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:  Luke 24:13-21, 28-32

 The title for this message is restoring the spiritual passion.  Before we go any further, we need to be agreed on what the word “passion” means.  When I looked at Merriam Webster’s dictionary online, there are at least three general definitions of the word.  What we don’t mean in this message by “passion” is the suffering of our Lord Jesus.  We’ve all heard of the movie, “The Passion” – we used clips from it for our recent Maundy Thursday service.  Using the word “passion” to refer to suffering is a not a common practice in today’s English language. 

When we say “passion” we do not mean a sexual attraction or attractiveness.  Some time ago a woman behind the counter of a department store was approached by a customer and asking about a particular brand of perfume.  “Do you have Elizabeth Taylor’s Passion?”  The salesclerk quickly answered, “If I did, do you think I’d be working here?”  The word passion here has nothing to do with sexual chemistry.  Merriam Webster’s defines the word passion as we are using it as, “Intense driving or overmastering conviction;  ardent affection, a strong devotion…”

As we are using the term here, spiritual passion has to do with the intensity of our devotion to Jesus Christ.  God wants us to have a passion, an intensity for everything we undertake in life.  Often however, we lose the passion in one way or another.  When the passion is lost we find ourselves just existing, just living from one day to the next, from one paycheck to the next.  Our existence becomes “blah, ho-hum, boring. “  Sometimes a husband and wife may lose the passion they had for their marriage.  It doesn’t just refer to their physical attraction to one another, though that may be part of it.  With a passionless marriage the spark is no longer present, the romance has gone, and the specialness has been lost.  The worst thing we can do in that situation is to end the marriage because there is no passion, and seek another relationship where there is passion.  When we work through the difficult times and stay committed to one another, there is a deeper passion that occurs that cannot be found with newlyweds.  God intends for us to be one man, one woman for a lifetime not just because it is an arbitrary standard, but because it is the best possible way for us to experience all He has for us in marriage.  Then we can lose our passion for our job.  We get bored with it, and it no longer holds the fascination or fulfillment it did when we initially started.  Sometimes the solution may be to change jobs, but often the solution is to see our work as service to the Lord, and not just to the boss or to the company.  Then we can also lose our passion for the Lord Jesus.  When we first became Christians were excited about Him, and we couldn’t get enough of praying, reading our Bibles, coming to church, listening to Christian music, witnessing to others about the change God had brought in us – our hearts were on fire.  Then something happens, and we find ourselves just going through the motions.  We come to church, but we’re not all that thrilled to be there.  We remember when we used to read our Bibles, studying on our own and with other Christians in Sunday School and groups, but now we’re just not into it or we have too many other things to do.

We used to spend time in prayer, but we don’t even think of the Lord much lately, unless we get into trouble and need His help in a jam.  By the way, there is no condemnation in these words – all of us who have followed Jesus for any length of time have been at this point.  This morning we want to see how the spiritual passion can be restored.  God wants it to be restored.  In Luke 24:13-17 we find two disciples who had lost their passion for following Jesus.  They had loved Jesus, they had seen his miracles, they had faith in Him, they believed He was the Messiah.  They had experienced Him doing all sorts of miraculous things, but now Jesus had been crucified and they had lost their passion.  “That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad.”  This incident takes place after the first Easter.  Jesus joins them in their conversation, but they don’t realize it is Him.  Maybe their eyes are filled with tears.  Maybe they are looking toward the ground.  Maybe they are just not expecting to see Jesus with them.  Whatever the reason, they don’t recognize His presence with them.  Verses 28-32 continue after they explain their conversation to their unknown companion.

So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?

In other words, through this experience, their spiritual passion was restored.  One of the greatest needs we often have in our spiritual lives today is to have our spiritual passion renewed or restored.  We need our hearts to burn again, to be hungry for God.  Behind all great works accomplished for Jesus is spiritual passion.  Spiritual passion makes the impossible possible.  Spiritual passion energizes our lives as nothing else can do.  Spiritual passion draws us closer to one another in the body of Christ.  Spiritual passion prevents our lives from becoming dull and boring.  Passion is the difference between going through the motions and living with all your heart.  So how do we restore the spiritual passion?   Before we continue, someone may think, “Well pastor, I’m not a very passionate person.”  To which I will respond with love and respect, “that just isn’t so.”  How do you feel about your wife? Your husband?  Your children or grandchildren?  How do you feel about your house or your car?  How about your favorite sports team?  Every single one of us is passionate about someone or something.  What God desires of us is that we be as passionate about Jesus as we are about that other person or thing that is so near and dear to our heart.

First of all, to restore your spiritual passion, remember God’s plan.  Often we get God’s plan confused with our own plans.  When our own plans fall flat, then we become discouraged or bitter.  These disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t really grasp God’s plan – His plan was for Jesus to die in their place then to rise on the third day.  They thought Jesus was to be a Savior from Rome, not a Savior from sin.  In Luke 24:26 Jesus says to them, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” These disciples completely misread the circumstances around them.  Their plans for a political Messiah were shattered.  God’s plan for a spiritual Messiah however, were moving full speed ahead.  Friends, God’s plan is never sidetracked, it is never defeated.  Regardless of the way the circumstances may look to You, God is on the throne.  His plan will prevail.  Romans 8:28 tells us, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”  You want to have spiritual passion again?  You want to find it for the first time?  Remember then that God has a plan for you, better than anything you are able to conceive.  Why does He have a plan for you?  Because He loves you.  Jeremiah 29:11 says to us, “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.”  Even though you may not be able to see it now, realize that God’s plan for you is the best, and that His plan will prevail. 

Then to restore your spiritual passion, return to God’s promises.   Luke 24:27 tells us, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Jesus loved the Bible – he discussed it with the Jewish leaders in the temple when he was 12 years old.  He quoted it to Satan when He was tempted in the wilderness – He could quote it because He had memorized it.  He memorized it because He loved it.  Jesus preached from the Bible in his first sermon in Nazareth in the synagogue.  He quoted it again and again in His ministry.  He even quoted it on the cross when He said, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”  Jesus loved God’s Word, he knew God’s Word, He used God’s Word in His life and in His ministry.  The disciples in our passage had their spiritual passion restored because Jesus took them back to God’s promises.  If you want to restore your spiritual passion today, get back into God’s Word.  Attend Sunday School and study it.  Listen to sermons from it in church.  Find Christian music that is filled with it and put it on your iPod.  Sit down and read your Bible.  Read books that explain God’s Word.  Whatever it takes, return to the Word, return to God’s promises.

Then to restore your spiritual passion, recognize God’s presence.  Here is where we often miss it.  We may remember God’s plan and we may return to God’s promises, but if we don’t recognize God’s presence, then we are unable to live a life of celebration.  Our passion becomes nothing more than a cold zeal, an obsession with theology and Biblical truth, but absent of compassion, grace and warmth.  The Apostle Paul was this way before his conversion – he knew a portion of God’s plan, he had memorized most of God’s law, but he missed completely the presence of God in Jesus Christ.  When Jesus the Son of God appeared to him on the road to Damascus, then everything changed.  The cold zeal for religion became a blaze of compassion and grace through his new life in Jesus.  Verse 31 of our passage says,  “And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him…”  Why were their eyes open?  Because as they listened and learned about Jesus, they hungered to know more.  Verses 28-29 say, “So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them.”  These disciples reached at the point at which they were willing to put everything else on hold.  Any plans they had, any ambitions they possessed, any other goals they were seeking, all became secondary to learning more about Jesus.  They were hungry for God.  They desired Jesus more than religion, more than the Law, more than their own comfort, more than their own notions of a political Messiah.  Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”  God is present all around us, He is working all around us.  One of main reasons we lose our spiritual passion and get discouraged or disgusted is that we miss seeing Him.  He is here, we just don’t see Him.  We get so enamored with our own thoughts and our own ideals and our own desires that we just don’t see that He is with us.  If you don’t know Jesus himself is with you and at work around you, you can’t possess spiritual passion.  Your life will be drudgery, it will be a chore, it will be dull, boring, frustrating, etc., all because Jesus was with you and you never realized it.

If you don’t know Jesus, if you don’t have a transforming relationship with Him, He is offering it to you right now.  He loves you, He died to take the punishment you deserve for all the wrong things you have done, He came back to life so that you can live for Him.  All you have to do is to invite him into your life, just as these men invited Him to stay with them.  Revelation 3:20 says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him…”  If you’re a disciple of Jesus but somewhere along the way you’ve lost your spiritual passion, you don’t have to continue this way.  Will you invite God to breathe new life into your heart, your mind, and your day-to-day living?

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:  Psalm 109

“Most of Scripture speaks to us, the Psalms speak for us.”  That statement was made by Athanasius of Alexandria, a church theologian in the 3^rd century.  The Psalms give us words and images to express the movement of our hearts as we serve the Master of our hearts.  Today’s Psalm goes against the grain of our civilized lifestyles.  Many of the phrases may even offend us.  We may think, “Why are such thoughts even expressed in the Bible?”  They are expressed in the Bible because people have them.  The thoughts may not be right, they may not be loving, but they are a part of us nonetheless.  Because they are a part of us, we need to bring them to God as we pray.  Now, we can be pretty comfortable praying verse 30, “With my mouth I will give great thanks to the Lord; I will praise him in the midst of the throng.”  Verse 1 is not quite as easy, but not bad, “Be not silent, O God of my praise!” – it seems a little bossy toward God.  Verse 7 however, is rough, “When he is tried, let him come forth guilty; let his prayer be counted as sin!” So are verses 9-10, “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow! May his children wander about and beg, seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit!”  If we prayed this way in a worship service, it would be a scandalous thing.  Now if this Psalm was the only Psalm that had this tone, it would still be challenging, but there are several occasions!  Psalm 5:10 reads, “Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you.”  Then a classic when it comes to very hard Psalms is Psalm 137:8-9, “O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”  We might say, “Well, the Old Testament is just that way.  It is much harsher than the New Testament.”  The Old Testament in other places however, teaches against this kind of attitude.  Leviticus 19:17-18 — “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”  Exodus 23:4 — “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him.  Proverbs 24:17 — Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles,…”  Proverbs 25:21, “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,”  So Psalm 109, and the other harsh Psalms, go against the teaching of both the Old Testament.  Since that’s the case, why should we pray that way?  I believe this Psalm is here to teach us how to pray through our pain, through our hurt, through resentment and bitterness.  Once we acknowledge before God that we are hurting, that we are angry or bitter, then we can move towards healing and truly loving one another.  Ignoring the thoughts and feelings are there however, will get us nowhere.  So based on this Psalm, there are four things that characterize our prayers when we are hurting.

 First of all, when we are hurting, we can bring it all to God.  Throughout the Bible we see that every aspect of life is to be brought before God.  Psalms especially teaches us that lesson.  The Psalms share with God our praise, our joy, our sorrows, our depression and even our pain.  The Psalms do not leave real life at the door of our prayer room – they encourage us to bring every aspect of life to God.  How many times have we heard someone pray (it may even have been me)?, “Lord, we now come to You, setting aside everything we were thinking and feeling before we came and everything we are concerned about after we leave.”  Or we may have thought during the Lord’s Supper, “Well, I am not going to partake of the Lord’s Supper this morning, because I feel like I’m not worthy.  I got angry with my wife or my kids on the way to church, and I don’t want to approach God until I can do it worthily.”  Friend, you and I will never be worthy to approach God or to participate in the Lord’s Supper.  The best place for us to deal with sinful attitudes and selfish hearts is in God’s presence and with God’s people.  Especially when it comes to the Lord’s Supper, the reason Jesus gave his body and shed his blood was to save us from our sin.  Now we shouldn’t partake of the Lord’s Supper in an irreverent manner, but we can never do it worthily.  So when we come to God, we bring all of our baggage with us.  God’s desire for us to do so may be one reason why the Psalms are not in some kind of nice, neat order.  The sections are all jumbled together, happy and sad, praising and cursing, just the way our life is.  Life doesn’t happen in an orderly fashion, so why should the Psalms be that way?  Philip Yancey writes, “Taken together, the 150 Psalms are as difficult, disordered, and messy as life itself.  Oddly, that fact gives me great comfort.”  So we find up-Psalms, down-Psalms, Psalms of orientation and disorientation, Psalm 23 “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” that is preceded by Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Psalm 103 – “Bless the Lord, O my soul” preceded by Psalm 102 “Hear my prayer, O Lord!  Let my cry for help come to you.”  As we pray through this book, we go up and down, in and out, left and right, because that is how life comes at us.  The Psalmist brings everything into his relationship with God, which is exactly what we are to do as well.  John Calvin said the Psalms are “an anatomy of all parts of the soul.”  Nothing is hidden.  So when we are hurting, we can bring it all to God.

Then, when we are hurting, we can express it all to God.  We don’t just bring all of who we are into God’s presence, we share it with Him, we express it.  Eugene Peterson paraphrased The Message Bible that many people like to use.  In his book, Answering God he says,

It is easy to be honest before God with our hallelujahs;  it is somewhat more difficult to be honest in our hurts;  it is nearly impossible to be honest before God in the dark emotions of our hate.  So we commonly suppress our negative emotions….Or, when we do express them, we do it far from the presence, or what we think is the presence, of God, ashamed or embarrassed to be seen in these curse-stained overalls.  But when we pray the Psalms, the classic prayers of God’s people, we find that will not do.  We must pray who we actually are – not who we think we should be.  The way of prayer is not to cover up our unlovely emotions so that they will appear respectable, but to expose them so that they can be enlisted in the kingdom of God.

When we pray our pain to God, when we express it to Him, He is then able to lead us through it, to heal us and to comfort us.  If we come before God acting like someone we aren’t, then the darkest parts of us will never be touched and transformed by His light.  C.S. Lewis put it this way, “The prayer preceding all prayers is, ‘May it be the real I who speaks.  May it be the real you I speak to.”  God knows every part of us anyway, so we might as we go ahead and express and own up to it being there.  When we are hurting, we can express it all to God.

Then, when we are hurting, we can trust it all with God.  God can handle anything we share with Him – He isn’t afraid of our emotions, He isn’t shocked by our anger or even our hatred.  We can trust God with it.  Stuffing our hurt down inside of us, not even sharing it with God, doesn’t make it go away – instead, it gets stronger and it begins to control us.  One person said, “What we bury rules us.”  Unvented anger just smolders, waiting for the worst possible moment to explode.

If you stuff your anger at the office, you’ll kick the dog at home.
If you stuff your anger towards your parents, you’ll vent it towards your spouse.
If you stuff your anger towards a teacher, you’ll vent it towards your friends.
If you stuff your anger towards God, it will poison every area of your life.

When we are angry, when we want revenge, when we want someone else to hurt like we are hurting, we take it all to God – we can trust Him with all those dark feelings – He can handle them.  We may think, “Well won’t He be disappointed with me?”  He knows You have those feelings anyway.  He is only disappointed if you don’t share them with Him.  Express it all to God, trust Him to handle it – He can do far better with it than you can.  “Well pastor, I don’t want to let it go.  I’m just too angry, too hurt to let it go.”  Then don’t let it go just yet.  Just share with Him that You don’t want to let it go – trust Him to handle Your stubbornness.  If you are hurting and want vengeance, if you want the wrong to be righted, then God can do it far better than you can.  Romans 12:19 says, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”  When we are hurting, we can trust it all with God.

When we are hurting, we can leave it all with God.  After sharing the deepest, darkest part of his soul with the Lord, the Psalmist says in vv. 30-31, “With my mouth I will give great thanks to the Lord; I will praise him in the midst of the throng. For he stands at the right hand of the needy one, to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.”  His attitude has changed, he has left his pain with God.  Now he may be hurting still, but the pain isn’t weighing him down as it was when he came to God.  Prayer has changed him.  When we pray, it changes us as well.  When we come to God with our real selves, just the way we are – weary, confused, twisted, dirty, angry, discouraged – then we find in Him One who takes all those things, heals them, and transforms us.  This psalm speaks of “an enemy” over and over again.  So I’d like for you to do a prayer exercise with me.  Close your eyes, and focus your mind on your enemy.  It may be a person, it may be a situation, it may be an experience.  Whatever it is that is sticking with you, that is causing you pain, focus on it.  Now feel the emotions – the anger, the sadness, the pain, the grief.  Now tell God about it – share with Him exactly how you are feeling.  Then tell him what You want to happen to that person or that situation – it could be good or bad.  Just let it all out.  Then tell God, “I choose to give this person, this situation, to You.  I know You love me just as I am, despite how I feel.  Take this pain, this bitterness, this anger from me – free me to live for You.”  Now God may very well be saying to you, “You’ve taken your first step towards freedom with this prayer.  Now look away from your enemy, and focus on Me and my great love for You.”

Prayer changes others, and it changes us.  When we pray our pain, powerful things happen.  You may need to pray first a prayer of salvation, asking Jesus to forgive you of your sin and to give you new life. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Will you choose to live a lifestyle of bringing everything to God in prayer?

Scripture:  1 Kings 18:36-40

Dr. Ben Carson is a world-famous surgeon, performing more than 400 operations a year, mostly brain and spinal surgeries.  At age 33, he was named as the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the youngest in the nation at the time.  The Library of Congress named him one of 89 living legends.  He says that besides his faith, his mother is one of the main reasons he is the man he is today.  He says of his Mom, “She was one of 24 children, got married at age 13, found out that her husband was a bigamist.  She only had a third-grade education, but the thing about my mother is that she never adopted a victim’s mentality.  She prayed, she asked God to give her wisdom because my brother and I were terrible students….”  His brother, by the way, became an engineer.  His mother refused to adopt a victim mentality.  She refused to lay blame for her problems on other people, and give up hope of making any changes in her own behavior.  She refused to become bitter and suspicious of people around her.  Instead, she prayed.  Through prayer and God’s grace, Ben’s mother and Ben himself went from victims to victors.  A victim mentality is rampant in our society today.  If we are in a marriage that isn’t working well, we can view ourselves as the victim of an inconsiderate spouse, even though there are many things we could do to make the relationship better.  If we are struggling with our grades in school, we can become a victim of a poor educational system or an incompetent teacher, despite the fact we haven’t been studying.  If we are having a tough time making ends meet, we can become victims of an oppressive American system that needs to do even more for the less fortunate.  If we are struggling with our weight or poor eating habits, we can become victims of the habits our parents ingrained in us and a world in which food is everywhere we turn.  Can you see the idea?  Whenever we are hurting, we resign ourselves to being victims.  Well, in our passage for this morning Elijah could have resigned himself to being a victim of King Ahab, Queen Jezebel and a nation that was determined to worship Baal.  The king and queen were powerful, and he was outnumbered by all the idol worship in the land.  Instead, Elijah chose to pray, and as a result he was transformed from a potential victim to a prominent victor.  In our passage we see at least three ways that transformation occurs when we follow his example.

First, prayer transforms us from victims to victors over Satan.  Verse 36 says, “And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.”  Another god had taken the place of the one true God in the hearts and minds of the people.  Whenever there is this kind of widespread delusion, Satan is behind it.  Another god was being exalted as the source of salvation and deliverance for the people.  Today Satan encourages this kind of thinking, so that the lost will not look to the one place where they can find true salvation, Jesus Christ.  2 Corinthians 4:4 says, “…the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”  When we encounter this kind of blindness, we cannot prevail by argument or debate alone.  We must have the intervention of the Holy Spirit – He must open their eyes.  As we pray, God changes things.  Satan also encourages this kind of thinking among believers.  We are tempted to turn our focus away from Jesus and to other people and things.  Rather than rising above our challenges with God’s grace, we are lured to look to other people, things and circumstances to cast blame.  Paul warns us in Ephesians 6:11-13, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 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.”  Again he says in 2 Corinthians 10:4, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.”  Several years ago a young man was working with an ordination committee as a part of the process of becoming a minister.  He had to give a description of what he believed and didn’t believe about the Bible.  One of the things he didn’t believe was that there is a personal Satan.  He believed in the existence of evil in the world, but he didn’t believe that a being named Satan actually existed.  Satan was just a metaphor used in the Bible to represent evil.  All of the seasoned ministers working with him disagreed strongly.  They were wondering whether or not to recommend that his church continue with his ordination.  Finally one of the men said, “Let’s go ahead and recommend he be ordained.  Six weeks after pastoring his first church he’ll change his mind!”  Satan seeks to make a victim of us, to get us to adopt a victim mindset, a “woe is me” mentality.  He wants to destroy our lives.  Jesus says of him in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…”  He seeks to ravage your life.  The only way to escape his devices is to draw close to Jesus in prayer.  Prayer transforms us from victims of Satan to victors over Satan.  Through prayer our outlook changes, our disposition changes.

Then, prayer transforms us from victims to victors over secularism.  Again our passage says in verse 36, And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.”  The people of Israel had drifted far from God, and placed other things in His place.  They had abandoned their relationship with Him and had broken His commandments.  As we heard a couple of weeks ago, Baal worship was characterized by the killing of young children, perverting God’s plan for sexual activity, and focusing more upon the earth that God had created rather than upon God Himself.  God had been removed from many of the areas of their lives where He once had been prominent and honored.  Today we see a similar trend in the secularism that is rampant in our nation as well as Western Europe.  Webster’s online dictionary defines secularism as, “indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations.”  Indifference, rejection or exclusion.  We don’t need to look far to see the effects of it.  Morality is declining, church attendance is plummeting, and the Bible is becoming for many people just another ancient book.  We can respond to this trend in one of two ways, we can sit back and lament it, and long for the good ole days when things were different.  If we choose that response, we choose not to be a part of a solution.  Or we can respond by praying, and for asking for God’s leadership and empowering in the midst of a rapidly changing society.  If we make this choice, then God will be faithful to use us as salt and light for the world around us.  This last week Christianity Today ran an article about Rosaria Champagne Butterfield.  She was a highly educated professor of English and Women’s Studies.  She was not only skeptical of Jesus and Christianity, she attacked them through her writing and her keen intellect.  Her mind is razor sharp.  She was in a lesbian relationship, and was proud of it.  In 1997 she wrote a scathing critique of Promise Keepers.  She received many responses to her critique, some positive, some negative.  One of the responses however, was from a Presbyterian minister who was asking her intellectually probing questions, such as how did she arrive at her conclusions, what was the basis for her viewpoint, etc.  The questions were not attacking her, they were trying to understand what she was saying and thinking.  Rosaria wrote back, and soon she developed a friendship with the minister and his wife.  Eventually she was in their home for dinner, and had many discussions about life, faith and Jesus.  This pastor and his wife were praying for her, and at least one church was praying.  After some time had passed, she surrendered her life to the very Christ she had attacked.  She left the lesbian relationship, and a few years later met and married the man who is now her husband.  She is now a Christian author and mother.  Now the choice could have been made to surrender, to say this woman was just another casualty of changing times.  Instead, believers prayed, reached out, and Rosaria was transformed.  Prayer transforms us from victims to victors over secularism.

Third, prayer transforms us from victims to victors over sin.  Verses 37-39 say, Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”  Many people came from the darkness of Baal worship to light of serving the one true God, because Elijah prayed.  In the previous chapter of 1 Kings, 1 Kings 17, we read of another time when Elijah prayed.  On this occasion a widow who had taken care of Elijah lost her son to a severe illness.  Elijah took the body of the dead boy in his arms, and prayed that God would breathe life into him.  After he prayed, the child came to life.  That incident can serve as a symbol for us as to what happens when we pray for someone who is lost in sin.  The Bible says we are not only lost in our sin, we are dead in our sin.  Through Christ however, we experience life, the kind of life that God gives.  We cease to be victims to sin and begin to be victors over it.  1 Corinthians 15:56-57 says, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Then even after we experience new life in Christ, sin will still tempt us and sometimes ensnare us.  Even then, when we pray to God, he will enable us to experience freedom.  In Philippians 1:6 Paul tells, “…I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Will you pray to God, and experience the transformation from a victim to a victor?  Over Satan, over secularism, over sin?

Scripture:  1 Kings 18:41-46

Over 150 years ago Charles Finney, a Presbyterian minister and evangelist, was speaking at a church in Oberlin, Ohio.  It was the summer of 1853 and it was unusually hot and dry.  It appeared as if all the crops in the surrounding area would be a failure.  On one particular Sunday the congregation had gathered together, and Finney was praying for rain, even though there was not a cloud in the sky.  He went into detail describing the long drought they had been suffering.  He prayed, “We do not presume, O Lord, to dictate to You what is best for us.  You invite us to come to You as children to an earthly father and tell you our wants.  We want rain.  Our pastures are dry, the earth is gaping open for rain, the cows are wandering about and lowing in search of water.  Even the animals in the woods are suffering from thirst.  Unless You give us rain, our cattle will die and harvest will fail.  O Lord, send us rain and send it now, although to us there is no sign of it.  It is an easy thing for You to do.  Send it now, Lord, for Christ’s sake, amen.”

He then continued leading the service, but before he was halfway through his message the rain was coming down so hard his voice could barely be heard.  He stopped his message and said, “We had better pause and give God thanks for the rain.”  Was it a coincidence?  God hears and answers prayers.  In our passage for this morning, Elijah also is praying for rain.  Last week we looked at the example of Elijah and learned about a person of prayer.  This morning we’ll learn from him his pattern for prayer.  If we want to follow that pattern, we’ll do three things that are found in this passage.

First of all, to follow Elijah’s pattern for prayer, we must be devoted.  Verses 41-42 tell us, “And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing of rain.” So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees.”  He had such confidence in God that he knew the rain would come after Baal worship had been rejected by the people and they had returned to the one true God.  He also knew however, that God chooses to work through people who are devoted to prayer, who are passionate about it.  So he went to the top of Mount Carmel and prayed.  Notice the detail that is given here.  “He bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees.”  He was serious about praying, he was totally invested in it.  It was not a quick prayer, it was not a convenient prayer — it was a heartfelt, passionate prayer.  Throughout the Bible when it comes to prayer, we see that God wants us to mean what we say to Him.  He longs for us to pray like we mean business, not in a flippant or resigned fashion.  I’ve shared on other occasions how when I was a child my father struggled with one serious health issue after another.  I was accustomed to hospital waiting rooms and Dad having another surgery or major health challenge.  When I was around 8 years old, I remember my Dad having a heart attack.  It was in the middle of the night as I recall, and I came downstairs from my bedroom to see what all the noise was in the living room.  Dad was lying on the couch, clutching his chest.  He was obviously struggling.  Mom was scurrying around the house.  She had already called for an ambulance, but it had not yet arrived.  He was in pain, he was having difficulty breathing.  I thought my Dad was going to die on that couch.  So I kneeled down in a chair near the couch and began praying.  I had only been a Christian a couple of years, so I didn’t have any theological grasp of prayer.  I just was eight years old and knew my Dad was going to die if something didn’t change.  So I began praying, “God, don’t let my Dad die!”  I didn’t say, “God if it be your will, don’t let my Dad die.”  I didn’t say, “He’s in Your hands Father, whatever You will is fine with me.”  The only thing on my mind was a passionate, adamant desire that my Dad would survive that heart attack.  I took that desire to God, and as an eight year old child I stormed heaven with it.  I was no spiritual giant, just a boy who refused to let go of his Dad and was confident God could do something to help him.  Dad survived the heart attack.  Did my prayer make a difference?  I don’t know, but I do know God made a difference, whether it was through the prayer or through the medical personnel who took care of him.  The point is not that I was some kind of spiritual prodigy – I was just an ordinary kid.  The point is that the prayers of an eight year old boy were passionate when his Dad’s life was on the line.  I meant business when I prayed.  Throughout the Bible, the prayers that prevailed with God were passionate prayers that meant business.  When Abraham prayed for Lot and his family in Sodom, he meant business and boldly bargained with God.  When Jacob was going to face his brother Esau, who would likely want to kill him for taking his birthright years earlier, he prayed all night to God for deliverance and meant business in doing so.  When David prayed for his ailing son who had been born to Bathsheba, he meant business in doing so.  When Elijah prayed in this passage, he was wholeheartedly committed to it.  There was nothing half-hearted in his praying.  To follow Elijah’s pattern for prayer, we must be devoted.

Then, to follow Elijah’s pattern for prayer, we must be diligent.  Verses 43-44 of our passage say, “And he said to his servant, ‘Go up now, look toward the sea.’ And he went up and looked and said, ‘There is nothing.’ And he said, ‘Go again,’ seven times. And at the seventh time he said, ‘Behold, a little cloud like a man’s hand is rising from the sea.’…”  Elijah prayed, and nothing happened.  He prayed again, and nothing happened.  He prayed again, and nothing happened.  After the seventh time, he began to see a slight change in the situation.  Elijah was diligent in his praying – he didn’t give up.  We should never give up in praying for the people or things God places on our heart.  Do you have an unsaved family member or friend?  Don’t stop praying even though it seems that nothing is changing.  We could have testimonies shared if time permitted about how God brought unsaved parents, or spouses or children to Christ after years of praying.  If you are praying for healing for a Christian family member or friend, don’t give up.  If you are praying for God to help you in your financial situation, don’t give up.  If you are praying for God to give you a Christian boyfriend or girlfriend, don’t give up, and don’t settle!  One of the worst things a Christian can do when dating is to settle for someone who isn’t a Christian.  Elijah was diligent and determined in his praying, and God calls us to follow the same pattern today.  Jennifer Kennedy Dean, a speaker and author on prayer, shared recently in Pray! Magazine of an experience she had.  A woman, whom she calls “Mary,” came to her for prayer.  Mary was desperate and afraid.  Her son had been arrested for selling drugs.  Mary told the story of his years of drug abuse; the anguished attempts to overcome his addiction; the glimpses of hope that turned out to be false.  Through his story Mary weaved in her own story; she had prayed every way she knew how, and God had never answered.  Mary had approached the author on prayer because she was looking for someone who could “get results.”  Someone who knew how to pray with such skill that God would behave the way she wanted him to.  Mary had a long list of things she wanted the author to cover with God.  So the author began by asking Mary, “What is it that you really desire for your son?  She went back to her list and began to read off her requests.  “No.” the author said. Those are the things that you have determined will accomplish what you want for your son.”  She said, “Years ago, God taught me that I can’t know the desire of my heart unless I know the heart of my desire.”  So she helped Mary peel back the layers until she discovered the center of her desire was that her son would know Jesus Christ and find peace in his life.  “Then that’s what we’ll ask for,” the author said.  Things didn’t go well, if you define things by circumstances. Mary’s son continued to be bitter and suffered excruciating withdrawal.  In her panic, Mary would say, “God isn’t answering. Why isn’t he doing anything?”  “Don’t assume he isn’t answering.  Look for the path his yes is taking.”  Fast forward a year or so: Mary’s son was given a prison sentence. He then was led to Christ by a fellow inmate, who got him involved in a prison Bible study.  Gradually, God transformed him into a different man. When he was paroled, he had to continue in a daily drug rehabilitation program. He finished the program, then continued in his Christian life.”  During this whole experience of Mary praying for her unsaved son, what appeared to be backward was really forward. What appeared to be down was really up. What appeared to be dark was really light.  God moved, God acted, God responded to diligent prayer.

Then, to follow Elijah’s pattern for prayer, we must be daring.  Verses 44-46 say, “…And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.’ ” And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.”  As Elijah was praying, as soon as he sensed God beginning to respond, he dared to spring into action.  First of all, he spoke with confidence.  He told Ahab to get moving before the rain stopped him.  Now keep in mind, it had not rained for three and a half years.  The only physical indication of rain was a very small cloud in the sky.  Still, he was so much a man of prayer and so in touch with God that he knew when God was about to act.  He was confident in the ways of his Lord.  As we walk with Jesus and interact with Him through prayer, we gain that same kind of confidence in speech.  We can be confident we have been saved.  We can be confident that someone else who calls upon Jesus to save him or her, God will do it.  We can have confidence that God is going to work all the events in our lives, both good and bad, to His glory and our good as we trust Him.  We can dare to speak with confidence in our Lord.  Then, we can also dare to serve God in His strength.  When we are obeying God, we do not merely rely on our strength, we draw upon His strength.  Elijah ran all the way to Jezreel, ahead of Ahab.  The distance was 17 miles, and he ran faster than a horse-drawn chariot.  A world-class marathon runner can’t match that kind of pace.  It was a God-thing – God enabled him to do what he could not do in human strength alone.  He dared to obey God, and God provided.  When we dare to obey God today, He gives us ability that can only come from Him.  It exceeds any ability we would have on our own.  We follow Elijah’s pattern for prayer, we dare to obey.

Will you dare to obey God?  If you are following a Biblical example for prayer, you won’t just pray.  Your prayers will motivate you to action.  If you have never obeyed God by asking Jesus to forgive you of your sins and give you new life, then you need to do so.  Asking Jesus to give you new life is the first step of obedience.  Baptism is the second step.  Throughout the New Testament being saved and being baptized go hand-in-hand.  There is a tendency today to put a lot of time between the two, but that’s not a Biblical practice.  You accept Jesus, then as soon as possible you are baptized.  Another very important act of obedience is committing to a local church family, making the relationships with that group of people a priority in your spiritual life.  If we follow Elijah’s example of prayer, we’re devoted, we’re diligent, we’re daring.

Scripture:  James 5:13-18

This weekend Jeannie and I had the opportunity to visit with Josh and Amy in Washington, PA.  One of the places I really enjoy going when we are there is the Montour Trail.  So on early Friday morning, while everyone else was headed to work, I went to the Montour Trail and spent some time enjoying the winter scenery there.  It was quiet, it was peaceful, and it was a wonderful place to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation and allow God to speak through it.  It was an especially good place to pray.  As we continue through the beginning of 2013 as individuals, as families and as a church, if we are to experience what God has for us, we must be people of prayer.  Prayer is not just an option to us, it is not just one of many activities.  Prayer is essential if we are to grow as disciples and as a congregation.  A prominent pastor from the turn of the 20^th century, A.C. Dixon, said, “When we rely on organization, we get what organization can do;  when we rely upon education we get what education can do;  when we rely upon eloquence we get what eloquence can do but when we rely on prayer we get what God can do!”  So for the next three Sundays we are going to be focusing on prayer.  This morning we’ll focus on the person of prayer.  What traits mark an individual who prays?  We hear people talk about prayer warriors, but do we know what that term means?  How would we recognize a person of prayer if we encountered one?  What specifics things need to be part of our lives if we want to be people of prayer?  Let’s see what kind of answers James 5 gives.

First of all, a person of prayer prays for a definite purpose.  Verses 13-14 of our passage say, Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.  I believe the more specific we are with our prayers, the more likely we are to see them answered.  God loves to answer our requests of Him, but when He answers He wants us to know that He is the one providing.  When we are specific, it allows Him to bring greater glory to Himself.  One of the frustrations I have as a pastor, particularly in this congregation, is when people need prayer because they are sick, but they don’t want anyone in the congregation to know that they are sick.  I am the chief of sinners in that regard – if I am struggling with the flu, with a sinus infection, or something else, I don’t want “trouble” people.  “There are other people worse than I am,” I think.  I also don’t want to be a whiner, so I’ll just keep it to myself.  The Bible says however, that if we truly want healing, we let others know we are ill so that they can pray for us.  So if I want to be a person who truly believes in prayer, I need to allow others to pray for me.  If you want to be a person who truly believes in prayer, you need to allow others to pray for you.  God often uses prayer, along with medicine, to make us better quicker.  When we pray, we pray for a definite purpose.
Are you suffering?  Ask for God to comfort you.
Are you happy?  Praise God for blessing you.
Are you sick?  Let the elders of the church pray for you.
Several years ago there was a lady in my congregation who was struggling with a particular illness.  She actually followed the directions of this verse, and asked if the Deacons and I would pray over her in a church service and anoint her with oil.  We honored her request.  Eventually her condition improved.  Was she taking medicine?  Of course.  Well then we may ask, “which one healed her?”  The answer is, “Does it really matter which one God used?”  She took advantage of all that God had made available to her, and she got better.  God gets the glory regardless, for giving doctors the wisdom to prescribe the medicine they do, and for working through His Word to answer specific prayer.  No concern is too great for God, and no concern is too trivial.  Never say, “Well, God is too busy to get involved with this matter – I’ll let him focus on the big stuff.”  God doesn’t have any trouble focusing on anything – He is God!
Do you need healing?  Ask God for it.
Do you need money?  Ask God to provide it, and to give greater wisdom in managing what He brings to You.
Do you want a family member or friend to be saved?  Start praying for him or her.
Do you need a better job?  Pray for it.
A better marriage?  Pray for it!
Do you need a wife?  Do you need a husband?
One single woman, as I understand it, took a pair of men’s pants and hung them at the foot of her bed.  Every night she would pray, “Father in heaven, hear my prayer, and grant it if You can; I’ve hung a pair of trousers here, please fill them with a man.”  A person of prayer prays for a definite purpose.

Then, a person of prayer prays with a determined patience.  Verses 15-16 of our passage read, “And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.  Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.^”  When you pray, realize that the answer may not come immediately.
Sometimes it may take a few days.
Sometimes it may take a few months.
It may even take a few years, or many years!

A person of prayer doesn’t give up praying – there is a determined patience.  A former contestant on the television show Survivor, Austin Carty, tells of mission trip he took to Indonesia.  The country is 99 percent Muslim, and just this past March, Time magazine deemed the small nation “the crossroads of the Muslim faith.”  Because it is so strongly Muslim, the team was prohibited from talking about Jesus in the villages.  The people however, knew well that they were Christians, not Muslims.  Not being able to speak about Jesus in the villages didn’t mean Jesus wasn’t there working in their hearts and minds.  The team had visited the previous year, and had been burdened to pray for the salvation of seven children there.  On the final night of this particular trip to Indonesia, the mission team and the villagers met on the beach.  A bonfire had been lit, and as it stood tall as a man, violently ripping with flames, it symbolized the refining process God had been doing in everyone’s heart that week.  That evening the team played guitar and led praise choruses for a service that lasted nearly an hour.  Then an incredible thing happened: a boy fell to his knees to give his life to Christ.  Another followed…and then a third. When the service was finally over, seven children had given their lives to Jesus.  The seven children?  The same ones for whom the team had been praying the past year for God to save.  A person of prayer prays with a determined patience.  In other words, a person of prayer prays and doesn’t give up.

Then, a person of prayer prays in a darkened predicament.  Rather than just going with the flow, rather than just giving up and thinking, “Well times are changing and people don’t serve God like they used to do” a person of prayer prays all the more.  Verses 17-18 say, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.  Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.”  The time in which Elijah was praying is a key part of this verse.  He was praying that it would not rain due to the sinful decline of the people.  The people of the land of Israel had strayed from God and were worshipping another god, Baal.  Baal worship was characterized by the killing of young children, perverting God’s plan for sexual activity, and focusing more upon the earth that God had created rather than upon God Himself.  King Ahab was ruling during Elijah’s time, and he was a wicked ruler.  His wife Jezebel was even worse than he was.  The national leadership was going in the wrong direction, so Elijah began praying that the people would see the light of the one true God and His plan for their lives.  The method God chose to bring the people back to him was a drought.  For three and a half years it did not rain.  The point here is that Elijah cared enough to pray, even when the outlook was bleak.  Who would have thought that the people of Israel would turn to God under Ahab, of all the kings who had ruled over them?  Who would have thought three and a half years later Baal worship would be crushed by popular opinion?  The pivot point in this whole, dark episode with King Ahab and the widespread practice of Baal worship was that Elijah cared enough to pray.  He prayed against the odds.  He was a man with the same kind of emotions we have, he was subject to the same kind of outlook we would have in such a situation.  Still, he cared enough to pray.  Elijah was a person of prayer in a darkened predicament.  Years ago Hudson Taylor was one of the first missionaries to China.  It was a dark time then, but he was moved with a desire to reach the people of China for Christ.  He made his first trip there on a sailing ship.  When they neared their destination, they had to pass by an island before reaching the harbor.  Taylor heard a knock on his stateroom door, and it was the captain of the ship.  “Mr. Taylor, we have no wind.  We are drifting towards an island, and I fear we will perish.”  “What can I do?”  Taylor asked.  “I understand you believe in God.  I need to pray for wind.”  Taylor said, “very well captain.  I will, but you must roll down the sails.”  The captain said, “That’s ridiculous!  There is not even the slightest breeze.  If I set the sails now, the crew will think I’m crazy!”  Finally the captain agreed, and Taylor began praying.  Forty-five minutes later the captain returned and found Taylor down on his knees.  “You can stop praying now!”  the captain said.  We have more wind than we can handle!”  Taylor cared, and dared to pray, even in dark times.

This morning, do you care, so much so that you will dare to pray?  Will you pray for your unsaved family members and friends?  Will you pray for the members of your church family, and for the church leaders?  Will you pray for your government leaders?  Will you pray for your nation, and for the lost and the hurting around the world?  Will you be a person of prayer?  If you do not know Jesus Christ, your prayers will be not be effective until you ask Jesus to save you from your sins, and to give you new life.  Effective prayer stems from a relationship with God, but you cannot have a relationship with God if you do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ.  If you know Jesus but have been rebelling against God in one way or another, return to him and allow him to restore the closeness of the relationship You once had.  Then begin praying for others.

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:  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)