God, Angels and Demons

Text: Isaiah 1:10-20

Focus: Justice

Function: To help us seek justice as a sincere form of worship.

Form: Story-telling.

Intro:

This is a scathing reproach of insincere worship. God hates it because although they claim to love God and are expressing it with all of their worship practices, they still do not love God enough to care for the poor. Justice is indeed a condition for salvation. And this morning, I am going to show you how.

In the first verse, he says “Sodom and Gomorrah.” He isn’t speaking to those ancient cites, because at this time, they are already ancient. They were destroyed almost a 1,000 years before the prophet shouts out these words.

No, he is speaking to their sinfulness. He is saying, you are about to face judgment. It is a warning. You will be condemned like Sodom and Gomorrah. Ezekiel 16:49-50 points it out this way: “…lived… …in the lap of luxury—proud, gluttonous, and lazy. They ignored the oppressed and the poor. They put on airs and lived obscene lives…”

In that list of sins against them, there is only one reference to their different bedroom practices, he says they: “…lived obscene lives.” When pleasure is god, then any pleasure is okay and the violence of same-sex rape seemed normal to them.

How about a little Halloween as we look at the forces of evil behind selfish living?

I remember one “fall party” we had at church. They wouldn’t call it Halloween. But we did let the kids dress up, as long as they dressed as Biblical Characters. So one kid, always kind of rebellious dressed up as Satan and got a couple of his friends to dress as demons.

What about the Devil? Did God create evil? Can God use evil?

Does God send, or allow, evil in order to accomplish His purpose?

Do we need to fear Satan?

How much power does he have?

Does God just barely beat him with the cross of Christ? Or did God overwhelmingly defeat Evil at the cross of Christ?

These are deep questions that theologians wrestle with.

But all we can really know is this: Evil exists. God hates it.

So what does this have to do with God rejecting the worship of the Israelites because they, as a nation, were not diligent about insuring justice?

In our passage this morning, God said that they needed to repent. The exact words: ¹⁶Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil…

We look at that verse, wash yourselves, be clean and we see the concept of moral purity. But the problem is, sometimes people stop right there and point fingers at the impurity of Sodom and Gomorrah and refuse to listen to the rest of the passage.

So Isaiah gives them a description of what repentance looks like:

¹⁷learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow

The greatest expressions of evil are manifested in the way the weak and the powerless are treated.

That is what God is saying. In the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers” the soldiers take the citizens of this German town into the death camp the Nazi’s set up. There is one scene where this man, a man like you and me, a baker, too old to be a combatant, stands in the midst of a pile of dead bodies looking at the American commander with this terrible look of sorrow that this kind of evil could have gone on, by his people, just a few miles from where he lived.

The greatest manifestations of evil are expressed in the way the weak and the powerless are treated.

There are three big sins in the OT.

I can categorize these three sins as 1), Lack of faith –a refusal to trust God and His promises 2). Idolatry and 3). Injustice –the lack of concern for the poor.

The Bible records a couple, a married couple, the king and queen of the Northern Kingdom who were poster children for this kind of evil. The queen was probably the most notoriously evil woman in the bible, Jezebel. She and Ahab did whatever they pleased without fear of God.

She had the prophets of God killed. She hunted Elijah for 3 years. She outlawed the worship of God, she had her husband board up the temple and the list goes on.

But her worse sin, the one that God killed her husband for is what she did to Naboth. Naboth had a beautiful vineyard right next to one of Ahab’s fields.

Ahab, wanted the vineyard for himself. No. He threw a fit because Naboth wouldn’t sell it to him.

So Jezebel hired a couple of other evil people to lie about Naboth in court. They lied that Naboth had cursed God, the same God whose worship she had outlawed. Naboth was sentenced to death, and she gave her husband the vineyard.

It was a classic case of this insincere worship. Claiming to defend the honor of God, she had Naboth murdered. It was a classic case of the abuse of power.

Naboth’s family mourned over the way Jezebel used Ahab’s signet ring to murder their loved one just because the king, who was wealthy beyond their imagination was so greedy that he just had to have Naboth’s vineyard for himself.

And God was angry with him and Jezebel. He sent a prophet and told Ahab that he would die and the dogs would lick his blood up in the very field he coveted, the field he coveted to the point of murder. And Jezebel would not be buried, not only would the dogs lick her blood, but they would also eat her body before she could be buried. And they both died just as God told them.

And how God managed to do that is fascinating. 2 Chronicles 18 tells the story of God, angels and demons.

God wants to kill Ahab to punish him and he wants Ahab to die in a nasty way, with his blood flowing over the vineyard that he stole from Naboth. He wants to kill Ahab because he didn’t care about justice.

So, the scripture gives us a picture of God in heaven, holding court and asking a question.

He says, “How can I entice Ahab into a battle that I have already decided he will lose?”

And a demon appears before God. The bible merely says “a lying spirit.” Well we know, that Satan is the father of all lies. This is one of his imps. And the demon tells God, “I’ll go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of his false prophets, promise him a victory so that you set him up to die. Listen, this is right there in the bible.

And the story unfolds. Ahab, the ruler of the Northern Kingdom and Jehoshaphat, the ruler of the Southern Kingdom are friends.

Ahab is a devout pagan. Jehoshaphat is a devout follower of God.

All of Ahab’s prophets are prophesying to him that he will win. One of them makes a set of iron horns and is running around his courtroom shouting that he will gouge his enemies with horns of iron. And remember, we know, that behind all of this is a demonic force. These guys are absolutely convinced that they are right. The feel it in their spirits.

Ahab is asking Jehoshaphat to help him with his troops as well and Jehoshaphat simply says: “what about a prophet from Jehovah? Has anyone consulted God’s prophet?”

As it turns out, Micaiah, the prophet of God. Ahab knows him, but he’s not on his list of favorites.

They call Micaiah. Before he goes in, the pagan prophets beg him to concur with them.

Micaiah is a true prophet of the Lord. He tells them that he will only say what the Holy Spirit leads him to say.

So he stands up, and he starts prophesying and he agrees with the pagan prophets.

And that is where it gets interesting. Ahab yells at him for not telling the truth.

Ahab knows his pagan prophets are lying to him. He knows that Micaiah is lying to him.

How?

This is a personal encounter between God and Ahab. Ahab knows that Micaiah is lying. He knows it in his heart.

God loves everyone. God has been trying to reach Ahab for years. It is just like the story of the Rich man and Lazarus from Luke 16 that we looked at a month or so ago. The rich man goes to hell because he refused to care for the poor man who was laid at his door. The rich man, in hell, asks Abraham to send someone to his brothers who also refuse to care for the poor.

Abraham answers him: “it has been right before you all for hundreds of years in the words of Moses, -that is the only part of the OT that the Sadducees followed- and the prophets, the part that the more conservative sect follows. It is throughout your writings, if you refuse to believe your own scriptures, then you will also refuse to believe, even if someone rises from the dead.”

Abraham says: If you won’t believe the Bible that God cares, a lot, for the poor, then you stand condemned.

Apparently, God has already spoken to Ahab about this. I am guessing that is why he wants Jehoshaphat with him. He knows the Jehoshaphat is a follower of God, and perhaps his presence will protect Ahab.

How does he know? Maybe a nightmare that God has been speaking to him and now the prophet puts flesh to his terror.

God killed Ahab for his lack of justice, He killed Jezebel for her idolatry.

What does this have to do with Isaiah 1?

God killed Ahab for this personal sin of coveting and acting on his covetousness by allowing Naboth to be murdered.

Ahab did a lot of evil things, but this is what God judged him for.

This is God’s passion for justice.

And our personal salvation is tied into this repentance.

Ahab knew the prophet was lying. He already knew. God had already been trying to reach his heart. So he asks Micaiah why he is lying and Micaiah explains the story we already spoke about, how God wanted to entice Ahab into a battle that God decided he would lose, allowing a demon to speak to his pagan prophets, and then to speak through Micaiah.

Micaiah says, “I saw your whole nation scattered like sheep without a shepherd because you were dead. And here is how God did it.”

Ahab throws Micaiah in jail for telling him this and promises to release him when he returns from battle. Micaiah tells him that if he returns, then he is indeed a false prophet. We don’t know what happened to him. Maybe he rotted in jail. Micaiah refused to preach a popular message, like the other prophets, he told the truth, from scripture. They didn’t like it, but that didn’t mean he would compromise God’s message to God’s people.

Isaiah, who writes our text this morning also had an hard time getting his message across. In the 10^th chapter, we read that he literally went around naked for 3 years, not even wearing sandals. When asked, he told them, if you don’t repent, you will be stripped naked and carried off as slaves. He gave them a visual message.

I have a pastor friend who is getting back into pastoral work after 7 years. He took 7 years off because he got beat up pretty bad by people who wanted control over the church. I told him, “But Wayne, when I was in Bible College, the promised us that if we were faithful to the Word, if we refused to compromise it, if we refused to preach a cultural adaptation to it, if we just said what it meant without fear, (and it says a lot about injustice), then God will automatically bless and grow the church.”

Wayne said, “apparently they didn’t read the story of Jeremiah who was continually thrown in jail, in a dry well, in a muddy well, kept on short rations.”

Now let us finish our scripture from this morning. Right after he finishes telling them that repentance is caring for the oppressed, the widow, the orphan he says:

¹⁸"Come now, and let us reason together," Says the Lord, "Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool. ¹⁹"If you consent and obey, You will eat the best of the land; ²⁰"But if you refuse and rebel, You will be devoured by the sword." Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

CONCL:

So why this fail? Why did these people, with the word of God so deeply embedded in their culture miss this?

As Jim Wallis says, it is impossible to read the Bible without seeing God’s concern for justice on both a spiritual and social level.

These people hadn’t seen the cross of Christ.

They hadn’t understood the lesson that Jesus taught us. He gave up the entire Kingdom of heaven, to lower Himself into an human body.

The bible says that Jesus , “Learned obedience through the things suffered.”

He was broken for us. He was broken and He calls us to pick up His cross and follow Him.

The lack of love for the poor, the abandonment of caring for the least of these, the selfish concept that the Church exists for the good of the members instead of the good of the world comes from the fact that we have not been broken. If we still think it is about us, then we have missed the point!

So, let us surrender ourselves as we finish this service.

Pride, Prejudice or Peace

Text: 2 Timothy 4:6-18

Focus: reconciliation

Function: To help believers forgive each other.

Form: Storytelling

Intro:

We have spent the last two weeks in the heart and mind of the Apostle Paul as he gives instructions to Timothy, his young charge and replacement.

He is near the end of his life, he knows he is going to die and in this last chapter of the letter, he is clearing up some personal items, he reflects on his life, and he worships God again.

I love this chapter, because it is a window into his very soul. It helps us understand preachers and what makes them tick.

Sometimes, we preachers like to swap funny stories of mistakes that we have made, or funny things that we have seen or done. My worse, was the first wedding I did. I decided to place the rings in the bible and pray over them. I was nervous and apparently I was rocking back and forth when the grooms ring rolled out of my bible, hit this little piece of carpet and rolled up to the shoe of the maid of honor.

I expected everyone to be praying with their eyes closed, so I got on my knees during the prayer and grabbed the ring off the floor, right under the bridesmaid’s dress.

Thank God that video cameras had not yet hit the retail market yet! I found out, my wife doesn't keep her eyes closed as well. I sure had some explaining to do!

There are funny things, and there are sad things.

A dear saint, and a retired preacher was in one of my churches. He would come two or three times a year to discuss his funeral arrangements. He was 96 when I buried him.

Preaching his funeral from this passage was important to him. “I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith… a crown is laid up for me.” He had such hope and yet his story was one of profound sadness.

The last time he was in Church while he was still breathing, we honored him with a plaque given to him and his wife by the Governor of Pennsylvania. The plaque commemorated his marriage of 75 years. What a testimony he had!

Unfortunately, this part of the story gets pretty sad.

His wife didn’t come to the presentation. She loved him very much, that wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t that she was too weak or feeble to come.

When I first came to the church, someone hinted that she suffered from depression.

But when I got to know my friend, and his wife, the story was much sadder. He wasn’t from our denomination, but he came from one that is pretty similar.

He enjoyed his pastoral work very much, and his wife was by his side. Until someone spread some gossip. Someone else took it a step further and blew an entirely innocent event out of proportion. He was falsely accused of infidelity.

That was the last time his wife went to church, 50 years before.

It was a great funeral, until… …Until the grandson of the man who made the false accusation stood up and tried to apologize. Except, he didn’t actually apologize for his grandfather’s actions, instead he explained that his grandfather had the person who distorted the first truth to blame…

It was a terrible, and untrue, scandal. But people love a scandal.

Now why do I bring all that up in this passage?

If you are a diligent student of the NT, you catch a name in this passage that might seem odd.

Paul praises some people, and criticizes a few others. He speaks of Demas, who, as “The Message” says, “got carried away by fads” and quit serving Christ.

He speaks of him as if his faith is like the seed planted in the rocky soil. It springs up, but the weeds do as well and it chokes out its effectiveness. He tells Timothy that he has assigned certain other people who worked with him to do some more work in other places. He is glad that Brother Luke, the author of Luke and Acts is still with him, taking care of him, even though he is in prison. He speaks of a pagan, Alexander, a man who made his living by making idols of the goddess Artemis (Or Dianna) of Ephesus. Paul’s message was threatening his livelihood and this man caused Paul a lot of trouble. If you have spent time in the NT, these stories are familiar to you.

But that isn’t the real scandal in this passage.

Paul says about Mark: “Bring him with you, for he is useful to me.”

I told the planning committees of the worship services that the theme would be: “Avoid self-righteous judging.”

Self-righteous judging doesn’t get us very far.

And in this case, Paul is the one who made the scandal up. But by the writing of this passage, he has repented.

The scandal? Well maybe not so much a scandal as a problem blown out of proportion. We know it’s over because Paul asks for Mark to help him. The scandal? Mark ran away. This is the same Mark of the gospel of Mark fame. He is the same young man referred to in Mark’s gospel who, in the garden of Gethsemane ran away the first time and the soldier was left hanging on to his robe.

Mark wanted to be God’s man. He was with the apostles from early on, since he joined the 12 when they went to the garden. He knew everyone and he wanted to be a part.

More than that, he was called by God into pastoral ministry.

So, when Paul and Barnabbas went on their first missionary tour, Mark, who was young at the time convinced them to let him go along.

And in the middle of the trip, he got homesick, abandoned them, and went home.

This left the Apostle Paul very angry.

And I guess I can see why. Paul is much older, he has already been beaten, persecuted, hunted down and attacked for his faith. Mark, being younger would have seemed to have more stamina, strength and endurance. Apparently, in Paul’s opinion, young Mark didn’t have the dedication. He was a quitter.

And that is important. Remember, throughout this book, and this month we have been looking at the sacrificial call that God has placed on our lives.

And apparently Paul is impatient. His attitude is understandable: “If I can do it, why can’t he?”

Maybe Mark thought he would get a bigger role in the ministry, or maybe he had a young bride back home, or if he wasn’t sure of his calling and commitment.

We don’t know why he quit. All we know is that when it came time for the second trip, Barnabas wanted to give young Mark a second chance and Paul refused. And they disagreed so heatedly, that they parted company and went their separate ways.

I want to ask God why he doesn’t just miraculously touch the hearts of Christians. They both had the best interests of the Kingdom in their minds. Why God doesn’t’ just touch them with love, or regret, or sorrow or repentance and change their hearts so we don’t have to go through this pain.

Why did God let my friend be falsely accused? Didn’t God know the damage that it would do to his wife?

Why? Why does God let these men of God who have given everything to serve him suffer persecution at the hands of other believers? Isn’t persecution from unbelievers enough?

I take heart in this. Church conflict is nothing new.

And yet the story, at the end of Paul’s life is this: “Bring Mark to me; he is useful to me.”

Paul and Mark have reconciled.

Maybe, sometimes, only time can heal. But then, there are sometimes when time just seems to make things worse. What is the difference? I guess, if we don’t learn the lesson from God, we are doomed to repeat it until we do.

Here is something even more significant in the story. It is Barnabas. Again, if you are familiar with the stories of the NT, you will remember that Paul started out as Saul, and he was persecuting Christians. He was on the way to the city of Damascus to arrest Christians and bring them back to trial in Jerusalem. On the way, the Lord appears to him and he is converted.

The problem was, he was one of early Christianities biggest enemies. And now, he is one of them and they have the same brains and suspicions as we do. They didn’t trust him.

So Barnabas sticks his neck out, vouches for Paul and gets him an audience with the rest of the apostles. Barnabas has a “second chance” and forgiving nature. As a matter of fact, Barnabas has a nickname given to him by the church: “Son of encouragement.” What a great name! Wouldn’t that be a great thing to have written on your tombstone?

So Barnabas has this generous forgiving nature. It is different from Paul’s “get ‘er done nature.” Both are necessary. And for many years, they were very effective together.

In Acts 15, where we hear about the split between them, the Chapter starts out with the two of them partnering together before the Council of Jewish Christians to convince them about a way to keep division from happening between the Gentile believers and the Jewish believers. They worked well together until someone’s pride and prejudice got in the way.

Maybe Paul was proud of his commitment and in a self-righteous way, judged Mark for not being as committed. Maybe he was prejudiced against him because Mark was Peter’s nephew.

What we do know is this, Paul exaggerated the significance of Mark’s homesickness.

Paul made a mountain out of a molehill. He’s a quitter! I can hear him shouting at Barnabas.

And I can hear Barnabas, gently, in return saying, “but Paul, God is a forgiving God!”

And finally, years later, Paul has forgiven him.

What does it take for believers to reconcile?

Why doesn’t God just take away the feuding?

Do we see the danger of gossip? Do we see the danger of saying things, even true things about others in order to bolster our own importance? Why can't people just accept the fact that we are still far from perfect?

Paul exaggerated the significance of Mark’s homesickness.

I find a clue in that. The clue is exaggerating the significance of someone else’s sins.

Jesus said, “Do not remove the mote in your brothers eye because you have a log in your own eye.”

Well, again those who have studied it hard know I manipulated that. It says, don’t try to remove mote when you have a log… …first remove the log from your eye.

For me, the solution is real simple: I have enough to worry about myself, and my own relationship with God, and the purity and sincerity of my own heart to worry about judging someone else’s motives, purity and relationship with God.

I had this guy in a church who was one of the worse singers I ever heard. But man, did he have a heart for worship! He would stand behind me, and just shout out the praise choruses way off key. But it didn’t bother me it truly was: “a joyful noise!”

So I asked him to testify about why he enjoyed the singing so much.

And instead, he gave 10 minutes on why everyone who wasn’t as excited as him probably wasn’t even really a Christian.

Afterwards, proud of himself, he asked me what I thought. I avoided answering him until later in the week when the significance of the moment wasn’t so big in his mind.

I told him that to judge others sincerity was a sin. I quoted the scripture about the log in your eye and the mote in your brothers and told that it means, you will never be perfect, so you have no right judging the sincerity of others.

I love the way that passage is worded in “The Message” ^1-5 "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.

I want to be more like Barnabas than Paul.

So what is the solution? Be like Barnabas, the son of grace, the son of encouragement. We need it now more than ever.

Preserving the Missionary Call

Text: 2 Timothy 3:10-17

Focus: Sacrificial living

Function: To help people refocus on Missionary call

Form: Expository

Intro:

Last week we saw how, when we are focused on Christ, we have a missionary call.

This week, we are looking at how easily we can be distracted from our calling.

The missionary call is a call to avoid the distractions presented by the culture around us and persevere in our real calling.

Paul is in prison and he is trying to keep Timothy focused on his job.

So he tells him to watch out for distractions that come in easily, that are very powerful and are issues that can easily get us off mission.

The way I see it, from this passage, there are three:

Through the selfish interests of others. 2). through persecution from others, and 3). Through inattention to scripture.

Avoiding these three distractions, can help us preserve Jesus' command to prove love our neighbors with at least the love we have for ourselves with the Missionary call, the great commandment.

So look at these distraction. THEY ARE REAL. And when we are experiencing them, they seem to be all important to us. But we need to see them for what they really are.

When I say they are real, I mean they are well crafted.

A few weeks ago, I finished the book Ezra in my morning devotions.

They had political battles among the people living in the land when they were trying to rebuild Jerusalem.

Their enemies were clever. They contacted the king, reminded him of how rebellious previous kings in Judah had been and scared him into thinking that he had to do something about it.

The king, being far away, sent a letter back to the people who lied to him, thanking them for warning him and ordered the Israelites to stop rebuilding the temple and the walls to Jerusalem.

So the Jews were just as clever, and when the next king came into power, they sent their own letters showing how the government had proposed to rebuild the temple, in order to bring back the blessing of God and the next king ordered it to be rebuilt. They only had to wait 20 years. And the temple was finished.

Distractions are clever and sometimes they work. Sometimes they stop the people of God from accomplishing the will of God.

And God is completely sovereign, even over distractions.

Half the time, they are a test, to see if we will trust God.

It isn't a test to prove us false, but tests designed to bring us blessing as people who are courageous enough to walk by faith.

So the first two distractions that Paul warns Timothy about come from outside sources.

The first is the selfishness of others.

My dad used to tell me, all the time, when I first went into Christian ministry. He would say: “Son, just because you are working with Christian people, it does not mean that you are always working with Christian values, convictions and principles. They, just like you, are still sinners. Be quick to forgive and as a pastor, try to lead them into what God is doing in their lives.” In other words, don’t be offended by the sins of others, even when it becomes personal. It is a distraction.

He was right. But at times, you can’t work around the selfishness of people. Sometimes, people don't want to be led, they want to be justified, even when they are wrong.

Paul warns Timothy about just how they have infiltrated the Church and how as time comes closer and closer to the end, it will get worse.

Listen to vs. 1-6 from the Message: ^1-5Don't be naive. There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God. They'll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they're animals. Stay clear of these people. ⁶These are the kind of people who smooth-talk themselves into the homes of unstable and needy women and take advantage of them…”

The core problem is “self-absorbed.:”

And it really distracts us from the Missionary call.

It isn't what God called us to do in the Church.

It isn't what God called Timothy, the pastor, to do with the Church.

Paul’s advice: “Don’t give into this problem.” “Timothy, don’t fall to that level.”

I have often thought that if people are using their gifts, sacrificially obeying Christ and doing Kingdom work, they won’t to fall into that trap.

Let me tell you a story. It is ridiculous, and sadly, it is completely true

One day, I get a call in my office from a woman from another Church. It almost made me to not want to publish my office hours.

“Pastor Reynolds, are you the pastor of NOT THIS CHURCH?” She asked.

I told her yes. She told me that her pastor suggested I call her for some advice.

Apparently, this woman’s church had switched from Mission mode, to Maintenance mode. In maintenance mode, all the pastor is called to do is to: “take care of them.” In mission mode, the job is to lead them into doing the great commandment.

She was stuck in maintenance. She thought it was all about her.

I asked her how I could help her.

She told me she was from another similar congregation and that one of my parishioners, she named him, was her next door neighbor.

She asked me if I could get him to stop using loud profanity in his back yard because his actions were so unchristlike.

If she could have seen me, she would have seen a confused twist of my lips. I knew the man had a temper, but he was raised very plain Mennonite and his family were some of the gentlest people I knew.

I asked her if she knew why he was swearing so loudly in his own back yard.

She told me he was swearing at her dogs. I asked her why. They barked. It happened every time he tried to enjoy his back yard.

He had a nice back yard.

Through the course of the conversation, I found out that she moved the dog kennel to the corner of her garage, right across the driveway from his back deck. She moved it because her dogs barked all the time and it annoyed her and her family.

I asked her why she was asking me for help.

Her answer was the she had went to him personally, and now, according to Luke 18, and her own pastor's advice, she was bringing it before the leaders of the Church.

She said it didn't make a difference that she was Mennonite and I was Brethren, there really is only one Church.

I asked her if her pastor really told her to talk to me.

I gotta warn you, when someone comes to me with the problem of “someone else’s sin” I am generally suspicious when someone comes to me with someone else’s sin. I remind them that there is nothing them and I can do about someone else. I always play the part of pastor and lead them into how they are responding and what attitudes do they need to correct in light of Christ.

So, I replied with the scripture, “As much as is possible within you, live at peace with all men.”

You know where this is going.

I asked her if that scripture meant anything TO HER about how she could solve the problem.

She hadn't a clue. Finally, I gave up and told her right out, “why don't you move your barking dogs, away from your neighbor’s deck, because that would be a fulfillment the verse.”

Of course, she had her rights to her own property, and the right to put her dogs where she pleased.

So she told me, “well, I am going to tell him I talked to you.”

And I said to her, “If he asks me, I will give him permission to swear at your dogs as long has he doesn't take the name of the Lord in vain.”

To which, she hung up the phone. Of course, I didn't tell him to cuss her dogs out. He never asked and she never moved the dogs.

Selfishness distracts Kingdom work. Did Jesus ever intend for pastors to be taking sides over such petty issues between believers? Or, does Jesus want us to lead people into faithfully responding to the great commission?

The Church has done itself a disfavor. It has allowed people to become selfish. It has fallen to the level of the culture that keeps up its marketing scams, that tell us we deserve bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger appetites, and smaller bodies. The selfish attitude of our culture tells us that more is obviously proof of God's blessing. But it isn't.

Listen to these words from Jesus to the Church culture that has a self-absorbed attitude instead of a servants heart. To a church that maintains itself instead of following the missional call:

Revelation 3:To Laodicea

¹⁴Write to Laodicea, to the Angel of the church. God's Yes, the Faithful and Accurate Witness, the First of God's creation, says:

^15-17"I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You're not cold, you're not hot—far better to be either cold or hot! You're stale. You're stagnant. You make me want to vomit. You brag, 'I'm rich, I've got it made, I need nothing from anyone,' oblivious that in fact you're a pitiful, blind beggar, threadbare and homeless.

¹⁸"Here's what I want you to do: Buy your gold from me, gold that's been through the refiner's fire. Then you'll be rich. Buy your clothes from me, clothes designed in Heaven. You've gone around half-naked long enough. And buy medicine for your eyes from me so you can see, really see.

Second distraction: Persecution. This also happens from external forces.

Look at verse 12: ¹²Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

ALL. Expect it. It is proof of being faithful.

He mentions city after city where he was persecuted.

Persecution comes from 2 sources: The first source is unbelievers.

And sadly, it comes from those believers who are still selfish.

So go back to the lady and the dogs.

I guess I should have been grieved, but the selfishness of that woman was so blatant that my cynical side took over and I found her actions to be so incredibly childish and self-righteous that it was amusing. You can either laugh, or cry about that kind of behavior. I chose to laugh.

I told Kathy what I said: “If he asks me, I'll tell him he has my permission to swear...”

And I admit, sometimes my sense of humor gets me in trouble because it offends people, especially people like my wife who are pretty black and white thinkers.

And Kathy said, “but what if she reports back to the head deacon, or chairman of the board here? Won't you get in trouble? How will you explain that you didn't mean it, you were just showing the lady that she needed to repent of her dogs annoying her brother in Christ and do something about it herself?”

I said to Kathy. Here is the problem with believers who are self-absorbed. They are so busy acting like Christians that they forget to act like Christians. She was so upset about the language, because that was a provable sin in the life of her neighbor, that she refused to look at her own sin of inconsideration. Her sin that was legitimately upsetting her brother in Christ.

All of this. Her wasting my time with a petty dispute that she was in complete power to change. But more than that, her wasting God's time with a petty dispute against her brother in the Lord is a complete distraction to the mission. Was she right? Should her Christian neighbor stop cussing loudly in her backyard?

Of course. She had legitimate proof of his sin.

But in whose eyes was she justifying herself? Certainly not in the eyes of God.

She has the log in her eye while trying to remove the mote.

If she would have just stopped and remembered that she is left here on this planet because God has a job for her to do and that job is about preparing her family, and herself doing God's work in bringing the lost to Christ, the issue with her neighbor would have been changed.

We get distracted by issues. At the time, they seem huge. From her perspective, this so called Christian man was using foul language in front of her children and she, as a good Christian mother should, needed to protect them. How could she explain to her kids that it is sometimes okay for believers to speak like this?

In the process of educating her kids, it was important to her to change his behavior.

She had convinced herself that her behavior and cause were just. And the reason was because she was refusing her missionary call. She was refusing to live for Jesus. She was more interested in justifying herself than doing the work of the Kingdom. THAT IS WHY I AM SUSPICIOUS OF PEOPLE COMPLAINING OF THE SINS OF OTHERS.

And quickly, the third distraction is in abandoning scripture.

Paul says, The Word of God is inspired. It is here to reprove, rebuke, teach and train.

Inspired literally means: “God breathed.”

For this woman, it was only God breathed when it justified herself not when it reproved or rebuked herself.

And this is the role of the pastor. To be able to learn, and live this book, as the God's breathed revelation of Himself, His passion and His desire to His pastors and leaders.

This is a call to Pastor Timothy. Use this book. In it you will be able to teach and train, and if necessary, you will be able to reprove and rebuke.

I hate those last two jobs, but sometimes it is necessary and I don't shrink away, not matter what it costs me. As God said to Moses, Choose leaders who fear me more than the people so that they will be faithful. I try the same thing.

And, if we forget the principles and their importance, we will allow others to be distracted.

I saw a comic. A rich couple were coming out of a beautiful church. She was wearing a fur robe, he had a top-hat. She said to him: “That preacher is pretty good at not offending us while he is preaching that book.”

The comic, in the New Yorker magazine implied that he should have been offending them.

I remember a man in my church, who was paid staff, but a lowly position being offended at the Board Chairman. The Board Chairman had a business, a struggling business, but he employed 5 people, 2 of which also attended the Church. The staff member was poor and for some reason, never lucky enough to get out of it. These men were at odds with each other, and it was a real case of class prejudice, the poorer class judging the class that was not poor.

He came to me all excited and wanted me to correct a great sin in the Church. He told me that heard the board Chairman's son talking about a beer commercial he saw in such a way that validated the drinking of beer.

What was I, the boy and his father's pastor going to do about it? After all, it was my job to rebuke the boy and the father.

I told him to mind his own business, the sins of others were not his problem, he had a history of distrust with the man and his motives for coming to me were suspect.

I used the scripture that Love means we believe the best, not the worst about one another and that he should repent.

You see, Satan wants to distract us from legitimate calling and mission with other issues.

And the man of God, knows and uses the Word of God as it applies to his individuals congregants in their own context, not in their concern for others.

This pettiness will cease when we focus on our mission.

Focused on Jesus, the Missionary Call

Text: 2 Timothy 2:8-13

Focus: Jesus Example for us.

Function: To help people embrace, go along with, the sacrifice of Christ Jesus

Form: GOK

Intro:

A good friend of mine attended a Bible study that I lead in Bible College. He was an artist. God called him to leave his home, move to Quito Ecuador where he managed the print shop for radio Station HCJB.

In that position, he complete the life-work of Jim Elliott. Jim Elliott was also a missionary to Equator. He went with his companion up a long river to a tribe that had never heard about Jesus before.

In their attempts to just meet the tribe, when the tribal leaders offered some of their women to them as a token gesture of friendship, and they refused, the tribe snuck into their camp and murdered them.

Elizabeth Elliott, his wife, instead of burying her head in sorrow, getting angry with God, letting grief overtake her life, letting fear of the people who murdered her husband went back to the tribe, preached Jesus to them and many of them accepted Christ.

My friend was assigned the management of the project whereby their language was first translated into English, then it was given written words based on the English character set. The written language was taught to the people, and then, the Bible was translated and they have the opportunity to see God's revelation of Himself in the written word.

The project, from beginning to end spanned two lifetimes, 2 generations.

Some of them suffered hard. Some of them studied hard and participated in work that would seem pretty boring to a person like me. Some of them lost their lives. And no one, no one, considered the project worthless, the lives that were sacrificed for the sake of the gospel as having been wasted or any of the effort to be in vain.

These people were true martyrs, and heroes of the faith.

Not only did they bring Jesus, but they also brought better agriculture, better medicine and shored up the lives of families.

And beyond that, my friend tells me of the cultural exchange. The beauty of the people that he got to know and work with. He incorporated their art and the fabric of their culture into the teaching and work. It wasn't just a mission to turn a pre-industrial culture into a Western culture. These people were highly civilized, but not in our fashion. But they brought a relationship to Christ Jesus to them.

What if you were Jim Elliott's mom and dad? What if you were Elizabeth Elliott?

What drives people to give their lives to God and to make that kind of sacrifice?

When Christians have done so much for God and lived such sacrificial lives, what does that say about us?

When I was 13, I heard a message given to your based on Isaiah 1. God is calling out to the heavens and the earth with a plea. God says: Who will go? Whom can I send? And Isaiah answers: “Here I am God, send me.”

I responded to that message and came home. I told my dad God called me into mission work. Dad said, “no one gets called into mission work without having a place God has called them to.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but dad was asking me to ponder: “Missions, or Service to God.”

I didn’t know where, I just knew I was called, and the only foreign place I knew of, where missionaries gave their lives in service was Haiti. My youth pastor was raised on the mission field in Haiti and I heard all kinds of stories, some terrible, some wonderful, about life in Haiti, and sacrificial service to Jesus.

So, when I went to bible college, it was clear that Pastoral ministry was the track I was to take. I talked to the department head and he said this to me, I will never forget it, he was quoting Keith Green when he said: “In Matthew 28 Jesus said go. He said that to everyone. It isn’t whether or not you are called to missions, it is whether or not you are called to stay behind. “Phil” he said, “Phil, this land needs pastors who will lead people into sacrificial lives where they stop focusing on themselves and start focusing on Jesus. There is a mission field right outside the door. There is a mission field downtown in this city where people are just as desperate as they are in Haiti. You, You respond to God’s call to go, and leave the place up to God.

A few weeks ago, Ruth Woods, from Ladies aid said this to me: “Pastor, my grandson left the service of this world to join the kingdom of God. He studied and is now in L.A. starting a church. One of his parishioners needs a kidney. He got himself tested and they found him to be a match and now he is giving a kidney to God.”

Elizabeth Elliott’s husband was killed, she spent her life in the jungle, my friend, Mike gave up the comfort and security of his job here in the United States as a graphic artist to raise his kids in a foreign land and continue that work. Ruth’s grandson gave his own flesh in service of the Kingdom.

If these saints, people just like you and me, not people in ancient biblical times, but people who live in our own lifetimes can live such sacrificial lives, then why do the petty things about our own comfort, and who looked at us funny, and how our needs aren’t being met.

It isn’t about us. Paul says, Remember Jesus Christ…

I don't know how you feel about it, but when I see people like that, it seems to me that the things that I get angry and upset about are pretty petty.

Why follow this missionary call?

Focused on Jesus.

That is what Paul is talking about.

When his life is over, and they write on his tombstone, he wants this phrase: Jesus Christ, raised from the dead.

This is the command, this is the call: Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead.

Jesus Christ, raised from the dead is His gospel.

He is chained for good news. And he says: God's word reveals Jesus. He is chained for the gospel, but God's word is not chained. God’s word, not chained. Gospel=God’s Word.

God's word is good news. When I think about guys like the one who wanted to burn the Quran, or the church that says it is standing up for God's word and is abusing people are funerals, I think, apparently, they haven't read this verse.

Then we move into one of the first praise choruses recorded in Christian history.

This early Church was being persecuted. Many were killed and hunted down by the Romans, just because they believed in Jesus.

And these songs reminded them of how great and faithful God is.

This song is both a warning, and a call to remain faithful.

They were comforted with this song.

And the whole things starts with a condition. The whole song is 4 If, Then statements. If we die, we live, if we suffer, we reign, if we deny, we will be denied, if we lose heart, he won’t.

If we died with him is the beginning condition.

I loved the way Ruth Woods started her statement to me: “My grandson left the service of this world to join the Kingdom of God.”

From the King James Version, If we be dead with him.

Paul said: “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live...”

When we move into that role of being crucified with Christ, we move into that role of privilege that the rest of this hymn proclaims.

If we share His death, we share His life. If we endure, we reign. If we deny, we too will be denied, but when we lose faith, He is faithful, He will help us through.

We are His body. We are His. We are His to encourage, strengthen, redeem, lead, feed, comfort, empower, equip and use.

This Hymn. Keep the faith. Don’t stop. Remember the reward. Don’t quit. And trust Him to give you the strength.

I hired a youth pastor. I told him the first day that he worked for me. “If it is up to me, you will not fail in this job.” I am here to give you whatever support, grace, forgiveness, help, encouragement, and personal discretion that you need in order to fulfill your duties to God’s family.

What I didn’t say was: “This is me, my style, my expectations, my performance standards and since you work for me, you have to adapt.”

In that last line, Jesus is saying the same thing to us. “I am here to encourage and equip you. And when you run out of gas, or ideas, or hope, or even faith, I promise to be there to assist, with my miraculous power, in your weaknesses. Just don’t quit on me.” It isn’t membership, because membership implies the privilege that the club is there to serve you. It isn’t just a partnership, because that is still a contract. This is family. More than family even. This is our body. When the knee joint doesn’t work right, we don’t cut off the leg, we go down to Dr. Poe and get it fixed right up.

During that time, we are in pain. During that time, the entire body suffers. During that time, the other bodies around us love us and are willing to help us.

So what about that denial. What about that “Just don’t quit on me?”

Think of where the Children of Israel would have been had God had not encouraged Moses when we wanted to quit on them, when his leadership caused them to endure tremendous risks and change.

Think of where the Children of Israel would have been if Moses hadn’t encouraged God, when God got tired of the way they abused Moses, or refused to have faith in Him.

If we are faithless, He is faithful. If we are faithless to Him, He remains faithful to us. If we don’t have faith, it isn’t His fault.

TLB: ¹³Even 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.

The Cost of Discipleship

Text: Luke 17:1-10

Focus: Being willing to serve

Function: To help the congregation focus on God instead of themselves.

Form: Bible Study

Intro:

I love the way the NRSV introduces this passage with the heading: SOME SAYINGS OF JESUS.

Most often, they translators put these things in there to help us find passages when we are flipping through pages looking for something.

But, there is no category here.

5 Things, in just a 10 verses:

1). Be careful what kind of example, or what temptations you give to others, because God is very concerned about the safety and security of Children. (nuff said)

2). Be careful about allowing sin. If someone sins, rebuke them. Again, God cares about the example we set. (repentance and quickness to forgive)

3). If someone sins against you, keep on forgiving, even 7 times a day. (you must forgive)

4). Have faith (you can't manufacture it -mustard seed)

5). The Cost of Discipleship. (rewards for ourselves? Or for God?)

In one sense, none of it sounds related, but it isn't unrelated at all.

The shoes up front, are here to remind us from the scripture, How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who share good news.

Did you ever hear of the missionary who spent his entire life serving in China. He is sailing home from overseas and he finds out that the President is on his same ship.

When they land at NYC, there is a band and a crowd and cameras and reporters. When he finally makes it down the gangway, the crowds are gone and he is alone. No one notices him.

He spends the night in a dingy hotel and begins to feel sad because no one was there to greet him.

And in prayer, he is questioning God about it, asking God when it is his turn. And God says to him, “you aren't home yet?”

That Missionary was reminded of the last part of this scripture. No servant, after spending the day serving the master in the field comes into the house and hears the master say, thanks, take it easy, good job today, you deserve a break and I'll serve you. No the servant continues to do his job, after bearing the brunt of the workload, doesn't get his rest until the master is served.

Jesus is talking about the cost of discipleship.

They are all related. The servant is to keep himself as an example toward others. Remembering the importance of the salvation of others in the eyes of God. He doesn't want us to think that this is about us, getting our needs met, that people are here for us. No, the servant of God lives for the welfare of others.

Then he deals with sin in two places. Sin in others and sins committed against you.

In both of these, he calls us to be leaders.

First in those who are sinning. We are to exhort them to change, and be quick to forgive them. Leadership in purity, and leadership in forgiveness. And remember, the goal is repentance.

Then, the leadership in forgiveness is taken very personal. If he sins against you 7 times a day, and comes back 7 times a day, keep on forgiving that person.

Can we do that?

I love a book I studied in Bible College that was based on this entire passage. The title? “Have we no rights?”

The Author's point, we gave our lives to Christ and to His cause. We become soldiers in His army. And the commander, for the greater cause of the mission, uses both equipment and personnel in order to gain the objective. The soldier gives his rights over the the cause. The same with us.

Then faith. Faith isn't something we manufacture. When we are in the midst of service, being faithful, God supplies the faith. We act on it, but we don't create it. God gives us this partnership to take risks with Him.

And again, He ends with the point: “It isn't about you.” We serve the Master. It is about Him.

Here is how to tell a spiritual person in the Church. It is about Jesus, they are quick to forgive, they lead people into doing the right thing, they care more about Jesus' glory than their own.

What does this have to do with Love Feast?

In the Love feast, Jesus is inviting the disciples into His circle. He knows that they are going to be famous leaders. He knows that except for Philip, every one of them will die for their faith. So He stops them with the cost of discipleship.

Servanthood.

It is expressed in two ways. They eat together, a sign of equality. They, washing their feet. This is a symbol that they truly do live to serve each other instead of being served.

Then he shared the bread and wine with them. He excuses Judas. Judas will die but not for Christ. He will die for the inability he has to forgive himself, to accept the price that Jesus paid for him