jn. 19:23 that happened!
Ps. 22 (hundreds of years before crucifixion was ever invented or thought of) prophets said they would pierce His hands and feet, and it happened!
Ps. 22:1 “my God, why forsaken me?” Mt. 27:46 that happened!
Zech. 11:2 sold by enemies for 30 silver Mt. 26:15 that happened!
Is. 53:9 buried w/ rich Mt. 27 that happened!

            One skeptic said, “certainly this is the most striking coincidence of details.”
            Dr. Charles Ryrie points out that, by the law of chance, it would require 2 hundred billion earths, each populated w/ four billion people, to come up w/ one person who could achieve one hundred accurate prophecies w/out any errors in sequence. But, in Christ’s coming alone, there were not one hundred, but over 300 prophecies fulfilled! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, the prophecies dealing w/ His first coming!
            Ill.—cover the state of Texas w/ quarters, 2 feet deep, mark the back of 1 of them with an X. Fly a man in and drop him anywhere you want in the state, blindfold him, and ask him to find that quarter with the first try! That’s the same chance of just 8 of the Bible’s prophecies being fulfilled by coincidence!
            It’s more than just a coincidence, it’s evidence that demands a verdict! The problem, Mr. skeptic, is, you love your sin, and if the Bible is true, you are condemned!  But listen: Our own Gary Buhl is going to have a procedure where the doctor runs a catheter into the veins of his heart in order to reach some nerves that he will deaden.  This will keep Gary’s heart from going in and out of rhythm.  The procedure is known as ablation.  In the same way, when we aren’t reading and or listening to the Word of God, the Bible, regularly, our hearts get out of rhythm with God.  We need God to do Christian Ablation so our hearts will be in tune with His will and we will long to read, study, and understand His Word and share its truths with others.

The Bible:
It’s salvation to the sinner/sanctification to the saint/sufficient to the suffering/satisfying to the scholar
It’s so deep the scholar can swim in it for a lifetime w/out ever touching bottom, yet so simple, a child can approach it for a drink, w/out fear of drowning!
I love it’s depth, but the greatest truth I’ve ever learned is this:
Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so!

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This Sunday's Sermon - February 04, 2007

Faultless Before the Throne
Revelation 14:4-5

By David Wilkerson
October 5, 1998

"These were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God (Revelation 14:4-5).

My wife and I were having dinner with a family friend not long ago, a woman we've known for some time. Suddenly, in the middle of our meal, our friend began to voice the kinds of thoughts I've been hearing from Christians all across the country.

She said to us:

As you know, my husband is an oculist. He makes and fits glass eyes. We've both worked hard all of our lives, and we've been able to save some money. We've also built up a small retirement fund.

But now, just as were beginning to think about retirement, were seeing things that scare us. Nations all over the world are falling into depression. Look at what's happened to Russia, with its shaky economy and its political upheaval.

America cant help but be affected by all of this. Then there are all kinds of terrorist acts taking place, like those U.S. embassy bombings in Africa. And now, here in America, everybody's talking about the great harm that Y2K, the year-2000 computer disaster, might bring.

My husband and I just cant take hearing any more news like this. Every time we listen to the news or pick up a newspaper, another awful thing is happening somewhere.

I know Christians are not supposed to fear, but its hard not to be scared when we see all these terrible things going on. I struggle with fear every time I think about our mortgage and car payments. After all, who knows if people are going to buy glass eyes when the economy takes a downturn?

I have to fight off these fears daily. I feel bad about even having such feelings, because I know I should be trusting the Lord. But, frankly, things are becoming so frightening, its hard to keep all of my fears at bay.

I believe our friend was voicing what multitudes of other sincere Christians are going through a struggle to keep fear out of their hearts. Like her, most Christians who write to our ministry sense intuitively that our nation is disintegrating, and that some kind of ominous disaster is looming on the horizon. Now, as they hear all these terrible reports of what's happening in America and around the globe, they struggle just to rest in the promise of Gods keeping power.

Many believers write that they cant help being gripped by a very human fear, because they think they're not prepared physically for whatever perilous circumstances the economic collapse will bring. Others write that they're making all kinds of preparations for their physical survival, because they're convinced the financial holocaust will usher in social chaos as well.

Even the federal government is preparing for upheaval. For example, the U.S. Secretary of Defense announced that 120 top military units, specially trained for riot control, are standing by to move into our major cities in the event of riots or mass hysteria.

Then, on August 20, 1998, the Federal Reserve announced it was preparing to inject an additional $50 billion into circulation, because its anticipating a huge run on banks just before the Y2K problem hits. The Fed reasoned that if 70 million households withdrew an average of $450 to pay for necessities such as food and gas, it would deplete all the cash reserves. Even the $150 billion in existing reserves wouldn't cover the demand at ATMs.

The fact is, no matter how righteous we may be, and no matter how strong our faith is, all these frightful uncertainties coming to pass cannot help but affect our human emotions. Its all very scary. And the worst part is, things are going to grow even more ominous in the days ahead.

But for the overcoming Christian whose sins are covered by the blood of Jesus, there is very good news. And I believe if we keep our eyes focused on this good news, meditating on it night and day, no evil report will ever faze us. Here is the good news God wants us to know:

Were All Going to Die!

And, Even Better, Were All Going to Stand Before the Throne of Judgment. Now, if this good news sounds a bit bizarre to you, I understand. But the truth is, if you're a Christian, this kind of news shouldn't sound bizarre at all. Gods word declares very clearly: ...it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).

I'm convinced that just one moment into eternity, were all going to realize how unimportant and fleeting our present fears and trials have been. Well also see just how present the Lord has been with us the whole time, watching over us with his saving and keeping power.

As scripture testifies, our lives here on earth are like grass: one day we re here, growing and thriving, and the next day were fading away with the season. Were like the vapor of breath we see on a frosty day here one moment, gone the next.

At this point, I can imagine you may be thinking, Brother Dave, how can you expect me to accept this as good news? I'm trying to rid my heart of all my fears about the coming depression, and all the violence that's going to follow. Yet here you are reminding me I have to stand before the judgment seat and give an account of my life to the Lord.

What kind of comfort is that? The day we stand before Christ's throne is going to be one dreadful time. Were going to have to give an account of our every deed and thought.

I know that many sincere Christians have this same feeling about the judgment. They tremble inside every time they think about it: How can I ever give an account of all the millions of sinful, un-Christ like thoughts I've had? How can I answer for all the thousands upon thousands of idle words I've uttered? How can I face all my evil deeds my sins of omission, my carelessness, my complaining, my apathy, my sins against the light, the sins of my youth?

How will I ever be able to look Jesus in the eye on that day? How can I avoid trembling in fear when such a time comes?

I bring you good news glorious news that will help you combat all of the bad news you've been hearing. And I believe this news will keep your heart and spirit peaceful, even joyful, through all that's coming upon the earth.

Here Is This Good News:

If you have repented and you are trusting in Jesus believing in his cleansing blood, submitting daily to his lordship you're going to stand before his throne without fault or fear. In fact, you're going to be acknowledged before everyone present every human, every angel and every demon in hell as the precious bride of Christ!

I hope to prove to you that you wont have to face even a single sin against you, nor be exposed for any failure but that you will be able to stand without a fault or blemish.

On the day of judgment, all your evil works will already have been done away with. Not a single sin of yours will be mentioned. Instead, only your good works including your faith in Jesus Christ will be expressed to the multitudes gathered before the great white throne.

Now, I don't want to go into a discussion of exactly what the judgment is going to be like such as whether there will be one or two judgments, a subject biblical scholars continue to debate. Some say there will be one judgment, while others claim there will be two one for believers, and a separate one for everyone else.

The Puritans and other theologians throughout history have taught that there will be one general judgment, and that the judgment seat of Christ and the Great White Throne judgment are one and the same. Suffice it to say, we all must give an account of our deeds, whether those deeds are good or bad. Scripture tells us, God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil (Ecclesiastes 12:14).

You may wonder, But, Brother Dave you just finished saying the sins of the saints wont be mentioned. How can this be, if the Bible says every work, whether good or bad, is going to be brought to judgment? How can we stand before God without fear if our bad works are going to be brought into the light?

Keep in mind, there will be two groups at the judgment sheep and goats. And these two groups will stand before the Lord separately on that day, one group on the right and one on the left: saints and sinners, sons and slaves, the faithful and the unfaithful, the wise and the foolish, believers and unbelievers. And the bad works referred to, which will be exposed on that day, are only those of the wicked.

Scripture says all the evil deeds of the godless goats will be brought into the light and exposed. Every wicked thought, every secret desire, every lust, every vile imagination, every denial of Christ, every curse word all will be proclaimed and judged. And after these hidden, wicked deeds are made public, they will pursue their perpetrators into eternal damnation.

On the other hand, no evil deed of the righteous will be mentioned on that day. Instead, every good thing about their lives will be brought into the light every holy thought, every charitable act, every sacrificial work.

That's right our Lord is going to make known to all who are present every prayer, every heart-cry, every tear, every fast, every groan of the spirit, every trial and suffering, every word of praise and thanksgiving of the righteous while they lived on the earth. He will recall every cup of cold water given to the thirsty, every morsel of bread given to the hungry, every piece of clothing given to the freezing and naked. He's going to bring everything good out into the open and that will be one glorious moment!

The fact is, as we stand before our Lord at the judgment, we will be complete in him. This means that anything we've ever done, including any sin we've ever committed, will already be covered under his blood and never mentioned again. In short, there is no condemnation to the righteous none at all.

Jesus tells us, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life (John 5:24). The Greek word Jesus uses for condemnation here is judgment. He's saying, If you believe in me, you wont come into judgment, but will pass from death over to life.

Indeed, scripture tells us from cover to cover that once the Lord forgives our sins, he wipes them from memory:

• I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins (Isaiah 43:25).

• I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee (Isaiah 44:22).

• ...I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more (Jeremiah 31:34).

• I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more (Hebrews 8:12).

• This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more (Hebrews 10:16-17).

• He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19).

Here is abundant good news for every Christian whose ever sweated, striven, or worked to mortify the deeds of his flesh in his own strength. Does this include you? How many times have you tried to bite the bullet and plow ahead toward victory in the Christian life? How many promises have you made to God only to break them? How many times have you tried to please the Lord by fighting off your lusts and habits, only to fail once again?

Here is your good news, reported in the book of Micah: I, the Lord, will subdue all your iniquities!

God has given us image after image in these passages of how he wipes our sins from memory: he blots them out, he remembers them no more, he buries them in the sea, he subdues them, meaning, he chases them down and captures them. Isaiah even tells us God takes our trespasses and flips them over his shoulder: ...thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back (Isaiah 38:17). This means God will never look at our sins or acknowledge them again.

Now, let me ask you: If God forgets our sins, why don't you or I? Why do we always allow the devil to dig up some muck or mire from our past and wave it in our face, when all of our sin is already covered by Christ's blood? The cleansing, forgiving power of Christ's blood is all-encompassing. It covers our entire lives!

All the Books Are
Going to Be Opened and
Examined on That Day.

John writes of the judgment:

I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works (Revelation 20:11-12).

Notice John says in this passage there are many books and there is a book at the judgment. What are the first books? They're records of the life of every single sinner every goat who stands before the judge.

You see, every unbelieving person has a book of works and deeds that's being recorded in heaven. Every page of his book is a record of how he lived. Can you imagine what its going to be like for a transgressor when he stands before the Lord on that day? Every thought, word and action in his life will be brought out into the open, exposed for its evil, until finally the sinner has to scream, No, no enough! No more!

For the righteous there will be only the book of life. When that book is opened, we wont hear one word, one account, one record of a single sin or failing of any of Gods people. Why? All of their sins are covered under the blood of Jesus. The only thing that will appear in that book will be our names. In fact, it will contain our new, heavenly names and God himself is going to reveal to us what our new names are.

You may ask, how does our name get recorded in the book of life? Our names are recorded in this book at the moment we believe with all of our being that Jesus Christ shed his blood for us. It happens as we claim the victory of his cross, and determine to seek him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, submitting to his lordship in all things.

That's right. God offers a wonderful promise to all who were guilty of horrible, scarlet sins... whose acts were blood-red with the stench of hell... who abused their bodies with alcohol, drugs, perversions, fornications... who blush when they remember their past... who gulp when they think of how close they came to falling headlong into hell.

Gods promise to these is that they can stand assured, with great joy, on the day of judgment, without a trace of fear. He pledges: ...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool (Isaiah 1:18). Having repented and forsaken their sins, trusting in his forgiving grace, they were reconciled by faith to him.

You see, no matter what your past is like, God no longer sees you as you once were. You're no longer a junkie in his eyes. You're not an alcoholic, an adulterer, a prostitute, a tax evader, a corporate crook. Instead, you've been transformed into his precious, lovely, spotless bride. And he is awaiting your presence at the jubilant marriage feast, where you'll be joined to your bridegroom.

Think about this for a moment: Will a bridegroom who is anticipating his wedding day suddenly charge his bride with iniquity at the judgment? No, of course not. You may ask, But isn't Jesus going to judge all wickedness? Isn't he going to judge sin? Yes, he is. But the Christ you're going to meet on that day is the same Christ who has called you, saved you, forgiven you, purchased you with his own blood, cleansed you, branded you on your forehead as his own, and interceded for you all these years.

As you stand before Jesus, you're going to see him as your husband, your redeemer, your friend, your advocate and your intercessor still. And, in that moment, you're going to stand complete in him. You're going to appear without fault without spot or wrinkle, holy, unblameable.

And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses (Colossians 2:13). Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy (Jude 24).

We are Christ's body bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. Do you think for one minute he's going to mutilate his own body before all the hosts of devils and wicked men and women gathered before Gods throne? No, never! He's going to love and care for us who comprise his own body. And he wont sever it from the head. Besides that, Jesus is also the cornerstone of the whole church. Do you think he's going to remove himself from that building, and bring the whole place down, after he's placed you in it so strategically? Its impossible!

Now Allow Me to Bring Down the Hammer of
Gods Word and Completely Smash All Your
Fears About Standing Before Christ's Judgment
Seat, So From Now on You Can Anticipate
That Time With Great Joy and Thanksgiving.

I want to give you from the Bible three irrefutable reasons why we have no reason to fear, but every reason to rejoice at the coming of the judgment day:

1. Fear is not compatible with all of the wonderful relationships the Lord has proclaimed in his love for us. God has defined who he is to us and that definition is not compatible with fear.

Throughout the scriptures, he describes all the facets of his relationship to us: He's our father, our brother, our friend, our bridegroom, our head, our husband, our advocate, our kinsman-redeemer, our provider, our refuge, our shepherd and much more.

He has established all of these glorious relationships with us through the cross. And now he's urging us to know, This is who I am to you. Do you think he's suddenly going to wipe out all these relationships with his people on the day of his judgment? Never!

How can a father reject his offspring in the child's hour of accountability? No, even as the book of life is being opened, he will still be your father, your advocate, your intercessor. Nothing can take away that relationship with you!

2. Fear cannot be present on the day of your restitution and coronation. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities...As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:10, 12).

Our minds cant begin to fathom how far the east is from the west. And that s just Gods point in this verse: He has removed our sins beyond our capability ever to call them back.

You may wonder why I call Gods day of judgment our coronation day. Its because Isaiah says of that day: ...as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee (Isaiah 62:5).

As you stand before your Lord then, you'll recognize his eyes of love for you. Then, in front of the entire multitude of transgressors, he will reach out to embrace you, his bride. So, I ask you how can you fear when your Lord is gazing upon you with love and rejoicing? You'll still be the apple of his eye!

3. The Lord will do no less himself than what he requires of us here on earth. God doesn't require anything of us in his commandments that he isn't willing to do himself. And one of those requirements is to hide, cover and pardon the sins of our brothers and sisters. Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother (Matthew 18:15).

I believe that if there's going to be a separate judgment for Christians, as some teach, this is the area of life where it will take place. God is offended when we expose the weaknesses and infirmities of other saints, especially before the eyes of the wicked. And I believe this judgment must be a private, one-on-one, intimate encounter. Jesus is going to say to us very lovingly:

I cannot allow you to bring this baggage with you. I want to show you what you missed on earth, and how some of your works were done in the flesh without my Spirit. Yes, you're my precious bride, and there is nothing but glory ahead for you. You're under my blood covering, without a single spot or wrinkle. But all your works done in the flesh must burn.

His word already tells us, The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression (Proverbs 19:11). It is the glory of God to conceal a thing... (Proverbs 25:2).

Now, in a private moment on that day, Jesus is going to show us how he covered and pardoned our sins, when we least deserved it. He's going to reveal to us how his mercy and grace alone allowed us to pass over from death to life. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him... (Ezekiel 18:22).

Our sins are forever blotted out by his blood, never to be mentioned again. And so should our attitudes be toward our brothers and sisters who have offended us.

I Bring You This Message to
Anchor Your Soul and Prepare
You for Any Unseen Calamity
in the Dark Days That Are Coming.

Martin Luther, at the height of all his trials, testified, Lord, now that you have forgiven me all, do with me as you please. Luther was convinced that a God who could wipe away all his sins and save his soul could certainly care for his physical body and material needs. In essence, Luther was saying:

Why should I fear what man can do to me? I serve a God who can cleanse me of my iniquity and bring peace to my soul. It doesn't matter if everything around me collapses. If my God is able to save and keep my soul for eternity, why wouldn't he be able to care for my physical body while I'm on this earth? Oh, Lord, now that I'm pardoned, forgiven, and able to stand before you on judgment day with exceeding great joy do with me as you please!

Brother, sister rejoice. This present life is not reality. Our reality is eternal life in the presence of our blessed Lord. So, keep the faith. Things are winding down. But we are going up!

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This Sunday's Sermon - January 28, 2007

The Antichrist: Personified Evil
 Revelation 13:1-13:18

           The movie world seems to be obsessed with the end of the world. There has been a steady stream of films coming out of Hollywood around the theme of end time events and takeoffs on the book of Revelation. Films like “End of Days,” “Armageddon,” “Deep Impact,” and “Independence Day” are just some examples. One series of films that came out a few years ago was the “Omen” trilogy. The films specifically centered around the antichrist of the book of Revelation. The first film deals with the birth and childhood of the antichrist. His parents suspect there is something different about their creepy little son, but they find out the awful truth when they discover 666 tattooed on his forehead. The second film, “Damien: Omen II,” showed him as a teenager and what happened when his identity was revealed to him by satanic agents. I haven’t seen the movies, but the reviews sound like they would send you to bed with a nightmare waiting to happen.
            It is interesting that there is so much interest out there concerning the end of the world and the themes of the book of Revelation. In fact, you can almost hear more about the end times in a theater than you can in the average church. Perhaps that is because we have attempted to avoid sensationalism and hype. The problem is that there is so much misinformation in the media and a deliberate missing of the point. We need to hear and know the truth of what the Bible teaches about the events of the last days. Although much of what the Bible reveals is wrapped in strange symbolism, we still can understand the realities of what will take place. And though the Bible does not give us specific dates and detailed events, it does reveal general events and the kind of time during which these events will take place.
            One of the striking revelations about the end times is a person whom the Bible calls “the man of lawlessness.” Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, speaks of the antichrist when he says, “Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4). The apostle John writes in his letter, “Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18).
            Who is the antichrist, and what is his purpose? What role will he fill? There are several things that we could point out, but generally his main purpose is to acquire power and turn people away from God, directing worship toward himself. The way he will try to accomplish this will be by doing three main things.  The first is: He will create a one world government. He is the anti-Christ. He is against Christ and everyone who belongs to him. He will be Satan’s tool for corrupting the world and turning people away from God. He will be given power by Satan to accomplish his will. The Bible says, “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9). He is the false messiah who desires to replace and mock the rule of the true Messiah, Jesus Christ. In fact, we have here in Revelation 13 an evil trinity: Satan, symbolized by the dragon who is standing on the shore of the sea; the antichrist, symbolized by the beast that comes out of the sea; and the false prophet, the head of the one world religion — the beast who arises out of the earth and causes people to worship the antichrist. Satan, the antichrist and false prophet: these three unite in a desperate attempt to establish their own government and overthrow the kingdom of God — but their efforts will ultimately fail.
            The reason given for the need of a one world government will be that problems like global terrorism and international conflict cannot be controlled by the United States alone, or any other nation. We cannot continue to be international police. The growing problems of our global community will require a united government to handle these problems. The United Nations and its forces have been largely ineffective because of their limited jurisdiction, and the problems the world faces will call for increased authority and military power. The person who heads this organization will ultimately grow in power through personal charm and an increasing use of force. He will disguise his true motives in the beginning and greatly appeal to the masses.
              Throughout history there have been many antichrists who have come before the final antichrist takes his seat of power. We can get some idea of what he will be like from those who have preceded him. The Bible says, “Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 1:7). The antichrists of the world have always used the same methods: intimidation and persecution. Throughout the Old Testament the prophets were persecuted and put to death. In the New Testament, men like John the Baptist and Stephen were put to death. During the early life of the church it was the Caesars who wanted to dominate the world and persecuted the church of God. In May A.D. 64, a terrible fire broke out in Rome which had been deliberately set. It raged for six days and seven nights, and totally destroyed much of the city. At the time, most believed that Nero was behind the fire, and historians generally agree that he was responsible. Tacitus, an ancient Roman historian, tells how he shifted the blame away from himself to Christians: “Hence, to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who are hated for their enormities. . . . Accordingly, first three were seized, who confessed they were Christians. Next, on their information, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city as of hating the human race. And in their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport; for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and, when day declined, burned to serve for nocturnal lights. . . .they seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but victims to the ferocity of one man.”
            And so, down the corridors of time there have been others who desired to dominate the entire world and rid the earth of the people called Christians. They have come and gone with names like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao Zedong, and more recently Saddam Hussein and Osama Ben Laden. From these dominating, cruel and murderous personalities we get a glimpse into the personality of the final antichrist. We have to take these people and their intentions seriously, for there will be others who will desire great power and become like God, ruling the world. The book of Revelation describes the antichrist’s intent and evil purpose when it says, “He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast — all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Revelation 13:6-8).
 SLIDE OF              The second thing the antichrist will do is: He will create a one world economy. We hear so much about the mark of the beast, which is 666. The book of Revelation says, “He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name” (Revelation 13:16-17). This mark is tied to people’s ability to buy and sell. It is sort of an evil VISA bank card — perhaps with three sets of six numbers. In order to have a bank account, and be able to buy and sell, you must have the mark of the beast. But in order to get the mark, you must worship the antichrist and display your loyalty to the government.
            The proof of a person’s loyalty to the antichrist will be receiving his mark. I said that it was something like a VISA card, but there are two problems with a credit card. One is proof of identity, and the other is theft or loss. There is one way to solve both problems: have a small electronic “smart” chip implanted under the skin on your hand or forehead, or both. Retail and grocery stores are already outfitted with scanners which could read something like this with a minor upgrade. After your purchases are rung up, you would simply place your hand in front of the scanner or stand in front of it. The world is quickly moving toward a cashless society. Already, some businesses will not accept cash. Someday, in the not too distant future, paper money will be out of date. The only way you will be able to purchase something is with a credit card that will also serve as your identification.
            A national ID card is already in the works. It was made a priority because the terrorists who perpetrated the September 11 attacks used fake ID’s. We need to know if the people boarding planes are who they say they are. Frank Pellegrini writes for Time magazine. In a recent article he says, “The Department of Transportation, acting on instructions from Congress, has begun work with states to develop electronically smarter drivers’ licenses that can be checked for validity across the country, and that have more than just than that always-awful picture — like a fingerprint or retinal-scan imprint — to match the card to its holder. So it’s more of a national ID system, a linking of Departments of Motor Vehicles — and the records they keep on you — across state lines, with some extra on-card security measures thrown in . . .the plan means that a state trooper in California would be able to pull the records of a driver from Georgia — and be certain that those records were the driver’s, and not an innocent look alike he stole the card from. . . .And the smarter cards, ‘hardened’ with biometric data, would make identity theft much trickier, at least in person. (Georgia, incidentally, already uses thumbprints on its drivers’ licenses.) . . .What if your state/national ID card was your passport as well as your drivers’ license? . . .Or what if your national ID card was your ATM card, and your credit card, and your HMO card and your work ID and the passkey to your maximum-security apartment, all at once?” Imagine the possibilities. Already, you can be traced across the country when you use your credit card, and they can know everything you purchase from Boston to Los Angeles. What if your national ID card was also your phone card, insurance card, library card. . . .
            A one world economy means that there will someday be a world ID card, and there will be nothing you can do without it. This is what the mark of the beast will be like, and the purpose of the one world economy. Like a Georgia driver’s license it can contain your thumbprint, or even a retinal scan. The purpose of the antichrist is to control the world and all the people in it. It is the antithesis of how God operates, for God gives freedom — even freedom to live your life without him. The Bible says, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). God gives us freedom, the devil wants to control and eventually bring us into bondage.
            The third thing the antichrist will do is: He will create a one world religion. Increasingly, religion will be seen as one of the major sources of conflict in the world. Even today in Ireland, the middle east and other areas, religious differences seem to contribute to the conflicts raging in the world. As we march toward the end, there will be a growing call to unite all religions into one, under the guise of attempting to bring peace and unite the world. Tremendous pressure will be brought to bear on Christians to compromise their beliefs and values. Pluralism is the idea that there are many ways to think of God, and only our labels are different. It says that no one has the right to exclusive truth claims. But the Bible, in speaking about Jesus, says: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). We cannot give up the truth in order just to get along. We must respect everyone and recognize that they have the right to believe anything they wish to believe, but we cannot give up our belief that “there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). To say that the God we worship is the same as Allah, Krishna or any other god is ludicrous and a denial of the truth faith.
            When Nero was Caesar of the Roman empire, he allowed the Christians and people of other religions to continue to practice their faith, whatever it was. There was only one stipulation: you also had to come once a year and bow in worship before his image and make an offering. By worshiping before his statue, and placing an offering there, you showed your loyalty to Caesar. If you refused to do pledge your allegiance to the government in this way, you paid with your life — and many, many Christians did. This will likely be the scenario in the last days. At least in the beginning, the antichrist will appear to be a great leader and may permit people to practice their own religion, as long as they recognize all religions as equal and also worship him. But what happens when your religion does not permit you to have other gods? Paul wrote: “For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live” (1 Corinthians 8:6). Our faith does not permit us to worship Jesus Christ plus something or someone else. Our love and worship of him is exclusive. We cannot compromise at this point, and this is the very thing that Satan understands. It is that very loyalty that drives him mad.
            And though this antichrist has the power of Satan behind him, and endeavors to rule through fear and intimidation, his doom is sure. Our confidence is built on the solid rock of Jesus Christ. The fate of the antichrist is spelled out in Scripture where it says, “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8). This confidence is reflected in the great hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God:

Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing,
were not the right man on our side,
the man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabbaoth his name,
from age to age the same,
and he must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God hath willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo, his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.

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This Sunday's Sermon - January 21, 2007          

God’s Seal 
Revelation 7:1-7:17 

This chapter is an interlude between the 6th and 7th seals - just as there are pauses after the 6th trumpet and 6th bowl judgments. In God’s Word, God sometimes gives an interlude.  Reading in Chapter 6 of the 4 Horsemen and the other seal judgments and understanding that once they start, there is no turning back; and seeing the terrible disasters and unimaginable suffering that awaits those who refuse to repent, brings us to a point of needing a break. (Rev. 6:15-16). God gives that here in chapter 7.  We human beings really do not like change, but it’s needed.  We much prefer things to stay the same, don’t we?   Shakespeare's Hamlet lamented these feelings best, “We would rather bear those ills we have than fly to others we know not of.” 

Given a choice, most people gathered here today would prefer to leave things as they are, rather than go through major change.  That is why moving is so hard for most people.  The thought of pulling up roots nauseates them.  Yet through the Book of Revelation there is one change after another.  The movement is from the earth to the heavens to the spirit world and back to earth and then again to heaven.  But here, in chapter 7 we have an interlude.  It is an interlude of mercy, if you will.
1. After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree.                                           These angels could be the four horsemen of the apocalypse we saw in chapter 6.
            Verses 2 – 3:  2. Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, 3 saying, "Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads."
            The seal is the same seal used to seal up the scroll in chapters 5-6. A king would use his signet ring pushed into warm wax to signify ownership and protect the document’s contents. Here God is signifying His ownership of these people and protecting their hearts and souls from destruction. Ezekiel 9 shows a similar picture of an angel marking those who still believed in the one true God on their foreheads - people whose hearts are against evil and for the Lord - people who are then protected from the Lord’s judgment.
            This seal will later be counterfeited by Satan (chapter 13).
            Why the seal? It would assist the believers who come to Christ during the Tribulation. It will protect them from harm meant for the followers of the Beast who is the Anti-Christ. During the 5th trumpet judgment, stinging locusts will descend on the earth, but will not harm these sealed by God. In Chapter 16 sores will break out only on those who have the mark of the Beast. But it won’t protect them from everything. Many of these we see here are killed by the Beast - but nothing can kill them ultimately and death is simply graduation.
            By the way - did you know that all believers are "marked?" Ephesians 1 says the Holy Spirit has been given to us as a "seal." It is God’s guarantee that He owns us and will bring us safely to His kingdom.
Verses 4 - 8
4 And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:
512,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed,
12,000 from the tribe of Reuben,
12,000 from the tribe of Gad,
612,000 from the tribe of Asher,
12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali,
12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh,
712,000 from the tribe of Simeon,
12,000 from the tribe of Levi,
12,000 from the tribe of Issachar,
812,000 from the tribe of Zebulun,
12,000 from the tribe of Joseph,
12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.

            The question here is: who are these 144,000 and how literal is this listing? Some suggest that the list represents the church as a whole and that number is symbolic (12x12x1000 = completeness). You’d have to stretch things pretty far to get that - and the fact that each tribe is mentioned specifically argues for it to be Israel, not the church. No where is the church called "the sons of Israel." But here these sons of Israel are called: "servants of God" which refers to saved individuals. These are Jewish converts.  What does that say to you?  God is NOT finished with the nation, Israel. 
            Dan is missing - perhaps because Dan was the first to go into idolatry and against the Lord. Joseph is mentioned instead of Ephraim because Ephraim rebelled as well. Judah is mentioned first because from this tribe comes the Messiah.
            Now - as you may know, 10 of these tribes were "lost" when the Assyrians came and took them away around 722 BC. The Assyrians resettled them in other nations and they never returned to Israel. But these tribes are not lost to the Lord - He knows every descendant and will call them back to Him during this time.
            What is their job? To evangelize the world. It doesn’t actually say that - but it’s a safe bet. If this is the church - why only 144,000, why mention the tribes? If only these are sealed, then what about the promises to the church that we are "sealed" in Him (2 Corinthians 1:22)?
            A side note - the cult The Jehovah’s Witnesses actually believe that only 144,000 will make it into heaven based on this verse. This is simply not true - and I know folks in our own body who, after hearing this false doctrine - came to the Lord.
Verses 9 - 14
            9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen."
            13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?" 14 I said to him, "Sir, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
              People will come to Christ during the Tribulation - though it will be a terrible time to be a Christian.  They will be sealed by God.  There will be some kind of identifiable mark on them that says they belong to God.  Many will give their lives to belong to Christ during this time - it says something to us, doesn’t it? Do we take for granted the salvation offered to us? For most, accepting Jesus might subject us to ridicule from friends - but not death.
            But notice that though they come out of the worst time in earth’s history, they are still praising God! They have on white robes which represent righteousness, and carry palm branches - which signify victory. No forces of darkness can ever overcome someone who belongs to the Lamb: Jesus Christ.
Verses 15 - 17
            15 "Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. 16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
            During the Great Tribulation - people who come to Christ will not be able to buy or sell on the open market (13:17). They will be marked, hunted, and attacked. In all likelihood they will be left out in the elements to die, if they are not beheaded (20:4). There will be nowhere on earth for them to turn to escape this horrible end, and they will not be spared (except the 144,000 for a time, and the 2 Witnesses of chapter 11). There will be mourning and tears as families see their loved ones killed for their faith.   When the Anti-Christ comes to power he will institute a world economy based purely on a mark that identifies a person as being loyal to the Anti-Christ.  Without that mark you won’t be able to buy or own anything.
            But look the promises of this section: God Himself will shelter them (verse 15), their lack will be made up (16), the elements will no longer harm them (16), they will have a guide, a provider, and a healer of their pain (17).
Conclusions
            The most terrible thing that can happen to you is still in God’s control.  I know for us sometimes this doesn’t make sense - but notice how God told the angels preparing to unleash the worst disasters ever on earth to wait until He had marked some for protection. Ecclesiastes 3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. That verse goes on to say that there is a time to live and a time to die - but God is one who determines those times. Coming to Him does not exempt you from trouble.
            Jesus said "in the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world" John 16:33.  Paul the Apostle had some very rough times - but he said in
2 Corinthians 12:9-10: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness ." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
            You may in for tough things - just know that God already knows what they are, will bring you through them, and use them to strengthen you, not destroy you - and that there is an end, and it’s a good one!
            You aren’t just a faceless number to God.  Sometimes we think that God doesn’t really pay attention to us - that we are in the big computer in heaven but can just go about our lives and no one up there really cares. Not so.  Jesus said that the very hairs of your head are numbered - and that no one falls unless the Father knows it (Luke 12:7).
            God knows your name and your situation - and Hebrews 12:7 says that Jesus "always lives to make intercession" for you. He always listens, always cares, always answers. He knows you far better than you know yourself. Entrust yourself into His care, He won’t let you down.
When the going gets rough, the redeemed get worshipping  What’s your first inclination when problems come - hunker down, run away, fight back, despair and give up? How about worship? The people we see in this chapter are coming out of the worst possible circumstances. Instead of saying "what took you so long, God?" they are falling down and proclaiming praises to God. Their attention is turned continually to the Lamb.  It is all about the Lamb.  He is Worthy.
              Worship is one of the key activities in eternity - and that’s why it should always be a priority for this church - worship that is genuine, and focused on the Lord. I would encourage you to try worshipping the next time you run into trouble.
In Heaven, tears will end, in Hell, they never stop   
              Matthew 13:40-42 Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, 42 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
            If you think the Tribulation will be bad - it’s spring break compared to hell - that place where everyone goes who rejects God’s gift of grace through Jesus Christ. Don’t go there - please! Why turn your back on a free gift? Yes - you will have to admit you don’t have all the answers and that there is evil in you - but it is so freeing to face that, turn away from it, and give yourself over to God through Jesus Christ.  
            Don’t shed another tear without Him at your side, let Him bear your sorrow and bring eternal healing and righteousness to your soul.

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