Jesus, Son of David... 11/24/2019

Warning Preachy...

Mark 10:46-52

46 Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging.47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

48 Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

49 Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” 50 Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

51 “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.

The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

52 “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

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Here we see that the blind man properly identifies Jesus as the Son of David, the promised king/messiah of Israel.  And in keeping with this proper knowledge he calls out for mercy.

I find it interesting that the blind called for mercy instead of yelling “Jesus, son of David, heal me.” No, he called for mercy which shows that he understood the implication of Jesus being the true ‘sin of David’ or rather the Messiah of God.

Tozer says that mercy is what happens when God confronts sin in Jesus Christ.  I think here of the thief on the cross adjacent Jesus in Luke 23).  God, through Jesus, was confronting sin head-on. The one thief properly identified Him when he proclaimed “...But this man has done nothing wrong.” (Lk. 23:41) And then, just as the blind man had done the thief called to Jesus for mercy; “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Lk. 23:42)

How about you? Have you properly identified Jesus as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; Immanuel (God with us-Matt. 1:23)  Do you recognize in Him who He really is and require mercy?  Call out to Him and he will hear and draw near.  Call to Him and He will answer you.  Jesus is the only one who can confront the sin in your life: He healed the blind man and he assured the criminal on the cross.  

Do you have issues? What’s your demon? 

The drink? God has and will confront it.

Illicit drugs? God has and will confront it.

Pride? God has and will confront it.

Women? (Oh we men love us some women don’t we?) God has and will confront that too and heal our sin; by His Spirit He draws us to honor Him in even in the sin of our sexuality.

The list can continue but no matter what’s on your list God has already been to the Cross and the Satan has been defeated.  Now we stand at the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil like Adam & Eve before us, will we eat of the fruit the Satan tempts us with? Quick, turn and run to the Tree of Life: run (don’t walk) to Jesus who will heal us and assure us even though we feel the excruciating pain of hanging on a cross.  Cry out to Him with the audacity of the blind man and the indignation of the thief on the cross.  For God confronts sin with mercy only through Jesus, God’s true Messiah!

“There was a written notice above him [on the cross], which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” (Luke 23:38)

Are You Hungry? 11/24/2019

Warning Preachy...

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.” (Matt. 5:6)

Are you hungry: are you hungry for righteousness?  Are you parched: do you thirst for the holiness of God?

Not, are you good-but do you hunger for goodness?

Do you turn on the evening news and feel relief that you aren’t headlining that 1/2 hour? And then are you moved for a desire for the righteousness of God?

Are you hungry and do you thirst for God’s righteousness?  Do you observe yourself (your thoughts and your actions) and then become insatiably desirous for the righteousness of Christ?  If so then you are blessed of God and you must go into this weekend (and the world) confidently as you are indeed blessed by the specific order of God in the flesh.  ~AMEN

Zacchaeus... - 11/3/2019

Warning Preachy...

Read It...

Luke 19:1-10

1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. 5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. 7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” 8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost

The Gist...

First, Zacchaeus sought Jesus, so he positioned himself to meet with Him.

Second, Jesus showed up and called Zacchaeus by name and he responded positively.

Third and finally, Zacchaeus’ life was changed and Jesus could declare that salvation had come to him that day.

Questions...

A. Are you seeking to meet with Jesus? Are you going where you know He’ll be?

B. Did Jesus show up and call you by name? Have you heard your name in the beckoning voice of the Cross?

C. Has your life been changed because of your response? 

The Message...

Seek, respond, and then follow Jesus and live the sanctified life.

Word.

What About The Cross? - 11/2/2019

Warning Preachy...

Think about the Roman Cross for a moment. It was a device to kill men, perfectly. It’s cruelty was its genius in that it tortured as it took its own sweet time killing its captive. The person hanging on the cross would suffocate if they did not push themselves up against the stakes holding them in. They were hung nude, thus exposing their shame, especially when their bladder and bowels were forced by the pain to expel themselves.  And the process would take hours upon hours to complete.

It was the Cross that the early believers preached for it was the “power of God”.

Today we don’t hear about the Cross much. It’s a radical thing really, because if it wasn’t for this implement of death mankind could not have life. For God required death as the justice for sin and what better way to exult that death than in the Cross?

I think we need more preaching on the topic of the Cross. A.W. Tozer’s Radical Cross is an excellent example. I think we need to learn of the radicalness of the Cross and maybe we wouldn’t think hanging it around our necks, from our earlobes, or on the wall of our houses for adornment would be so attractive.  To me, hanging the Cross around my neck would be like hanging a noose, a guillotine, or an electric chair around my neck. For the Cross really is an ugly thing and should call us to shame that our sin made it ever necessary in the first place. At the sight of the Cross we should feel the reverence of the reality, but instead it‘s become a common thing to us: and all it takes to make something unholy is to make it common. So then it is, the Cross where God defeated the power of Sin for us has become a simple and common adornment for our dress.

Have you considered the Cross?Do you feel it’s shame? Do you feel it beckoning you to fall to your knees in anguish and repentance?  Or is that sort of stuff just foolishness to you?  

Today, allow the Cross of Jesus to inform your soul of your utter need for the grace of His death. And when you do, you will recognize it’s awful (fully awesome) power for your soul.

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For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. - 1 Corinthians 1:18

Why Did God Choose Death? - 11/01/2019

Warning Preachy...

Did you ever wonder why God chose death as the way of redeeming mankind?  Why death and blood and everything?  I know there are a lot of answers to this but something hit me the other day that I thought appropriate and simplifying to the discussion.

In the garden of eden, Adam had Life in perfect communion with God. But then in the attempt to discover himself and the world he ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and he then DIED to life.

Now, we sons of Adam are called to DIE to ourselves and to this world and go to the Tree of Life (Jesus who DIED for sin) in order to get back the abundant LIFE that Adam gave up in the garden so long ago.

It seems to me that God didn’t choose DEATH as the means to redeem men but rather Adam (man) did when he chose DEATH to taste the apple.  So In the same but reverse way then we men have to choose DEATH to ourselves and this world in order to gain LIFE in God to be restored to the garden again. 

I’m sure someone in theology-land has already made this very point but it’s a new thought to me and helps me classify things in my brain.

What Do You Do With Jesus? - 10/31/2019

Warning Preachy...

“Pastor, I just cannot believe in a God who allows such suffering. All the killing, all the anguish, and all the injustice. No sir, I just can’t believe in that God.”

I heard this more than once.  People who look at the effects of the devil and decide that God cannot be be real or cannot be trusted.

My response?

“Well that’s fine then, don’t believe in Him. But let me ask you this, what do you do with Jesus Christ?  Not the happy-slappy Jesus that gives you everything that makes you healthy, wealthy, and wise. I mean the Jesus who actually and factually rose back to life from the dead?”

“Aww pastor, you don’t mean to say that you believe that story now do you?”

“Yes indeed I do. Jesus the Christ, the one who died on the Cross, was buried, and on the 3rd day was resurrected back to life and is alive today: He believed in the God you say you can’t believe in.“

Usually a discussion like this goes a variety of directions from here with people, but the question always remains, “What do you do with Jesus?”  

If Jesus actually factually rose back to life from the dead, that should change you.  Seriously, if a dead man rose back to life from the grave and actually exists in the spiritual world, that should so rock our soul’s core being that we can’t help but be forever transformed into one of his created beings. And despite the reality of the evil that takes place in this world, we will then have intimate knowledge that the evil of this world has been, and is being, addressed by the Creator God.

Has your very soul been rocked to its core? Have you had a revelatory moment with the Living Jesus? If so then you’ll never be the same, and if not, everything will remain the same for you.

Consider Christ carefully.  Get a Charlie-horse in your Brain even but consider him until your heart is blessed and repentance comes naturally, for when that happens you’ll know with certainty that Jesus is alive and well.

Rules for my children when I die…08/20/2019

WARNING PREACHY…

The other night we had dinner with my aunt and uncle and we began talking about the Witch at Endor (1 Samuel 28)1.  I admitted that the bible speaks of a medium actually bringing back the soul of a dead person and it confounds me because I don’t really think about spirits and ghosts as a reality; but because of 1 Sam. 28 I really cannot deny such a thing.  As the conversation progressed we got talking about people who had been raised back to life from the dead or people who have been resuscitated back to life on the doctor’s gurney.  Of course it morphed into a conversation that we didn’t expect and I came up with three rules for my children for when I die.

1.      Do not Resuscitate

This may sound harsh, but seriously – LET ME GO!  I am fully convinced that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8) so when you resuscitate me you are bringing me back from the Presence of the Lord – and that’s where I really want to be.  Please don’t let your selfish desire to have me alive make you feel like I need to be on this earth – if you love me you will let me go.

2.      Pull the Plug

I figure if you are given the uncertain choice to pull the plug on me thinking that I might die without the plug, pull it.  In fact, one better, don’t put me on the plug to begin with.  Just let me die.  I’m not suicidal here I’m just saying that I am absolutely OK with leaving this crummy world and being with Jesus.  When I became a Christian in 1994 I knew then that I will live as long as God has work for me to do for his kingdom here on this earth, so none of us has to fret it.  I won’t be jumping off a tall building anytime thus putting God to the test (Luke 4:9-11) but I have no problem letting God take me at His leisure.

3.      Don’t make Me Your Guardian Angel

When my grandpa died I was not a Christian and had no reference of how the afterlife worked, so I just assumed that after he died he was watching over me.  Once I became a Christian I realized my perception wasn’t all that correct.

When I die, I will not be your guardian angel and I will not be watching over you.  I fully expect to have much better things to do in eternity that watch you view and like yet another YouTube video, engage in some sort of Jerry Springer type drama with the people in your life, or watch you climb the corporate ladder of life. (Revelation 21:4)  Of course I will be proud of you if you seek to serve our Holy, Holy, Holy God, but I have no desire to experience anything more of earthly geopolitical news and events.  If you love me, please let me go to be with the Lord and not waste my eternity by believing that I remain here with you on earth as your guardian angel.

Finally, if you decide that you don’t believe that when I die I will actually be with Jesus for the rest of eternity, I am sorry; that is a faith issue that you will have to work out in yourself.  I tried to teach you about the resurrected Jesus and His Call for us to follow Him into a Holy life, if you reject that then there is nothing more I can do.  But please, honor me enough to allow me my faith in Jesus and I will allow you your faith in whatever makes you think that living in this world forever would be a pleasant thing.

I love you but seriously, let me go.

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[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+28&version=NIV

On Earth as… 07/29/2019

WARNING PREACHY…

Matthew 6:10

“…your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
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“Is grandpa going to be in heaven someday?” a child asked his mother.

“Certainly,” the child’s mother replied, “why do you ask?”

“No reason, I was just thinking that I hoped he wouldn’t be.”

Shocked, the mother asked her son why he didn’t want his grandpa in heaven.

The boy replied, “If he sees us there, I am sure he will say, as he does now,—'What are these boys doing here? Let them get out of the way.' He doesn’t like to see us on earth, and I suppose he would not like to see us in heaven."[1]
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This story got me to thinking about who do I know that acts like they would be inconvenienced if I were to be in their heaven when I get there.  I admit that I cannot think of any who would be inconvenienced because those people don’t really expect that I will be there to begin with.  Why?  I don’t know, I guess I don’t think like they think or act like they act.  Maybe I’m not using the correct version of the Bible or don’t consider sacred what they consider sacred.  No, I really can’t think of anyone who will be inconvenienced by my entrance into their heaven because their heaven is not what I’m shooting for anyway; rather I’m shooting for God’s heaven through Jesus Christ.

On the flip side, when I read this story it also gets me to thinking about whom I don’t want to see in my heaven.  As I consider this thought I realize there aren’t many people that I don’t want to see in heaven but I admit that there are plenty of people that I don’t really care if I see in heaven or not. 

As a minister I’m afraid that I have become a little calloused through the years, I’ve gotten tired of people arguing against faith in Jesus so I simply have stopped trying to convince them, in many ways I’ve plain stopped caring.  I suspect my ability to stop caring is a protection-mechanism which I developed in my youth in order to cope with things that cause me angst.  I have the ability to stop caring for situations and people which/who matter and I recognize that this ability has negatively impacted many of my key relationships in life as well as having stunted my effectiveness as a minister of the Gospel.

Because of this I’m convicted to ask God to change my attitude to one that honors Him in this. 

As it is now my actions seem to demonstrate that I do not love the people whom Jesus broke His body and shed His blood for on the Cross.  His “on earth as it is in heaven” was to demonstrate self-denial in order that mankind would have a restored relationship with the Father.  He wasn’t concerned with their eternal destiny (though it was certainly part of it) as much as He was concerned with their everyday faith and relationship with the Father which art in Heaven right now.

I’ve been doing a lot of studying about the Holiness of God as of late and one thing I have determined as absolutely true is that because God is Holy and my not caring about what He cares for is to dishonor His Holy Name.  If I am really going to honor God and bring Glory to Him I need to become zealous for what He is zealous for; and that’s the people who Jesus sweated bullets for. 

As a Christian, I need my “on earth as it is in heaven” to become the reality for my Christian life now so that I can pray as just Jesus taught me to pray.

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[1] Adapted from J.C. Ryle’s Practical Religion, Chapter 7 – Charity, page 180.  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38162/38162-h/38162-h.htm#VII

Forks in the Road… 7/25/2019

WARNING PREACHY...

Leviticus 10:10

¹⁰ so that you can distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean,

Back in 1994 God taught me how to budget my money.  I was 24 years old and up until that time the only thing I understood about budgeting was not to overdraft my checkbook nor spend beyond the limit of my credit card.  So long as I had enough money each month to pay my bills, I was fine.  So when I started to learn to budget according to God’s economy it was a complete paradigm shift for me.  The very first lesson that I had to learn in order to manage my money according to God’s economy was that I had to learn the difference between a necessity and a want. 

I remember being in the grocery store where a child had wanted something from the checkout line’s “last-chance” impulsive buying opportunity.  He kept whining “Mom, I don’t want it, I “neeeed” it.”   

How many times have I whined such words to God?  But in God’s economy I had to learn that all those things I thought I needed were really just a want.  In that day the biggest things were cable TV, the vehicle I drove, and cigarettes, that I naturally thought were necessities for life, but I learned quickly that all of them in fact were not, and together they made up a huge portion of where my income frivolously went each month.

As I read Leviticus 10, this verse jumped out to me as to how to navigate our lives according to God’s economy: we need to learn to "determine between the holy and the common".  We are called to be holy as He is Holy and this is as straight forward as deciding every fork in the roads of our lives to honor Him.  For me, the idea to honor God is more a motivator for me than just doing what is right   (If honoring God is not a motivator for you, then I think there is something wrong with your faith but you most definitely need to find what a motivator is for you is and use it.)  But when we learn the lesson between what is holy and what is common in the economy of God, forks in the road become clear (or at least clearer).

And so this is the first lesson of being sanctified and of being “holy as He is Holy”, to learn the difference between what is holy and what is common.  When we learn this lesson (and we really care) the decisions that we make will naturally become less about what we want and more about what we need.