The Christmas Feeling

…sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. 2 Cor 6:10

It was Christmas Eve. My two sisters and I were wound up and expectant. We were seven, six, and four years old; I was the middle one. Anticipation of the next day and the gifts it would bring made us giddy. We put our heads on the pillows because Christmas could not come until we slept through the night. Warm bodies in jammies twitched with delight as we giggled ourselves to sleep. It was the Christmas feeling.

With a little nostalgic daydreaming, I can resurrect the Christmas feeling. My heart speeds up, senses come alert, and excitement chases away sadness. The Christmas feeling—it has to be the closest thing to the joy of anticipating the incredible inheritance we have in Christ. It is just ahead, right after the night of this life. We are not there yet. We have yet to wake up and race to the tree. Nevertheless, we know our gifts are there, waiting. We have seen the colorful wrapping, shaken the boxes, and made our best guesses. Our imaginations run wild. The Giver dropped clues that whatever is inside will be wonderful beyond description. Somehow, we have to get through the night. However, what is one short night when all that blessedness waits under the tree in paradise?

Paul, I hear you when you speak of sorrow and poverty, but I also hear you talk about rejoicing, being rich, and possessing everything. I know exactly what you mean. We are not there yet. We still have bills, illness, and unsaved loved ones. Yet we are bursting with anticipation of tomorrow morning. Each eternal present, sitting right now inside those boxes in heaven, already has our name on them; they are our possessions. We are happier than happy at the thought of unwrapping them. We have the Christmas feeling, and this is no Santa Clause story—it is the real thing.

Prayer: Lord, tonight as I think about what I have in You, I will giggle myself to sleep.

Holy Passion

Who is this coming up from the desert
like a column of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh and incense
made from all the spices of the merchant? Song 3:6

Life under Adam’s curse grows wearisome. Even as a born again, Spirit-filled believer I sometimes feel pinched down. There is much the Christian must attend: honor God, love others, cling to grace, remain humble, maintain purity, practice discipline, avoid excesses, yada, yada, yada. It is all rather like firing round after round through the barrel of a gun. Every shot must be powerful and on target, but each one leaves a microscopic residue inside the bore. Eventually the whole rifle must be dismantled and cleaned back to gleaming perfection. Failure in this maintenance causes jams, poor aim, and misfires.

The thing that dismantles and cleans me is passion. Not all the time, not everyday, but occasionally my inner being needs to be taken apart and wiped down with ecstasy over Jesus. I have to experience Him as more than an historical entity. I need to freeze in my tracks and gasp at the sight of Him thundering across the desert to my rescue, eyes enflamed with zeal, smiting enemies on every side, stunningly handsome, and smelling of a jungle of Hawaiian-ginger. This is my Jesus, the champion of my soul, as fierce upon His enemies as he is joyful over my love.

It is good from time to time to remember whom I serve. There is a rhythm to life and at the bottom of each cycle I must be cleaned and remade by the passion of my faith. It puts me back into service, ready to fire exacting shots at purity, discipline, and service. A soldier driven by passion and filled by the Spirit is an unstoppable army unto himself. He is like his own passionate King.

Prayer: Jesus, my King and my Savior, I am in rapt in awe of You.

Sermon – Authority of Scripture Dec 11, 2005

Bible History Ignorance
I recall a time when I was in college and I tried to witness to a Middle-Eastern student who lived in our dorms but went to a different university. I had recently returned from serving nine months as a traveling evangelist where I was trained with all the arguments and Bible verses necessary to lead someone to Christ. When I came to the end of my explanation the student said, “But I don’t accept your Bible as true.” He completely shot down everything I said. I recall thinking, “Well, I guess there is no way to reach those who do not accept the Bible. He is too different from me to be told about salvation.”

The problem was not this student but my lack of understanding of why the Bible is the legitimate source of truth. I accepted it because that was how I was raised, what I had been told, and that was good enough for me. My goal this morning is to answer the question, ”How do we know the Bible is true?” I hope the answer will be more complete than, “Because my mother told me so.”

Old Testament
Let’s begin with the Old Testament. How do we know the 39 Books in the Old Testament are true? There is a quick and easy answer to the OT: Because Jesus said so. The OT we use is the same that OT Jesus referred to as Holy Scripture during His life. (Note the Catholic Apocryphal [Protestant term] or deuterocanonical [Catholic term] books were in the OT of Jesus’ time, though never quoted by Him.) At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus began teaching from the OT.

Luke 4:17-21
The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

18 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

Jesus at one time or another referred to and endorsed all three parts of the OT. Those parts are:

-Books of Moses (aka Torah, first five books, Pentateuch, Law)
-Prophets
-Books of wisdom (Psalms, Proverbs, etc.)

In Luke 16 Jesus refers to both the books of Moses and the Prophets:

Luke 16:29-31
29 "Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'

30 "'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

31 "He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"

In Matthew 22 He cites the Books of Wisdom:

Matt 22:43-44
43 He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says,

44 "'The Lord said to my Lord:
"Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet." '

He is quoting from Psalms 110. Jesus even chided the Jewish leaders for not understanding the OT.

Matt 22:29
29 Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.”

One of His strongest statements is in:

Matt 5:17-18
17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Simply put, because Jesus accepted and used the OT as Holy Scripture, we can, too. But how do we know the OT was not changed from the time of Jesus until now? God has an answer for even that.

Dead Sea Scrolls
The Jews took the responsibility of protecting the accuracy of the OT very seriously. Whole sects of priests dedicated their lives to accurately copying and preserving Holy Scripture. At the time of Jesus, one of these sects lived in a remote area outside Jericho to keep themselves pure. If there was a misspelling or blot of ink in the margin, they painstakingly copied it exactly as they found it. They preserved the leather and papyrus scrolls in clay jars.

In 1947 a goat wandered away from his Bedouin shepherd. The shepherd went looking for the rascal and discovered the ancient caves. Inside were the jars containing what we now call the Dead Sea Scrolls. Archeologists have been busy since 1947. What they discovered is that the OT we have now is virtually identical, word for word, to the OT Jesus endorsed. I have personally viewed the book of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls in a museum. It sends chills over me to realize those words were copied at the same time Jesus was reading Isaiah in the temple and saying, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."


New Testament
The 27 books of the NT were written between about 63 AD and 90 AD. Jesus rose to heaven in 37 AD so why did they wait for 30 to 60 years to record everything into Scripture? Because PDA’s and laptops had not yet been invented. In fact, the literacy rate of Palestinians was around three percent. All news and truth spread orally. Unfortunately, untruth also spread orally. As Christianity quickly spread, so did heresy about what Jesus taught. As long as people were alive who witnessed the actual events, there was no problem because anything written that was false was quickly refuted. In response to the lies beginning to float around, the leaders in the church gathered the letters and documents of the original witnesses and Apostles before they died.

The early church used three standards to determine which books were accurate:

A.R.T.
APOSTOLIC
RECOGNITION
TEACHING

APOSTOLIC
Does this document have roots connected to one of the Apostles? Was it written by an Apostle or by a student or associate of one of the Apostles?

RECOGNITION
In order for a book to be included in the Canon of Scripture, it had to have widespread influence in the churches in Israel, Asia Minor, and Rome and had to have continuous acceptance and use by the church at large.

One historian puts it like this:

None of the non-canonical gospels comes close in date of composition, breadth of distribution, or proportion of acceptance. None of them comes close.

TEACHING
To be included in the Canon, the contents of the book had to be consistent with the teaching of Christ. There are over 100 other books that could have been considered in the Canon. Here are some of them:

Apocryphal Books
The Acts of Andrew
The Acts and Martyrdom of Andrew
The Acts of Andrew and Matthew
The Acts of Barnabas
The Acts of John
The Acts of John the Theologian
The Acts and Martyrdom of Matthew
The Martyrdom of Matthew
The Acts of Paul
The Acts of Peter
The Acts of Peter and Andrew
The Acts of Peter and Paul
The Acts of Philip
The Acts of Thomas
The Consummation of Thomas
The Revelation of John the Theologian
The Revelation (or Vision) of Paul (from the Ante-Nicene Fathers)
The Revelation of Paul (another version, source is not identified)
The Apocalypse of Peter (from the Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol X.) Note
that an entirely different text of this name is found in the Nag Hammadi
Library.
The Apocalypse of Peter (another translation, from The Apocryphal New
Testament)
The Revelation of Stephen
The Apocalypse of Thomas
The Apocalypse of the Virgin
Apocryphal Gospels
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: Greek Text A
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: Greek Text B
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: Latin Text
A Compilation of the Thomas Texts (c. 5th Century)
An Arabic Infancy Gospel
The Gospel of James
The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary
The Gospel of Mary of Bethany (or Magdalene)
The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew
The Gospel of Nicodemos (The Acts of Pilate)
The Gospel of Bartholomew
The Gospel of Peter
The Gospel of the Lord by Marcion
The Secret Gospel of Mark

None of these met the A.R.T. criteria. For example, many today are saying the Gospel of Thomas should be included because it was written only 50 years after the last of the accepted books. However, let me read to you a section of that book and you tell me if the church leaders decided correctly that its teaching is not consistent with what Jesus taught.

Simon Peter said, Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life. Jesus said, I myself shall lead her in order to make her male so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven. GoT 114

Did the church fathers do well in leaving out this weird teaching? Yes! Aren’t you glad that this didn’t make it into the Bible? It sounds to me like it was written by the author of Alice in Wonderland.

The Council of Nicaea
It was not until 325 AD that the first council of church leaders gathered in Nicaea and officially declared our 27 books of the NT were the correct ones according to the A.R.T. criteria. However, they were really meeting to discuss the subject of the Trinity and the naming of the NT Canon was merely a rubberstamp on the longstanding practice of the church. More than one hundred years before the Council of Nicaea, a historian by the name of Origin said:

The four gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the only undisputed ones in the whole church of God throughout the whole world.

The reality is we have a great many manuscripts and fragments dating very close to the original writings. In Manchester England, the museum holds the Rylands Papryus, which contains part of the Gospel of John dating to about 40 years after the original. Moving forward in time we find exponentially more manuscripts as the years progress until within just a few hundred years there are over 5,000 manuscripts and fragments of the NT.

Rapid Copying
I’d like to demonstrate why only a handful of very early manuscripts have survived but there are thousands just one or two hundred years later. Remember that the first Christians were mostly non-readers but masters of oral exchange. Pretend we are all Christians of the first centuries. I am going to whisper some words of Jesus to a couple of you and I want you to write down what I say. The rest of you have heard of Christ and you are eager to have your own copy of the words of Jesus accurately written down. So as soon as you can find someone with a copy, I want you to copy those words onto the pieces of paper we are providing. We will start at the front row with my oral delivery and copy backwards to the rear. (Use John 21:17 "Feed my sheep”.) This passage was from John 21:17 but the chapter and verse markers were not part of the Canon but added in print in 1479.

Did you notice the copying began very slowly and it seemed like we would never get to everyone? Then by about the second or third row the number of copies grew very quickly. That multiplication is exactly what happened in the first centuries as Christianity rapidly grew. Each row represents 30 or 40 years and the number of ancient manuscripts quickly grew into the thousands; everybody was eager to have their own copy of the documents that were recognized throughout the Church as authoritative. With more copies, there are more to survive.

All this demonstrates why we have a mountain of historical evidence that the NT was written when and by whom it professes to be written. There are many today who believe Jesus was a myth invented much later by a self-serving church, such as the popular Da Vinci Code book proposes.

The renowned scholar of biblical history F.F. Bruce has observed:
Some writers may toy with the fancy of a 'Christ-myth,' but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the Christ-myth theories.

Greco-Roman historian Michael Grant, who certainly has no theological axe to grind, indicates that there is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for a large number of famous pagan personages - yet no one would dare to argue their non-existence. Historian Meier [Meier. MarJ, 23] notes that what we know about Alexander the Great could fit on only a few sheets of paper; yet no one doubts that Alexander existed. And we have hundreds of pages on the life of Christ.

Jesus Himself provides the reason people refuse to investigate the facts or having seen the facts, shrug them off:

John 3:19
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Conclusion
Were I to meet my Middle-Eastern student friend again, knowing all we have discussed, I would now say to him, “As far as the Old Testament goes, Jesus endorsed those sacred texts. No unbiased, inquisitive mind willing to research the facts would doubt the historicity of Jesus and the NT events. That only leaves the question of the truthfulness of the promises made in the NT. Again, no truth-seeking, light-loving, rational being can study that great Book and avoid the conclusion that God has spoken to man through Jesus as revealed in the Bible. Read it. Begin reading in the Gospel of John.”

In fact, I carry inexpensive giveaway Bibles in case I should ever meet that man again or anyone like him. I want to make up for my error of ignorance.

Heb 4:12
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

When I give away a New Testament it is like pulling the pin on a holy grenade and placing it in their hand. The Word of God speaks for itself and explodes into a revelation of real life. I always mark the Gospel of John for a place to begin and I know eventually they are going to come to words like:

John 7:37-38
"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

John 10:10
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

John 6:63-64
“The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.”

The words in our Bible are historically sound, carefully preserved, divinely guided, and they are LIFE.

Fulcrum of Pain

Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude… 1 Peter 4:1

The stove burned my hand and my lip quivered during the span of silence before a piercing scream. As a toddler, I learned this world is a painful place. Years later, Grandmother passed away leaving a haunting gap in my heart. My career culminated in an out of control business debt that spiraled to an explosive death. The lessons of life ingrain an aversion for suffering and an affinity for comfort. Then along comes Jesus saying things like, “Lose your life” (Mat 10:39), and “Blessed are those who mourn” (Mat 5:4), and “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). His words are so counterintuitive that absorbing them is a deep struggle.

Peter says to “arm” ourselves with suffering. He is telling us there is something strong there, like weapons and munitions. There is ballistic power in letting go of a need to control my suffering. The preoccupation with pain avoidance no longer owns me. This is not masochism. Rather, it creates new spiritual space to live for life and its Source rather than for comfort.

I have lived comparatively free of trials. Nevertheless, I am challenged to adopt the “same attitude” as my suffering Jesus. I am not to go looking for a new boulder of misery to move into my yard. Rather, I am to take whatever stone is already there, lay the plank of dependence squarely across the top, and fulcrum my heart toward Jesus. It makes me clap and jig to see the Enemy’s worst tool forced into the service of lifting me toward the Lover of my soul.

Prayer: Lord, may no trial in life fail to move me closer to You.

A Life Wasted For Jesus

But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice… Phil 2:17

This morning was a tough one. The Lord asked me if I would I spend my life on a calling that showed no kingdom progress? The only legacy at the end of my days would be obedience. I recoiled. “Where is purpose in that? What glory would it bring to You Lord?” Still, the question hung in the air. I realized not only was He asking, but He had been asking for some time.

Yesterday, an experienced Christian jolted my ambitions. “While we are usually looking forward to a brighter kinder earthly future, living for Jesus in this failing world will only become more difficult. The world will be more, not less, hostile to Christians.” That grim insight snatched the bounce out of my expectations to have some positive impact on the planet.

Back to the question. What of it Don? Are you ready to say with John the Baptist, “He must become greater; I must become less” (Jhn 3:30)? I prolonged my reasoning, “Lord, isn’t it Your way to work through people to glorify Yourself? And You want me to embrace a life with no part in that?”

I knew in my spirit He confirmed, “That is what I’m asking. We will see your perseverance from heaven but no one else will. Are you willing?”

In turmoil, I got off my knees; it wasn’t working. I lay prostrate; still no peace. I sat up to pray. This had to be settled before leaving the room. Finally, I added this to my journal:
‘Lord I give You my life’s work. If I am poured out as a drink offering with no visible kingdom success, so be it. My definition of success will be obedience to You.’

Prayer: Lord, I give You everything; even my urge to be needed in Your work.

Sermon – Thanksgiving Nov 27, 2005

Spiritual History of Thanksgiving
Today we are going to create a timeline of the history of thanksgiving. God knew humans to be natural whiners but it has always made Him angry.

(1450BC)
The Israelites in the wilderness were the consummate whiners.

Num 11:1-6
11:1 Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the LORD, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. 2 When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the LORD and the fire died down. 3 So that place was called Taberah, because fire from the LORD had burned among them.

4 The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost — also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. 6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!"

In Deuteronomy Moses provided the guidelines for these Thank Offerings:

Deut 12:15-18
15 Nevertheless, you may slaughter your animals in any of your towns and eat as much of the meat as you want, as if it were gazelle or deer, according to the blessing the LORD your God gives you. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat it. 16 But you must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water. 17 You must not eat in your own towns the tithe of your grain and new wine and oil, or the firstborn of your herds and flocks, or whatever you have vowed to give, or your freewill offerings or special gifts. 18 Instead, you are to eat them in the presence of the LORD your God at the place the LORD your God will choose — you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites from your towns — and you are to rejoice before the LORD your God in everything you put your hand to.

From days long ago, God has wanted His children to be a thankful people; rejoicing at whatever we do.

Hebrew Peace Offerings
The Children of Israel were commanded to offer many different types of sacrifices and offerings. One was the peace offering. There were three kinds of peace offerings: (1) thank offerings in response to an unsolicited special divine blessing; (2) votive (vowed) offerings in pursuit of making a request or pledge to God; and (3) freewill offerings spontaneously presented in worship and praise.


(1000BC)
The Psalms many times refers to the Thank Offering. David said:

Ps 56:12-13
12 I am under vows to you, O God;
I will present my thank offerings to you.
13 For you have delivered me from death
and my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before God
in the light of life.

(600 BC)
In the days of the prophets, it was foretold that we would be a people who would live in thanksgiving before God.

Jer 30:18-19
"This is what the LORD says:

"'I will restore the fortunes of Jacob's tents…

Did you know these that many of these old prophesies are about us? Romans and Hebrews tell us we are the new Israel, the new Jacob, the true children of Abraham.

Rom 9:6-7
6 It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children.

Then Paul goes on in chapter 11 to describe how we were grafted into the inheritance of Israel while they were cut off. So these prophesies did not fail; they are fulfilled in us! Knowing that, let’s continue reading this prophesy in Jeremiah.

and have compassion on his dwellings;
the city will be rebuilt on her ruins,
and the palace will stand in its proper place.
19 From them will come songs of thanksgiving
and the sound of rejoicing.

“From them will come songs of thanksgiving.” That is us.

(50AD)
Fast-forward again to the time of the New Testament. We are encouraged many times to live thankful lives.

Eph 5:4-5
4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

Phil 4:6
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

1 Tim 2:1
I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone-

Col 2:6-7
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Col 4:2
2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

Col 3:15-17
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

1 Thess 5:16-18
16 Be joyful always; 17 pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Not Blind, Just Thankful
God doesn’t want whiners; He wants thankful, grateful children. But that does not mean we are to run around fooling ourselves that everything is fine in this old earth. It is not fine; it is broken. When we accept this pinched-down existence as fully satisfying we are far too easily pleased and living without any true imagination. In Romans 8 Paul speaks of our groaning identification with the brokenness of this world.

Rom 8:17-23
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

So we groan and acknowledge the brokenness of this world but did you catch the reason Paul gave for overriding our complaints? Our present suffering is not worth comparing to the glory to come. That is why we can stand here suffering from heartache, illness, or need and still be smiling like a Cheshire cat. The key to living a grateful, thankful life is in our perspective.

I want to illustrate this important point. We often talk about keeping the mindset that our cup is half-full not half-empty. Honestly it is easy for me to look at the pain and turmoil of the world and slip into a half-full-whining-attitude. This communion cup represents our life. Let’s fill it halfway with the water of life. Looking at that tiny cup, I can see where it is easy to complain, but there is so much more to the picture for those in Christ. First, the water we have in us is not ordinary. We have Jesus living in us and so the water of life is effervescent in us. These effervescent tablets represent the living water that is in us. So let’s refill the communion cup with sparkling water.

Next, we have to realize how much more is just about to be poured into us. This giant container represents paradise and glory with Jesus. Volunteers will hold it over the communion cup and just start to pour it into the cup. I have a couple of verses to illustrate this perspective.

Phil 4:5
The Lord is near.

Heb 10:37
For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay.”

God’s coming is very near, in just a little while. We are about to be deluged and drowned in real, bubbling, everlasting life. It is poised over our heads and just a breath of time away from happening. It is like using a fire hose to clean a dirty crumb off our plate. We will be so washed by abundant life that, as Paul puts it, our present sufferings are not worth comparing to that glory.

The hole in this poster board represents our perspective. We often see only the half-empty glass. As Christians we need to look at the entire perspective and that will keep us thankful and praise-filled as God wants us to be. He has done so much for us with much more to come. With the gift of Jesus, there is no room for whining, only for full-on praising.

(1621AD)
According to tradition, the first American Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 by the English Pilgrims who had founded the Plymouth Colony, now in the state of Massachusetts. An interesting fact about the Puritan custom was that observances were not held regularly; they usually took place only in times of crisis or immediately after a period of misfortune had passed. That makes me think they took the thanksgiving tradition from the Hebrew Thank Offering tradition which was also spontaneous and not only on one day a year.

May we learn to look at the bigger perspective of all we have in Christ and celebrate Thanksgiving everyday.

Prayer

Ps 95:1-2
Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.

Spiritual DNA

He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 2 Cor 1:21-22

Spring is almost here as evidenced by the buckeye tree. Gray mud from the creek morphs into its spent inanimate trunk. However, out on the tip of each skyward twig, if one looks closely, are lime-green buds. As much as I hate to use the trite phrase ‘bursting forth,’ there is indeed a lot of bursting and forthing going on. The florets of exploding popcorn are incongruent with the hard rough bark; as though pasted on by a clumsy florist. I ask myself how these silky, vibrant, outbursts of life can come from so dead a thing as this wintering tree? The answer: Deep in the heart of the sleeping shell lives an ooze of sap carrying the DNA for what is to be.

I am that tree; a dormant dry shell of the life and “glory that will be revealed in us” (Rom 8:18). Through Christ, I will burst into a form of life incongruent with the present. All I see now is gray trunk, but I can’t doubt it for one second. I hold a guarantee. The proof is in the Word of God, in that tree, and in my heart. Deep inside me is an oozing trace of the life that will be. The Holy Spirit is my deposit—my hint of the ecstasy found before the Throne.

Even in my dark winter, I carry the spiritual mapping of what I will be when spring arrives. The Spirit will ignite my true DNA and I will explode in transformation. I will look back on this present form and the link to my new body will be traceable but the similarity between the two will be no more than night is to day, or a caterpillar is to its butterfly, or a gray stump is to the leafed-out flowering buckeye.

Prayer: Sweet Spirit, thank You for Your holy deposit inside me.

Eternal Encouragement

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. 2 Thes 2:16-17

One leaden foot after the other, she plodded up the marathon’s grueling route, sweat rolling off a beyond-weary body. At mile 21 her gait had worn to a forward stumble. She wanted to quit. At the top of the hill was a tiny cheer-squad—two friends and her mom. In the space of three-and-a-half seconds, she jogged past their enthusiastic shouts. Images of sympathy, love, and goodwill were flash-imprinted on her memory. The joy she carried from the checkpoint swept tears down her cheeks. The echo of voices that believed in her overrode fatigue. Her legs found new motive and the last five miles went down in strength and grace.

A little encouragement can make the impossible doable. In the verses above Paul, Silas, and Timothy hale as we run past. “Hey runner, God says to be encouraged by His grace.” They trot alongside to add a few clarifying shouts. “If grace means His Son was sacrificed on your behalf, you must know He is also willing to bring you to paradise.” Falling back they holler, “He loves you and will strengthen you for every good deed and word.” From far behind we hear, “So go for it!”

Further along the course we now see Jesus jumping and rooting. “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance… You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Only hold on to what you have until I come” (Rev 2:1-3; 2:25).

We have come so far, we cannot give up. Countless disciples—even Jesus Himself—are all watching and they believe in us. Get new energy. Keep going. Finish strong.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I hear Your enthusiasm. Please keep cheering.

True Beauty

So God created man in his own image… Gen 1:27

A camellia garden is at the end of our church’s street. One perfect but completed bloom fell onto the mulch. Its circlet of pink-tinted petals reached imploringly up from the mud as if to say, “I am still alive and too fine a thing to be down here.” Each petal boldly pushed a wafer-thin finger of vibrancy and color into space—a delicate expression of God’s penchant for beauty.

What makes the curved form, ethereal construction, and blended hues of a flower attractive to us? What makes the emerald masking of a mallard handsome? Why are the millions of interweaving vibrations of a symphony intoxicating? How is it that a rainbow’s arc of prism-splayed color never fails to illicit an, “Ah, look at that?” What causes the breathless pause when a poem completes its rhythm using precisely the right word? Why are the stars incredible, sculptures enchanting, dances captivating, sunsets breathtaking, children adorable, and diamonds dazzling? Why was my pink camellia enthralling and the mulch around it common? What makes beautiful, beautiful?

A wildly creative God made no two humans alike and so we will never fully agree on beautiful. Still there are some commonalities to our definitions. We like patterned symmetry but also the unique and rare. We like pure and unflawed. We like ordered yet creative. We like the rhythm of crescendos and rests, contrasts of thrills and tranquility. It occurs to me that all of these are what God is. God is dependable, unique, rare, pure, unflawed, ordered, creative, passionate, restful, thrilling, and serene. We are patterned to love the things our Creator is. A billy-goat couldn’t care less about the display of a peacock’s tail, but a peahen really goes in for that sort of thing. She is patterned by God for attraction to iridescent feathers. You and I are patterned to love what our Father is. And that is what beautiful is.

Prayer: Father, I am glad to be like You.

Childlike Faith

I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matt 18:3

I pedaled past a line of preschoolers out for a nature walk. They lit up at the site of a funny man on a bicycle. One little guy leaned out, beamed a gap-toothed smile, and chirped, “Hello there!” His dimpled hand polished off the salutation with a vigorous wave. It was over before my sluggish brain pushed a response down to my mouth—I only chuckled as I rolled away. A bubble of God’s love had swelled out of that little life and burst on mine. It was a dose of joy that lasted well into my day, reminding me there is no barrier between God’s voice and a child’s heart.

I want a faith like that tike. I want to effervesce when the Spirit moves me, free of stalling doubts. Why must I always hold back to ask if God is really prompting me, if others will receive it, if I can take the risk? Then the moment is lost. “Hello there!” “Are you happy like I am?” “Isn’t God’s love great?” Why don’t I spread joy around like a child? What can I hope to accomplish by my prudish reservation? Who does not need a smile and a happy word? Why is the slim possibility of rejection more important to me than broadcasting goodwill? The Lord will never use me to evangelize the nations until I can love like a four-year-old.

Perhaps I could elect senility before it is compelled by age. I could regress to a less jaded worldview. I could be silly, laugh at my self-important big ideas, and concern myself with tickling others. After all, who is mature if it is not the soul free of worry? Regression would allow me to swap out my constipated pride for some healthy generosity. Instead of impressing others with decorum, I would bring them joy. When I can bubble spontaneous love, I will know I am plugged into God.

Prayer: Father, make me childlike again.

Sermon – Purity of Doctrine Oct. 23, 2005

Faith-Wolves
Mat 7:15
Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.

The wolves circled excitedly within their pack, bared their fangs, nipped one another, and set up howling. It was a pre-feeding ritual. For days, they had stalked a flock of sheep and measured each animal. Finally, at a stealth trot they separated out a lame ram. What appeared to be a snarling frenzy was choreographed murder. Yellow eyes glared, lips curled, throats growled all just out of reach of the lowered horns. It was a ploy of distraction. The appointed killer slipped up behind, pounced on the haunches, and pulled the sheep down. Before there was a bleat for help, the pack was gorging on their victim.

I know some grandmotherly people involved in the blackest of treacheries. They go about dragging human souls into hell with their words. They are false teachers. However, these purveyors of heresy are mere pawns. The true carnivores of faith are the demons who prompt false teachers. They salivate with desire to sink their teeth of untruth into our faith and pull us down, below life. These beasts track humans looking for those with weak or deformed knowledge of Christ. They know a frontal attack against faith itself will not succeed. Instead, they sneak up behind with false teaching about Jesus. Missing faith and misapplied faith have the same conclusion: spiritual death.

I am not interested in wearing a target on my backside advertising the message ‘pounce here.’ I’d rather the wolves looked at me and moved on because they saw an informed, healthy faith. Having faith is not enough. To be strong and agile it must be faith based on truth about Jesus. We are not abandoned to the spiritual conjectures of humans—though the world is rife with such. We have a rich and beautiful objective source in the Bible. The Holy Scriptures alone capture the teachings of Christ and the resurrection validates His truth. Our only hope against the faith-wolves is to nourish our faith on the real Jesus.

Acts 20:29-31
I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard!

I am not worried about faith-wolves getting into this church after I leave. I trust your elders completely to ensure you receive accurate teaching. What I worry about is what happens when families move on, teens go off to college, or we mix with other so-called Christians who in reality are faith-wolves. They are out there, all around us. It is common to find teachers in the main-line Protestant denominations who deny the authority of scripture. Cults of Christianity send out workers with magazines and spiels for luring in the unaware. I imagine each of us has been targeted at one time or another. If I sound like an alarmist, it is because the wolves have overcome people I love. Like us, they started well then shipwrecked their faith.

1 Tim 1:18-2:1
18 Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, 19 holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith.

1 Tim 6:20-21
20 Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, 21 which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith.

Repeatedly Paul and Jesus urgently warned us against false teaching:

2 Tim 4:2-4
2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage-with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

One Path
One of the most popular myths of our day is the doctrine of ‘many paths’. It is popular to teach that Jesus is one of many ways to God. These are faith-wolves speaking. Listen to the Bible on this subject:

John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 10:1
10:1 "I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.

John 10:7-9
7 Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.

Acts 4:12
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.

When we teach Christ as the only way we are viewed as prideful exclusivists. But the universe does not operate according to man’s childish opinions. Let’s look at this subject from God’s point of view. God created the universe through Jesus, He said it was good, and blessed it. Man promptly sinned and corrupted everything. Then God turned to Jesus, this part of Himself with so much splendor and glory that the entire universe was held in His hand, and He said to this Glory, “I want You to become a helpless infant, grow up as a human, and die a treacherous death on their behalf.”

It tore God’s heart to ask glorious Jesus to do this but it had to be done. Jesus agreed and together they went through the heartache of the incarnation, death, and resurrection. Then God held out this indescribable gift to man as the means of forgiveness of his sins and man turned up his nose and said, “No thanks, I’ll find my own way.”

I ask you, is it God who is the proud exclusionist or is it man? It is man; not to mention he is also ungrateful and blind.

Beware of the doctrine of many paths. It will get you into hell.

Types of Wolves
Here are a few other faith-wolves in sheep’s clothing to watch out for:

-Cults
-Cults of Christianity
-Occult
-New-age

Let’s quickly run down this list.

First - cults:

-Do not accept the deity of Christ
-Works-based salvation
-Source of authority other than the Bible

Many cults have no claim of a connection to Christ, such as Buddhism or Hinduism. However, there are many more who do claim Jesus. These are called cults of Christianity. It is a better term than Christian cults because that is an oxymoron. These are probably the most dangerous to you and me. They give lip service to salvation in Christ alone but, like other cults, they un-deify Christ and focus on good works to get us into heaven.

The Occult is usually more honest in where they claim to get their power; from Satan. But sometimes occultists, too, dress in sheep’s clothing. I dated a girl in high school who first told me she used only white magic, but when I broke up with her she put a curse on me. I think that is why my hair is thinning today.

Finally, there is the New Age Movement—which really isn’t so new. In fact, all these heresies were around in the first century and are openly refuted in the New Testament.


New Age -- One or more of the following beliefs:

-All is one, all reality is part of the whole;
-Everything is God and God is everything;
-Man is God or a part of God;
-Reincarnation;
-Man can create his own reality and/or values through transformed consciousness or altered states of consciousness.

Misapplied Faith
As we said at the beginning of this message, the danger in all these false teachings is not that we would drop faith altogether, but that our faith would be misapplied to something other than Jesus, or to a Jesus different from the biblical Jesus. Once again, missing faith and misapplied faith have the same disastrous result—spiritual death. If anyone ever tells you about any Jesus other than the one so clearly described in the Bible, know you are looking at a faith-wolf. Paul had this to say to the Corinthian Church:

2 Cor 11:2-4
I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. 3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.

And to the Galatian Church he was compelled to say:

Gal 1:6-9
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel- 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!

The conclusion to this discussion is this: To know the truth about Jesus, through Whom alone comes salvation, we must saturate ourselves in the Bible.

Legalism
Before we leave this subject I want to warn against a pitfall common to many who dedicate themselves to purity in doctrine. It is easy to fail to differentiate which doctrines are essential to salvation and become belligerent about fringe issues. Militant insistence on some trivial matter has turned many away from the church and ultimately Christ. Some of today’s molehills that are made into mountains are worship music, tongues, and buildings; there are many others as well. Paul had much to say in warning against fighting over disputable matters.

Rom 14:1-10
14:1 Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. 2 One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 4 Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

Paul then applies this theme to matters other than vegetables, and finally wraps up with:

Rom 14:22
So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God.

When you hear the Christian-ese term ‘legalistic,’ it refers to this practice of adding extra rules to grace. It is just as dangerous an extreme as false teaching on who Christ is. Both extremes rely on something other than Christ for salvation.

Beloved, beware of the wolves. Their only intent is to drag you into hell with them.

We will end with the prayer of Paul that we might truly know Jesus:

Phil 1:9-11
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-to the glory and praise of God.

Nothing Without Love

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 1 Cor 13:2

I was running from place to place trying to wire explosives together. Everybody kept interrupting, and I couldn’t let on what I was really doing. I gave them platitudes to keep them content. I finally got free of the crowd and sprinted to the detonation site. Then I awoke upset and breathing hard. “Lord, what does it mean?”

“Don, you have been conspiring to bring explosive change to the people you shepherd. You have been running around wiring for change and preoccupied with configuring a new start for the church instead of truly loving the souls that will be blown up in the process. In the name of outreach you are disregarding the hearts I have already given you to love. Slow down and care for people, not your programs, not your bigger, brighter future. Because if you build the greatest evangelistic ministry in the world, and lead thousands to Christ, and witness your land swept into repentance and worship, but you do not love people as I love them, you are nothing.”

“Lord,” came my reply (though I loathed to hear my voice now that I saw the enormity of my error), “will I ever get out of spiritual kindergarten? Yes Lord, with Your help I will love others. I will leave results in Your hands. I will spend quality time with whoever will let me. I’ll learn to know them. I’ll enjoy good things with them and find out where they hurt. I’ll let You bring Your peace into their lives. Lord, I will see the individual not the crowd. I know how You love me, and I know that is how You love them. I’m so sorry.”

Prayer: I am nothing without You. Help me love.

It Will Come Out Right

Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows… Isa 53:4

Come with me. I know what to do with that grief. Put it into a basket and hold it out in front; we are walking up the steps to Jesus’ throne. As those radiant eyes look at what you brought Him, they burn with sympathy and understanding. A tear plots its course down His cheek. His silence is profound. His hand next to yours, you share sorrow over what lies in the basket.

The golden voice reaches out, “I can carry this basket with you but I cannot take it away just yet.” His eyes drift to some vision unseen by us. “I can foresee the outcome of this. As you trust Me, the venom of this tragedy will not touch you. So trust Me. I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world,” (Jhn 16:33).

The next best thing to having no troubles is being sure they won’t hurt us. We have to endure for now. We may lose worldly wealth, health, and prestige but none of these is the real person anyway. The true you, your soul, will flourish. The waters will not sweep over your spirit, the flames will not set your heart ablaze. You and I will be protected. It will come out right.

Who is it that makes these great assurances? It is Jesus, by and for whom all things were created. It is Jesus, the One given all authority in heaven and earth. It is Jesus who, since the day you gave your life to Him, has not stopped watching over you. Listen to Him breathe words of comfort right now, “My hand is on our basket. It will come out right.”

Prayer: Lord Jesus, whisper peace and confidence into desperate ears.

Sermon – Family Part 3 Oct. 16, 2005

Series Intro
Today we wrap up a series on the family from Ephesians 5. Our focus is on children.

Family Fudge
It has been said that families are like fudge: At first they are very sweet, but after a while, too much can make you sick, especially if it’s the kind with nuts. I don’t know about your family but mine certainly has a lot of nuts.

Children Obey
Eph 6:1-4
6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 "Honor your father and mother"-which is the first commandment with a promise- 3 "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth."

Children are to obey parents even if we no longer live in the same home. As long as our parents are living we are bound to respect and obey anything that is not a direct violation of God’s word. It is ironic that this scripture comes just before the injunction for slaves to obey their masters. There is a reason we are to obey parents and the clue is given in the next verse: That it may go well with you and you may enjoy long life on the earth. Paul is quoting the promise God gave back in:

Deut 5:16
Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

Paul points out that this blessing is not just a natural consequence of obeying wise advice but there is a promise from God connected to obedience. God will bless us when we are obedient to our parents whether their advice seems to make sense or not. We will never be able to follow this command if we do not trust that God is big enough to turn around bad parental advice into something good because we honored His command.

At age 19 I was an immature Christian and had a small view of God’s ability to counteract bad advice. I wanted to take a break in college to travel with the Evangelism Corps through the States spreading the Gospel. My father, who was not a Christian at the time, did not want me to stop my schooling. In fact, he would not finance my future college if I quit then. I felt a non-Christian could not appreciate what I wanted to do so I disobeyed him and left. I will never know what miracle and blessing God would have worked out if I had honored this command to obey my father. If nothing else, perhaps I would not have had to work a job, be involved in ministry, and have a family with children while I finished my last year of school all because I postponed my education in disobeying my father.
God is bigger than our parents’ advice if it seems bad. Obey your parents and trust God to honor you.

Verse four turns the discussion around to how parents are to treat their children.

Eph 6:4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

In fact, we are to treasure our children:

PS 127:3 Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.

PS 127:4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth.
PS 127:5 Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.

MT 18:10 "See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.

We are to encourage and bless and hug and love, never to exasperate:

COL 3:21 Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.

MK 10:[16] And he (Jesus) took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

Effective Training
To truly love and honor our children is to train them up in the Lord.

Prov 22:6
Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Training is so much more then what we tell our kids.

Actions Are Loudest
Our kids are hearing from our words that God loves them and that Jesus is Lord, and deep inside they are hoping it is all true. But they can’t see God to verify our words so they seek validation by another method. If they see us living our faith when we don’t think they are watching, they will conclude Christ to be real. Our life speaks our heart in a hundred ways each day:

-When our kids listen at our closed door, they hear us praying.
-When we are called to the phone they find our Bible lying open where we left it.
-When we come out of the store with too much change because the clerk goofed, they see us go back in to return it.
-When a car cuts us off, the kids witness love in how we talk about the other driver.
-When we leave the room and they look at the rental video box, they see a wholesome rating.
-When we are caught in sin, they see us apologize and ask God for cleansing.

Parents, grandparents, our children are NOT listening to what we say, they are listening to what we do. We cannot lecture, legislate or make legalistic the Christian life, but through meekness, humility and vulnerability must model a Spirit-led life. Hearing the simple words from your lips, “I’m sorry, I messed up. I wasn’t trusting the Lord,” will mature your children faster then a whole library of lesson books or lectures.

Statistics show that 86% of all people that accept Jesus as their personal Savior do so between the ages of 3 and 14. Train them while they are young.

Family Night
One of the best things Dani and I ever did in our family was family night. Focus On
The Family has excellent books on Family Nights that even include activity ideas and lessons. Each week we would take turns choosing the activity. The rules were: no friends, no phone, and no absences. We went miniature golfing, went on hikes, played games, had lessons and prayed. Our kids grew to really look forward to that night and even now they have great memories. Dani and I planned lesson activities.

Toothpaste
Do you want to teach your children to be careful with how they talk to others? Then one family night, give each child a tube of toothpaste and let them squeeze out the entire contents onto newspaper. Let them enjoy and have fun, then ask them to put all the toothpaste back into the tubes. When they figure out it is impossible, explain how it is just like our words. It may be fun to let words squirt out but you can never get them back in, so we should be very careful how we speak to one another.

The Ladder
A father showed his kids why Jesus came to save us. The father put a ladder beside the house and got up on the roof. Then he told the kids that the game was that each of them had to come up to the roof with him, but they could not touch the ladder. So the kids struggled and debated until the youngest said, “Daddy, this is not fair and we can’t do it.” The father only encouraged them to keep thinking and trying. Finally the youngest said, “Daddy, please come down the ladder.” And the father did so. She said, “Daddy, please bend down.” The father did so and the girl jumped up on his back. Then she asked, “Daddy, please climb back up the ladder.” As the father climbed the other children caught on and took their turns at getting a ride to the roof without touching the ladder. This clever father then talked about why Jesus came down from heaven to bring us to the Father. To their dying day, those kids could never forget that lesson.

The point is that in families, learning and growing activities happen every day for the parents who want to SHOW their child how to know God rather than just lecture them.

Letting Go
One of the most difficult things to do as a parent is letting go of our kids when the time is right. While they are young we govern every aspect of their lives. One of my favorite five- year-olds is so trusting of his parents that when he is given food that he is not sure he has eaten before, he asks his parents, “Do I like this?” He trusts them even with what he will like. But how long will that precious, unquestioning, trust continue? Probably not as long as the parents would like.

Another five-year-old came over to our house and wanted to watch one of our Disney videos. I told him we first needed to check with his parents and he promptly took me through a checklist of his parents’ limitations:

-No kissing,
-No bad language where they say "stupid" even if they are joking,
-No dancing where they take their clothes off.

While they are young we can enforce compliance with our rules. But we are each created by God with a free independent will, and we cannot control the beliefs, actions or attitudes of our family for very long. Spouses and children must make their own decisions for or against obedience to Jesus. Our responsibility is to do all we can to encourage them and pray for them but we share none of their guilt if they reject Jesus. It is ok to grieve for their loss, but not to accept their guilt. The role model for us in seeking the salvation of our loved ones is found in our Heavenly Father himself and beautifully expressed in the parable of the prodigal son.

LK 15:11 Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. [12] The younger one said to his father, `Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.

You know the rest of the story. The father gave the son the freedom he asked for and let him go off until he had squandered his wealth and bankrupted his life. The Bible says that later the son came to his senses and returned:

Lk 15: [20] …"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

And the father said:
[24] For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'

That is how our Heavenly Father loves us, but lets us choose and fail if necessary. That is how we must let our children choose. We must let them go.
Hope for Broken Homes
Some here today are single, others come from broken homes. Some are unloved by their families. I want to encourage you with the perspective of Jesus. Even though Jesus loved His earthly family, He knew that His true family was those in the church.

MT 12:48 He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" [49] Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. [50] For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

So if you are feeling lost and without a family today, take heart and look around, because you are sitting with your dearest brothers and sisters who will love you in ways that your earthly family never can.

Where to Now
It really does not matter what situation you find yourself in today. It doesn’t matter what the past has been, whether you are from a disrupted home, or even a strong home. Whatever your situation, today, all things are new. You are given an opportunity to forget what lies behind and start fresh with loving your family with all of God’s strength.

PHP 3:13 … one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, [14] I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Forget the past, strain toward what is ahead. Commit to loving your earthly family with renewed strength. Love them, be patient with them, demonstrate the grace that was demonstrated to you. Have fun, love, laugh, have food fights. If you don’t have a family, thank God for this Christian family right here.

Sermon – Family Part 2 Oct. 9, 2005

Intro
We are in week two of a series on the family from Ephesians. Last week we looked at the guidelines for wives. This week we will focus on husbands.

Husbands to Wives
While we read this, I need a male volunteer to count the words in verses 25 through 33 and a female volunteer to count the words in verses 22 through 24, which we studied last week. We will come back to that count in just a moment.

EPH 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her [26] to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, [27] and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. [28] In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. [29] After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church‑‑ [30] for we are members of his body. [31] "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." [32] This is a profound mystery‑‑but I am talking about Christ and the church. [33] However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Servant-Leadership
(Compare word counts.) Paul uses twice the number of words to encourage husbands to love wives as he does for wives to submit. The message is that if we will love our wives properly, they will gladly defer to our spiritual leadership. At first glance the Bible may seem a bit one-sided in favor of men having a role of superiority. But that view does not take into account the Bible’s description of servant-leadership. In God’s economy, the one who is last is first and the one who is first is last. The call for the husband to lead is a call for a man who cares more deeply, serves harder, protects at greater risk, and provides with diligence for those he loves. There is no room for self-centered, abusive, controlling behavior in God’s head of household. When Jesus talks about leadership in God’s kingdom it looks very different from typical human leadership.

John 13:12-15
12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. 13 "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.

Suddenly family leadership does not look like such an enviable position. It is not; it is a position of servant-hood out of love.

Family Hero
Christ’s husbandry to us is the model of our love for our wives. We are to love our wives just as Christ loved us. Let us examine this for a minute. Christ was our hero. We were in a most pathetic and disastrous situation with our feet mired down in sin and eternal death. Jesus rode onto the enemy infested battleground, sought us out, wooed and courted us from the enemy’s clutches, died for us, and delivered us safely to His Father. I tell you that is heroism. Husbands, we are to love our wives heroically. It is unlikely we will need to give our life but it is just as heroic to die for her in a hundred ways daily. For instance:

-It is heroic to get out of bed and change the baby’s diaper rather that holding still and pretending you are asleep.

-It is heroic to patiently draw her out to talk about what is wrong rather then flipping on the game and assuming that she will cool off if you give her space. And remember, once she starts talking don’t offer advice, JUST LISTEN.

-It is heroic to defend your wife by speaking only good of her in front of others.

-It is heroic to encourage her to develop her interests even if it means you must go to the PTA meeting alone.

-It is heroic to take her hand and ask her to pray with you and lead the family spiritually.

Heroic love creatively seeks out ways to make life better for your mate. It is precisely what Christ has been doing for us.

I also have examples of what not to do. One time Dani and the kids were sleeping together and I scattered flower petals across the bed so they would wake up thinking the floral-ferries had visited. Instead, Dani woke up screaming because she was sure bugs had invaded them.

Another time I was trying to be creative and rigged a happy birthday sign over the doorway. The plan was that as she opened the door balloons and confetti would fall down. Instead, she came home at night and freaked out when all this unexpected stuff fell on her in the dark.

Once I thought she needed some laughter in her life. On April 1st I set all the clocks back an hour including her watch and the clock in her car. When she awoke, she ran around like crazy to get the kids ready and fly out the door. She pushed the kids into the hands of the stunned daycare worker and rushed off to work. She finally called me and said, “Very funny!” I asked her where she was and she said, “Sitting at my desk in an empty office.” I had no idea it would go that far before she caught on. My mission failed because Dani was not laughing. Being married to me ain’t no picnic.

Being a hero to our wives requires creativity, tenacity, and courage. Just like Jesus, we need to be willing to get down into whatever dark and gloomy hole our wife finds herself and comfort her, encourage her, and carry her out on our prayers.

Family Priest
We are to be servant-leaders and heroes but also priests, just as Jesus is our High Priest. Let’s read verses 26 & 27 again:

EPH 5:[26] to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, [27] and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

These are priestly duties and, to the extent it depends on us, the task of bringing our families cleansed and holy to Christ is ours. The role of a priest is to act as a go-between. We are to pray for our families and take on the ordained responsibility of showing them how God’s love applies to their specific troubles. Men, take charge and listen to your family’s problems, put your hand on their hurt or head, and pray aloud for them. As family priest, invoke God’s help. He hears those prayers and will act. But you must represent your family and intercede on their behalf. In too many homes, the woman has to assume this role. A real man, a heroic husband and father, courageously calls his troops together and prays over them.

Guard Your Expectations
Last week we said how marriage is an archetype or shadow of our primary relationship with God. I want to emphasize again the primacy of our marriage to God. Many people find themselves in a bitter marriage because they expect their spouse to meet needs and fulfill their life in a way only God can. A marriage partner cannot deliver life fulfillment, constant love, or meet all our needs. God alone fills those holes. When partners have expectations that their spouse will meet their needs they are in for major disappointment.

I read a newsletter this week about a women in Satwasheela Sahare, India who became a Christian while her husband opposed her conversion from Islam. He took to beating her. She writes, “Every time my husband hits me and injures my face with a rod, I say the name of the Lord. After he’s done beating me, I pray for the bleeding to stop and for the Lord to attend to me.”

The newsletter went on, “This sister of ours suffers terrible beatings from her husband because she decided to follow Christ, however, she doesn’t plan on abandoning her faith, nor her husband. It’s really hard for me to imagine this situation. I want to scream, ‘Leave your husband!’ But, after reflecting a little, I saw that maybe the biggest difference between her and me is her commitment to be totally obedient to God in every part of her life no matter what the cost.”

As we said last week, oppression of women should be opposed whenever we have the opportunity. But this woman teaches us to live without expectations on our spouse. She derives 100 percent of her fulfillment, love, and provision from God; therefore, she stays married in a hostile marriage and joyous in her inner being. This applies to all of us: women, men, and singles. Don’t place expectations on others which only God can fulfill. Go to Jesus as the source of real life and let His joy spill into your marriage.

Source of Satisfaction
We guys often think if only my wife had a little more _____ and a little less ______ (you fill in the blanks). Solomon had 1,000 wives and concubines selected for their beauty and royal decent. I don’t know how he found time to even say hi to each of them once a year. My wife and I get so busy we have to email each other to stay in touch. This guy had it all and yet Solomon’s conclusion was this:

Eccl 1:1-2
The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

Then there was the Samaritan woman who tried to find satisfaction in five different husbands and finally a live-in boyfriend. Jesus demonstrated a living metaphor to her with the water in the well they were sitting by. He showed her that the things of this world, including her marriages, could never quench her deepest thirst. Listen:

John 4:13-14
13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Again I say, Let Jesus fill you in all things and let His artesian spring of never ending living water spill over into your marriage.

Conclusion
Men, lead in servant-hood, love heroically, act as priest. And to everybody, tap into the eternal spring and get your thirst quenched by Jesus.

Absorbent Love

…as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth. Isa 53:7

I was bent over the bed, bare bottom exposed. “You,” here dad stopped to smack me with the belt, “…will,” another stop, another swat, “…never,” spank, “…lie...”

Before the next stroke came I interrupted the punishment, yanked my pants up, and burst out, “Okay enough. I will never lie again.” Believe me, there were more swats to follow.

At Jesus’ flogging, each stroke came with a word that imparted my sin, “hatred,” crack, “gossip,” thump, “abuse,” rip, “hypocrisy,” crunch. Then came the nails, “lust,” clang, “pettiness,” ching. I am so glad He did not stop in the middle and say, “Okay enough.” Instead He remained silent and absorbed—every—last—sin.

Jesus remained utterly silent while being maimed for my sin. That silence knifes a truth to my heart that mature love is absorbent. With every smack of the whip and each thud in His face He absorbed a little more of my vileness. Now here am I trying to love as I have been loved. I wrestle with temptation and struggle with trials, but by far the most difficult test is absorbing the vileness of others. Can I be gracious when they cause injury with intent? Can I enter their world of darkness and pain and draw some of it away? Do I have absorbent love?

A dry sponge does nothing but push spills around; it must first be saturated then wrung. I am of no use to God until I am saturated with an awareness of my guilt and then had it wrung out of me by the work of the cross. I am left emptied of my sin but humble, malleable, and absorbent to others.

Prayer: Father, let me be a sponge in your hand ready to absorb.

Sermon – Family Part 1 Oct 2, 2005

Series Intro

Today we are beginning a new series on the family from Ephesians 5 & 6. The divorce rate in America is greater than 50%--even among Christian couples. Divorce breaks covenants, it shreds hearts, it mutilates families; it is against God’s will. We need help and there is no family counselor, self-help book, or seminar that will bring as much success as living according to what God’s Word says about families. Today’s session will be on wives. In future weeks we will focus on husbands and children.

God Created Marriage
Before we head into Ephesians, let’s put marriage into its context. God created marriage in the very beginning of time. The King James Version says:

(Gen 2:24) Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

I had an old bible school professor the used to say, “A man shall leave his father and mother and shall take a cleaver to his wife.”

Archetype of Relationship with God
God had a special purpose in mind when He created marriage. All through the Bible God has placed clues called archetypes. These are living metaphors intended to impart deep truth into our lives. Examples:

Jonah type of Christ
Snake Moses lifted up type of Christ
Abraham/Isaac ram in the thicket type of Christ
Egyptian bondage type of bondage to sin
Passover lamb type of Christ
Jewish temple type of our body as temple of God

Even things like day and night are archetypes of how we now live in the night but heaven will be our day. Marriage is an archetype of the relationship God intends to have with us.

ISA 54:5 For your Maker is your husband--
the LORD Almighty is his name--

ISA 62:5 As a young man marries a maiden,
so will your sons marry you (God);
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you.

HOS 2:19 I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion.

HOS 2:20 I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the LORD.

For some there is no better way to learn how to love, sacrifice, give, receive, walk together, transfer joys and burdens than for a man and a woman to cleave together. The archetype is a shadow of what is to come. So the Passover lamb was a mere shadow while Jesus was the substance which created the shadow. Marriage is the shadow and our relationship with God is the substance.

The beautiful thing about marriage is the more we learn how to love God, the more love God gives us in our marriage. Marital love and heavenly love; the two keep feeding each other like a nuclear reaction. But remove either of the two elements and both sides grow cold.

Do you want the greatest marital advice of all time for free and in just two words? Here it is: Love God. The reason Christian marriages crumble is that, even though there may have been a profession of Christ as Savior, one or both parties are not growing close to God. Show me an on-fire Christian and I’ll show you a person who loves his or her spouse. As we said, the divorce rate among the average Christian couple is one in two. The divorce rate among Christians that regularly pray together is one in 1,052. Marriage helps us learn to love God, and loving God helps us love our spouses.

To the Unmarried
Before we move into Paul’s specific advice to wives let me make a couple of comments about being single.

MT 19:10 The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry."

MT 19:11 Jesus replied, "Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. [12] For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."

Paul helps us understand why Jesus said this:

1CO 7:32 I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs--how he can please the Lord. [33] But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world--how he can please his wife-- [34] and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world--how she can please her husband. [35] I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.

The bottom line here is that some will grow closer in their heavenly marriage with God by finding an earthly spouse to practice on (Poor spouse!). But others will grow closer in their heavenly marriage to God by staying single in this life. Each one must trust God to guide them on how they were made. The goal is always to maximize growth in our relationship with the Holy Spirit. Single people should not feel like they are getting cheated out of anything. Jesus is the best soul-mate you could ever ask for. Take joy!

Wives to Husbands
EPH 5:22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. [23] For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. [24] Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

The woman’s subordination to man was not part of the original creation; neither is it to be part of the future creation in paradise. The history of this goes back to the fall in the garden. The subordination of women was part of the curse on the world. Listen:

Gen 3:16-19
16 To the woman he said,

"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."

17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'

"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food

The price of sin for the woman was childbirth pain and subordination. The price for the man was cursed ground and hard labor. One day these curses will be removed.

Rev 22:1-3
22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse.

When the curse is lifted Eve and every woman after her will be freed from subordination. In the kingdom of God we are all equal:

Gal 3:26-28
26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Paul is talking about our position in Christ and our future in paradise. Just as Paul instructed slaves to submit to their societal position as slaves and yet know in their hearts they were free in Christ, so he tells women they must submit to the subordinate position of the curse and know in their hearts they are equal in Christ. This is the key to the Christian life: Accept our external conditions while dwelling with joy and freedom in Christ in our inner being. Paul talks about our dual existence under the curse in:

Rom 8:18-23
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

One day God will fully emancipate women, for now we must accept the effects of the curse brought on by our own sin. But that does not mean men should take advantage of women. We accept the curse on men of hard labor but we do not add to its difficulties. Just so, we should not add to women’s curse but resist the oppression of women. We have more opportunity to treat women equally in our culture than Paul did. When he wrote the words of Ephesians 5 he had to balance the equality of women against a godly respect for the extremely chauvinistic culture in which he lived. I praise God for how far our nation has come because when it comes to women’s rights, much of the world is still back in the first century.

Matthew Henry said it well: Eve was taken from Adam's side: not from his head, to rule over him: not from his feet to be trampled under him, but from under his heart, to be loved, cherished and protected by him. We will talk a lot more about this next week when Paul addresses husbands.

Ideas from Dani
As I was writing this sermon, my wife slipped a note into my office before she headed off to work.

“Dear Don,
I just wanted to wish you a great, productive day!
All my love! Dani
PS You are in my prayers today – all day.”

Proverbs tells us:

PR 18:22 He who finds a wife finds what is good
and receives favor from the LORD.

I know I have favor from the Lord in my wife. Knowing what a great wife I have in spite of how much grief I have given her, I asked Dani for insights on loving a difficult husband. I asked her how wives can best carry out Paul’s concluding injunction down in:

EPH 5:33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Here are her suggestions for effectively respecting and loving a husband:

Pray for your husband. In the sermon notes, Dani has provided a list of 30 ways you can pray for him from Stormie Omartian’s book, The Power of a Praying Wife. Dani warns that as you pray, you need to be open to how God’s wants to change your heart in some matters, not always your husband’s.
Spend as much time letting God enhance you inside as you do the outside.

1 PET 3:[3] Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. [4] Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.

While what is inside you is by far most important, don’t neglect the outside either. Keep fit and in good health and if the barn, needs paintin’, paint it!
Learn about the inherent differences between men and women and learn to work with those differences instead of always fighting them. Books such as The Five Love Languages and Men are from Mars, Women from Venus are a great help.
Be encouraged that, whether he notices your efforts or not, you are loving your husband because of God’s love in you. Either way, keep on loving him for God’s sake.

Conclusion
Finally there is my advice we mentioned earlier: Love God. Put Him first and let His love overflow into your marriage.

Extra Stuff
In Stormie Omartian’s book, The Power of a Praying Wife, she dedicates a chapter to each of the following suggestions:

Pray for yourself and a change in your attitude towards your husband
Pray for his work
Pray for his finances
Pray for his sexuality
Pray for his affection
Pray for his mind
Pray for his fears
Pray for his purpose
Pray for his protection
Pray for his trials
Pray for his integrity
Pray for his walk
Pray for his talk
Pray for his repentance
Pray for his deliverance
Pray for his obedience
Pray for his self-image
Pray for his faith
Pray for his future
Pray for his choices
Pray for his health
Pray for his protection
Pray for his reputation
Pray for his priorities
Pray for his relationships
Pray for his fatherhood
Pray for his past
Pray for his attitude
Pray for his marriage
Pray for his emotions

Covered Quirks

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 2 Cor 4:7

I am quirky. The other day my writer’s group unearthed my inability to read before audiences. A panic attack melted my voice to a muddy puddle. My joys are to preach, evangelize crowds, pray in public, but please don’t ask me to read. On the way home, I slammed the steering wheel and expelled a primal growl that loosely translated: “Why Lord, why?”

Jesus absorbed my hostile venting into His serene smile. Then He tripped a memory-switch in my head: “Treasure in jars of clay”. While that phrase rattled in my noggin, the Lord made no bones about reminding me I am of earthen mud. Public reading is only one of many things I can’t do. I can’t solve other’s pain, can’t live entirely pure, can’t take wing like a bird, and can’t call a world into existence by my words. So what if public reading expels the contents of my bladder involuntarily? This gets added to the lengthy list of inadequacies where His grace will suffice. If He can do things like hold the stars in their place and erase my sin, it is no big deal to provide for a little public reading.

Exodus says Moses couldn’t speak well (14:10). Galatians implies Paul was nearly blind (6:11). Paul elaborates, “There was given me a thorn in my flesh” (2 Cor 12:7). If Paul’s singular weakness was a thorn then I must have rolled in the cactus patch. But I had barked a question, and God would not leave it unanswered. He showed me the many things I can’t do to clear the way for an encounter with what He can do. Mine will be the thrill of experiencing precisely how He provides for my inadequacies. Instead of slamming my hands in anger, I should clap them in anticipation of what my King is about to do.

Prayer: Father, with joy I release my weakness into Your strength.

King Jesus

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!" The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped. Rev 5:13-14

I have a confession. In the midst of my deepest worship, I fret over which part of the Trinity to pray to. Will I offend God by exclusive devotion to His Son; how does it make Father and Son feel when I yearn for only the Spirit’s presence? If I peek into the Holy of Holies (Ezek 3:12; Heb. 1:3; Rev 22:1), my concern is revealed to be more needless human anxiety. All three share the same throne, side-by-side. The Three in One, God the Father, Jesus the Son, Holy Spirit; perfect harmony, intertwined unity, eternal accord. Any praise to one is absorbed with joy by all three. By their unity I am freed to worship as I will.

Personally, I can best picture Jesus so I often worship Him alone. Holding nothing back, I hurl my being before the feet of King Jesus. Jesus, the object of all my yearning and of everything I hope to encounter. I see Him standing amidst His many lovers, billowing robe crossed by a sash of gold, a wholly attractive son of man with flame-white hair lofting around a rainbow-luminescent face (Rev 1:12-16; Ezek 1:26-28). It is a mental image worth holding onto until it is fulfilled.

On the day of my completion my spirit will rise out of this flesh—a butterfly free of its worm-cocoon. I will soar in ecstasy up to the dais and gape before the splendor of Jesus. His supernova radiance will not cause blindness and I will drink thousands of penetrating beams into my spirit-body and feel them as brilliant points of excitement, knowledge, peace, wholeness, and joy blended one and all into the truest definition of love. Oh come, Lord Jesus!

Prayer: With my face on the ground I worship you King Jesus.

Sermon – The Holy Spirit, Our Best Friend --Sept. 18, 2005

Intro
Last week we spoke about walking in the strength of the Holy Spirit to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. But what does it mean to walk in the Holy Spirit? There is a great amount of mystery and confusion about the Holy Spirit and so it seems good that we should spend some time discussing the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit Timeline
If we take this chronologically we can go back to the very beginning of time in the book of Genesis.

Gen 1:1-2
1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

So far we can see that God was present, and His Spirit was present in the beginning. But there was actually One other who was present.

Gen 1:26
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,…”

To whom is God speaking when He uses the plural? Here is the answer:

John 1:1-3
1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Down in verse 14 we find out Who the Word is:

John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus is the Word. So present in the beginning were God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

Spirit-filled Patriarchs
Fast-forward on our timeline to the time of Moses. Here we find that the Holy Spirit helped Moses and some select leaders in a special way.

Num 11:16-17
16 The LORD said to Moses: "Bring me seventy of Israel's elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you. 17 I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone.

All through the Old Testament we find special people filled with God’s Spirit to perform special tasks. Here are a couple more of many examples:

Judg 6:34
Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him.

Samson:
Judg 14:6
The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat.

King David also enjoyed the presence of the Holy Spirit in his life. He was grieved at the thought his sin would bar him from God’s Spirit.

Ps 51:11
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Prophecy of Filling
Fast forward again to the time of the prophets. Ezekiel foresaw that God would one day give His Holy Spirit to all who followed him.

Ezek 36:24-27
24 "'For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Enter Jesus
Next comes a critical point on our timeline; the advent of Christ. From this point forward all who come to Christ will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:38-39
38 Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off-for all whom the Lord our God will call."

Part of the confusion on the Holy Spirit is a false teaching that unless we speak in tongues or have some spectacular experience we don’t have the Holy Spirit. Yet Paul said:

1 Cor 12:27-31
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28 And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But eagerly desire the greater gifts.

Paul was saying not everyone would have supernatural gifts. I personally don’t reject all present day demonstrations of supernatural gifts. I also think it is not important what I think on this subject. In light of Jesus’ passion for our unity, it is a tragedy the church has polarized into groups who do use gifts and groups who do not. The Holy Spirit lives in all Christians, whether or not there are supernatural demonstrations. Many passages promise the Spirit to all believers.

Luke 11:13
If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

Rom 5:4
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

1 Cor 6:19-20
19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?

Eph 1:13-14
13 Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession-to the praise of his glory.

Titus 3:5-7
He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior

You Have the Holy Spirit
You may not feel you have ever experienced anything from the Holy Spirit. But you heard the Holy Spirit speaking when you first responded to the gospel.

1 Peter 1:12
It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.

According to this verse, whoever first shared the gospel with you was speaking by the Holy Spirit. And when you opened your heart to God’s truth it was the Holy Spirit speaking to you and saying, “I know you can hear me. Don’t harden your heart.”

Heb 3:7-8
7 So, as the Holy Spirit says:

"Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts

That was the Holy Spirit drawing you. And when you were in a difficult conversation with somebody and didn’t know what to say, but suddenly you spoke the Lord’s truth—that was the Holy Spirit giving you words.

Mark 13:11
Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.

When you needed to understand a spiritual truth or recall the words of Jesus, the Holy Spirit spoke to you.

John 14:25-26
25 "All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

Our Friend
The name Counselor in this passage is translated Comforter in the King James Version and the Helper in the New American Standard. The original Greek word is Paraclete, which means one who is called alongside. Listen for that same word in this passage:

John 14:16-18
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever- 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

Notice that last phrase, “I will come to you.” Jesus is plainly telling us He comes to us in the form of the Holy Spirit; He comes alongside; He lives in us.

The World only believes in that which it can see. God’s Spirit is invisible and so unbelievers don’t accept that an external Helper is with us. Jesus told Nicodemus:

John 3:5-8
"I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

Let It Blow
You and I are to allow ourselves to be blown by the Spirit; to be changed and moved by Him. In fact, listen to Paul:

1 Thess 5:19-21
19 Do not put out the Spirit's fire; 20 do not treat prophecies with contempt. 21 Test everything.

Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; let Him blow full strength across your soul. However, notice it also said to test everything. Let’s use an analogy to demonstrate this point. An Aeolian harp is a musical instrument made so that the wind blowing across the strings causes a kind of singing. But to get the box to vibrate with sound it must be carefully placed where the wind is strong. They are often placed in windows or doorways that are slightly opened to create a rush of air.

We must place our hearts where they can be strongly blown by the Holy Spirit. Places like meditation, fellowship, prayer, and singing are the best for the wind of the Spirit. But it is absolutely essential to test what we hear from our hearts against the written Word if God. Sometimes it is our hearts that are out of tune, other times it is an evil spirit blowing instead of the Holy Spirit.

1 John 4:1
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.

The simple test is to listen for harmony between the Spirit blowing on our hearts and the music of the Bible. Those two sources will always be in agreement, always in harmony.

Now is the Time
Can you imagine if Jesus were still here on Earth? What questions might we get answered and what clarifications could He make? But Jesus knew the time we now live in, with the Holy Spirit in us, was more important than even if He Himself were to stay on earth:

John 16:7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.

You and I have the blessing of living in the best possible time, with the best possible Friend right alongside of us. Let us take full advantage and allow the Spirit to blow strongly on our hearts and to listen to His harmony with the Word; after all, as we saw a moment ago, they have been One since the beginning.

Prayer

2 Cor 13:14
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.