Monday, July 27, 2009

Free, In Prison

Text: Ephesians 3:14-21
Focus: The Love of God
Function: To help people see that great faith grows out of what we do, not what we say.
Form: Bible study

Intro:

The first words of our text this morning is “for this reason…”

This passage is a prayer that the apostle who wrote this letter is going to pray for people in churches. It is a prayer for people like you and me.

And he says, “for this reason…” The reason leading up to this statement is that he is in prison and being persecuted on behalf of his unwillingness to deny Christ.

Paul introduces this passage by telling them that he is suffering.

And he tells them he is suffering as a result of spiritual warfare.

It is a result of two spiritual kingdoms colliding against each other.

But he is a spiritual warrior and winning the battle, the proof of it is that he is breaking down the barriers between people and God and between people with other people.

That is what God cares about!

The core of Spiritual warfare is not “the proof that we are right and others are wrong, or we are somehow better than others” it isn’t the domination by one group of people over others, it isn’t a human struggle.”

The core of Spiritual warfare deals with love and forgiveness between God and humanity and then people with other people.

For these reasons, he is suffering and yet, because he is being effective he states in verse 14:
“You see, it is God’s love that is energizing us. It is God’s love that is calling us to fight this battle.”

Even though he is suffering at the hands of people who are being used to try to imprison him, he still witnesses that God’s love is true and powerful.

God loves the world.
Think about the times in your life when you have experienced the greatest peace.
A lot of people confuse excitement or pleasure with peace. Those things feel good, but God’s peace feels right, not necessarily good.

Those times of peace for you:
Haven’t they been when you have been loved, received and accepted?
You weren’t perfect when that happened, and yet you were included.
We have joined God’s family and it is a family of unconditional love for God and others.

So he responds to his imprisonment with this prayer, recorded here in chapter 3.

Let us break down this prayer:

I bow my knees to God and pray:
• The prayer acknowledges that God is the God of all of humanity: “From whom every family in heaven and earth takes its name.”
o You see, it isn’t a battle between nations, races, sports teams, cities, or even individuals in families.
o God is the God of all.
o I love the bumper sticker, “God bless the whole world, no exceptions.”
o He loves the entire world.
• That we be strengthened according to the riches of HIS glory.
o So, God blesses the whole world and the strength of that is limited only by His power.
o His glory is amazing
o There is sufficient strength for us to do this battle
o There is sufficient strength for us to keep on loving and loving and loving
o The power source will never go out.
• That this source of power by the Holy Spirit will touch our hearts
• And he gives a mechanism for this in verse 17, READ VERSE 17. FAITH GROWS THROUGH BEING ROOTED AND GROUNDED IN LOVE. For this to work, the prayer is that we be rooted and grounded in love.
o Paul talks about love and knowledge in this prayer.
o I want to contrast this with knowledge.
o Knowledge, especially of the scriptures, is important.
o Every Wednesday, I pray with 3 other pastors about our churches and our own lives.
o One of them was talking about the importance of teaching the Word, because that is how we get to know Jesus.
o And he is right.
o But I have met many Christians who can quote a lot of scripture, and are still not rooted and grounded in love.
o We get distracted with being able to give the right answer, but Jesus is calling us to first do the right thing.
o The prayer is that we are rooted and grounded in God’s love.
o Doing the right thing is: loving as He commands us.
o That is the source of our faith.
o And there is a whole world of difference between being rooted and grounded in love, or knowledge.
o The Bible says, knowledge can make us proud, but love constrains us to obey.
o James says, don’t merely hear the word, but do the word.
o Hearing gives knowledge, doing builds faith.
o Remember the spiritual warfare between Jesus and the Devil in Matthew 4 when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness?
o The Devil knew the Word, but Jesus did the word. Jesus lived it and it was carried out by his actions.

So the first thing, is to be rooted and grounded in love, then our knowledge will be wisely applied.

I have met a lot of Christians who know a lot and are more interested in impressing you with what they know than getting into partnership with God in caring for a hurting, broken person in the time of need.

To use the spiritual warfare principle, these are Christians who are guilty of harming others with friendly fire. They are so zealous that they forget that this is about God redeeming the world.

Now, knowledge isn’t bad: Because the second part of the prayer is about knowledge: He prays:
• That they have the power to comprehend.
• That means: Not just knowing, but understanding.
• He prays that believers understand the mystery and unimaginable boundaries of God. He calls it:
o The width, the length, the height and the depth.
• Then we will know:
o The love of Christ that goes beyond our ability to understand.
o How can you know something that surpasses knowledge?
o I mean, if it surpasses knowledge, then it can’t truly be known.
o That is, by us.
o This is the thing about God, He exists in infinity.
o The Bible says, someday He will abolish time.
o We can’t comprehend infinity, but in one way or another God exists outside of it.
o That is impossible for us to do, but possible for us to conceive
o So, although we cannot know the limits of His love
o We can imagine that they are also without limit.
o Maybe that is why people want to share what they know, because through Christ, they begin to understand true mystery.
o But what incredible thing is the apostle praying that we understand?
o He is praying that we understand the scope of God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness.
o He wants us to understand that God is able to forgive what we cannot imagine.
o That he is able to work beyond what we know.

Now think about this:
• Brother Paul is writing the epistle from inside prison.
• He has this calling on his life to share the good news with the world.
• He can’t feel effective, unless he is out there doing it.
• And yet, and this time and this period lasted for many, many years, God allows him to be confined to a cell.
• And he isn’t whining or complaining.
• He is still trusting in God.
• He is still walking by faith
• Because his faith has grown through love, remember faith grows through love; he can rest in faith even though he is in prison.

To set the stage for the next point let me ask you a question: How much can you imagine?
• Rick Warren, in the series 40 Days of Purpose, a discipline that churches went through based on the book “Purpose Driven Life” asked us, in the church to set goals for growth and outreach.
• Then, after we set our goals, he asked us to add at least one more 0 after each number.
• So, if we thought it was a realistic goal to add 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 more people to the church, he said to make the goal 50, 100, 200, 300, 400 or 500 more people.
• He quoted this scripture. Jesus is able to do more than we ask or think.
• He does more than we can imagine.
• When I read, it builds my faith.
• It reminds me not to think little, or to think with the mentality that we are dying instead of growing.
• It leads me to think that we are alive instead of dead.
• It reminds me that the only real thing limiting us is the level or degree of our faith.
• I can imagine a lot, most of the time.
• But why is it that imagining little is the par for our course?

Well, remember what our faith is based on. Remember what he says our faith grows out of.
It isn’t in what we know, but in the way we know and Love Jesus and others.
Our faith grows out of our love. IF we are seeking knowledge, his prayer is that we know His love better. He wants us to know that it is without limit.

Now I want to keep this tied into spiritual warfare.

Paul was suffering in prison because he was actively involved in Spiritual warfare.

Satan thought he had a victory because as long as he was in prison, he wasn’t out there preaching Jesus and bringing people into a love-relationship with God through Christ.

I think Satan thought he was winning, but if that hadn’t happened, this epistle, and several others wouldn’t have been written for us to learn from.

When I think of spiritual warfare, and the last message of this series will deal with the “battle gear” for fighting God’s battles, I think first and foremost of what Paul is doing in this passage.

He is praying.

He is asking God. He is engaging in the struggle through the most powerful weapon available, prayer.
He reminds us that when we pray, we shouldn’t limit God in what we are asking, because God is much greater than our imagination.

Think about your own prayer life.

This part is for the believer who has made Jesus first place in their life.

Some people come because they don’t want to go to hell.

Some people come because they figure that God will make their circumstances better if they go to Church.

That is fine, Growth into the full measure of faith that Paul is talking about is the work of God, not me.

But for those who consider themselves dedicated enough Christians to maybe even be a martyr, ask yourselves this question:

What do you pray for?

Do you pray for more love?

I have to confess, that isn’t on the top of my prayer list. Unless it is a prayer that God would let me feel and sense His love more FOR ME. And that is okay, it begins there.

But what do you pray for?

Have you ever prayed, “God you need to show brother or sister so and so just how badly they are treating others?”

Have you ever prayed: “God, I know I am supposed to be happy when other people do well, but it doesn’t seem fair that `insert name here’ gets more and more and I have to struggle so much; when is it going to be my turn?”

Or the prayer: “God vindicate me because I am being treated unfairly?”

We are praying out of pettiness.

We are all called to pray out of our love for God and others.

If that is all we pray for, then we are already defeated.

Remember, our faith builds through love.

When we are praying that way, we are not praying according to the love of God that goes beyond our imagination.

We imagine a God who is just like us. We imagine a God who has a hard time forgiving others.

It is easy to imagine a petty God, because it is easy for us to fall into pettiness.

And remember, Satan himself wants to keep reminding us that it is now “our turn.” It is all about us. He wants to remind us that the church is designed to make us happy and feel better. That it is about us and not about God.

Remember, our faith is going to grow out of our love.

Think about this, we pray more for the people we know the most and love the most.

As pastor, I believe my biggest job is praying for you.

I pray for my kids, I know them well enough to pray specifically for them

When you are specific with me, I pray specifically for you.
You can trust me. If you give me a prayer request and then go and ask Kathy about it, she’ll tell you, “I don’t know what you are talking about” because I don’t tell her.

Because of love we pray.

But then, I think, about God’s love for all the world, a statement this prayer opens up with and I ask myself: “who is praying for those who have no Christian to pray for them?”

Remember, our faith builds through love.

Rick Warren encouraged us to think beyond what we can imagine by adding another 0 to our hopes.

He did that because his ministry is not based on making numbers, trying to prove that he is more right by the size of his church or the quality and style of his worship.

His Church is characterized more than anything by its love.

And he has drawn criticism from some Christian sources because he isn’t “pro-American” enough. He has taken the millions he has made in selling his books and used to ease the suffering in places like Darfur and the areas the most greatly affected by the aids epidemic.

Look, there are some mega-churches that are growing and growing and they keep on feeding this cycle of what is in it for me.

But that isn’t what Rick Warren was talking about in his purpose driven life book.

His first statement, “It’s about God, it isn’t about you.”

You read through the testimonies and the growth they experienced and one thing becomes very obvious, they understood the nature of this unimaginable love.

When I took my last Church through the 40 days of purpose, I had to cut out more than half of the illustrations given because they were all testimonies of divorced and remarried people who found forgiveness in the midst of brokenness and the congregation wouldn’t let me preach about that.

But he understands the unimaginable reaches of God’s love.

His faith is based on that, and God keeps on blessing.

SO, do you need to experience that love this morning?

Love and forgiveness are the biggest keys to overcoming faith.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

The Root of Peace

Text: Ephesians 2:11-18
Focus: Peace from Christ
Function: To set the stage for how the Kingdom of God rules the world
Form: Story Telling

Intro:

5 week series out of Ephesians on the Kingdom of God and the nature of Spiritual warfare.

The Bible says that John the Baptist came preaching these words: Change yourselves, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! That is how he told people to prepare for Jesus’ coming by calling people to repent and focus on God’s Kingdom, not mankinds.

It is interesting that Jesus preached peace, reconciliation between mankind and God and then reconciliation between men and men.

We can never forget that the whole thing begins with reconciliation between people and God.

So, when John the Baptist preached about Jesus coming, He preached to people to prepare for the coming reign of God’s Kingdom.

Then Jesus made it clear that God’s kingdom is never political, but personal as He reigns the hearts of people.

I think a sad thing has happened; it started with what is called the liberal branch of Christianity as they sought to bring peace through protest and legislation.

And it was picked up by the conservative branch of Christianity as they sought to use politics to solve their problems.

Listen, Jesus made it clear, the kingdom does not grow by the conquest of armies, but it grows like yeast in a loaf of bread as it is rising, each individual touching and changing the one next to it. The problems of the world will be changed when the hearts of men and women change through the work of the Holy Spirit after Jesus comes into their hearts.

Peace is an important concept to us. Jesus promised us peace when we are filled with the Spirit.

It is one of the great promises we look forward to.

I love this phrase, in (SHOW) Romans 8:22: For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

It echoes the angst in the heart of humanity. Lord, bring us peace, Lord, bring us rest.

(SHOW) Jesus gave His life to bring us peace.
And Paul, the author of this passage brings it out.

He brings out how it isn’t obtained through political or military processes.

Let me set the stage for the passage.

Paul was a Jew, a Pharisee among the Jews. The Pharisees were charged with the keeping of the law.

They were guilty of interpreting it in a very narrow sense and making the law say more than it intended.

The law was intended to teach people to love God and each other.

But they kept rules, and didn’t love, forgive or show mercy and compassion to others.

Part of the tradition that he maintained kept them from having any contact with Gentiles, the non-Jews.

Let me give you a little history of that –a sort of justification from the OT law.

Abraham was called by God to leave Ur, the land that is now Iraq and travel to Canaan land, the land that is now Israel.

Where he lived, in the land of Ur, the people were Godly.

When he was called to Cana, he wasn’t sure what kind of people they were.

As it turned out, for the most part they weren’t that bad. But they were beginning to turn to evil. When God sent Abraham there, God was sending a prophet to them to show them the way.

While he was there, God promised the childless Abraham He would give the land to the huge family he would eventually have.

However, God said, “not now but in 400 years,” because God knew that in 400 years, after sending prophet after prophet to them to get them to turn from being so evil, He would have to give up and make an example out of them.

People have discounted the meaning of the OT by saying that this was merely one empire fighting dominating another empire and using religion to justify it.

But it didn’t happen that way.

It is clear because God wouldn’t let Abraham conquer them because to do so at that time would not have been just and fair.

God was waiting 400 years because God knew that by that time they would be very wicked people.

To understand this terrible punishment by God, you have to appreciate how evil they became. Their practices were violent, wicked and perverse. Their source of pleasure came from making victims of the weak and powerless.

So God tells the Jewish people to make sure that they have nothing to do with the sinful practices of these people.

God choose to make an example out of them, but instead, the Jewish people intermarried with them.

And sometimes, the bad person drags us down instead of us bringing others up.

It only took one and a half generations for the Jewish people start doing the same disgusting things for which God condemned their predecessors.

And so, God punished them. They lost their land in a terrible war. So, when God brought them back home, they were being very careful to obey.

They realized God was serious about His Word.

(SHOW) God is serious about His Word.

So now, the Pharisees, the keepers of the law, are very strict about relationships with non-Jews because it was the relationship with those sinners that brought them down.

We, however, have the Holy Spirit inside of us.

And the non-Jews, at the time of the writing of this letter knew that Jews weren’t to mix with them.

Now, all of a sudden, Paul, the Jewish man, is writing to non-Jewish believers.

And in the process, he describes some doctrine.

He is explaining to them that in God’s mind, it is no longer about race, who is a Jew and who isn’t.

It isn’t about the law that the Jewish people were proud of. Just as the law didn’t work for the Jews, idolatry didn’t work for the gentiles. Both Jews and Gentiles need Jesus to change their hearts.

All races are in the same predicament.

There is a verse in this text that nails it: (SHOW) “they lived without God, they lived without hope.”

Without God, without Hope.

More than anything, people hope to have peace and it starts in our relationship with God.

This passage is about the walls that people build between themselves.

It is about the walls between races.
It is about the walls between neighborhoods, expressed in gang symbols.

It is about the wall we saw dividing Mexico and the United States of America.

It’s about the wall between people who live together in the same house and can’t even talk civilly to each other.

It’s about the unforgiveness that drives people apart.

Jesus wants to heal all of that.

This passage speaks clearly to the source of that reconciliation.

It starts with restoration to God.

And that is who and what Jesus was all about.

He showed people the best way to live.

And He showed people God’s ability to forgive by the way that He died.

He died to purchase a place for you and me in heaven.

We have been redeemed, bought with the price of the blood of Jesus.

It’s about the hope of God who tears down those walls between people.

Paul mentions that we were without hope. And God, God placed His hope in Jesus.

Now remember, the reason Jews would have nothing to do with the non-Jews was because of the Law.

But Jesus abolished the law. Instead of salvation by a code of behavior, rules and regulations, a code of behavior that even the Jews never lived up to Jesus gives us salvation by His sacrifice.

So, whenever Paul went into a town, he didn’t argue the law with people, he preached the cross of Christ and how Jesus paved the way for us to be restored to God.

(SHOW) Jesus paved the way to restore you to God.

Now this passage is about how this reconciliation should affect the way we live with others.
It reminds me of one of Jesus’ parables: Jesus told the a parable about a man who owed 10,000 talents of gold to the king. He went to the king and told him he couldn’t repay the debt, and the king forgave him.

Jesus uses an incredible exaggeration to the people. He names a number that is more than twice the gold that even King Solomon, with all of his wealth received. The gross exaggeration is there to point out that it is impossible for anyone to pay the price for their own soul.
A talent was 76 pounds, so as of Friday a week ago, a talent of gold was worth $1,110,000. Now multiply that time 10,000 and you get the number 1.1 and the little 15 up in the corner telling you what the exponent is because it is to big to fit on my calculator.

It would take someone like Kathy Hepner to tell you how much that actually is, but I think in today’s numbers, it works out to 11 billion dollars.

(SHOW) You can’t pay this debt yourself.

God has forgiven you what all of humanity can never come close to paying.

And the man, after being forgiven, throws someone who owes him 100 denarii into prison. 100 denarii was not a small amount, it would equal 3 months wages, 10,000 to 25,000 dollars.

That is a debt that none of us really wants to just write off. I doubt if anyone here can write it off.

But that is what God is asking us to do when it comes to being reconciled to others.

The simple fact is, God wrote off an unimaginable debt for us. He just wiped it out, He just called it even. He just winked at it and let it go.

I don’t know why everyone just doesn’t run to Him with their hands raised in the air crying out, Thank You! Thank You!

Maybe they don’t because they want to deny the fact that there is such a thing as a debt owed.

After all, the modern man says, to accept the fact that there is anything that we owe God means that we have to admit that we may be wrong. We have to admit our sinfulness and our brokenness.
But the post-modern man or woman knows in his heart that something is broken between him and God.

(SHOW) There is a gulf, a gap that God is dying to bridge.

But I will tell you the biggest reason I experience that people never really know the joy and peace that Jesus offers.

To get to that salvation, they have to forgive some pretty big debts owed to them.

That is why you meet Christians who are bitter and mean.

That is why you meet people who want nothing to do with God or the Church.

Besides the fact that some just think the destructive practices of sin are fun, many people just cannot forgive.

Look, the racism that was prevalent back then was as evil, if not more so than today.

But in so doing, they refuse to acknowledge that God has done so much more for them.

It all stems from forgiveness.

Now I want to segue into an understanding of how this is spiritual warfare.

(SHOW) Satan does not want us forgiving, he will strive to remind you of how you were hurt, how much you deserve, how special you are.

And all of that is and may be very true.

But I kept hearing this message given to the kids in my group last week from one of the other counselors. She said: “Remember kids, Jesus looked down from the cross at the people who were murdering Him and asked God to forgive them.”

Jesus began a change in this world and He wants us to continue it.

The root of that change, the root of that peace is forgiveness.

It starts by accepting the fact that we are sinners and need forgiveness from God.

And then we accept it as a gift from God, given completely by God’s own work for us on the cross.

Then we forgive others.

And then, we use their faith to make a difference in the world around them.

God wants to reconcile you to Him and to each other.

(SHOW) God wants to change the world, through us.

It first starts with our relationship with Him.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Love? Or Grudge?

Text: Mark 6:14-29
Focus: Bold preaching
Function: To help people see that bold preaching is for their sake of their souls, not the ego of the preacher.
Form: Contrast the personalities of John and Herodias.

Intro:

This morning we are going to examine a contrast of people. We will examine a contrast of light and darkness. We will examine a contrast of God’s Kingdom and Satan’s kingdom.

We will look at the contrast between the heart of John the prophet and Herodias, the wife of Herod.

John is motivated by both love for God and tough love for his fellow man. He is willing to risk everything to tell Herod the truth about his situation.

Herodias is captivated by her desire for temporary wealth and power and she is willing to sacrifice eternity for the temporary fulfillment that she thinks this sin will bring her. She is motivated by revenge. She holds a grudge.

Verse 19 speaks of this grudge: As a matter of fact, the literal translation of verse 19 is a slang phrase we still use today, “she had it in for him.”

She refused to repent, therefore she refused to forgive.

(SHOW) Unrepentant attitudes lead people into the bondage of unforgiveness.

Herodias is much like Herod; they both were more concerned with their power than they were with eternity and their relationship with God.

Dan Trego, our guide in Tijuana, and I were talking about the poverty in Tijuana, and the genuine joy on the faces and in the hearts of some of the Christians we meet there.

They experience the comfort, joy and peace given by the Holy Spirit even in the midst of difficult circumstances.

We, who have so much to be thankful for can look at that and say to ourselves, well they don’t have much in this world to be happy about, so Christianity works for them because it focuses their hope on eternity.

But that isn’t correct. They are walking by faith and experiencing God who is carrying them through the circumstances, and raising them up and out of it.

When they come to know Christ and start following His plan for their lives their circumstances change: They aren’t bound by alcohol, they aren’t bound by tobacco. They join a community of Christians who take the time to care for each other in tragedy and in joyful times.

And God is improving their circumstances.

God lifts them up when they obey Him.

(SHOW) God lifts people up when they obey Him.

And Dan said, it may be easier to be a Christian in Mexico than at home in the United States of America because here, we have too much that we want to protect and preserve for ourselves.

This is the problem Herodias faces. Herodias merely wanted her position of power and prestige.

Herod, on the other hand is torn. Herod was torn between his spiritual life and his material, wealthy life.

He loved hearing John the Baptist preach, but he wasn’t willing to place God over his position and power.

Jesus gave the warning somewhere else; you cannot serve God and money.

Herodias sees Herod’s attraction to John the Baptist’s message and is threatened by it so she does everything in her power to silence the voice of the man of God. This voice is convicting her husband and she wants nothing to do with God.

She goes to desperate extremes.

I remember the shock I felt in Bible College, when my New Testament professor was breaking down this story for us and told us of the research he had done in some of the historical documents of the time.

He told us that this dance was a form of belly-dance that ended up with the seduction by the daughter of her step-father/uncle. I was shocked, but I was shocked even more so when he explained how Herodias put her own daughter up to it.

This woman nursed a grudge and would stop at nothing, even the chastity of her own daughter, to get her revenge.

This woman’s plan exposes the base nature of Herod’s character. He chooses luxury of this life in exchange for the loss of eternal life.

Herod listened to John until he told him that his marriage to his brother’s wife was all wrong.

Matthew Henry: Herod listened to John preach, until John touched on his favorite sin, the adulterous relationship with his wife.

When John preached that, Herod had John locked up into prison.

If it were not for his desire for power he could have let John go and if it were not for his desire for a woman he could have repented as John called him to. And the end of his story would be of a ruler who accepted Christ.

Now look at John the Baptist.

He loves God and Herod.

His love for God is expressed in a passion for preaching the heart of God.

He preaches how God wants marriage to be held in honor by all men.

He preaches how evil it was for Herod to steal his brother’s wife away from his brother.

He preaches about how people want to claim to know God, and follow God, but continue to live by their own desires instead of God’s plan.

He loves Herod enough to tell him the truth.

Matthew Henry again, “John was a faithful preacher.”

(SHOW) People, for the most part love faithful preaching.

They love it because it is good to know that God cares. God cares enough to set boundaries in people’s lives. These boundaries protect us from harmful actions.
I remember the few years in my youth when I rebelled against God and tried to find my own way. I kept philosophizing about all I had been taught by my godly parents. I concluded this; the 10 commandments were probably a good idea, because they protected us from being evil and from being hurt.

People need good preaching.

But then, Matthew Henry goes on to say: “People love faithful preaching until they get their toes stepped on. Then they get upset.”

A few times I have experienced that. The congregation says, “Step on our toes, preacher,” but what really meant is: “step on someone else’s toes.”

The world needs bold preaching, not because the preacher wants a following, or has something to prove to others, but because God is serious and because the preacher cares for the soul of his listener.

John Cared for Herod.

Here is the unfortunate thing for Herod, he never repented of this sin.

And his sins finally caught up with him. We read in Acts 12 where he tried to make himself out to look like the Messiah and God struck him down in front a whole coliseum filled with people.

Matthew Henry goes on to speak about John’s love for the man, and his willingness to speak to him and says: (SHOW) “But, better that sinners persecute preachers now for their faithfulness than curse them eternally for unfaithfulness.”

I preach grace, but that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care about sin.

I am convinced that God is the one who sets people free, not me.

Remember how this passage starts: Apparently they are in the court chambers of King Herod and the reports of Jesus are coming in.

Some are saying he is a prophet, some are saying he was like one of the prophets, but Herod’s own guilty conscience is revealed when he proclaims that Jesus is really John the Baptist risen from the dead.

Apparently, his rash vow to Salome, the daughter of Herodias that caused him to put John the Baptist to death has been haunting him.

(SHOW) Unrepentant sin keeps us awake at night!

The best thing to do is to confess, set yourselves at the mercy of God and get free.

Herod is convinced that Jesus is John raised from the dead.

Now Jesus is different than John. Jesus is performing all kinds of miracles.

John never performed any miracles. The strength of his ministry was not the signs and wonders that Jesus, and later, Peter, John and Paul used. No, the strength of his ministry was the passion and conviction.

Apparently, Herod’s speculation was that since John died and rose again, he was now given miraculous power.

But what did John preach about?

He preached about the coming of Jesus.

He preached about the Kingdom of God coming to mankind.

God’s Kingdom is indeed a Kingdom.

That means, it has a King. It has a ruler. To be a part of God’s Kingdom means that we accept the rule of Christ in our lives.

We live under Him, listening to and obeying His rule.

John was excited about the rule of Jesus in the lives of people.

We see why in the ministry of Christ Jesus.

He cared for the broken hearted.

His Kingdom was one where the poor were given a fair chance.

His Kingdom was one where sinners found strength to be free instead of the condemnation of shame that kept them down and in fear.

John was offering Herod a chance to be free from his guilt and shame.

He was offering Herod a chance to come clean with his own brother.

Just as we mentioned earlier: (SHOW) When we let God reign in our lives, He lifts us up.

His rule is just and fair and it gives us something positive to do.

But John the Baptist faced a terrible reality about human nature, the power of Satan that rules the world and mankind’s appetite for sin.

Sin exists. Satan does not want the light of the good news to shine upon sin and expose its corrupt destructive power.

It was so corrupt that Herodias hatched an evil plot, exploiting even her own daughter in order to enjoy the temporary pleasure of sin.

Apparently it is so powerful that people will close their eyes to their own eternal damnation in order to serve the gods of this world.

(SHOW) Sin is so powerful that people will shut their eyes to their eternal destiny in order to keep on being held captive by its destructive power.

So the choice is clear to us.

Herod had the choice of life and death and he chose death.

(SHOW) Will you chose life and come to Christ?

Monday, July 6, 2009

Just Hang On

Text: Mark 5:21-43
Focus: Faith
Function: To help people see that faith is attainable.
Form: Story Telling

Intro:

From the journal, Bits and Pieces, July, 1991
The school system in a large city had a program to help children keep up with their school work during stays in the city’s hospitals. One day a teacher who was assigned to the program received a routine call asking her to visit a particular child. She took the child’s name and room number and talked briefly with the child’s regular class teacher. “We’re studying nouns and adverbs in his class now,” the regular teacher said, “and I’d be grateful if you could help him understand them so he doesn’t fall too far behind.”
The hospital program teacher went to see the boy that afternoon. No one had mentioned to her that the boy had been badly burned and was in great pain. Upset at the sight of the boy, she stammered as she told him, “I’ve been sent by your school to help you with nouns and adverbs.” When she left she felt she hadn’t accomplished much. But the next day, a nurse asked her, “What did you do to that boy?” The teacher felt she must have done something wrong and began to apologize. “No, no,” said the nurse. “You don’t know what I mean. We’ve been worried about that little boy, but ever since yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back, responding to treatment. It’s as though he’s decided to live.”
Two weeks later the boy explained that he had completely given up hope until the teacher arrived. Everything changed when he came to a simple realization. He expressed it this way: “They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?”

This is a passage about hope and faith.

My hope, this morning is that everyone understands that hope is attainable.

The great risk of Jarius:
• Synagogue Ruler
• Anyone associating with Jesus will be put out of the circle of faith.
• He was giving up everything for his daughter.
• He was giving up everything for his faith.
• (SHOW) Sometimes following Jesus calls us to risk everything… …Friends, prestige, livelihood and respect.
• God brought Him to the place where He was desperate.
• The crowd has gathered around Jesus impeding Jesus’ progress.
• He knows she is dying.
• And all of a sudden, there is this great interruption.
• Be the man with me.
• You are desperate for a last hope.
• You know time is important.
• He can’t wait for Jesus to heal this woman because his daughter is more important.
• He feels what everyone of us feels.
• (SHOW) Why, if Jesus is God, do we have to wait for an answer to our prayers?
• I imagine that I would be angry at the woman and frustrated with the crowd and Jesus.
• But you can’t say anything because you do not want to put Jesus off the task at hand.
• (SHOW) Jarius is trying to hang on to a glimmer of hope in Jesus.

The image of the woman who was desperate:
• The woman is as desperate as Jarius.
• Spent all of her money.
• She is just as desperate as the man, but she knows she is only a woman.
• Jarius is big, strong and an important official in their town.
• (SHOW) She hangs on to Jesus in a different way.
• She is now also risking his displeasure at her for interrupting him.
• Many people refuse to accept the fact that they are important enough to God for God to touch them.
• But this woman has faith, she had faith enough to keep from letting her circumstances get the better of her.
• She has been bleeding for 12 years.
• It isn’t like she can get a blood transfusion.
• We have to imagine that the anemia has brought her into a very weakened condition.
• So, she goes for the bottom, the hem of the garment.
• But it isn’t just the bottom she is going for.
• Touch the hem of His garment
• The hem of the garment held religious significance.
o They had tassels on the 4 corners and a woven braid of 7 strands which held religious significance.
• It was almost mystical, or superstitious.
• She had to get to the hem.
• She demonstrates great faith, but it is still focused on something.
• God provides those things for us to focus on.
• (SHOW) God provides a way for us to focus on Him.
• But it isn’t magic.
• Did the garment heal the woman?
• We read of people, in the book of Acts who were placed in a position where Peter’s shadow passed over them in order to be healed.
• We read of them praying over cloths and sending them away to other people who were sick.
• Did these items contain magic? Or, where they symbols of a much deeper faith?
• Symbols are important because they help remind us of our faith.
• But it was HER faith that healed her.
• It was her choice to keep on trusting, even though she had been waiting 12 long years.
• 12 years is a very long time to wait, and many people give up on God at that point. But she didn’t.
• It was a weird statement by Jesus: “Who touched me?”
• There is a huge crowd around Him, but Jesus question is this: “Who reached out to me with faith?”
• (SHOW) A lot of people gather round Jesus… …but fewer people stretch out to Him in faith.
• Her faith impresses Jesus.

Meanwhile, we are back to Jarius:
• During the wait, his daughter died.
• The woman was hanging on to the hem of Jesus.
• Jarius is hanging on in a different matter.
• He has a position of prestige and power and is used to be listened to.
• I don’t know if He thinks that Jesus will respond because this could be a feather in Jesus’ cap or what.
• We don’t hear him say, “I’ll stop bothering you.”
• But the people who are with him are saying it.
• The people with him have given into the temptation to give up hope.
• I am sure that temptation is there for him as well.
• It seems pretty bleak, when the girl is already dead.
• I would want to say, “Lord, you shouldn’t have waited!!!”
• I don’t know if he is angry, or just too grief stricken and numb to care.
• I notice something that is very neat.
• Jesus takes the initiative.
• He knows what the man is feeling and thinking.
• And Jesus, initiates mercy.
• Have you ever given up hope?
• Look at this verse:
• (SHOW) 2 Timothy 2:13: Even when we are too weak to have any faith left, he remains faithful to us and will help us, for he cannot disown us who are part of himself, and he will always carry out his promises to us.
• Does Jesus care?
• To quote a line from last fall’s political campaigns when we wonder if Jesus cares: Does Jesus care? You betcha!
• They laugh at Jesus when Jesus chides them for believing the worse.
• I have to admit, I would have laughed as well.
• These are normal people carrying out normal reactions.
• Jesus isn’t angry with them, but He does want to demonstrate what faith in God can do.
• (SHOW) Let God show you what faith in God can do.
• Jesus raises the daughter from the dead.
• I can picture the overwhelming joy on the face of Jarius.
• It would make no difference to him whatsoever what people thought about him and his faith in Christ.
• His position of prestige means nothing compared to the issue of life and death that he has witnessed through faith in Christ.
• It is the same for us.
• Jesus offers us life, what can we give in exchange for that?
• Nothing.
• Dan Trego, the interpreter and leader of our week in Tijuana told us the price it cost his parents to serve Christ. Their family shunned them.
• But what can we give in exchange?
• With gratitude, we raise our hands and worship the Lord who saved us.

Both of these people were in desperate circumstances.
And both of them just held on in spite of circumstance.
Will you trust Him as well?