Chardon church of Christ

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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

 

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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

First Come First Served

First Come First Served

Matthew 20:1-16

INTRO:   Good evening.   Continuing our look at the parables of Jesus I would like you to recall we recently looked at the parable of the wicked tenants.   We saw that God has entrusted to man the care of His kingdom.   God had left His tenants in charge of His vineyard, and He gave them everything they needed to do to the work in that vineyard.

The text for today is Matthew chapter 20 verses 1 through 16.   In it we are going to see that everyone He calls upon is entitled to work in His vineyard, no matter where they are from or when they decided to listen to His call.    

This text is sometimes called the parable of “The workers in the vineyard” and we are going to learn that it’s not always a case of “First come, first served”.

In the world today everyone wants service now, and it seems there’s a real lack of humility. Maybe it is our fast passed society, or just that there are so many of us, but we are always in a rush. When you go to the market sometimes it can be a struggle to pay at the checkout because people are rushing, trying to be first in line.  

The attitude of the world is one of expectations, isn’t it?  People expect to be served first even though there were many there ahead of them.  People expect to be treated better than others, especially if they believe they are in a position of importance.    There are times you can understand this.   In England the queen, for example, would expect to be served first wherever she went.   But humility is counter to the way of our, me first, my rights, society. Humility is not just something that Christian’s practice; humility is the lifestyle of a Christian.  As far as society goes I think a recent advertisement by Grubhub sums it up quite well; “I want it all and I want it now.”

Before we begin to find out what Jesus was saying in this parable we first need to understand the background to it.  Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 19:16-25 where we find a rich young man who came to Jesus and asked Him what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him, “Obey the commandments."  The young man asks, “Which ones?”  Jesus said to him, “'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'" To which the young man replies, “I have kept them all. What do I lack?”

Jesus tells him.  He says, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." This was too much for the young man, so he went away sad, because he was rich.

Then Jesus talks to His disciples about how hard it is for rich people to enter the kingdom of God and then He goes on to talk about how people can be saved.  He says in Matthew 19:26-30 "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Peter answered him, "We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?"   Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.”

It is at this point that Jesus goes on to tell the parable of “The workers in the vineyard” in Matthew 20:1-16.  

Many years ago a young preacher met Dr. Adam Clarke, the great commentator who had produced a wealth of literary treasures. The young man, anxious to emulate the distinguished doctor, asked him how he managed it. "Do you pray about it?" he inquired. "No," the doctor quietly answered, "I get up and start working."

 

1. In this parable we find the issue is not how long the people worked in the Lord’s vineyard; the issue in this parable is the spirit in which the work was done.
   1. Notice that there are two types of workers in God’s vineyard.  The first lot are those who came to an agreement with the master.   Jesus said in Matthew 20:1-2 – “"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. "Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.” [NKJV]
      1. These workers agreed to work for Him if they were given the right amount of money.    These first laborers were given a contract, a denarius for a days work.
      2. A second lot of workers came to work for Him later.  Matthew 20:3-7 – “And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said to them, `You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.' And they went.” "Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. "And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and said to them, `Why have you been standing here idle all day?' "They said to him, `Because no one hired us.' He said to them, `You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right you will receive.'”
   2. The difference between these latter workers and those who had an agreement is that they were glad just for the chance to work. To them their pay wasn’t an issue because Jesus said about the landowner, “He would pay them what was right.”
      1. As an aside; you know it’s sad when people think they will only work for God if they get paid enough to do it.  On the other hand, just because some get financial support to work with a congregation, doesn’t mean that they have to do all the work, just because they get paid for it.
      2. But that’s not the point of this parable.   In this parable the workers didn’t get their pay until the work was finished.  Jesus isn’t talking about actually receiving a denarius when we get to heaven.  He’s revealing a spiritual and moral truth to His disciples.   He’s saying that your reward will be the same as mine and that reward is eternal life.
   3. A Christian doesn’t work in God’s kingdom for the money.   A Christian works in God’s kingdom for the joy.  Proverbs 10:27-28- “ The fear of the Lord prolongs days, but the years of the wicked will be shortened. The hope of the righteous will be gladness, but the expectation of the wicked will perish.”
      1. 1 Peter 1:8-9 – “Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith the salvation of your souls.”
      2. It’s a joy to serve and work for the Lord; we all work for Him because of the joy we get out of serving our Lord in His kingdom.
      3. Years ago I heard a story about someone who stole some lug nuts from one of the wheels of a man’s car, a Studebaker.   The man went to a junk yard to get replacement lug nuts.  He asked the counter guy, "Could you give me two lug nuts for my Studebaker?"  "Sure," the salesman replied. "Sounds like a fair exchange."
      4. When it comes to inheriting eternal life; nobody is going to get ripped off, whether they’ve been a Christian for one day or 50 years.
   4. We all know that Jesus’ disciples were the first Christians in Jesus’ church and in Acts 2:41 we find that others were added and became a part of His church.
      1. In Acts 5:14 we find that even more people were added and became a part of the Lord’s church.
      2. Jesus’ disciples had to learn a hard lesson.  First come doesn’t mean first served!  Jesus explains what He meant when He said to His disciples about their position of honor in Matthew 19:26-30.
      3. Jesus is telling them that the disciples couldn’t claim any special place of honor just because they were Christians before anyone else.  He says in Matthew 20:16 “The last will be first, and the first will be last."
   5. There’s a big lesson for the church today here too, isn’t there?  Many people just because they have been members of the Lord’s church for many years, think that the church partially belongs to them.  They think they can dictate and control what goes on within the congregation.  
      1. Just because you’ve been a member of the Lord’s church for 40 years doesn’t give you any special privileges.  Just because your father was an elder of a church for 20 years doesn’t give you any special privileges. It is not about genealogy. We are to serve with humility.
      2. In the church, authority doesn’t necessarily mean honor.  Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying we should not honor those who have been in the Lord’s body for many years because the Bible teaches us that we should honor those who are older in the faith.
      3. I’m saying that just because you’ve been a part of the kingdom longer than some others, doesn’t make you more important than any other Christian.  No matter where you come from or when you became a Christian, you are of equal worth to God as any other Christian.
   6. We are to remember its God’s vineyard not mine, not yours. It’s God who is dishing out the wages. He’s the one doing the hiring.   It’s His work that’s being done.  We are all workers and He’s the owner.
      1. The point is that it doesn’t matter if you’ve been a Christian for one hour or 40 years, you are of equal worth to God in His kingdom.   Galatians 3:26-28 – “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.   For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.   There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
      2. Those who are young in the faith should learn from those who are older in the faith, who are more mature and whose knowledge is greater.
      3. This is also important.    It may well be that those who have been Christians for a long time have got things to learn from those who are younger in the faith as well.
   7. That was the problem the Jews had, they knew that they were God’s chosen people and they never forgot that.   They also never forgot to remind other people about it.    Because of this; they continually looked down on the Gentiles.  They hated and despised the Gentiles and hoped for nothing but their destruction.  Their genealogy was a stumbling block. To a Jew if the Gentiles were going to be allowed into God’s kingdom, they must come in as inferiors and on their terms.
      1. We know a couple of examples of that.   In Acts 15:1 we find some Jews saying to the Gentiles, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”  We also know that the apostle Peter stumbled with this didn’t he?   Paul had to rebuke him for that mindset.
      2. In Galatians 2:14 – “But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, "If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews?”    In other words the Jews were willing to allow the Gentiles into God’s kingdom only if they were circumcised and followed their traditions.
      3. That particular spirit hasn’t changed much today in some religious circles, has it?  Even in the brotherhood some say you can only be a part of the church if you were baptized by a church of Christ minster!
         1. You are only a real Christian if you know and fully understand all the doctrine of the church of Christ before you were baptized!
         2. You will only get to heaven if you use this translation or this song book or use one cup during communion!

• There are people who think they are more favored in God’s eyes, because others don’t match up to their level of spirituality.

28. As someone once said, “In God’s economy, there is no such thing as a most favored nation clause.”    There is no master race in Christianity.  “you are all one in Christ Jesus,” as Paul reminded us in Galatians 3:28.  Instead of looking around at each other and wondering whose doing what in God’s kingdom, maybe we should be searching for those who are eager to work in the kingdom.

1. We realize these men that Jesus was talking about here were standing in the market place but they weren’t being lazy hanging around the street corners wasting their time.    They didn’t have job centers to go to like we have today.   The market place was the place to go to find work.    A man would go there first thing in the morning with his tools and he would wait until someone came along and hired him.
   1. Some of them would get hired first thing in the morning, but others would wait all day to get some work.   Some men worked only a few hours and some men worked all day.  When I say all day, I don’t mean a 9 to 5 job.  I mean these men started at 6:00 am and finished at 6:00 pm.  
      1. Even though work usually finished at 6:00 pm some of these men would still be waiting at 5:00 pm hoping to get a job.
      2. Jesus said the landowner went in the morning, then the third hour, and then the sixth hour and then the ninth hour and then finally he went again to the market place at the eleventh hour.  Apparently there was a lot of work to do and this also shows how desperate for work they were.   They were still there waiting in the market place when the day was nearly spent.
      3. We go out of our way to encourage people to read the Bible, so that one day they might become Christians.  Maybe we should consider continuing that encouragement in helping them find a job within the kingdom of God after they have become Christians.
   2. The point is that we should be working in His kingdom.   This parable also tells us about the generosity of God.
      1. Matthew 20:8-10 – “So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, `Call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first.' "And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius. "But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received each a denarius.”
      2. What is going on here?   These workers didn’t all do the same amount of work, putting in the same time, but they did receive the same pay.  
      3. The way the world works when it comes to pay is some people get more than others depending on the jobs they have.    Usually if people work in the same place and do the same job for the same length of time, they expect to get the same pay, but these workers didn’t all work the same number of hours.
      4. These workers were grape harvesters and the grapes in Palestine would always be ready for harvest around the end of September.   It was always a race against time to get the grapes in before the rains came.   Because of this, anyone who was willing to work was welcome to work at this time, even if they could only work for an hour or two.  Each man was given what amounted to a day’s wages for a man back then.
      5. Because a job was hard to come by, getting a job for a day’s wages sometimes meant the difference between living and starving.   God knew that a denarius was no great wage.   He knew that if the workmen went home with less than a denarius there would be worried wives and hungry children.  
      6. If this happened in today’s world, people would instantly go to a lawyer and say I want justice.  This parable tells us that God goes beyond justice.   He gives us more than we are due.   Justice says that we deserve to die in our sin.   God goes beyond justice and offers us eternal life through His Son Jesus Christ.
   3. Look at Ephesians 2:3-5 which I’m going to come back a little later. It says; “among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. Notice what it says next But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),”

• When it comes to God’s justice and the way He gives His grace to us, there are two great lessons to be learned here.  The first one is this: All service ranks the same with God.    It’s not the length of service that counts but the love in which it is given.
  1. Matthew 20:11-12 – “And when they had received it, they murmured against the landowner, "saying, `These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.'”    You can always tell the people who think they deserve more from God than their fellow brothers or sisters in the kingdom.    You can tell them because they grumble a lot.   People have always been grumbling against God,  not only in today’s world but also in the Biblical world.
     1. Remember back in Exodus 16:2?   “Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.”  Who were they really complaining against?   It was God.
     2. Even after they received the Promised Land they grumbled.  Psalm 106:24-25 – “Then they despised the pleasant land; They did not believe His word, But murmured in their tents, And did not heed the voice of the Lord.”
     3. People have always been grumbling against the Lord.   Even to this day. James warns us in James 5:8-9 – “ You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.   Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the Judge is standing at the door!”  
     4. We need to be patient and grateful for the little work that anyone is doing in the kingdom.  God doesn’t look at the amount of work performed.   He looks at the heart of the worker.
  2. Think about this in terms we have seen, what’s worth more?  A millionaire giving you $100 or a grandchild giving you a card on your birthday that just cost little but they have saved up to get that card to give to you?  What’s worth more?   All service ranks the same with God.

1. The second thing we can learn from this is: What we receive is by God’s grace.   Matthew 20:13-16 – “But he answered one of them and said, `Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? `Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you.   `Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?'   "So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.”  
   1. We cannot earn what God gives us.   We do not deserve it and we can not put God in our debt.
      1. People are always trying to put God in their debt, people are always trying to tell God who deserves to go to heaven and who doesn’t.  They even try to bargain with God.
      2. You know when you talk to non-Christians about the kind of people you find in church, they seem to think that we’ve always been in the church.  We’ve always been God-fearing people, but people aren’t born Christians, they are born again
      3. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3-8 that people need to be born again to enter the kingdom in the first place.  Peter says that you need to be born again to be purified.    
   2. 1 Peter 1:21-23 – “who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.   Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,   having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,”
      1. Purified from what?   Purified from our sin. All Christians have a history of sin, nobody comes to the cross sinless.
      2. What right does someone have to say to God, “Hey God that person is a criminal; they don’t deserve to get to heaven?”  “Hey God, that person is a liar, they don’t have any right in your kingdom.”
      3. When we look at others with that attitude, do you know what God is going to say?   He will just say to us what He said in the parable, “Don't I have the right to do what I want with My grace? Or are you envious because I am generous?'”
   3. Let me share with you the kind of people you will find in congregations and I’ll Paraphrase this.   Galatians 5:19-21 tells us that there are people who used to commit “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery.”  There are people who used to commit “idolatry and people who used to practice witchcraft”.    There are people who used to be filled with “hatred, discord, jealousy, they had fits of rage, they were selfish in their ambition”.  They used to practice “dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, revelries, and the like”.
   4. Obviously, if you were to tell that to the average person on the street and they would say, “Well I’m not going to that congregation, they have allsorts in there”.
      1. The point is that the people in the congregation used to do things like that.   Past tense, they used to, because when they were born again they put off that old nature and put on a new nature.  Instead of following the ways of the world, they turned their back on the world and started following the ways of Christ.
      2. Why?  Galatians 5:21 concludes with; “… those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”  We understand why we needed saving, it was because of our sinful lives, and everyone can be born again.
   5. Romans 3:22-24 – “the righteousness of God which is through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe.  For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,”
      1. I remember hearing a story about the British Evangelist G. Campbell Morgan.   He was walking home one night with his friend when they noticed an inebriated man staggering homeward.  His friend said, “What a sorrowful state to get in.”  Morgan replied, “But for the grace of God go I.”
      2. What God gives us is given out of the goodness of His heart, out of His grace. What He gives us is not pay, but a gift, not a reward but a grace.  This is something we all need to get a grasp on.
      3. I’m sure most of you have heard of a man named John Newtown. He knew all about grace.   If you do not know who he is, you should know one of the famous hymns he wrote and we still sing today.   It’s called “Amazing grace”.
      4. The first stanza says this, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

 

CONCLUSION:

Let’s finish by looking at Ephesians 2:1-9. Paul says; “1. And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2. in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3. among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. 4. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5. even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6. and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7. that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9. not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

That’s grace and that’s amazing.   It’s a gift of God so that no one can stand before God or other people and say, “Look how great I am, look what I do as a Christian.”    I haven’t missed a service in 13 years. I’ve never done this.   I’ve never done that.

 

Grace stops that from happening. It’s a gift, which cannot be earned so that no one can boast.  It’s available to everyone who is willing to obey the gospel call of Christ.  I don’t care who you are. I don’t care where you come from or how ugly your past has been, you’re in good company here.

 

God calls us through His word.   When we hear the gospel message, just like those we read about in Acts, we can make the choice to respond.   We can obey and accept God’s offer to be workers in His vineyard, His kingdom. Those that are faithful to do the work, no matter how long they have, will be faithfully rewarded for their service.

 

The landowner here is God.   The vineyard is his Kingdom, the church.   The laborers hired to do the work are Christians.   The payment stands for the eternal reward in heaven. The evening is the end of life and, in a sense the judgment. The generosity of the landowner represents the goodness of God.   The complainers represent the self-righteousness of those who consider themselves worth more than others.   The time sequence in hiring represents acceptance of the gospel call at early and later times in the life of Christians.   It is not always early in a person’s life that they are in the marketplace ready for work, receptive to the gospel. Sometimes the opportunity comes later and sometimes it is later in life, after the evils of the world have battered a person that they become receptive and enter the market place to receive the call. The work represents service Christians are expected to give God in His church. I would like to note that those who were in the marketplace at the eleventh hour had a great risk that the landowner would not come and offer them work before the day was done.

 

God wants you to inherit eternal life as much as the person sitting next to you today.

If you become a Christian then you too, will be able to work with us and come to understand why God’s grace is so amazing.    If there is anyone here evening who needs to respond to the gospel, or if you are in need of prayer or need to come before the church for one reason or another we encourage you to do so as we stand and sing this song of invitation.

 

Invitation song: ???

 

Reference sermon by: Mike Glover

 

 

The Lords Supper At The Lords Table On The Lords Day

The Lords Supper at The Lords Table On The Lords Day

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

 

INTRO: Good morning. It is nice to see everyone today. I would like to remind you that the scripture references I use will either be from the KJV or the NKJV unless I mention otherwise.   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.

For a number of lessons, we have looked at the subject of worship and saw that worship is actually a manifestation of our own personal relationship with God.   It is meant to be an expression of the love, awe, respect and honor that we have for our God from our hearts.

 

These lessons are about the kind of relationship we actually have with our creator, with God almighty.    This morning we will continue along the same line of thinking and we will be looking at the Lord’s Supper.

 

Our text for the lesson is found in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 however I want to start by giving some background reading from verses 17-20. “Now in giving these instructions I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse. For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you. Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper.”   What Paul is dealing with here is an error that came into the assembly at Corinth.  

 

The purpose of the sermon this morning is to try to help us understand the great honor that you and I were just allowed when we partook of the Lord's Supper.   Sometimes I fear the members of the body of Christ do not understand the privilege that we are allowed when we take the Lord's Supper and what is actually involved with it.

 

Now look at verse 20 again. This is the only text that you find in the New Testament that uses the phrase Lord's Supper.  The phrase Lord's Supper is a possessive phrase showing a supper that belongs to the Lord.  It is His supper, it's not my supper.   It belongs to him.  That is an important distinction. We learn something else in this text.  The Lord's Supper was taken when the saints assembled together.   The Lord's Supper is not something you do out on a duck pond.   The Lord's Supper is not something you do while you're fishing.   The Lord's Supper is not something you do while you're hunting.

The Lord's Supper is what you do when you come to gather with the Saints on the Lord's Day at the Lord's Table.

 

The apostle Paul is trying to correct the Corinthians who had perverted the Lord's Supper.   They had turned it into a common feast rather than being a part worship directed to God.  

We're going to read something you're very familiar with because it is read quite often when we take the Lord's Supper.   The reason we read this text is to bring our mind back to the purpose of the Lord's Supper.   Thinking about that I wonder; How often in this last week did you actually think about Christ crucified?   Not often is probably going to be the answer.   We human beings tend to get caught up in the cares of this world.  We’ve got to take care of responsibilities at work and at home.   We've got all these tasks and all these problems that we're juggling and trying to deal with from day to day.   As we juggle all these responsibilities every day an amazing thing and an unfortunate thing happens, we lose focus of what's really important.

 

What is really important is our relationship with God and that God loved me so much He gave His son to die for me.   Christ loved me so much that He went through everything He went through for me.   The Lord's Supper is to bring us home, back to what's important, to bring our focus back to Christ, crucified.

 

23. Let’s read our text, I Corinthians 11:23-26 – “23. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24. and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of '' 25. In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.'' 26. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.”
    1. It is during the Passover that the Lord’s Supper is instituted.   Here he is taking the unleavened bread and when He breaks it, He is telling them that this is going to be representing something different in the future.  
       1. You're not going to be going back to Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egyptian slavery.   In the future when you partake of this feast and you break this bread you do it in remembrance of me.   In remembrance of His body which was broken for us.   When we partake of the bread as we just did a few moments ago it is imperative that we focus our mind on the body of Christ.
       2. As I said before, if you find yourself struggling with focusing your mind I would like to encourage you to take your Bible, find a text or two that goes to Christ crucified.
       3. Maybe Isaiah 53 or one of the gospels that is dealing with the crucifixion or His scourging or His beating and read these texts so you can focus your mind on Christ crucified bringing your mind back to what is really important… and remember. Remember the love of God for you.   Remember the sacrifice that was made for you.
    2. That same text continues in verse twenty-five; In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.''
       1. When we partake of the fruit of the vine, we need to focus our mind on the blood of Christ realizing that it is the blood of Christ that put the New Covenant in force between God and all mankind.  It was the blood of Christ that dedicated this new covenant under which we live.
       2. The beauty of this new covenant is that there is remission of sins.   How many times have you heard Acts 2:38?   If you’ve attended the church of Christ any length of time you probably have heard it a lot and you know it by heart.  Peter said unto them repent to be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ…for the remission of sins.
       3. For us to be able to say that phrase it took the blood of Christ on Calvary. How many times have you gone to God and said God be merciful to me a sinner?   How many times have you been motivated by Godly sorrow and gone to God in prayer and asked for forgiveness of sin?
       4. Every sin that is forgiven in your life is forgiven by the blood of Christ.   That is where remission of sins is—in the blood of Christ.  Without that sacrifice there is no remission of sin.   The purpose of the Lord's Supper is to bring our focus back to Christ crucified, the body that was beaten and nailed to the cross for us, the blood of Christ that was shed for us.  
    3. Recall what Paul talks about in the Galatians He says in 2:20 that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; 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.” What Paul is doing here is individualizing the love of Christ.    Yes, God so loved the world, but we need to realize God knows you personally.  Christ loves you individually and He sacrificed Himself, gave Himself for you personally.
       1. When we are partaking of the Lord's Supper, we need to bring our focus back to the love of God for us, that was manifest in Him giving His son to each of us.   Bring our mind back to the love of Christ.  
       2. Understand He did this so my sins could be forgiven.    It was my fault.   I'm the one that rebelled against God. I'm the one that wanted to go my own stubborn way. He did this because He loves me.
       3. You will find that when you partake of the Lord's Supper properly, your love for God is going to be strengthened.   The more your focus drifts away from God the more you are going to drift away from God.
       4. As I said before our mind gets caught up in the cares of the world.   Then we feel distant, not close to God.   The Lord's Supper is to bring you back.  When we draw near to God. God will draw near to us.
       5. When you focus your mind on the love of God an amazing thing is going to happen.   You'll love God in return and as you love God back your relationship with God is strengthened.   Worship is an expression of our relationship and when we worship it strengthens that relationship.  
    4. The last sentence here: for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the lord's death ‘til He comes. What are we proclaiming? The Lord's death.   The Lord rose from the dead on the first day of the week, but he died on Friday.   What we're focusing on is not the resurrection even though we're partaking on the day He rose from the dead.   What we're focusing on is the death.  
       1. Why do we attend funerals?   I knew the person.   They meant a lot to me and I'm going to pay my respects to them.  
       2. When we come together not only are we glorifying God for Christ dying for us, we're paying our respects for the death of the Son of God.   I’ll repeat that. You're coming to pay respect to the death of the Son of God.
       3. If I have no desire to partake of the Lord's Supper what does it say?   It says I don't care.   It doesn’t mean that much to me.  The New Covenant, the blood of the new covenant, is not really that important.   Christ crucified? Eh take it or leave it.
       4. The blood of Christ is the most precious thing in the universe, and Hebrews warns in chapter 10 of the punishment for those who count it a common thing.
    5. Worship is a privilege that you and I are allowed to do.   Don't think I gotta go to worship.    That mentality is completely wrong.
       1. The mentality should be I get to go to worship.  I am allowed to share in this privilege and express my relationship with God and worship my God.   I want to go pay my respects to Christ who loved me and gave Himself for me.
    6. There's another possessive we find, and that is the phrase, the Lord's Table. Luke 22:29-30 – “29. And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, 30. that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” We notice in these verses Jesus is talking about a table—My table He says.
       1. Again, that is the idea of a table belonging to Him and it's in His kingdom.  We all understand that the kingdom is the church.   They are one and the same.
          1. You'll find this possessive used again over I Corinthians 10:21 – “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord's table and of the table of demons.”
          2. We have the Lord's Supper which is a possessive, a supper belonging to the Lord.   We have “My table in My kingdom”. It is the Lord’s Table in the Lord’s Kingdom, the church.
       2. To help us understand the significance of this phrase, the Lord's Table, I am going to give you some background from the Old Testament.   It goes all the way back to II Samuel 9:11.  Actually there are many other texts in the Old Testament we could look at, but this is the one I selected.   II Samuel 9:11 – “As for Mephibosheth,'' said the king, "he shall eat at my table like one of the king's sons.” (Mef-hibo-sheth)
          1. Here is the king saying someone is to eat at the king’s table. In ancient times in a monarchy, one of the greatest honors that could be extended to you as a citizen of that kingdom was to be invited to come to the table of the king.
          2. To sit down at David's table with David eating there with you, to come to the table of the King, was a great honor.
       3. Matthew 22 records that Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a king who arranged a marriage for his son and has a wedding feast prepared then sent out a call to those invited but there are people that receive this invitation from the king and they basically thumb their nose at it.
          1. Or in Luke 14 Jesus tells of a certain man who gave a great supper and invited many but they all with one accord began to make excuses.
          2. We need to realize the Jews when they were hearing these parables about the great feast and the wedding supper, were thinking you’ve got to be kidding.
             1. Here is someone who was invited to come to the feast of the king, and they say I must go plow my oxen?   They all have these cares of the world that prevent them from going to the feast of the King.
             2. I guarantee the Jews who heard that thought man, those people aren't very intelligent.   They’re really not on the ball. I can’t believe that they would be so rude.

• A feast is one thing but a feast for the wedding of the king's son, wow what an honor.  I am being invited to go to the feast of the king for his son's wedding, it is overwhelming. I got an invitation from the King and I've been invited to the king's son’s wedding.  Touch me if you want.  I'm serious.

3. Folks, we need to understand getting that kind of invitation was an awesome honor.   When the Jews hear of people who get those invitations and say eh, I’ve got to work.   They would be thinking “you got to be kidding!”    

1. We have been given an invitation from the King and not just any king but the king of kings, the Lord of Lords, the king of the universe to come to His table and to partake of His supper at His table.  We must understand the honor that is being extended to us.

• Over in Matthew 18:20 – “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” We come together to partake of the Lord's Supper at the Lord's table and when two or three come together as we have done, please recognize, that when we take the Lord's Supper at the Lord's table, the Lord is with us.   He's with us in our midst. Folks, the King is here. He is with us.  
  16. I Corinthians 10:16-17 – “16. 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? 17. For we, being many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.”   This should help us understand what is involved in partaking of the Lord’s Supper.   It is something we do together, and we recognize that this common union, this communion, is not the communion of the Chardon church of Christ.   It is the communion of the body of Christ as a whole.
  17. This day, on the Lord's Day, those who are citizens in the kingdom of the Lord are coming together all around this planet, North America, South America, Africa, Asia, countries all around the world.
      1. Different nationalities, different tongues, different languages, we are coming together.   We're coming on the Lord's Day to the Lord's Table and we're taking the Lord's Supper.
      2. When we are doing this, it is a common union binding us all together in one body with the one blood.   What a privilege for us to share in that!   It is not a drudgery, it's an honor that’s being extended to us.
  18. Revelation 1:10 – “I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet,”
      1. Here again we have another possessive.   You have the Lord's Supper, that is the supper belonging to the Lord.  You have the Lord's Table. That is the table belonging to the Lord and we come to His table and partake of His supper, but there is a third possessive that we find pertaining to the Lord and that is the Lord's Day.
      2. When is the Lord's Day?   It’s a pretty good question, isn’t it?
         1. Luke 22:15-16 – “15. Then He said to them, "With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; 16. "for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.''”
         2. Thursday was the day the Lord's Supper was instituted. He died on Friday. He rose from the dead on the first day of the week.
         3. Why then don't we take the Lord's Supper on Thursday?   Why isn’t the Lord's Day Thursday?
      3. If you look at the text, He says I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.  This is before the kingdom is established.  He hasn't died yet.  He's telling them what He's going to do, how His body will be broken for them.   How His blood is going to be seeding this new covenant, how His blood is going to be shed for the remission of sins.
         1. It hadn't happened yet, and it is not until we come to the day of Pentecost (guess what day the day Pentecost is on) it's the first day of the week.  The kingdom was established on the first day of the week.
         2. After the kingdom was established, the first day of the week becomes a day that is special to Christians when they assemble together.
         3. In texts such as Acts 20:7 – “Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.”  Scripture tells us they came together on the first day of the week to break bread and hear a message.
         4. We also see in I Corinthians 16:2 – “On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper,…” The first day of the week when they came together, they set aside their contribution.
         5. Mark tells us of the resurrection in 16:9 “Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons.”   Then we read in Mathew 28:1-6 “1. Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. 2. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. 3. His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. 4. And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men. 5. But the angel answered and said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6. "He is not here; for He is risen… ”   Luke’s account is in Luke 24 starting at verse 1. “Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.”   We find John’s account in John chapter 20 “On the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.”
         6. The resurrection of Christ is very important to us. It proves beyond all doubt that Jesus Christ is indeed the Son of God. It also gives us the assurance that we too will be raised to life again (see I Corinthians 15).
         7. Then in Acts 2:1-4 we read “1. Now when the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”[NKJV]
         8. “Pentecost” actually means “fifty days.” Pentecost was a special feast of the Jews which was to be observed fifty days after their Passover feast. It is also called “the feast of harvest” or “first fruits.” Sometimes it is called “the feast of weeks” because it was seven weeks after Passover.
         9. The time from the Passover is found in Leviticus 23:15-16 – “15. `And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. 16. `Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord.”
         10. Since the Sabbath was Saturday, the seventh day of the week, the day after the Sabbath would be Sunday, the first day of the week.
         11. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ began on Pentecost day when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles.  On that day, they preached the gospel. Men heard, believed, repented, and were baptized for the remission of sins. They were added by the Lord to His church, which is the church of Christ (Acts 2:36-47). Thus, the church had its beginning on Sunday, the first day of the week.
         12. The Lord rose from the dead on the first day of the week.   That is the Lord’s Day.  The day of Pentecost is the day the church, the kingdom, was established.   That is the day the Saints came together to remember the death of the Son of God, to sing praises to Him, to pray to Him, to give back to Him, and to study from his word.   The first day of the week is the Lord's Day not the Sabbath. Not Friday the day He was crucified. Not Thursday, the day that He instituted the Lord's Supper.
      4. Something else I want to mention about the Lord’s Supper.   In the ancient world the idea of a common meal at gatherings was a custom.   The early Church had such a custom, and all the Christians came, bringing what they could, the resources were pooled, and they sat down to a common meal.   It was a lovely custom; and it survives in part with our potluck meals.   It was a way of producing and nourishing real Christian fellowship.
         1. Early on, this custom began to be confused with the Lord’s Supper and it became a stumbling block.   In the church at Corinth things had gone sadly wrong with this fellowship meal in two ways.  
            1. In the Church there were rich and poor; there were those who could bring plenty, and there were slaves who could bring hardly anything at all.   In fact, for many poor slaves this meal may have been the only decent meal in the whole week, but in Corinth the art of sharing had gotten lost. The rich did not share their food but ate it in little exclusive groups by themselves, hurrying through it in case they had to share, while the poor had next to nothing.   The result was that the meal at which the social differences between members of the Church should have been obliterated only succeeded in aggravating these same differences.  
            2. This fellowship meal began to obscure the Lord’s Supper which was to be taken as a remembrance of Jesus Christ, His suffering, His sacrifice, and His atonement for our sins.  
            3. Unhesitatingly and unsparingly Paul rebukes this in I Corinthians 11:17-26 – “17. Now in giving these instructions I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse. 18. For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. 19. For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you. 20. Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper. 21. For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk. 22. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you. 23. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24. and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of '' 25. In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.'' 26. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.”

 

CONCLUSION:

Our sermons on singing, on prayer, and on the Lord's Supper are to help us come to understand that God does not want us ritualistically going through the motions of an empty worship.   When we come together He is looking in our heart.

 

He wants you to worship Him in truth, but He's looking into your heart.  He wants to know how you actually feel about Him.  What is your relationship with Him?   Do you love Him?

 

Worship is an expression of our personal relationship with God.   As I told you earlier when you worship God in spirit and in truth it is from the heart. An amazing thing takes place as you draw near to God… He will draw near to you and your relationship with God will be strengthened and you will want to be here at the next appointed time.

 

The more you forsake the assembling of the Saints together the easier it's going to be for you to do it and the less guilt you're going to feel for not honoring the death of the Son of God by coming together at the Lord's table.   The less sorry you're going to feel.

 

The more we stay away from God and worshipping God together with the Saints, the further we drift from God.  You understand that. When we come together because we want to be together with the Saints on the Lord's day and we want to worship God, the opposite is true.

 

Our relationship with God grows stronger and stronger and our love for God grows stronger and stronger.   We want to honor His son and we want to worship Him.   As you draw near to God, He draws near to you.

 

That's what Christianity is all about—your relationship with God.    Do not think of your worship to God and your assembling with the saints as something you've got to do.   Recognize it for what it is, a wonderful, awesome, privilege that you and I are allowed.

 

There may be somebody 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 and you’re willing to openly confess your faith and repent of your sins, then we would be glad to assist you and baptize you into the body of Christ for the remission of your sins.

If you're a child of God and you've gone into the world, I hope that you have godly sorrow enough to come home to the father.   As your brothers and sisters we will pray for you and with you and do the very best we can try to encourage you.

 

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

 

Invitation song ???

 

Reference sermon by: Wayne Fancher

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christianity a Religion of the Heart

Christianity a Religion of the Heart

Matthew 22:37-40

 

INTRO:

Good morning.   Nice to see everyone today. I would like to remind you that the scripture references I use will either be from the KJV or the NKJV unless I mention otherwise.   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.

For a number of lessons we have looked at the subject of worship and saw that worship is actually a manifestation of our own personal relationship with God.   Most recently you will recall this from the lesson on singing with the understanding.

 

These lessons are about the kind of relationship we actually have with our creator, with God almighty.    This morning we will continue along the same line of thinking to help us come to a fuller understanding about what Christianity is.   I want us to recognize that Christianity is a religion of the heart, with our relationship with God at the very core of it.

We're going to begin the sermon this morning by looking at Matthew 22:37-40.   These are familiar verses. In the text Jesus is being asked a question and the question is this: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” In response to this question Jesus just says; “37. … " `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.' 40. "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.''”

 

We recognize as the very core of the Mosaic Covenant, these two commands—love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as you love yourself.  We see that the religious leaders of Jesus time recognize this. Luke 10:25-28 says; “25. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?'' 26. He said to him, "What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?'' 27. So he answered and said, " `You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,' and `your neighbor as yourself.' ''”

 

We also need to recognize this is at the very core of the new covenant under which we live, the covenant of Jesus Christ.   Between God and all mankind are the same two commands—to love God with all your heart, soul and mind and to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

 

I have a question.  What do we get from this command; “love God with all of your heart, all of your soul, and all of your mind”?   Do we get from this command a casual relationship with God that we might put this way;   He is up there, I like him, and He’s nice?    I hope I go to heaven.   I think about Him sometimes. Sometimes I do things that I hope He likes.

I don't get from this verse that God wants from me to be casual in my relationship with Him.   “I think highly of you.”   No, that isn’t it.   God wants me to give myself totally over to Him in my relationship to where I honestly and completely love him.

The degree of love He wants and deserves is - with all of my heart.

 

1. First let’s consider a Half Hearted Relationship. Look in the book of Matthew at what Jesus quotes from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah.

Matthew 15:8 – “`These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.”  This is the text we will be building this part of the sermon around.   What we see in this text, both from Isaiah in the Old Testament and Matthew in the New Testament is people that are acknowledging God, going through the activity of honoring God, and yet God says there's a problem.

1. The problem is the heart. The heart is far from God.   What God sees when He looks at these people is individuals just going through the motions of a relationship, going through the motions of praise, going through the motions of honor, but in reality there is no honor in their heart, because there is no love in their heart.    There is no relationship in their heart.  It's just external
2. I would like us to recognize two things from these verses.  
   1. First we need to see that what God wants from us-is a real relationship.   He really wants us to love Him as He loves us.
   2. Second we need to see a danger that we need to be very careful about.   That is the danger of having just a ritualistic religion, an external religion, putting on a front of religion.   Putting on the front of a relationship with God when in reality it is the heart where our relationship with God is to be.
3. Turn with me for a moment to the Old Testament, Jeremiah 3:10 – “And yet for all this, her treacherous sister Judah, has not turned to Me with her whole heart, but in pretense,'' says the Lord.” Jeremiah the prophet is trying to explain to Judah the sins they're involved in and why they're going to be taken into Babylonian captivity.  The problem is they have not turned to God.  Now notice this phrase “with her whole heart”.
   1. What they were doing was just a pretense.   What they were doing was going through the motions, going through the actions.
   2. They thought God, you want me to do this, God you want me to do that, okay.
   3. If you want me to do that, I'll do it. As far as doing it motivated out of love for God, of wanting to honor God because of how they felt about Him in their heart… that wasn't there.   It was just pretense.
4. In the New Testament Book of Revelation you find a similar circumstance.   Revelation 3:15-16 – “15. "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16. "So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth.”  In this text we see the people in the church of the Laodiceans who had not left the Lord but they were not on fire for the Lord either.   What does the Lord say about a relationship like that?   It makes Him want to vomit.   That's not the kind of relationship God wants with us.   He doesn't want a relationship that's just surface, that is just pretense. He wants us to have a whole-hearted relationship with Him.
5. Look at this from James 4:8 – “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” Do we understand what a double minded person is? Merriam-Webster on-line defines it 1): wavering in mind: undecided, vacillating, a double-minded man unstable in all his ways — James 1:8 (Revised Standard Version) 2): marked by hypocrisy.   Strong’s definition is: wavering, uncertain, doubting, and divided in interest.
   1. That's what we see described back there in Revelation 3. Someone that's; “Yes, I'm serious about God, but I really don't care”.  “Yes, I want to go to heaven”.  “You know I really don't care right now, because I've got other things to do”.  “Yes. I want to be pleasing to God, but I’ve got other things going on.
   2. Part of your heart is for God and part of your heart is for yourself. That's the reality of a double minded person. God is in there somewhere.  He's part of your life.  He's just not at the center of your life. You're not building all of your activities in your life around that relationship with God.
6. Listen real close to this, folks.   God does not want to be a part of anybody's life. He wants to be your life. He wants you to build your whole life around your love for him as your God.   He wants to be at the center of your life not just have a part in it.
   1. When we are double minded God is just a part of our life. What takes up the rest of our mind is self, what I want to do, how I want to use my time and have my activities and my things.   Please realize this, when we give our self as a living sacrifice to God everything connected to us goes with it.
   2. Do we get that? When we give our self as a living sacrifice to God everything connected to us, our family, and our time, all are part of that.   All of our finances, everything in our whole life goes with it. God doesn’t want half of anybody.   It's either all or nothing.  Matthew 19:21
7. I strongly suspect that sometimes people develop this mindset that I have to give God X, Y and Z and whenever I have fulfilled that duty, He's going to let me go to heaven.   I wonder how many people get baptized because they're afraid of going to hell rather than getting baptized because they want Jesus as their Lord and their King.
   1. Do we understand the difference?   Do we understand the difference between being baptized out of fear and being baptized out of faith?   Do we understand the difference between a relationship motivated by duty and one motivation by desire?
   2. When this relationship with God is entered into as a duty, then a person is thinking, okay God you want me to be at church on Sunday.  Okay, I'll be there on Sunday.  You want me to sing songs. Okay, I’ll sing. You want me to give. Okay, I’ll give.
   3. When I've done what you want me to do, then I can go do what I want to do.
   4. Listen, folks, what I just laid out for you is the basis of why I suspect many people don't come back whenever the assembly meets other than Sunday morning. There are those who have a duty oriented mindset about their relationship with God and are thinking “I've fulfilled my duty Sunday morning”.
   5. Having said that I DO realize there are some who have legitimate reasons from time to time for not being here on Sunday evening and Wednesday evening.
8. Being motivated solely by duty is not what God wants.   He wants us to have a desire that motivates us in our relationship with Him.  He wants it to be desire that motivates us in our worship of Him and not just doing x y z and then “I'll go to heaven”.
9. Whenever we think of a relationship with God as “I've got to do this” and “I've got to do that then I'll have fulfilled what I've got to do”, we must realize we're honoring God with our lips, but the heart is what He's looking at.
   1. He's here in our presence now and we know that. When two or three are gathered together in His name He's here in our midst.  We know He's looking into the heart of each and every one of us to see why;
   2. Why are you here?   Why are you singing these songs?   Why are you taking the Lord's Supper? Why are you praying to God?   Why are you doing what you are doing? Are you doing it out of duty? Or; are you doing it because you love Him and you actually desire to have a relationship with Him?
10. Go back to the first part of this verse—draw near to God.    I heard from a gospel preacher about something he has come across when working with brethren.   He said; Brothers will come to me and they'll say I feel so far from God.   I don't feel close to Him.   The preacher said James 4:8 is one verse he looks at with them and tells them if they are feeing far from God this verse is speaking to them and telling them what they need to do.
    1. You see, God does not leave us. We leave him. You draw near to God. That is how the verse begins. YOU draw near to God.
    2. It starts from your drawing near and He will draw near to you.   YOU work on YOUR heart, on your relationship with your God.   Make it a heart motivated relationship rather than just “I’ve got to do this”, because as soon as you think you've done what you've got to do, you're not going to do any more.
    3. Purify your hearts, you double minded. That means you give yourself over totally. Get consumed with Christianity. Get consumed with your relationship with God.  Let go and let God take over.
11. Next let’s consider a Whole Hearted Relationship. Go with me to Acts chapter eight. Here we read about an Ethiopian eunuch and Philip who has been preaching to him about Jesus. The eunuch sees some water.   He says in verse 36; “see here is water what hinders me or prevents me from being baptized?” I want us to see Philip's response, Philip said; “if you believe with ALL your heart you may”.
    1. This is an example of what motivates someone to be baptized, the heart, a faith, a trust, a confidence.  Jesus is the key. He is the Lord. And that is going to motivate us to want to be baptized and to live a life pleasing to the King.
    2. Certainly it is true fear may be a part of it, if its fear motivate by faith.  Please recognize that faith must be at the core of our obedience to God.  We need to have a real relationship, so that faith will eventually progress into love.
       1. When we are conscious and aware of the magnitude of God's love for us, when we recognize that God gave His only son for us because He loves us, then our response is love.
       2. Jesus went through everything that He went through because He loves us.  It is a consciousness of God's love for us that causes us to have a love for someone whom we have never laid eyes on. I haven’t seen God. I haven't seen Jesus.    How can I love One that I've never seen, to the point that I love them with all of my heart. It is through faith.
    3. Before I go any further there's something I need to do. If what I've described to you earlier, the feeling that you are distant from God that your relationship is not where you want it to be, I've got something I would like to encourage you to do. Go back to the word. Go back to the beginning.   Go back to square one, back to Matthew Mark Luke and John.
       1. Read again about the crucifixion of Jesus and don't just pass over it with your eyes.   Let it sink in.   Meditate on the love of God.   Our faith comes through reading the Word of God. Our love comes from our faith.
       2. If there is a problem with our relationship then we have to get back to the beginning where that relationship starts, it starts with faith which comes through the word.  If you want to draw near to God this is how you do it.
       3. Let Him speak to you.   Let Him communicate with your heart and tell you how much He loves you.  
       4. We need to be talking to God in prayer. We need to take our problems, fears, cares, concerns, and needs and give them to Him because He cares for us.   That's how we draw near to God, by letting Him speak to us through His Word, strengthening our faith, and by going to Him in prayer telling Him all that troubles us.  In that way we strengthen our relationship and draw nearer to God and then He will draw nearer to us.
       5. When a person refreshes themselves in the word and goes to God in prayer they will find themselves going through a transition in their relationship.   Faith will grow and their love for God will grow into a relationship motivated by desire.
    4. Next lets look at Jeremiah 29:13 – “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” There is a common phrase between Acts 8:37 and Jeremiah 29:13, that common denominator is the phrase all your heart.    Do we believe with all our heart?   Are we searching and seeking God with all our heart?   If we are seeking and searching with all our heart, we will find God.   If we believe with all our heart, we will eventually come to love God and because of that love, we will obey.   If you love Me… you know the rest of the verse, keep My commandments. This is describing an obedience motivated by a loving relationship.
    5. Here is another description of worship found in Malachi 1:13 – “You also say, `Oh, what a weariness!' and you sneer at it,'' says the Lord of hosts. "And you bring the stolen, the lame, and the sick; thus you bring an offering! Should I accept this from your hand?'' says the Lord.”  What kind of attitude do we see in these individuals who are worshipping God?   This is about actual worship, folks.   These people in their mind think, “we're acknowledging God,   We're giving God something”—the left leftovers, “but hey we're honoring God and we're worshipping God”.
       1. What does God have to say about that?   First notice that the verse starts with God talking about their attitude. Before He even talked about their actions, He talked about their attitude, and their attitude about their worship to Him.  
       2. What is that attitude? Oh man, what a pain, ok, I'll go.   If that's a person’s attitude they might as well stay home because it won’t do them any good be here.
       3. That may sound cold blooded but we need to realize if our attitude toward God and our worship to Him is; “I would really rather not be here”, He sees that in our hearts right now.   It's not just enough to be here in the pew.   It's not enough to just fulfill what we think is our duty.   He looks in our hearts.
       4. The heart is where God starts and He sees why you are doing what you are doing.   These individuals in Malachi are offering Him something.   His question toward them is; should I accept this from your hand?  Answer the question.   I mean this is worship directed to God.   Should He accept this from their hand when it's weariness to them?   They really don't want to do it.   They're basically giving God leftovers.   We know the answer and the answer is He's not going to accept it even though a person has gone through the motions.
    6. That being stated let's go to the next verse.   I want us to look at Psalms 122:1 and see the attitude in this verse.   “I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go into the house of the Lord.''” What attitude do we see here? Let’s go! I have a desire to do that. I want to go worship God. Let's go to the house of the Lord.
       1. If we want to be here and we're here this morning out of desire to worship God—He knows that.
       2. Look at this verse, Revelation 2:23 “… all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works.”  When two or three are gathered in His name He's here in our midst.   What is he doing?  He's searching and testing our hearts because that is where our relationship with Him actually begins.
    7. In John 4:24 the Word of God teaches us how God wants us to worship Him—in spirit and in truth.   It's very important that we obey the commands of God in worship to him.   Again, obeying those commands is motivated by our love for Him and our faith, but we need to recognize that worshipping according to truth is not enough.
       1. Just because we come together on the Lord's day and we're singing praises to God as best we can, even with understanding, and we're trying to do it according to the New Testament pattern, and we're taking the Lord's Supper with the fruit of the vine and unleavened bread, don't think that just because it's truth that that's pleasing to the Lord,
       2. God does indeed want it to be according to truth, but He also wants it to be real worship.   One of the dangers I fear is that sometimes in congregations of the body of Christ we get caught up into what I would call a ritualistic worship and we're going through the motions of fulfilling our duty and our obligation rather than actually worshipping God from the heart.
       3. He's testing our hearts.   He's seeing the attitude. He's looking at why we sing these songs.  What are we doing in our minds when we're taking the Lord's Supper?   Why are we praying? What is going through our minds when a prayer is being led?   Why are we here? That's the first thing He looks at, the heart.
       4. Yes, he wants truth but he also wants it to be in spirit as well.   Look at this from Psalms 111:1 - “Praise the Lord! I will praise the Lord with my whole heart, In the assembly of the upright and in the congregation.”
       5. Again in Psalms 100:2 – “Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before His presence with singing.” Here again we're seeing singing in worship and it's motivated from the whole heart.  It's a praise motivated from the whole heart and it's actually worship to God in song.
    8. Think about Ephesians 5:19 – “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,”  Awhile ago we took a look at singing with the understanding.   In that lesson we saw how just mouthing the words, even though we may be singing the words in the exact melody and tone they are supposed to be sung in, if we don't know what the message is we can not sing from the heart to please the Lord.  Did you know that the same danger of not singing from the heart and pleasing the Lord exists if we know the song too well?
       1. Some hymns we learn very early and because we sing them so many times we know them.    There's a real danger that comes from that.   The danger is we sing from rote.   If you don't know what that means, we sing the song, we sing the words and we don't even really have to think about it.   We can go through the song and as soon as we finish the song and five seconds have passed if I turned to you and I say; “what was the name of that song”.   Well, ah…ah…
       2. What was the message in the song?   Message? What message?   Listen folks, that's an ever present danger that we've got to be careful about—just singing going through the motions.   If we really want to draw near to God when we're singing to God, sing to Him from your heart letting the words go through your mind and mean something to you.   That is real worship rather than just going through the motions of worship in song.
    9. Of course, this danger exists elsewhere as well. Let me ask you this: When prayer is offered have you ever closed your eyes and bowed your head then you hear amen you open your eyes and raise your head.   If someone would ask you what was the prayer about? What prayer?   Oh, yeah he said something, then amen. Is that worship? No, it's not.  Do you think that's pleasing to the Lord?
       1. How about the Lord’s Table?   When the prayer for the bread or for the fruit of the vine is offered are we listening to it?   Where are our thoughts when the bread and fruit of the vine are being passed?   Are our thoughts on Christ and what He did for us?   Are our thoughts on our shortcomings and how much we need His atonement? Or are they off on matters of the world?
       2. I almost hesitate to mention this, but where are our thoughts when the lesson is being given?   Are we listening, checking to see if what is being preached is accurate? Are we listening and learning, taking the lesson into our minds and hearts? Or are our minds elsewhere thinking about other things, or if the speaker not so dramatic, are we even awake?  
    10. The whole point of this sermon is there's a big difference between acceptable worship and the pretense of worshiping by going through the motions and honoring God with our lips.    Yes, we've said the words but our heart is far from Him.   For our worship to be acceptable to God it must be real worship, from the heart, motivated by love for Him.
        1. Look at Psalms 119:145 – “I cry out with my whole heart; Hear me, O Lord! I will keep Your statutes.”   We read earlier about singing with the whole heart. Now we're praying with the whole heart.   We realize whenever we're casting our cares upon the Lord and we're pouring our heart out to Him that will strengthen our relationship because we're drawing near to Him.   Prayer is an expression of a personal relationship from our heart to God.
        2. We understand the difference between that and just saying some words by rote, closing our eyes and bowing our head.
        3. I’ll say it again, one of the greatest dangers those in the body of Christ face in our worship of God, is just going through the motions and then we wonder why we might not feel close to God.   After all I do my duty, I bow my head, I close my eyes, I eat the bread, I drink the grape juice, I sit on the pew, I look at the preacher, I give money, I fulfill my duty.   I'm going to heaven.
        4. If anyone thinks that way I would suggest you really need to totally rethink your whole life as a Christian, and your relationship with God.
    11. Christianity is a religion of the heart, where we love God with our whole heart, and motivated by that love we have a desire to come together and to worship Him. It is not a duty, it's a privilege.   It's an honor that we get to do this and we should want to do it.

• First Corinthians 11:29 in dealing with the Lord's Supper says; “For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.” I want you to imagine this.   We have come together on the Lord's Day, the first day of the week.   You’ve got the Lord's Supper set up with the fruit of the vine and the unleavened bread. You're taking the Lord's Supper at the Lord's Table on the Lord's Day according to truth. Here comes time to take the Lord's Supper and the bread passes in front of you and you're thinking about “what am I going to cook today?” The fruit of the vine passes in front of you and you think about “what time is it?” “What time does the game start?” You just ate and drank judgment to yourself. You just called judgment on yourself in partaking of the Lord's Supper that you partook in truth.
  1. Again remember Malachi. Should He accept this from your hand? The answer is no.   He wants it to be real where we're focusing on the body of Christ, where we're focusing on the blood that was shed there on the cross of Calvary.   We are doing this in His memory.
  2. Every time each one of us partakes of the Lord's Supper the Lord is in our midst and the first place He's looking is not at the table but in our heart.  Yes, He wants it in truth but He wants it to be from the heart discerning the Lord's body and blood. Yes, according to truth because we love Him. All of it whether we realize it or not, is a heart-based relationship with God.
  3. Finally, even in giving it is a heart based relationship.   Have you ever wondered why under the new covenant God doesn't say to tithe, give ten percent?  If you want to give 10 percent that's fine, but why not the instruction to tithe?   Tithing in the O.T. had very practical uses.   Everyone contributed a portion of their resources so they could worship God together.   It was to support the priests, those that conducted the affairs of the temple, but it was also a way of providing for the vulnerable members of the community.  
     1. Why does the New Testament not talk about tithing?   I suspect it might have something to do with how we tend to look at specific instructions and what we should understand about the spirit of God’s commandments.
     2. First, what happened in Israel with tithing? Malachi tells us how they came to look at the tithing as a burden and so they offered the leftovers, the least of what they had.   In doing this they gave what could not fully supply the needs and they showed their contempt for God.  
     3. Israel started to think of tithing as fulfilling a check list.   When they started doing that they thought of it as duty.  I've given my 10 percent I've done what God wants me to do.   That is a lesson shown to us in the Old Testament.
  4. One of the big changes from the old covenant to the new covenant is going from a covenant of the law, one that was work oriented, to a covenant of the heart. The old covenant is rightly called our tutor in Galatians 3:24. It was our instructor of what to do, under the new covenant we are to do it from the heart.  
     1. Our worship, whether we realize or not, is all heart-based including our giving.   Second Corinthians 9:7 – “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, (notice the next words) not grudgingly or of necessity; (there is the attitude) for God loves a cheerful giver.”
     2. When it comes to giving back to God He's looking at the heart.   He sees the attitude of the giver. If when we're giving we think: I need the money right now. Keep it then.  Don’t think it will please God if you don't want to give it and give it in a grudging manner because you think it is your duty.
     3. Do you see the difference between a duty motivated mindset toward God and a desire motivated mindset?   If you have a duty oriented mindset you will do what you think you have to do and no more.   The Israelites had forgotten all that they had to be thankful for, they had forgotten the joy of having God looking over them. They only saw duty.

 

CONCLUSION:

Wrapping up, if it is desire that we have, it will be a desire to praise God, glorify God and give gladly back to God because He's showering us richly.   We'll want to give out of desire. When someone says: let’s go to the house of the Lord. Let’s sing praises to our God. Let's pray to God together.   Let's feed upon the word of God some more. Let's give back to God a part of that which He has showered upon us. We will not see our relationship with God as drudgery.

 

He will see our relationship with Him for what it really should be and is. He loves us and we love him. He loves us with the perfect love and what He desires back from us is that we love Him with all our heart.

 

Christianity if you do not understand from this sermon is a heart-based religion.   If there is a problem in our relationship with God we must first cleanse the inside of the cup.   We must first change the heart and with the changing of the heart we will eventually see the changing of the life.

 

We must all beware of just having an external relationship with God.   We may be able to fool one another. We may be able to fool everyone in the world around us but when Jesus is in our midst and God looks at us, when He searches and tests our hearts, He sees exactly where each and every one of us really is.

 

I would suggest we really need to ask this question on a regular basis and answer it honestly.   “What kind of relationship do I really have with God Almighty, our creator?

 

If you feel distant from Him, draw near starting today.   If there's sin separating you from God, deal with that sin.   That's what the blood of Christ is all about.

 

If you haven't obeyed the Gospel you can do so this morning if you believe with all your heart that Jesus really is the Christ, the Son of God.   It's not just enough to recognize Him as the King.   Are you willing now for him to be your King?   Are you willing to turn from your sins, motivated by your faith and your love for God, and repent of those sins? We would be glad to assist you as you, by your faith, are motivated to obey the command of God and be immersed in water for the remission of your sins.

 

If you're a child of God and sin is standing between you and your father, the grace of God is there for you. The mercy of God is there for you and the blood of Christ is there for you. Take this sin to your father. We'll pray for you. We'll pray with you as you turn from it. The blood of Christ will cleanse you. You can be reconciled to God.

 

If you feel distant because you feel that your heart is not right, you have the ability within you to grow in your relationship.   It starts with you drawing near. Go back to square one. Go back to the word. Go back to the Gospels. Read them again. Meditate on what God has done for you. Strengthen your faith.

As you come to know and believe the love that God has for you an amazing thing is going to happen.   You start loving God more and motivated by that love, you will see changes in your life.   The changes in your life are going to be because of a change in your relationship with God.

If there's anybody here this morning who is subject of the Gospel call in any way let it be made known while we stand and sing the song which has been selected.

 

Invitation song ???

Reference sermon by: Wayne Fancher

The Wicked Tenants

The Wicked Tenants

Mark 12:1-12

Intro:

Good evening.   I would like to continue with our look at the parables that Jesus taught, but first I would like to share with you some real quotes from notes which were sent by tenants to their landlords. Dear landlord:

 “I know the lease says “NO PETS”, but I’m just dog-sitting for a friend for 3 months.”

“I found a family of mice in my pile of empty pizza boxes. I want a discount on rent.”

“The smoke detector kept going off whenever we cooked, so I removed the batteries.”

“My rent check wouldn’t have been late if the Post Office had just delivered it on Sunday.”

“That hole in the wall totally falls under ‘normal wear and tear'”.

“They’re not subletters, they are just friends who are staying with us for a few months.”

“A five-day grace period means that rent is not really due until the 5th, right?”

This evening we’re going to look at the parable of “The wicked tenants” and we are going to try and understand what Jesus was saying about these tenants. Please turn your Bibles to Mark 12. Some people like to say that this parable is about “The wicked tenants” but by the time we have finished you’ll see that it is more like the parable of “The rejected Son”.

 We all know what the Pharisees and Sadducees were like. They hated Jesus and they were continually looking for a way to get rid of Him.  There were several reasons for this, but one of the main reasons they wanted Jesus out of the way was because they could not or would not accept who Jesus was.

They were always questioning Jesus’ authority. In Mark 1:21-22 Mark tells us that; “… on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught.   And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Jesus taught as one who had authority, not the way the teachers of the law taught.

Mark describes in Mark 11:27-33 that Jesus was walking in the temple, and it’s there that the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders come to him and ask Him two questions. Mark 11:28 – “By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority to do these things?”  Jesus answers them by asking them a question. He asks them in Mark 11:30 – “The baptism of John was it from heaven or from men? Answer Me.” They wouldn’t answer Him because they feared the people.  It is with this rejection of the source of the Lord’s authority that Jesus goes on to tell them the parable.

Please read with me now; Mark 12:1-12 – “Then He began to speak to them in parables: "A man planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a place for the wine vat and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country.   "Now at vintage-time he sent a servant to the vinedressers, that he might receive some of the fruit of the vineyard from the vinedressers.   "And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed.   "Again he sent them another servant, and at him they threw stones, wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully treated.   "And again he sent another, and him they killed; and many others, beating some and killing some.   "Therefore still having one son, his beloved, he also sent him to them last, saying, `They will respect my son.'   "But those vinedressers said among themselves, `This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.'   "And they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard.   "Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vinedressers, and give the vineyard to others.   "Have you not read this Scripture: `The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.   This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes'?''   And they sought to lay hold of Him, but feared the multitude, for they knew He had spoken the parable against them. So they left Him and went away.”

This parable tells us a lot about our God, mankind and Jesus Himself.  First, let’s look at the four things about God told to us in this parable…

 

1. Our God is a gracious Jesus says in Matthew 20:1 – “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.”
   1. I heard a story about a father who was reading Bible stories to his young son. He read, "The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city, but his wife looked back and was turned to salt." His son was intrigued with this and then asked his father, "What happened to the flea?"
   2. Sometimes our attention is not where it should be. Here the Jewish leaders forgot to look back into their history and recognize just exactly who they were and where they came from. In Ezekiel 16 we find a very graphic picture of what the nation of Israel was like when God took them under His care. God says in Ezekiel 16:4-7 “As for your nativity, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you; you were not rubbed with salt nor swathed in swaddling cloths.   "No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you; but you were thrown out into the open field, when you yourself were loathed on the day you were born.   "And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, `Live!' Yes, I said to you in your blood, `Live!'   "I made you thrive like a plant in the field; and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed, your hair grew, but you were naked and bare.”
   3. God describes how they grew up into something beautiful and how they were like a queen. What a pathetic, helpless and hopeless picture this is. These religious leaders had forgotten just who they were and where they came from. They were God’s people and God owned them. It was God who made them into the nation that they were. It was God who cared for them when they were lying in the field hopeless.
   4. When Mark tells us in Mark 12:1 that a man planted a vineyard, he’s telling us that, the man was God.   It was God who planted the vineyard.  Notice that the vineyard was given everything it needed to do its work. It was given a wall around it to mark out its boundaries, to keep out robbers and to defend it from wild animals. There was also a wine press in the vineyard where people would press the grapes. Underneath the winepress there was a wine vat and that’s where all the juice from the grapes would flow.
   5. There was a tower.  It’s in this tower that the wine would be stored and the people would watch from there.  It’s from there, that they could look out for robbers at harvest time. That’s why it’s called a watchtower. Isaiah 5:2 “He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well.”[para]
   6. The vineyard owner gave the vineyard everything it needed to make the work easy and profitable.  Notice that God didn’t just give them a task to do. He also gave them the means with which to do those tasks.
      1. Today there are Christians who say, “Well, I don’t have any talents.” Wrong, Christian. Every Christian has talents, the problem is often we don’t want to recognize them and use them. 1 Peter 4:10 “As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”
      2. When Jesus is talking about those who were given talents, He said one had 5 talents another had 2 talents and yet another had one talent.  Jesus clearly tells us in Matthew 25 that all were given talents. Jesus says “you have a talent”.   The problem is that some people are just too lazy or too frightened to look for it and use it to serve God.
      3. God has given us an ability to serve Him whether it is preaching or teaching, whether it is giving help to the needy, comfort to those who need comfort or helping in the worship or giving encouragement to those who need lifting up. He says, we have a talent and we need to use and develop that talent the best we can because if we don’t, He will give it to someone else who will use it.
   7. Next our God trusts us to do the work at hand. Mark 12:1 tells us that the owner of the vineyard went away on a journey. He trusted the tenants to run the vineyard by themselves while He was away.
      1. I heard a story about when Jesus ascended up to heaven and all the angels met him and asked Jesus what He did with the gospel of salvation. Jesus said, “Oh it’s in good hands, I left it in the hands of men.”
      2. Imagine that! The creator and author of our faith leaving the gospel in the hands of men! He did, you know. We sing a song about it.   #90 “Into Our Hands”. Swiftly we’re turning life’s daily pages; Swiftly the hours are changing to years. The Chorus says; into our hands the gospel is given, into our hands is given the light. Starting with the 12 apostles, yes, but not ending there.   The responsibility of sharing the good news about Jesus Christ with others is in our hands. God trusts us enough to do that. He trusts us enough to give us freedom of choice about how we do it, and how we live our lives.
         1. If you were to look on the internet under the topic “Tenants from hell” you will find many stories from many places in the world where landlords are just pulling their hair out because their tenants are wrecking the property, or breaking the lease rules, but the landlord must tread carefully because the tenants have rights too.
         2. God has entrusted us to look after His work here on earth but unlike those tenants we don’t have any rights. We don’t have any right to abuse the word of God. We don’t have any right to compromise the word of God. We don’t have any right to abuse any of the gifts He has given us. Yet in our fallibility, God trusts us enough to allow us to make mistakes and do so much for ourselves.

• Our God is patient. Notice how the master sent servant after servant. Mark 12:2-5 – “Now at vintage-time he sent a servant to the vinedressers, that he might receive some of the fruit of the vineyard from the vinedressers.   "And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed.   "Again he sent them another servant, and at him they threw stones, wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully treated.   "And again he sent another, and him they killed; and many others, beating some and killing some.” Who is He talking about here?   He is talking about the prophets.
  1. We know that Jeremiah was a prophet of God who was beaten up time and time again by the so-called leaders of God’s people. Jeremiah 37:15 – “Therefore the princes were angry with Jeremiah, and they struck him and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe. For they had made that the prison.”
     1. Urijah is another prophet that was killed by the so-called leaders. Jeremiah 26:23 – “And they brought Urijah from Egypt and brought him to Jehoiakim [ja-hoy-uh-kim] the king, who killed him with the sword and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people.”
     2. Zechariah was yet another prophet who was killed by the so-called leaders. 2 Chronicles 24:21 – “So they conspired against him, and at the commandment of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord.”
     3. Hebrews 11:37 tells us about many of God’s servants “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented ”
  2. These servants of God were God’s holy prophets who were treated like this. Even after the first one was abused and ill treated, God still didn’t get angry with them and come after them with vengeance. Oh no! He gave those tenants chance after chance, after chance to respond to His appeals.
  3. God does the same with people today. God puts up with our continuous sinning and He doesn’t cast us away after we sin as Christians. He gives us chance after chance to repent and live holy lives and He gives those who aren’t Christians time to become Christians. 2 Peter 3:9 – “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

1. Our God is the righteous judge. In the very next verse we find the 4^th thing we learn about our God; 2 Peter 3:10 – “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.”
   1. These tenants pushed their luck; they pushed God’s patience. Like this parable in Mark tells us, the world can push its luck with its disobedience and rebellion but there will come a time when justice will be done. Hebrews 9:27 – “… it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,”
   2. You see folks, people will either be born again or wish they hadn’t been born at all. Not politically correct and certainly it is unlike what the world believes, - our God has the right to judge the world. Our God is a patient God and He, as the owner of our souls, has the right to expect us to work in the field with the gifts He has given us, it is our duty.
   3. 2 Peter 1:3 – “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue”. We have everything we need to live the life that pleases God.
   4. This parable also tells us 2 things about mankind…
2. Mankind thinks it can get away with sin. Sometimes in the world’s judicial system people fall through the cracks and get away with their crimes, but God’s justice system doesn’t have any cracks. At the time of this parable God’s people hadn’t heard a word from God for 400 years.   They hadn’t heard a word from any prophet until John the baptizer came along.  Out of site, out of mind, is the phrase they might have used.
   1. They must have thought that God was too far away to do anything about the situation. Luke tells us in his account in Luke 20:9 that He was away for a “long time”.  Because of that silence, they may have thought that God was dead and out of the picture. Oh, but how wrong they were and how wrong people are today who think that there is no God or God is dead.
   2. People today think they can get away with their sinful behavior, but our God is very much alive. Acts 14:15 – “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men with the same nature as you, and preach to you that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them,” Jesus says in Revelation 1:18 – “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.”
   3. We don’t come here every week to remember a dead God.   Our God is alive and well today and when He returns the whole world is going to know about it.  
   4. And the next thing we find out about mankind is;
3. You can lose your privileges. This parable has the story of what was still to come.
   1. The Jews had all the privileges of being God’s chosen people. They also had many responsibilities, which went along with those privileges.  These people enjoyed all the blessings from God. He looked after them. He provided their everyday needs. He provided wisdom and guidance, food and shelter. He took care of them.
   2. As soon as Jesus mentioned a vineyard, the Jews would know exactly what it meant. They would cast their minds back to Isaiah 5 where Isaiah is talking about the vineyard. This may not mean much to us today but to a Jew Isaiah 5:1-7 was a very important part of Israel’s history, which they could not ignore or forget.
   3. I’m going to paraphrase Isaiah 5:1-7 – “I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.” The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.” [para]   .
   4. Have you ever sat and listened to a sermon and thought to yourself is that preacher speaking about me? Is God speaking to me through the preacher? I know I have. Sometimes I think, maybe he’s not speaking about me, but there are times when it’s so much in my face that I know that God is speaking to me.  That’s what’s happening here, the religious leaders knew exactly what Jesus was talking about, because it was very much in their face and it was very much about them. These tenants or Jewish leaders knew Jesus was speaking about them but as usual - they failed to listen and do their job.
   5. In Matthew 23 we find Jesus talking about the so-called spiritual leaders of the Jewish nation and he says in Matthew 23:16 "Woe to you, blind guides!” He calls them “Blind fools!” in verse 17. In verse 19 He calls them “Blind men!” In verse 24 He says, " Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”. And in verse 26 He says “Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish” Why does He call them blind? Because they have their eyes closed to what they need to see.
   6. The point is that the Jewish leaders were supposed to produce fruit, and they were supposed to protect the rest of the vineyard. They were supposed to watch out for robbers, but they didn’t.   They didn’t do their job, their duty. It’s because of their lack of faithfulness to God, that Jesus asks these leaders in Mark 12:9 – “Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vinedressers, and give the vineyard to others”
   7. In other words, all the privileges, all the responsibilities of being a child of God was going to be taken away from the Jews and given to a people who will be grateful for everything He has done and will do for them. The Jewish nation will be done away with and another nation will be raised.
   8. A nation of people who will obey His words and take their responsibilities seriously, a nation of Christians.  Those words would have hurt. They would have wanted to reject those words with all their being. Then we read in the letter to the Ephesians 3:4-6 – “by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ,   which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets:   that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel,” All the privileges the Jews had with God were now going to be available to all who would be obedient to the gospel of Christ.

• That brings us to the final point… The coming of the Messiah. Mark 12:6-8 – “Therefore still having one son, his beloved, he also sent him to them last, saying, `They will respect my son.'  "But those vinedressers said among themselves, `This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.'   "And they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard.”
  1. Notice that Jesus doesn’t call Himself a servant here. He deliberately removes Himself from the succession of prophets. He says they were servants, but He is the Son. Because Jesus was always being questioned about His authority, He tells them right to their face, that He is the Messiah. They knew that He was the heir.   They knew they were trying to kill Him.
  2. It is then that Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22-23 - “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.” This stone, which was the cornerstone for the building, the most important stone of all, was being rejected. The Jewish leaders rejected the Christ, their long awaited Messiah.
  3. Because they knew that but didn’t want to accept Him, Mark 12:12 tells us that, “Then they looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away.”[para] This was a “right in your face” parable.

 

CONCLUSION:  

 

When it comes to dying most of us don’t know how or when that is going to happen.  But Jesus knew when and how He was going to die. The cross of Christ didn’t come as a surprise to Jesus, but it was still a brutal and shameful way to die.

 

Hebrews 10 tells us that it had to be the cross; there was no other way. Hebrews 10:5-10 – “Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me.   In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure.   Then I said, `Behold, I have come in the volume of the book it is written of Me to do Your will, O God.' ''   Previously saying, "Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them'' (which are offered according to the law), then He said, "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.'' He takes away the first that He may establish the second.   By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

 

Jesus Christ was born to die.   That’s why He came to earth in the first place. He knew He was going to have to suffer and be mocked both physically and mentally. It is because of His willingness to go to the cross for our sake that we come together and worship Him every week. The stone the Jewish leaders rejected has now become the cornerstone of a new building, the kingdom, the church.

 

Acts 4:8-12 – “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders of Israel:   "If we this day are judged for a good deed done to the helpless man, by what means he has been made well,   "let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole.   "This is the `stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.'   "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.''”

 

In other words, the life, death, burial and resurrection of Christ, the very words and teachings of Christ are the very foundation that Christianity is built upon.  What a privilege it is, to be a part of God’s kingdom! The question is, what are you going to do with Him? Are you going to reject Him as your savior or are you going to accept Him as your savior?

 

The Jews were awaiting their Messiah, He came and they missed it. If you’re not a Christian today, then like we said earlier, God is patient with you, not wanting you to perish. He offers you salvation today.   He wants to be your savior.  Don’t be like the Jews and miss out.

 

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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

God Who Makes the Broken Beautiful

God Who Makes the Broken Beautiful

Genesis 1

 

INTRO:

Our sermon this morning is going to begin in the Old Testament Book of Genesis.   This marvelous chapter is not just history, because it provides information concerning events that antedate all history. It is not myth, because it carries within it a credibility that never belonged to any myth. It is not science, because it deals with the beginning. It is INSPIRATION, a revelation from Almighty God Himself; and it is in this way that it is received and accepted.

 

Let’s start in Genesis chapter 1 and Verse 2. In the text we learn something about the way the world was before God began the process of creation.  Genesis 1:2 “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” This refers to the state of the earth in the first phase of its creation and the Hebrew words here indicate the primeval chaos. This is the way the world was at the very beginning.  Here the Spirit of God is introduced and the NKJV says “was hovering over the face of the waters” .   The Hebrew word we see as “hovering” or “moved” actually means to grow soft, to brood, to be moved or affected, especially with the feeling of tender love, hence to cherish.

 

You see the creative hand of God in the beginning; on the first day, the second day, the third day, the fourth day, the fifth day, and the sixth day.   By the time you get to the end of Genesis chapter one verse thirty-one it says; “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

 

In the very beginning of the Bible we learn something about the power of our God.

God has the power to take things and circumstances that are in complete chaos and with His hand, with His power; He can make things out of that chaos that are absolutely beautiful and wonderful.

 

For a moment, I would just like us to think about His creation.  Just think about it.

Think about the sunrises, the sun sets, the stars, and the moon. Think of the springtime when the flowers are coming out, and the autumn when leaves start changing. I don’t mind telling you, folks, it's a beautiful creation. That's something we can learn about the power of our God. He has the power to create things that are beautiful from a situation that's in utter chaos.

 

Let’s talk about the power of our God to take things that are broken, things that are in chaos, and with His hand make things that are beautiful. With that in mind, in this next example I would like to look at what we find in Matthew Chapter 1.

 

1. Matthew 1:1 says “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:”
   1. Here in Matthew Chapter One is the genealogy of Jesus Christ and what we are going to do is look at the particular individuals within it to see what we can learn about some of these people. The first one I would like to look at with you is in verse three where it says: “Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram.”
      1. If you recall we read of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38. Now Judah had wed a Canaanite named Shua. They had three sons, Er, Onan and Shelah.  
      2. When Er had grown Judah selected an Israelite named Tamar to be Er’s wife.   God was displeased with the Israelites marrying the women of Canaan and the Lord prevented these three sons from receiving the birthright.  
      3. If you read the story of Judah and Tamar you find it was an incestuous relationship. The father-in-law has sexual relationships with his widowed daughter-in-law and they have twin sons. That’s pretty bad stuff, folks.
   2. Going over to verse five; “Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse,”.  We find Rahab in Joshua 2, she is described as the harlot that the spies Joshua sent out stayed with.  
      1. Rahab is the woman who sent the spies out safely and was allowed to live with her family as a consequence of that. Rahab was a Canaanite and she was a harlot.
      2. We read in Joshua 6:25 that Rahab was saved from the destruction of Jericho. “And Joshua spared Rahab the harlot, her father's household, and all that she had. So she dwells in Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.”
   3. What about Ruth? Ruth was a Moabitess. The Moabites worshiped Temash as their god.   The Moabites were very idolatrous people, so were the Canaanites. Rahab was a Canaanite, a Gentile.  Ruth was a Moabite, a Gentile. Rahab was a prostitute. Tamar has an incestuous relationship with her father-in-law.
   4. Let’s see if it gets any better as we continue in Matthew 1:6 – “and Jesse begot David the king. David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah.” Who is this who has been the wife of Uriah? We're talking about Bathsheba of course.
      1. We are familiar with the story of David and Bathsheba, David commits adultery with Bathsheba and in trying to hide the adultery when she conceives, David maneuvers to have Uriah the Hittite killed.
      2. The Bible is very straightforward in setting all this out. You have adultery, incest, prostitution, and idolatry.
   5. Let's look at some of the men involved.  Reading on in Matthew 1:7-10 – “7. Solomon begot Rehoboam, Rehoboam begot Abijah, and Abijah begot Asa. 8. Asa begot Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Uzziah. 9. Uzziah begot Jotham, Jotham begot Ahaz, and Ahaz begot Hezekiah. 10. Hezekiah begot Manasseh, Manasseh begot Amon, and Amon begot Josiah.” Looking at verse 10 we may be wondering who are Manasseh and Amon?
      1. Manasseh was the most wicked of all the kings of Judah. He re-instituted idol worship and reversed the religious changes made by his father Hezekiah. It was because of his sin in leading the children of Israel into idolatry to worship Bael and Astorof, Temash and Molach, that they were taken away into Babylonian captivity.
      2. He is believed by just about all people who are familiar with the history of the Jews, to be the most wicked of all the kings.
   6. What do we see in all this? Have you ever seen someone and thought why did God bless that person with children? Look at that individual look how terrible they are. Look at the life those children are being raised up in.   Why is God allowing this situation to happen?    What good can come from this?   What good can come from an incestuous relationship?   What good can come from a prostitute?   What good can come from idolatry?   What good can come from evil?
      10. When you look at the genealogy of Jesus you're going to find a pretty bad group of people. A group of people that illustrates the world—but then the creative hand of God and the power of God shows in; Luke 2:10-14 – “10. Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11. "For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12. "And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.'' 13. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: 14. "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!''”
      11. From all this mish mash of vulgarity and sin, when the power of the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary who is a descendant of all these people, at the end of it what you have is the Christ child.
      12. The point we see from all of this is that when the power of God comes into it He can take chaos, things that are broken, things that are ugly, and make things that are wonderful.

• What if we were asked this question: In the big broad history of mankind, what do you consider to be our darkest hour, the lowest point in the entire history of mankind?
  11. Certainly we can think of some pretty terrible things.   The Nazis and the Holocaust were pretty terrible. In my lifetime what happened in Cambodia with over 2 million people being killed was terrible. The communist did a lot of terrible things, and more recently 9/11.   But what do you consider to be the true lowest moment of mankind's history?
      1. I would say it was when people took the blameless, Holy Son of God and murdered Him in cold blood and loved every minute of it.
      2. I'm reading from Matthew 27:24-31 – “24. When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it.'' 25. And all the people answered and said, "His blood be on us and on our children.'' 26. Then he released Barabbas to them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified.
  12. I want to stop right there.  We know the trial of Jesus was an absolute mockery of justice.  He was found not guilty, not worthy of any punishment whatsoever time and time again. “I find no fault in this person”.   Finally Pilate delivers Him over to be scourged.  
      1. We have probably all heard something about scourging. The Romans could care less about the forty stripes save one.   They would beat you as close to death as they could, they would literally mutilate your legs and your back. Jesus was scourged.
      2. After He was scourged continuing the text here: “27. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. 28. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. 29. When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!'' 30. Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head. 31. Then when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified.”
      3. At the crucifixion of Jesus you see how low human beings can go.   We're dealing with a man who is absolutely sinless and pure.   He loves all of these people who are crucifying Him. He loves them with a perfect love and when He's on the cross He's praying; “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”.
      4. When you look at the crowd surrounding the cross you see something almost like ravenous animals who love to torment, who love His pain, who love the torture and mocked Him saying; “let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.”
  13. Yes, I believe what we see here in the crucifixion of Christ is how low we human beings can go, how vile, how vulgar, and how evil we can actually be.
      1. The amazing thing is God has taken our darkest moment, the moment of our greatest shame as human beings, and turned it into the most wonderful, most beautiful, expression of love that has ever been.
      2. In Romans 5:8 we read – “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That’s amazing!
         1. He has taken our ugliest moment and used it as a means of expressing His love for us because He allowed it to take place.
         2. He is using this moment as a sacrifice where Christ is allowing this to happen to Himself.

• He's allowing himself to be scourged.

1. He's allowing them to beat him.
2. He's allowing them to pound the nails in His hands and feet.
3. He's allowing them to torture Him on the cross – because He loves us.

1. There is no mistake, God Almighty is showing to all mankind in the loudest way possible, I love you, you are precious to Me and I want you to be with Me, to the point where I'm giving My Son to die for you.
   1. He has taken our vilest ugliest moment and turned it into the most beautiful expression of love there is.
   2. That's the power of our God.  He has the power to take things that are ugly, vile, nasty and make them beautiful.
2. The next example is found in First Timothy. In First Timothy we have a man named Saul of Tarsus talking about himself in verse 15.   I 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.”  I want to stop right there. “He came into this world save sinners of who I am chief.”
   1. Do you think Paul is just saying this? Is he just saying this for the sake of saying it? I don't believe so.   I believe he's telling the truth. He's actually telling it the way it is.
   2. This, the first great persecution against Christianity, was led by the Jews. Saul is involved in this first persecution against Christianity was not a bystander just observing it, though he held the coats when Stephen was stoned.   When the primary persecution kicked in, in Acts Chapter 8 Saul was leading it.
      1. He was leading the first persecution against the kingdom of our God and our savior here on this earth. When he says he was the chief of sinners, folks, he was.
      2. When you think of this person, how do you think about him? How many of you think about him as Saul of Tarsus, as the chief of sinners?   Or how many of him as the apostle Paul?
      3. I know how I think about him as the apostle Paul.   I stand back and I read about this man and I look at him with absolute awe.   I think of him as being if not the most outstanding, certainly one of the most outstanding Christians that has ever lived upon the face of the earth.
      4. Whenever I think of him I feel so small and weak and yet this man who became the great apostle Paul calls himself the chief of sinners.
   3. He tells us why he obtained mercy.  Look at this in the next verse. “However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.”
      1. Look at this.   Paul explains here why he, the chief of sinners, received mercy. It’s because there were going to be people in the future who coming into this world were going to sin.
      2. I know there are people even today that say “I just can’t be a Christian, I can not live that way, I can not give up the sin I am in.
         1. You just don't understand.
         2. You don't know what I'm involved in.

• You don't know where I've been.

1. You don't know what I've done.
2. There's no way I can be a Christian.   There's no way I can go to heaven.

3. It is for that reason we have the example of Paul.   That's the reason God showed Paul, who was the chief of sinners, mercy.
4. For this reason I obtained mercy that in me first, Jesus Christ might show all long suffering.   Jesus Christ did not give up on Paul even though Paul was in his own words, chief of sinners.   You've hurt me but I'm putting up with you.   I'm not giving up on you and you will be a pattern of those who are going to believe on Me for everlasting life.
5. The point of this folks, is it doesn't matter how terrible your sins are, it doesn't matter how many times you've committed them , you can even be the chief of sinners, and still be forgiven.
   1. Though your sins be scarlet… you know the rest.
   2. They shall be as white as snow.

• They can be as red as crimson they shall be as wool.

1. You can be forgiven.

1. That is the beauty of Christianity.

9. The next text I would like to look at with you is in First Corinthians chapter 6 beginning in verse 9. I Corinthians 6:9-10 – “Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.”[NKV]
   1. That sounds like a pretty unsavory list there to me, doesn’t it to you? The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, those who practice homosexuality, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, verbal abusers, swindlers, and then he says these individuals are not going to inherit the kingdom of God.
   2. But notice the next verse. “And such were some of you.” Whoa, some of these who are now Christians practiced those things? “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.”
      1. Some of them were homosexuals.
      2. Some of them were idol worshipers.
      3. Some of them were adulterers.
      4. Some of them were drunkards.
      5. Some of them were swindlers.
   3. But when they obeyed the gospel, they were sanctified, they were washed of their sins, they were justified.   Listen, folks, that involves everyone.   Everyone can have that done for them.
      1. It does not matter how terrible your life may be now, you can be justified, you can be forgiven, and have your sins washed away.   You can be sanctified and set apart from the world.
      2. You can be a Christian, an adopted son of the Father.
   4. Let’s look now at II Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

 

 

 

CONCLUSION:

To summarize what we've looked at.   In Genesis chapter one, in the beginning the earth was void without form, total, utter, chaos when the hand of God comes and turns it into what is very good.   Ah, it’s beautiful.

 

When we look at the genealogy of Jesus Christ, we have Tamar and her incestuous relationship, we have Rahab a prostitute, we have Bathsheba in adultery, we have Manasseh leading the children of Israel into sin and at the end of it, when the hand of God comes into it, we have the Christ child.

 

The lowest moment of the history of mankind was when they took the son of God and murdered him and loved it. God has taken this lowest moment of our history and turned it into the most beautiful expression of love.

 

Look at the life of the apostle Paul who was the chief of sinners and when he submitted himself under the hand of God, turned from his sins, repented of them and was baptized – even though he was the chief of sinners, he was forgiven of those sins and he became the apostle Paul.

 

There were individuals in Corinth who were involved in all kinds of immorality but when they became Christians their sins were washed away and forgotten.

 

That is the beauty of Christianity.   It doesn't matter what you were.   It is what you are, what you are now in your relationship with God. You can be washed this very day of your sins.   You can obey the gospel and be forgiven. You can be justified and sanctified.

 

In II Corinthians 5:17 “if anyone” (what do you get from that phrase “if anyone”?).    What I get from it is anyone and that includes you and me.   If anyone is to be in Christ you've got to leave the life of sin behind, repent of the life of sin, put off the old man, put on the new man, and be baptized into Christ.   When you are in Christ he says you are a new creation.

 

You go from being an enemy who is separated from God by your sin to being a child of God.    You go from someone who is alienated from God to being a Christian.  You go from someone who is lost to someone who is saved. That is the beauty of Christianity.

If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. All the past life, all the sins you were involved in, they are gone. You can start fresh and clean.

 

We have a song that we sing that has to do with the idea that God is the potter and we are the clay.   In that song we are asking Him to - mold me and make me after His will.   That's what Christianity is.    We recognize God as our Lord, and as our King.

We humble our self like a lump of clay under His hands and in obedient faith, allow Him, with His word, to mold us and to make us according to His will.

 

For any who are not yet a Christian, I would like to encourage you to quit being stubborn, quit fighting and resisting God and submit yourself like a lump of clay under the hand of God allowing Him to mold and make you according to His will. When He molds and makes you the end result is going to be beautiful.

 

The power of our God can take your broken life, He can take your life of chaos, your life of shame, your lowest moments, He can take all of that and be willing to forgive you of it and from then forward make you into a new creature, a new creation, a child of God.

 

There may be somebody here this morning who hasn’t obeyed the Gospel yet.   As we learned from the text we just read “if anyone” means you, if the sin in your life is standing between you and God, and if it is not dealt with while you are alive you'll be forever separated from God.

 

If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God even though your sins may be as scarlet they can be white as snow if you are in Christ.   The way you get in Christ is by openly confessing your faith, repenting of your sin, putting off the old man, putting on the new man, allowing the hand of God to mold and shape your heart and your life from now on and be baptized for the remission of your sins.   The blood of Christ will cleanse you of all unrighteousness and you will be that new creation.

 

If you're a child of God already and there's sin separating you from God I would hope you would recognize that that needs to be dealt with.  You cannot walk in darkness and expect to inherit eternal life. As we read earlier from Corinthians a long list of sins.  He says that individuals who do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.   That also applies to the children of God.

 

If you live in sin you will not inherit the kingdom of God.   Should that describe your life I would implore you and encourage you to repent of it.

Put it off.

Take it to God.

He is merciful.

He will forgive you.

We'll pray for you.

We'll pray with you.

We will do the best we can to encourage you.

If you're subject to the Gospel call in any way let it be made known while we stand and sing the song that has been selected.

 

Invitation song: ???

 

Reference sermon by: Wayne Fancher

 

The Shaping of Your Life

The Shaping Of Your Life
Proverbs 14:12

INTRO:
Good morning. Good to see everyone this morning. I guess it’s that time of the year when it just seems like the weather can't make its mind up, one day it'll be cold and the next day it'll be warm. When you go back and forth like that you're going to have a lot of people getting sick.

It is through God that we live, that we move, that we have our very being. It is God who gives us life. I believe in the providence of God I believe that the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. I believe when I pray as a Christian, there are other Christians that are praying for me as I pray for others.

I'm a firm believer that the hand of God is indeed shaping and molding my life; however, we are freewill beings with the power of choice. We need to recognize that it is the choices that we make in our life that quite often are going to affect the shaping of our life and how it turns out.

Sometimes I run across people or information about people that I have known since I was a child. At times I’m absolutely amazed that some of them have got their lives completely, totally, messed up. Then I turn around I see other individuals that seem to have so much joy, so much peace, and so much happiness in their life in spite of a rocky start, or difficulties, and heartaches.

I strongly suspect that it is not all providence that makes these people’s lives turn out as they have. To the contrary I think a great deal of the reason we see people at such different extremes, where some will be totally at peace and happy and joyful and others in complete desperation, is because of the choices that they made in their life.

The sermon today is on the subject of the shaping of your life. We need to recognize that a great deal of how our life turns out is in our own hands. Proverbs 14:12 says; “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” As we travel through our life we're going to come to various crossroads and decisions that we're going to have to make. Sometimes there may be a direction where we may think, you know this seems like a good direction for me to take, it seems like the right way for me to go. Yet, if we choose that direction it will lead to our destruction. It will lead to our death—physical sometimes and spiritual others.

These crossroads are points were we could use some guidance, some instruction. Young people are especially in need of instruction because they do not even have the wisdom gained from mistakes yet. It is so important that our young people receive grounding in the Lord and His word so they have some understanding of where they can go for guidance. Today I would like to take a look as some of these crossroads and what we might teach others about them.

I. The first thing I will look at with you this morning in our journey of life is our friends. When you get to that crossroad you're going to have to choose wisely about your friends. First Corinthians 15:33 – “Do not be deceived: "Evil company corrupts good habits.''” I want you to notice the beginning of the verse. Do not be deceived. From the beginning of this verse we get the idea that an individual sometimes may think to themselves, I can handle this. These people are not going to drag me down. They are not going to affect me, I'm stronger than that.
A. If you think that way about your companions and your friends, think that they are not going to affect you, you have deceived yourself. Evil company corrupts good habits and that is a reality of life. We recognize that the friends that we associate with, the companions we have, are going to play a major role in the shaping of our life.
B. Again in Proverbs, this time 22:24-25 – “24. Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, 25. lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.” Look at the end of this. It tells us we're setting a snare for our soul because of who we chose to be our friends. If we chose someone that is an angry person, a furious person, by being around this angry, this furious person—we learn their bad habits. Then we start acting like them and we suffer the consequences for our actions. Don't you recall the old cliché birds of a feather flock together?
C. In our life we're going to have to make choices about who our friends are going to be. This is a continual process. It’s not just teenagers that have to choose their friends. As adults we have to choose who our friends are also. We need to recognize that these individuals are going to have an influence on us.
1. If they are walking in darkness and living in sin we need to recognize that our friendship with them will pull us into their world. Don't think it won't, even though you're an adult.
2. Who we choose to be our friends is going to impact how our life is going to be shaped and the ultimate nature of that life.
D. Look at this again. Proverbs 13:20 – “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.”
1. There are two possibilities for our life. We can have a life of wisdom and all the fruits and benefits and blessings that come from living a life of wisdom, because we walk with wise men and we learn from them. Or... we can be a companion to fools. Your friends can be fools and a consequence of that... will be your destruction.
2. Do we see the choice that we have? The choice is whether we're going to be destroyed or have a life of peace. The choice that is going to determine which direction we take may very well be who our friends are.
3. Think about it this way. People who use drugs like to be around others who use drugs. Everybody knows that people who like to drink want to be around others that like to drink. Drinking buddies they say. Homosexuals want to be around other homosexuals. People involved in any kind of sexual immorality want to be around others that will participate in the same activities.
4. Any kind of sin you can think of that someone is walking in—what is their lifestyle? They want to be around others who will participate in the same sin. When we think that we can be friends with someone that is walking in darkness and not get pulled into the darkness... we have deceived ourselves. By so doing we will set a snare for our soul.
II. Another major decision we make is in the choice, and this is a very big one, the choice of who we marry. Who is going to be your husband? Who is going to be your wife?
A. I am amazed sometimes with how little thought some people put into this choice. Who are they going to court? Who they're going to marry? Who is going to be their husband or their wife? If we think about this at all, what criteria do we apply?
B. Our society today gives us the wrong picture of what love is. It concentrates on lust and says that is love. It almost seems as though the criteria is; “you smiled at me”, you think I'm pretty, marry me, Ok? You like me? OK let's get married. If it doesn't work out we’ll just get a divorce.
C. That is not what love is and not what marriage is for. It is not just passing ships in the night. It is for the rest of your life. The individual who you choose to be your spouse is going to affect your life more than any other human being; you are going to become one with this person.
1. You do not want to become one with someone who is going to drag you down and ruin your life. There are people out there who have absolutely wonderful lives until they get married. The person they marry and choose to be their spouse totally ruins it.
2. Look at this in Proverbs 21:19 – “It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and angry woman.” If I were talking to young ladies and men who are not married I would say; if you fight like cats and dogs now, breakup. If you are being mistreated now, breakup. A lot of people think when we get married it'll get better. Really? No, it doesn't. If you cannot get along now, don't think getting married is going to solve the problem.
3. Do you know what a contentious and angry person is? I'll try to explain it to you. If you go right, you should have gone left, and you go left, you should have gone right. If you're moving you should be standing still and if you're standing still you should be moving. It really doesn't matter what you're doing - it's wrong. You can't do anything right and you stink.
4. Continual put down, put down, put down, nothing is done right, nothing is good. Life stinks.
5. OK, do you know what’s worse than the contentious and angry woman mentioned in Proverbs? A contentious and angry man who does the same thing. He puts down his wife, and everything she does is no good. She can't do anything right. She’s stupid, she stinks. Life stinks. He just continues to put down, put down, put down.
6. Let me give you another picture of how this affects you. Have you ever been lying in bed at night and the faucet in the bath starts to drip? All of a sudden you hear drip. You think OK it's not gonna do it again. – Drip. Maybe it'll stop now. – Drip. You think; oh I can handle this, I’ll just doze off. – Drip
7. After about 30 seconds of this you just scream and get out of bed and run in there and tighten the faucet. The Chinese call it water torture. It's for real. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, to where eventually it just drives you crazy. Contention is like a continual dripping on a very rainy day.
8. If you marry a person like this you are going to be driven mad because you can't turn it off. They will make your life miserable. There are people who exist that are just like this. They look at the world through black glasses and everything is terrible and everything is bad and nothing is good.
9. If you marry this person you're bound to them till death do you part. It's your life buddy. You made a bad choice. You better choose wisely and not marry a contentious and angry person.
D. Proverbs again chapter 23:29-30 – “29. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? 30. Those who linger long at the wine, those who go in search of mixed wine. 31. Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly; 32. at the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like a viper. 33. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart will utter perverse things. 34. Yes, you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, or like one who lies at the top of the mast, saying: 35. "They have struck me, but I was not hurt; They have beaten me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake, that I may seek another drink?''”
1. What we’re talking about here in the text is someone who likes to drink. If you court or date a man or a woman who likes to drink or use drugs—stop. Go the other way.
2. If you marry a man or a woman who likes to drink or use drugs the life you've got coming will be a life of sorrow, you're going to have a life of wounds, and you're going to have a life of contention. If you don't believe this it would be good for you to go and talk to the men and women at Al Anon. Do you know what Al Anon is? These are the spouses of alcoholics. Talk to them about their life. Talk to them about their spouse. Talk to them about their wounds.
3. You don't want to marry a person like this. You don't want this in your life. It's not something to be snickered at. Some people might think it's cool in high school or cool in college, but I'm telling you it's not cool in life. It's not cool in a real world of day to day living as husband and wife.
4. Choose your spouse wisely. If they like to use drugs or drink get away from them now before you’re married.
E. I’m going to read something from Ezekiel 16:44 – “Indeed everyone who quotes proverbs will use this proverb against you: 'Like mother, like daughter!'” The “proverb” used here is what we might call a cliché. We have this same cliché today though we usually hear it as – like father like son. We understand exactly what is being talked about. Generally speaking if you look at the mother and the father, the children quite often are going to be a great deal like them, but not always. We know there are times when children go the exact opposite way of their mother and father. They saw how their parent’s life was affected and they say to themselves “not me”, nope. I'm not going that way.
1. When you date someone look at their family. See how they talk to each other. See how they behave and how their family behaves as a unit because quite often your family is going to be a mirror image or very close to that.
2. If you see a father and mother that are honoring one another and the children honor and love one another, that's a pretty good indication that the person you date knows what a good environment is.
3. The cliché “as is the mother so is the daughter” as a general rule is true, but not always. It is not always true because you will find the people who have learned from the mistakes of their parents and have chosen to go in another direction.
F. Let’s look at Deuteronomy 7:3-4 – “3. "Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. 4. "For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.” This text points out an important element to consider and one which our society rejects. When you look into the heart of the person that you consider marrying, a very important element is this: Does this person love the Lord?
1. We need to realize how a person views God is going to affect our relationship in life with them more than anything. If you marry a virtuous person their price is far above rubies. You ask any man who's married to a Christian woman, a God fearing woman; he'll tell you she's the greatest treasure of his life. The same applies to marrying a God fearing man.
2. This is important because whoever you marry is going to change. I know that is not conventional wisdom but it is true. I don't care who you marry they're going to change. The question is change into what. Christianity is about change, continual change.
3. Ask a marriage counselor and they will tell you one of the most frequent comments they hear is; “He’s changed” or “She’s changed”, they are not the person I married. A counselor will tell you that sometimes it is hard to tell if there was real change or if perception was what changed.
4. We realize that a person who is not grounded with the anchor of faith and hope and love in their relationship with God is going to be like the leaves in the wind. It will be difficult to know what to expect in ten years, what they're going to be like.
5. On the other hand, if what drew you to a person is their character and their love for the Lord, that person usually will only change for the better. Unfortunately, though a good yardstick, even that is not always true. Sometimes even a God fearing man or woman loses their love for the Lord and leaves, but generally speaking a God fearing person just grows stronger in their relationship with God.
6. What drew you to them in the first place just gets better. That's the beauty of a really good marriage. A lot of folks think it's really wonderful in the beginning when you're falling in love and that giddy stage. That's nice but I'm here to tell you that when you are with the right person it just gets better. It matures and the love grows deeper and deeper and deeper. The person that you marry is going to affect and shape your life.
III. Let’s continue in Genesis 13:10-12, and take a look at the influence of where you live. Here we see where a man has a choice. He has to make the choice of where he is going to live. Where are you going to move yourself and your family? It says; “10. And Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar. 11. Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other. 12. Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom.”
A. Lot saw a land that was good for his flocks and he made his choice based on what the land could do for him. It was bountiful and would increase his wealth. The next verse tells us the condition of Sodom; “But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord.” Yet, Lot seems to have ignored the reputation of this place.
1. I wonder if Lot’s decision would have been different if he had known what would happen.
2. What if you could have said to him; Lot do you want me to show you a preview of coming attractions, do you want me to tell you what's coming in your life? You're going to lose all of your herds. You're going to lose all your family and your wife and you're going to commit incest with your two daughters. Do you like that Lot?
3. Do you think Lot would have gone to Sodom if you could've told him what's at the end of his journey? I would say no, he wouldn't go that way. What man would choose a life like that?
B. There comes a time in your life when you have to make choices of what you're going to do for a living and where you're going live.
1. Consider the spiritual ramifications. Don't stick it down at the bottom of the list thinking we'll just make do, we'll just survive even though there's no congregation of the Lord’s church around. Don’t think even though it's a totally ungodly, immoral environment, we'll still go ahead and move there because it's a good job and I’ll make a lot of money.
2. Do not make choices based on wealth alone like Lot. Consider always the spiritual ramifications of any choice you make, the effects upon yourself and upon the future of your family. When you move to the new area hopefully there is a congregation there.
C. I also recommend you choose wisely where you're going to worship. Revelation 2:5 - says; “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.”
1. Here we're talking about the church in Ephesus. The church in Ephesus had left its first love. As a consequence of leaving their first love, their love for God and Jesus Christ, they had left the first works.
2. They are told very plainly unless they repent and go back and do the first works their lamp stand will be removed. How many of you would want to be a member in Ephesus if they refused to repent?
D. Revelation 3:15-16 - “15. "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16. "So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth.” How many of you would want to be a member of this congregation at Laodicea?
E. What about the congregation at Sardis? Revelation 3:1-2 – “1. "And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, 'These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: "I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 2. "Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.”
F. The point is there are congregations that may have issues which could negatively impact you and your family’s walk with God. People do not always spend their life in one spot. Circumstances can create a need to move elsewhere. If and when that happens be picky, selective, about the congregation that you attend.
1. Do not automatically be drawn to numbers thinking the numbers indicate faithfulness.
2. Remember Laodicea. They thought that they didn’t need anything. They had plenty of money and everything was great. That’s the congregation the Lord said was wretched, miserable.
3. Whenever people move to this area, quite often they will come by and they'll say “we're looking around”. Good. Look.
4. Come back and examine this congregation and see whether or not we're teaching the truth and living the truth or whether we are a dead congregation spiritually or whether we've left the first love, the first works.
G. You need to examine the congregation that you consider attending.
1. Make sure they're teaching the truth and doing the best they can to live it. You don't want to join yourself to a congregation that’s dead in spirit or a congregation has left the first love or left the first works.
2. Who you choose as your friends; who you choose to marry; what you choose to do for a living; where you choose to live and where you choose to worship are all actions that are within your control.
3. You have the power within you to choose wisely every single one of these—to choose God fearing friends, to choose a God fearing spouse, to choose a place that's going to be good for you spiritually and your family spiritually and a congregation that is truly a God fearing congregation trying to serve the Lord faithfully.
4. You'll find when you make wise choices the outcome of your life will be greatly affected.

CONCLUSION:
Going back to the start of the message today, Proverbs 14:12 says; “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”

This is guidance and a warning. Keep your relationship with God at the center of your life. Make all your decisions on the things that will shape your life with your relationship to God in mind. We have that power.

Romans 8:28 – “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

Romans 8:31 – “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Philippians 4:13 – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”.

Ephesians 3:20 – “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,”.

I would hope and pray that everybody here this morning, and those that we teach have lives filled with joy, lives filled with peace, with the maximum happiness, fulfillment and contentment that a human being can experience in this life.
For that to be the case, you need to take control of your life and make it the way you want it to be. You have that power in your choices.

Maybe there is somebody 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 God and you're willing to confess your faith and repent of your sins, we’ll be glad to assist you and baptize you into the body of Christ.

If you're a child of God and you've sinned and gone into the world, our God is gracious, you know this, He is willing to forgive. Come home, come back to the Father. We'll pray for you and pray with you.

We will do the very best we can as your brothers and sisters to encourage you.
If you are subject to the Gospel call in any way let us know as we stand and sing the song selected.

Invitation song: ???

Reference sermon: Wayne Fancher