If I remember correctly, I got the call on Sunday morning. Someone in our church attempted suicide. This was the first time for me to face something like this even indirectly. The pastor asked that I preach the sermon as he went to be with the person. I believe it is posted on the church site, but because of the sensitive nature of the topic I didn’t want to open old wounds by re-circulating the message. However, it came up again today, and I am aware of another situation where someone I know has attempted suicide. I’m sharing this now in the hope that rough as it is, the heart and the truth of it will come through and bring restoration. Your life is precious! Please don’t throw it away!
Our society teaches us to tolerate just about anything. Not only are we to tolerate it, but we are to embrace it. This attitude has crept into our churches. In the genuine desire to show love and acceptance to all, we look the other way in the presence of sinful behavior.
Is that what Jesus meant by not judging? What do we think of parents who do that with their children? What kind of children do they usually turn out to be? We are supposed to love the sinner. We were all sinners saved by His blood and we still fight the battles. Church should be a place where the sinner is welcome, but it should never be a place where sin is condoned. That is going to make sinners uncomfortable at times. They may respond by repenting or they may run away. We must not be afraid to speak the truth.
When we look the other way in the presence of sin, we are not acting in love. It’s possible for our hearts to be in the right place, but our actions are out of step with our motivation. If you saw a child about to go into traffic, would you turn away because you don’t want to judge him for his choices? Sometimes our motives are not so pure. We don’t want to get involved. We don’t want to make trouble or put ourselves at risk. We’d never admit it, but our actions suggest we’d rather the child get run over than risk getting run over ourselves. We can’t claim to be loving unless we’re willing to do the tough things that love sometimes requires.
11 Deliver those who are being taken away to death,
And those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back. 12 If you say, “See, we did not know this,”
Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts?
And does He not know it who keeps your soul?
And will He not render to man according to his work? (Prov 24:11-12 NASB)
The subject of Demons came up in church one week, and I thought it might raise some questions. So I did what little I could to answer some of them. I spoke about the subject of Satan, demons, and spiritual warfare.
I don’t really like to talk about that much because I don’t want to give Satan any glory. The first thing we all need to know about Satan is that he is already defeated. As a child of God, you should not fear him. Having said that, failure to acknowledge that we have an active enemy who wants to destroy us is foolishness.
Much has been written and speculated about Satan and his demons with scant scriptural support. We won’t spend much time on the speculation. What I do hope we will learn is something of what the scripture clearly shows us and what we should do with that knowledge. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:11-12 NASB)
In this podcast, I try to provide a very basic understanding of the Holy Spirit. To do this we’re going to ask some questions similar to those any good investigator would. Who is He? What does He do? Where, when, how, and why does He do it? I hope that by the end of the podcast you will have a deeper knowledge of and openness to this person of the Trinity who is often misunderstood, misrepresented, or ignored.
7 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8 And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; 11 and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. 12 I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” (John 16:7-15 NASB)
I think that we all carry around lies that we believe because of things that have happened or been told us in the past. It doesn’t necessarily take a traumatic event, but it often happens that way. However it happens, the forces of the evil one inject a lie into our thoughts. We believe that lie, and it begins to bind us.
We’ve all heard the famous movie phrase, “You can’t handle the truth!” Oh how Satan wants you to believe just that! And he will make sure that the truth you think you can’t handle is one big Hellish lie! We’re going to examine some of the lies you may have been told and counter them with the truth of God’s Word. Jesus said, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:31-32) I hope you’ll join us next week and find your freedom in His truth.
In April of 2013, we watched in disbelief as terrorists set off bombs at the Boston Marathon. Two days later, right here in Texas a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant killed several, injured many more, and destroyed or damaged property for 5 blocks around the plant. Why did this happen? Why does any bad thing happen? Eventually we learned who set off those bombs and what happened at that plant, but we may have asked deeper questions. We might have asked more specifically, “why did God let it happen?”
On Monday morning of the same week, I read Psalm 34. It inspired the sermon I would preach the next Sunday with these events in mind. We are told in the introduction that this psalm was written during a time when the future king David had fled his own country to avoid being killed by the jealous King Saul, whom he had faithfully served. He was hiding out with Israel’s mortal enemies, the philistines. He was afraid of that king too so he pretended to be crazy. That way the king would not consider him a threat.
You might think at this point that David would be angry and discouraged. We know from other psalms that sometimes he did feel that way, but that isn’t what he expresses here. This psalm is an expression of praise to Yahweh from beginning to end. David could have looked at his circumstances, but instead he chose to focus on the Lord.
There is a lesson here for us. David acknowledged that troubles abounded, but he knew the One who was able to deliver him. He says in verse 19, “Many are the distresses of the righteous, but Yahweh delivers him out of them all.” (LEB) Let’s look at this wonderful psalm together and see what we can learn.
One thing we should remember when we read our Bible is that the chapters and verses were added for convenience long after the original text was written. The chapter and verse breaks don’t always fall in the best places to help us understand what the text is saying. Matthew 18 is not one of those cases. I think it’s just right. I’m also not a big fan of the subheadings many translations add, especially when they stray into the realm of commentary. However I’m going to provide my own for this chapter, “To Protect and to Save.”
Jesus is telling us many things in this chapter, but we will focus on some main themes. Protect the weak and the innocent. Address sin with love. Strive always for redemption. Forgiveness is essential. I hope this will help us to understand why it is so important that we deal with sin in our lives and in our church body as well as the redemptive purpose that is ever present throughout God’s word.
When I set out to prepare this sermon, I planned a rather straightforward exhortation about how we need to renew our minds by focusing our thoughts on the things of God instead of the things of this world. I began with Romans 12:2, and it remains the key verse from which the topic was launched, but I began to see that I was going to take it completely out of its context. It’s important for us to realize when we read the Bible that it is not a collection of disjointed snippets that we can cut and paste together to fit our fancy. It’s a collection of historical accounts, poetry, prophecies, and letters; divinely assembled to give us the instructions we need to live as God intended. The book of Romans is one of my favorite books to pull from, but it is a single letter and really should be read from beginning to end. However, that can’t be accomplished in 30 minutes, so I tried to extract the sense of the part without violating the meaning of the whole. Let’s look at chapter 12 and maybe just a bit of 11 so we can see what the therefore is there for and see what Paul meant when he said that we should be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
This is one of my favorites. Little did I know when I preached this that by the end of that same week Linda would experience a relapse and we would be put to the test like never before.
I want to encourage you whatever you’re facing. God isn’t asking you for what you don’t have. He’s asking you for what you do have. We’re going to start from the story of the widow in Mark 12:41-44. We’re not told much about her. We don’t know what dreams she had. We don’t know what trials life brought her, except that they brought her to the place of having no one to care for her. We are told one very important thing about this woman. She didn’t have much, but she gave everything she had. I believe that is why her story is here for us. this isn’t just about giving money, though it is certainly applicable to money. This attitude can be applied to everything about us. Listen, and let us explore together the ways in which we can give all that we have to the Lord. You will be surprised at what He can do with it.
We’ve all heard it. We’ve probably all said it of ourselves. Advertisements are full of it, and we’re all too ready to believe it. Is it true? Whatever “it” is, do we really deserve it?
When we speak of ourselves or someone else deserving something, we’re relying on our concept of justice to make that determination. Whether the desert is good or bad, we did something for which it is a just consequence. We may use the concept more generally regarding someone’s overall character, but character is revealed in action.
I cannot at this moment recall any time I have heard the phrase “I/You deserve it” spoken truthfully. The speaker may have believed it, but that didn’t make it true. We usually have an inflated view of ourselves and what we deserve. God tells us what we deserve through the Bible (Rom 6:23) and there’s nothing good about it. We deserve death. Every breath we take is an act of His mercy. Every good thing we have comes from Him (James 1:17.) When we start thinking this way our whole attitude changes. Demands are replaced with expressions of gratitude. Pride is overcome by humility. There is no room for jealousy. We will find ourselves glorifying Yahweh, creator and Lord of all that is and the only one who truly does deserve it.
We can be thankful that we don’t get what we deserve. Instead a merciful and loving God made a way for us to get the exact opposite of what we deserve. It is His gift to us that we never could earn. What happens if we let that reality shape the way we live? Let’s find out!
