Rambling Rev

Scripture:  1 Peter 1:22-25

Everything in our lives seems to be changing.  Everything in our world seems to be changing.  Some changes are for the good, some are not for the good.  I read this past week an article from Harper’s Magazine about one attempted change.  According to court records filed in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, a 44-year-old man petitioned the court to have his name legally changed to “Boomer the Dog.”  In his petition, he stated, “I’ve been known as Boomer the Dog by friends in the community for more than 20 years. I want to bring my legal name in line with that.”  The judge denied the name-change request, arguing that it would cause too much confusion.  The judge’s decision included the following example:  Petitioner witnesses a serious automobile accident and [calls 911]. The dispatcher queries as to the caller’s identity, and the caller responds, “This is Boomer the Dog.”  It is not a stretch to imagine the telephone dispatcher concluding that the call is a prank and refusing therefore to send an emergency medical response. I am denying the petitioner’s request.  The judge concluded his memorandum by observing, “Although the petitioner apparently wishes it were otherwise, the simple fact remains that he is not a dog.” Changes, or attempts at change, are all around us.  Our jobs change.  Our take home pay changes.  Our children change – they grown up.  Our bodies change – they get older.  Our schools change.  Our parents change.  Our nation changes.  Our society changes.  We look for some kind of safe haven for change, and just when we think we may have found one, it changes. 

I enjoy the Reader’s Digest magazine – its been available as long as I can remember.  They recently filed for bankruptcy, citing electronic media as the reason for their losses.  Kodak was the name to which all of us looked for a camera – we used them for years.  They have filed for bankruptcy, not being able to make the transition well from film photography to digital photography.  Change is happening all around us, whether we like them or not.  We can protest, we can write letters, we can boycott, but the change still comes.  Some changes we may slow, some we may reverse, but the tide of change is bigger than we are, and so things continue to change and life in general continues to change.  I’ve said on other occasions that I don’t like change.  I feel it is necessary and it is a sign of growth, but I don’t like it.  I like stability, predictability and reliability.  What I realized long ago however, is that my God is a God of change.  He won’t leave me alone.  He is constantly leading me to grow, to mature, to follow Him in greater and deeper ways.  In other words, he is intent on continuing to change me

 He won’t leave me alone!  So where do we turn for stability, for security, for some sense of sanity in this life of rapid-fire change?  We turn to God’s Word.  God’s Word is always the same.  We can count on it, it is dependable, it is a rock on which to build our lives.  When the storms of change howl and the wind and rain of circumstances beat down upon us, we can be steady because of His Word.  God’s Word anchors us in our relationship with God.  It anchors us in our relationship with others.  It anchors us in our perspective of the world around us.  God’s Word is a wondrous thing.  There are at least three reasons based on passage this morning as to why that is so.

  First of all, the Word is wondrous because it proclaims salvation.  Verses 23 and 25 of our passage say, “Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;…” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”  There are two births mentioned here.  The first is our physical birth, the birth from perishable seed.  The second is our spiritual birth, the birth from imperishable seed.  This second birth is salvation, it is being given new life by God.  This new life does not end when we die, but it continues throughout all eternity.  It is imperishable.  This new birth comes through the Word of God.   When I stand here in the pulpit and speak, or when a teacher stands and teaches, the most powerful content that can shared is not one based on mere human opinion or academic accomplishment and research.  The most powerful, life changing message we can share with others is the Word of God itself.  Isaiah 55:10-11 tells us,  “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”  There is life giving power in God’s Word itself.  When we share God’s Word with others, or when we hear it ourselves, God uses the Word itself to save.  I’ve been listening the autobiography of Charles Haddon Spurgeon on audio book.  He was a very popular preacher in England in the mid to late 1800s.  He is still called, “the Prince of Preachers.”  On one occasion early in his ministry he was in a church sanctuary testing the acoustics of the building.  It was something similar to a sound check, except there were no electronics.  He was just seeing how his voice would carry in the building for the service that would occur later.  He thought the sanctuary was empty and so he quoted John 1:19 loudly, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”  There was a young man who was working in the sanctuary, and when he heard those words, the Holy Spirit worked in his life, he went home and prayed, and invited Jesus to save him from his sins. The Word is wondrous because it proclaims salvation.  I remember clearly when I was 13 years old and had drifted from walking with Christ.  I had been saved at age 6, but through different experiences and temptations, I had wandered far from Jesus and had lost any interest in serving Him.  My life was getting darker and darker, and I was even dabbling in the occult.  My school work was suffering, and socially I was a total mess.  One afternoon after I had skipped school I was taking a shower and listening to a secular radio station.  There was a contemporary arrangement of the Lord’s Prayer that began playing.  The words to the song were simply the Lord’s Prayer.  There was no addition to it, no subtraction to it, it was just the Lord’s Prayer set to music.  When I heard that song, God used it to cut like a knife through my hardness and my rebellion and to turn my life back to Him.  In that moment God touched me, and transformed me from the way I had been living.  It all began through hearing the word of God.  2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”The Word is wondrous because it proclaims salvation.  It proclaims salvation from past sin, from present sin, and from future sin.

Then, the Word is wondrous because it provides security.  Verses 24 and 25 of our passage say, for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.”….  Security is on all of our minds nowadays as Americans.  The concern began with the terrorist attack of 9/11.  Various incidents since then have heightened our concern for security and safety, while flying, while children are at school, and now while runners are participating in marathons.  Next Sunday Jeannie and I plan to run the Pittsburgh Marathon, Lord willing and no injuries occurring between now and then.We received notification this past week of new security measures that are being taken for the race.  Now all the participants will receive a large, clear bag the day before the race.  On race day, any items taken to the starting line must be in the clear bag.  Backpacks, which have been common at races, now aren’t permitted for this race.  Even hydration packs and belts will be submit to inspection.  A few folks may ask, “Well pastor, aren’t you worried that something may happen?”  No, I’m not, not any more than I would be of something happening here at home.  Driving from one place to another isn’t secure – some people drive crazy nowadays – it just isn’t safe to drive.  Going to a large stadium for a baseball game isn’t secure – there may be some increased security there, but there are still holes in it.  Going to a mall isn’t safe – someone could be there with a gun or with a bomb.  Going to a restaurant isn’t safe – we could be shot there by a wild gunman, or we might die or get terribly ill from food poisoning.  Even being in church isn’t safe – I read a story of grenades being tossed in a Protestant church service in another country and 5 people being killed.  There is only one source of perfect, fool-proof security – God and His Word – the two are linked together.  God stands behind His Word, so we can count on it, and find perfect security in it.  When the hardship happen, when the unexpected strikes, we know that God is still in control, that He is sovereign, above all things.  Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”  Listen to Psalm 33:13-21, “The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds. The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.” The Word is wondrous because it provides security.

Then, the Word is wondrous because it promotes sanctification.  v. 22 of our passage says, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.”  What does sanctification mean?  It is a term we may use but not understand.  Webster’s online gives the following definition, “The state of growing in divine grace as a result of Christian commitment after baptism or conversion.”  In this sense sanctification is different than salvation.  Salvation is being born again with a new life from God.  Sanctification is growing in that new life.  It literally means we are more and more set apart to live for God and not for ourselves.  As we are more and more set apart for God, we experience more and more of His love for others.  Jesus says in John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” In other words, people will know you are my disciples not by

• Your Christian t-shirt
• The fish symbol on your car
• Your loyalty to traditional or contemporary Christian music
• Whether you dress up or dress down for church
• Or any other temporal possession or mindset

Your Christian witness is the strongest when you love your brothers and sisters in Christ.  We often speak of I Corinthians 13 as the love chapter.  It’s frequently read at weddings, referring to the love a husband and wife share.  These words however, were written to the local church at Corinth, encouraging the members to love one another.  Let’s read quickly through a portion of that chapter, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, substituting the word “I” for the word “love.”  See how it fits you. 

I am patient and kind; I do not envy or boast; I am not arrogant or rude. I do not insist on my own way; I am not irritable or resentful; I do not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoice with the truth. I bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things.

 How did it feel?  That twinge of discomfort when you read some of those words was the Holy Spirit speaking to you, letting you know you still have some growing to do.  The Word is wondrous, because it promotes sanctification.

Where do you stand this morning in relation to God’s Word?  Have you acted on it and given Your life to Christ?  Are you believing it and finding security in God?  Are you applying it to your life, so you can grow and mature in Jesus?  In closing, listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 7:24-27, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Will the house of your life be based on the wondrous Word of God, or will it be based on something else?  The choice is yours.

Scripture:  Matthew 28:1-10

How many of us have ever flown in a commercial airliner?  Several of us have, and I would daresay several of us have flown often.  One of things that we experience on a commercial flight is the “safety lecture.”  The stewardess will stand in the front of the passengers, hold a fake seatbelt, and explain how it works.  Then she will hold the card that gives details of the emergency exits, oxygen masks, and flotation devices.  She’ll finally instruct everyone to locate the emergency exit nearest them.  The very first time I flew, I listened intently to what she said.  I could just envision the plane going down and everyone having to scramble.  The next time I flew, I still listened to what she said, and noticed the story was pretty much the same.  The next time I flew, I knew what she was going to say, so I only partially paid attention.  Now when I fly, I can almost recite the thing with her, and often read a book or talk to Jeannie while she is fulfilling the obligation the FAA has placed upon her.  So it’s easy when she begins talking at that particular time of the flight to tune it out, for to me it is the same old thing – I know the drill.  When it comes to the message of Easter, it is tempting for us to do the same thing.  We’re here on Easter Sunday morning, many of us have been coming to church for years, and we know the drill.  We know what the congregation is going to sing, we know what the pastor is going to say, so we are just eager to have it all finished and move forward with the “flight” of our day.  The truth is however, the message of Easter is far greater than an airline safety lecture.  This message is filled with power, and if we listen not only with our physical ears, but with the ears of our heart, we’ll experience life and power each time it is shared.  So today, to shake things a bit, I want us to go back and think of the first Easter morning.  Not just to think of the narrative, but to think of the impact.  Listen to verses 1-3 of our passage again, “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.”  Yes pastor, I know the story.  No wait, there was an earthquake!  There was also an earthquake on Good Friday when Jesus died on the cross.  The earth shook in the Old Testament when God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses.  Throughout the Bible often when God is doing some really big, something huge, the earth shakes.  Now we see when these women go to Jesus’ tomb early on that first Easter Sunday morning, the earth quakes.  Friends, as we celebrate this Easter, as we focus on our Risen Lord and submit our lives to Him, it doesn’t just enlighten our mind or warm our heart – it rocks our world.  We don’t serve just a plastic Jesus or just a stained glass Jesus or a Jesus who is just the central character in a popular program on the History channel.  We serve a Jesus that is so full of life and energy and transformation that when we draw close to Him, He rocks our world!  When we come to Jesus, when we surrender to this living Lord, everything in our lives is changed from the inside out.  We are shaken to the core in a good way.  He turns our world upside down.  Actually, He flips it right side up.  There are at least three ways this message of Easter rocks your world.

 First of all, the earthquake of Easter is that Jesus is risen.  Jesus Christ is risen!  Don’t let those words be water off a duck’s back.  Don’t say, “Yeah, yeah, I know.”  Let the truth and the power of that message resonate in your heart – Jesus Christ is risen today!  On this first Easter morning, as these two women were approaching the tomb, they weren’t going to see how empty it was.  They weren’t going to see an angel or to begin a celebration.  They were on their way to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus.  Their minds were still foggy with grief, because there was no way they could possibly roll back the stone and get to his body.  They wanted to do something – they probably hadn’t slept, their hearts were broken, they still loved their Lord and wanted to care for his body.  They just didn’t know what God was doing – they had no clue.  Often in our lives today, there is so much that we do not know.  These women also didn’t realize that guards had placed around the tomb and that a Roman seal was attached to the stone.  We go about our routines, we get consumed with day-to-day activities, and what God is doing goes right past us.  When the resurrection of Jesus was revealed to them, it rocked their world.  The stone that covered the tomb of our Lord was not rolled away to allow Him out – He was already alive  – a mere stone could not contain him.  The stone was rolled away to allow the women, and others, inside the tomb to see He wasn’t there.  Now the resurrection of Jesus is an established historical fact – its very tough to go against all the evidence supporting it.  If you go to Israel today, you won’t find the remains of Jesus.  After he rose from the dead, 500 eyewitnesses saw him.  When Matthew was written, many of them were still alive and could be consulted to confirm the story.  If we would go into a court of law today with 500 eyewitnesses confirming the same story, the case would be a slam dunk win.  Then disciples ate with him, He told them to touch Him, and to see that He wasn’t a ghost or a figment of their imagination.  The disciples are transformed from a group of scared, broken men huddled together to bold, powerful witnesses speaking to the leaders of the Temple and of Rome about the resurrection of Jesus.  Someone changed them – they could not have mustered this kind of about-face on their own.  The same Peter who had denied he ever knew Jesus a few weeks later stood before a large crowd and spoke about how Jesus was sent from God, and was living never to die again.  Something earthshaking was happening here – Peter just didn’t turn over a new leaf.  Then later the followers of Jesus were persecuted by the Jews and by the Romans, and many of them gave their lives for this cause – who would want to die for a lie?  Peter himself was later crucified upside down, because he would not deny that Jesus is God’s Son.  The earthquake of Easter is that Jesus is alive – He is risen.  This reality rocks their world back then, and rocks our world today.  Think about it – Abraham, the father of the Jewish religion, is dead.  Mohammed, the prophet at the center of the Islamic religion, is dead.  Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, is dead.  Joseph Smith, the key figure in the Mormon religion, is dead.  Jesus Christ however, is alive.  Christianity is not just a religion – true Christianity is a relationship with the living Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ.  The same Jesus who was beside God the Father when He created the universe, the same Jesus who walked upon the earth, taught God’s truth and did such miracles, the same Jesus who had nails driven through his hands and feet because of His love for you and me, that same Jesus is alive today!  Jesus Christ is risen!  It rocks your world.

Then, the earthquake of Easter is that you can be forgiven.  Listen to Luke 24:26-27, He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  The word forgiveness is a legal term – it means dismissed or pardoned.  It means that as a defendant, you would stand before a judge and he would say to you, “You have been found guilty, but you have been pardoned.  Your case is now dismissed.  You are free to go.”  When we couple Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we experience forgiveness of sins.  No sin is too great for God to forgive.  No sin is too frequent for God to forgive.  Someone may say, “Well, pastor that’s great, but I’ve been forgiven of my sins, and been saved, but now I have drifted.  I just have so many things in my life that I need to get straight before I can come back to God.”  Friend, forgiveness of sin isn’t about you and your conduct, it is about God and His power through the resurrected Lord.  If you feel you have drifted into a lifeless existence and are now far from God, it is God who will breathe new life into you.  Some of you who are old like me will remember the old Nestea Ice Tea commercials.  The person would be all hot and sweaty, then a sip of cold ice tea would be taken.  Immediately the person would fall backwards into crystal clear pool of cool water.  It was a refreshing thing for them.  Well, falling back into the arms of your living Savior is even more refreshing – you don’t “do” anything – you just fall back into Him.  No matter what you’ve done, no matter how far you’ve drifted, the forgiveness that Jesus offers will rock your world.

Then, the earthquake of Easter is that you can be transformed.  Everybody wants to be transformed in one way or another.  If we go into a bookstore nowadays, the self-help section is huge.  If we’re overweight we want to be trim.  If we’re agitated we want to be peaceful.  If we’re sloppy we want to be neat.  If we’re introverted we want to be extroverted.  If we’re bad we want to be good.  If we’re depressed we want to be happy.  Everyone is looking for change for the better.  If we’re hooked on pornography or alcohol or drugs, we want to be free.  The problem is that we try to experience transformation on our own, through the latest book or fad or whatever, and it doesn’t happen.  We may change our behavior for a short time, but it doesn’t stick.  The harsh truth of the matter is that we want our world to be rocked, we want our lives to be changed, but we keep going to the wrong people and things.  There is only one source for life change, there is only one person who can provide deep, lasting transformation of character, and that person is Jesus Christ, our risen Lord.  Now if all you want today is a nice, sentimental religion that You can put in a picture frame on a wall or place on a bookmark in your Bible, then don’t follow Jesus.  If all you want is something you can turn on and off at will, then giving your life to Jesus is not a wise choice for you.  If you want to keep living as you’re living, same old thing, same old habits, same old character and routine, then for goodness sake don’t follow Jesus.  If you want mediocrity and to be just average, then don’t follow Him.  When you follow the risen Lord, when you give Your life to Him fully and completely, it will rock your world – you will never, ever be the same.  The Apostle Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  Early in Paul’s life, he was a mean, hateful person.  He was very religious, but he had no relationship with Jesus.  Then he met Jesus, and everything changed.  He gave up an old way of living, he died to it, so speak, and he received a new way of living from God.  In other words, the risen Jesus rocked his world.

This morning, what does this Easter holiday really mean to you?  It can mean a lot of things, but you won’t experience the power of Easter until you grasp that Jesus is alive and that He forgives your sin.  Then He will transform your life, and you’ll experience, just as the women approaching the tomb experienced, the earthquake of Easter.  Jesus will rock your world – will you invite Him to do?

Scripture:  Luke 19:28-40

As a nation, isn’t it fascinating how much we love parades?  On Thanksgiving Day and New Year’s Day many of us sit in front of our television sets to watch them.  It has become common to honor Super Bowl or World Series teams with parades in their hometowns.  Parades are often held to celebrate victories or to honor returning heroes.  Several years ago there was an elderly missionary returning to the United States to retire.  He and his wife had spent over 40 years serving in Africa.  At this point in his life, however, he was alone.  His wife and his children had all been buried for one reason or another in the soil of Africa.  As he exited the plane, he saw a huge crowd of people waiting at the gate.  Some of them were holding signs, some of them were waving banners, and he could even hear the sound of music above the shouting voices.  For a few seconds he thought, ”Can it be?  After more than 40 years of service, all of these people have actually come to welcome ME home?”  He soon learned he was mistaken.  On his plane was also a politician returning from a visit to Africa.  During his visit he had been received royal treatment, and was now welcomed back with all the pomp and circumstance his nation could muster.  As the missionary waited and waited at the airport, the contrast was almost more than he could bear.  For a moment he began feeling sorry for himself and he started to pray, ”Father in Heaven, why?  I’ve served you faithfully and for so long, yet look. I don’t expect much, but is it wrong that I desire that there be some kind of a welcome home?”  Then, almost as if God had spoken aloud, the old missionary sensed his Lord reply, “But my son, you are not home yet.”  When we watch little children learning to walk, we learn the value of open arms and of praise.  They will fall, but as we encourage them they get up and try again until eventually they learn.  When Jesus entered Jerusalem in this Biblical procession, everyone had the opportunity to lift their voices in praise to God.  They had the opportunity to welcome Him with open arms.  As we look at this parade, we see there are at least four reasons why it is prophetic.

First of all, this parade is prophetic because of the crowds.  In our passage it was Passover, and Jews from all over the world were crowding into Jerusalem.  News had spread that Jesus was on His way, and that He had just passed Bethphage and Bethany.  There were two crowds here.  One crowd was with Jesus as He was traveling from Bethany, the other crowd was coming from Jerusalem to meet him.  These two masses of people coming together must have resembled two large waves of a sea.  Jesus was entering the city, and as the crowds gathered around Him they welcomed Him like a conquering hero.  The Jewish authorities saw this parade as well, and they were extremely frustrated as a result.  It seemed nothing they did would stop people from following Jesus.  The same thing happens today.  Despite what unbelievers may do to discourage people from following Jesus, people still follow Him.  Jesus is very much alive today.  All people who follow Him have their lives forever changed for the better.  Now, some of the people in this prophetic parade were just curious.  They had heard that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, and they hoped they might see something just as sensational.  Most of them, however, were greeting Jesus with great emotion.  They were shouting,  “Hosanna!  Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”  The word “hosanna” is the Hebrew word for “save now” and is nearly the same thing as “God save the king!”  Jesus was going to be their king, or so they thought, and it would only be a matter of time until the trumpets blasted, the call to arms was sounded, and the yoke of Roman tyranny was broken.  Israel once again would be a free and sovereign state as in the days of David.  Psalm 118:26 says, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord…”  Scripture was being fulfilled in this prophetic parade, but not as the people perceived.

Second, this parade is prophetic because of Jesus.  In this kind of situation it was nearly impossible for Jesus to speak to the crowd.  An excited crowd isn’t all that interested in hearing what the celebrity has to say.  They are just fascinated by the sight of the celebrity.  So Jesus made His statement by His actions rather than by His words.  He dramatically fulfilled Zechariah 9:9.  That passage says, Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  What Jesus was saying to all the crowds that had gathered is that He is the Messiah, the Savior of Israel.  It was an extremely bold visual statement.  We’re likely to miss it because of the difference of our cultures.  Jesus entering Jerusalem in this way would have been same as a renegade politician arriving in Washington D.C. on a plane that looked exactly like Air Force One.  Jesus was definitely taking the role of the king of Israel in this parade, and so He is.  Jesus was also saying that He is a special kind of king.  We think of donkeys as very common, but in the Middle East they were considered very noble.  Kings, princes, and judges rode upon donkeys.  A king would ride upon a horse when he was preparing for war, but would ride on a donkey when he came in peace.  Jesus came in peace.  Zechariah said that the Messiah would come “gentle and riding on a donkey.”  Jesus entered Jerusalem not as a war maker, but as a peace maker.  In the same way He enters our lives today, not to destroy us, but to fulfill us.  He comes to bring gentleness, love and peace.  We need to understand clearly that it is through gentleness, love and peace that the kingdom of Jesus advances today.  The kingdom of Jesus is not spread through turbulence, and it is not spread through excessive zeal.  The kingdom of Jesus is spread by speaking the truth in love.

Then, we see that this parade is prophetic because of the donkey’s owners.  Let’s listen again to what Luke says about these people.  Verse 33 says, As they were untying the colt [donkey], its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”  Evidently this donkey had more than one owner.  Donkeys were expensive, and it is likely that one person couldn’t afford a good donkey, so two or more persons pooled their resources.  Have we ever wondered how Jesus knew this donkey was there?  Was it a miraculous sign that Jesus was somehow able to discern the location of this animal?  Well, it is certainly possible, but it is also possible that Jesus had been in that area several times previously, and had seen the donkey there.  Maybe He knew where this colt was kept.  Maybe He knew the owners and had explained to them that one day He would have a need for the animal.  Regardless, the day finally arrives.  Jesus needs the donkey, tells the disciples where to find it, and what to say if the owners question them.  Everything went smoothly.  The disciples got the donkey, were asked what they were doing, and they replied.  Donkeys were prized possessions.  They were a means of transportation.  The livelihood of the farmers depended on these animals.  They pulled plows and they carried loads to various destinations.  Jesus told the disciples to say, “the Lord needs it.”  When the owners heard of the opportunity to help, they gave.  When they gave that donkey, they were giving the best they had.  It was no small favor.  Now let’s try to identify the most important thing in our lives today.  Is it our money, it is our time, it is our house, our car, or something else?  Is it a person?  Our answer will reveal a lot about ourselves and our values.  Now, let’s think what would happen if Jesus knocked on your door and said, I have need of “that,” whatever “that” is.  Would you give it?  Would you surrender that possession to him as these owners surrendered the donkey?  Listen to Matthew 19:29 …Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.  Jim Elliot, the great missionary pilot, once said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”  We have a challenge before us by our vision team to hire a part-time worship leader.  It will not happen however, if you do not tithe generously and regularly, with no strings attached (in other words, gifts that are not designated for a particular fund).  “Well, pastor, that would involve too much of a sacrifice for me!”  Sacrificial giving is at the heart of following Jesus.  The owners of the donkey did it – you’re called to do it as well.

Then, this parade is prophetic because of the donkey itself.  Donkeys have played an important role in the Bible.  It was a donkey that taught Balaam a valuable lesson.  It was a donkey that carried Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  It was a donkey that carried the baby Jesus into Egypt to escape King Herod.  Now, near the end of His earthly ministry, we see a donkey carrying Jesus for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  Many of us here admire horses.  My wife Jeannie loves horses.  Anyone who would volunteer to clean stables just to be near horses has to have a real passion for them.  Horses are beautiful animals.  They have coats that shine in the sun.  They have flowing manes that ripple in the breeze, and long, graceful legs that will cover many miles.  Horses have soft eyes, and they make a sound that radiates power and strength.  Jesus wasn’t riding a horse however, but a donkey.  So on the road to Jerusalem this little donkey hears people shouting, “Hosanna!”  He sees people spreading their coats on the road in front of him.  The reason is that he is carrying the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.  This little donkey is in the place that normally a majestic stallion would occupy.  Because of Jesus this donkey has become something special.  The point is that when Jesus is ruling our lives, there is a transformation that occurs.  We would love to think of ourselves like this horse – majestic, beautiful, sleek, shiny.  The truth is however, you and I are not like this horse – we are a donkey.  There is another term that applies as well, but that term is not appropriate for this setting.  A donkey’s hair looks like ours does when we first awaken in the morning and haven’t combed it.  His tail is raggedy.  His mane is nothing beautiful to behold.  His ears are oversized, and they flop as he moves from one place to another.  The braying sounds of a donkey doesn’t impress us, its just rather annoying.  Each one of us acts like a donkey, and has the stubbornness of a donkey.  If we are left alone, we will never be anything other than a donkey.  When our lives are placed under the control of Jesus however, and when He is present in us, we become something very special.  He transforms us into someone who is useful in God’s work, and has a very special purpose for Jesus.

On this Palm Sunday, Jesus is here in this place.  He is saying, “I have need of you.”  How will you respond?  Will you turn your back on Him as the Pharisees did?  Will you support Him only for a moment, then turn and reject Him, as the crowd did?  Will you be just a donkey, stubborn and braying, or will you be transformed into something greater?  Jesus is calling you to be part of a prophetic parade of people who are submitted to Him – what will your choice be?

Scripture:  Psalm 23

The 23^rd Psalm is a classic passage of Scripture, perhaps the favorite passage of many people.  I would daresay that several of us here this morning, and many people we know who are not here this morning, have a sense of emptiness.  Emptiness is a disease of our society.  We have focused on money, material possessions, physical health, and interpersonal relationships.  As we go through our routines day after day, week after week, year after year, many people in our society are asking the question, “Is this all there is?  Is there anything MORE to life?”  Boris Becker, the famous tennis player, came close to taking his own life because he was overwhelmed by a sense of emptiness, hopelessness and loneliness.  He shares the following words: “I had won Wimbledon twice before, once as the youngest player.  I was rich.  I had all the material possessions I needed:  money, cars, women, everything.  I know that this is a cliché.  It’s the old song of the movie and pop stars who commit suicide.  They have everything they need and yet they are so unhappy.  I had no inner peace.  I was a puppet on a string.”  In the 23^rd Psalm, David is faced with several challenges, and his shepherd is the only one on whom he can count.  We are in the same situation.  At the end of the day, all we have is just Jesus, nothing else.  He is the only One who will not fail us or let us down – everyone and everything else will at some point fail us.  The exciting truth is that this Jesus is really all we need.  We see that truth illustrated in three ways.  Although the entire chapter speaks to us, I want to focus on verse 5.

First, all we need is Jesus – He meets our needs completely.  Verse 5 says, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  The pattern of the psalm changes with this verse.  The setting of a field switches to a setting of a feast.  A trail switches to a table.  As I understand it, one of the most important jobs a shepherd has is to go find a mesa, a field of green grass where the sheep can feed and be nourished.  Shepherds would call this area “good tableland,” because this was a place where the sheep could continue to eat in peace.  Sheep will not eat when they are fearful.  So for that reason, the shepherd had to drive out all of the enemies that might be in and around the field.  The shepherd would eliminate physical hazards like poisonous plants that could kill the sheep, or stakes and sharp stumps that could wound the sheep.  He would drive away wild dogs and wolves that could attack the sheep.  He made sure there was nothing in the field that could harm them.  In many parts of the Middle East there were tiny little adders, poisonous snakes that lived just beneath the surface of the ground.  Often they would jump from the ground and nip the sheep on their noses.  The bite from those snakes wouldn’t necessarily kill the sheep, but it could cause an inflammation that would eventually result in the sheep dying unless something was done.  Aware of the presence of these snakes, the shepherd would go up and down the field, looking for small little snake holes.  At the top of each one he would pour a light circle of oil around each.  Then when the vipers would sense the sheep were near, they would try to spring from their hole but couldn’t.  Their bodies couldn’t get past the slippery oil, so they would just glide back down into their burrows.  The shepherd had to make sure that the sheep would be totally without fear, so they could eat, and so that they could lie down and digest their food.  In the words of our passage then, it was the shepherd’s job to “prepare the table” for the sheep.  Even though the sheep realized that wolves, dogs, bears and snakes were common in the field, they could eat in peace because the shepherd had cleared the way for them.  It is easy for us to eat when we are surrounded by family and friends.  It’s another thing to try to eat when we are surrounded by people who do not like us and may seek to harm us.  If we realize the shepherd is watching over us however, then we can relax and enjoy the things before us, regardless of our circumstances.  Friends, peace for us as Christians is not the absence of problems.  Peace for us as Christians is an awareness of the presence of Jesus in the midst of our problems.  As I understand the customs among the Cherokee Indians, the tribe had a ritual for a young man as he moved into adulthood.  The members of the tribe would take a young man into the middle of the woods on a dark night, then leave him there all by himself.  He was given no weapons and no way to defend himself.  The last person to speak to him would be his father, who would say, “No matter what happens, you have nothing to fear.”  During the night, the young man would hear every owl hoot, every branch rustled by the breeze, every falling pine cone, and every animal scurrying through the woods.  He had little trouble thinking that every shadow was a big, black bear looking for its next meal.  Usually the young man would spend the night in sheer terror until the sun would finally rise.  When the sun would rise, he would first strain his eyes and get accustomed to the brightening light.  Then he would look at his surroundings more clearly.  One of the first things he saw was his father who had never left him, but had stood watch all night with weapons in hand, ready to defend him.  The main reason why we can rest and enjoy our lives, even in the midst of many dangers, is that our shepherd never leaves us.  He not only meets our needs, he meets our needs completely.  Sheep will die without a shepherd.  No matter how much grass may be before them, how much water may be available to them, without a shepherd they will eventually get lost, sick, poisoned, attacked or killed.  When the shepherd is with them however, their needs are met completely.  This morning, are you certain that the Shepherd is with you?  You can be.

Second, all we need is Jesus, for He meets our needs precisely.  Our passage says, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil;…  The shepherd used oil for two reasons – as a repellent and as a medicine.  The worst enemy of sheep, as I understand sheep, is not wolves, bears, snakes or wild animals.  It’s not even the danger of getting lost, eating poisonous grass or drinking bad water.  The worst danger to sheep is a “nosefly.”  A nosefly, as the name implies, flies up the nose of the sheep and lay eggs.  The larva from the eggs will begin to drive the sheep crazy.  The sheep can’t shake the flies by their hooves or by their tail, but they become desperate to get rid of them.  Sometimes a sheep will be seen banging its head against a rock because it is going crazy from the larva.  It will run, he will bleat, but nothing it does works.  If the sheep gets no relief, he will become so bothered by the larva that he will stop eating.  He will stop growing, and eventually will die.  In order to protect against noseflies, the shepherd anoints the head of the sheep with a mixture of olive oil and sulfur.  The oil kills the larva and the eggs that are inside the nose of the sheep.  It acts as a repellent to prevent any other flies from bothering the sheep.  The oil is also a salve or an ointment.  When a sheep gets an open wound, dirt and debris make their way into it.  If the wound isn’t cleansed, it will fester and the infection will get into bloodstream of the sheep.  The shepherd uses the oil to clean dirt from the wound so that the wound can heal.  So when sheep are bothered by nose flies, or when they are covered with sores, they don’t need a fly swatter, they don’t need aspirin, they don’t even need a kind word.  When they are bothered by flies or by sores, they need oil.  They need precisely the thing that helps them in their situation.  The Holy Spirit is our oil.  When we are wounded, the Holy Spirit heals us.  When we are hurting, the Holy Spirit comforts us.  When we are irritated or bothered by the little things in life, the Holy Spirit refreshes us soothes our hearts and minds.  It is important to see in this verse that David speaks in the singular – “He anoints my head with oil.”  It is a personal thing, it is a one-on-one activity between each one of us and God.  At the end of the day, one of the last things a shepherd does is to examine every sheep one by one.  He wants to make sure each sheep has no flies, no sores, no problems.  The shepherd loves the flock, but he also loves each sheep.  God cares for us in exactly the same way.  He loves the whole world, but he also loves you.  With God we never, ever get lost in the crowd.  We never get lost in the flock.  Jesus is watching over us, as our great shepherd, to meet our needs whenever they arise.  All we need is Jesus, for he meets our needs precisely.

Then all we need is Jesus, for he meets our needs abundantly.  Verse 5 again says, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  In the Bible an overflowing cup is a symbol of satisfaction.  When a cup is overflowing, it means the person holding the cup has everything he needs.  In the Middle East as most of us know, the terrain is mostly desert.  There was a custom that pertained to the filling of a cup.  If a person went to someone’s house, even as a total stranger, the first thing the host would do would be to offer a cup of water or wine.  The guest would drink the cup, and the host would refill it.  As long as the host kept refilling the cup, the guest was welcome to stay.  If however, after several refills the host left the cup empty, that meant it was time to go.  Now if the host decided he really liked his guest, and wanted him to stay a long time or even as long as he wanted, he would fill the person’s cup to overflowing.  God is telling us here that he wants us to stay with him forever – He has filled our cup to overflowing.  A shepherd, when his flock needed water and there were no streams, would lead his flock to a well.  Some wells were very deep, as much as 100 feet down to the water, so the shepherd would use a long rope with a leather bucket at the end.  He would lower the bucket, then raise it by hand.  Since the bucket held less than a gallon of water, he would pour the water into large stone cups beside the well.  Now the shepherd would always make sure that the cups were filled to overflowing because sheep do not like to get wet.  Sheep are afraid of water.  When the cups were filled to overflowing, the sheep could drink with ease, having all they wanted and being completely satisfied.  Just as the shepherd blesses his sheep, so God blesses his children.  A little girl was praying on one occasion and she said, “Lord, fill my cup.  I can’t hold very much, but I can run over a whole lot!”  We all want to run over in the blessings we receive.  If we think about it, we do run over in our blessings.  40% of the world’s population has no electrical service.  60% do not have telephone service.  Half of the people who do have telephone service live more than two hours from the nearest phone.  One-third of the people on the planet have never made a phone call.  If we think about our situation for just a few moments, and compare our own situation to the rest of the world, we would say, “My cup overflows.”  God blesses us to overflowing with forgiveness, with strength, with wisdom, with peace, with joy.  When God gives, he gives abundantly.  Scholars say that when Jesus turned water into wine he gave the people 120 gallons, enough for ten weddings.  When he fed the 5,000, there were 12 baskets of leftovers.  What is our first tendency today when our cup overflows?  We want a bigger cup!  Friends, we don’t need a bigger cup, we need to share the overflow with the people around us, many of whom don’t know Jesus.  I read this last week of a pastor who had the opportunity to lead music for a leper colony on the island of Tobago.  There was a time in the service when he asked for requests from the congregation.  A woman who had been facing away from the pulpit turned towards him and raised a hand that had no fingers.  Her nose was entirely gone.  Her ears were basically missing, due to the severity of the leprosy.  Most of her lips had eroded.  The rest of her body was covered with sores from the dreaded disease.  The minister was hardly able to look at her, but he managed to ask, “What would you like us to sing?”  She responded, “Count your many blessings.”  The pastor was so overcome with emotion he had to leave the platform before the service had concluded.  One of his church members followed him out the door and said, “I guess you’ll never be able to sing that song again.”  The pastor said, “Yes, I can sing it again, but I will never sing it the same.”

Scripture:  Revelation 19:11-21

There is a distinctive facial expression that is common in all countries and cultures.  It is something that happen to any human being at any place or any time.  It doesn’t matter what language is spoken, what skin color a person has, or the nation in which the person is living.  The response is always the same.  The expression is the “surprise brow.”  We all have it – when we are surprised, our eyebrows immediately rise, and our eyes widen so we can see more clearly.  The surprise brow is the body’s way of forcing us to see more.  We may even do a double-take to make sure we saw what we thought we saw.  Not only do our eyebrows raise, but our jaws often drop.  28 years ago while I was greeting church members coming into the building at Kanawha City Baptist Church, my eyebrows raised and my jaw dropped as a cute, spunky 20 year old came into the foyer.  We shook hands and she said with dancing blue eyes and a fantastic smile, “I’m Jeannie Smith.”  A couple of Sundays later she returned for a Sunday evening service, and we walked back through the church together talking.  After she left, I thought about how I felt and the eyebrows went up again.  One thing led to another, and less than a year later the single pastor of the church was getting married!  Anyway, when we are taken by surprise, everything comes to a halt, every activity is interrupted, and our attention becomes completely focused, involuntarily, on whatever it was that surprised us.  When we begin reading the Bible, the first two chapters are pretty smooth.  Things are rolling forward, then we are jolted with the events of chapter 3.  The surprise comes in the form of the serpent and the response of the woman and the man to his temptation.  Quickly all of God’s creation is spiraling downward.  Mankind is in rebellion against God and is alienated from Him.  Everything has changed.  From that moment until now, the human race has faced an enemy we cannot defeat and has been involved in a war we cannot win.  How does God respond?  He promises to send a Champion to take back what has been lost to the serpent, the devil.  His promise comes as another surprise.  Genesis 3:15 says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”  Thousands of years pass, and the people of Israel wait for the Champion to arrive.  When He is born, it is another surprise.  He isn’t born to royalty, but to a peasant girl, in a little country town, in a stable full of animals.  There was another surprise when this Champion died – no one thought He would die.  As he hung on a criminal’s cross and breathed his last breath, his followers hopes were shattered.  Just when everyone thought that it was all over, another surprise occurred – he was alive again!  He had overcome death.  He is the only Champion who died on a battlefield then returned to life again as a victor.  So after he conquered death his followers assumed that now he would conquer the world and establish an earthly kingdom.  In Acts 1:6 they ask, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”  Instead of beginning a political kingdom, He is taken into heaven, promising to return.  It has been over two thousand years since that event took place, and we are still waiting and watching for him to return.  Many people may think, “It has been over 2,000 years since Jesus walked on the earth.  I don’t really think he’s coming back.”  Remember however, our God is a God of surprises.  Jesus says to us in Matthew 24:44,  “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”  In other words, His return will be a surprise.  The Champion came, he died, he rose again to life.  The battle however, is still raging.  Satan is still alive, and sin is still very real.  Sorrow is still present, and suffering is everywhere we look.  His kingdom has begun in the hearts and minds of his followers, but the victory is not yet complete.  One day, according to this passage and many others similar to it, our Champion will return bodily to earth.  Peace will replace war.  Justice will replace injustice.  Righteousness will replace corruption.  The world will be restored to a perfect place where God and His people will live together, as was intended at the beginning.  When Jesus returns, what was started in the Garden of Eden will be continued.  If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, this event will bring you incredible joy and happiness.  If you are not a follower of Christ and refuse to be one, then it will be a fearful time.

First of all, the Champion returns to fight the last battle.  Verse 11 of our passage says, “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.”  As the Apostle John describes this rider, he is not imagining things.  He is describing what God has revealed to him, and every detail is important.  Jesus is riding a white horse, because that is the color horse that was ridden by victorious Roman generals.  White symbolizes not only purity, but supremacy.  In many old Western movies, the hero rides a white horse – it isn’t a coincidence.  The Champion’s name here is “Faithful and True.”  He is the embodiment of God faithfully keeping His promises.  2 Corinthians 1:20 tells us,  “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.”  Then He is true.  He is true to God, and He is true to fulfilling the mission that God has given Him to do.  Fulfilling that mission is why He is returning.  Once and for all, good will triumph over evil.  Justice will triumph over injustice.  God will triumph over Satan.  This Champion, Jesus, isn’t coming to take sides – He is coming to take over.  The Champion returns to fight the last battle.

Then, the Champion returns to face the last enemy.  Verses 17-18 of this passage say, “Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, “Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.”  The Bible describes this war as the greatest, largest war that has ever taken place.  The surprise is, it is over before it can begin.  The angel announces the victory before any conflict starts.  Verse 19 continues, And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army.  The beast is here, one of Satan’s main representatives.  The leaders of the nations and their armies are all amassed here.  They are poised to fight one great battle against the Champion – they all together are the last enemy.  One preacher said that the forces brought together for this battle will make D-Day look like a church picnic.  All the military might of the world is focused in one place, for one battle against the Champion.  Despite the tremendous weaponry these combined forces have to offer, they are no match for the Champion.  So the Champion returns to face the last enemy.

Then we see in this passage that the Champion returns to forge the last victory.  Listen to verses 14-15, “And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.”  This battle is the only one in history in which the general does all the fighting.  Normally the general would give orders and the soldiers would do the fighting, but not here.  This Champion does need anyone to fight his battles.  In fact, the only weapon he uses is his words.  So let’s get the clear picture here.  The whole world will be gathered together with guns, planes, tanks, jets, nuclear missiles, laser-guided weaponry, etc. – the most modern weapons available, and the Champion will only use his Word.  The God that spoke the world into existence will speak these armies into oblivion.  Isaiah 11:4 says, “…with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.”  Consider it – a war won with the Word.  It shouldn’t be surprising, though it may be.  Jesus spoke a word to a fig tree, and it withered.  Jesus spoke to the wind and waves, and they immediately calmed.  Jesus spoke a word to a legion of demons, and they fled from his presence.  Jesus spoke a word to Lazarus who was dead, and he came back to life again.  Verse 16 gives us our Champion’s title,
“On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”  Exodus 15:3 also tells us, “The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.”  Then, verses 19-21 of our passage tells us how the battle that never really started is finished, “And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.”  The Champion returns to forge the last victory.

The point of all that has been said today is that Jesus is coming to rule and reign, and we must be ready for him.  What do we do to prepare?  First we believe he died for our sins and rose again, and we surrender our lives to Him.  If we don’t know Jesus when He returns, we won’t be ready.  Second, we follow Him, we live the rest of our lives for Him.  Nothing will give us greater pleasure than to have Him return and find us doing his work with our whole heart and mind.  If we have not been baptized, we need to do it.  It is the way we publicly identify ourselves with Jesus.  We can put a fish sign on our car, wear a cross around our neck, sport a tee-shirt with a Christian message, post Bible verses on Facebook, but until we are baptized we haven’t identified with Jesus God’s way.  If we don’t have a church family, we need to become a part of one to be prepared.  The Champion is returning, and it will be a surprise to many – will you be ready?

Scripture:  Genesis 3:15

The battle happens to all of us – it hits at different times, in different areas, in different ways.  Sometimes it happens when you go on a date with a person to whom you are really attracted.  Sometimes it happens when you get serious about paying your bills and living within a budget.  Sometimes it happens when you’re determined to eat more healthy food, and you encounter food that isn’t healthy at all.  Sometimes it happens within a marriage, when a husband and wife are at odds and they can’t seem to find a meeting of the minds.  At some point, we all awaken to the reality that life is a battle, that we are in a war.  If you feel like you are in a battle, it is because you are.  If you feel like you are a war, it is because one is raging all around you.  2 Corinthians 10:3-4 says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.”  Ephesians 6:12-13 reads, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”  There are no conscientious objectors to this war, there are no deferments from the battlefield.  No one else is going to take your place in the struggle – you can’t escape it.  There may be one battle that we fight, or there may be a variety of battles.  John Daly, the PGA golfer, battles alcohol.  Tiger Woods battles lust.  Mike Tyson battles anger.  Drew Carey, the actor, battled depression so severely that he tried to take his life twice before the age of 20.  We all fight our own wars, we all face constant battles.  For us it may be greed or selfishness, bitterness or pride.  Everywhere we look, battles are being fought.  The Democrats and the Republicans are battling in Washington, D.C.  In other countries the people are fighting against their own governments.  We are always in the midst of a war of one kind or another.  Over the next three Sundays, we’ll be looking at how wars ultimately started, how we can win, and how they will end.  We’ll see that according to the Bible there is a Champion promised by God who will prevail over all the conflict.  Beginning with Genesis 3, God began describing to us the One who will win a victory over Satan, sin and conflict.  This Champion is the only Person capable of triumph and of securing peace.  The story begins in the Garden of Eden, a place of perfect peace.  There were only two people there, Adam and Eve.  They were at perfect peace with God, perfect peace with one another, and perfect peace with themselves.  Then, something happened that plunged them and the rest of mankind after them into conflict.  The battle started then, and it has raged ever since then.  God’s solution to the problem that began in the Garden of Eden is found in Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”  This passage is the very first in the Bible that gives us a promise and prophecy.  God is telling us that He will send a Champion to defeat sin and Satan.  The champion is Jesus.  Throughout OT a Deliverer is promised, but the story begins here.  Through this passage, we learn three things about our need for a Savior.

First of all, we need a champion to face a foe we cannot beat.  A famous law school professor used to begin his first class every year by writing two numbers on the blackboard:  four and two, side-by-side.  Then he would ask, “What is the solution?”  One student would respond, “Six!”  Another would respond, “Two!”  Then several would shout, “Eight!”  The professor would shake his head “no” in response.  Then he said there was one fatal error they all made.  He said, “There is one reason why you cannot find the solution, and that is because you have failed to ask a key question:  What is the problem?  “Class, unless you know what the problem is, you will never find the solution.”  We are living in a world today that is searching for an answer to a problem it hasn’t identified.  No one can deny that the world is in a mess.  It is a mess morally, it is a mess financially, it is a mess politically, it is a mess socially.  All of these problems however, are a symptom of a greater problem – we are a mess spiritually.  We have never seen more interest in spiritual things than in our lifetime, yet we are looking in all the wrong places for the answers.  This problem goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, to the serpent.  If you’re not familiar with the story let me summarize.  Adam and Eve had a perfect environment.  They had perfect bodies, and perfect living conditions.  Everything was exactly as they needed it to be – there was nothing they lacked.  There was only one boundary in their entire universe, just one.  God told them, “You can eat of any tree in the Garden, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Don’t eat from that tree.”  That was it!  Obey one single rule, and you can enjoy everything else that your heart desires.  Things were going well until the serpent approached them.  Genesis 3:1-3 tells us, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”  Eve was under no obligation to respond at all to the serpent, also known in the Bible as Satan or the devil.  She didn’t have to say anything, but she began talking with him.  We should never start a discussion with the devil – it will always get us into trouble.  I read this past week about a lady who came home from a shopping spree.  Her husband asked, “What did you buy?”  She looked at him with an expression of shame and regret and said, “I bought a $500 dress.”  He exploded and said, “Why on earth did you do such a thing?”  She said, “The devil made me do it.”  He said, “Why didn’t you just say, ‘Satan, get behind me?”  She said, “Oh I did, and he told me it looked just as good from the back!”  Once Eve began the dialog with Satan, she caved.  Genesis 3:6 tells us, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”  Now we may think, “Wait a minute – that story is about Adam and Eve.  Just because they gave into the devil doesn’t mean that I will do the same.”  If they could not defeat Satan in a perfect world, what chance do you have in a sinful world?  You have no chance whatsoever apart from Jesus.  Some of you this morning may be secretly miserable.  You’re hooked on pornography, or drugs or sex.  You’re enslaved to your sin.  You may be trying to quit them, but you can’t.  You’re facing a foe you cannot beat.  God gave Adam and Eve a choice.  He provided them with the way to peace and happiness, but they rejected it.  From that moment until now, our number one enemy is the snake in the grass, the devil.  It’s important we realize that the devil is very much alive and active in your marriage, in your family, in your thought life, and in your work and school life.  On your own, he is a foe you cannot beat.

Then second, we need a champion to fight a war we cannot win.  Adam and Eve knew immediately after they ate the fruit that everything had changed for them.  Genesis 3:7 says, “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.”  For the very first time, Adam and Eve experienced the sensation of shame.  For the very first time, they were touched by the feeling of fear.  For the very first time, they knew the gloom of guilt.  Why did everything change?  The war had begun.  God said to Adam in Genesis 2:17, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  Wait a minute preacher!  Adam and Eve didn’t die – God must have missed it somehow.  Yes, they did die.  When they ate of the fruit, they began fighting in a battle for their lives.  They lost.  Every single one of us from that day until now is fighting in a battle for our lives, and each one of us will lose.  Apart from Jesus, you cannot win.  Following their sin Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden, because they had become at odds with God.  They were in rebellion against Him.  Then in Genesis 3:15 we read, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”  What does enmity mean?  Webster’s online defines it as, “positive, active, and typically mutual hatred or ill will”  So between human beings and the serpent, there is enmity.  There are two levels of this hatred, the first is on the physical level.  The vast majority of people don’t like snakes – they don’t want to be near a snake, they are not comfortable with snakes.  The vast majority of snakes don’t get along well with people – they are usually ready to strike when approached.  There are exceptions, but that’s the general rule – humans and snakes do not get along, at all.  That’s the enmity God put there.  In the beginning Eve was very cozy with the serpent –with the sin she committed and with God’s prophecy, the coziness is over.  Then there is the spiritual level of this enmity.  Satan would lash out at Jesus, causing him to suffer, but Jesus would crush his head and destroy his power.  From the offspring of the woman would come a Champion that would win this battle.  So today we are fighting a war we cannot win.  We fight it from outside influences, and we fight it from our selfishness and stubbornness.  Apart from the Champion, we cannot win.

Then, we see in this passage that we need a Champion to forgive a wrong we cannot right.  Our passage again says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”  To Eve, this verse is a promise, saying that one day one of her offspring will make things right.  A very important part of this verse is the phrase translated “her offspring.”  Literally the translation is “seed” — it is used over 300 times in the Bible, and this verse is the only place it refers to the seed of the woman.  In every other place it refers to the seed of the man.  Technically and medically, a woman does not have the seed.  The man has the seed.  This particular offspring would be special, not having a human father.  For this seed to forgive the wrong, he would have to be sinless.  Only a sinless man could undo the sin man had done.  Only a sinless man could forgive a wrong that could not be righted.  So this seed is both the Son of Man, born of woman, and the Son of God, born of God.  The Champion will be both God and man.  With this Champion, two bruisings would occur.  The serpent would bruise his heel, he would wound him.  Isaiah 53:5 says of Jesus, But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. (NKJV)  The Champion however, would bruise the serpent’s head.  The serpent would be subdued, his power to harm would be gone.
Romans 16:20 says to us today, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet….”  Not only does Jesus prevail over Satan, but we do too through Jesus.  We have a Champion who forgives a wrong that we cannot right.  The question you face is,
“Will I choose to win in life, or will I choose to lose?”  If you choose to win, you will choose to serve Jesus.  If you choose not to serve Jesus, you lose, because you can only prevail by following Him.  What will your choice be?

Scripture:  Mark 10:17-31

Many of us made New Year’s resolutions with the beginning of 2013.  I made some resolutions for my devotional life and prayer life, and those resolutions so far I have kept, with God’s grace.  I resolved to make prayer even more of a priority, and to take before God each day’s schedule and ask Him to order all the different ways I used my time.  Another resolution I made, or attempted to make, was to rid my desks of clutter.  I have a desk here at the church, and I have one at home.  Both of them are cluttered.  They are a little less cluttered than they were last month, but not much.  My filing system needs improvement.  I have a notorious method of “filing by piling.”  Everything is rather haphazard.  In general, I have a recent pile, a not-so recent pile, and an old pile.  On occasion I go through the old pile and determine most of the things there I don’t need anymore, so I throw them away.  Then the not-so-recent pile becomes the old pile, and I began a new recent pile.  While it makes sense in a twisted sort of way, the truth of the matter is that my desks are a mess.  When that realization hits me every so often, then I have much more motivation to order things as they should be.  If I don’t realize my desk is a mess, then I’m content to ignore it.  It is one thing to have a cluttered desk, or a cluttered house, or a cluttered car.  It a far more serious thing however, to have a cluttered heart.  In our passage, Jesus talks with a rich, young ruler.  He challenges him to order his heart, to prioritize his life and to make Jesus more important than anything else.  Rather than responding to the challenge, the rich young ruler leaves Jesus sad, because He couldn’t live with the priorities Jesus set for him.  So from this challenge to the rich young ruler to clear the clutter from his heart, we learn at least three things in clearing the clutter from our hearts today.

First of all, to clear the clutter, we must face it.  From the story in our passage we can gather that this young man is probably in his late 20s or early 30s.  Jesus probably had a considerable crowd around Him when this conversation occurred.  The young man asks, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  This young man recognizes Jesus as having something he desires.  He already has wealth, power and a prominent status.  He was likely educated and had influence over many people.  He had a solid morality – he says he had treated other people right according to the ten commandments.  He probably loved his parents and his family.  This young man would have been seen by many of us today as the ultimate success story – he had it all, and he was morally pure.  All in all, many of us would say, “Wow, what a great guy!”  Jesus responds to his question with a comment about morality, and he answers by saying he has all the moral bases covered.  Then v. 21 says, “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’”  With this single statement, Jesus reveals to this young man the true, cluttered condition of his heart and life.  You see, he had a lot of things, and he wanted one more thing – eternal life.  He wanted to add Jesus to his list of accomplishments and make Him just one more treasure.  Jesus to him was just one more thing.  Jesus challenges the rich young man to make Him everything.  Suddenly this young man was confronted with his cluttered heart.  He had to face it.  It was uncomfortable, it was unsettling, but if there was any hope of getting his life in order for God, he had to face his situation.  We have to do the same thing today.  God may confront us with our cluttered heart through a sermon, through a Bible study, through a Christian song, through a Christian friend.  He may do it as we read His Word.  Regardless of how it happens, when God challenges us to clear the clutter, we must first face it.  Own it, take responsibility for it.  Don’t play the blame game and say it is your parents fault or your boss’s fault or your church’s fault.  A cluttered heart is a result of your choices to live life Your way rather than God’s way.  To clear the clutter, we must face it.

Then, to clear the clutter, we must surrender it.  Have you watched the TV show, “Hoarders”?  People are confronted with their clutter, then are challenged to surrender it.  Jesus knew what was standing in the way of Him being truly Lord in this young man’s life, so He calls him to sacrifice it.  The Bible says in 1 Samuel 16:7, “…For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”  Jesus loved this young man, but he saw his heart, and knew there was an enormous pile of clutter that had to be surrendered.  In his heart, he was a hoarder – he was clinging to all of these things that needed to go.  Now it’s interesting that with Matthew, the tax collector, Jesus did not ask him to give away all his possessions.  He didn’t ask Zacchaeus, who was also rich, to give away his money.  Jesus knew that with this young man, his riches were more important to Him than anything else.  He was attempting to make Jesus just one more part of his already cluttered heart.  Jesus said if you want to follow me, you must face it, and you must surrender.  As we watch the program “Hoarders” we may think, “That’s horrible!  I don’t see how anyone could live in those conditions!”  How often however, does God show us our heart, and reveals to us that our heart is even worse?  Some of us may have a heart that is cluttered with money.

Some of us may have a heart that is cluttered with sexual desires.
Some of us may have a heart that is cluttered with sports.
Some of us may have a heart that is cluttered with resentment, bitterness or anger.

Whatever is cluttering your heart, Jesus is calling you to let it go. Stop the hoarding!  It isn’t good for you, and it is destroying your life.  Jesus says in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  In other words, when you make Jesus your everything, then you will have everything you truly need.  The Greek word for “follow” in verse 21 could also be translated “stick,” like adhesive or glue.  Jesus is saying, “I want you to stick to me, no matter what happens.  You may think everything is falling apart, but I’m promising you this:  following me will be awesome.  I will take care of you and provide you with everything you need.  Come, stick with me.”  Jesus saw the tremendous potential in this young man.  He had great plans for him.  Unfortunately, the young man chose the mess of his cluttered heart over the clarity of the Master.  Jesus is saying to each one of us today, “Come, follow me, stick with me.  Stop anything else you’re doing, and follow me.  I’m going to take your life somewhere great.  It’s not about being religious, it’s about having a love relationship with Me.  Let go of your clutter and cling to Me.”  The wise response for the young man in our passage was not to walk away, but to fall to his knees and say, “Lord, free my heart from the grip of all these things.  Clear the clutter, that I may cling only to You.”  To clear the clutter, we must surrender it.

Then, to clear the clutter, we must celebrate it.  Jesus said to his disciples in verses 29-31, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.  But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” Jeannie and I have a saving account at the local bank, which is our emergency fund for when the big, unexpected expenses happen.  Being a savings account, it earns interest.  The interest rate however, is very, very low.  Currently it is paying .05%.  It’s tough to earn interest today with any kind of savings or certificates of deposit.  If we invest our money in an aggressive mutual fund, we might expect as much as a 15% return.  That kind of return would be high.  We might get a little higher with a lot more risk.  Still, it would be a very uncertain thing.  Now Jesus in these final verses of our passage is not talking about the investment of our money, He is talking about the investment of our lives.  When you clear the clutter, when you make Jesus first and let go of everything else that would rival His place in Your heart, the return is one hundred fold.  It is not 100%, it is 100 times the worth of what you surrendered.  So if you lose a boyfriend or girlfriend because you are following Jesus, you’ve actually lost some clutter.  What you will gain is 100 times better.  If you lose the ability to participate in a sport because meeting and gathering with God’s people is a greater priority to you, what you gain will be 100 times better.  If you lose 10% of your income because you choose to obey God and to tithe, what you gain in financial wisdom and contentment in life will be 100 times better.  When we clear the clutter, then we can celebrate it.  It is then that we have opened the way for God to bless us beyond anything we’d ever hoped or dreamed.  Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”  The rich young ruler turned from Jesus and was sad – he wouldn’t let go of his clutter.  God is calling you to clear the clutter, and follow Jesus in celebration.

What is your clutter?
Are you wasting time?
Are you a Christian who is dating an unbeliever?
Are you a young man who is viewing pornography of young women?
Are you a young woman who is being pornography to young men?
Are you living just to accumulate material possessions?
Are you more concerned about being an athlete than you are about being a disciple of Jesus?
Are you living just to have a good time?
Are you bitter, resentful or discouraged?

Whatever the clutter may be, surrender it to Jesus, then celebrate the 100 fold life He gives you in return.

Scripture:  Psalm 118:24

Sometimes it flies, sometimes it crawls, but it never stops moving.  We mark it, we save it, we waste it, we bide it, we race against it.  We measure it with a passion that borders on being obsessive.  We are compelled by it, we never seem to have enough of it, yet scientists in our modern age still don’t know how to explain it.  When St. Augustine was asked to describe it, he said, “If no one asks me, I know what it is; but if any person should require me to tell him, I cannot.”  Of what am I speaking?  Time.  Never in the history of the world has time ever been so important, so valuable, and so precisely measured as it is today.  In 1790, less than 10% of Americans had a clock of any kind in their homes, and the vast majority of the clocks that existed had no second hand.  Alarm clocks and wristwatches were unknown until the end of the 19^th century.  Today, however, computers, communication satellites, global-positioning receivers, and telephone-switching systems need a precision beyond anything conceivable even fifty years ago.  In Northwest Washington, on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory in a concrete building, is the nerve center of the U.S. Directorate of Time.  In that building are housed 28 atomic clocks, four of them holding atoms of hydrogen and the rest cesium.  When the atoms are hit by microwaves or lasers, they begin to dance with a vibration that is measured by computers.  Once each second the results are fed into America’s master clock.  The measurement from this clock, and other similar clocks around the world, are sent to the Bureau of Weights and Measures outside Paris.  The resulting time is accurate to one billionth of a second.  It is difficult for us to experience a billionth of a second, but we have reached the place at which we can measure it with machines.  Despite all of these things that we do to measure time, we still cannot answer the question of what it is.  Some of here wish time would pass faster, some of us wish it would pass slower.  Most of us, however, wish we could just create more of it, for it seems there aren’t enough hours in the day.  The Psalmist gives us three insights here to help us manage the time in our lives, particularly for those of us who are constantly rushed and in need of more time.

First of all, if there aren’t enough hours in your day, appreciate the value of having time.  Our passage says, This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Every moment, every second, every minute, every hour, and every day is a gift from God.  It is fashioned and presented to us by God.  Some of us may feel less fortunate than other persons around us, but all of us, regardless of our position, our status, our income, or our talents, have the same amount of time.  The President of the United States does not have any more time in a day than a trash collector.  Have we ever looked at someone’s life and thought, “Wow, I wish I had as much time as he does.”  Well, if we had as much time as that person, we would still have the same amount of time.  How many times have we said, ”I just don’t have the time to do everything I want to do.”  Most of us wish there were a few more hours in every day.  I have heard more than one person remark, “Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to sleep?  We could accomplish so much more in life!”  USA Today asked experts from various fields to chart how much time was necessary to accomplish what we feel are the necessities of everyday life.  These experts got together and noted how much time was needed for exercise, hygiene, work, commuting, household chores, eating, entertainment, spiritual development, sleep and family time.  When these figures were all added together, the experts determined that each human being needs 42 hours per day!  Obviously, we want to do more than we really need to do.  The only really essential things in our lives are the things that God wants us to do, and there is always enough time for those things.  One of the best illustrations of that truth is the life of our Lord Jesus.  He lived only 33 years.  Of that 33 years, he only had 3 years to fulfill his ministry and to do what God had called him to do.  Still, Jesus said in John 17:4, I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.  God has a plan for each one of our lives, a work for each one of us to do.  God has a way in which he wants it to be done, and God will provide all the time necessary for us to do his will and his work in his way.  If there aren’t enough hours in your day, appreciate the value of having time.

Then, if there aren’t enough hours your day, learn the virtue of managing time.  Let’s listen to our passage again, This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.  The psalmist isn’t talking about yesterday.  He doesn’t say, “That was the day the Lord had made…”

The psalmist isn’t talking about tomorrow.  He doesn’t say, “That will be the day the Lord will have made…”  The psalmist is speaking of today.  “This is the day that the Lord has made…” The only day we can enjoy in our entire life is today.  We can’t enjoy yesterday, and we can’t enjoy tomorrow.  Yesterday is only a memory, tomorrow is only a possibility, but today is a reality.  One of the greatest philosophers on life is none other than Yogi Berra.  No one manages to have such a unique perspective.  Someone once asked him, “Yogi, what time is it?”  He answered, “You mean now?”  Yogi, by the way, is the same person who was asked about a place in a certain city.  He responded, ”Oh, no one ever goes there anymore.  It’s just too crowded.”  One of the things we need to learn to do everyday is to make the most of moment in which we find ourselves, to focus on the here-and-now.  Most of us have tried various ways of saving time, but we really can’t save it.  The question is not whether we are saving time, but how we are spending it.  One pastor said that when we waste time we are both a thief and a murderer.  We are a thief because we are stealing what really belongs to God.  We are a murderer because by killing time we are actually killing ourselves.  If we are going to manage our time better, we have to realize how valuable it is.  The clock is running, and it doesn’t stop.

Want to realize the value of a year?  Ask a student who failed a grade.
Want to realize the value of a month?  Ask a mother who had a premature baby.
Want to realize the value of a week?  Ask the editor of a weekly magazine.
Want to realize the value of an hour?  Ask a boyfriend and a girlfriend who only have one hour left on their date.
Want to realize the value of a minute?  Ask the guy who just missed his flight.
Want to realize the value of a second?  Ask the person who just avoided a car accident.

The point is time is critical.  Whatever we really need to do, if it all possible, we should do it today.  Want to get ahead in life?  Learn to manage your time well.  Peter Drucker once said,
“Nothing else perhaps distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time…unless he manages himself effectively, no amount of ability, skill, experience, or knowledge will make an executive effective.”  When Charles M. Schwab was the president of Bethlehem Steel, he made an appointment with Ivid Lee, a management consultant, and gave him this challenge:’  “Show me a way to get more things done, and if it works I’ll pay you anything within reason.”  The date was 1929.  Lee handed Schwab a piece of paper.  He said, “Write down all the things you have to do tomorrow.”  Schwab followed his instructions.  He said, “Now number those things in order of their true importance.”  Schwab did as he was told.  Lee then told him, “The first thing tomorrow morning start working on number one and stick with it until it is completed.  Then take number two, and complete.  Don’t go to the next number until the previous one is finished.  If you don’t get through the list in the day, don’t worry about it.  At least you will not have been distracted by things of lesser importance.”  He then continued,  ”The secret is to do this very thing everyday.  Evaluate the importance of the things you have to do, establish priorities, make a plan of action, and stick with it.  Do this everyday.  After you have convinced yourself of the value of this system, have your men to try it.  Test it as long as you like, then send me a check for whatever you think the idea was worth.”  Four weeks later Schwab sent Lee a check for $25,000.  Schwab later said that one lesson was the most profitable he had ever learned in his entire career.  Zig Ziglar says, “If you will do what you ought to do when you ought to do it, then you can do what you want to do when you want to do it.”  If there aren’t enough hours in the day, learn the virtue of managing time.

Then, if there aren’t enough hours in the day, experience the victory of enjoying time.  The Psalmist says, This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.  One of the dangers we face is getting so busy doing what we ought to do and what we feel we should do that we don’t really enjoy anything we do.  We can become so busy burning our candle at both ends that we never really see the light.  The only thing that happens is that we get severely burned.

Whether or not we enjoy today is our decision.  Every day is a God-given day.  Every day is to be a God-governed day.  Every day can be a God-gladdened day.  When we spend time rejoicing in the Lord, in his grace, and in his promises, everything in our day goes so much better.  We’ve all heard the saying, ”Time flies when you are having fun!”  It’s better for time to fly having fun that it is for time to crawl being miserable.  The choice is yours.  I read this last week about a man who went to an appointment with his doctor.  The doctor told him, “I have some terrible news for you.  You have a terminal illness and only have six months left to live.”  The man said, “Well doc, is there anything you can do for me?”  The doctor said, “No, there is nothing I can do, there is no cure.”  In desperation the man said, “Well doctor, is there anything you could recommend that might my time longer or more enjoyable?”  The doctor responded, “Well, let me advise you to do this.  Go find a mean, fat, ugly woman who has at least six kids and marry her.  Then move to West Texas and find a farm and buy it.  Then buy 100 of the most foul smelling pigs you can find and raise them.”  The man said, “Doc, let me make sure I understand.  I’m to go marry a mean, fat, ugly woman with at least six kids, buy a farm in the middle of West Texas, and then buy 100 stinking pigs to raise.  Is that right?”  The doctor said, “That’s right.”  The man said, “Doc, will that make me live longer and be happy?”  The doctor said, “No, but it will be the longest six months of your entire life!”  All time is really short, although under certain circumstances it may seem very long.

It’s important that we make the most of the time we have.  We need to realize that if we are not a Christian, if we have never met Jesus Christ, the only day we can be saved is today.  We can’t be saved tomorrow, we can only be saved today.  There will be no time so long and so agonizing as an eternity without Jesus Christ.  Right now, at this very moment, make the decision to invite him into your heart and life.

Scripture:  Ephesians 5:15-17

Most of us have noticed that about this time of every year the major news magazines and the major news networks have specials that recall the people and the events of the previous year.  Many of the specials also include predictions by experts regarding what they expect to see happening in the years ahead.  Some of these persons will go as far as to make long-range predictions that go 10 or 20 years, perhaps even longer, into the future.  A few of the past predictions have proven accurate, while others have been dead wrong.  For example, back in 1967 experts predicted that by 1985 technology would have taken over so much of the work we do that the average American work week would be only 22 hours long, and that we would work only 27 weeks a year.  As a result, one of our biggest problems would be deciding what to do with our leisure time.  I’m not sure about the rest of us, but that prediction doesn’t apply to me!  Actually, most of us are very busy people.  We’re always in a hurry.  We walk fast, we talk fast, and we eat fast.  After we eat, too often we say, “Excuse me, but I’ve got to run.”  Someone once observed, “We are the only country in the world that has a mountain named ‘Rushmore.’”  Comedian Steve Wright says he bought a microwave fireplace.  As a result, he can spend a whole evening relaxing in front of the fire in only 8 minutes.  So as we stand at the threshold of 2013, how will we do in the coming year?  Will we be as busy? Will we make any better use of our time?  In 368 days from now, when 2012 is history, will we look back with joy or with regret?  Are we be looking at 2013 with anticipation, or with dread?  There is a passage of Scripture that will help us make the best of the new year, if we follow its advice.  The passage is Ephesians 5:15-17.  It says to us,  Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  To be full of life in the coming year, we must follow the instruction God provides for us here.

First of all, to make the most of the new year, we must realize our life’s weakness.  Our passage says, Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,  Our life here on this earth is a frail thing.  Our life’s greatest weakness is that we are fragile.  We are here one moment, and may be gone the next.  King David wrote in Psalm 39:4, “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Again, Psalm 90:10 says to us, The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.  Now for some of us who are younger, 70 or 80 years sounds like a long time.  Actually, I can remember when I thought someone who was 40 years old was ancient.  At this point in my life I see 40 as rather young.  It is really all a matter of our perspective.  For example, from the perspective of two teenagers in love talking in the driveway at the end of a date, an hour or two seems like a blink of an eye.  From the perspective of Mom and Dad, however, who are waiting inside and worrying about what is happening in that car with their daughter, one or two hours seems like an eternity.  The Psalmist tells us to number our days so that we will develop a heart of wisdom.  A few years ago People Magazine published an article entitled “Dead Ahead.”  The article described a new clock that keeps track of how much time we have left to live.  It calculates an average life span of 75 years for men and 80 years for women.  All we have to do is to program our gender and age into the clock, and from that point forward it will count down how much time we have left to live.  I understand the clock sold for $99.95.  I haven’t gone shopping yet to purchase one.  None of us likes to be reminded that our lives are frail, and that death could be just around the corner.  The Psalmist, however, tells us to have that very mindset, to realize that our days are numbered.  Actually, we have no guarantees that tomorrow will be here for us.  All we have is the present.  Listen to what James says in James 4:13-14, Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.  To make the most of the new year, we must first realize our life’s weakness.

 Second, to make the most of the new year, we must redeem our life’s worth.  Verse 16 says, “making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”  Jesus has told us that Satan is a robber and a thief.  One of the things he will try to steal from us is our time, because time is an extremely precious possession.  In our day and age, time is becoming more and more valuable.  If we really want to show we care for someone, giving them our time is now a greater gift than giving them our money.  How much time did we waste in 2012 doing things that were not pleasing to our Lord?  What lessons can we learn from 2012 to apply to 2013?  Sometimes we can make a poor use of our time by trying to be productive.  For example, Jesus went to the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus.  He sat down to teach, and Mary was sitting at his feet absorbing every word.  Meanwhile, Martha was in the kitchen cooking supper.  Most of us know the story.  Martha gets upset because Mary isn’t in the kitchen with her.  Finally she complains to Jesus, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?  Tell her to help me!” (Luke 10:40)  Jesus answered, But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”  Now was Martha sinning by cooking supper?  Certainly not.  Her problem is that she was preoccupied with the task at hand that she didn’t realize who was sitting in her living room.  The point is that Martha’s mistake is often our mistake today.  We get so preoccupied with the here-and-now that we fail to deal with the eternal, the things that will last forever and ever.  Richard Swenson, a medical doctor, has written a book in which he discusses one of the major ailments of our time – overload.  We are overloaded with commitments.  We commit ourselves to go here and there, to take part in this activity and that function.  As a result we soon begin meeting ourselves going and coming because we simply have too many things to do.  We are overloaded with possessions.  Our closets are full, our garages are overflowing.  We’ve gone into debt to pay for all of the things we “simply MUST have.”  Now we are fearful that someone might steal them.  We are overloaded with work.  We get up early and go to bed late.  We fight rush-hour traffic.  We tolerate difficult working conditions, often because we have to pay for all the possessions we have accumulated.  I have read a few bumper stickers which say, “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.”  We are overloaded with information.  Dr. Swenson says he has to read 220 articles a month just to keep up with the changes in his profession.  Now many of us are also on the information superhighway of the internet.  The problem is, there are so many roads of information to travel, we don’t know where to head first.  It is overwhelming.  So the point is that there are many, many demands upon our time.  The problem is that there will be only 8,760 hours in 2013.  We want to make the most of every opportunity, but there are so many opportunities available to us, so what do we do?  We must redeem our life’s worth, and the next verse of our passage tells us how to do so.

To make the most of the new year, we must recognize our Lord’s will.  Verse 17 says, Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  What do we think God’s will is for you in this coming year?  Does he want your mind so saturated with worries and anxieties that you can’t think spiritual thoughts?  Does he want your calendar so crowded with various events that you have no time for things that are really important?  As we seek God’s will for 2013, there are a couple of things we need to keep in mind.  First, we have to establish our priorities.  Since we are in church this morning, we obviously feel God needs to be a part of our lives.  Unless, however, we were coerced to come to church by a parent, a child or a spouse.  If that is the case, we need to understand that getting our relationship with Jesus in order really is important.  The question we need to ask ourselves is, “Who or what is most important in my life?”  We need to be honest with our answer, identifying who or what really is most important, not what SHOULD be most important.  Once we have found our answer, it is then we commit ourselves to making our relationship with Jesus Christ our highest priority.  To make the most of the new year we need to say, “I will fit every other area of my life around my relationship with Jesus Christ.  My decisions, my scheduling, my relationships with others, my finances and my whole outlook on life will revolve around my relationship with Him.”  Therefore, when Sunday arrives, neither rain nor shine nor longing for sleep will prevent me from being with God’s people when they meet together.  We will also plan to spend some time each day in God’s word.  We will spend time praying for ourselves, for our families, for our church, and for lost persons around us.  We will pray for our missionaries.  Then, it will be a priority for us to spend time with our families.  Husbands, we need to make a point of having at least one or two dates a week with our wives.  It may be lunch together, or dinner.  Make it a time when just the two of you can get together and talk.  Parents, we need to make a priority of spending time with our kids.  I honestly don’t think much of the notion of “quality time.”  What we need as fathers and mothers is “quantity time” with our kids.  Our children will be grown and out of the house before we know what is happening.  We need to spend time with them now.  To recognize our Lord’s will, we need to establish our priorities.  Then, to recognize our Lord’s will, we need to learn how to live in the present and to enjoy the present.  The greatest two enemies of our contentment in the present are our regrets over the past and our anxiety over the future.  We live in a society that bombards us with messages of unhappiness.  The message in essence is, “If only I had this new set of clothes, a big screen TV, a larger house, a nicer car, THEN I would be happy.”  The whole goal is to make us discontent so we will try to restore our happiness.  Many of us are tempted to live by the motto, “Wouldn’t it be great IF….”  Wouldn’t it be great if it were next week.  Wouldn’t it be great if it were next month.  Wouldn’t it be great if this day was over.  Wouldn’t it be great if I didn’t have to go to school.  Wouldn’t it be great if I didn’t have to work at this awful job.  This last week I read a story about a girl who went to college and hated it.  She finally told herself, “If I can get out of college, get married, and have children, I know then I’ll finally be able to enjoy life.”  So she stuck to her plan.  She went to classes everyday and finally graduated.  She got married, had children, and discovered that children are a lot of work.  Then she told herself, “If I can just get these kids raised, then I’ll be able to relax and enjoy life.”  About the time her kids were entering high school, her husband said, “Guess what?  We don’t have enough money to send our kids to college.  I guess you’re going to have to get a job.”  Well, she didn’t want to do so, but she felt it was the right thing to do.  Since they needed the money, she got a job.  She hated it, but she told herself, “If I can just get these kids through college and get all the bills paid, then I can quit work and really enjoy life.”  Finally, the last child graduated from college and all the bills were paid.  She walked into her employer’s office and said, “I quit.”  He said, “Oh you don’t want to quit now.  If you with us just another eight years, you will have a pension for the rest of your life.”  She thought, “Well, I don’t want to work another 8 years, but there is all that money at stake, and I can’t turn down the opportunity.”  So, she worked for another 8 years.  Finally she and her husband retired at the same time.  They sold their home and bought a retirement cottage.  They then spent hour after hour sitting on the front porch swing, looking at the family picture album and dreaming about the good ole days.  To make the most of the new year, we have to recognize God’s will in the present.  Romans 13:12 says, “The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

Scripture:  Deuteronomy 32:7, Hebrews 12:1-2
(preached at FBC Nitro, 5/27/2012)

On November 19, 1863 President Lincoln was making his way to a Pennsylvania battlefield.  He feared that he might be the last president of the United States.  The country teetered on the brink of self-destruction – the Civil War had taken an enormous toll on the nation.  The ceremony he would attend that afternoon would dedicate a cemetery for over 40,000 soldiers killed at Gettysburg in a three-day battle the previous July.  Lincoln’s remarks provided the beginning of what would later be known as Memorial Day.  He began by saying, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,…”  Less than two minutes later, he concluded, “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here (referring to the sacrifice of the soldiers).  It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Over the next few years, many communities set aside special days to honor the fallen soldiers of the Civil War.  Some services were quiet and contemplative, others had marching bands and speeches.  All of them included decorating soldier’s graves with flowers and flags.  Most towns referred to the event as Decoration Day.  After World War I the day expanded to honor the American heroes of all wars.  Then gradually, the custom of decorating graves of relatives and friends became a part of the day.  Eventually the name of the holiday was changed to Memorial Day.  Originally, Memorial Day was always observed on May 30, regardless of the day of the week.  In 1971, the US Congress moved the date to the last Monday in May to provide a three-day holiday.  So the reason we have Memorial Day is to help us remember, because we have a tendency to forget.  We need to remember the lives, the legacies, and the lessons of the people upon whose shoulders we now stand.  We need to remember the men and women who secured our freedom with their blood.  Jesus himself said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

Memorial Day is not primarily a day to celebrate the unofficial arrival of summer or the end of another school year.  It is not primarily a day to enjoy the pools that have recently opened.  It is not primarily a day to focus on grilling and interacting with family and friends.  The primary purpose of Memorial Day is to remember.  Remembering the heroes of the past and learning from them is important – throughout God’s Word we are encouraged to draw inspiration from the past.  Memorial Day is meant to remember — there are at least four ways in which that is the case.

First of all, Memorial Day is meant to remember our fallen soldiers.  We’ve already heard about how the holiday began – it began with a focus on the sacrifice of the military.  Every generation of Americans has heroes who have defended freedom and have laid down their lives for their friends.  This Memorial Day weekend the traveling Vietnam wall will be at Oakes Field in South Charleston.  The wall is as long as a football and bears 58,277 names of soldiers who gave their lives for freedom in the Vietnam War.  It is not the only such monument that remembers.  Eight years ago the World War II monument was dedicated in Washington DC.  There is a field of 4,000 gold stars that honors over 400,000 lives that were lost in that conflict.  Then there are the sacrifices that have been made in Iraq and in Afghanistan and in other places around the world.  Listen to these words that were written by someone who remembered, “It is the soldier, not the reporter who has given us the freedom of the press.  The soldier not the poet gave us the freedom of speech.  The soldier, not the politician, has given us the freedom to vote, to assemble, and even to demonstrate.  It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protestor to burn the flag.”  Memorial Day is meant to remember our fallen soldiers.

Then, Memorial Day is meant to remember our departed family.  Our passage says in Deuteronomy 32:7,  “Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.”  When I was a child, Memorial Day was a big deal for our household.  In our family, there were four major holidays each year – Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and Memorial Day.  One of the traditions we had was to go to each cemetery where family members were buried.  We made sure the gravesites were decorated and well-kept.  We would hold hands and pray, giving thanks for the memory and the influence of those people who were no longer with us.  Our extended family was a large one, with several cemeteries involved, so that was the bulk of our day.  We had relatives who would travel several hours to return to the Charleston area so they could visit the cemeteries as well and participate in the same event.  Then, when we had finally finished making the rounds, we would enjoy a meal together, visit a bit, then the ones who had traveled would return to their homes.  We only had one day to get it all done, because Memorial Day had not yet been moved to the last Monday of the month.  We weren’t guaranteed a three-day weekend.  I remember that kind of practice, 45 years ago, was not just isolated to our family.  Other families did the same thing.  It was a tradition, and keeping some traditions is a healthy thing.  That is one we do not have to sacrifice with the passing of time and the changing of our society.  We are who we are because of our parents, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles who left their imprint on our lives and sacrificed so we can have the life we now enjoy.  Memorial Day is meant to remember our departed family.

Then, Memorial Day is meant to remember our church pioneers.  Our second passage says in Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,…”  “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…”One of the principles of Bible study is that when we encounter a “therefore,” we want to look and see what it is “there for.”  The author of Hebrews in chapter 11 goes into great detail describing past heroes of faith who had died.  After that entire chapter, at the beginning of chapter 12 he writes, “therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…”  The cloud of witnesses refers to the people of God who have died.  The present-day congregation of First Baptist Church of Nitro owes a debt of remembrance to the church members who have preceded us.  None of us here possessed the initial vision of creating the Lock Seven Baptist Church, nor made the sacrifices necessary to bring it into reality.  These pioneers at the turn of the 20^th century were forward-thinking, cooperating with God’s Spirit to lead people to Christ and to make disciples in a local congregation.  They were people of energy and innovation, so much so that they used a railroad car as a meeting place for Bible study, prayer and fellowship.  In 1924 the name of the Lock Seven Baptist Church was changed to the First Baptist Church of Nitro.  Many of us here today can recall past church members who inspired us and who molded and shaped the spirituality of the church.  On this day, we remember them and give thanks to God for them.  Then we think not only of local church pioneers but also of pioneers among the broader people of God.  We find them in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.  Then when we study church history, we find them as well.  It’s important for us not to ignore church history, not to skip from the characters of the people to the present day saints.  There is a rich heritage and a wealth of inspiration to be found in men and women who have followed Christ in the 2000 years or so the church has existed.  We are all familiar with Martin Luther King Jr., but are we familiar with Martin Luther?  We’ve all heard of West Virginia Weslyan College, but we do we know anything about John Wesley?  We have several youth and some adults who are involved in missions and passionate about missions, but do we realize we are not the first ones who have felt that way?  William Carey, Adoniram Judson and Hudson Taylor were all pioneers in missions.  Many of us love good preaching, so we listen to podcasts of well-known preachers.  Are we are aware however, that Charles Spurgeon was so powerful in the pulpit that he still bears the name of the “prince of preachers?”  The point is that we enjoy many of the things we have spiritually because of the saints who have gone before us.  Someone may say, “Well pastor, I really don’t care about past Christians.  I just want to study my Bible.”  Do we realize that the Bible was not always available to everyone in the church?  There was a time when the Bible was only possessed by the priests.  John Wycliffe was a man who had a passion for God’s Word being in the hands of all believers, not just the clergy.  His vision resulted in the first translation of the Bible into English.  Memorial Day is meant to remember our church pioneers.

Then, Memorial Day is meant to remember our life-giving Savior.  If Memorial Day was just about recalling people who have died, it could get pretty depressing pretty fast.  Memorial Day is also meant to focus on our life-giving Savior.  Because of what Jesus has done for us by dying on the cross and being raised from the dead never to die again, we have hope of seeing again the people who have gone ahead of us in Christ.  Jesus also sacrificed his blood so that we might have freedom.  The freedom He gives us however, is not just political freedom but spiritual freedom.  He frees us from sin.  Romans 5:6-8 says, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Revelation 21:4-7 says of Jesus, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”  Memorial Day is meant to remember our life-giving Savior.

As you look back to the past and remember, there is so much that has been given to you.  You have your nation.  You have your family.  You have your church, both local and universal.  You have your Savior.  The greatest thing you can do to leave a legacy for this present generation and for future generations, is to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.  Jesus offers to save you from our sin, but you must make the choice to allow Him to do so.  He is not really your Savior until you become His child.  Until you give your life to Him, all He has done has no benefit to you.  Jesus wants you to ask Him to forgive you of your sin and to be saved from it.  Will you do so?  You may need to rededicate publicly.  You may need to join this church family – as you do so, you will become a part of the heritage of this congregation. (Prayer)