Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Yesterday I had to take my two children to the dentist; Gracie, seven years old and Jacob, four years old. The morning started out with some excitement, Gracie and Jacob both brushing their teeth will extra vigilance in hopes to impress the dentist, but as time drew close to the appointment, the excitement began to fade and turn into anxiety and then fear. The car ride the dentist became quite and only a whisper was spoken in the visiting room. When the dentist called for both children to come in from the visiting room, fear and terror filled their eyes, both looking to me for comfort and protection. My heart broke for them, especially when Jacob in a soft whisper asked “daddy will you go with me?” There was a problem; the dental staff particularly did not want parents in the back rooms. Before they received their check ups and cleaning, I was able to embrace both of my children and reassure them that they would be ok and that I would be with them always and that there was nothing to be afraid of.
Then a thought occurred to me. I have been dealing with fear a lot too lately. I have been going through something tremendously hard, painful and scary. At times I can’t help but wonder where God is; why my prayers are not being answered, and why He is allowing me to hurt so much? But perhaps, He is there, right there with me, just like I am with my kids. I know the dentist is scary for them, and I wish they didn’t have to experience that type of fear, but in the end, it is for their own good and health. Perhaps, the same goes for me?
Then a thought occurred to me. I have been dealing with fear a lot too lately. I have been going through something tremendously hard, painful and scary. At times I can’t help but wonder where God is; why my prayers are not being answered, and why He is allowing me to hurt so much? But perhaps, He is there, right there with me, just like I am with my kids. I know the dentist is scary for them, and I wish they didn’t have to experience that type of fear, but in the end, it is for their own good and health. Perhaps, the same goes for me?
Monday, October 17, 2011
sermon I preached two weeks ago
God Loves you
Rock Church
10-2-11
John 15:12-14 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater Love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are my Friends if you do what I command.”
Tonight I would like to unpack the truth that God loves us. Unfortunately, the statement on its own, has become somewhat cliché and a bumper sticker gospel, meaning, that people hear it, they say it, but really don’t know how profound, and deep this truth is. Understanding God’s love for you is extremely deep waters. It’s huge and when you seriously think about it, its mind-boggling. I mean seriously, who are we that God would be mindful of us? This is a question that even King David wrestled with? David asks that exact question in Psalm 8:4 “ what is man that you are mindful of him?”
Who are we, that God, creator of the universe, Who is all powerful, mighty, holy, perfect, and just be mindful of you and I, dirty little sinners? It’s pretty amazing that God, Who is so big, vast, and beyond our comprehension has a love for us. And that love should create a sense of awe in you when you think about it
And here’s why: God is perfect; we are flawed. God is righteous; we are wicked. God all powerful; we are not. God is holy; we are sinners. God exists out side of time; we while on earth, live and die by the clock. God is all knowing; we only think we are.
Here is the deal…God is so great and perfect and so way beyond us, yet He loves us. There is nothing we could ever do that would make Him love us more or less. We are completely unworthy of His love, but He loves us regardless. And because of God’s love, He has done something for us that we are incapable of doing on our own, in that God has given us hope, redemption and Salvation, through His son Jesus Christ.
There are things God want us to know. Truths, which He has revealed to us through scripture. God wants us to know Him, and that He is all of the things I just mentioned, that He is holy, just, perfect, omnipresent, the only true God, He is righteous, and worthy of all praise. He is the creator and that He is love.
1st John 4:8 : reads simply “God is Love…”
Oswald Chambers in his book The Love of God writes: “Its an eternal fact that God is Love. God is not loving, but rather He is love. God and Love are synonymous. Love is not an attribute of God, it is God; whatever God is, Love is. “
When you read through the holy bible, you will find another truth and that is we are sinners. We are nowhere near God’s level or standard of holiness. We have a bad habit of judging one another based on human standards of goodness and or deeds but the bible is clear that we all fall short of God’s glory. We may think we are holier, or a better human being than those who have murdered, cheated, robbed, and have physically hurt others, but the key word is ALL. Not some, not a few, but ALL.
Romans 3:23 “ for all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.”
As Christians, we have to be honest with ourselves here. We are wretched. We are full of sin, whether it be pride, lust, drunkenness, envy, strife, jealously, hatred, gossip, judgment, selfishness, self-centeredness, vanity, conceitedness, and the list goes on. Sin has been ingrained in us ever since the fall of man with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise. Since then, we have been in rebellion against God. The bible even uses the word “enemy”. We have been an enemy of God…Think about that. Nothing you could ever do or say could put you on the same level of God. God is way up here, perfect, holy and blameless and we are way down here, defiled, ugly and wretched. And because of that sin, we are eternally separated from God. Because God is holy, just and perfectly blameless, he cannot be in a relationship with sin, meaning He cannot be in a relationship with us, if…left in our state of depravity.
Here is the thing….the mind blower…God loves you…God loves me. God, the almighty, loves us, who are depraved, sinful and hopeless…This is a deep affectionate Love. He loves us so much, He does something remarkable. Through His love He is willing to forgive us, and has provided a means of reconciliation and redemption. He has granted us salvation, which Pastor Patrick explained a few weeks ago, can only come from Him, through His Grace and Mercy. We clearly cannot achieve salvation on our own…Its simply a gift, which is rooted and motivated by love. His Love for us…
Here is the thing about Love. Actions need to accompany it. I would not have much of a marriage and would not be much of a father to my children if I only told them I love them, but never displayed that love in actions. Honestly, without actions, its not love at all. What kind of marriage would you and I have if we never gave our spouse a hug or a kiss,
if we never gave them compliments, if we never put them before ourselves, if we never remember birthdays or anniversaries, or if we never bought them gifts or spent quality time with them? The same goes with parenting, what kind of Love would it be if you never showed affection, or provided food and shelter for your child; if you never listened to them or spent quality time with them, if you never played with them or praised them or disciplined them. Yes even discipline, if done in a Godly way is an act of love. You can say you love them all you want, but without actions it is meaningless and not Love at all.
All through the bible we see God showing up big time, displaying Love and Grace in actions. But there is no greater display or action of Love then what we see with Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross for us.
Jesus said so Himself, Greater Love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. This is the clearest and most magnificent display of Love that God has for us.
Romans 5: 6-8 reads: “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Just so we are clear, lets unpack the cross for a moment.
Jesus, the son of God, perfect and blameless and without sin,
and as Hebrews 1:3 reads, He is the radiance of His Glory and the exact representation of His nature; translation; Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and Jesus is the exact representation of God’s nature.
Jesus comes to earth, born of a virgin, and at age 30, starts out on His ministry, wherein He lives a sinless life, befriends sinners, eats and drinks with them, heals the sick, raises the dead, called twelve disciplines and taught them in God’s ways, and all along fulfilling every prophecy ever written about the messiah in the old testament. Jesus also knew that He would be handed over and murdered, as it was the Father’s will and out of love, Jesus obeyed…
At age 33, Jesus is betrayed by one of His own disciples, Judas Iscariot, which again, Jesus already knew was going to happen and even prophesied about it during the last supper. Jesus says to his disciples during the Passover meal, “ Truly I say to you that one of you will betray me”, in which all the disciples said “Surely not I”. So it comes about that Judas leads a multitude of people armed with clubs and swords from the Chief Priests and Elders of the people and they arrest and seize Jesus. Jesus is placed on trial 6 times, 3 of which were illegal according to the law, because they were held at night and at each of those trials, Jesus is beaten severely.
The bible details Jesus’ death in that, it records Jesus being punched, mocked, spit on, and slapped. They pulled out chunks of whiskers out of His beard. They blind folded Him and continued to punch Him with their fists, telling Him to prophesy who hit him. They crushed a crown of thorns down on His head and gave Him a staff and again mocked Him, calling out hail king of the jews, then they took the staff and beat Him over the head with it.
Now the Jews were not permitted to put anyone to death, so they take Jesus to Pilate, a Roman governor who had the authority to put Jesus to death, but here is the thing, he found no wrong in Jesus, he even sent Jesus off to another Governor, Herod, who too found no guilt in Jesus so, he sent Him back to Pilate.
Pilate, not wanting to kill Jesus, he figures if he could beat Jesus enough, it would move the crowd to compassion, sparing Jesus’ life. So Pilate has Jesus scourged, starting the fulfillment of the prophesy of Isaiah 53:5 “But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.
So Jesus is whipped with what they call a cat of nine tails… I don’t know if any of you have seen the movie the Passion of Christ. All of what Jesus had endured is violently portrayed in the movie. I have only seen the movie once, and I don’t think I ever need to see it again because the scenes and images of brutality, wrath, and raw viciousness are forever burned into my memory. The scene in the movie where is Jesus is whipped is pretty accurate. The cat of nine tails was a whip with nine stripes of leather and at the end of the leather strip would be a small metal ball or hook. The balls were there for tenderizing the flesh, like you would with a steak. The hooks where made of metal or bone. Their purpose was to hook into the flesh, then rip and tear it apart. A person who was to be scourged would be tied to a stump or a block of wood, exposing the back, buttocks and legs. They would then proceed to whip you, each time the metal balls tenderizing your back and the hooks sinking in and taking a hold of your flesh, then violently ripped out, basically flaying your back, legs and buttocks open. After Jesus was whipped and made to be a bloody mess, Pilate presented Jesus before the crowd.
But the crowd begins to yell and chant “Crucify, crucify, crucify.” You can imagine the bloodthirsty frenzy building up among the people. Pilate in turns tells the crowd that he has no found no fault in Jesus and tells them “ you take him yourself and crucify”. The Jews answer back “ we have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the son of God”. Now prior to Jesus crucifixion, as accustom to the Governor’s Feast, which was being held at that time, one prisoner of the peoples choice was released.
Now Pilate presented both Jesus, the messiah, and a man named Barabbas, who was a robber and murder before the people and asked who they should have released, and the crowed called out for Barabbas. Also Pilates wife who appeared to have a little more discernment than Pilate begged him not to kill Jesus because of a dream she had; however, Pilate knew not crucifying Jesus would result riots and civil unrest, which would be viewed by Rome as poor governorship, so he opts to kill Jesus. Before so, he public washes his hands before the people and tells them that he is innocent of Jesus’ blood, and the crowd responds, “ may his blood be on us and our children”. Jesus is then is lead away to be crucified. They even have Jesus attempt to carry His own cross, but he was took weak and beaten, so they pulled a man out of the crowd by the name of Simon to carry Jesus’ cross. We know him as Simon of Cyrene.
Once they arrived to a place called Golgotha, which means place of skull, they nailed Jesus to the cross, crucifying Him. They also divided up his garments and gambled for them, again fulfilling more prophesy of the Old Testament.
Jesus, stripped of His clothes, is hung on the cross, suffering in unimaginable pain and people continue to mock Him.
The actual cause of death during crucifixion is suffocation. People are hung in a way that restricts their breathing. The only way to breathe while on the cross is to push up from your crucified feet, which no doubt would hurt, so that you could inhale. This goes on for hours in the baking sun. Your body burning, and become dehydrated, you becoming weaker and weaker, until you no longer have the will or strength to lift yourself up for breath. In some cases, Roman soldiers would break the legs of those being crucified, prohibiting them from being able to lift themselves up to breath, expediting the death process. In Jesus’ case his legs were not broken, again another fulfillment of Old Testament prophesy. Jesus is left there on the cross until he dies and then to ensure He is dead, they run a spear up His rib cage, puncturing His lungs and heart sack and blood and water flow.
Graphic I know, and here is what is so astonishing about the whole ordeal…
Hebrews 12:1 says “for who the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the thrown of God. Jesus, who the joy was set before Him endured the cross!
Are you kidding me? Joy? What Joy could there ever be in that type of torture and brutality? All of you would be hard press to find any joy in crucifixion. So what possibly could that joy be?
“For Who the joy set before Him endured the cross..”
The joy is that He (Jesus) was purchasing many sons and daughters for the Father.
He gave His life for you and I because He loves us. He gladly works as an interceder between us the Father because He loves us. Remember, Jesus said so Himself, Greater Love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
What’s extraordinary is that not only does God love us, but He knows us…He knows and see the good and bad. He knows our weakness, He knows our flesh, He knows we are going to fail, and stumble. He knows that we are going to sin and that we are going to be drawn to wicked things, which make us feel yucky, dirty, shameful and embarrassed, but that is the point of the Cross!
Listen, The cross is God’s love in action and it is a picture of God’s love for you in spite of you. The cross is necessary because of you, and me…but it is also the picture of how mighty God’s love is and how far He is willing to go and pursue us.
And this Love God has for you should motivate you to do two things. It should motivate you to repentance and gratitude.
There are many Christians who doubt this love or don’t fully believe it. They think and feel that what they have done in the past is unforgivable. As if God had not gone to the cross for their sins or that His grace some how does not apply or insufficient. That is nonsense! That is a lie from the enemy! The bible is very clear about His love for us.
Romans 8:35-39 Reads: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul doesn’t mince words here. “ We are to be considered sheep to be slaughtered..” Look, becoming a Christian does not exclude you from hardship, pain and bad things. Sometimes its self-imposed, other times, it’s just life. The world is full of sin, and sin wreaks havoc, pain, devastation, and turmoil. There is a Christian Pastor in Iran that is about to be executed because he would not renounce Jesus. Christians get sick with illness like cancer daily. People rob us, hurt us, and fail us. But we have something the world doesn’t have, and they can’t take it away. We have Jesus, and His love! The world can rob us blind, drain our pensions, take our lives for confessing Christ, hurl insults at us, mock us and betray us, but they cannot take Christ and His love from us!
The Message bible puts it this way: So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one. None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
The bible also says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8-1)
Once you have embraced God’s magnificent Love and grace, by surrendering and turning your life over the Christ Jesus, repenting of your sins, and proclaiming and confessing that Jesus is son of God and that He has not only forgiven you of your sins, but has paid the price for them, by being sacrificed upon the cross, YOU ARE IN CHRIST JESUS. That meaning, God no longer sees you in your depraved state, rather, through Christ Jesus who is blameless and pure.
I heard a story about a woman, whom while engaged to be married she slept with another man. Afterwards she was filled with guilt, shame and remorse. She was also filled with fear.
Fear that if she told her fiancé, he would not marry her, and after they were married, she feared if he ever found out or if she ever told him, he would hate her and divorce her. The guilt, shame, and dark secrete began to erode the marriage, until one day, she confessed. The husband’s response was to go to the store and buy a white night gown for his wife. He returned home, undressed his wife and put the white night gown on her and told her he chooses to see her as Jesus does.
It is because of Jesus’ love and that action of His love that he displayed on the cross that it can be as Isaiah writes (Isaiah 1:18-19) “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.”
Because of Jesus we are white as snow. How magnificent His love for us is!
Application. Real simple. Know and embrace God’s love for you! Stand firm in that. Don’t let the enemy speak discouraging lies to. Don’t beat yourself up over failures, instead, repent and move forward by the power and grace of God’s love. Don’t doubt God’s love. Instead share His love. Love others, as He has commanded us to do so. The cross is not a free pass to continue in your sin. We as Christians respond to His love with love, in that we obey to the best of our abilities His commandment, which Jesus says in (Mark 12:30-31) Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”
Lets pray….
Rock Church
10-2-11
John 15:12-14 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater Love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are my Friends if you do what I command.”
Tonight I would like to unpack the truth that God loves us. Unfortunately, the statement on its own, has become somewhat cliché and a bumper sticker gospel, meaning, that people hear it, they say it, but really don’t know how profound, and deep this truth is. Understanding God’s love for you is extremely deep waters. It’s huge and when you seriously think about it, its mind-boggling. I mean seriously, who are we that God would be mindful of us? This is a question that even King David wrestled with? David asks that exact question in Psalm 8:4 “ what is man that you are mindful of him?”
Who are we, that God, creator of the universe, Who is all powerful, mighty, holy, perfect, and just be mindful of you and I, dirty little sinners? It’s pretty amazing that God, Who is so big, vast, and beyond our comprehension has a love for us. And that love should create a sense of awe in you when you think about it
And here’s why: God is perfect; we are flawed. God is righteous; we are wicked. God all powerful; we are not. God is holy; we are sinners. God exists out side of time; we while on earth, live and die by the clock. God is all knowing; we only think we are.
Here is the deal…God is so great and perfect and so way beyond us, yet He loves us. There is nothing we could ever do that would make Him love us more or less. We are completely unworthy of His love, but He loves us regardless. And because of God’s love, He has done something for us that we are incapable of doing on our own, in that God has given us hope, redemption and Salvation, through His son Jesus Christ.
There are things God want us to know. Truths, which He has revealed to us through scripture. God wants us to know Him, and that He is all of the things I just mentioned, that He is holy, just, perfect, omnipresent, the only true God, He is righteous, and worthy of all praise. He is the creator and that He is love.
1st John 4:8 : reads simply “God is Love…”
Oswald Chambers in his book The Love of God writes: “Its an eternal fact that God is Love. God is not loving, but rather He is love. God and Love are synonymous. Love is not an attribute of God, it is God; whatever God is, Love is. “
When you read through the holy bible, you will find another truth and that is we are sinners. We are nowhere near God’s level or standard of holiness. We have a bad habit of judging one another based on human standards of goodness and or deeds but the bible is clear that we all fall short of God’s glory. We may think we are holier, or a better human being than those who have murdered, cheated, robbed, and have physically hurt others, but the key word is ALL. Not some, not a few, but ALL.
Romans 3:23 “ for all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.”
As Christians, we have to be honest with ourselves here. We are wretched. We are full of sin, whether it be pride, lust, drunkenness, envy, strife, jealously, hatred, gossip, judgment, selfishness, self-centeredness, vanity, conceitedness, and the list goes on. Sin has been ingrained in us ever since the fall of man with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise. Since then, we have been in rebellion against God. The bible even uses the word “enemy”. We have been an enemy of God…Think about that. Nothing you could ever do or say could put you on the same level of God. God is way up here, perfect, holy and blameless and we are way down here, defiled, ugly and wretched. And because of that sin, we are eternally separated from God. Because God is holy, just and perfectly blameless, he cannot be in a relationship with sin, meaning He cannot be in a relationship with us, if…left in our state of depravity.
Here is the thing….the mind blower…God loves you…God loves me. God, the almighty, loves us, who are depraved, sinful and hopeless…This is a deep affectionate Love. He loves us so much, He does something remarkable. Through His love He is willing to forgive us, and has provided a means of reconciliation and redemption. He has granted us salvation, which Pastor Patrick explained a few weeks ago, can only come from Him, through His Grace and Mercy. We clearly cannot achieve salvation on our own…Its simply a gift, which is rooted and motivated by love. His Love for us…
Here is the thing about Love. Actions need to accompany it. I would not have much of a marriage and would not be much of a father to my children if I only told them I love them, but never displayed that love in actions. Honestly, without actions, its not love at all. What kind of marriage would you and I have if we never gave our spouse a hug or a kiss,
if we never gave them compliments, if we never put them before ourselves, if we never remember birthdays or anniversaries, or if we never bought them gifts or spent quality time with them? The same goes with parenting, what kind of Love would it be if you never showed affection, or provided food and shelter for your child; if you never listened to them or spent quality time with them, if you never played with them or praised them or disciplined them. Yes even discipline, if done in a Godly way is an act of love. You can say you love them all you want, but without actions it is meaningless and not Love at all.
All through the bible we see God showing up big time, displaying Love and Grace in actions. But there is no greater display or action of Love then what we see with Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross for us.
Jesus said so Himself, Greater Love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. This is the clearest and most magnificent display of Love that God has for us.
Romans 5: 6-8 reads: “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Just so we are clear, lets unpack the cross for a moment.
Jesus, the son of God, perfect and blameless and without sin,
and as Hebrews 1:3 reads, He is the radiance of His Glory and the exact representation of His nature; translation; Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and Jesus is the exact representation of God’s nature.
Jesus comes to earth, born of a virgin, and at age 30, starts out on His ministry, wherein He lives a sinless life, befriends sinners, eats and drinks with them, heals the sick, raises the dead, called twelve disciplines and taught them in God’s ways, and all along fulfilling every prophecy ever written about the messiah in the old testament. Jesus also knew that He would be handed over and murdered, as it was the Father’s will and out of love, Jesus obeyed…
At age 33, Jesus is betrayed by one of His own disciples, Judas Iscariot, which again, Jesus already knew was going to happen and even prophesied about it during the last supper. Jesus says to his disciples during the Passover meal, “ Truly I say to you that one of you will betray me”, in which all the disciples said “Surely not I”. So it comes about that Judas leads a multitude of people armed with clubs and swords from the Chief Priests and Elders of the people and they arrest and seize Jesus. Jesus is placed on trial 6 times, 3 of which were illegal according to the law, because they were held at night and at each of those trials, Jesus is beaten severely.
The bible details Jesus’ death in that, it records Jesus being punched, mocked, spit on, and slapped. They pulled out chunks of whiskers out of His beard. They blind folded Him and continued to punch Him with their fists, telling Him to prophesy who hit him. They crushed a crown of thorns down on His head and gave Him a staff and again mocked Him, calling out hail king of the jews, then they took the staff and beat Him over the head with it.
Now the Jews were not permitted to put anyone to death, so they take Jesus to Pilate, a Roman governor who had the authority to put Jesus to death, but here is the thing, he found no wrong in Jesus, he even sent Jesus off to another Governor, Herod, who too found no guilt in Jesus so, he sent Him back to Pilate.
Pilate, not wanting to kill Jesus, he figures if he could beat Jesus enough, it would move the crowd to compassion, sparing Jesus’ life. So Pilate has Jesus scourged, starting the fulfillment of the prophesy of Isaiah 53:5 “But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.
So Jesus is whipped with what they call a cat of nine tails… I don’t know if any of you have seen the movie the Passion of Christ. All of what Jesus had endured is violently portrayed in the movie. I have only seen the movie once, and I don’t think I ever need to see it again because the scenes and images of brutality, wrath, and raw viciousness are forever burned into my memory. The scene in the movie where is Jesus is whipped is pretty accurate. The cat of nine tails was a whip with nine stripes of leather and at the end of the leather strip would be a small metal ball or hook. The balls were there for tenderizing the flesh, like you would with a steak. The hooks where made of metal or bone. Their purpose was to hook into the flesh, then rip and tear it apart. A person who was to be scourged would be tied to a stump or a block of wood, exposing the back, buttocks and legs. They would then proceed to whip you, each time the metal balls tenderizing your back and the hooks sinking in and taking a hold of your flesh, then violently ripped out, basically flaying your back, legs and buttocks open. After Jesus was whipped and made to be a bloody mess, Pilate presented Jesus before the crowd.
But the crowd begins to yell and chant “Crucify, crucify, crucify.” You can imagine the bloodthirsty frenzy building up among the people. Pilate in turns tells the crowd that he has no found no fault in Jesus and tells them “ you take him yourself and crucify”. The Jews answer back “ we have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the son of God”. Now prior to Jesus crucifixion, as accustom to the Governor’s Feast, which was being held at that time, one prisoner of the peoples choice was released.
Now Pilate presented both Jesus, the messiah, and a man named Barabbas, who was a robber and murder before the people and asked who they should have released, and the crowed called out for Barabbas. Also Pilates wife who appeared to have a little more discernment than Pilate begged him not to kill Jesus because of a dream she had; however, Pilate knew not crucifying Jesus would result riots and civil unrest, which would be viewed by Rome as poor governorship, so he opts to kill Jesus. Before so, he public washes his hands before the people and tells them that he is innocent of Jesus’ blood, and the crowd responds, “ may his blood be on us and our children”. Jesus is then is lead away to be crucified. They even have Jesus attempt to carry His own cross, but he was took weak and beaten, so they pulled a man out of the crowd by the name of Simon to carry Jesus’ cross. We know him as Simon of Cyrene.
Once they arrived to a place called Golgotha, which means place of skull, they nailed Jesus to the cross, crucifying Him. They also divided up his garments and gambled for them, again fulfilling more prophesy of the Old Testament.
Jesus, stripped of His clothes, is hung on the cross, suffering in unimaginable pain and people continue to mock Him.
The actual cause of death during crucifixion is suffocation. People are hung in a way that restricts their breathing. The only way to breathe while on the cross is to push up from your crucified feet, which no doubt would hurt, so that you could inhale. This goes on for hours in the baking sun. Your body burning, and become dehydrated, you becoming weaker and weaker, until you no longer have the will or strength to lift yourself up for breath. In some cases, Roman soldiers would break the legs of those being crucified, prohibiting them from being able to lift themselves up to breath, expediting the death process. In Jesus’ case his legs were not broken, again another fulfillment of Old Testament prophesy. Jesus is left there on the cross until he dies and then to ensure He is dead, they run a spear up His rib cage, puncturing His lungs and heart sack and blood and water flow.
Graphic I know, and here is what is so astonishing about the whole ordeal…
Hebrews 12:1 says “for who the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the thrown of God. Jesus, who the joy was set before Him endured the cross!
Are you kidding me? Joy? What Joy could there ever be in that type of torture and brutality? All of you would be hard press to find any joy in crucifixion. So what possibly could that joy be?
“For Who the joy set before Him endured the cross..”
The joy is that He (Jesus) was purchasing many sons and daughters for the Father.
He gave His life for you and I because He loves us. He gladly works as an interceder between us the Father because He loves us. Remember, Jesus said so Himself, Greater Love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
What’s extraordinary is that not only does God love us, but He knows us…He knows and see the good and bad. He knows our weakness, He knows our flesh, He knows we are going to fail, and stumble. He knows that we are going to sin and that we are going to be drawn to wicked things, which make us feel yucky, dirty, shameful and embarrassed, but that is the point of the Cross!
Listen, The cross is God’s love in action and it is a picture of God’s love for you in spite of you. The cross is necessary because of you, and me…but it is also the picture of how mighty God’s love is and how far He is willing to go and pursue us.
And this Love God has for you should motivate you to do two things. It should motivate you to repentance and gratitude.
There are many Christians who doubt this love or don’t fully believe it. They think and feel that what they have done in the past is unforgivable. As if God had not gone to the cross for their sins or that His grace some how does not apply or insufficient. That is nonsense! That is a lie from the enemy! The bible is very clear about His love for us.
Romans 8:35-39 Reads: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul doesn’t mince words here. “ We are to be considered sheep to be slaughtered..” Look, becoming a Christian does not exclude you from hardship, pain and bad things. Sometimes its self-imposed, other times, it’s just life. The world is full of sin, and sin wreaks havoc, pain, devastation, and turmoil. There is a Christian Pastor in Iran that is about to be executed because he would not renounce Jesus. Christians get sick with illness like cancer daily. People rob us, hurt us, and fail us. But we have something the world doesn’t have, and they can’t take it away. We have Jesus, and His love! The world can rob us blind, drain our pensions, take our lives for confessing Christ, hurl insults at us, mock us and betray us, but they cannot take Christ and His love from us!
The Message bible puts it this way: So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one. None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
The bible also says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8-1)
Once you have embraced God’s magnificent Love and grace, by surrendering and turning your life over the Christ Jesus, repenting of your sins, and proclaiming and confessing that Jesus is son of God and that He has not only forgiven you of your sins, but has paid the price for them, by being sacrificed upon the cross, YOU ARE IN CHRIST JESUS. That meaning, God no longer sees you in your depraved state, rather, through Christ Jesus who is blameless and pure.
I heard a story about a woman, whom while engaged to be married she slept with another man. Afterwards she was filled with guilt, shame and remorse. She was also filled with fear.
Fear that if she told her fiancé, he would not marry her, and after they were married, she feared if he ever found out or if she ever told him, he would hate her and divorce her. The guilt, shame, and dark secrete began to erode the marriage, until one day, she confessed. The husband’s response was to go to the store and buy a white night gown for his wife. He returned home, undressed his wife and put the white night gown on her and told her he chooses to see her as Jesus does.
It is because of Jesus’ love and that action of His love that he displayed on the cross that it can be as Isaiah writes (Isaiah 1:18-19) “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.”
Because of Jesus we are white as snow. How magnificent His love for us is!
Application. Real simple. Know and embrace God’s love for you! Stand firm in that. Don’t let the enemy speak discouraging lies to. Don’t beat yourself up over failures, instead, repent and move forward by the power and grace of God’s love. Don’t doubt God’s love. Instead share His love. Love others, as He has commanded us to do so. The cross is not a free pass to continue in your sin. We as Christians respond to His love with love, in that we obey to the best of our abilities His commandment, which Jesus says in (Mark 12:30-31) Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”
Lets pray….
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Exerts taken from Desiring God by John Piper. "Suffering, whether it be sickness, or persecution have this in common: they are both intended by Satan for the destruction of our faith and governed by God for the purifying of our faith. God rules over Satan and gives him no more leash than can accomplish His ultimate purpose. God's purposes are opposite of Satan's. Christ's sovereignly accomplishes His loving, purifying purpose by overruling Satan's destructive attempts. Satan is always aiming to destroy our faith, but Christ magnifies His own power in our weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)
King David was a man after God's own heart (1st Sam. 13:13-14 & Acts 13:22) and nothing more clearly shows this then David's writings in Psalms. Psalm 27:4, David asks one thing. He writes: "One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek; That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to meditate in His temple." What is David asking for? He is asking to Glorify God and to bask in His glory. David is not asking for earthly treasures but rather, the ULTIMATE TREASURE, the eternal treasure, the heavenly treasure, God Himself. ( I am my beloved, and my... beloved is mine...Song of Solomon 6:3) He is our beloved. He is our treasure! And though David asked, he must still seek. The Devil desires to Seek and Destroy; we however, must learn to Seek and Glorify!
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
I have nothing coming
I have come to the conclusion, that we all have more than we deserve. There should be no expectations or feelings of entitlement, because, none of us have anything coming...If anything, those of us that follow Christ, the only thing we have coming is a cross to bare. With that in mind, we should always have a sense of gratitude. We should be grateful for what we do have. We may not have everything we want, but God has already given us everything we need and more, starting with the first waking breath we took this morning. The hot water for the shower, the breakfast we ate, the job we have, the car we drive, the health we are enjoying, the wives we married, the healthy children we were given and the friends we were blessed with is all extra.
Monday, January 10, 2011
My friend C.W.
It really is a travesty to not realize how important or how much a person means to you until they fall ill, sick, or become inured, worse yet, are gone. This morning when I began to pray for my friend C.W., I began to cry because I realized how important he has been to me and how much he has taught me. C.W. is ill and has been recently hospitalized. He has been battling cancer for a while now, but you would never know it because he never mentions it. I would have never known about his cancer if it wasn’t for a mutual friend who told me.
See, C.W. isn’t prideful or embarrassed, he is the opposite. He doesn’t talk about himself because he is a humble man and he is always more concerned for others than himself. I met C.W. within my first week of recovery from Alcohol, and over the last couple of years, I have watched him treat all new comers the same way as he did with me. That is with open arms, compassion and encouragement. I have never heard him speak or complain of his cancer, though he has ever right to do so. Instead, C.W. is a man of few words, and of those few words, I have heard the same words from him over and over again, yet they have never gotten old. Whenever C.W. is called upon to speak in a meeting, he always opens with his name, followed by “I am an alcoholic- Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I was once lost, but now I am found, was blind but now I see.” And sometimes, he just leaves it at that. He once told me that when he first had gotten sober, he attended an AA meeting that was within a church. He said while he was waiting for the meeting to start, he picked up a hymnal and opened it, and right there, the first words he read, was that of Amazing Grace. Ever since then, he has repeated those same words he read over a decade ago every single time he is called upon to share. C.W. gets it…God help me to get it too.
It really is a travesty to not realize how important or how much a person means to you until they fall ill, sick, or become inured, worse yet, are gone. This morning when I began to pray for my friend C.W., I began to cry because I realized how important he has been to me and how much he has taught me. C.W. is ill and has been recently hospitalized. He has been battling cancer for a while now, but you would never know it because he never mentions it. I would have never known about his cancer if it wasn’t for a mutual friend who told me.
See, C.W. isn’t prideful or embarrassed, he is the opposite. He doesn’t talk about himself because he is a humble man and he is always more concerned for others than himself. I met C.W. within my first week of recovery from Alcohol, and over the last couple of years, I have watched him treat all new comers the same way as he did with me. That is with open arms, compassion and encouragement. I have never heard him speak or complain of his cancer, though he has ever right to do so. Instead, C.W. is a man of few words, and of those few words, I have heard the same words from him over and over again, yet they have never gotten old. Whenever C.W. is called upon to speak in a meeting, he always opens with his name, followed by “I am an alcoholic- Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I was once lost, but now I am found, was blind but now I see.” And sometimes, he just leaves it at that. He once told me that when he first had gotten sober, he attended an AA meeting that was within a church. He said while he was waiting for the meeting to start, he picked up a hymnal and opened it, and right there, the first words he read, was that of Amazing Grace. Ever since then, he has repeated those same words he read over a decade ago every single time he is called upon to share. C.W. gets it…God help me to get it too.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Tonight at church, I am speaking a little bit about Christmas and the story of the Prodigal Son.
I am sure you are wondering, what does the Prodigal Son have to do with Christmas, and I would say everything!
Let me start by saying the story of the Prodigal son is a special one because its one of those 3 for 1 deals. With one story, you get three applications. We see that there are three characters, the father, son, and a brother and with each character, there is an application. We see a story of the son’s EGO, life of sin, and then repentance. We see the father’s forgiveness, reconciliation, and grace. Then there is the brother’s who is angry and jealous that the father has so readily taken back the brother. Tonight, we are going to look at the story of reconciliation between the son and the father. And that’s why this story is important to Christmas. It’s a beautiful story of reconciliation and of a metaphor or parable of God the father, and mankind, which includes all of us.
My favorite Christmas song is Hark the herald Angle Sing, because of the line, “ God and sinners reconcile.”
It’s that line right there that is the good news we proclaim as Christians.
Lets look at the word reconcile for a moment.
The word reconcile means a couple of different things.
The dictionary defines reconcile as “case to co-exist in harmony; make or show to be compatible or to no longer appose.”
Try this definition on for size. How about “ to fix what is broke…”
So what’s broke? Well in the story we just read, we see that the father and son’s relationship has broke. So you understand how serious of a deal this was, let me explain some of the context. This isn’t a story of a son asking his dad for 100 bucks and staying gone all weekend. This is so much bigger than that. When the son asked his father for his inheritance in advanced, be basically wished his father dead. You are dead to me, so give me what I have coming is pretty much what the actions of the son spoke here. The son has shown complete disrespect, selfishness, and greed. We see first hand through the story what self-will run riot looks like. Surprisingly, the father grants the son his request and gives him his inheritance, then the son leaves. And what does he do with his money; he spent it on “wild living”.
By today’s standards of wild living, I think of Tiger Woods. Think of everything we learned about Tiger this last year and his escapades, and I think that Tiger’s once secret lifestyle is not too different from the Son’s.
During the course of time that the son was out living life in the fast lane, boozing, and eating at all of the best restaurants, chasing women, and gambling, he has no contact with his father. Why should he? He wished his father dead so that he could take his inheritance. The relationship that once was is not completely broken.
Let me pause there for a second and point out another relationship that was broken and that story is in Genesis chapter 3. See, after God made earth, and all of the animals and mankind, Adam and Eve, he said it was Very good. And He had a relationship with Adam and Eve and would walk amongst them in the garden. They had a direct line to the Creator. They had a perfect relationship with God. They were in harmony with God and did not appose Him, that was until the serpent shows up on the scene. And we know, as the story goes, Eve eats from the tree and then has Adam eat, and immediately their relationship with God was forever changed. They were once naked and unashamed, but now, they run and hide and cover themselves. Of course, God is not happy about this, and because God is pure and holy he cannot be in a relationship with sin. Which is what Adam and Eve brought upon themselves.
The bible tells us that God is a loving and kind; however, he is also just and in Him there is no darkness. 1st John 4:8 reads God is Love, with that in mind, let me read you a quote from a Thomas Thaherne, a priest and private Chaplin, in the later part of the 1600s and also a favorite writer of C.S. Lewis. Thomas Thaherne writes:
Love can forbear and Love can forgive…but Love can NEVER be reconciled to an unlovely object...He therefore, can never be reconciled to your sin, because sin cannot be altered; but he may be reconciled to your person, because that my be restored.
There we have it people. Because God cannot reconcile to Sin and because of man’s EGO (Which really stands for Edging God Out), the relationship between man and God was broken. Thankfully, there is a remedy and path for reconciliation.
Did you catch that part within the quote that says “God me be reconciled to the Person, because that may be restored”? And we know that we can only be restored through our Savior Jesus Christ. We have an opportunity to become restored because of the ultimate Christmas gift God gave to us, Jesus Christ. We now have a pathway for reconciliation with God. Sure, the relationship is not like the one Adam and Eve initially had with God, but we have a secured hope in the end, that when we join the father, we will again see Him and live again in complete harmony with the mighty creator, spending eternity basking in His glory and worshiping Him.
On a side note, I want to address some poor theology and that is that some people believe that God sent Jesus as a plan “B” because mankind was a failed experiment. That we messed things up so bad, that God had to revise His game plan, which is absolutely not true. God knew all along how all of this was going to play out. This is His story. He has written it from beginning to end. He is omnipresent. He was in the beginning and in the end. He knew what He was doing and it was always part of the plan. And what is so mind-blowing, and humbling is that God has written each of us into His story. There is a problem though, and that is we are constantly trying to highjack His story and make it our own story, were we become the main character and that it’s all about us.
EGO. (Edging God out).
As we go back to the story of the Prodigal Son, we see that son eventually lost everything. I imagine he had a hole in his heart the whole time he had departed from his Father, which he tried harder and harder to fill with fleshly desires. And then he hit rock bottom, and he hit it hard. We can all relate to being hungry, but I can’t say I have ever been so hungry that I longed to eat the pig slop. With no more money to spend on things that would temporarily numb his emptiness, let along feed himself, he decided to humbled himself and returned to his father, asking for forgiveness and to give him a job as a servant. And we read that “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 son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”
Reconciliation… what was once broken has been fixed; restored and placed back into harmony.
Now, there is a little bit more to the idea of reconciliation and we read about it in
2nd Corinthians 5:18-19:
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
I am sure you are wondering, what does the Prodigal Son have to do with Christmas, and I would say everything!
Let me start by saying the story of the Prodigal son is a special one because its one of those 3 for 1 deals. With one story, you get three applications. We see that there are three characters, the father, son, and a brother and with each character, there is an application. We see a story of the son’s EGO, life of sin, and then repentance. We see the father’s forgiveness, reconciliation, and grace. Then there is the brother’s who is angry and jealous that the father has so readily taken back the brother. Tonight, we are going to look at the story of reconciliation between the son and the father. And that’s why this story is important to Christmas. It’s a beautiful story of reconciliation and of a metaphor or parable of God the father, and mankind, which includes all of us.
My favorite Christmas song is Hark the herald Angle Sing, because of the line, “ God and sinners reconcile.”
It’s that line right there that is the good news we proclaim as Christians.
Lets look at the word reconcile for a moment.
The word reconcile means a couple of different things.
The dictionary defines reconcile as “case to co-exist in harmony; make or show to be compatible or to no longer appose.”
Try this definition on for size. How about “ to fix what is broke…”
So what’s broke? Well in the story we just read, we see that the father and son’s relationship has broke. So you understand how serious of a deal this was, let me explain some of the context. This isn’t a story of a son asking his dad for 100 bucks and staying gone all weekend. This is so much bigger than that. When the son asked his father for his inheritance in advanced, be basically wished his father dead. You are dead to me, so give me what I have coming is pretty much what the actions of the son spoke here. The son has shown complete disrespect, selfishness, and greed. We see first hand through the story what self-will run riot looks like. Surprisingly, the father grants the son his request and gives him his inheritance, then the son leaves. And what does he do with his money; he spent it on “wild living”.
By today’s standards of wild living, I think of Tiger Woods. Think of everything we learned about Tiger this last year and his escapades, and I think that Tiger’s once secret lifestyle is not too different from the Son’s.
During the course of time that the son was out living life in the fast lane, boozing, and eating at all of the best restaurants, chasing women, and gambling, he has no contact with his father. Why should he? He wished his father dead so that he could take his inheritance. The relationship that once was is not completely broken.
Let me pause there for a second and point out another relationship that was broken and that story is in Genesis chapter 3. See, after God made earth, and all of the animals and mankind, Adam and Eve, he said it was Very good. And He had a relationship with Adam and Eve and would walk amongst them in the garden. They had a direct line to the Creator. They had a perfect relationship with God. They were in harmony with God and did not appose Him, that was until the serpent shows up on the scene. And we know, as the story goes, Eve eats from the tree and then has Adam eat, and immediately their relationship with God was forever changed. They were once naked and unashamed, but now, they run and hide and cover themselves. Of course, God is not happy about this, and because God is pure and holy he cannot be in a relationship with sin. Which is what Adam and Eve brought upon themselves.
The bible tells us that God is a loving and kind; however, he is also just and in Him there is no darkness. 1st John 4:8 reads God is Love, with that in mind, let me read you a quote from a Thomas Thaherne, a priest and private Chaplin, in the later part of the 1600s and also a favorite writer of C.S. Lewis. Thomas Thaherne writes:
Love can forbear and Love can forgive…but Love can NEVER be reconciled to an unlovely object...He therefore, can never be reconciled to your sin, because sin cannot be altered; but he may be reconciled to your person, because that my be restored.
There we have it people. Because God cannot reconcile to Sin and because of man’s EGO (Which really stands for Edging God Out), the relationship between man and God was broken. Thankfully, there is a remedy and path for reconciliation.
Did you catch that part within the quote that says “God me be reconciled to the Person, because that may be restored”? And we know that we can only be restored through our Savior Jesus Christ. We have an opportunity to become restored because of the ultimate Christmas gift God gave to us, Jesus Christ. We now have a pathway for reconciliation with God. Sure, the relationship is not like the one Adam and Eve initially had with God, but we have a secured hope in the end, that when we join the father, we will again see Him and live again in complete harmony with the mighty creator, spending eternity basking in His glory and worshiping Him.
On a side note, I want to address some poor theology and that is that some people believe that God sent Jesus as a plan “B” because mankind was a failed experiment. That we messed things up so bad, that God had to revise His game plan, which is absolutely not true. God knew all along how all of this was going to play out. This is His story. He has written it from beginning to end. He is omnipresent. He was in the beginning and in the end. He knew what He was doing and it was always part of the plan. And what is so mind-blowing, and humbling is that God has written each of us into His story. There is a problem though, and that is we are constantly trying to highjack His story and make it our own story, were we become the main character and that it’s all about us.
EGO. (Edging God out).
As we go back to the story of the Prodigal Son, we see that son eventually lost everything. I imagine he had a hole in his heart the whole time he had departed from his Father, which he tried harder and harder to fill with fleshly desires. And then he hit rock bottom, and he hit it hard. We can all relate to being hungry, but I can’t say I have ever been so hungry that I longed to eat the pig slop. With no more money to spend on things that would temporarily numb his emptiness, let along feed himself, he decided to humbled himself and returned to his father, asking for forgiveness and to give him a job as a servant. And we read that “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 son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”
Reconciliation… what was once broken has been fixed; restored and placed back into harmony.
Now, there is a little bit more to the idea of reconciliation and we read about it in
2nd Corinthians 5:18-19:
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
Friday, December 10, 2010
A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege to preach a sermon at our church. I thought I would share with those who were not there my sermon in written text.
Scripture reading:
Romans Chapter 8: 1-13 (print in bulletin)
Well, you guys are stuck with me tonight…
I am a little nervous, so forgive me if I miss speak or stutter, or use the umm 100 times. There are a few things about preaching that I know I wont be able to do tonight. One thing that is discouraged when preaching is not to hide behind the podium, they encouraged to speaker to move round. That’s not happening, I am staying right here! I need somewhere to duck if you guys start throwing things. The other thing is to make lots of eye contact, but I fully intend on referring and reading from my notes most of the time tonight. That is not a skill I have yet developed. They also say that when you are nervous to picture the audience nude…I wont do that…
Let me share really quick how this all came about. A few weeks ago, Pastor Patrick called me and asked me if I would be willing to let him mentor me in the field of preaching, because it was his hope that I could fill in for him from time to time, and I accepted his invitation, not thinking it would be this soon, without any mentoring. How selfish of him to go out and have a heart attack without giving me any mentoring time. But God is good. We are grateful that our Pastor is on the road to recovery and I believe he will be released tomorrow. Also, another testimony of how good God is, on Monday an idea was laid upon my heart, which I wanted to write about on my blog. I even figured that this idea might be a good sermon topic in the future. Well that future is tonight.
So let me jump right into it.
Mark 8: 34-35
Jesus is quoted as saying:
“If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his own life, shall lose it; BUT whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s shall save it.”
For those who wish to save their own live, they shall lose it; but those who lose their life for His sake and the Gospel’s shall save it… How can we lose something for the purpose to saving it?
Sayings like that don’t make much sense in the world we live in. This is counter to everything that our culture, society, TV, Hollywood, and the media are telling us.
We have all heard similar sayings like; “you have to surrender to win”, “ You must die to truly live”, and “there is no life without death”.
None of this would make any sense in the earthly realm of the world, it just doesn’t compute; however, it makes perfect sense in the Kingdom of God. That’s why we call it the upside down Kingdom. The rules in the secular world do not apply in God’s Kingdom. It’s a place that those who are last are first, those who lead do so by serving, and those who lose their life will find it.
So what is it that Jesus is saying here? “For whoever loses his life for His sake and the Gospel’s shall save it…Obvious, for most of the twelve disciples, losing one’s life was literal in the sense of martyrism. Maybe, what Jesus was saying went beyond the literal sense. Obviously, we are not all called to be martyrs, but we are all called to follow Him, so what is it exactly He is saying here?
Perhaps, what He is saying is that in order to follow him, we need to put Him before us; to put away our selfish wants and desires and pursue His will; to stop pursuing a life of self, but instead pursue the life of Christ; to be Christ-centered rather than self-centered.
For more clarification, lets look at our scripture reading, Romans, Chapter 8, verses 1-13, the Apostle Paul writes:
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
There is it right there, “Righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, WHO DO NOT LIVE ACCORDING TO THE FLESH, BUT ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT.
So what does it look like to NOT live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit?
Paul continues:
“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.
And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”
Through reading this scripture, we know that a life according to the spirit is a Christ-centered life and is of peace. PEACE… Have you guys ever seen the bummer sticker that reads No Jesus No Peace, Know Jesus Know Peace? Very true…
Paul elaborates in his letter to the church of Galatia what the two lives entail.
(Flesh lead life VS the Spirit lead life). In Galatians Chapter 5 verse 16-26, he describes the characteristics of the conflicting lives.
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
We have come to believe that our Father in heaven, who is gracious, and patient, sent His son, Jesus Christ to earth, to live a sinless life, all a long taking on the flesh of sinful man, and who was temped in everyway, but kept the law to the fullest, and died on our behalf as an atonement for our sins. Jesus was the great sacrifice. Through his death and resurrections, we have an opportunity to really live. We have a choice; we can live our lives like the walking dead, like Zombies; enslaved to our sinful natures. We can live in a kingdom where we make ourselves the king and place our fleshly desires over everything, and or everyone, OR we can make Him, Jesus, the rightful king, and take up the life of the spirit, wherein we live in peace, joy, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control.
The Bible tells us in Philippians Chapter 2, verse 12 “Continue to work out your salvation.”
See, the moment that we accept Jesus as our Savior, we enter into a life with Him, and as we read earlier, in the beginning of Romans Chapter 8, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
Jesus paid our debt and forgave us for our sinful nature. However, that does not mean that our sinful nature disappears immediately, though I wish it would... We still struggle with our sinful nature. We battle against it. We just read that the two natures are in constant conflict with each other. We are constantly trying to push out our self-center ways and replace it with a Christ-center life. But how quick do we return to our SOP? Standard Operational Procedure, which is the sinful nature of the flesh.
I remember once, a few years back I was driving home from work. While I was driving, I was fully enjoying a time of Worship, singing from the top of lungs to God. In a matter of a split second, I went from singing praises to our God, to cursing the driver who had just cut me off. I went form love, joy and gentleness to hatred, discord and a fit of rage in a blink of an eye.
Back to the Apostle Paul…, he said it best when he wrote in Romans Chapter 7, Verse 19, “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing”…
Can anyone relate?
Lets get real here. Do I have your permission to get real? I mean this is a church where no perfect people are allowed right? So you all should be able to relate to what I am about to say…
I sin… I sin all the time. And just like Paul, I don’t always do the good things I want to, but instead do the evil things I do not want to do. We all do. Though our spirit is willing, our flesh is weak…
Let me also share this with you. Most of you don’t know this, but I am an alcoholic.
Remember the list of characteristics of the flesh, drunkenness is one of them and for years, I was drunk every single night. I was likely an alcoholic before I became a Christian. The first time I ever stepped into a church on my own free will as an adult was after a night of drinking, in which I blacked out. I don’t recall how I got home that night. I don’t know what the date was, other than it was a Sunday morning in July, but I do know that it was the beginning steps of my soon to come relationship with Jesus Christ. I accepted Christ as my Savior within a couple of weeks, and initially I stopped drinking. But in less than a year, that fleshly desire worked itself back into my life. Though I didn’t return to the bars, I did return to the bottle and slowly it began to take a hold of me again. It really developed into a stronghold for me. In the beginning it didn’t seem like a big deal to drink two or three glass of wine from time to time. But once a month turned into once a couple of weeks, which lead into a couple of times a week and in the end, every day. It didn’t seem that big of deal drink three or four beers a night. And over the course of seven years, my alcohol consumption grew and grew. I justified my drinking by telling myself that I have a stressful job and deserve it. That it’s ok to drink at home, every night…its ok, because I am not out driving. It’s ok because I am not cheating on my wife. I pay my bills. I work hard and so on and so forth…I would also say that I had a freedom in Christ to drink alcohol. But the bible is very clear about what God thinks about those who get drunk. He’s not talking about enjoying a beverage, kicking back having a beer while watching the game. He addresses drunkenness and says the man who is drunk is a fool. Drunkenness is foolish and I had become a fool.
And then it started to go down hill for me. I started living in secrecy, because I didn’t want people to find out how much I was drinking. And for those of you that knew that we use to attend this church years ago and abruptly stopped attending, this is why. I was tired of living a lie. I was tired of pretending. I was tired of wearing a mask. I made Alcohol an idle and that had become more of a priority than my church attendance, my friendships, my marriage, my children and my walk with Christ. For years, I tried to control it. I tried drinking only on weekends. I tried fasting for 40 days, which I just ended up drinking a lot of non-alcohol beer. A lot! Not to mention, I was beyond irritable for 40 days. I even once tried taking sleeping pills. I had this idea, that if I took some sleeping pills early in the evening, I could just fall asleep at about 6pm and sleep through my hours of temptations. Though I wanted to stop drinking and getting drunk on an everyday basis, I was unwilling to let go to that fleshly desire. I so badly wanted to hold onto it.
I beat myself up for years over my addiction. I lost all peace and serenity in my life because the two natures where in conflict with each other. My flesh desired drunkenness, but the Spirit within me desired something all together different and better. I was in constant turmoil.
Then, on July 7, 2008, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I finally became willing to give it all up. That night I prayed whole heartily a drunken prayer. I asked God with complete sincerity to make me sick of drinking. I asked Jesus to make me so sick that I wont want to drink anymore. Then, I staggered to my bedroom, snuck into bed not to awake my wife and passed out, which was no different than all the previous nights over the last seven years, except this night was different. God answered my prayer.
A few hours later I woke up with the chills and began throwing up. I threw up all six beers and the bottle of wine I had drank, plus dinner, and maybe a kidney. I am not too sure.
The next morning, as I laid in bed I realized that God had answered my prayer. I wasn’t hung over; this was different. I had drank no more than my normal amount, I had some sort of flue and I had it bad. I knew in my heart that this sudden sickness was divinely given. Be careful for what you ask for, you might just get it. I can tell you what happens in our household when one of us gets sick; it’s just a matter of a few days when the rest of the household starts to fall ill. Not this time. It was just me…
By surrendering, I won. I let go of something that was keeping me in bondage. A life in bondage is not what Christ desires for us. He came to set us free! But how can we be free when we refuse to let go of those fleshly things that keep us in bondage? Where is the freedom when you live according to the Flesh? I can tell you first hand there is absolutely NO FREEDOM in addiction. If you are a gossiper, are you not enslaved to the fear of people finding out what you said about them behind their back? If you are quick tempered, are you not ruled by your irrational emotions? If you are filled with jealousy, are you not owned by insecurities?
Let me add, that my recovery and healing from alcoholism did not end there. I had my work cut out to me. I had to swallow a lot of pride and seek recovery. And because of our gracious and patient God, and his answered prayer, along with the program of AA, I can proudly tell you have almost two and half years of sobriety. I can tell you that by letting go and surrendering, I did in fact win. I won my life back; my marriage back; and my walk and relationship with Christ has grown beyond measure. I have learned to cope, trust and rely on God in a whole new way and have become a better follower of Jesus, a better husband, father, friend, employee and person.
We have a saying in AA, in exchange for the bottle; I was given the keys to the kingdom.
I once heard a story from a missionary, wherein he said that the natives in the jungle would catch monkeys with a special trap. The trap involves a hollow coconut, chained to a stake and baited with food, like peanuts. It has a hole large enough for the monkey to put its hand into, but too small to remove its hand while holding the bait. The monkey needs only to let go to escape, but gets caught because it refuses to let go in its panic to keep its precious find.
Can you relate? For the monkey, and me, by refusing to let go, we were facing certain death.
Funny, we being the so called evolved primates say to ourselves, stupid little monkeys, yet we do the exact same thing…
So really, what’s my point? I would say that it that this whole following Christ thing, is a work in progress. I know you are not the same Christian you are today as you were a year ago; maybe even 6 months ago. I know I am not. And I am confident; that we are not going to be the same Christians we are tonight, a year from now. Our goal is to grow in Christ. Its not about spiritual perfection, that is impossible, but it is about spiritual progress. We don’t want to stall out in our walk with Christ.
I will say, there are seasons to faith. And some seasons feel like spring, your alive, full of color, fruitful, and joyous and there are other seasons where you feel like winter, cold, dormant, dry, and perhaps, foggy, like our valley winters. I know first hand what the winter feels like. I spiritually lived there for years and it got colder and colder, but Jesus never gave up on me and he will never give up on you! He worked on my heart and redeemed and me again. And now, I have a testimony for his glory!
This is not a one-time thing people. Yes God has forgiven us of our sins! Yes, Jesus died on the cross as an atonement for our sins. And Yes, God is full of grace, but “are we to continue sinning so that grace may increase? May it be never! How are we who are supposed to be dead to sin, continue to live in it?” Romans 6: 1-2
We are His clay, and God is the great sculptor. He is continually sculpting us making us more and more like Him. And he sculpts, molds, and refines us by speaking to our hearts. You know this because you have heard him. You have heard his whisper.
There are areas in each one of our lives that are still ruled by the flesh and God desires us to change those areas because they are not healthy. He doesn’t want us living in shame, guilt, bondage, addictions and or isolation, but that is exactly what we feel when we live in the flesh.
Let me ask you tonight, what are you holding on to? Pastor Patrick shared last week about the nets we drag and all of the muck those nets pick up and he encouraged us to drop those nets. In a way I am making the same plea, what are you still holding onto that you know you ought to let go? Invite Christ into that area and surrender it to Him and you wont be disappointed.
If you don’t have a personal relationship with Christ, you can have one. Starting right now! All you have to do is ask Jesus into you Heart. Pray to Him, acknowledging and confessing your sins to Him. Believe that He was perfect and sinless and that he died on the cross for your sins; so that you could be forgiven and enter into eternity with the Father. Believe that He rose from the grave after three days and defeated death. Surrender your will to His.
Lets pray…
Father, thank you for your loving kindness and patience. Thank you for laying your life down for us, so that we may live and have enteral life with you. Jesus, thank you for modeling what our lives should look like. We acknowledge that you desire us to live lives free of bondage and perpetual sin, which just cultivates and produces despair, grief, drama, heart ache, sadness and loneliness. Lord, speak to each of our hearts, may Your light shine on the dark areas of our lives and please give us the courage to make the necessary changes. Help us let go of the things that are killing us spiritually and physically. We ask this in Your name Jesus, AMEN.
Scripture reading:
Romans Chapter 8: 1-13 (print in bulletin)
Well, you guys are stuck with me tonight…
I am a little nervous, so forgive me if I miss speak or stutter, or use the umm 100 times. There are a few things about preaching that I know I wont be able to do tonight. One thing that is discouraged when preaching is not to hide behind the podium, they encouraged to speaker to move round. That’s not happening, I am staying right here! I need somewhere to duck if you guys start throwing things. The other thing is to make lots of eye contact, but I fully intend on referring and reading from my notes most of the time tonight. That is not a skill I have yet developed. They also say that when you are nervous to picture the audience nude…I wont do that…
Let me share really quick how this all came about. A few weeks ago, Pastor Patrick called me and asked me if I would be willing to let him mentor me in the field of preaching, because it was his hope that I could fill in for him from time to time, and I accepted his invitation, not thinking it would be this soon, without any mentoring. How selfish of him to go out and have a heart attack without giving me any mentoring time. But God is good. We are grateful that our Pastor is on the road to recovery and I believe he will be released tomorrow. Also, another testimony of how good God is, on Monday an idea was laid upon my heart, which I wanted to write about on my blog. I even figured that this idea might be a good sermon topic in the future. Well that future is tonight.
So let me jump right into it.
Mark 8: 34-35
Jesus is quoted as saying:
“If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his own life, shall lose it; BUT whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s shall save it.”
For those who wish to save their own live, they shall lose it; but those who lose their life for His sake and the Gospel’s shall save it… How can we lose something for the purpose to saving it?
Sayings like that don’t make much sense in the world we live in. This is counter to everything that our culture, society, TV, Hollywood, and the media are telling us.
We have all heard similar sayings like; “you have to surrender to win”, “ You must die to truly live”, and “there is no life without death”.
None of this would make any sense in the earthly realm of the world, it just doesn’t compute; however, it makes perfect sense in the Kingdom of God. That’s why we call it the upside down Kingdom. The rules in the secular world do not apply in God’s Kingdom. It’s a place that those who are last are first, those who lead do so by serving, and those who lose their life will find it.
So what is it that Jesus is saying here? “For whoever loses his life for His sake and the Gospel’s shall save it…Obvious, for most of the twelve disciples, losing one’s life was literal in the sense of martyrism. Maybe, what Jesus was saying went beyond the literal sense. Obviously, we are not all called to be martyrs, but we are all called to follow Him, so what is it exactly He is saying here?
Perhaps, what He is saying is that in order to follow him, we need to put Him before us; to put away our selfish wants and desires and pursue His will; to stop pursuing a life of self, but instead pursue the life of Christ; to be Christ-centered rather than self-centered.
For more clarification, lets look at our scripture reading, Romans, Chapter 8, verses 1-13, the Apostle Paul writes:
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
There is it right there, “Righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, WHO DO NOT LIVE ACCORDING TO THE FLESH, BUT ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT.
So what does it look like to NOT live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit?
Paul continues:
“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.
And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”
Through reading this scripture, we know that a life according to the spirit is a Christ-centered life and is of peace. PEACE… Have you guys ever seen the bummer sticker that reads No Jesus No Peace, Know Jesus Know Peace? Very true…
Paul elaborates in his letter to the church of Galatia what the two lives entail.
(Flesh lead life VS the Spirit lead life). In Galatians Chapter 5 verse 16-26, he describes the characteristics of the conflicting lives.
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
We have come to believe that our Father in heaven, who is gracious, and patient, sent His son, Jesus Christ to earth, to live a sinless life, all a long taking on the flesh of sinful man, and who was temped in everyway, but kept the law to the fullest, and died on our behalf as an atonement for our sins. Jesus was the great sacrifice. Through his death and resurrections, we have an opportunity to really live. We have a choice; we can live our lives like the walking dead, like Zombies; enslaved to our sinful natures. We can live in a kingdom where we make ourselves the king and place our fleshly desires over everything, and or everyone, OR we can make Him, Jesus, the rightful king, and take up the life of the spirit, wherein we live in peace, joy, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control.
The Bible tells us in Philippians Chapter 2, verse 12 “Continue to work out your salvation.”
See, the moment that we accept Jesus as our Savior, we enter into a life with Him, and as we read earlier, in the beginning of Romans Chapter 8, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
Jesus paid our debt and forgave us for our sinful nature. However, that does not mean that our sinful nature disappears immediately, though I wish it would... We still struggle with our sinful nature. We battle against it. We just read that the two natures are in constant conflict with each other. We are constantly trying to push out our self-center ways and replace it with a Christ-center life. But how quick do we return to our SOP? Standard Operational Procedure, which is the sinful nature of the flesh.
I remember once, a few years back I was driving home from work. While I was driving, I was fully enjoying a time of Worship, singing from the top of lungs to God. In a matter of a split second, I went from singing praises to our God, to cursing the driver who had just cut me off. I went form love, joy and gentleness to hatred, discord and a fit of rage in a blink of an eye.
Back to the Apostle Paul…, he said it best when he wrote in Romans Chapter 7, Verse 19, “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing”…
Can anyone relate?
Lets get real here. Do I have your permission to get real? I mean this is a church where no perfect people are allowed right? So you all should be able to relate to what I am about to say…
I sin… I sin all the time. And just like Paul, I don’t always do the good things I want to, but instead do the evil things I do not want to do. We all do. Though our spirit is willing, our flesh is weak…
Let me also share this with you. Most of you don’t know this, but I am an alcoholic.
Remember the list of characteristics of the flesh, drunkenness is one of them and for years, I was drunk every single night. I was likely an alcoholic before I became a Christian. The first time I ever stepped into a church on my own free will as an adult was after a night of drinking, in which I blacked out. I don’t recall how I got home that night. I don’t know what the date was, other than it was a Sunday morning in July, but I do know that it was the beginning steps of my soon to come relationship with Jesus Christ. I accepted Christ as my Savior within a couple of weeks, and initially I stopped drinking. But in less than a year, that fleshly desire worked itself back into my life. Though I didn’t return to the bars, I did return to the bottle and slowly it began to take a hold of me again. It really developed into a stronghold for me. In the beginning it didn’t seem like a big deal to drink two or three glass of wine from time to time. But once a month turned into once a couple of weeks, which lead into a couple of times a week and in the end, every day. It didn’t seem that big of deal drink three or four beers a night. And over the course of seven years, my alcohol consumption grew and grew. I justified my drinking by telling myself that I have a stressful job and deserve it. That it’s ok to drink at home, every night…its ok, because I am not out driving. It’s ok because I am not cheating on my wife. I pay my bills. I work hard and so on and so forth…I would also say that I had a freedom in Christ to drink alcohol. But the bible is very clear about what God thinks about those who get drunk. He’s not talking about enjoying a beverage, kicking back having a beer while watching the game. He addresses drunkenness and says the man who is drunk is a fool. Drunkenness is foolish and I had become a fool.
And then it started to go down hill for me. I started living in secrecy, because I didn’t want people to find out how much I was drinking. And for those of you that knew that we use to attend this church years ago and abruptly stopped attending, this is why. I was tired of living a lie. I was tired of pretending. I was tired of wearing a mask. I made Alcohol an idle and that had become more of a priority than my church attendance, my friendships, my marriage, my children and my walk with Christ. For years, I tried to control it. I tried drinking only on weekends. I tried fasting for 40 days, which I just ended up drinking a lot of non-alcohol beer. A lot! Not to mention, I was beyond irritable for 40 days. I even once tried taking sleeping pills. I had this idea, that if I took some sleeping pills early in the evening, I could just fall asleep at about 6pm and sleep through my hours of temptations. Though I wanted to stop drinking and getting drunk on an everyday basis, I was unwilling to let go to that fleshly desire. I so badly wanted to hold onto it.
I beat myself up for years over my addiction. I lost all peace and serenity in my life because the two natures where in conflict with each other. My flesh desired drunkenness, but the Spirit within me desired something all together different and better. I was in constant turmoil.
Then, on July 7, 2008, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I finally became willing to give it all up. That night I prayed whole heartily a drunken prayer. I asked God with complete sincerity to make me sick of drinking. I asked Jesus to make me so sick that I wont want to drink anymore. Then, I staggered to my bedroom, snuck into bed not to awake my wife and passed out, which was no different than all the previous nights over the last seven years, except this night was different. God answered my prayer.
A few hours later I woke up with the chills and began throwing up. I threw up all six beers and the bottle of wine I had drank, plus dinner, and maybe a kidney. I am not too sure.
The next morning, as I laid in bed I realized that God had answered my prayer. I wasn’t hung over; this was different. I had drank no more than my normal amount, I had some sort of flue and I had it bad. I knew in my heart that this sudden sickness was divinely given. Be careful for what you ask for, you might just get it. I can tell you what happens in our household when one of us gets sick; it’s just a matter of a few days when the rest of the household starts to fall ill. Not this time. It was just me…
By surrendering, I won. I let go of something that was keeping me in bondage. A life in bondage is not what Christ desires for us. He came to set us free! But how can we be free when we refuse to let go of those fleshly things that keep us in bondage? Where is the freedom when you live according to the Flesh? I can tell you first hand there is absolutely NO FREEDOM in addiction. If you are a gossiper, are you not enslaved to the fear of people finding out what you said about them behind their back? If you are quick tempered, are you not ruled by your irrational emotions? If you are filled with jealousy, are you not owned by insecurities?
Let me add, that my recovery and healing from alcoholism did not end there. I had my work cut out to me. I had to swallow a lot of pride and seek recovery. And because of our gracious and patient God, and his answered prayer, along with the program of AA, I can proudly tell you have almost two and half years of sobriety. I can tell you that by letting go and surrendering, I did in fact win. I won my life back; my marriage back; and my walk and relationship with Christ has grown beyond measure. I have learned to cope, trust and rely on God in a whole new way and have become a better follower of Jesus, a better husband, father, friend, employee and person.
We have a saying in AA, in exchange for the bottle; I was given the keys to the kingdom.
I once heard a story from a missionary, wherein he said that the natives in the jungle would catch monkeys with a special trap. The trap involves a hollow coconut, chained to a stake and baited with food, like peanuts. It has a hole large enough for the monkey to put its hand into, but too small to remove its hand while holding the bait. The monkey needs only to let go to escape, but gets caught because it refuses to let go in its panic to keep its precious find.
Can you relate? For the monkey, and me, by refusing to let go, we were facing certain death.
Funny, we being the so called evolved primates say to ourselves, stupid little monkeys, yet we do the exact same thing…
So really, what’s my point? I would say that it that this whole following Christ thing, is a work in progress. I know you are not the same Christian you are today as you were a year ago; maybe even 6 months ago. I know I am not. And I am confident; that we are not going to be the same Christians we are tonight, a year from now. Our goal is to grow in Christ. Its not about spiritual perfection, that is impossible, but it is about spiritual progress. We don’t want to stall out in our walk with Christ.
I will say, there are seasons to faith. And some seasons feel like spring, your alive, full of color, fruitful, and joyous and there are other seasons where you feel like winter, cold, dormant, dry, and perhaps, foggy, like our valley winters. I know first hand what the winter feels like. I spiritually lived there for years and it got colder and colder, but Jesus never gave up on me and he will never give up on you! He worked on my heart and redeemed and me again. And now, I have a testimony for his glory!
This is not a one-time thing people. Yes God has forgiven us of our sins! Yes, Jesus died on the cross as an atonement for our sins. And Yes, God is full of grace, but “are we to continue sinning so that grace may increase? May it be never! How are we who are supposed to be dead to sin, continue to live in it?” Romans 6: 1-2
We are His clay, and God is the great sculptor. He is continually sculpting us making us more and more like Him. And he sculpts, molds, and refines us by speaking to our hearts. You know this because you have heard him. You have heard his whisper.
There are areas in each one of our lives that are still ruled by the flesh and God desires us to change those areas because they are not healthy. He doesn’t want us living in shame, guilt, bondage, addictions and or isolation, but that is exactly what we feel when we live in the flesh.
Let me ask you tonight, what are you holding on to? Pastor Patrick shared last week about the nets we drag and all of the muck those nets pick up and he encouraged us to drop those nets. In a way I am making the same plea, what are you still holding onto that you know you ought to let go? Invite Christ into that area and surrender it to Him and you wont be disappointed.
If you don’t have a personal relationship with Christ, you can have one. Starting right now! All you have to do is ask Jesus into you Heart. Pray to Him, acknowledging and confessing your sins to Him. Believe that He was perfect and sinless and that he died on the cross for your sins; so that you could be forgiven and enter into eternity with the Father. Believe that He rose from the grave after three days and defeated death. Surrender your will to His.
Lets pray…
Father, thank you for your loving kindness and patience. Thank you for laying your life down for us, so that we may live and have enteral life with you. Jesus, thank you for modeling what our lives should look like. We acknowledge that you desire us to live lives free of bondage and perpetual sin, which just cultivates and produces despair, grief, drama, heart ache, sadness and loneliness. Lord, speak to each of our hearts, may Your light shine on the dark areas of our lives and please give us the courage to make the necessary changes. Help us let go of the things that are killing us spiritually and physically. We ask this in Your name Jesus, AMEN.
