Do This…

Text: Hebrews 13:1-6

Focus: Practical Actions for believers

Function: Preparation for communion

Form: Bible Study

Intro: Now that my boys are grown and our of the house, I can tell this story.

When I pastored near Indianapolis, the parsonage was across the parking lot/field just like it is here. Except, the church office was in the parsonage. It was actually an old porch, converted into an office, with big glass windows and a great view of the orchard, the church and the driveway. The driveway was the central place of activity for our three boys.

On the edge, was a basketball goal and net. Now, my oldest son, their father (point to Samantha and Haley) stands about 6'4”. He was the tallest kid in his class. His younger brother made it to 6'3”. And that size difference became quite a part of the boys as they learned to love each other. Both of them have long arms: The better to play basketball with.

The shorter son, developed more muscles and had to learn how to adapt in order to score in the post against his older brother.

He learned the value of a head fake and became very good at tricking his brother he was going one way when he was actually going the other.

Sadly, the oldest was born with a congenital birth defect and in the period of time that he could have been a basketball star, he was on and off crutches and his dream of being the center for the team was shattered.

In between the 10 times his leg broke, he, his brother and the youngest, who just barely hit 6' played a lot of ball.

And in the spirit of competition, sometimes, their tempers flared at each other as brothers are prone to do.

My office was right there, I could see them, but more than anything, I could almost set my watch by the time when one of them would get angry, run into the house shouting, or muttering, that they were cheaters.

So, when the backboard eventually broke, and I was broke financially, I decided to build one. I covered some oriented strand board with a lot of paint and then wrote right above the net: “Let Brotherly Love Continue, Hebrews 13:1.”

And it worked! Not that the tempers didn't flair, but the older brother patiently taught the younger brother, even though his dream was shattered. His younger brother learned to play as if he was taller than he was, and when he got into competition, he was team scorer, became the captain of the team and now believes he can do anything.

He adopted the number that his older brother wore the last time he played and the rest, they say is history.

Now look again at the passage: (read).

What is God talking about here?

In the midst of trial, in the midst of conflict, in the midst of our pain, in the midst of pain in others is the time we should be giving, forgiving, loving the most.

What does this NT author tell us that our Christian lives should look like? What practical suggestions does this author give us to “Love our Neighbor as ourselves?”

Do this.

He is talking about our what it means for us to live this sacrificial life that he spends chapter 12 convinces us we should live.

Simple things. Do this.

Share a room with strangers. I loved the house Ivan and Clara Patterson built. They took this seriously and built a sort of apartment, right inside their home for people to stay at.

Always be ready to help.

The author promises that in this way, some people actually entertained angels. Lot is a good example. When you provide a place for others, you provide it for the Lord.

Regard the prisoner as if you were a prisoner yourself.

I love this. Remember the hype around the US Census? This is how the world thinks. There was all these news stories intended to scare us because formerly incarcerated people were hired to help with the Census. There is a detective in Union and West Milton who is also an ordained Brethren minister. He has a great confession rate. He leads the accused to the Lord, they confess, repent and then pay their debt to justice in prison. Those Census takers also paid their debt to society. But people want to keep on making them pay.

So God said, remember them as if you too were with them. He doesn't say “the innocent prisoners.” He doesn't say “the political prisoners.” He says: “prisoners.”

What do we think of them? He says, as if you were one of them. Think about their suffering, don't gloat over their predicament. How would that change our minds, if we remembered to do this. Here is the thing, it is easy to think of them as enemies, but Jesus wants us to consider them with as much regard as we would ourselves. This is what it means to love the neighbor as ourselves. That is why my Facebook icon is a picture of Jesus in prison.

He says the same thoughts for people who are being abused. I know that is how we all are, and how we all want to be, but he places them in the same place as our regard for prisoners.

How do we regard them?

From “The Message,” he then says: “Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex.”

A firm line.

The marriage vow is a promise to love honor and respect your spouse. Sex, is a beautiful act that God designed to strengthen and preserve the marriage bond. I always told my sons, “if you love her, you will respect her.” And my daughter, “respect yourself, if he loves you, he will respect the honor of a woman. That attitude of respect is the difference between a girl and a lady.”

God actually means this. It isn't a joke, or an old-fashioned principle. It is a way to make intimacy work to strengthen your family and your life.

Then: ^5-6Don't be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have.

From The Message: Don't be obsessed with getting more, be relaxed with what you have.

Since God assured us, "I'll never let you down, never walk off and leave you," we can boldly quote,

God is there, ready to help;
I'm fearless no matter what.
Who or what can get to me?

The answer is: Nothing!

Tuesday, I participated in an evangelism Seminar on the web with Paul Mundy, the pastor of the Fredericksburg Church of the Brethren. He was talking about sacrificial giving in the midst of this, “the Great Recession.”

He said, tell the congregation that it is not time to give less, but to give more. Giving is a symbol of our dependence on God's provision. And right now, the needs are greater, not less. Now is the time that we can do more, because more people are in need. Now, especially in these lean times, is the time that believers should increase their generosity.

Living in forgiveness, caring for the prisoner, keeping our marriages pure, and sacrificially giving out of obedience to Christ are all acts of faith. All of these say to God and everyone around them: “It makes no difference how the world, society, this `get what-ever we can for ourselves culture' lives, I am going to trust God to defend me, to help me help others and to feed me. Because God commanded me to, and He will never leave us.

Do this. Live by faith.

And that leads to the next part of this worship service:

Do this in remembrance of me. For as often as you drink this cup, and eat this bread, you proclaim that Jesus died on your behalf. You remind yourself and everyone else that there is no way to earn salvation by works or gifts. God provides.

Awesome!

Text: Hebrews 12:15-29

Focus: Holiness

Function: To bring respect for God

Form: Bible study.

Intro:

My daughter and her friend attended their first concert ever when they were 15. I heard them talking on the phone after the concert was over. Her friend was saying: “Oh my gosh! That was the best concert I have ever been to in my entire life! It was awesome!”

The young woman's mother was there, and she muttered to Kathy and I so the girls couldn't hear: “it was the only concert they have ever been to!”

AWESOME!!!

When my children were teenagers, it was probably their favorite word. It was used so much, that it lost its meaning.

It comes from the 1600's and it means: “profoundly reverential.”

So what? Today, it means, excellent, noteworthy, amazing.

But originally, it meant “so amazing that it changes your life.” “Something that, when encountered, changes us forever.”

This passage is about how God, when He revealed Himself in the Old Testament, changed people forever.

It starts with Esau. He is called Godless and immoral. Why? He sold his birthright. Read vs 15-17.

Does that seem a little harsh?

What is behind that?

The word for immoral is pornea. It is the word we get pornography and fornication from.

Funny thing is, the Old Testament record never mentions that sin in the life of Esau. Two of his nephews, Jacob's sons, committed that sin, and they were part of the twelve leaders of Israel, and they weren’t listed as immoral.

What is he talking about, then?

Esau did not appreciate the awesomeness of God.

Esau was in line for greatness. He stood to inherit direct ancestry to the greatest family in history. His family is the one family that God has chosen to reveal Himself to the entire world, and Esau exchanged that honor for just one meal. For the cost of one meal, for a moment's satisfaction, he couldn't control his desire and lost everything.

His sin, was not appreciating what God had given him.

There is a lesson here: Respect yourself.

Although we don’t have a record of him committing sexual sins, he gets that label.

Why make that connection? Because sex is about honor and respect. The woman who puts up with abuse, especially physical abuse, because of her marriage vows is a woman who has dishonored her birthright.

God says, in very strong terms, I love you, and if you don't respect the value of who you are, you cheapen my love.

Now, let us move on to the rest of the passage because he talks about this awesomeness of God and what it means in the NT compared to the Old Testament.

The author refers to the mountain where God gave the Law.

Let me paint that picture. God had the leaders place a fence around the base of the mountain. Moses is standing there in front of the mountain and all of a sudden this huge thundering cloud descends. Everyone hears this trumpet blast and sees these flashes of light.

And then God speaks, and this is where the Movie “The 10 Commandments” misses it.

Before Moses goes up the mountain to spend 40 days with God and to get the sacred tablets, God sounds out the 10 commandments from the top of the mountain in the hearing of the entire nation.

Now God had told Moses to build the fence, to emphasize how incredibly important this moment was. God is Holy, When He spoke, stars came out of His mouth.

This is the God we serve. Esau was in position to be blessed among all of humanity by this incredible Creator.

So, Hebrews speaks of this mountain experience. When the people saw the power, heard the voice, felt the ground shake they were terrified. Actually, it says, when God was speaking the earth shook. I can't blame them for being terrified.

They begged Moses to ascend the mountain all by Himself. They did not want to be exposed to His presence like that again.

In one sense, they rejected God. In another sense, they wanted to carry on with their own lives and they wanted a priest to come in and stand between God and them.

I wonder” Was God saddened by that? You can’t blame them, God in that form, is scary.

I had a former parishioner who told me that one time, while praying, he saw this over-whelming light and he heard a voice, described just as the Bible says in Revelations, Daniel, Isaiah, and others. people heard the voice of God and it sounded like the voice of many waters speaking, or the voice of many trumpets speaking at the same time. It was one person, but speaking in every octave at the same time. He said, “I felt the words throughout my entire being.”

That man was changed. He came into the presence of God. And every-time Dave spoke of God, he never said “God.” He would say this: “The Creator of the Universe.” And Dave, never spoke about God in a flippant sort of way. He was changed.

If Esau had understood the majesty of God, he would have never given up the gift God was giving him just for a moment's satisfaction. I know the text in Genesis 25 says, “he reasoned he would die (and you can add: “before supper”) without some of the stew that Jacob, his younger brother had made.

He was like a little child throwing a fit: “mommy, I am starving to death....”

He didn't understand the awesomeness of his God, who, when He speaks shakes the earth, or as the video shows, the God who speaks and out of His mouth, stars appear.

A good friend of mine was preaching about the majesty of God and he was relating the story he heard by a Televangelist who was explaining to his flock why they should send more money to him. This man claimed to be a prophet. He was explaining his next big project that God was going to do, because he had the faith, except God forgot to finance his project so the people in his audience could help God out, and share in his faith as well. And as a bonus, if they proved to God they had faith by giving to him, then God would believe them and they would get a bunch of money in return. (kind of like: “But wait, if you order in the next 10 minutes…)

The Televangelist says: “I was shaving this morning and God spoke to me...”

You could tell that Jerry, in his sermon, was pretty well put out by this manipulation, and he said something that really hit me.

He said: “I wanted to ask the fellow, `when God spoke, did you stop shaving? Wouldn’t one just fall on his or her knees and worship?'”

The first time Daniel the prophet saw the Angel of God, which is a phrase that describes God in human form before He came as Jesus the Nazarene, the Bible said that he actually fell down dead, and the Lord raised him back to life. God’s awesomeness is a life changing experience.

This God we serve is a consuming fire. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into a fiery furnace, 7 times hotter than normal, so hot that the guards who threw them in died from the heat. And again, that Angel of God, Jesus, came and walked with them. The Creator of the Universe, the Creator of fire simply did His thing, saved their lives and the great King Nebuchadnezzar fell down and worshiped Him. That is how awesome God is!

My friend, Jerry was offended at the “cheeky” irreverent attitude the Televangelist claimed.

Is this important?

Yes, on two levels. 1^St, if God can create a star by speaking and it comes into existence, then He can care for you. Have faith! Hebrews has a lot to say about trusting God, no matter what. Don't throw away your birthright because in the moment you happen to be afraid, and you fear that God is not able.

1^st, having faith is important, and 2^nd, let's go back to that question about how God might have felt when the people, as a nation, decided to be afraid instead of be in relationship with God.

I don't in any way want to confer an attitude of irreverence since the term Awesome means Providentially Reverential.

So bear with me for just one moment of frivolity, as if God were on our level.

If you pictured God saying, “Hmmm, what did I do to scare them away?” And Moses answering Him by saying, “Well God, don't you think that loud voice, that trumpet, the peals of lightning and thunder and shaking the entire earth could have been well, maybe, and I'm not criticizing, but could it have been a little `Over the Top? God?'”

Now again, that didn't happen, God, who created us, knew exactly how the Israelites would react to this show. He had a purpose in that demonstration.

I am pretty sure Moses went up that mountain with his knees shaking terrified out of his wits.

When he came down, 40 days later, the Bible says that being in the presence of God caused him to glow with God's glory. He came down that mountain a changed man, again.

Was God's heart broken when the people told Moses to stand between them and the AWESOME and terrible God?

I think not. I believe that God Himself needed to wait to have this personal relationship with His people.

When God passed before Moses, because Moses was begging to see Him, the bible says that God covered Moses' face with the back of His hand, otherwise, seeing God would have killed Moses.

When God spoke to Elijah in 1 Kings, or revealed Himself to people. There is this story of Elijah who is being persecuted by none other than Jezebel. He has been running away, on foot, for 40 days. He hides out in this cave and God stops by. First, there is a mighty wind, but that wasn't God. Then there is an earthquake, but God wasn't in that. Then lightning, thunder and other tremendous displays of power, but God wasn't in any of them either.

Nope, after that was over, God stood somewhere behind him and spoke to him, instead of this voice of many waters at once, God speaks to him in a still small voice.

All of this, the shaking mountain at the beginning of His covenant with Israel, this still small voice that Elijah hears are leading up to this moment of time when God doesn't have to conceal Himself to us anymore.

Both of those events, the still small voice, and the shaking earth, are symbolic prophecies about the change that happens when the path to God is restored to Him by God's own sacrifice for us, on the cross.

So the author of Hebrews says this: Your relationship with God is no longer this earth shattering fear and trembling. God is now able to change His method of relating to Him because of Christ.

It is still the same God. He reminds them that God is still the Creator of the universe, the consuming fire, a force that cannot be taken without reverence.

But God, who created you and me and every other person to have a personal relationship with Him has brought us into His family.

In chapter 11, he keeps referring to these people who trusted Him and had not yet received the promise of His own Holy Spirit dwelling in them.

So here, an huge change is marked off for us. We have not come to a mountain at cannot be touched, flames, fire, terror but:

Hebrews 12:22-24:

²²But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering

²³and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,

²⁴and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Finally, and I believe it is God who says it as well. Finally, you have come back to God. You are now in the place where God and you can abide in the same place.

He makes this reference to this sprinkled blood. In chapter 9, there is a reference to Moses, after sacrificing a bull, taking the blood of the bull, dipping an hyssop branch in it, and then sprays the crowd with that blood.

Thank God that we weren't serving Him at that time! Can you imagine?

We talked about that awesomeness and holiness of God. And Moses who couldn't see lest he die?

Did that make God happy?

No!

We talked about the privilege of birthright and how Esau didn't see it is important?

Think about the whole thing from this perspective.

The Creator God, the one who speaks and stars pop into existence.

This incredible God who authored all of this creation. This incredible God, who has always existed has a purpose in all of this creation.

And that purpose was to make us, humanity, people with the power to choose right or wrong, to choose good or evil, to choose to trust in Him, or trust in ourselves.

Us, every human, created by the Creator to have a relationship with Him, to be a part of His family, to come to Him.

As Dan said at our last Leadership team meeting, “The whole story of the Bible is this, God wants everyone back.”

And here it is. This blood of Christ that speaks better than the blood of Abel.

The Message says: “The murder of Jesus, unlike Abel's—a homicide that cried out for vengeance—became a proclamation of grace!”

We are talking about faith here. By faith in Christ, we make our way back into our birthright. We make our way back into our the family of God.

It is a privilege, a joy. It is restoration, reconciliation.

Now that the atonement has happened. God can be with man.

I don't know why. I don't know why it took that price to bring us back. But when I see the terror of that mountain, and now the invitation to family. I believe.

The Trouble With Trouble

Text: Hebrews 12:1-11

Focus: Discipline

Function: To help people trust God during rough times.

Form:

Intro:

I heard that Mother Theresa went through 20 years of what she called “the Dark Night of the Soul.”

It was a period of time where, although she was faithful to God, she had a hard time sensing His presence. Wednesday Morning, in my devotions, I read where Paul begged God to remove an affliction that he had for several years and God said to Him, “My grace is enough for you. When you are weak, I am the strongest.”

Isn't that odd? It is an upside down Kingdom that we belong to. The minute we start thinking that success in our Christian journey is up to us, we lose sight of God's power and work in our lives.

I love the way this passage describes holiness. The way this passage describes purity. The way this passage deals with our struggle against sin.

He calls it the sins that distract us, and then he talks about how God helps us overcome our own sin.

Sin is real. It is an offense to God. Sin separates humanity from God. Sin causes us to think only of ourselves, to rely solely on ourselves and to concern ourselves as to what is the best for ourselves instead of others.

So, let us look at the text. The first 4 verses speak about the confidence we gain from the faithfulness of the crowd of faithful who went on before us.

Last week we saw right from the beginning, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah. Those are the saints who existed right up until the 2^nd generation after the great flood.

In the eleventh chapter, he goes to to tell of people who, by faith, put armies to flight like Gideon, women who saw the dead raised back to life, Daniel who saw the mouths of lions stopped and so on.

These were people who saw God vindicate them and do tremendous miracles to defend them. But then he goes on to the people who didn't receive a miraculous deliverance. Some were stoned, some were, sawn in two, some were killed in cold blood and others wandered the earth.

The fact is, God is faithful to His children. But not in the way we would always imagine. God is interested in saving the entire of humanity. And God's plan for that works through us.

Those people in the 11^th chapter really didn't receive the promise, because the promise wasn't fulfilled until God Himself put on human flesh and walked with us.

Jesus is God who came to earth to draw us back into His family.

And now, we are His body on earth fulfilling that promise of God.

So, this passage says, He treats us in a special way. He treats us as His family.

And He tells us to set aside the sins that keep us from fulfilling that mission.

There is a lot of speculation about that term in verse one “the sin that clings so closely.”

The Message calls it, parasitic sins. Others say, the sin that entangles, the sin that wraps itself around our feet and trips us up, but the most preaching on it comes from the King James: “The besetting sin.”

I remember the first sermon I heard on that verse. It was so freeing. The preacher talked about the mystery that it seemed to him, and other believers who were mature and honest, that there seemed to be something in everyone's life that they couldn't get over. I have heard it all, people ask me about uncontrolled anger, uncontrolled lust, uncontrolled abuse of credit cards, uncontrolled use of alcohol or drugs, uncontrolled gossip, uncontrolled cussing and so on.

They ask me the question, “Pastor, if I can't overcome this sin, am I really a Christian?”

Remember, 1 John 3:6 says, “the one sins does does not know him.”

So, you can imagine my confidence in my Christian journey when this preacher spoke about the besetting sin. He preached, it is almost as if its a thorn in the flesh, something to remind us that we still, no matter who we are, need a savior. That doesn't mean it isn't sin any longer, and that doesn't mean that it isn't an offense to the Cross of Christ.

And God gives us a way out of it. Verse 2: Set your eyes on Jesus. The author and perfecter. He is the one who started it in you, and He is the one who will finish it. Consider Him who endured so much of a trial against sinners and don't lose heart.

I love that.

I remember being a new Christian and one day, I was caught up with God in my prayer time, just raising my hands in worship and loving Him when all of a sudden, I had a nicotine fit.

Immediately, I had a selfish craving that distracted me from my relationship with God. I hated it so I prayed that God would set me free from that addiction.

I was already a believer, but God had an area He wanted to bless me with, an area He wanted to mature me in. (Perfecter means finished, or mature).

So, as I was praying two scripture came to mind, the first was verse 4 from this text “you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.” and the second was “those who suffer in the flesh have ceased from sinning.” 1 Peter 4:1. Actually he introduces it with: “Since Christ suffered in the flesh arm yourselves with the same purpose.”

So, when the craving for a cigarette distracted me from my prayers the next time, I praised God that I too, was suffering in the flesh for Christ and immediately, the craving stopped.

I had no desire for tobacco for 3 days. Then the craving came again, and I rejoiced in the same way and immediately the craving stopped.

I still wonder if there was some sort of spiritual, even Satanic, compulsion behind that craving because after that, I was free.

Listen, focus on Christ and what He went through to reconcile us to God. As Peter says: “Arm yourself for the struggle against sin by taking up the same willingness to suffer that Jesus had.”

I was in Englewood yesterday at the city festival. There is a new church planting starting there. They were giving away a free I-phone. Of course, there is nothing free about it, you still have to pay the $30 or $40 per month extra for the data.

I thought, I guess you can't market a church with the sign, “Come here, take up your cross and follow Jesus.” And yet, Fox's Book of Martyrs speaks of people in the coliseum, watching Christians being tortured and killed for their faith who left the stands, accepted Christ and joined them because they saw the genuineness of a faith that lives sacrificially for others.

Jesus suffered for us in order to purchase our redemption, in order to bring us back into God's family.

So, does that mean that I no longer have sins, even certain sins that I struggle with?

No. I mean that prayer at the start of every sermon. It is private business between God, me and my confessors. And it is good to have a confessor, not your spouse, not someone of a different gender, but someone you can trust. It is Biblical: “confess your sins, one to another... ...that you may be healed.”

So, what is “The Trouble With Trouble?”

Well, let us jump down to verse 7-8: ⁷Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? ⁸If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children.

This is an obvious reference, except it is better than what we could ever do. He says, “our own parents disciplined us according to what seemed best to them, but God's discipline is perfect.”

Understand this, the consequence of sin for a believer is no longer judgment, but discipline.

A good parent never disciplines a child because to satisfy his or her ego. They never discipline a child to prove something to themselves, or out of retaliation for some sort of abuse that happened to them. Discipline isn't revenge, it is training.

When I think of the discipline my father gave me, I remember several deserved spankings. Boys in school wore their spankings at school as badges of honor to prove how tough they were. Neither parent could really hurt me. But the concept, the idea that I let them down, the idea that I missed the mark was what was more painful for me.

I was never afraid of the pain, but always afraid of not measuring up.

Because I loved my parents, I wanted to please.

God's discipline for us happens because He loves us and wants to be proud of us. His discipline is never for revenge, but always for our benefit.

But when we are in it, it doesn't feel good.

Mother Theresa' “Dark night of the soul” was very hard on her, but God was making sure that her work was about Him, not about her.

And the end result was amazing. I remember her looking a former President in the eye and pointing to the picture of a child in a womb and asking him if this child was human.

He had no answer.

I remember seeing her in San Francisco standing before the City Zoning board who were absolutely refusing a permit for an AIDS center because of pressure by other Christian groups who felt like it wouldn't help because they didn't have an active position against homosexual practice. She, as a representative of the poor and displaced brought an AIDS victim before them and asked them if this person was indeed, their neighbor.

Her discipline from God gave her a clear, keen sense of God's mission on the earth. And although she was one of the most famous saints of the 20^th Century, her focus was never on herself. It was always on the one she was serving because when she was serving the poor, she was serving Jesus.

She armed herself with the concept that her life belonged to Christ, not herself.

Jesus said, “in as much as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me.”

I went to hear Jim Wallis at Cedarville University last fall. He told the story of this simple woman who always showed up when they were getting ready to feed the poor in the line at a local soup kitchen. She would pray “Lord, in a few minutes, you will be coming through that door for a meal, help us to treat you well.”

There is something about suffering in this discipline that puts our perspective right with God.

When we have these times of trouble, they always remind us to keep our eyes focused on Jesus. God uses these times to remind us that He is God and we are “not God.”

I love the story of Jesus' temptation.

In Chapter 5, verse 8 of this book, the author says: “Even though He was a son, Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered.”

That doesn't mean that Jesus was ever disobedient. But training is important.

The word discipline doesn't always mean a punishment designed to correct a bad behavior. Scientists who study a particular subject study a discipline. Discipline is positive.

So Jesus was tempted as well. He was in the desert 40 days without food and there, God permitted the Devil himself to test Him.

So here is Jesus, in the Desert and Satan says to Him: “You are hungry, and if you are God, turn this stone into bread and eat it.”

And you know Jesus' answer: Say it with me: Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 8:3

Here is what that passage says: I placed you in the wilderness and I MADE YOU HUNGRY and then I fed you something you never knew before, Manna, so that you would know that humanity doesn't just live by bread, but by God's word.

Now what does that mean?

First off, when they cried out for bread, they were hungry. The same thing happened when they cried out for water. As a matter of fact, they had been 3 days without water, in the desert.

After 3 days, they had exhausted their provisions of water, and they were in the middle of a dessert. They had small children, older more feeble people, flocks of animals, again with young. There was no way they were going to survive this, unless a miracle happened.

Here they were, trusting the Word of God, and now they were in trouble.

If we didn't know better, we would say they were presumptuous and stupid for taking such a risk.

But they were obedient to God. God put them in this place.

Have you every been in a place that you know God wants you in and you don't see any way to survive it?

Are you there right now?

Here is Jesus, faced with the choice to either obey the devil's suggestion, which on the surface doesn't really seem so evil. It wasn't like the Devil was asking him to steal someone else's food. No one would be harmed by turning stone into bread. I am sure the stone wouldn't mind.

But God has called Him to this fast, and He is tempted to break the fast.

He is tempted to take care of the physical before the Spiritual.

He is tempted to place His wants and desires above the will of God.

Troubles are never easy. They can either take our minds off of our dependence on God, or cause us to lean on Him more.

So Jesus reminds the Devil that God made the people hungry before He fed them.

God was proving to the people that there are two kinds of lives for believers.

There is a spiritual life, and there is a physical life.

And if we want eternal life, we place the spiritual first.

So here we are. In a land of abundance. The abundance has diminished in the last few years.

For some, there is genuine trouble. A miracle needs to happen in order to just survive.

And it isn't easy during this time of waiting.

I keep praying, God, help us!

The trouble with trouble is, we don't receive discipline.

If we don't learn the lesson, and we are loved by God, then we are going to have to face it.

Hugh Norris, what a sweet man. In one sense, he lead a full life and then was blessed by God to suffer the effects of old age for only a little while.

One day he fell, and couldn't get up. He laid on the floor for over 10 hours until his son found him.

He went to the hospital for recovery and never got to return to his home.

It was sad. He kept saying to me: “I got myself into trouble.”

He thought the fall was his fault. It was almost like, “If I didn't get any older, I wouldn't have the problem with old age.”

These things are inevitable. Sometimes, the trouble comes because of our own sin and selfishness.

Sometimes, trouble comes because that is the nature of the universe.

But in either case, for the believer is this loving relationship with a perfect parent, God.

In every case, His work with us is for our good and His glory.

When we adopt the attitude of being His Children, living and working and representing Him, we find the kind of prosperity that Mother Theresa had. A prosperity of the soul that gives life meaning and that meaning extends into eternity.

CONCL:

Are you in trouble today? Do you need help? Do you need prayer? Do you need an anointing? Do you need to come to this altar, and place your burdens on the Lord and tell him that whether or not there is or isn't sheep in the pen and grain in the field, you will trust Him?

God’s Two in the Bush

Text: Hebrews 11:1-16

Focus: Faith

Function: To help people understand what great things happen when we partner with God.

Form: Bible Study

Intro:

I wrestled with titling this sermon either “God's Two in the Bush” or “How to Make God Proud of You.”

Obviously I choose the first because I don't think I can make God do anything. God has it figured out. He knows the end before the beginning starts. He doesn't force our actions, but He plans according to what He knows we will do. Remember, He sees the end at the same time He sees the beginning. That is why we can trust Him. That is why these men and women in our text trusted in Him.

I can't comprehend how God does it. If we were God we could comprehend how He does it, but we aren't and that is part of what makes Him God, and us “not God.”

We are talking about faith this morning and faith can sometimes be difficult.

Lee Stroebel in his book, “The case for faith” asks the question, am I a believer if sometimes I have some doubts?”

I think about this, if God sees the beginning and the end of every creature living on this planet, if God sees the eternal soul of every being that has a soul, if He knows every hair on our heads, every thought in our minds, every detail of our lives, things that we aren't even aware of, how does He do it?

How can He be that big? How can He be big enough to be personal with every single soul that chooses to trust in Him? When I think about that, I am tempted to doubt.

But then, I go outside and see the sunset. (SHOW) I imagine God painting the sky and saying to Himself, “I hope my children, right there on the West side of Dayton Ohio stop and look at this and remember Me because today, I gifted them with a beauty that will never be seen again.” My faith increases. Then night falls (SHOW) and I see the hugeness of the universe and I realize that God is bigger than even that. My faith increases more.

But sometimes doubt begins to creep in. Looking at those stars and the hugeness of the universe I wonder: “Doesn't that make God's job so much bigger?” How can God be that big?

So what is faith?

Does faith mean that we suspend our logical minds?

Does faith mean that we never ever have any doubts or questions?

Does faith mean a blind acceptance of something we cannot figure out?

Or is faith acceptance of something we cannot comprehend, but realize that it must be true?

Is faith logical or illogical?

The Message titles this passage with the words: “Faith in what is not seen.”

Vs 1 and 2 make it clear, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it, the ancients gained approval.

Faith, trust in God, brought them into a relationship with God.

(SHOW) Faith is trusting God. (Not just believing that He is.)

And yes, it was blind faith. Some of them never saw it until they died and went to glory.

Verse 6 tells us that it is impossible to have a relationship with God without faith.

Faith is trusting God, believing IN Him, not just believing that there is a God, but believing in Him.

But it does start with believing that He actually does exist.

Sometimes faith is blind, but it is never illogical.

Before the author of Hebrews goes into the litany of the great men and women of faith, and what they did, even though they didn't see the end result he shows us the first condition condition of faith. God does indeed exist.

During the age of modernity, science and religion argued the question: “Does God Exist?” With science only, neither side could prove it.

But if you add logic to science, believing in God does make sense.

Look at the text: (SHOW) ³By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see.

The first step to trusting God, is believing that He exists.

The universe was created, it didn't always exist.

I want to talk about this, again.

Because, on April 25, as I was preaching in the book of Revelation, I did an extensive teaching about the fact that God is the first cause.

FIRST CAUSE

The women in my house are nice to me. During dinner, I try to get feedback about my sermons, mistakes, faux pas, what they liked about it, and what they didn't like and they know that during dinner, right after the event, is not the time for helpful criticism. They just agree that it was great, and then switch the subject to another part of the worship service if they think that it was less than great.

And then, mid to late afternoon, I do hear relevant feedback from them. On April 25^th, both Kathy and mom said that I lost them.

During the sermon, I spent an extended time explaining from philosophy and science how faith in God is the most logical response to the questions: “Why are we here? How did this happen?”

(SHOW) God is the FIRST CAUSE.

I want to simplify it.

If you think about it, there are only two things that could be eternal: It is either Matter or God, the Creator.

The universe always existed was, or God always was and created the universe.

This relationship with God starts with the faith that we believe God created this whole thing.

Those who don't believe in a Creator will say that matter has always existed. So, when they try to answer the question about the science that demonstrates that the universe began some 9 to 20 billion years ago, they point to a beginning, the big bang. Their theory is that the universe expands and contracts in these 20 to 100 billion year cycles and when it contracts, it become infinitely small and infinitely dense.

And, since the universe appears to be expanding, then it does indeed look like it started at one point and therefore, it may not have been created.

Humanity always thought that the universe was created “in tact.” But recent science implies that it is expanding. And, if it is growing, then it seems that it had a starting point.

So, there are two choices out there for belief.

One, it started in this little quark that exploded into the universe as it is growing, or it was created.

I am not mocking science, every time I study science and the natural universe, I am amazed. Solomon said, (SHOW) “God delights in concealing things, scientists delight in discovering things”

Just as I picture God creating that sunset for us to enjoy, I realize that He has hidden His wisdom and power in this natural world we live in.

So, scientists can prove that the universe is expanding and they believe it has been doing that for 9 to 20 billion years. And God gave humanity the ability to search these things out.

And some may be wondering, but wait a minute pastor, by faith we believe He created the universe in 7 days.

Well, Genesis 1:1,2 states that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then, verse 3 begins the time when God created light, separated light from darkness, separated land from water, created plants, created animals and finally, He created man. It doesn't say that on the 1^st day, God created the heavens and the earth, it says He created light.

So before those seven days, the earth and the universe were already here.

And this passage of Hebrews is saying, if you are going to have a relationship with God, then you must acknowledge Him as Creator, the first cause.

By faith we believe that God created.... This is a statement of faith and it is much more logical than believing that matter always existed.

Because science points to a time when the universe began and it all started with this minute speck of material that is so incredibly dense that all of the universe comes out of it.

Science theorizes that the universe has natural laws and those laws change, every time a new universe explodes out of this small tiny bit.

What they understand is this, the universe has natural laws.

But they run into problems with logic when sometimes the laws contradict the theory.

Like, how did it all begin. Did matter just suddenly decide to be? And if matter is just minerals and atoms and molecules, how did they decide to exist?

It takes a lot of faith to believe that there isn't a Creator. As science gets more and more advanced, we discover just how incredibly complex the intelligent design of the universe is.

The other choice to believing matter is eternal, is to believe that something exists beyond natural laws. Because natural laws cannot confine infinity, or eternity. Something had to have always existed.

If natural laws is all there are, “hard science” as the TV Character “Bones” would say, then somewhere the natural laws were aborted and matter created itself. Something other than natural happened.

The good news is that we have a term for “other than natural.”

That term is Supernatural.

So, either the natural laws stopped for a moment and matter created itself, or a Supernatural being created it all. We call that being God.

Something has to exist that never had a beginning. It is either matter or God.

Matter does not have intelligence or supernatural ability, it can't create itself, or even imagine. So it must be God. It is the only thing that makes sense.

(SHOW) Faith in God is logical.

By faith, we believe that we are created beings.

That does not in anyway discount science, nor does science discount the Bible. The bible is a book that describes things in the spiritual realm, it wasn't intended to be a science book. I believe that the bible is without error in its original text, but it isn't a science book.

Unbelievers want to discredit it, but it is a spiritual book, explaining the Spiritual realms, the realms that exist beyond known science.

I had a guy argue with me that the bible cannot be true because Moses refers to grasshoppers as “insects.” He was a scientist, and according to him, everyone knows that grasshoppers are not insects. (I didn't know that).

I simply asked him, “Is Pluto a planet?” (You can chew on that).

Okay, enough of that. There is a God, a Creator.

(SHOW) When people believe in the Creator God, great things happen.

There was a further proof to this belief in God and that proof was the ways that God changed natural laws in miraculous or supernatural fashion, or convinced the hearts of men to do extraordinary things.

These stories, are what happens when people move beyond the belief that He exists into the realm of trusting God.

And it happens right at the beginning of humanity.

By faith, Abel offered a more pleasing sacrifice than his brother Cain. There is a lot of speculation about this. We know that Abel offered a blood sacrifice and Cain offered a grain sacrifice. Both sacrifices are eventually commanded in the OT law. The Bible says that it wasn't really this notion of a blood sacrifice as an atonement for sin, and the confession of sin that Abel offered. It says he offered it because he was a shepherd and Cain offered grain because he was a farmer.

Both men gave up something they needed for livelihood in order to demonstrate to God that they trusted him.

Jewish scholars say that the difference must have been that Abel gave his best lamb, and Cain gave rotten grain.

Peterson says, that the difference was that Abel trusted God and Cain trusted only in himself, so Cain's sacrifice was insincere.

Abel's sacrifice was by faith, a symbol of his faith.

Enoch, walked with God and was not, because the Lord took him. By faith he “walked with God.” There was something about his life that was obvious to everyone else, his relationship with God. And God loved him so much, that he went straight to heaven without dying. I love this statement about him. He walked with God and it was obvious to everyone else.

Noah. His heart breaks because he sees the unjust way that people treat each other and God's creation. He cries out about it. He sees people mistreating others, taking advantage of the poor and the weak and shares the same pain with God. So, God befriends him and in the middle of dry land, he builds the boat. He trusted God at God's word.

Abraham and Sarah, what a story! God tells Abraham to leave his home, his family and the security of living among relatives and to go “wherever” God tells him. I imagine his relatives thought he was crazy, but he listened to God. So did his wife. She became pregnant in her 80's. And yet, Abraham is promised by God to inherit this whole land, he told the story to Isaac and Jacob, and none of them actually received the land, but they trusted. They didn't receive it until 430 years after Jacob. But they never lost sight of God's promise.

Does that mean they never doubted? Abraham was afraid on two occasions and took to lying to save his own hide. Sarah laughed when the Lord told her she would have a baby in her old age.

And then she got pregnant. And Abraham defeated an army of 4 kings with just his own family and servants. These men weren't even warriors.

When it fell to it, they lived their lives by faith. They lived their lives trusting in God.

So, I started with the question: “Can me make God proud of us?”

And it is true, we can't make God do anything, at least in one sense but in the sense of a loving Heavenly Father, we do make Him proud when we choose to trust in Him and live by faith. Just as a teacher is proud of a student when the student has achievement, and parents are made proud of their children.

So why: “God's two in the bush?”

You know the proverb: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

It means that we should be satisfied with what we have. It also means that the process of capturing the two birds, ending up with three, may cause us to lose the one bird and the risk isn't worth it.

But faith is different from that. Faith is reaching out beyond our human ability, strength and expectations into the realm of what God wants to do and accomplish through us.

(SHOW) Remember, Jesus said: “I will always be with you, even to the end of the ages.”

It is a choice we make. Never despair of God's promises. Don't look at the circumstances and quit believing. Look at the size of God who is on our side.