Chardon church of Christ

Getting Ready for Heaven

Getting Ready for Heaven

2 Peter 3:10-18

 

There are three kinds of givers -- the flint, the sponge and the honeycomb. To get anything out of a flint you must hammer it. And then you get only chips and sparks. To get water out of a sponge you must squeeze it, and the more you use pressure, the more you will get. But the honeycomb just overflows with its own sweetness. Which kind of giver are you?

 

Verse 1) “There’s a great day coming, a great day coming. There’s a great day coming by and by. When the saints and the sinners will be parted right and left, Are you ready for that day to come?”

CHORUS: Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready for that Judgment Day?

 

Verse 2) There’s a bright day coming, a bright day coming. There’s a bright day coming by and by. But the brightness will be only for the ones that love the Lord. Are you ready for that Day to come?”

That’s a repeated question throughout Scripture: Are You Ready? In fact, one of the major teachings of Jesus was - you need to BE READY!

 

For example: Jesus told the story of ten virgins in Matthew 25:1-13 who were part of a wedding ceremony. Back then marriages were more elaborate than the ones we have today. Part of the ceremony required the bridegroom would parade through city by night and fetch his bride from her father’s house and take her to the wedding party at his parent’s home. Part of that wedding procession included the virgins Jesus spoke of (they were kind of like bridesmaids).

 

Jesus explained that, as these virgins were waiting for the bridegroom to arrive, 5 of them were very foolish – they had no EXTRA oil for their lamps. But the other five were wise because they’d brought along extra oil – just in case. It was a good thing too, because the bridegroom was delayed, and by the time people shouted that he was coming the 5 foolish virgins were nearly out of oil for their lamps. They begged the other 5 virgins to give them some of their oil, but the wise virgins answered that there wouldn’t be enough for all of them – and that the 5 foolish girls would have to go get some for themselves.

 

While they were gone the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the foolish virgins came and asked the bridegroom to let them in. “But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’

 

Jesus closed the parable with these words: Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Again and again, Jesus warned us ... BE READY!

 

In our text today, Peter tells us that very same message. In II Peter 3:10-11 He says: “The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness”

BE READY!

 

The day of the Lord will come ... like a thief. And when that happens, there will be no more time to prepare. If you’re NOT ready, that ship will have sailed, and there won’t be another one, ever!

 

ILLUS: Let’s say a very wealthy person approaches you and says that he wants to send you on a 2 week trip to someplace you’ve always wanted to go to – all expenses paid. (Would you like that?).

There’s only one catch – because of the paperwork in lining up the trip he can’t tell you exactly when you’ll be leaving. It’s gonna be in the next few months. AND when he calls you may only have a few hours to get down to the Airport and catch your flight.

It is inconvenient... but you really want to go.

 

So how are you gonna prepare for this trip? Well – you might have to clear things down at the office or factory, or wherever you have commitments for the next few weeks. You’ll have to get your passport. You’ll have to get shots.

You’ll have to ask someone to take care of your pets and get your mail. And then you’re going to pack (SUITCASE). When are you going to start preparing for this free trip? NOW!!!!

 

Not later, because you don’t know when you’ll have to leave and if you want to get on that plane you better prepare now!!!! You realize – if you ain’t ready, you ain’t going.

 

And that’s what Peter is telling us. Prepare NOW!!! Because if you ain’t prepared, you ain’t going. But, how do you prepare for this trip – this trip to heaven?

Well, you don’t have to get a passport or shots, and you don’t have to have anyone take care of your pets or your mail.

And the suitcase isn’t going to do you any good (you’re not going to be able to take anything with you anyhow).

 

But Peter does tells us HOW we should prepare. 1st – he says (to be ready to go) we need to be holy and godly.

Now, what does that mean?

Well, it’s not that hard. Holy means “set apart”

and godly means you live for God. If you put those 2 together, Peter’s telling us to set ourselves apart (from world) to live for God.

 

It’s that simple. At least... in principle it is.   You see, a lot of people struggle with that idea because they love the things of this world more than they love God.

One of the saddest statements in the Gospels in John 12:42-43 tells us that: “... many even of the authorities believed in (Jesus), but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.”

 

I’m going to ask you a few questions about this – do NOT raise your hand... just think about how you’d answer:

Are there times you don’t talk about God because you’re afraid you’ll offend someone? Or you’re afraid they’ll make fun of you? Or you’re afraid they won’t want to have you around?

 

Do you depend upon the approval of others... or the approval of God?

WHAT you depend upon says a lot about whether or not you want to be holy and godly ... OR if you want to blend in with everyone else .

 

ILLUS: I came across an article about the South Pacific island of Tonga. Something severed the internet cable to the island. And the title of the article read “Tonga sent back to 'dark ages' after underwater Internet cable severed.” It’s affected their e-mails, airline bookings, university enrollment, wiring of money and has prevented businesses from processing credit and debit cards. It has literally thrown that small country into chaos ... all because they depended upon that cable for their daily lives.

 

Here’s the deal... what do you depend upon for your daily life?

Do you depend on the approval or others OR God?

If it came down to a choice of whether you lost the approval of others OR... if you lost you’re the approval of God... which would you choose?

 

Now, that may sound kind of harsh, but listen to these words of Jesus: “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” Matthew 10:32-33

 

The Apostle John writes in 1 John 2:15: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

 

That’s what it means to live a life of holiness and godliness.

To be so much in love with God that it doesn’t matter what others think. You are going to set yourself apart for him!!!

So, 1st – to prepare yourself for Heaven... you need to set yourself apart from world and follow God.

2ndly, Peter tells us in II Peter 3:13-14

“according to God’s promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.”

 

We should STRIVE (or be diligent) to be found without spot or blemish!! Holiness and godliness speaks about WHO we’re committed to. We set ourselves apart to follow God.

BUT striving to be without spot or blemish is all about HOW we should behave as someone who follows God.

 

The spots and blemishes are the sins we commit. The things we SAY, DO, and THINK. We’re all going to mess up once in a while but we should never accept our sins as normal.

 

ILLUS: It’s like going out to eat somewhere. You’re wearing your Sunday best. Your shirt or blouse is white and (horrors) you spill something on your best white shirt/blouse. Have you ever done that?

What’s your first reaction? You’re angry... you’re upset.

This is your Sunday best white shirt/blouse and now it is stained. The rest of the garment may still be pure and white but the stain stands out and it makes you feel awkward. It embarrasses you!!

So what do you do? Well, when you get home, you spray that stain with a stain remover and you wash it!

The stain is not normal. You don’t like it.

You don’t want it, and so you strive to remove that spot or blemish.

 

That’s the difference between those who are committed to Jesus and those who aren’t. Those who AREN’T committed to Jesus tend to ignore the spots and blemish of their lives.

 

They’re kind of like the guy you’ve eaten with who is wearing a shirt that you can tell what he’s eaten over the past few weeks by the stains that are still on his shirt.

He doesn’t care! He doesn’t even try to hide his stains.

 

But those who love Jesus aren’t satisfied with just allowing the lives to permanently be part of their lives. They refuse to make excuses, they refuse to try and hide the sin.

 

When they sin they want the spot removed from their souls.

But what do we use for a “stain remover.”

Well, if you don’t belong to Christ, the first step is become a Christian – believe in Christ, repent of your sins, confess Jesus as God’s Only Son, and be buried in the waters of baptism rising up to become a new creation.

 

But if you’re already a Christian and you’ve sinned?

Well, you turn to I John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” God calls on us to CONFESS our sins, and He will be faithful to remove them for us.

 

ILLUS: Confession is what God has always asked His people to do - but it has always seemed to be the hardest thing He’s asked.

Do you remember the story of Adam and Eve? They ate of the fruit God commanded them not to eat... and then God comes for a visit. Do you remember what Adam and Eve did? They hid!

God asked “Adam where are you?” And do remember what Adam replied? “I was hiding because I was naked.”

That didn’t turn out to well for Adam and Eve.

 

When Cain killed his brother Abel God comes along and asks him “Where is your brother Abel?”

But Cain hides behind his comment “Am I my brother’s keeper.” That didn’t turn out to well for him either.

All God asks is that we “fess up” and admit we’ve fallen short... then He removes the stain and we start all over again with a new “shirt.”

 

So 1st – (in order to prepare ourselves for our trip to Heaven) we need to set ourselves apart from this world to follow God. And 2nd – we strive to remove the stains of sin from our lives.

 

Lastly, Peter warns us to be careful not to lose our “STABILITY.” “There are some things in (Paul’s writings) that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable TWIST TO THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of LAWLESS people and lose your own stability.” II Peter 3:16-17

 

You would think that if somebody quotes the Bible you could trust them. But that’s not always true. Peter WARNS us here that there are people out there who will warp and twist the Bible so it says what THEY want it to say.

Sometimes these folks have Ph.D.s and are respected scholars.

 

You see, there are very religious people out there who are LAWLESS. When the Bible disagrees with them, they warp and twist it. But notice what Peter says about them: They “twist (the Bible) to their own destruction.”

 

Now, that’s scary. These folks (and the people who listen to them) aren’t gonna BE READY when Jesus comes back. And if they ain’t ready – they ain’t going.

 

Why would God be so angry with these people?

Because it’s ONLY in the Bible that we learn about righteousness. And about God’s will for our lives. And about Jesus and WHO He is and WHAT He’s done for us.

When these folks undermine God’s Word they work at weakening our faith and our confidence.

Don’t let them do that! Because you don’t want to go where they’re gonna go.

 

CLOSE: The story is told of a man who rushed railroad train station one morning and, almost breathlessly, asked the ticket agent: "When does the 8:01 train leave?"

"At 8:01," was the answer.

"Well," the man replied, "it is 7:59 by my watch,

7:57 by the town clock,

and 8:04 by the station clock. Which am I to go by?"

 

"You can go by any clock you wish, but you cannot go by the 8:01 train – it’s already left.”

 

Be ready! Because if you’re not ready, you’re not going. That’s why the Bible stresses the immediacy of making your decision to follow Christ. As it says in II Corinthians 6:2: "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation"

 

INVITATION

 

Based on a sermon given

by Jeff Strite

When Peace Rules the Day

When Peace Rules the Day

John 20: 19-21

 

OPEN: GOT STRESS?

"The population of this country is 200 million.

84 million are retired. That leaves 116 million to do the work.

There are 75 million in school, which leaves 41 million to do the work.

Of this total, there are 22 million employed by the federal government.

That leaves 19 million to do the work.

4 million are in the armed forces, which leaves 15 million to do the work. Take from that total the 14.8 million who work for state and city governments and that leaves 200,000 to do the work.

There are 188,000 people in the hospital at any given time,

leaving 12,000 to do the work.

Currently, there are 11,998 people in jail.

That leaves just two people to do the work - you and me.

And you’re just sitting there listening. No wonder I’m tired and stressed!"

 

Dr. Don Colbert wrote a book called “Stress Less”

and noted that 75 to 90 % of all visits to primary care physicians were stress related.

He said Americans consume five billion tranquilizers,

five billion barbiturates, three billion amphetamines,

and sixteen tons of aspirin every year.

 

Much of this 'medicine' is being taken to help alleviate stress

or the resulting headaches and pain associated with stress!

What causes stress?

Stress is caused by - Worry and fear.

 

What causes worry and fear?

Well worry and fear happen when there’s something that is happening...or CAN happen... that I can’t control.

 

You could be worrying about your job, your family, your health, your finances, or your possessions... and the fear that you might lose one of them.

Essentially, there becomes something in your life you can’t control or you’ve lost control or... and panic sets in.

 

ILLUS: A few years ago I went to the dentist. He put this mask over my nose and tells me to breathe deeply of the gas. It was supposed to help me RELAX as he worked on my teeth. Apparently, it works for lots of folks... but not for me. As the gas began to go thru my system, I felt like I was losing control of my body... and I began to panic.

That’s how a lot of people react when they believe there’s something in their lives they can’t control.

 

In our text today John 20:19, we’re told that 19 when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and *said to them, “Peace be with you.”

The doors are locked. Why are the doors locked?

Because the disciples are afraid! Why are they afraid?

They’re afraid because the Jews had had Jesus put to death and Disciples are pretty sure they’re next.

They’re worried, they’re stressed out, they have no control over their fate... they’ve begun to panic!

 

Now was their FEAR real? Well... it’s possible.

Someone one said: “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean someone’s not out to get me.”

A lot of really dangerous and powerful people had wanted Jesus destroyed. And it wasn’t unreasonable to believe these same people would want destroy to them too.

But whether their fear was justified or not... they’ve locked the door, barred the windows, and they’re HIDING in this room.

And they ARE afraid!

 

And then Jesus shows up. And He gives them... PEACE.

Jesus had promised “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” John 14:27

 

And in Matthew He said “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:29

 

One of the major prophecies about the coming Messiah in Isaiah declared...: “unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; ... and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, prince of PEACE.

Of the increase of his government AND OF PEACE THERE WILL BE NO END.” Isaiah 9:6-7

 

And that’s why Peter wrote: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7

 

Now, that’s great theology! That’s wonderful stuff! But just exactly HOW do we do lay hold of His peace?

Well, I believe the answer to that question is part of the reason we’re being told this story about the disciples in John 20.

They’re not feeling “the peace” right now.

They’re afraid and their lives have fallen apart.

But then... Jesus shows up. And Jesus does some things that change their lives ...

and can change ours too!

Notice the first thing Jesus does: He appears to them and says “Peace be with you.” And He doesn’t say it just once... he says it twice.

 

Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “peace be with you.” ... Jesus said to them again, “peace be with you.” John 20:19-21

 

Now, in some religious circles, this is a religious greeting. When Muslims greet one another they’ll often say “Peace be unto you.” And the reply will be “peace be also upon you.”

But that’s not what’s going on here though. This is not a greeting. This a declaration. This a promise.

 

Earlier in His ministry Jesus said: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

 

That’s what Jesus had said back then, BUT now - in this locked room - Jesus has come so that they can have that peace. It’s like He’s saying “peace IS with you!”

What exactly has Jesus DONE that would give them peace?

Well, 1st He was THERE with them.

 

ILLUS: There is a true story of a woman who was suffering from depression and went to talk with her counselor. Hers was a truly tragic tale. Her daughter had been killed, her husband was unfaithful, and now she began to believe was about to lose her job. The counselor asked her:

"When the world crashes in on you, to whom do you go?" After a long pause she said, "I guess I just go to myself."

 

Later, she said the one word that most described her was "alone." She didn’t have anybody who was THERE for her.

Now, we don’t have to worry about that with Jesus. We have this promise: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

 

We have the promise that Jesus will never abandon us and that He will ALWAYS be there with us.

But even a lot of Christians have trouble with this.

 

Because, I mean, Jesus appeared physically to the Disciples, but He’s never done that for us. I realize there are times you can “feel Jesus presence” in the room with you... but, as far as I know, He’s never appeared physically to any of us. And so the question arises: How can I have His peace WITHOUT His physical presence?

 

Well, believe it or not, it is possible. That what Paul writes this in Philippians “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice... the Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the PEACE OF GOD, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus... Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me — practice these things, and the GOD OF PEACE WILL BE WITH YOU.” Philippians 4:4-9

 

ILLUS: Paul’s saying that you don’t have to SEE Jesus to know that He’s there. For example: How many of you, in the past couple of minutes have breathed? Of course you have. If you hadn’t breathed, you’d have passed out by now.

You need air to survive. But have you ever seen air?

Of course not. But you know it’s there because it’s what gives you life.

In the same way you don’t need to SEE Jesus to know that He’s there. All you need to do is focus on what He’s done in your life – rejoice in His blessings - and you’ll be reminded of His power and love. You’ll know He’s there, and you will have his peace.

 

One person put it this way: “Peace rules the day when Christ rules the mind.”

The 2nd thing Jesus did for His disciples, took me by surprise. You see, I’ve always focused on the part of this story where Thomas hasn’t gotten to see Jesus the first time around and refuses to believe He’s risen from the dead until he can see his hands and side. Then Jesus shows up and tells Thomas to touch His hands and put his hand in the wound in His side.

 

I had never caught the fact that – before Jesus did this with Thomas – He’d done it with the other disciples. We’re told, here in John 20, that Jesus appears to the other disciples before He meets with Thomas and “... he showed them his hands and his side.” John 20:20

 

Now, why would He do that? Why bother to have them focus on the wounds in His hands and side? Well, too often many Christians forget that Jesus can do “stuff.” That certainly happened to the disciples. Many times, even after Jesus had done all kinds of miracles, the disciples had a problem believing Jesus could do OTHER STUFF.

 

For example – a little after Jesus had performed the miracle of feeding 1000s of people with just a few loaves of bread and fish, we’re told that the disciples and Jesus had crossed over to other side of the Galilee and the disciples suddenly realized they’d forgotten to bring bread along with the. It says “(the disciples) began discussing among themselves, saying, ‘We brought no bread.’” Matthew 16:7

And Jesus gets kind of upset with them. “Guys, we just got done feeding 1000s with just a few loaves of bread, and you are worried about where you’re going to get bread! THINK!!!”

 

Keith Hartsell of Wheaton, Illinois, was driving around with a friend of his in California, when he noticed that his friend's cell phone was locked with an unusual password -- pro nobis.

Keith asked him what pro nobis meant and why he chose that for a password. Keith's friend told him it was Latin and it meant "For Us," and then he suddenly started choking up.

Keith thought, "Why would those two Latin words cause so much emotion?"

 

Then his friend composed himself and explained that after walking through deep personal pain, true healing came when he learned that God is "for us" -- or the Latin phrase pro nobis.

Keith's friend said that after experiencing tough times throughout his teenage years, he entered a season when he assumed that God didn't care or that God had given up on him. But he finally found hope through those two simple words -- pro nobis (for us).

You see, when he decided to believe that God was pro nobis, that God had even sent Christ to die for him, he could then decide to lay down his life for others.

 

I believe in a Jesus who can show me his hands and his side. And because of that... I believe in the promise: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:32

 

So, to have His peace, the 1st we need to remember that Jesus is always there for us. And the 2nd is to remember that He has done, and can do, mighty things in our lives.

 

But Jesus did one more thing that brought them peace. He said to them: "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." John 20:21

 

Did you catch that? At the heart of the peace Jesus gives us is a commission... a job to do. You see, Jesus didn’t give us His peace just so we could sit around and watch a movie or go out to eat. Not that there’s anything wrong with those things. I like to go watch a movie, and I like going out to eat.

 

The thing is – too many people believe Jesus saved them so they could kind of drift through life and enjoy themselves.

They think Christianity is all about putting in an hour or two each Sunday, singing songs, praying, taking communion and hearing a sermon – and then they can go about their daily lives without getting too “religious.”

 

But that’s not the way this works. Do you remember Jesus saying “TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:29

Farmers used a yoke so that their oxen could help plow the field. So when Jesus said – put on my yoke upon you – He was saying He had a job for you to do. Put His yoke on and pull the plow together. And, if you and I allow Him to use us we “will find rest for our souls” (peace).

Now... how does that work?

 

ILLUS: Imagine that your phone is ringing, and you answer it. You the recognize voice, but it’s not somebody that you’d ordinarily talk with. The person on the other end of the line is someone who’s really important. Someone you admire and respect. It could be a famous singer, or a movie star or a politician you respect.

 

Take a moment to picture someone on the other end.

And they have called YOU to ask you for a favor.

Now you didn’t think they knew you from Adam, but they took the trouble to look up your phone number, they took the time to call you up personally. And they’ve called you because they thought enough of you to believe that only you could do what they needed done.

 

How would that make you feel? (I’d feel pretty good).

Will you do what they need done (I would! In a heartbeat).

It wouldn’t matter what else was happening in your life.

It wouldn’t matter what was bothering you, depressing you, making you fearful.

Suddenly, you were worth something.

This person was counting on you.

And you’d do whatever they wanted done, no matter what it cost. Because they thought you were important enough to entrust with an important task.

 

CLOSE: Now most of you here are Christians. But even you will struggle with worry and fear. Peace can be difficult for even the most dedicated believer. But the keys to laying hold of the peace Jesus can give us to:

1. Believe that Jesus is THERE and won’t leave you. He’ll always be there for you.

 

2. Believe that Jesus has done great things in the past... and that He will do great things in you future.

 

3. And believe Jesus knows your names. He cares about what happens in your life and He believes so much in you that He has something He wants to give you. A mission that gives your life value.

 

But if you don’t belong to Jesus, you don’t have those promises. That’s why we offer an invitation at the end of every service....

(INVITATION)

 

Based on a Sermon given

by Jeff Strite

The Lost Son

The Lost Son

Luke 15:11-32

 

INTRO:

Good evening.   We continue our look at the parables.   Tonight we will look at the parable of ‘The Lost Son’ which is found in Luke 15:11-32. Also we are going to sum up the parables of “The Lost Sheep and The Lost Coin” as we go along.

Usually we read the text together before the lesson but this evening it’s a lengthy text so we’re just going to read it as we go along.

Most people know the parable of “The Lost Son” pretty well, yet before we make some applications with this parable let’s look at the background to it.

 

Under Jewish Law the terms by which a father assigned his inheritance was quite specific.   How specific?   Let’s look at part of the law in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 21:15-17 – “15. "If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and they have borne him children, both the loved and the unloved, and if the firstborn son is of her who is unloved, 16. "then it shall be, on the day he bequeaths his possessions to his sons, that he must not bestow firstborn status on the son of the loved wife in preference to the son of the unloved, who is truly the firstborn. 17. "But he shall acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.”

 

Deuteronomy 21:17 suggests that typically the eldest son received two shares and other sons one each. A father could, by virtue of a testament, designate a younger son as the “firstborn” and reassign the right to a double share to him. He could not do so, however, if he was married to multiple women and had previously chosen to “hate” (probably meaning “demote”) the mother of the biologically oldest son. In this case, the oldest retained the status of firstborn. Quite specific.

 

The first born is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.

In other words with two sons, two thirds of the father’s property went to his firstborn son, and so the son who went away in the parable we’re going to read would only get one third of that inheritance.

 

1. During Old Testament times a person didn’t have to wait until their father died to get their inheritance like they have to do today.   The father could them their share of his possessions while he was still alive.    In Luke 15:12 the younger son demanded his share of the inheritance from his father, he said, “Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.” He couldn’t wait.   He wanted his inheritance right there and then.
   1. The son in doing this was not being supportive of his father. In fact, in his request he was being callous and heartless.  What he’s saying to his father is, “Give me now the part of the estate that I’m going get when your dead anyway.”  That’s what he’s telling him.   He’s saying, “Give it to me now so that I can get out of here.”
   2. We know most children go through a rebellious stage at some point in their lives.  It’s usually when they are in their teens, and that’s possibly what’s happening here.  The younger son feels he’s been the baby of the family for long enough and now its time for him to strike out and go it alone.   As it is now, in those times this action carried some potential consequences.   Read verses 18-21 of Deuteronomy 21 if you are interested but we will not get into that in this lesson.
   3. Imagine this happened today, I’m sure most of us who have kids would certainly have a few things to say.  We wouldn’t let them go without at least a lecture on the world and morality, but I want you to notice how the father deals with the situation.  The text says at the end of verse 12 of Luke 15, “So he divided to them his livelihood.”
   4. He didn’t argue with his son, he didn’t try to persuade him otherwise, he simply let him go.  Why?  Why didn’t he give him a moral lecture as we might do?  We are not told, but as parents we might suspect the father let him go simply because he knew his son well enough to know that if his son was ever going to learn, he was going to have to learn the hard way. For some reason he gave in to his request, and some people are like that today. They will never learn unless they learn the hard way.
2. The son gets his inheritance and in some way he has it in a portable form and he takes off.   Does he use it to obtain land and start his own farm?   No. Luke 15:13-15 – “13. "And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. 14. "But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. 15. "Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.”
   1. The young man squandered all his money. He was hungry and he was desperate. Desperate times calls for desperate measures. That’s what happened here.
      1. We might think, at least when times were hard for him, he got a job working with pigs.   To us that is ok, a way to survive.
      2. What we think of a pig is different to what the Jews thought of pigs.  In Leviticus 11:1-8 we find a list of animals that God has mentioned that the Israelites could not eat.   They are unclean animals.   In Leviticus 11:7-8 - God says; “7. `and the swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. 8. `Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. They are unclean to you.”
      3. For us tending to a pig is no big deal but to a Jew, a pig was an unclean animal.   This was lower than low. To this young man this was the most degrading and humiliating task a Jew could ever do.
   2. Despite his job he’s still hungry and lonely and nobody would help.
      1. Its then that the text says in Luke 15:16 that “he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.”
      2. Did you ever run away from home? I sort of did.   I told mother I was running away, she packed a peanut butter and honey sandwich for me, told me to be careful on the barb wire and off I went.   Did I mention I was quite young?   Anyway, I went to the woods, we had nearly 190 acres with three stands of timber.   I got distracted at the first woods at a small pond. Spent time watching frogs, trying to catch tadpoles and then headed for the second woods.   I ate my sandwich there and explored some. By the time I got to the third woods my little legs were tired.   I was thirsty so I headed out of the woods to the blackberry patch in the open fields.   There were some ripe berries and I’m sure I made a mess, but I was still thirsty, so I ended up going home because I knew there would be water there. When I got home, mother gave me a glass of cold well water which I drank right down. The crazy thing was my parents never said a word about my saying I was running away.
      3. I turned around because of my need, I was thirsty.  In a very true sense that’s what happened to the younger son.  He knew he was better off at home because his father would take care of his needs.
      4. When things weren’t going according to plan, he ended up in a pigpen and then he realized what was happening.  Luke 15:17 – “But when he came to himself, he said, `How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!”
   3. I suspect that is a lesson for the church.   We know we can’t force people to stay faithful.   We can’t make Christians go to worship and attend all the services.   Guilt trips can only go so far with some people.
      1. Sometimes, we need to let people go and learn by their mistakes, so that they can come to their senses.
      2. They need to see what they lost when they were in fellowship with God and His people.   Let them see that they have made a mistake by leaving in the first place.
   4. The younger brother realized he was better off at home. He knew that there would be food at home.  He even knew that his father’s servants would have food left over and he worked out what he would say to his father when he got back home.
      1. Luke 15:18-19 – “18. `I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19. and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.''” That took courage. Yet to reach that point the young man had to be humbled. He had to learn true humility. This was true humility that the younger brother showed in verse 19 because he intended to ask his father to take him back as a hired servant, not as a son.
      2. We need to know that there is a difference between a hired servant and an ordinary servant.  The ordinary servant was in some sense like a member of the family, they had a place, but the hired servant could be dismissed at a days notice. He wasn’t part of the family because a hired servant only worked one day at a time.  He had no guarantee of employment, he lived day to day.
   5. Think about what he’s done and what he’s doing?  He left home as a son and he’s willing to return as lowly day laborer.  
      1. I suspect He didn’t just get a few things as an inheritance.   His father was likely quite successful. I base that on inference that he had full time servants and part time servants.   That was a sign of wealth back then.
      2. This was time for humility.   It’s time for submission.   It’s time for swallowing his pride.

• Let’s take a closer look at what he did.  First of all, the text says in Luke 15:17 that, “He came to his senses.”
  1. In other words, he was out of his mind when he left his father’s house.   It’s only now that he truly sees himself for the first time.
  2. Folks, it’s never easy taking a close look at yourself, is it?   It’s never easy and sometimes what you see are some very scary facts you would rather not see.
  3. When he comes to his senses, that’s the point in which he is starts his return journey back to his father.

1. Second, he says in Luke 15:18 that, “I will arise and go”
   1. When he left home, he did not have the intention of coming back.   He was only looking forward to the pleasure and “freedom” he thought he saw and wanted for himself.   Now that he saw himself more clearly, he saw his father in a different light.
   2. That’s something else we need to remember. When you look at yourself clearly, your opinion of other people changes too, doesn’t it?
2. Third it says in Luke 15:20 that, “he arose and came to his father”. When circumstances woke him up, he didn’t hesitate.   He just got up and went.
   1. There was no thinking time between the saying and doing.  His mind was made up and he did not waver or change his mind.
   2. When we think about it, there are many people in the world today who aren’t Christians who are caught between the saying and the doing.  They’re saying, but not doing. That is not where he is.
3. Fourth, in Luke 15:21 he says, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
   1. This is his confession.   When he reached a decision to return to his father, he already had his confession prepared.    Notice his confession. There’s no messing around with words. There’s no excuse for what he had done.
   2. He speaks the truth, “'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.”
4. In the parables of “The lost sheep, The lost coin and The lost son”, Jesus teaches us a great deal about mankind.   Jesus teaches us that men are lost.  It’s interesting that Jesus very seldom called men “sinners”, but rather He spoke of them as being lost.  
   1. When Jesus is sending out the twelve, He tells them not to go to the Gentiles or to any Samaritan towns, but He tells them in Matthew 10:6 “Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.”[para]
   2. When Jesus disciples were being harassed by a woman who had a demon possessed daughter, Jesus said in Matthew 15:24 – “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”[NKJV]  
   3. Jesus isn’t saying that He counted them as moral wretches or outlaws in headstrong rebellion against God, but simply that people were misguided.
      1. They were people that were disillusioned and needed to get back on the right road.
      2. There are still people like that today, aren’t there?    They are lost like “The sheep” described in Luke 15:3-7.  They are not consciously revolting against God, not fighting against His church. They simply slip away from Him step by step.   They wander off in search of what they are attracted to, greener grass, something more attractive then what they have, something they think will satisfy.
      3. The son here was like that.   In his view of the world what was out there was calling to him, dragging his mind away from home and family.   We see this all the time in youth.
      4. Hebrews 2:1 – “Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away.”  Saying it a different way; “We must pay more attention to what we have been taught, so that we do not drift away.”   That’s what happens to many Christians in the world today.  Many people do drift away. They slip away with the ebb and flow of the world and become spiritually numb.
   4. People are also like “The coin” described in Luke 15:8-10.   Although there is a difference between coins and people, the coin was lost through no fault of its own, but with men there is always the responsibility of choice that governs their destiny.
      1. The coin was lost in a sense that a man could never be.   Yet it is true that many people’s lives are wrecked not always because of their own fault, but because of the faults of other people that they become lost.
      2. Finally, some people are like “The lost son,” which we are studying this evening.  We talked about pride and “Self” before.   We all know that “Self”, (pride), can lead to sin and it’s the downfall of many a soul.
      3. Many people deliberately, with their eyes wide open, forsake the Lord and go off on their own.
      4. Folks, this is the essence of sin—to desire to please “Self” despite of its consequences; to do what one wants to do regardless of the feelings of others.    That’s the core of sin. Instead of pursuing the will of God, they pursue the will of “Self” just like this young man did when he left his father.
   5. Let’s take another look at the younger son.   He was lost but he also lost some things.
      1. He lost the fellowship of his father and the comfort of his home.
         1. Think about it, he had lived in a home with family and servants to wait on him, hired hands to assist.
         2. He had the best father a son could have, but all these things meant nothing to him until he was left friendless in a strange land.
         3. Although he knew what his father was like, he still went off to a far-off country and ended up in a pigpen.
         4. He was out of the reach of his father. He lost the fellowship with his father.
      2. He lost something else too, he lost his self-esteem.  He left home full of self-esteem and confidence, head held high in self-worth and ended up working in a field with some pigs.
         1. He threw away his family because of his pride and ended up with pigs.
         2. Have you ever been in a strange country or place where you don’t know anyone?  What he felt was probably worse, unknown, unneeded, unwanted and unloved in a far-off country where nothing is familiar.
         3. He also lost everything he had.  Luke 15:14 tells us “He spent everything he had” [para].  It’s amazing how the inheritance that he received so easily, was so easily squandered.
         4. Easy come, easy go as some may say.   Folks, he lost it all.   He lost everything.    He had no real friends, no real pleasures, no real freedom, no real independence and no real pride, he lost everything.  Now he’s in a mess.
      3. I wonder how the congregation would deal with someone who went off and lived like this and then came to their senses and came back home?
         1. You see, the shepherd with the sheep, the woman with the coin, the father with the son, were filled with great joy when they gained again what had been lost.
         2. That’s because God is kind and He is more understanding than we will ever be.  He feels deep in His heart the joy of joys when one wanderer returns home.
         3. This is obvious in Luke 15:20-24 – “20…. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. 21. "And the son said to him, `Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.' 22. "But the father said to his servants, `Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23. `And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24. `for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' And they began to be merry.” Folks, that’s the example the church must follow.  No moral lectures, no making them feel inferior when they return—just pure joy.
      4. Then we come to the part in the parable that I don’t like.  I wished I could just leave it there in verse 24 because that’s a happy ending, but sadly it doesn’t work that way.
         1. God has more for us. There are some serious lessons we can learn from this older brother’s reactions. The older son was saved but lost.
            1. Luke 15:25-28 – “25. "Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26. "So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27. "And he said to him, `Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.' 28. "But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him.”
            2. You see, the older brother was a self-righteous kind of man.   He could find nothing good in the life of his brother.   Everything his brother had done was bad, but as for him, he was proud of himself and proud of his life.
         2. He said to his father in Luke 15:29 and I paraphrase, “'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.”
            1. He was very proud, and he was very much like the Pharisees who started Jesus off on these parables by accusing Jesus of associating with and receiving sinners.
            2. The older brother was so jealous he wouldn’t even go inside and greet his brother.   He decided to stay outside the house and throw himself a pity party.
            3. He decided to sulk. He says to his father at the end of verse 29, “yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends.” You can almost hear the self-righteousness in these words. He’s full of pride.
            4. Most of all, the older brother was just heartless.    He wasn’t happy at all that his brother had come home.   He would probably be happier if his brother had been beaten up and kicked out.
               1. It’s a bit like the woman who went to the police station with her next-door neighbor to report that her husband was missing.
               2. The police officer asked for a description.

• She said, "He's thirty-five years old, six foot two, has dark eyes, dark wavy hair, an athletic build, weighs 180 pounds, is soft-spoken, and is good to the children."

1. The next-door neighbor protested, "Wait a minute! Your husband is five foot four, chubby, bald, has a big mouth, and is mean to your children."
2. The wife replied, "Sure, but who wants HIM back?"

5. That was the attitude of the older brother—“Who wants him back!”

1. Luke 15:30 says, “But as soon as this son of yours (notice he didn’t say my brother) came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.” He was jealous and heartless. All he cared about was about himself. He was also disrespectful to his father with these words.
2. He was angry and jealous, self-righteous even when his father says to him in Luke 15:31 – “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.”
   1. In other words, your brother has squandered all that was his, but you’ve still got your inheritance.
   2. In fact, it is likely twice as much as his brother had, but he still didn’t want to listen.   He was hurting himself without realizing it.
   3. An illustration. It’s a bit like little Johnny who went to the army surplus store one day and bought a grenade, not knowing it was a practice grenade.
   4. He strapped it to his waist. His friend asked why he did this. Johnny said, “There’s this guy who keeps picking on me and if he pushes me today, he’s going to blow off his hand.”  He’s not thinking straight. He needs to come to his senses.
   5. Even when his father tells him in Luke 15:32 “It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive, and was lost and is found”.  Even then, his anger took hold of him.
   6. He just couldn’t see that if his father had gained a son, he had gained a brother.
3. His whole attitude shows us that his years of obedience to his father had been years of grim duty and not loving service.  There’s not a sympathetic bone in his body, and notice again that he refers to his brother, not as “My brother” but as “Your son.”

 

CONCLUSION:

The lesson from this parable is severe.  You don’t necessarily have to go on a long journey to leave God.  You can stay at home and not know your father and not know your father’s heart even though you’re still at home.  You can be lost at home just as you can anywhere else in the world.  God’s attitude is seen in the diligent search of the shepherd and woman in the other two parables I mentioned earlier.  Because it’s one thing to accept a sinner but it’s another thing to go out and look for them.

 

Once again Jesus is revealing an amazing truth here, and the truth is that it is easier to confess to God than it is to many a man.  The truth is that God is far more merciful in His judgments than we will ever be with our fellow man.  The truth is that the love of God is far broader than the love we have for each other.

 

When we’re faced with a love like that then we are lost in wonder, lost in love and praise.   The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law would have said, “Who cares its just one lost sheep.”   Jesus would say, “Rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep.”

 

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law would have said, “What’s a coin, it’s just a coin.” Jesus would say, “Rejoice with me I have found my lost coin.”

 

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law would have said, “Cancel the party and throw him out.”  Jesus would say and still says today, “We are to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'" That’s love, that’s forgiveness, that’s worth rejoicing.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We learn from the New Testament how to be saved. We need to hear the word; believe in Jesus; repent of our sins; we must confess our belief that Jesus is the Son of God; and be baptized for the remission of our sins… If we follow these steps, the Lord adds us to His church.

 

Perhaps there is someone in the assembly today with the need to be buried with Christ in baptism. If you have never done these things, we urge you to do so today. If anyone has this need or desires the prayers of faithful Christians on their behalf, we encourage them to come forward while we stand and sing.

 

# ???

 

Reference Sermon

Mike Glover

The Fruit of The Spirit - Love

The Fruit of The Spirit - Love

Galatians 5:22-23, 1 Corinthians 13

 

INTRO:

Good morning.   We have had some lessons on worship to God, what repentance is and about the ties that bind us.   Today I would like to start to look at the Fruit of the Spirit.

 

I want to encourage you to take out your Bibles and look at the scriptures I mention. If you have any questions about anything I say, I’ll be glad to talk to you about it. If I’m wrong, I will stand corrected.

 

We're going to begin in Galatians 5:22-23 – “22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

23. gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” Our sermon this morning is going to be a study on the fruit of the spirit, love.

Have you ever wondered; Why do you exist?   Just think about it for a moment.   We are alive.  The creator of the universe has chosen to give us existence.  Why?

Why are we here?

What's the purpose?

Why have you created me?

Why have you given me life?

What do you want from me?

 

In Matthew 22:37-39 – “37. Jesus said to him, " `You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38. "This is the first and great commandment. 39. "And the second is like it: `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'” This is why you exist.  This is what God desires from you.

 

This is what we as Christians strive, throughout our life, to attain.   To reach the point in our relationship with God where we love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind.  Then we strive in our relationship with people in the world around us to love our neighbor as we love our self.

 

In the text in Matthew we're talking about the Old Testament and the Old Covenant, and on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.   We realize these two commandments are also the very core, the very center of the new covenant of Christianity, the New Testament, and our relationship with God.

 

You hear the word love used repeatedly in songs, in poetry, and in the movies.   You hear the word love over and over again.   Yet it seems that in our world, where the word love is used so often, we don't understand what it is and the seriousness of it.

 

We have heard a multitude of sermons on this subject.   I ask you to listen attentively because, folks, this is what it's all about.  This is why we exist.   This is what God expects us to develop in our life, in our relationship with Him, and in our relationship with other people.

 

1. Notice the importance of love in Colossians 3:14 – “But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.”    Then in 1^st Corinthians 13:13 – “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  Notice that all these verses I have used so far, use superlatives.   The greatest commandment is love, above all things put on love, and the greatest of these is love.   It is the most important thing for us to develop in our life and since it's so important it would be nice if we knew what it was.
   1. We find that the word love is used many times in all kinds of songs.   We hear people using it in their everyday vocabulary.   Yet, I believe that there are people out there that don't know what it is or understand it.
      1. I thought about giving you the definition of love by going to a lexicon and a concordance, giving the definition of the words used for love but we have done that before.   Actually, the definition for love is found in the scriptures.
      2. It is in 1^st Corinthians chapter 13 where we find love defined by God.   The way in which God defines love is by the things that it does and the things that it does not do.   How love is manifested in someone's heart and in their life.
      3. Let’s look at 1^st Corinthians 13:4-8 – “4. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5. does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6. does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7. bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8. Love never fails.” You’ve probably read and heard these verses a number of times. In the richness of scripture God gives us even more information than this.
   2. I would like to look at another text where the Word of God helps us understand love.   We are going to look at the text dealing with the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit because in the works of the flesh and the list of the fruits of the Spirit we again can find a definition of what love is by its actions.
      1. Notice this if you will.   In First Corinthians 13:4 we have the first characteristic of love—it suffers long.  When we go to Galatians 5:22 where it talks about the fruit of the spirit, we find in the description of the fruit of the spirit, is its long suffering.
      2. Again, First Corinthians 13 for the very next definition of love is; love is kind.  When you go to the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22 the fruit of the spirit is kindness.
      3. First Corinthians 13:4 says love does not envy.   When you go to the works of the flesh over in Galatians 5:19-21 we find one of the works of the flesh is jealousy.
   3. Now when we look at the works of the flesh, I want us to realize that everything that is listed in the works of the flesh—that's not love.  It is the exact opposite of love.   Everything listed in the works of the flesh is the opposite of the definition of love.
      1. Look at this some more. First Corinthians 13:4 – “love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;” and in verse 5 - does not seek its own. But when you go to the works of the flesh you find the one of the works of the flesh is selfish ambitions.   Do we see the opposites?   Love is not self-seeking it does not seek its own, but a work of the flesh is selfish ambition, the exact opposite.
      2. Again, we find in First Corinthians 13:5 that love does not behave rudely.   When we go over the Galatians 5 and listed in the works of the flesh are hatred and contentions.  
      3. First Corinthians 13:5 – Love is not provoked.  In Galatians we find one of the works of the flesh is outburst of wrath.  Again, the opposite.
      4. First Corinthians 13:5 says thinks no evil.   In Galatians we find in the works of the flesh hatred and jealousies.
      5. First Corinthians 13:6 – “(love) does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;”. Go to the works of the flesh and we'll find listed among them; dissensions and heresies, people who get caught up in lies and false teaching.
      6. First Corinthians 13:7-8 – “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” When we look at the fruit of the spirit one of the fruits of the spirit is… faithfulness.
      7. By the way, notice again verse 13 in First Corinthians – “now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Faith, hope and love are the three motivators in the life of a Christian.
   4. If we want to know what love is, we read the text in First Corinthians 13. When we study the works of the flesh, we find that the work of the flesh is the exact opposite of love.
      1. I want to go a little further on that because remember in the works of the flesh, one of the works of the flesh was adultery and another one was fornication.
      2. A lot of times you can hear people say: “Oh we're in love!” when they're involved in fornication.   No, they are not, they are in lust.  Adultery is not love either, that's lust.
      3. Outbursts of wrath are not love, hatred is not love.  If we look at the works of the flesh every single one of them, that's not love.   Love is the opposite of them.
   5. God expects us to develop this characteristic in our hearts, in our life and our relationship with Him first, and then in our relationship with our fellow human beings. We should understand this is what it's all about.  This is the greatest commandment.  This is what we are to put on above all things.
2. That being said let's go to First Peter 1:8 and get down to the application of love. First Peter 1:8 – “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,” [ESV].
   1. In our relationships with each other we can see each other.   We can interact with each other. We can come to know each other by just talking with, interacting with and seeing.
   2. We have not seen God. How can we love a God we’ve never seen?
      1. I have a question for all of us. How do you feel about God? Please be honest. Answer that question in your own heart. How do you feel about your creator? Do you understand what it is He wants from you?
      2. He wants us to love Him and not just love Him, He wants us to love Him with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind. He wants us to love him more than we love anyone. Total, complete love for him.
      3. How can we love someone that much when we’ve never seen them? You see we still link love with sight, don’t we?   We may say we love an animal because they are so cute, but to love our unseen God with an all consuming love?
   3. In First John 4:19 – “We love Him because He first loved us.” We realize the only way we're going to be able to get to that level of loving God, is going to be through faith.  That's right.  Our love for God is the strongest development of our faith.
      1. Remember what we learned earlier about faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love?  As I said. those are the motivators in the life of every Christian.
         1. Faith is dealing with things not seen.  We walk by faith not by sight.
         2. Hope is dealing with things not seen. We are hoping for eternal life in heaven which we have not seen and yet we believe in it to the point that we're rebuilding our entire life and all our actions around it.

• The strongest development of something in our relationship with God, who we have not seen, is love.  Love is the strongest level of faith.

2. You love Him because He first loved you.  How do we know He loves us? First John 4:16 says “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”  Look at this very slowly with me.
   1. We have known.
   2. And believed.

• The love that God has for us.

3. How do you know God loves you?   Do you believe the creator of the universe is conscious of you, the individual, the person, and knows you individually and loves you personally?
4. That's a very important question to answer because if you are not conscious of His love for you, if you are not aware of the magnitude of His love for you, you will not love Him back, and you will struggle in your relationship with God.

1. That's why we began this part of the lesson by asking the question: how do you feel about God?
   1. If we're struggling in that relationship, (and that's what this is all about you know, that's what our existence is all about, our relationship with God)... if we’re struggling, then we need to be trying to figure out what's wrong.
   2. Do you know and believe the love that God has for you?
   3. How do you know He loves you?
   4. First John 3:16 “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” This is how we know the love of God and the love of Christ.
2. Let’s look at it this way. Which one of us would give a child of ours as a sacrifice for anyone here? I would go as far as to say I love many of you very deeply but I'm not giving my son or my daughter to die for you.
   1. We've heard it a thousand times.   We can all quote it. God so loved the world He gave His only begotten son. Don't let that wash over your heart and brain like water over a rock. Let it sink in. God knows us personally.
   2. He knows you individually and He loves you so much He gave His only son to die for you.
   3. What about us?   Would any of us die for another in this room?   Would we be willing to go out and be scourged and beaten and whipped?   Would we be willing to be crucified and be tortured for six hours on a cross for someone here?
   4. Jesus does love you that much.   He was scourged.  He accepted every stroke of the whip, because He loves you.
3. Paul says in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God,…”[para]
   1. Notice the last part of the verse, who loved me and gave himself for me.
   2. What Paul is doing is individualizing the love of God, coming to know and believe the magnitude of the love of God in Christ for you.
   3. When we know, when we believe; - we realize, that was done for me!   He loves me that much!  He made that sacrifice and went through all that suffering for me.
   4. As we become conscious by faith of who Jesus is and what happened at Calvary, what will be developing in our heart will be love.
   5. We will find ourselves loving God, whom we've never seen, because we know and believe the magnitude of the love He has for us.
   6. We will find ourselves loving a savior whom we've never laid eyes on because we have come to know and believe the sacrifice that He made.   That is personal, individualized, love of God and Christ for us and we believe it, we know it.

• Let’s look at Luke 7:47 – “Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”  I wanted to look at this verse because I believe this is another reason why we love God whom we have not seen.   It has to do with our consciousness of forgiveness.   The reason Christ died for us, motivated by His love for us, is because He understood that sin was separating us from God.
  1. As long as that situation continued, we would have no hope of being with Him in heaven.  Is there anybody here who is not conscious of this reality?   We are sinners and left on our own we are lost.
     1. When the judgment day comes and we know it is coming, if every one of us got what we deserved we would have no hope of being with God.
     2. Is there anybody here this morning who can say I have only been forgiven a little? No.   The truth of the matter is, we have all been forgiven much.
     3. Consciousness of forgiveness and the magnitude of that forgiveness produces love.
  2. The two things for us to see in this part of the sermon is first; know the love of God for you and the sacrifice of Christ.   Be aware of the blessings of life that are given to us by God, because He loves us, but also at the same time in our relationship with God - be conscious of forgiveness.
     1. Be conscious of the sins that you and I have committed. They have been removed by the power of the blood of Christ and we stand before Him forgiven.
     2. I don't know what else to say to Him on the Day of Judgment other than thank you and I sure do appreciate it.
     3. The more I am aware of what the magnitude of this is… the more I find myself loving somebody I’ve never laid eyes on. Yet it is not enough to just have an appreciation of God and what He does, is it?
  3. God wants a perfect relationship, a total, absolute love, with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind. When that is true then in our day to day living you can see a manifestation of our relationship with God.
     1. First John 2:5 says; “But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.” Actions tell what's in our heart.   We can tell what kind of relationship we have with God by the way we speak and the way we live.   If we really love Him, we're going to want to live a life pleasing to Him.  
        1. We all understand that in the relationship of husbands and wives.   If you love someone you want to live a life pleasing to them.
        2. In our relationship with God, if we really love Him, we'll keep His commandments.   You don't want to harm the relationship.  You don't want to be separated from Him.  You want to be with Him.
        3. If we want to be with Him that sort of brings up the question; what's heaven?
        4. Let me give a good definition of heaven.  Heaven is being with God.  I don't care where it is. I don't care what it looks like.  I just want to be with Him.  That's what heaven is.   Wherever He is, is heaven.
     2. One of the spiritual health checkup questions we ask ourselves is; what kind of relationship do I have with my creator?   Understand this is why we exist.  This is why we are alive.  This is what we are expected to attain to in our existence.
  4. First John 4:11-12 – “11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.” What is John talking about here? He is talking about the brethren. Remember what we learned earlier. The second command is likened to the first and it is to love your neighbor as you love yourself.   When we're dealing with the commands of God, the majority the commands are dealing with our interaction with other human beings.
     1. Thinking back to the Old Testament and the list of the Ten Commandments the first few of the commandments are dealing with our relationship with God, but the last ones are dealing with our relationship with people.   When we love one another, we are showing our love for God.
     2. As a matter of fact, if you continue First John 4:20-21 – “20. If someone says, "I love God,'' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21. And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.”
        1. We see each other, we interact with each other.   If we do not come to the point where we love each other, the truth of the matter is we really don't love God either.   Learn to honestly love people.
        2. God loves everybody.  He loves you. He loves the vilest sinner so much that He gave His son to die for him.
        3. Jesus loves the most despicable person we could ever meet.  Learn to love our fellow human beings.

 

CONCLUSION:

Again, in First Corinthians 13:4-8 – “4. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5. does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6. does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7. bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8. Love never fails.”

Learn how not to think evil and how not to live with pride.

Learn how to rejoice in the truth and be glad when people obey the gospel.

Learn how to be patient with people; bearing all things believing all things enduring all things.  

 

Take the text and learn to live it in your relationship with everybody not just your mother and your father, your sons and your daughters—everybody.  That's the second great commandment.

 

First John 5:1-2 – “1. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begat also loves him who is begotten of Him.

2. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.” There it is again.   We're dealing with our relationship with each other by this we know that we love the children of God (how?) when we love God and (there it is) keep His Commandments.

When we're keeping His commandments, they're not chains to keep us from enjoying life. They teach us what real love is. - As I told you earlier, the word love is used all the time by people in the world who haven't got a clue what it really is.   Come to understand from the Scriptures what love is, and above all things… put it on.

 

The last verse we will look at is First John chapter 3:17-18 – “17. But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? 18. My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”

Verse 18 is putting it as clearly as it can be put, getting down to what we call the brass tacks of the application of love. We come in contact with a brother, or sister and they have no food. They’re in need and we do nothing.  We pass by on the other side.

When we do that, we don't love them, and we don’t love God.  Understand both of those are true.   When we pass by on the other side what we are saying is I don't care about you, but at the deeper level we don't care about God, the one who gives them life.

 

If we're really going to come to love God and love our neighbors as we love our self, we must stop passing by on the other side.   It's not just enough to say I love you.   I hope things work out.

 

Notice the last part of this verse let us not love in word or tongue.   That is the way the world looks at love, it is something you say.   Oh, yeah, I really care about you. Oh, that’s really bad.  Hope things work out. Bye. I gotta go.

 

He says let it be in deed, there's the action, and in truth. Let it be real!  Have we reached the level of loving God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our minds?

No.

Have we reached the level of loving our neighbors as we love our self?

No.

We spend all our life working to put this on.

 

The truth of the matter is every time we sin, every time, we are showing our lack of love for God and our lack of love for our fellow human beings.

Let me tell you something. Do you know there is going to come a time in your existence when you will reach the level of love that God desires of you?

 

Do you know where that's going to be? That's what heaven's all about.

In heaven you will love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind in a perfect relationship of love with God our creator and you will come to love everyone around you perfectly.

 

Does that surprise us?   There will come a time, and as a matter of fact, think about this, it's going to be the majority, the major part of your existence, where you will have reached the fulfillment of the primary command of learning to love.   But on this side of eternity what God wants us to do is to strive above all things to put it on, realizing it is the greatest, it is the primary thing, as to why God gives us life.   It is the first of the fruits of the spirit.

 

There may be somebody here this morning who hasn't obeyed the gospel of Christ.

If you believe Jesus is the Son of God and you're willing to confess your faith and repent of your sins we'd be glad to assist you and baptize for the remission of your sins as you put off the old man and put on the new man.  

 

As you put on a new man who you're putting on is Christ who lived the life of love perfectly. His love for God was perfect. His love for mankind was perfect.  What we do is we look to that example and we strive to learn to love God and love our fellow human beings.   That's what you're putting on above all things.

 

If you’re a child of God already and you find you are no longer being described in the way love is defined, the fruit of the spirit no longer describes you in your relationship with God and your fellow man; we would like to encourage you to make a change.   We would like to encourage you to start focusing at the very core of your relationship, coming to know and believe the love God has for you, coming to be conscious and aware of how much you have been forgiven, and then motivated by your love for God, keep His commandments, and learn to love your fellow human beings.

 

If a sin is standing between you and God, we'll be glad to pray for you to pray with you to do the very best we can to encourage you.

If anyone subject of the gospel call, in any way, let us know always stand and sing the song that’s been selected

 

Invitation song: ???

Reference sermon by: Wayne Fancher

 

 

 

 

      

 

The Lost Coin

The Lost Coin

Luke 15:8-10

 

INTRO:

Good evening.   We will continue our look at the parables and we are going to look at the parable of ‘The Lost Coin’ this evening which is found in Luke 15:8-10.

 

First though I must tell you this story I came across about little Johnny.   Little Johnny’s mother and father had just finished tucking the children into bed one evening when they heard sobbing coming from three-year-old Johnny’s room.

Rushing to his side, they found him crying hysterically.

He had accidentally swallowed a penny and was sure he was going to die.

No amount of talking could change his mind.

Desperate to calm him, his father palmed a penny that he happened to have in his pocket and pretended to pull it from Johnny’s ear.

Little Johnny was delighted. In a flash, he snatched it from his father’s hand, swallowed it and demanded cheerfully, "Do it again, daddy!"

 

Now usually when we have found something we lost, we are not anxious to lose it again, but some things do become lost again despite our care, including people.

 

The parable of “The lost coin” is closely related to “The parable of the lost sheep” which we looked at last week in Luke 15:3-7.  It’s also closely related to “The parable of the lost son” which is found in Luke 15:11-32.   We will look at that another time.

 

All three parables go together because they all come from the same source, they came from the same comment.   We read this comment in Luke 15:1-2 “Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

 

In other words, the parables are told to the Pharisees and the teachers of law who were condemning Jesus for associating with sinners.   What Jesus is doing in all three parables is explaining why He associates with these people.

 

8. Turn with me to Luke 15:8-10 – “8. "Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and seek diligently until she finds it? 9. "And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, `Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!' 10. "Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.''” Nina and I grew up on farms and hard money was not easy to get.   I recall riding my bicycle down Chillicothe and Cedar roads looking for bottles that people had tossed.   I would wash them under the cistern pump and turn them in at the general store for some change.   Nina recalls finding coins when walking and picking them up.   The other kids said if the found coin was tails up you would have bad luck, but she did not care, it was spendable, found tails up or heads up.  
   1. The coin in question here was likely a silver drachma, which by our standards is worth very little, but during Jesus’ time, this was worth a lot. It was equivalent to just over a day’s wage.  We can understand why this woman was so desperate to find the lost coin.   It meant the difference between eating and being hungry.  In those days, like some people in the world today, many people lived on the edge of things.
      1. In Matthew 20:1-16 Jesus told “The parable of the vineyard workers”.  And in that parable some of the men stood at the market place all day long, waiting for the opportunity to work.
      2. The opportunity to work stood between them eating and going hungry.   The coin was of importance and Jesus says at the end of Luke 15:8 that the woman, “swept the house and searched carefully until she found it.”
      3. In other words, she turned the house upside down looking for this coin because that coin was important to her.
      4. Remember that Jesus is talking about His relationship with sinners and tax collectors.
   2. Let’s look at this parable and see what we can find out.
9. I’m going to start with something I rarely do and that is discussing a point that we are not told about.   People often do this with the Bible and in general I’m not a fan of it since it can lead to unprofitable speculation.   Nevertheless I’m going to ask us to consider; how was the coin lost?
   1. I strongly suspect that the woman herself lost the coin.  Maybe it was through stupidity, through carelessness or even neglect.  In any case the woman was likely responsible.
      1. It was her fault that the coin was lost so we can’t blame the coin, because the coin was lost through no direct fault of its own.
      2. Unlike the sheep which we looked at last week, which strayed and became lost through its own stupidity, the coin is completely passive.
      3. In other words the coin being lost was someone responsibility and not the fault of the coin.
   2. Have you ever been trying to watch a TV program but there’s a distraction in the house?  I recall one evening when I was trying to watch something and on the window was a fly, a big blue bottle fly, just buzzing around and around (preacher makes buzzing noise).  It was distracting me.
      1. The poor thing was trying to get out, but it couldn’t because it was powerless to do anything for itself.   It couldn’t open the window and fly to freedom. It couldn’t save itself.
      2. I had to open the window and let it go free.  I bet you thought I was going to say that I grabbed the flyswatter, weren’t you?   Chasing a fly around with the swatter was not in my plans, so I let it out, I had to help it because it couldn’t save itself.
      3. The point of the story is that the coin couldn’t save itself.   It could do nothing to save itself. Again, unlike the sheep, the coin couldn’t wander back.  It couldn’t shout out to the woman “Here, I am over here”.
      4. It’s a coin and couldn’t do that.   When you think about it, a coin wouldn’t even realize it was lost. The point I’m trying to make is that all the searching had to be done by someone else.
   3. Jesus says in Luke 19:10 – “for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, God in the human form of Jesus Christ came on a search and rescue mission.  That’s what He did. He came to search for those that were lost and bring them to salvation.
      1. Folks, that includes us, that includes every single human being on this planet that is willing to let Him save them.
      2. Titus 2:11 says, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”

• In these parables so far, we have seen a sheep that gets itself lost and a coin that is lost due to some action or inaction of its owner.   That brings me to my next point. I want to ask you, how are people lost?
  1. It would be very easy to go off the mark with this parable and make every little detail mean something but we know every person faces judgment on their own deeds and every person who is lost is lost because of their own sin.   Remember that the coin is passive, people are not.  
     1. No person is lost just because of the sin of someone else.
     2. God put an end to that idea in Ezekiel 18:1-4 when He said, “1. The word of the Lord came to me again, saying, 2. "What do you mean when you use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying: `The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge'?”
     3. What is he saying there?   He is saying the proverb states that the children are being punished for what the fathers did.
     4. He goes on to say: “3. "As I live,'' says the Lord God, "you shall no longer use this proverb in Israel. 4. "Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins shall die.”
     5. In other words, you’re responsible for your own sins; you can’t go blaming others for your sin.   You can’t blame your father or your uncle.   You must take responsibility for your own sins.  
  2. You’ve probably heard of John Wesley, a very famous preacher in the UK many, many years ago. He worked among the coal miners in Cornwall.
     1. The story goes that during the days of John Wesley and concerning his work among the coal miners, whole villages were transformed from people that were gambling, swearing, and skipping assembly on the Lord’s Day, to men and women of sobriety and godliness.
     2. In many homes in Wales there was a picture of John Wesley, the man they all knew and loved.  The story goes that one day a stranger visited one of these humble homes and saw the picture hanging on the wall.  The visitor asked the man, “Whose picture is that?”  The old miner reverently lifted his hat and said, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.”
     3. If you read the scriptures, you know what that means.
     4. John Wesley was a powerful influence in his time with the people he met.
     5. How powerful?   Well, many took up the work do to this man and the story is told of one who became a village minister in the south of Wales.   When this village minister passed on, a well-known Welsh preacher went to deliver the address at the funeral. Hundreds of miners assembled in silence around the grave, and these were the first words that fell upon their ears: "My brethren, the greatest obstacle on your road to hell has been removed."
  3. I wonder what sort of influence we have on others.   You see the influence we have on other people can determine where they spend eternity.  
     1. Yes a person’s sin is their own responsibility but I hope and pray that we realize the power we have to influence people.
     2. Titus tells us how we can influence other saints in the church, and that we can oppose those who oppose our teachings.  Titus 2:7-8 – “7. in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, 8. sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.”
     3. Paul reminds us that it is the church that is to do the influencing not the world.  Ephesians 4:17-19 – “17. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, 18. having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart; 19. who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to licentiousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.”
  4. As Christians our lifestyles, teachings and beliefs should be the very things that influence the people around us, but we must be careful not to let it happen the other way around.
     1. What did Jesus say about you and salt?  Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth.” You’re not the salt in the worship place.   You’re not the salt of your house.
     2. Jesus says you’re not the salt sitting in a dish in this building; you’re the salt of the earth.   You need to go out and season and influence the people in your world with that salt.  Mix with the ungodly, influence them; season them until they become godly.
  5. Jesus also warned His disciples in Matthew 16:6 – “Then Jesus said to them, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.''”.
     1. The word “leaven” is usually used in the Bible in terms of evil influence.
     2. That’s what Jesus meant in Matthew 23:15 when He tells them, “"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” The point is that people can influence people.   I believe we all know that.
  6. That’s what we do.   As Christians we should influence people for the good, but we need to be on our guard against the world influencing us with evil.
     1. Evil can come at us in many different forms.   It can come in the form of false teaching.  It can come in the form of lack of church attendance, from not taking time to be with fellow Christians and be encouraged.
     2. It can come in the form of lack of zeal in our study of God’s word. It can come in the form of a lax attitude towards sin.  Oh, God will forgive me—that sort of mentality.
     3. What happens if your influence helps someone to decide to become a Christian?   They are going to follow your example aren’t they?   What if you then become influenced by evil?
        1. The person following your example won’t think that the Bible is important, if you don’t think it’s important.
        2. They won’t think it is important to come to worship, to meet with other Christians, if you don’t think it’s important.

• They won’t think it’s all that important to give up some sin in their lives, if you don’t think it’s important to give up the sin which is in your life.

4. When we let the world influence our religion, our religion becomes worthless.  Just like the coin in the parable.   When a coin is lost, it becomes worthless.
   1. You know when a coin goes out of circulation it still has its basic worth.  In other words, a nickel lost is still worth 5 cents when found.   A dime lost is still worth 10 cents.   But any coin that is out of circulation, lost, is unusable.   It still has value but is unusable.  When a coin is lost, it becomes unusable.   Money is only good when it is usable, when it can be circulated.   When a person is lost their influence for good is lost.
   2. What Jesus is teaching us is that people could wear the name God, but were lost to God.    Their soul is still worth more than the whole world, but if their souls are not given to God, they’re lost.
5. I’m going to read from Romans 1:18-21 – “18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19. because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21. because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
   1. What is Paul saying in these verses?   He is saying there are people who are lost, and they’re not even bothered about it.
   2. Why aren’t they bothered?   Because they don’t even recognize they are lost.  A woman looses one coin, so what, it’s a coin.
   3. The Scribes and Pharisees thought that way about sinners.  Why be bothered with the lowly, the outcast and the poor?  That was their attitude.
   4. You see, a coin may be just a coin and some people may not care if it is lost, but coins can have more than their monetary value.   Such was this coin to its owner.   So she got a lamp and lit it and searched the whole house to find that which was lost. The value was not in the coin itself but it what it could do for her and her family.  
6. Let’s look at this another way.   How keen are we at searching for the lost?  Most of us are quite willing to search in the worship place.
   1. In other words we’re quite happy to sit here until some lost soul comes to us here in the building on a Sunday morning.  But what about outside? Remember we are His hands on earth.   What about the other 6 days of the week?
   2. A person doesn’t have to come to the building to find out about God, this is the place where we gather every week to worship our God.  
   3. I’m sure most of us have got friends who aren’t Christians.  Are we going to share the Gospel with people the other 6 days a week, or are we going to have the attitude of the Scribes and Pharisees?
   4. Are we going to say, “Why bother, they won’t listen anyway.”  You don’t know that, unless you’ve tried.
7. I read of a survey conducted by Christians.  It was all about church growth and was given to over 10,000 Christians.   One question was, "What was responsible for your coming to Christ and His church?"  Here’s what they replied;
   1. 5 % said I attended a Gospel meeting.
   2. 1 % said I visited there.
   3. 2 % said I had a special need.
   4. 3 % said I just walked in.
   5. 3 % said I liked the program.
   6. 6 % said I like the minister.
   7. 5 % said I like the Bible classes.
   8. Take a guess about how 79 % of people came to Christ and became a Christian?   79% of people said they came to Christ and His church because a friend or relative invited them.
   9. With all the talks, discussions, sermons and studies on how to reach the lost, the most effective way is simply this, you talk to people and invite them.   In my own case, yes, I was looking, but I could not find.   If I had not been encouraged to come and taste by Nina, I might have gone on the rest of my life without finding. I class myself in that 79%.   Those who were fortunate enough to have parents or grandparents that brought them are in that 79% too.
8. Jesus didn’t say, the preacher is the light of the world.   He said in Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world.”  We all are.   We don’t need to share the Gospel with the world in one go.  Some people are frightened by that.  
   1. We don’t need to wait until there are 3 or 4 or 100 people around us to share the gospel with them.  We need to share the Gospel with people one at a time.
   2. 1 Peter 4:10 “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.”[para]  There is no set procedure for talking to people, no “formula”.   There are all sorts of ways to go about it.
   3. Some people are confrontational, up front, other people are nice and gentle.   It doesn’t matter as long as we’re using what God has given us.  

 

CONCLUSION:

I like this story a man who was walking along a beach, and he saw someone in the distance leaning down, picking something up and throwing it into the ocean.    As he got closer, he saw thousands of starfish the tide had thrown onto the beach, unable to return to the ocean during low tide, the starfish were dying.  He observed a young man picking up the starfish one by one and throwing them back into the water.  After watching this seemingly futile effort, the man said, "There must be thousands of starfish on this beach.  It would be impossible for you to get all of them.  There are simply too many.  You can't possibly save enough to make a difference."  The young man smiled picked up another starfish and tossed it back into the ocean and said, "It made a difference to that one."   Finding one lost sheep and returning it to the fold may not seem like much—unless you are that lost sheep.

 

We all want the church to grow.   For that to happen we need to plant the seed, one at a time, in the hearts of people outside.  As God gives us opportunity, we will water that seed, then God will cause the seed to grow and then He will add to our number.

When God does add to our number, it’s a time to rejoice.

 

A preacher in the UK related this story; “I remember when I lived in Scotland, I lost my wallet and so I cancelled all the credit cards and reported it to the police.

A few weeks later our daughter Roxanne was playing with her toys.   She was playing shops.

She had a little till and a little cupboard with all sorts of things in it.   And out from behind the till, Roxanne brings out my wallet. Roxanne had it all the time.

There was rejoicing in our house that night, and as I had £20:00 in that wallet that meant we could buy Chinese takeout.  We had the Chinese and celebrated.

Although we rejoiced, we didn’t go out in the street and rejoice with our neighbors, but the woman in the parable did.”

 

Luke 15:9 “And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.'” [para]

She was overwhelmed with joy, finding that lost coin was more important to her than the other 9 coins she didn’t lose.  Why? Because the other nine were already safe, she knew exactly where they were. They were in her possession.

Jesus goes on to say in Luke 15:10, “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."   God loves us and cares for us and gives us grace and peace and eternal life.  Nothing makes Him and the heavenly hosts happier than when someone who turns their back on their sinful lifestyle and turns toward God.

 

Hebrews 12:22 says, “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly.” [para]

That’s what happens when a person decides to follow Jesus, thousands upon thousands of angels gather in joyful assembly.  Why, because when sinners repent and follow God’s ways, that’s worth celebrating.

 

When sinners say, ‘not my will be done, but His will be done’, that’s worth celebrating.

Let me encourage you this evening if you’re not a Christian, to talk to someone today about what it means to be a Christian.

Let me encourage you today to seriously think about becoming a follower of Christ.

Your decision to follow the Christ can give the saints, not just here, but all over the world and the angles in heaven a reason to rejoice with you.

Heaven will have a party because of your decision to follow Jesus.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

We learn from the New Testament how to be saved. We need to hear the word; believe in Jesus; repent of our sins; we must confess our belief that Jesus is the Son of God; and be baptized for the remission of our sins… If we follow these steps, the Lord adds us to His church.

 

Perhaps there is someone in the assembly today with the need to be buried with Christ in baptism. If you have never done these things, we urge you to do so today. If anyone has this need or desires the prayers of faithful Christians on their behalf, we encourage them to come forward while we stand and sing.

 

# ???

 

Reference Sermon

Mike Glover

Understanding Repentance

Understanding Repentance

Romans 12:1-2, Acts 2:38

INTRO:

Good morning.   We have had a few lessons on worship to God and how it is the manifestation of our personal relationship with God that comes from our heart.   Today I would like to look at something related yet not discussed much except in broad terms.   It is a very important subject that I fear some members of the body of Christ and people out in the world may not understand very well; what is repentance.

 

I want to encourage you to take out your Bibles and look at the scriptures I mention.  If you have any questions about anything I say, I’ll be glad to talk to you about it.  If I’m wrong, I will stand corrected.

 

The very first scripture we're going to look at is one you're all familiar with Acts 2:38 – “Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”.

I imagine most of you could probably quote this verse very easily but notice the first word is that Peter uses.   He says; “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins”.  

 

Repentance is an integral part of the Christian life.  You cannot be saved without it.  You cannot be a child of God without it.  Yet, I fear sometimes people view Christianity as baptism alone.  I've been baptized therefore I'm saved.  Repentance is a key part of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

Over in Acts 3:19 he says; “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,”   We need to realize that repentance is a conversion.   I feel sometimes that people are convinced about who Jesus is, are convinced of baptism for remission of sins, and yet they're not converted.   Repentance involves a conversion of your life.

 

Continuing over in Luke 13:5 it says; “I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”   Without repentance we're going to be lost.

 

Finally, let’s look at Romans 12:1-2 because I think this is the best text, in the entire Bible that defines what repentance actually is.  “1.  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  2.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

 

If you ask people generally what repentance is, this is what you may hear.  “Repentance is when you stop doing something that's wrong”.    If you're sinning, you stop doing that, you repent.   Indeed, that's part of it, but the mistake people make when it comes to what repentance is, they think that's all of it.   They think repentance is to stop doing something that is wrong and that’s it.  

 

What we're going to do today is to look at the full magnitude of repentance and come to understand what God expects all of us, as Christians, to do.   This concept of repentance as “to stop doing what is wrong”, leads us to viewing repentance as a point action.   The idea that if I do something wrong, there is a point in time I repent, and I stop doing it.   We think of repentance as points in time.   If we think of it that way, we've have incomplete comprehension of what God expects of us as His children.

 

Our first steps in the start of our Christian life are fairly easy.  It is easy to come to the realization that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.   That is easy to confess when we understand it.  Being baptized is pretty easy.  It's quite easy to be immersed in water.

All of that is relatively easy to do.   The real struggle, the real battle in our lives is repentance.    We need to understand what it is and what it involves.

 

We are again going to look at Romans 12:1-2.   This is the text around which we will build the sermon this morning, taking it literally a phrase at a time and breaking it down, studying it and digesting it so we can come to understand exactly what it is that God has commanded us when He tells us to repent.

 

1. Keep your Bibles open to as we continue here. Romans 12:1-2 – “1. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.    And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
   1. The first thing we see here in verse 1 is that we are expected to present our bodies as “a living sacrifice” which Paul then tells us “is your reasonable service”.  
      1. I know we studied this last fall, but it is something that we should look at from time to time as part of testing our understanding. I have a question for you.  How much of our life does God expect us to give as a sacrifice?  50 percent?  How about 60 percent and you keep 40.  Perhaps 90 percent and you keep 10 percent?   Of course not.  God expects us to give all our self as a living sacrifice.
      2. What about our life? Over how much of our life, does He expect us to give all of our self?   Some of the time?  On Sundays?  Certainly not.   God expects us to give our self as a living sacrifice all our life.
      3. All your life, every day and every moment. Right there, right at the very beginning, we can start to understand repentance is not point action. 
      4. It's not a moment here and a moment there when we stumble. It is part of our entire life, every moment of our life.   Repentance is a continual process.
   2. Over Galatians 2:20 look at how Paul puts it here; “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me;”
      1. What Paul is describing is an aspect of repentance to where it's no longer I who live, but who is it that’s living? He says that Christ lives in me. How much do you think Paul sacrificed of himself?   All of himself.   It is no longer Paul who lives at all.  
      2. He gave himself over totally to the will of God to where Christ was living in him, and then he says; “and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, He gave himself over totally to the will of God to where Christ was living in him, and then he says the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”   
   3. Looking again at Galatians 2:20 where it says; “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live”, let’s compare that with Romans 6:6 – “knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him,…”
      1. We see the same phrases. I have been crucified with Christ.  Our old man was crucified with Him.
      2. The idea is putting to death the old man, that is; putting to death the way we were. Putting to death our will—so that His will then becomes - not something in our life, but everything in our life.   Christianity is not part of our life.  Christianity is our life.
      3. It is an all-consuming relationship with our God, a total giving up of self, a total sacrifice of my self and my will, to where my old man has been crucified with Him.
   4. How about what Jesus says to His disciples in Matthew 16:24 – “…If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”
      1. Consider; how easy is it to deny yourself? Oh, it’s not easy.   I find there are times I want to go this way, but God's word says Tom, you go that way. 
      2. How often is the battle to deny yourself present within you? It's a non-stop battle, isn’t it?   Every moment we must suppress self, the desire to go our way, and the desire to do what we want to do.
      3. Then when we deny our self, He says we are to take up our cross and follow him. We don't go the way we want to go - we go the way He wants us to go.   We follow him.
   5. Continue in Matthew 16:25 – “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” We realize what Jesus is saying is the same thing as Romans 12:1 isn’t it?
      1. Giving yourself as a living sacrifice is the denial of self. Losing your life and again how much of it?  All of it.  How often?  All the time.
      2. If our desire is to save this life, we will lose our one in Christ but if we lose this life and become one with God’s will, we will find our eternal life with Him.
   6. Before we go any further, do we understand the magnitude of what's involved in repentance?
      1. When we are thinking – It is pointed out we did something wrong, we stopped doing it, we did something wrong, we stopped doing it… we’re totally missing it.
      2. It's all of your being, all the time, serving, living by faith, walking by faith, conforming to Christ. It's a non-stop battle.   It is a nonstop process.  It doesn't end this side of eternity.
      3. Do we see it's linear? It's a continual process.
      4. When we grasp that we are continually trying to suppress self and deny self, then we will do His will. When we surrender of our life to do His will, then we're starting to understand the magnitude of what repentance really is.
   7. Let's get back now to verse 2 of Romans 12 – “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed”.
      1. I remember my mother had Jell-O molds. We still have some hanging in the kitchen.  She would take Jell-O, pour it into the mold and put it in the refrigerator. When it was set she took it out of the refrigerator, removed the mold, and the Jell-O had solidified into the shape of the mold.
         1. That's what it means to conform, to become like, to become conformed to. We're not to be conformed to the world and to become like the world.
         2. But wait, doesn’t society want us to confirm? Might we become outcast if we do not conform?  From an early age we learn that by being different from others we become targets.   Those around us try by many methods to make us fit the mold.   All that is true, so we should see this is going to take some effort.
      2. Look at the next part, we are supposed to be transformed. A transformation is taking place in our lives.  
         1. I have a question for you. How often is the transformation?  You already know the answer by now.  The transformation is a continual process.
         2. Repentance is a continual process of being transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.
         3. By the way don’t let these two verbs throw you. The verb “conform” caries the concept of being forced into an appearance by pressure from the outside, (the inside is not changed) while “transform” has the concept of being changed from the inside.
         4. We conform to the image of Christ (that is people see Christ when they look at us) because we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.
         5. Over in Romans 8:29 the writer says, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son,”.  In other words, expected to look like Jesus.   Now in chapter 12 we learn this is through transformation.   The transformation process then is - we're conformed to the image of Christ by a changed life.   We recall Paul said, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”. 
         6. Our objective should be to be transformed, changed on the inside, so when people look at us what they see is Christ and God shining through us.
      3. Colossians 3:10 – “I’ve have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him,” Who is He that created?   Colossians 1:15-16 – “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.    For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”    We're being renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created us.   
         1. We're trying to be like Jesus. That's what Christianity is isn’t it.
         2. We're striving to be more and more like Jesus today than we were yesterday. Then the next day guess what?   We’re trying to be more like Jesus than we were the day before and more like Jesus the next day and so on.   We understand the transformation process is linear and continual.

• In Colossians 3:5-10 – we read at verse 5; “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”
  1. Remember we learned before about putting to death the old man. Here’s that phrase again.   You put to death your members which are on the earth.
     1. This is what we think about sometimes when we think about repentance. Stopping doing these things.
     2. If you're involved in fornication you put it off. If you're involved in covetousness you put it off.   Whatever kind of sin it is you're involved in you put that off.
     3. Now verse 8 and 9 continues; “But now you must also put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.   Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds,”   Here again it continues with putting off.
     4. Ephesians 4:22 says; “that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,” You see these verses put off, put off, put off.   Certainly, one might be thinking from this, that all repentance is—is putting the things off that we're doing that are wrong.   That's not all of it.
  2. In Colossians 3:10 we see; “and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him,” Wait, this is not repentance we might think.   Isn’t repentance stopping and no longer doing something is wrong?   This is putting on not putting off. 
     1. This is another part of repentance. Repentance is stopping, putting off the old man, then turning and going in a different direction.   There's a whole other lifestyle that you are to put on.
     2. The magnitude of what is involved in repentance is not just stopping what is wrong, putting off the old man, but you put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according the image of Him who created us.
     3. In Ephesians 4:24 he says; “…you put on the new man which was created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness.”  In Romans 13:14 he says; “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”   You put on the new man.  You put on Christ.
     4. The putting on of Christ is a major aspect of repentance. It's not enough just to stop doing things that are sinful and wrong.   There's a whole other aspect of it and that is putting on the new man.   Putting on Christ.   Striving to be more and more like Christ every day of our life.
  3. When you obey the gospel, we read earlier in Acts 2:38, it says; repent and be baptized. OK, that's putting to death the old man and putting on the new man.   When we do that, have we attained to the fullness of Christ?      We are a babe in Christ, we are at the beginning.   Yes, we repented but we're at the beginning of the process of repentance and repentance continues for the rest of our life.
     1. It is not just the moments when we blow it and do something that is wrong. It is the process that continues for the rest of our life of trying to become more and more like Jesus every day.  Trying to put on Christ, to be stronger and more like Christ every day.   It is a linear process, a transformation, from the inside out, changing us all the time to be more like Jesus, shining more brightly, letting Christ be seen in us.
     2. What is involved, what do we do? Let’s look first in Colossians 3:12 – “Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;”   This says we’re to try to get to where we have the mercy of Christ, the kindness of Christ, the humility of Christ, the meekness of Christ, and  the long suffering of Christ.
        1. I wonder; is there anybody here this morning that has attained the fullness of the statue of Christ when it comes to humility? I mean some of us may be strong, we may have these attributes in us in abundance, but even if they're in us and abounding, don’t we still have a long way to go?
        2. It's a never-ending journey, a never-ending process, transformation, where we strive to be more like Jesus today than we were yesterday.
     3. Verse 13 of Colossians 3 says; “bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.” We are to forgive the way Christ forgives and then in verse 14 “But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.”   This is how we put on Christ, we put on His attributes.   We are putting on the example of Jesus and all the Christian attributes of Christ and striving to grow in them.  That growing process is a continual process of transformation.   It's not just we stop doing what's wrong.  We should be cool with that because it is a process of love. 
  4. Let's go back to Romans 12:2 – “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed (now the next phrase)  by the renewing of your mind” .   The transformation process we've been talking about is in the mind, and it is with the renewing of the mind, the changing of the mind, the changing of the heart, that ultimately is the changing of the life.
     1. We know everything we do in life is controlled by our brain, our mind. Everything starts here in the mind.  Repentance starts in the mind.   It starts there, the transforming and the changing of your heart, the renewing of the mind that leads to the changing of the life.
        1. Going over to Colossians 3:10 – “and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him,” Here the text says we're being renewed in knowledge accord the image of Him who created us.
        2. Going back to Ephesians 4:23 it says; “and be renewed in the spirit of your mind,”.  Are we seeing the pattern?  The renewing process is in the mind.  It is by knowledge.
     2. Galatians 5:16 – “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” How do we do this?  Verse 17; “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.”  This verse shows the battle that we're facing.  
        1. There are the desires of the flesh and then there's the desire to do right, the flesh and the spirit are contrary to one another. How is it I get to where I put off the desires of the flesh?   How is it that I can put off the old man?
        2. The text tells us the way it's done; it is by walking in the spirit. If we do that, we won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. 
     3. Romans 8:6 – “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” See the mind there again—spiritually minded versus carnally minded.   This is where we must change.
        1. It is where the work needs to be done-- in our mind and our heart. That's where the work's got to be done so that we will be more spiritually minded.
        2. How do we grow more spiritually minded and less carnally minded?
        3. Romans 8:13 – “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Sounds like Galatians, doesn't it? 
     4. Going back to Romans 8:13 he says, “by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.” Galatians 5:16 “I say then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”  These two verses are teaching the same thing.  Walk in the Spirit.   This is how we repent.  We learn to walk in the spirit and when we walk in the spirit, live in the spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 
     5. Something else we should see is in Galatians 5:25 – “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” And in Galatians 3:11 it says; “The just shall live by faith.”  Living in the spirit and living by faith is saying the same thing.
        1. 2 Corinthians 5:7 says; “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” Walk in the spirit, walk by faith is saying the same thing. 
        2. Putting it another way - if you live in the spirit you live by faith. If you walk in the spirit you walk by faith.   
        3. Faith is what drives repentance. We repent by faith.  Faith is what drives the transformation process.
        4. Faith is what you live by. Do we understand living by something is not momentary?   It is a process of life, every moment of our life. 
     6. If you take a step is it walking? It is a step.   Walking is a process.   We are talking about living.  When you live by faith you are living by the spirit.   When you walk by faith you are walking by the spirit.  This is the key to how it is that we repent, and it must be our faith that is driving it.   Faith is the fuel that drives the engine in the Christian’s life.  “…it is no longer I but Christ who lives in me.”  
     7. We read a few minutes ago from Galatians 2:20 where Paul says; “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me;” Now let’s look at the rest of the verse; “and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  We live, we walk by faith.  We live by faith to where all of our life, everything we say, everything we do, is totally controlled by our faith.   That is how to repent.  Without faith you can not accomplish it.
  5. The song says, “When for Stronger Faith I Seek”. We need to start at the beginning.  We need to go back to who is Jesus.   What He did for us and understand that He really is the Christ, the Son of God.   He really loves us.  He really died for us.  He really rose from the dead.   
     1. We need to do this because it is our faith that is going to be controlling our life. Faith is linear.  Walking is linear.   Repentance is linear because it is a process and the work of our faith.   It is the actions and the result of faith. 
     2. Ephesians 3:16 tells us “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,” God will strengthen us in the inner man.
     3. Ephesians 3:17 says; “that Christ may dwell in your hearts (how?) through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,”
     4. Look at this. He is strengthening us with His spirit in the inner man.   Paul talks about Christ dwelling in your heart.  It's in the inner man.   It's in your heart.  It's the changing of the mind.   What changes your mind is faith.   What changes your heart is faith.  What changes your life—is faith.
        1. There may have been a time in your life where you totally gave yourself over to the desires of the flesh. If you wanted to do it, you just did it because you wanted to regardless of how God feels about it.
        2. But when you become a Christian it's not your will anymore that matters. It is the will of the one who died for you.  It's the will of the Father that gave His Son for you.   It's the denial of yourself and then by faith doing His will.
     5. Keeping these things in mind, look with me at 1^st John 5:4 – “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world our faith.” In our life how do we overcome sin?  How do we win the battle?  How do we repent?   How do we put off the old man?   How do we put on the new man?   How do we transform our self? -- By Faith.   This is the victory that overcomes the world—our faith.
     6. When people think about the Spirit unfortunately, they sometimes think you have to be zapped by the Spirit taking control of you. The way the spirit works, folks, is through the word.
        1. This word produces faith and this word gives us knowledge of God. To where you understand what Jesus is like, to where you understand what God is like, and what the will of God is for you in your life.
        2. That faith, produced through the word, that knowledge, that understanding, works in us to transform us, to guide us and give us the victory.

 

CONCLUSION:

Let’s look at the last phrase from Romans 12:2 – “…that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”   We discern the will of God.   We are proving and showing what the will of God is.  We give our self as a living sacrifice, we renew our mind, we change our heart, and we are changed by faith.   We understand this is true repentance, doing the will of God, not our will, and the only way we can do the will of God is to go to His word.  We must go to His word and find out what His will is.

Colossians 3:10 told us “you've put on the new man who is renewed (notice the phrase) renewed in knowledge.”  Not the way we feel, what we like, how we want it to be—the renewing process is done with the knowledge of His will.

Ephesians 4:20-21 tells us “but you have not so learned Christ if indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus.”  “Learned Christ”, that’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it?   What you're trying to learn is what Christ is like, and then; striving to be transformed, to be converted, to be changing continually into, the image of Jesus Christ, the example of Christ.  Paul says we've been taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus.   How are we taught by Him?   We are taught by the truth, by the word of God.   This is his will.  

 

Repentance is not just stopping doing what’s wrong.  That is the first part, but repentance is a conversion.  It is stopping and putting off the old man and all the sins you're involved in, then you turn and go in another direction for the rest of your life.

As you're walking by faith if you give into temptation and you sin, do you know what you do?  You turn from it.   You stop and you ask God's forgiveness, then you turn from that path and you keep going by faith.   That's Christianity. 

 

That's then is repentance, the continual process of going forward, walking forward, running forward, and living by faith, walking by faith, doing the will of God — by faith.   As we do the will of God by faith, we are clay in the potter's hand, and we're being conformed and transformed to where we're more like Jesus every day.   It is a transformation process that is never ending; we continue to grow toward our goal of being with our Lord.  

 

Do not limit your understanding of God’s word to just the “thou shalt nots”.    If we are to look like Jesus remember that Jesus teaches more then just what not to do.  We need to be clear on how big repentance is because that is what the Lord expects of us.   Repentance is a battle to deny our self, to throw off our will and the pride of life to the point where it's the will of God we are submitting to.   Then in our life we're going to take up our cross and follow His will -- by faith.

 

There may be someone here who is not a Christian this morning but you have come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and you are willing to confess that faith, we'll be glad to baptize you for the remission of your sins.   Understand that repentance and the baptism are both driven by faith.  You confess your faith, you repent by faith, you're baptized by faith, and then you live and walk by faith.

 

If you’re a child of God and you have become entangled in sin, you’ve quit running the race.   Get up, get untangled, repent, take the sins to God, ask forgiveness of them, and get back into the living, the walking by faith and doing His will in your life, striving to be more like God and Christ each day.  We'll pray for you.   We'll pray with you.  We’ll do the very best we can as your brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage you.

 

If you are subject to the gospel call in any way let us know while we stand and sing the song selected.

 

Invitation song: ???

Reference sermon by: Wayne Fancher

The Lost Sheep

The Lost Sheep

Luke 15:3-7

 

INTRO:

Good evening.  This evening we will continue looking at the parables Jesus gave, and we will be in the 15th chapter of Luke.   It is probably one of the best-loved chapters in the Bible. Some people describe it as ‘The Gospel within the Gospel.’ Certainly, in many ways we have the Gospel in miniature in Luke 15.  As someone once said, ‘It contains the very distilled essence of the good news which Jesus had come to tell.’ In Luke 15 we find three parables of Jesus.

 

Before we get started, let me share with you a story I heard about a couple who just been married. They were on their honeymoon, the husband took his new wife by the hand and said, "Now that we're married, dear, I hope you won't mind if I mention a few little defects that I've noticed about you." To which his wife sweetly replied, "Not at all, it was those little defects that kept me from getting a better husband."

 

I suppose one might make the point that we can all see defects in other people at times, but we should never let those defects stop us from approaching them with the Gospel of Christ. In Luke 15, we find Jesus sharing His truths with our friends, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.

 

Luke 15:1-2 - “Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them.''” This attitude is key to all of chapter 15 in the book of Luke.   All three parables come back to this attitude, this spirit. Have we ever had people doing that with us?

 

1. Maybe we are talking with someone who is known as a drunkard and other people take note of it.  Maybe we are seen talking with an undesirable on the street and the people around take notice of you both. If we were to look over at them, we might see them whispering things about us because of the person we are speaking with. They might be saying things like, “If he only knew who he was talking to, if he only knew what kind of person that is.”  When we as Christians talk to anyone who doesn’t fit in with societies idea of acceptable, society takes it as an offence.
   1. Remember in Luke 7 when Jesus was invited into a Pharisees house, a woman comes in from the street and it’s clear that she is not welcome.  Jesus says to Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7:33, “Simon, do you see this woman?” That seems a strange question, how could he not see the woman? She’s right there in front of him. The problem was what Simon saw was a tramp, Simon saw a sinner, an unclean woman. Someone who wasn’t good enough by his perceived standards.
   2. Just like Simon many people in the world are offended when we say that the Gospel is for everyone, all kinds of people. That’s the sort of thing that’s going on here in Luke 15. It was an offence to the Jewish leaders that Jesus should be seen in association with the tax collectors and sinners.  
   3. By their own regulations, a Pharisee was forbidden to be the guest of any person they considered unclean. They were also forbidden to have these people as their guests. They weren’t allowed to have any dealings with tax collectors and sinners as far as it was possible. They couldn’t buy things from them or sell things to them. They were to try and avoid any contact with them whatsoever.
   4. By understanding the Pharisees’ thinking, we will see why they were shocked by Jesus’ actions. And they were not just shocked; they were shocked to the core because Jesus, who was teaching in their midst, wanted to spend time in the company of those outsiders.
   5. In their minds if you had anything to do to with those people you were guaranteed to be corrupted.  
   6. Their attitude wasn’t, “There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents,” but rather it was more on the order of; “There is joy in heaven when one sinner is obliterated by God.” They looked not to the saving of the sinner, but to the destruction of that sinner’s soul. It’s because these religious leaders considered themselves already in the fold which Jesus is about to mention. They should have been glad He was seeking those who were outside the fold.
   7. Let us look on at Luke 15:3-6 - “So He spoke this parable to them, saying:   "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? "And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.   "And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, `Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'”
   8. This seems to me certainly one of the simplest of parables that Jesus ever taught.  In Judea at this time it was very easy for a sheep to go astray. The pastureland was in the hill country, which ran like a backbone down the middle of the land. This ridge-like plateau was very narrow, it was only a few miles across and at its best this pastureland was sparse, so the sheep were liable to wander.
   9. In their search for more grass they would wander off into little gullies and ravines and very often they could end up on some ledge where they couldn’t get up or down. All too often they would just stay there until they died.
   10. Here in this parable we have one of Jesus’ favorite depictions, the picture of a loving, caring shepherd who brought home the wanderer.  What I want to do today is share with you 5 small points from this parable about the love of God.  
2. First, the love of God is an individual love.  What I mean by this is what Jesus says in Luke 15:4 - “What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?”  The 99 sheep were not enough for Jesus, His desire was to have all of them safe in the flock.  When one went wandering, He wasn’t going to rest until He brought it back home again.
   1. Jesus is telling us that He has a love to offer that’s not just for everyone, but a love especially for us. The Palestine shepherds, you see, were experts at tracking down their sheep and they could follow the tracks of their sheep for miles. They would go to any lengths to bring that sheep back.
   2. Jesus says the same thing in Matthew 18:12 - “"What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?” Think of it this way, we would do the same with our family members, wouldn’t we?
   3. No matter how big our family is, if one of them goes astray, we would all go to great lengths to find them and bring them back to safety. When we listen to the news on TV about someone who has a missing family member, they send out pleas for help to find them, some even offer a reward to anyone who can help find the missing one.
   4. My point is like this, even if someone has 10 children, if one goes missing, that’s one that they cannot do without.  That’s because there is not one - who doesn’t matter.
   5. Our God is like that, He’s not happy until the last one is gathered in. Remember what Paul says in; 1 Timothy 1:15 - “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” Paul is saying when he recognized that he was a sinner; he also understood that God’s love was an individual love. If you’re not a Christian, then God wants to offer that same individual love to you today.

• Point 2. The love of God is a patient love. We all know how stupid sheep are, they are such foolish creatures. If you don’t know, I certainly will confirm it as we raised many on our farm. To a degree a sheep has no one but itself to blame for the dangers it gets into.  You need to be patient with sheep, and we have to be patient with people, especially with those who are sometimes foolish.
  1. What do we say when people get into trouble?...  I’ll tell you what we often say, “Well, it’s their own fault, they brought it on themselves”. We might even say, “Don’t waste any sympathy on them.”  Folks, I am so very glad that our God isn’t like that. A “sheep” might be foolish but thank God the Good Shepherd would still risk His life to save it.
  2. I’ve told this one before… A family went to church one day to celebrate what they call Palm Sunday. Because of a sore throat, five-year-old Johnny stayed home from church with a baby sitter. When the family returned home, they were carrying several palm branches. Little Johnny asked, “What are those for?” His older brother explained to him that "People held them over Jesus' head, as he walked by.” Little Johnny became upset and said, "Wouldn't you know it, the one Sunday I didn’t go, He shows up!"
  3. We should thank God He did show up.  He came to rescue us from sin, from our foolishness. In John 10:11 Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” [para] Thank God for 2 Peter 3:9 where Peter says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” [para] Thank God that even though mankind can be foolish, God in His love, loves even the foolish person who has no one to blame for their sin and their sorrow but themselves. Thank God that He is a loving, patient God.

99. Third, the love of God is a seeking love. The flocks of sheep in Palestine were very often communal flocks. In other words, they didn’t belong to an individual; they usually belonged to the whole village. Because of that there were usually two or three shepherds with them.   That’s one of the reasons the shepherd could leave the other 99. Because if he couldn’t leave the sheep with another shepherd, when he returned, he would find that other sheep would have gone astray.
    1. When Jesus came to earth; He came on a “search and rescue” mission, He came to search for the lost and rescue them from their sins.  He came for us. The shepherd wasn’t willing to wait to see if the sheep would come back; He went out to search for it.  Folks, that’s what the Jews, even today, cannot grasp about the Christian understanding of God.
    2. A Jew of that time would gladly agree with us, if we said that - if the sinner comes crawling wretchedly home to God, then God would forgive them.  But we know God is far more wonderful than that. For in Christ Jesus, God came to seek and to search for those who wander. He’s not content to wait until men come home, Oh, no! He goes and searches for them, no matter what it costs. The shepherds of Palestine would always make the most strenuous and the most sacrificial efforts to find a lost sheep.
    3. 1 John 4:9-10 - “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
    4. Jesus came to find us long before we thought about finding Him.   He came to find us. Luke 19:10 - “for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
    5. John 10:7-10 - “Then Jesus said to them again, "Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. "All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.   "I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.   "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
    6. On board many military ships nowadays they have sophisticated missiles.  Even though they are hundreds of miles away from their targets, they can program the missile to within a few feet of that target.  When the missile reaches their intended target, they completely destroy everything at the target. Jesus says He didn’t come to seek and destroy, He came to seek and to give life, not just life -- but life to the full. The love of God is a seeking love. It seeks the best for us.
100. That brings me to my next point. 4. The love of God is a rejoicing love. These parables in Luke 15 are all about joy.
     1. We can imagine how the other shepherds would return with their flocks to the village at evening time and how they would tell how one shepherd was still out on the mountains seeking the wanderer. Imagine the eyes of those villagers, watching over the mountains waiting and looking for the shepherd who hadn’t come home yet.  Then off in the distance, they would see a figure of someone getting closer to the village.
     2. As that figure gets closer, they see that this is the shepherd and the joy in their faces would be great to see. As he gets closer, they see he’s carrying this wanderer of a sheep across his shoulders and it’s still alive. The whole village would come out and joyfully surround him and welcome him home.
     3. Nice scene isn’t it? Now, if that were the church, I wonder how we would react. I wonder if we would say things with words OR actions to the wanderer like, “Where have you been for the past few months?” No love in the tone. “What have you been up to?”  “Do you need to confess anything before the whole church today?”
     4. I’m reminded of Galatians 6:1 - “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness…”
     5. With Jesus there are no accusations, there is no receiving back with grudges, there’s no superior contempt.   It’s all about joy.  Instead of accepting back a person who is repentant with a moral lecture and maybe making it clear that they must see themselves as a disgraceful person. Instead of making it clear that we are going to have trouble trusting them again, maybe we can be like God, who forgets our past sins and doesn’t hold our sins against us.
     6. Micah 7:19 - “You will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”[para] When we have God’s forgiveness, God has thrown our sins into the depths of the sea. And folks there are warning signs all around the shore. Do you know what those signs say? -- “No fishing”. -- We should never be in the business of dragging up the past sins in our own lives, never mind the sins of other people’s lives if God has thrown them away.
     7. Psalm 103:8-12 - “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”[ESV]
     8. When one of the flock goes astray and returns home, instead of reminding them of their sin, we need to put their sin behind our back like God does with ours when we get lost and come back to Him.  We all sin; we all have our moments when we go astray. When we put those sins behind, then we too can be happy like Jesus tells us in Matthew 18:13-14 - “And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.   "Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”
     9. Do we realize that the returning sinner can give heaven an excuse to celebrate? I know that many convicts after they have been released from prison get together with their families to celebrate their newfound freedom. Let me tell you that, that’s nothing, like the celebration that breaks out in heaven when someone returns to God after having gone back to the world.
     10. Jesus tells us in Luke 15:7 - “I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.”
     11. What we are saying is if you’re involved in a sin, which is dragging you away from God, then you can be sure that if you repent and turn back to God there will be rejoicing in heaven. There was rejoicing the day you became a Christian and if you’re not a Christian, on the day you decide to become a faithful follower of the Lord then heaven will rejoice with you. The love of God is a rejoicing love.
101. Point number 5. The love of God is a protecting love.
     1. An old story was told about a sergeant in the army fighting in a war in some far- off land. He and his platoon were called off for a special mission, but the enemy found them, the sergeant faced them head on. He said to himself, “Lord, it’s your responsibility now.” As he raised his gun, a shot from one of his enemies struck him in the chest and knocked him down to the ground. Thinking that he was dead, another soldier grabbed his gun and started to fire away at the enemy. He received three wounds but when he had finished, all the enemies were dead.
     2. The sergeant wrote a letter to his sister and it said this, “I was amazed when I rolled over and tried to get up. The force of that bullet only stunned me. I couldn’t understand why, so I pulled out my Bible from my pocket and in utter quietness looked at the ugly hole in the cover.” “It had ripped through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Where do you think it stopped?” In the middle of Psalm 91, he pointed his finger at verse 7, which says, “A thousand may fall at your side, And ten thousand at your right hand; But it shall not come near you.” He went on to say that he didn’t know such a verse existed in the Bible and in utter humility said, “Thank you, precious Lord.”
     3. It’s not just a love that seeks; it’s also a love that saves. Now there can be a love which ruins, there can be a love that softens, but the love of God is the protecting love which saves a person for the service of their fellow men.
     4. Psalm 34:18-20 - “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.   Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers him out of them all.   He guards all his bones; Not one of them is broken.”
     5. Psalm 55:16-17 - “As for me, I will call upon God, And the Lord shall save me.   Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, And He shall hear my voice.”
     6. That’s why Paul could say in 2 Corinthians 12:10 - “…For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
     7. In other words, it is God’s protecting love that makes the wanderer wise. Its God’s protecting love that makes the weak strong. Its God’s protecting love that makes the sinner pure. Its God’s protecting love that makes the captive of sin a freeman of holiness. Its God’s protecting love that makes those overpowered by temptation… the conquerors of sin. God’s love is a protecting love and God’s love will not only protect us in this life but also in the life to come. As along as we are faithful to Him, then we can be sure that nothing can separate us from His love.
     8. Romans 8:34-39 – and I paraphrase; “Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 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.” Paul says there is nothing in heaven or in hell or on this earth that can stop God from loving us.

 

CONCLUSION:  

 

Many years ago, I used to love watching David Carradine in the TV series Kung Fu.  Blind master Po would teach him something new every week, but also every week, David had to try and snatch a pebble from his Master’s hand but he never could because His Master’s hands were just too quick.   Our God is like that; His hands are just too quick, too big, too powerful for anything to snatch us away from Him. Jesus says in John 10:27-30 - “"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. "And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.   "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand. "I and My Father are one.''”

Jesus says, no-one will snatch us from God’s mighty hands because He’s a protecting God.  Folks, that’s the Gospel, that’s the Gospel according to Christ. If you want to share the good news with anyone who’s interested in God, then take them to Luke 15.

 

Share with them the Gospel within the Gospel and let them know that Jesus’ Gospel is a Gospel of love. Who knows, instead of people thinking that Christianity is all about the things they have to give up to receive God’s love, maybe then they will begin to think about the love that they are going to receive from God, which will help them give up the things they need to give up. The gospel, in a word—is love.

 

If you’re subject to the invitation, if you’re not a Christian and you want the Lord to add you to His church, you know the way. If you’re a Christian and have been out of fellowship for whatever reason and you recognize that your place is back in fellowship with the Lord’s people, you know the way. We’re going to sing the song of invitation now. If you have a need, please come forward in response to this invitation—God’s invitation—while we sing.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

We learn from the New Testament how to be saved. We need to hear the word; believe in Jesus; repent of our sins; we must confess our belief that Jesus is the Son of God; and be baptized for the remission of our sins… If we follow these steps, the Lord adds us to His church.

 

Perhaps there is someone in the assembly today with the need to be buried with Christ in baptism. If you have never done these things, we urge you to do so today. If anyone has this need or desires the prayers of faithful Christians on their behalf, we encourage them to come forward while we stand and sing.

 

# ???

This is a continuation on the subject of Love. Previous sermon was “Rainbows” from song 265.

Reference Sermon by: Mike Glover

Blessed Be the Ties That Bind

Blessed Be the Ties That Bind

I Corinthians 10:16

 

INTRO: Good morning.   I would like to remind you that the scripture references I use will either be from the KJV or the NKJV unless I indicate otherwise.   I want to encourage you to take out your Bibles and look at the scriptures I mention.   First however this morning, I would like to start by asking you to take out your hymnal and turn to Number 656.

It’s a song you may be familiar with though we do not sing it often. It is this song that the sermon is built around.

Blessed be the Tie

Blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love;

The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.

Before our father's throne we pour ardent prayers;

Our fears our hopes our aims are one, our comforts and our cares.

We share our mutual woes our mutual burdens bear;

And often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part it gives us inward pain;

We shall still be joined in heart and hope to meet again.

 

I thought it would be good for us to spend time today talking about the ties that bind us together.   We have been talking over a number of weeks about how worship is the expression of our personal relationship to God and how as we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us.   We need to work at getting close to God, but we also need to get close to our brothers and sisters, our fellow Christians.   We need to be close to each other.  

 

The church is the family of God. We are joined in unity, as a family, to God our Father, and our Creator, and to each other, brother and sister Christians all over this world.

 

In the Old Testament Book of Psalms 133:1 it says; “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity!”  I am pleased to say that I believe this congregation is unified and that we dwell together in unity.   The relationship that we experience as brothers and sisters in the family of God is truly a wonderful relationship.

 

Romans says in Romans 12:5 – “so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.”   There is one body, one kingdom, one church, and we are a local congregation of that body, that kingdom, that church.   We are individual members in the one body and individual members in this congregation.

 

1. Ties of Blood. What is it that binds us together?   Why are we here together this morning? What kind of relationship do we have with one another, even beyond the building and this assembly?
   1. First Corinthians 10:16 talks about one of the main things that binds us together. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” What we're talking about here is a common union, a communion, in the Blood of Christ.
      1. What ties us and binds us together in the one body and binds us and ties us together in this congregation is—we are now family.
      2. In my physical family there is a blood that ties me to the family.   We realize that there is also in the family of God a blood that binds us and ties us together, and that is the blood of Jesus Christ.  We are the family of God and in the family of God we are brothers and sisters.
   2. First Peter 3:8 – “Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous;”
      1. Loving as brothers.
      2. Just think about your physical family for a moment.   If you have siblings I’m sure you love them very dearly.   They're very special to you.   Family is there for you in times of need.   They will go out of their way for you.
      3. What we're building in the family of God is We are family.   We are brothers, we are sisters with the same Father in heaven.   Through the blood of the same first born and first begotten, in Jesus Christ, we are family.
   3. What we should be striving for is the same bond, that same level of love that you have in your physical family between your brothers and your sisters.
      1. As we go through the sermon this morning, we will be looking at some standards the scriptures say we should be pressing toward.
      2. I don't think we've reached all these standards, but we continue to press toward them.
      3. As we press toward God’s standards, we will find that we come to experience what God wants us to experience this side of eternity.   We will be coming to know His people, forming bonds of friendship and love and kinship with His people, with those who will be spending eternity with us.
   4. I believe the best people on Earth, are God's people, God's family.   He wants us to come to know each other, enjoy each other and form bonds between ourselves.
2. Mutual Faith. Another thing that ties us together is what Romans 1:12 tells us; “that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.” [ESV] Again, in Titus 1:4 – “To Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.” [NKJV]
   1. From Romans we learn about mutual faith and from Titus common faith.   The idea here is that we believe the same thing.   We have a mutual faith. We agree together on very important issues. Let this sink in.
   2. Why are we here together today?   Because we believe God exists and we believe Jesus of Nazareth, the man whom we've never laid eyes on, we believe He really is the Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.
      1. We really believed the virgin birth took place and that Jesus is the son of God.
      2. We believe He was crucified on Calvary for our sins even though we were not there and did not see it.
      3. We believe that he was buried and three days later He arose from the dead.
      4. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God.   That God, the creator is communicating with us and is telling us about himself, about ourselves and about our relationship with Him and how we can be reconciled to Him through the gospel of Jesus Christ—and how to obey the gospel.
      5. We believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ consists of believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, believing in His death and resurrection, openly confessing that, then repenting of our sins by faith, submitting to the commands of the king, and being immersed in water for the remission of our sins by faith.
   3. You need to realize everything I just discussed here is mutual faith, common faith.
      1. We realize that there are people out in the world that don't believe in God.   We saw some of that in last week’s lesson.
      2. They don't believe Jesus is the Christ the Son of God.   They don't believe that you need to obey the gospel of Jesus Christ according to the Scriptures.
      3. We have a mutual faith.   How wonderfully precious that is!   We have a mutual faith about the church. There's one body, one church.
      4. It is the Lord that added us to it when we obeyed the gospel and that we, Christians, constitute that one body.
      5. It is our responsibility to follow the teachings of the King by faith, to follow the example of Christ by faith, to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth by faith.
      6. Our actions and our faith, and our belief is mutual, it’s common.   Do we realize how precious that is?   We have the same understanding, the same values.
   4. I really did not realize how precious and important that is before I became a Christian. I felt outside of every religious group that I made the effort to attend.   Even after I had attended somewhere for months or even a few years, it was incomplete; I was a stranger, just looking in.
      1. When Nina guided me to the church it was amazing.   I remember listening and thinking they believe the way I do. They think like I think. They understand like I understand. There are other people like me. I’m not alone just looking in.
      2. It was not all at once mind you. I had too many unhappy attempts so I was quite wary, waiting for the disappointment.   It never came and an amazing thing happened, I started to learn.   Connections were made in my understanding, lights started to go on so to speak.

• Now look at this over in the book First John 1:7 – “if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
  1. The text is talking again about this common faith, this mutual faith, and what we are striving to do is walk in the light as He is in the light.   We are striving to live the Christian life not just giving it lip service.  
     1. I had a vague idea of what I wanted when I went to denominational groups.   In my mind was a shadow of what was needed. I had no idea how to get there. Lip service I saw plenty of.
     2. One of the things that binds us together in the church of Christ is that we're trying to be real Christians.   We're serious about our relationship with God.
     3. We're serious about trying to live the Christian life to the best of our ability, and we have learned that in the moments when we fail, we ask forgiveness, and we get up and keep going.   And this ties us together.
  2. Let me tell you something that I heard from a preacher recently.   He was explaining about an amazing thing that we do in the church of Christ and he had never thought about it because he just grew into it.
     1. He said; “The past year the elders sat down with me and said we want you to preach on these subjects.”   He said; “I want you to know something, they didn't tell me what to say. They said preach on these subjects.   What they wanted me to do is take the Bible and up in my office studying on those subjects, develop a sermon and just tell you what I've found.”
     2. This preacher said; “You need to realize that's an awesome amount of trust—“just tell us what you found”. That's all they want to know and that's all I do.”
     3. In his expressing that, it reminded me that God trusts the gospel to man.   Then it dawned on me that in this congregation we never tell the preacher what to say.   It is an amazing thing that we never try to control what is taught from the Bible.
     4. Why that struck me was because not too long ago in speaking with a person from one of the denominations and the topic of preaching sermons came up. They asked me where I got the topics.   Did the church of Christ (remember they are thinking corporate hierarchy) provide a list of approved topics and outlines?
     5. I told them no, sometimes the line of inquiry comes from life or it comes from another sermon I’ve heard or read.   But the development always comes from the Bible…
  3. I’ll tell you that sometimes I don't know what I'm going to find before I start.   I don't know exactly what I believe on some things before I do the study.   It has not jelled in my mind.   I have much to learn.
     1. I just go search it out and I tell you what I found.   Sometimes it leads to another thought and before you know it there is a series to give.
     2. Do you realize that church of Christ preachers are doing that all around the country, around the world?   We don't have somebody telling us what to say.
     3. The only standard that we are given is find out what's in there and tell us what's in there.   Then we find what’s in there and we learn.
     4. The amazing thing is that we have the same mind, the same judgment, because it's the truth. It's not changing.
  4. If we would just speak what the Word of God says, not adding anything to it, not taking anything from it, just lay the Word of God out there, what it's going to lead to is a common faith, a mutual faith.
     1. What we strive to do in our lives is understand the truth alike and we're trying to follow it alike.   That in and of itself binds us together.
     2. We all understand the same truth.
  5. Have you ever come across somebody out in the world and when you start talking to them you realize this person doesn't see life the way I see it?   They don't see right and wrong the way I see it.   We don't think alike at all! I know I have.  
     1. I've got some good news for you.
     2. You and I think alike. We understand alike.
     3. We have the same values, the same goals, the same morals, the same faith.
  6. There’s another thing that ties us together and that is our worship. You all know Hebrews 10:25 – “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” In this text we see a bond.
     1. We're exhorting and we're encouraging one another to come to this assembly.
        1. Come to the assembly and come worship God together with us on the Lord's Day.
        2. What we are doing together this morning is we, together, are worshipping our God and our king from our hearts, together.
        3. It is true that worship is between you and God, but we also realize that worship is done together in the body of Christ.
     2. First Corinthians 10:16-17 – “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.”
        1. We sing together. We're teaching and admonishing one another in a song that we're singing together.
        2. We are praying together. We are taking our cares, our needs, our concerns and together we are casting these cares before the throne of Almighty God.
        3. When we take the Lord's Supper, we are doing this together.
        4. Bonding us together, yes, with the one body but also bonding us together as members of the family of God.
     3. One other thing that binds us together is we are worshipping our God together.   First Corinthians 11:30 says – “For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.” In the context of First Corinthians eleven Paul is dealing with people perverting the Lord's Supper, not worshipping God as they should.
        1. The point is when worship is done correctly, when it is done from your heart to God, and when you are doing it together, it is true worship to God.
        2. At the same time, it strengthens and edifies each of us and binds us together. We realize that when we're not here, we're missing out on what we need.
        3. We need to come together to be with the brethren.   We need encouragement from one another not just to be able to go out the rest of the week and live, but to be able to go out the rest of the week and live the Christian life.
        4. Let me ask you how many of you get spiritually discouraged during the week?   You realize that worship is for God, yes, but it's also for you.   It's for you, and when you're missing it don't be surprised that you end up being weak and spiritually sick, spiritually asleep.
        5. We need it!   We need each other.   We need to be together.
        6. You're not going to worship God the way God intended and how He wants to be worshiped when you're at home. It is meant to be done together.
     4. Continuing in Philippians 1:27-28 – “27. Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, 28. and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God.”
        1. In the text here we're seeing again something else that was binding this church and Philippi They were standing fast with one spirit.
           1. That's pretty tight wouldn’t you say, when a congregation has one spirit and one mind?
           2. That's the goal—having one mind and one spirit, striving together, working together, for the faith of the gospel in their work in the kingdom.   It creates a bond between us when we get engaged and get involved in the work.
           3. Philippians 1:5 – “for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now,”
           4. Whenever we hear the word fellowship we think of togetherness.   We should be encouraged to do something.   If we are not working in the kingdom, trying to tell people about Christ crucified, going after a lost sheep, we should be encouraged to get involved in the work and become a working member of the body of Christ.
           5. We will find that when we work together an amazing thing happens.   You start forming bonds.   We start forming bonds with our fellow laborers in the vineyard because we're working together with the same goal in mind.
           6. We're trying to help the body of Christ grow in number and to grow in spirit.
        2. If we do not get engaged in the work, we need to realize that we can drift away and apart from one another and Christ.
           1. Congregations can reach a point where they may be assembling but basically, they really don't know one another.   They don't do anything together.   They don't have any common bond.
           2. Their hearts are not in the same place when they are worshiping.   They are not together when they are praying or singing, and they are not learning together from the Bible. They are just members of the same congregation.
           3. I want to encourage us to get involved in the work.
           4. You will find that when you work together to bring someone to the Lord, and that person obeys the Gospel an amazing thing happens between those individuals that are working together.
           5. You come to appreciate your fellow laborers in the kingdom.
        3. I remember something from years ago when I was watching television, I think it was on the History Channel, about a reunion of soldiers from the Second World War.
           1. These men had not seen one another in decades.   They were older, very much older. I think it had been about 40 or 50 years since the Second World War at the time of this show.   These men had not seen one another in decades and when they saw each other these grown men just fell on one another’s necks and started weeping like babies.
           2. You could sense just in watching this, strong bonds existed between these men even though it had been decades since they had seen one another, they loved each other deeply.   They had bonds that time and distance could not sever.
           3. What do you think it was that bound those men together?   What it was, they went through a war together.   They went through battles together. They were side by side in the field.   They were going through major struggles for their lives together.
           4. You see the same thing today when soldiers who have been in recent conflicts get together. There is a bond.
        4. This bond also is what binds us together in the kingdom of Christ.    
           1. When we go through battles together.  
           2. When we go through struggles together.
           3. When we get involved in one another's lives beyond the assembly.
        5. Next look at this from Galatians 6:2 – “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
           1. Do we consider it to be an important command to bear one another’s burdens?
           2. We should see from this verse how important it is.   The last part of the verse says in fulfilling this command we are fulfilling the law of Christ.
           3. Get involved in the work of the kingdom.   A part of the work of the kingdom is taking the seed out there and sowing the seed of Christ crucified to a lost and dying world.
           4. A part of the work of the kingdom is watering what is already in the kingdom, getting involved in the teaching of the classes, getting involved and having Bible classes in your own home.   Study, learn, and teach.
           5. Another major part of the work of the kingdom is just simply bearing one another's burdens.  
        6. How many of you have ever felt like the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland?   You may not don't know what I'm talking about.
           3. I'm late, I'm late for a very important date.
           5. Goodbye
           6. I've got to go.
           7. Basically, a life of running to where you must be next, the calendar is full, the appointment book is never ending.   Get up, run to work, and run here, run there, go here. Gotta go, gotta go. I'm late, I'm late.  Gotta go.
           8. I fear that sometimes when we start moving so fast things start to blur.   First the little details vanish, then the bigger things, until unless we are very far away from something, we cannot see it.   We start really losing the focus of what's important in our relationships with one another.
        7. Every one of us has problems.   Every one of us in this congregation has struggles that we go through.
           1. Every single one of us at some point will have burdens and trials that we are experiencing.
           2. God wants us to be so close to one another and have the bonds and ties between us so strong—that we will bear one another's burdens, being there for each other in the trials and struggles of life.
           3. Look at this in First Corinthians 12:25-27 – “25. that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. 26. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. 27. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.”
        8. I told you earlier I was going to talk to you about the standard, the goal, the Lord has set before us.   There it is, folks.
           1. The standard, the goal, the Lord has set before us is that He wants us to strive to reach the place where when one member suffers all the members suffer with them, and when one is honored all rejoice.
           2. Every one of us has our own set of problems and struggles and trials that we're dealing with in life.   Become conscious of the struggles and the needs and the trials that your brothers and sisters are going through.   We need to slowdown in our fast-paced world and come to know our brethren. Come to know our family.
           3. When we go through these spiritual struggles together, to where when one member is suffering, and we slow down rather than pass by on the other side of the road, then we will see what we may be able to do to help.
           4. Sometimes these struggles are physical.  Sometimes they are emotional struggles. Sometimes they are spiritual.
        9. When we really get close to one another is when we stand side by side with a fellow soldier of Jesus Christ and help them fight their spiritual battles together.
           1. When we go to spiritual wars together, when we go through struggles together, when we bear the world’s burdens together, we will come to appreciate how precious each Christian is—and bonds will be formed between us that time and distance cannot sever.
           2. In First Thessalonians 5:11 – “Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.”
        10. When we talk about baring one another's burdens, that doesn’t necessarily mean we're going to be able to fix it.   When Job's three friends came to visit him after he had lost his ten children, lost all his wealth, and he had boils from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet…. Let me give you this as a trivial pursuit question; when Job's three friends came to visit him after all this happened to him, for the first seven days what did they say to him?  
            1. Job 2:13 - The answer is they didn't say anything.   That's what the scripture means when it says weep with those that weep.   It doesn’t mean you're going to have the answer. It doesn’t mean you can fix it.
               1. Sometimes you can't fix situations.
               2. Sometimes the individual is going to die.

• Sometimes the individual has already died.

1. Sometimes the situation is already happening and you can't change it… but you can be there for them, and be there with them, and hurt with them, and care for them.

2. Job's three friends didn't say anything.
   1. What could they say?
3. Oh, we understand we've been there. No.
4. Oh, Job we can tell you how to fix the situation. No.

1. Sometimes it's just your presence that says I care.
   1. I hurt with you.
   2. I weep with you.
   3. Brethren, I want to encourage you strive for this goal in your relationship with each other.
2. If we do not, if we get so busy in our day to day activities that we pass by on the other side of brethren who are in need, you know what Satan is going to start whispering in their ears?
   1. They don't care about you.
   2. They're not family.
   3. Satan is going to try to convince us that we really don't love one another.

• I want to close with the text found in Colossians 3:14 – “But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.” Here is the ultimate bond that ties us together.   Love.
  1. Jesus talked about that if we would love one another, then people would know, just by our relationship with each other, that we are truly His disciples.
  2. You know what it is that God uses to draw people to him, folks?...   What God Almighty uses to draw mankind to Him is His love.
  3. Love first and foremost shown by the death of His son at Calvary.
  4. That is the strongest way God could cry out to all mankind that “I love you”.   Another way God draws people to Him is through us, His children, His church, His kingdom, His flock, and His disciples.   Those who love one another so much that people who are in darkness out there in the world, when they come in among us, can sense and feel the love that exists between us as a spiritual family and hopefully be drawn to God. When they see, that love of God, shown between us.

 

CONCLUSION:

Bless be the ties that bind. What are the ties that bind us together?

First, the blood of Christ ties us together in the family of God.

We are sisters and brothers in the same family.

We need to strive to love as brothers and sisters.

We have a common, mutual faith.

We have the same understanding, the same values, and the same goals.

We think alike because we have the same word molding our hearts and our values.

We come together and worship God together. From our heart to God, yes, but also at the same time so we can be together and encourage one another and admonish one another so that we can go from Monday through Saturday and live the faithful Christian life.  We need to be together.

 

When we get involved in the labor in the kingdom and start working, we need to understand something, folks, in a working congregation there is no time for bitterness.

You know the old saying an idle mind is devil's workshop. An idle congregation is also the devil's workshop.  When the Brethren aren't working, and they are not concerned about one another, those congregations are easy to tear asunder.

 

When you have a congregation that is laboring together in the vineyard, in the Kingdom, together, trying to plant the seed in the Kingdom, together, trying to water, together, and they see God giving the increase, together they rejoice.   Of course, we rejoice when we see the congregation growing. We rejoice when we see erring sheep coming back to the father because we work together to bring that about. It is when we care enough to where when one member suffers all the members suffer with them.

 

Folks, think about what said there. One member hurting, all the brethren care about them, all the brethren strive to comfort and alleviate that pain as quick as possible. In that kind of relationship there will be bonds formed between us that time and distance will never be able to sever.

 

It is all about our relationship with God and with each other. Let's see how close we can get to God. Let's see how close we can get to each other.

 

If there's anybody here this morning who is not a member of the body of Christ, if you believe in your heart that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, if you're willing to openly confess that faith and then motivated by that faith to follow after the teachings of Jesus your King, the Christ, we’ll be glad to assist you and baptize you into the body of Christ for the remission of your sins.

 

If you are a child of God and you have left the father and gone into the world, it is our hope, our desire, that you would come home, come back to God.  We will pray for you.

We'll pray with you. We'll do the very best we can as your spiritual family to try to be there for you to encourage you.

If you are subject to the Gospel call in any way, let it be known while we stand and sing this song.

 

Invitation song:

Based on sermon by: Wayne Fancher

Ceremonial Hypocrisy

Ceremonial Hypocrisy

Matthew 15:1-20

Intro:

Good evening.   Thought I would start with something I heard from the life of little Johnny.   Following a great sermon on lifestyle evangelism one family thought they had better do something to show others Jesus working in their lives. So, they invited their neighbors to dinner the following Friday night.   When it came time for the meal, the hostess was keen to show their neighbors that they upheld Christian standards in their home.   After they were seated she asked little 5-year-old Johnny to say grace.   Little Johnny was a bit shy. "I don't know what to say." There was an awkward pause, followed by a reassuring smile from his mother. "Well darling," she said, “just say what Daddy said at breakfast this morning."   Obediently, Johnny bowed his head and repeated, "Oh God, we've got those awful people coming to dinner tonight"

 

Continuing in our look at the parables, we are going to look at the parable of ‘Ceremonial hypocrisy’ this evening which is found in Matthew 15. The parable I want to talk about is found in verses 10-11 but there is more to this situation. Before we go ahead and study this parable, we need to do what every good Bible student should do, we need to read the whole text surrounding these parables to help us understand what Jesus meant. Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew 15.

Has anybody ever said something to you that greatly offended you? Perhaps like that advertisement when a husband and wife are in a store and she’s trying on some new clothes.   The wife turns and asks her husband, “Do you think these jeans make me look fat?” and he says, “No dear, it’s your fat that makes you look fat.”

Sometimes it can happen just due to native language differences. I remember of an instance when a foreign student said to a friend of mine in front of his wife, “I think your wife eats too much,” suggesting that she was overweight. Now that would have offended me but let me tell you it offended my friend and his wife even more. Any sensible person knows that you never just talk to someone about being overweight, because to most people that’s a sensitive issue.

 

1. Let me ask you about this now, what about your religion? Has anyone ever said something to you that really offended your religious beliefs? That’s what happened here in Matthew 15; Jesus said something that truly offended the Jewish leaders. Matthew 15:12 - says, “Then His disciples came and said to Him, "Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” [NKJV]
   1. Why were they offended? What did Jesus say to upset the Pharisees?
   2. This argument between Jesus and the Pharisees and the experts in the Law, with which this chapter deals, is of tremendous importance.
   3. Because what it does, is show the Jewish religion at its core.   Jesus is exposing the very heart of the Jewish religion in this chapter.  Let’s look.
   4. Matthew 15:1-2 - “Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, "Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread."
2. What was this tradition and what was the spirit behind it?   For the Jews at that time, the Law was made up of the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch .  It is true that the Pentateuch, the first five Books of the Old Testament, contains a certain number of detailed regulations and instructions.
   1. However, in the matter of moral questions, what is laid down is a series of great moral principles, which a man must interpret and apply for himself, and for a while the Jews were content with that. Around the 4th or 5th century before Christ came along, there was a group of people, who became known as legal experts. We know them as the Scribes.
   2. These guys weren’t content with great moral principles, Oh no.   They had what can only be described as a passion for definition and detail. In other words, they wanted these great moral principles amplified, expanded, and broken down. They did it to the extent that they issued thousands upon thousands of little rules and regulations, which attempted to oversee every possible action and every possible situation in life.
   3. Some Christians do that today, don’t they?  We have a song, a prayer, another song, a Bible reading, one more song, the Lord’s Supper, the offering, a sermon, the invitation and then a final song and prayer to finish.  If someone suggests, ‘Hey, lets just sing three songs today after the opening prayer’, some Christians would be offended.
   4. If you go to France and partake of the Lord’s Supper with your brothers and sisters over there, you will find that they use real wine as an emblem for the blood of Jesus.  I know many Christians in this country who would consider that offensive.
   5. What about Christians and alcohol? The Bible says we’re not to get drunk, so that means I can have a couple of beers and I’m not breaking God’s law… Does it? If you get upset with someone because they are a Christian and they are doing something not traditional, then what you’re doing is amplifying your own little rules.  The point I’m trying to make is that we try to find loopholes in God’s word to justify what we’re doing, and we do it all the time.  

• There are two aspects of these scribal rules and regulations, which come out of the argument in Mathew 15 and one of them we have already read. Matthew 15:2 – “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”  
  1. The Scribes and the Pharisees accused Jesus’ disciples of eating with unclean hands.  Certainly, I believe that everyone should wash their hands before having a meal for hygiene reasons, but that’s not what we’re dealing with here. They were accusing Jesus’ disciples of having ceremonially unclean hands.
  2. Hands that weren’t fit for the service and worship of God. That’s what they meant when they said, “they do not wash their hands”.    To you and me that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but to a Jew, this was a big deal.  This was the heart of their religious thinking; this was an offence and a breach of God’s Law in the Jewish mind.  

1. Let me take you on a trip through one of the many Jewish regulations. You see before every meal, after the meal if it included salt and I am told between every course of the meal, the hands had to be washed.  We’re not talking about just rinsing your hands with water here; we’re talking about washing your hands in a certain way.    
   1. To begin with your hands had to be free from any sand or dirt, or gravel or any kind of substance.  The water for washing had to be kept in a covered stone jar so that the water itself was clean in the ceremonial sense, and to make sure that it wasn’t used for anything else and that nothing had fallen into it or had been mixed in it.
   2. To start with your hands were held with your fingertips pointing upwards and then the water was poured over them.    The water must run at least down to your wrist.    While your hands were still wet, each hand had to be cleaned with the other hand.
   3. This meant that at this stage your hands were wet with water, but that water was now itself unclean because it touched unclean hands.    This is serious to a Jew but that’s just the beginning.    Next, your hands had to be held with your fingertips pointing downwards and the water had to be poured over them in such a way that it began at the wrists and ran off the fingertips.    After that had been done, your hands were now classified as being clean.    Remember you had to do that before the meal, possibly after and between every course of every meal.   
   4. If you failed to do this, in Jewish eyes, you wouldn’t be guilty of bad manners. You wouldn’t be guilty of being dirty in the hygienic sense, but you were seen as unclean in the sight of God.  If you were to eat bread with unclean hands, and pardon the expression, that was no better than excrement.
2. If the Romans put a Jewish rabbi in jail, he would use the water given to him for hand washing purposes rather than for drinking.   There have been reports of some of these Jews almost dying of thirst.  
   1. We only dealt a little with hand washing here.  You see before we can understand the parable we first need to understand why the Pharisees and the experts of the Law were so offended.  Can you imagine all the other rules they had?   Remember they had expanded the moral guidelines of God to include rules for every detail of human life.    
   2. On the Sabbath Day for example they had what they called the 39 Fathers. The 39 Melachot. 39 things they were prohibited from doing.  They then broke these rules down into thousands of other little rules and that became the Jewish religion.
   3. To the Pharisees and the Sadducees that was their religion.   It was ritualistic, ceremonial, rules and regulations which they considered to be the essence of their service to God.  You will see some of this in other religions today.   This man-created religion they were following is why Jesus said to them in Matthew 23:23 – “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.”  Jesus says that their religion consisted of a mass of taboos and rules and regulations.
3. Folks, I know this seems more like a study than a sermon so far but if we really want to understand why Jesus spoke so many parables against the Jewish leaders, we first need to get inside the Jewish leaders’ minds. In Matthew 15:10-11 we find Jesus sharing this parable with the crowd. He says, “Then He called the multitude and said to them, "Hear and understand: "Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.''”  
   19. You see a thing might in the ordinary sense be completely clean and yet in the legal sense be unclean.    This idea comes from Leviticus 11-15 and Numbers 19.    For example, certain animals were unclean.    A woman after giving birth to a child was unclean.    A dead body was unclean.    Anybody who had become unclean and touched something else, made whatever they touched unclean.
   20. A Gentile was unclean, food touched by a Gentile was unclean, and anything touched by a Gentile was unclean.  In fact, if a strict Jew came back from the market place, he would go home and wash in clean water to take away the contamination that he might have contacted when he was out.
   21. We know that the Scribes made, from this oral tradition, the Mishnah, as it was called and it was in addition to the law in scriptures.   The Mishnah is a compilation of Jewish oral law and tradition that expands on and interprets God’s written Law. Let me give you an example of one of those rules.  A hollow container made of pottery could contract uncleanness inside but not on the outside.  In other words it doesn’t matter who or what touched the outside, but it becomes a problem when the inside is involved.    If it became unclean, it must be broken and no unbroken piece must remain in your house, which was big enough to hold enough oil to anoint the little toe.
   22. I want to thank you for your patience so far this evening, but I really wanted to wade through this sample of the mad house of the Scribal Law with you, simply to show you what Jesus was dealing with.

• To the Scribes and the Pharisees, these rules and regulations were the essence of their religion.  To observe them was to please God and to break them was to sin, this was their idea of goodness and service to God.  We asked at the start of this sermon, why were the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law so offended?
  1. They were offended because the very ground of their religion was being cut from underneath them.  Think about it.   If Jesus was right, which we know He is always right, then that meant that their whole theory of religion was wrong.  They identified religion and pleasing God with the observing of rules and regulations.  In our example of cleanliness, it had to do with what a man ate, with how he washed his hands before he ate it.
  2. That’s why Jesus said in Matthew 15:3-9 – “But He answered and said to them, "Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? "For God commanded, saying, `Honor your father and your mother'; and, `He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.'  "But you say, `Whoever says to his father or mother, "Whatever profit you might have received from me has been dedicated to the temple'' `is released from honoring his father or mother.' "Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. "Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: `These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.  And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' ''”
  3. Tradition says, “A man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is now a gift devoted to God,' he is not to 'honor his father or mother ' with it.” Jesus says, “'Honor your father and mother' ”
  4. Let’s put it this way; Tradition says, “Be a good person and you’ll get into heaven.” The Bible says, “Believe, confess, repent, be baptized and remain faithful and you’ll get into heaven.”
  5. How about; Tradition says, “You have to come to our bible class.” The Bible says, “God’s people will come together to study because they want to.” Do we see, folks?   Do we see the difference?
• It’s with that in mind that He says in Matthew 15:13-14 – “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.  "Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.
  1. Jesus says that the Pharisees were nothing but blind guides who had no idea of the ways of God, and that if people followed them, then all they could expect was to stray off the road and fall into a ditch.  
  2. Folks, make no mistake, this hurt the Jews and it still hurts people today. That’s because people are still thinking outwardly, instead of wholeheartedly. Jesus identified religion with the state of a person’s heart and said quite bluntly that these Pharisees and Scribal regulations had nothing to do with religion.
  3. Jesus says in Matthew 15:17-20 when He explains the parable to Peter and the others. – “Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.   "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.   "These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”

1. God may be at the heart of all religion, the question is, is God in the hearts of those who profess to follow Him?  Let me give you a couple of things to think about before we close.  
   1. If religion consists of external regulations and observances, it has two things.  First; it is far too easy.
   2. It is much easier to do without certain foods and to wash our hands in a certain way than it is to love and forgive the unlovely and unlovable.  It’s much easier to do that, than it is to help the needy at the cost of one’s own time and money and comfort and pleasure.
   3. Let me tell you about a man from the city who bought a farm and his new neighbor who owned the farm next to his came to visit him.   The man said to this neighbor, "Can you tell me where the property line runs between our farms?" The farmer looked him over and asked, "Are you talking owning or mowing?"
   4. We judge people by the external things they do or don’t do.   By the protocols, religious practices, or rites.   We judge that way because we still must learn the lesson that Jesus was trying to teach the Jewish leaders.  We judge people by their church attendance, how much they give in the offering, how often they come to our Bible study. We judge by appearance.
   5. Jesus teaches us that all those things are the externals in Christianity. Don’t get me wrong. These things are important, and they are the means towards religion and being a Christian, but they are not religion and Christianity.  
   6. James 1:26 – “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.”  Folks, we all need occasional reminders that our religion consists of personal relationships and in our attitude towards God and our fellowman.
   7. Secondly; A religion that consists of external regulations and observances is very much misleading.    Many people may live what they think is a faultless life based on externals, but they can have bitterness and the most evil thoughts within their hearts.   That applies to those who would be shepherds as well.   It applied to the teachers of the law in Jesus time.
   8. Matthew 7:22-23 – “Many will say to Me in that day, `Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' "And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”
   9. Jesus clearly teaches us that all the outward observances in the world can not atone for a heart where pride, bitterness and lust dominate.  You see the only thing that matters is the human heart.  This is the religion of Jesus; this is our religion at its core.  Matthew 5:8 - “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”
   10. We really need to learn this lesson because too many people are putting themselves on guilt trips because they can’t do this or can’t do that. Too many Christian beat themselves up because they can’t get to every service. Too many Christians are dragging themselves down because they can’t physically help in certain areas.
2. Folks, what matters to God is not so much HOW we act, but WHY we act. Its not so much what we actually DO, but what is in our heart of hearts in the doing. We read in the minor prophets time and again of the people following the letter of the law but doing it for their own benefit and not for the love of their creator. God knows, He is not fooled, yet we are reminded in John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." We are saved because of Christ, not because of the external things we do.
   1. The story goes that in a certain tribe chicken stealing became a problem. The chief said that if someone was caught stealing chickens “The offender would receive 10 lashes.” When the stealing continued, he raised it to 20 lashes. But still the chickens randomly disappeared. In anger the Chief raised the sentence to 100 lashes. The thief was finally caught, but the Chief faced a terrible dilemma. The thief was his own young daughter!  When the day of penalty came, the whole tribe gathered.
   2. Would the Chief's love override his justice?  The crowd gasped when he ordered his daughter to be tied to the whipping post.  The Chief removed his shirt, revealing his powerful stature, and took the whip in hand.  But he did not raise it to strike the first blow, he handed it to a strong, young warrior standing at his side.  Slowly the Chief walked over to his daughter and wrapped his massive arms around her in an engulfing embrace.  Then he ordered the brave to give him the 100 lashes.   That's what Jesus did for you and me. In love He became our substitute and died in our place to pay the penalty for all our sins. He overcame our inability to save ourselves by paying the price for our sins. His death bridged the gulf between God and man and made it possible for us to be reconciled to God and to be restored to fellowship with Him through faith in Christ and in His atoning death for us.
   3. Luke 6:43-47 – " For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. -- “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.  When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” [ESV]
   4. Jesus says that no man can call himself a good man because he observes external rules and regulations. That’s because such teaching condemns every one of us, we are only good when our hearts are pure. When you think about it, that very fact alone should bring pride to an end.

 

CONCLUSION:  

No Christian should ever stand in judgment of their fellow brother or sister and say, “I go to all the meetings and you don’t, look how religious I am.” “I’ve never missed a Sunday morning in over ten years, look how religious I am.”

When love reigns in our hearts, pride disappears.  This is because our religion, at its core, is not about external rules and regulations.   It is not about rules and rites, and every one of us can only say what that publican said in Luke 18:13 - “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

If you’re not a Christian today, let me give you a bit of advice. Quit trying to be good enough for Jesus before you come to Him, quit trying to get to perfection before you become a Christian, and quit trying to give up that sin in your life first before you become a Christian.

You are sitting among a group of sinners today who have already recognized that they will never be good enough. You have listened to a man speak who has learned that external perfections do not exist in Christianity;… it’s all to do with the heart. You’re sitting with people who are struggling with sin and will continue to struggle with sin the rest of their lives.

If you want to become a Christian, then just submit to His will and let Him clothe you with His righteousness.  Then when God looks at you, He will see what He sees in the people around you, He will see a people who are spotless and blameless in His eyes.

 

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

We learn from the New Testament how to be saved. We need to hear the word; believe in Jesus; repent of our sins; we must confess our belief that Jesus is the Son of God; and be baptized for the remission of our sins… If we follow these steps, the Lord adds us to His church.

 

Perhaps there is someone in the assembly today with the need to be buried with Christ in baptism. If you have never done these things, we urge you to do so today. If anyone has this need or desires the prayers of faithful Christians on their behalf, we encourage them to come forward while we stand and sing.

 

# 593

 

Reference Sermon

Mike Glover

The Assault of Modernism on the Denominations

The Assault of Modernism on the Denominations

Romans 1:16-32

 

INTRO:

Good morning.   The sermon this morning is going to be a discussion of something you may not be familiar with.   In the sermon I am going to be calling by name various denominations.  There's no way I can avoid that because the title of my sermon is the assault of modernism on the denominations.

We need to be aware that there are major battles going on in the ranks of the denominations that we may not have any knowledge of.    The purpose of the sermon this morning is to bring this to our consciousness because we will find it actually affects the world that we are in—those of us in the church of Christ.

Often, we have very little knowledge of what's happening in the denominations.   Many of us in the church of Christ do not have a lot of contact, at least on a religious level, with those in the denominational world where we might hear of what is happening.

Others of us have friends and perhaps family who are from the denominations.   In my life I have had friends and family that are Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran.   Though mostly Baptist.   I want to tell you something, those that I knew in my youth were good moral people. I particularly and fondly remember one Baptist aunt.   They taught truth about divorce and remarriage making no bones about it.  They taught the truth on drinking and dancing and were not ashamed of it whatsoever. They told the truth right down the line on the morals.   You could be friends with these people and not be afraid they were going to pull you into immorality.   Such are my memories of those people.

Fast forward to today and let me ask; How many of you know people who profess to be Christians and if you were to ask them, is abortion sin they would say: Oh no there's nothing wrong with abortion.

If you ask you’re friends, who say they are Christians; is homosexuality a sin or will it condemn me to hell separating me from God forever? They'll say: No there's nothing wrong with homosexuality.  It's just an alternate lifestyle.

They have no problem with being divorced umpteen times and married to whoever you want to be married to, living together, drinking, doing drugs, anything goes.

I guarantee you somebody here this morning knows people who profess to be Christians and have no problem with homosexuality, living together, drunkenness, use of drugs, or abortion.

We realize something's changed, hasn't it?  Something is changing in the morals among many in the denominations who profess to be Christians. Their morals are becoming a complete anathema and opposite of what we find Christianity as described in the New Testament.   What I'm going to try to do in the sermon this morning is explore what has happened in the denominations to bring about this result.

 

1. What happened is the assault of modernism on the denominations.   You may not be familiar with what modernism is.   One modernist put it this way: The God of fundamentalist is one God. The God of the modernist is another. The Christ of the fundamentalist is one Christ. The Christ of the modernist is another. The Bible of the fundamentalist is one Bible. The Bible of the modernist is another.
   1. Merriam-Webster on-line puts it like this; a tendency in theology to accommodate traditional religious teaching to contemporary thought and especially to devalue supernatural elements. Perhaps more to the point is this definition; a movement toward modifying traditional beliefs in accordance with modern (that is to say human) ideas.
   2. The modernism we see actually has its beginnings hundreds of years ago when men started teaching that the Bible is not really the inspired Word of God; that Moses really did not write the first five books of the Old Testament, that Moses really was not the author and they were written by priests over a period of decades and centuries.
      1. They started doing what they called the demythologizing (de·my·thol·o·gize·ing) of the Bible: the taking out of all the miracles of the Old and New Testament.
      2. If you take out the miracles, obviously you're going to take out the virgin birth.  If you take out the miracles, obviously you must out the resurrection.
      3. You end up in modernism with individuals who do not believe that the Bible is the word of God.    Individuals who do not believe that Jesus was born of a virgin and individuals who do not believe that He rose from the dead. Yet they continue to profess to be Christians.  
      4. That is what we mean when we say modernism.   An example of this is The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth by Thomas Jefferson.   Jefferson's condensed composition excludes all miracles by Jesus and most mentions of the supernatural, including sections of the four gospels that contain the Resurrection and most other miracles, and passages that portray Jesus as divine.
   3. This has a very strong impact.   Before we look at this modernism in the present world, we're going to take a look at modernism in the ancient world. Even though it's called modernism it's not new.  It is as Solomon expresses in Ecclesiastes 1:9 – “That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.’ You will find the progression of modernism is actually taught in the Book of Romans.  
      1. Romans 1:28 – “even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;” I want you to see that the very first step is a removal of God from the core, the heart, and the mind of the individual.
      2. Another step we see in Romans 1:25 – “who exchanged the truth of God for the lie”.   The conclusion that you see this leading to is in Romans 1:26 – “For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.”
      3. If you continue reading you will see in verse 27 – “Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.” In a word, folks, what this is; is homosexuality. It starts with the removing of God from the mind and heart of the individual.   When the mind and heart are weakened then sin comes in.   Verses 28-32 – “28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29. being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30. backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31. undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 32. who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.” It is blatantly obvious; there is no equivocation that sin is condemned in the scriptures.
      4. When I read Romans 1, I feel like I’m reading in a newspaper about America.   It describes us very well.   How did we, America, supposedly a God-fearing nation, get to the point where we are becoming so debased and immoral?

• I believe a major factor that led us to this point—is modernism among those who profess to be Christians.   We will start by looking at how they did not retain God in their knowledge.   You know that if your relationship with God is going to be pleasing to Him it must be from the heart.   First, you must believe that He is.   You cannot be a Christian without believing in God.   Certainly, you cannot have a relationship with God if you do not believe in God.
  1. Look at this over in Hebrews 11:6 – “But without faith it is impossible (Notice this word here) impossible to please Him, (You know what that means, don’t you? You cannot please God without faith.) for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” If you do not have faith in God's existence it is absolutely, totally impossible to be a Christian.
     1. Let me give you a quote; “God is no longer the central fact in religion or the ultimate principle in theology. His place is taken by man's religious experience. The religious experience of men and women becomes the decisive factor and final court of appeal by which we test the validity of any theological concept.”
     2. Let me ask you, what did they just do there?   They just took God and threw Him out and said we will decide what truth is. Although modernists may maintain that there is some truth in the Bible, the ultimate authority is found in the subjective experience of the individual. It doesn’t matter about God.   We will look at the situation according to how we feel about it and how we feel about it is going to be the truth of the situation.
  2. Do you realize that there are individuals who are leaders in their religion that aren't even sure God exists?   We have mentioned this in prior lessons. Roughly 50 Anglican vicars are members of the Sea of Faith, an organization that claims religion is a human creation and that God is a manmade myth.¹ This is from the BBC talking about vicars who don't believe in the existence of God outside the human mind.
  3. A glaringly obvious question is here and I’m sure you all see it. What are you doing this for? Why are you doing this work if you don’t even believe in God? The first step is they didn't like to retain God in their knowledge.

9. The next step according Romans is to change the truth of God into a lie.   In 2 John 9-11 – “9. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. 10. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; 11. for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.”  
   1. I believe that is straight forward.   If you will not abide in the doctrine of Christ the teachings of Christ, you’re not a Christian.
   2. Listen to these next quotes if you will.   “We cannot take the Bible as a whole and every part as stating with divine authority what we should believe and do.” “Just because the Bible says it, doesn't mean we should believe it.” “Because the Bible said you should do something doesn't mean you should do it.” “Just because the Bible says you shouldn't do something doesn't mean you shouldn’t do it.”
   3. John 8:24 tells us; “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” That’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it? If you do not believe that Jesus, is the Son of God you will die in your sins.
      1. Here is an interesting quote from John Shelby Spong, a bishop in the Episcopal Church in America.   “Am I suggesting that these stories of the virgin birth are not literally true? The answer is a simple and direct “Yes.” Of course these narratives are not literally true. Stars do not wander, angels do not sing, virgins do not give birth, magi do not travel to a distant land to present gifts to a baby, and shepherds do not go in search of a newborn savior. … To talk of a Father God who has a divine-human son by a virgin woman is a mythology that our generation would never have created, and obviously, could not use. To speak of a Father God so enraged by human evil that he requires propitiation for our sins that we cannot pay and thus demands the death of the divine-human son, as a guilt offering is a ludicrous idea to our century. The sacrificial concept that focuses on the saving blood of Jesus that somehow washes me clean, so popular in Evangelical and Fundamentalist circles, is by and large repugnant to us today”.  
      2. Jesus said: “if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins”. Again, the question: If you do not believe why do you have this job?
      3. I realize some of these quotes are probably going to be infuriating.   This next one is taken from a survey in 1968.   It showed that 60 percent of the Methodist clergy did not believe in the virgin birth and 50 percent did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ.
      4. If you're from a Methodist background and you happen to be listening to this and that offends you I'm sorry.   I didn't administer the survey.  I'm just telling you what has been quoted about a survey taken among Methodist clergy in 1968.
   4. This is a battle going on in the denominations folks.  We also need to understand that not everybody in the denominations agrees with this.  That’s why I titled the sermon The Assault.
      1. We need to realize there are divisions taking place in the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Episcopal and other denominations.   There are divisions taking place due to modernism—as to whether or not the Bible is in reality the word of God, whether Jesus is the son of God and if the resurrection actually took place.
         1. Please recognize the reason I'm giving these quotes is because a lot of times when we hear of these things we think only a few teachers might believe that.   That's not the truth.
         2. In reality a significant portion and even in some cases a majority of their clergy believe it.  The people in the pews are one thing, but the clergy who go to their theological schools and seminaries are being taught this stuff.
         3. They're coming out of those schools having whatever faith they may have had going in completely destroyed or undermined.   It is not just secular schools that teach falsehood.
      2. These are battles going on in the denominational ranks. We need to be aware of it because we recognize that the belief that there is no resurrection and that Jesus is not the son of God and the Bible is not the word of God is ultimately going to affect the morals of the public.
         1. You will come across these people in school, at work and in the community because this is the world we live in. Yet, they continue to wear the name of Christ.
         2. A religion survey in 1992 found that 80 percent of Denmark's Lutherans do not believe in the resurrection.   Think about that.
         3. Here is another quote: “We have closed our minds to such trivial considerations as the question of the resurrection of Christ. If you fundamentalist wish to believe that nonsense we have no objection, but we have more important things to preach about than the presence or absence of an empty tomb 20 centuries ago.” – They don't care about the resurrection.
      3. People do not believe in miracles and they do not believe in the resurrection. As a matter of fact, they had a seminar, the Jesus Seminar, where they came together to try to figure out for us what Jesus actually did say.
         1. They ended up with about 15 percent of what Jesus said in the New Testament and the rest they say is all make-believe or myth.
         2. How do you think that's going to affect somebody spiritually if they believe that?
      4. It's going to completely destroy any faith they may have.
         1. We need to realize that there are people who have more of a philosophy than a faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God who died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day.
         2. I Corinthians 15:14 tells us the importance of the resurrection: “if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is vain and your faith is also vain.”
         3. Some people have what we might call “Christian philosophy”, which is basically—be nice, be good to each other, be a good boy or girl, but do whatever you want to do.
      5. Listen, folks, and listen closely. If Jesus was not born of a virgin and He didn't rise from the dead, you might as well go home.
         1. There’s no need for you to be here.
         2. There’ no need in taking the Lord's Supper.
         3. There's no need to worship God.
         4. There's no need in talking about going to God through our mediator, who's at the right hand of God because all this is make believe.
         5. If He was not born of a virgin according to prophesy, if He didn't rise from the dead, your faith is empty, empty, empty, and a waste of time.
      6. We see the first step: They did not want to retain God in their knowledge.  The second step is they changed the truth of God into a lie. The final step is God gave them over to vile affections.   For the modernist the real authority can only be “the Christian consciousness” or “Christian experience”, not the Bible.
         1. This means that no truth is absolute. When truth is described in terms of individual religious experience, there is no absolute and final truth to be found. All truth becomes relative. When religious experience changes, and it will, theology will also need to change in order to be true to it.
            1. Christianity is not unique then. If religious experience is accepted as one's final source of authority, then there is nothing particularly better about the religious experience of the Christian over the religious experience of the Buddhist or Hindu.
            2. No doctrine therefore is absolutely true. When you take the position that there are no absolutes, the result is that there is no doctrine of any kind that is absolutely true. For example, we might believe that God is love from our religious experience of today but tomorrow become convinced from some other religious experience that God is hate.
            3. With this viewpoint no traditional Christian doctrine, however clearly taught in the Bible, is absolutely vital to contemporary religion; modernism is an intellectual interpretation of past religious experience, using assumptions and categories available at the time, but it is not final. ²
         2. Those who live in this philosophy live in an open-ended world. There are no such things as right and wrong, black and white. To them, everything is gray. Hence, they live in a world in which lying is sometimes better than telling the truth, murder is sometimes better than not committing murder, stealing is sometimes better than not stealing.  Religious experience is the only determining factor for telling what is right and what is wrong in any given instance.  The result is the religious anarchy of modernism leaving people in the same predicament that Israel was in during the days of the judges: "… every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). ²
         3. I’m going to be reading mostly quotes so you can see where the morality of those who have gotten caught in modernism goes.   For example; if you sit down with someone who is engaged in this world of modernism and you open the Bible with them and show them what it says about homosexuality.   We have read from Romans the first chapter, and there is no getting around it, homosexuality is totally condemned but to them that really doesn’t matter.
            1. It doesn't matter how clearly it's taught in the Bible, because you need to understand that for them, the Bible has no authority.
            2. They think the Bible is just another book and so it doesn’t really matter what the Bible says on any subject.
            3. A United Methodist committee, after a three-year study, said it cannot arrive at a common mind about whether homosexual practice contradicts Christian faith. The committee said some biblical scholars believe that scripture’s negative view of homosexual practice has a firm theological grounding but most of the latest biblical scholarship maintains the Bible view is too closely tied to the presupposition, cultural and religious values of the ancient world and does not belong to that enduring core of scripture.
            4. Yes, it's in there. They are saying it does not matter what the Bible says.
         4. Then in a paper on “New Ways in Theology at Holy Cross - March 2018” the author tells of the college appointed professor Dr. Tat-Siong Benny Liew as Chair of New Testament Studies.
            1. Prior to his appointment at Holy Cross, Professor Liew had been Professor of New Testament at the Pacific School of Theology, and before that taught at Chicago Theological Seminary. According to the Department of Religious Studies webpage, his fields of specialty include “synoptic gospels, gospel of John, cultural and racial interpretations and receptions of the Bible, apocalyptism (a-pa-ka-lip-tism), and Asian American history and literature.”
            2. In professor Liew’s writing he explains that he believes Christ could be considered a “drag king” or cross-dresser.   Liew extrapolates from John 13, when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, that the Son of God was “appearing as a drag-kingly bride in his passion.”
            3. The professor described the biblical account as a “literary striptease,” “seductive,” and suggested John wasn’t sure if Jesus was “biologically male”.
            4. This is a clear form of modernism in a Catholic teaching institution where scripture is being viewed through the lens of the modern experience.
         5. Nor is this as unusual as we might think. A church of Christ preacher wrote: “You need to realize if you're going to go to get your Master’s or your PhD in theology at some state university, you are going to be bombarded with every bit of this.
            1. He wrote “I graduated from Mississippi State and while I was at Mississippi State in order to pull my grade point average up I took Understanding the New Testament and Understanding the Old Testament.   It should have been easy credit for me. After two weeks in both classes I'd dropped both of them.”
            2. He continued; “The whole point of both classes was to completely destroy my faith in the inspiration of the Bible. It was the whole point of both classes.”
            3. “I'll be quite frank with you even though I graduated from Mississippi State I won't send them a dime because I know garbage like this is being taught at that school.”
            4. He added; “You need recognize that if you want your sons and your daughters to get masters and PhDs at some state school in theology this is what they're going to be taught.”
         6. There are multitudes of young men and women in the denominations that do have some semblance of faith in the virgin birth, the resurrection, and Jesus being the son of God.   When they go into these seminaries they come out spouting this garbage because what faith they did have was completely burned up and destroyed by their professors and teachers.
            1. It has been hijacked by people that are pushing modernism, pushing homosexuality, pushing the feminist movement, and pushing abortion.
            2. It is the religious leaders doing this and we need to recognize it is the leaders in many of these denominations that are pushing—immorality.
         7. It's become their mantra and their intentions to try to drag the world down into this and they have the audacity to wear the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. This is the complete opposite of Christianity.
         8. United Methodist’s position on abortion has been so strong two of its institutions have helped organize the religious coalition for abortion rights (RCAR) which changed it’s name to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice .

 

CONCLUSION:   I'll close with this particular scripture and by the way it's still the truth right now.  I Corinthians 6:9-11.

Just because we have changed in technology does not mean the truth changes.   We human beings come into the world the same way we have always come into the world by being born—a mother and father.   We all go out the same way.   We still die.

In between the point in time when we are born and when we die we have the same problem, which is sin. Sin still has the same consequences of separating us from God.

I Corinthians 6:9-11 – “9. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10. nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” Amen.

I believe it. No comment necessary.

 

How many of our friends, acquaintances, or co-workers if you were to sit down and ask them: Are you a Christian? would say yes?   Ask; are you going to heaven? Yes, I'm going to heaven.

 

If you ask them is homosexuality sin.   They’ll say, what? No not really. It’s an alternate lifestyle.   Is abortion sin?  No, no it's just a choice.

 

We need to realize how they got where they are.   How they got where they are is that they are sitting at the feet of men and women who have been influenced with modernism ideas, who do not believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who do not believe in the resurrection, who do not believe that the word of God is inspired, and is the authority for you and me today to live by.

 

These are their teachers. They have given themselves over to all kinds of immorality.

They are just teaching the young men and women what they believe.   You need to realize, folks, this is not some kind of small problem out there.

 

That's why I gave you the percentages where you have the majority of the clergy in one denomination who reject the belief of the resurrection and Jesus being born of a virgin.

The devil has organized a major assault taking place in the denominations.  

 

By the way I want you to know that there are people who are standing up against this.

Don't think they've all given over to it.  I will say this; I admire some of the Baptist standing up for morality.   Many of them are trying to hold the line but a lot of the other denominations—have been eaten up with it.

 

It’s taken the majority of their membership.  This may help you understand why you can talk with some of the people you know who are so immoral, I mean wallowing in sin, and yet they say: “Oh yes I'm a Christian.”   Now you understand how they got where they are.

 

There may be someone here this morning who is not a member of the body of Christ.

If you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and you are willing to repent of your sins we’ll be glad to assist you and baptize you into the body of Christ for the remission of your sins.    You've got to be willing to put off the old man and put on the new man, be willing to recognize Jesus really is the king and His word is absolute authority.

 

As a Christian you are expected to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ all the days of your life by faith. When I say by faith, I mean that He really is the Christ.  He really did die for your sins on the cross. He really did rise from the dead. He really is at the right hand of God and you live by that faith.

If you are already a member the body of Christ, and you've gone into the world and gone into sin, I hope you recognize that sin is separating you from God and needs to be dealt with. We'll pray for you.   We'll pray with you.   As your brothers and sisters and your spiritual family we’ll do the very best we can to try to encourage you.

If you are subject to the Gospel call in any way let it be known as we stand and sing the song selected.

 

Invitation song ???

 

Reference sermon by: Wayne Fancher

 

 

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Faith

² The Authority of Modernism; Mike Willis, Dayton, Ohio