The End

“The End” - Mark 13:1-13 - Audio - Video

Last week, Pastor Bill talked about Salvation from Hebrews. He said it means to be redeemed, to be delivered from the consequences of our sin through faith in Jesus Christ.

To continue on that subject today there is a past, present, and future aspect to our Salvation. The past happened when Jesus Christ died on the cross and paid the penalty for our sin. The present occurs now, we are no longer under the power of sin. We have an advocate to strengthen us through our trials and temptations. And finally, the future. One day we will be removed from the presence of sin when we are in our eternal home.

Today’s Scripture from the book of Mark continues to look at the future and is directed to the disciples. This is a passage that's not easy to fully understand or interpret. Such passages have been the basis for a lot of books, sermons, and teachings on the end times. We need to approach them with caution, not making them say things we want them to say and mean. Of course, this is always true with the Bible, or should be for us.

Jesus and his disciples are leaving the temple or passing by it at least. Someone comments to Jesus about the beauty of the temple. Built by Herod the Great, it was magnificent. It had marble pillars some forty feet tall. It had elaborate stone work, engraved by the most skilled stone cutters and craftsmen. Gold all around it. In the entrance to the Temple was carved an intricate cluster of grapes, symbolizing Israel as the people of God. They were awe-struck by it, but not Jesus. He had already wept over the city (see Luke 19:41-44).

He somberly says, "The days are coming when this temple will not be left standing, not one stone on top of another." We know that day did come in AD 70 when Rome destroyed the temple and most of Jerusalem.

Jesus saw where the misplaced religious zeal and nationalism would lead his people. Even their views of the Messiah were greatly shaped by such concerns, for they wanted a military messiah, one to overthrow the Romans and set up Israel as the great kingdom it had been under David - and greater than that!

A magnificent temple, filled each day with many people and impressive rituals would not save them. The One who could save them was in their midst but only to be himself a temple they would seek to destroy. The irony here is that you may recall that one of the chief charges brought against Jesus when he was brought to trial is that he predicted the
destruction of the temple, taking it to mean by some that he and his followers would do it.

The disciples, always ready to ask the wrong questions at the wrong times, want to know more about all of this, especially when it will happen (vs 3-4).

Jesus begins by warning them that many will try to lead them astray when they ask and seek answers to such questions. Teachers and false messiahs will come in his name (claiming to be sent by him to try to get their support and following) claiming that they have superior knowledge of the end times, even to the point of saying that it is near
or here's a sign that surely means it is near. Jesus simply and bluntly says, "Do not go after them." In other words, don't listen to them. They don't know what they're talking about.

So Jesus warns about those persons who claim to know far more than they possibly can about such things. Uncertain times cause some people to look for messiahs, for persons to reassure them, to lead them. But then he goes on to say that there are some things that must happen before that time comes. It will not come right after the fall of the temple that he has just predicted. Neither will it come when they are hearing about wars and rumors of wars. They are not to let such idle talk and speculations terrify them. The end is still not yet (vs 7).

Jesus says before the end there would be great conflicts between nations (vs 8) and would even influence the natural world. But still this was not the end.

He warns them that far from being taken up to Heaven in the rapture, they will suffer. They will be arrested, persecuted, and tried (just like what was about to happen to him). Still this was not the end. Such times, Jesus says, you are not to seek to be delivered from but see as opportunities to speak on behalf of God's kingdom and will (recall how Jesus used his own trial to do that).

He seeks to reassure them that when those days come God will be with them, God will give them the courage and the words they need to make a good defense and witness. (Just recall some of the stories in Acts about how the disciples did just this when brought before the authorities, who were often astounded that these were just unlearned
individuals and how bold they were).

Jesus warns them that they would be hated because of their faith, because they go and live by his name. But in the end they were in God's hands and the authorities, as powerful as they were, could not finally harm even one hair on their heads (as elsewhere Jesus had assured them that God had numbered every hair on their head - see Luke 12:7). They
could kill the body, as they would with Jesus, but that was not the end of him, was it? They tumbled his temple but in three days God raised it up!

Note how Jesus ends: "By standing firm you will gain life." Continue to work, to serve, to be faithful. Do not become distracted by those who would mislead you, even coming to you in my name. Keep focused on the work at hand.

The FUTURE is a major theme in our scripture today and the emphasis is on faithfulness in the midst of present troubles, not letting speculations about the future or the troubles of the present distract from the responsibilities of the present.

This still applies to us today. So often we get caught up in the minor troubles and annoyances in our lives, that we forget why we are here, which is to simply glorify God with all that we say and do. We have God’s Word, we know what the future holds. We simply need to continue in faithfulness.

Just talking about the future or prophesying the future is not living our lives out in faith. Trusting in a God who holds the future in his hands is how we live by faith. Jesus told us to BE READY. Jesus wants us to live out our faith.

Faith does not believe that God will make our lives comfortable and affluent. Faith knows that whatever situations we face God will be with us through those situations. Faith is not worrying about the future. Faith is believing and trusting God’s plan and carrying out His will for your life.
So when our circumstances shift from comfort to discomfort; when our world moves from certainty to uncertainty; and when perhaps even friends and family turn against us, these are not reasons to reject God or to cease to believe in him. They are the opposite. They are times to remind ourselves that Jesus predicted these events. They are times to stand firm.

Another theme running through the whole chapter is that of being alert and watchful. Verse 5 “watch out”, verses 9 and 23, “be on your guard”, verse 33, “be on guard, be alert”, and verses 35 and 37, “keep watch”.

Will Jesus return? Is He coming back? He said he will! He is coming back. Before that day, he’s told us what to expect. Jesus calls us to be alert, and not to worry even if circumstances are awful.
We need Jesus to stay on the right path and to live a full life! Let me give you an example.

Many years ago, the actor Charlton Heston had to learn how to drive a chariot with four horses for his part in the movie Ben Hur. He explained to an interviewer that after many weeks of chariot lessons he told the director, “I think I can drive the chariot all right but I’m not at all sure I can actually win the race.” The director, responded,” You just stay in the race and I’ll make sure you win.”

Today, Jesus asks us to stay in the race of life no matter what happens to us. And Jesus Christ promises us that as long as we are with Him …we will win the race of life. So the challenge for us this week is simply this. The disciples learned to live their faith one day at a time. Let us follow their example and the example of countless Christians who have gone before us—trusting, loving, serving—never knowing if this is our last day or not, but being assure that no matter what God is with us.

Applying what we’ve learned:

1. God has a glorious Kingdom waiting for us. He will be back to take us to the place he has prepared and to judge those whom have not accepted His gift of salvation. If you haven’t accepted Christ as Lord and Savior of your life, do it today. Don’t wait.

2. Whatever our current situation is, we are to remember why we are here. We are to glorify God. We are to go into all the world and spread the Gospel message. The best tool for spreading the Gospel is your life. Does it honor and Glorify God? Can people tell you are a Christian by the way you talk and act?

3. Remember, no matter how bad things get for us, and we know persecution will come to Christians before Christ returns, we are not to give up hope. Christ died for our sins and will be back for us.

4. Keep on living the spirit-filled life. We cannot simply sit around and wait for the rapture. We were put here to do a job, so lets do it to honor and glorify God.

Closing Prayer
Merciful God, we come before you this day as those who are often afraid to confess all the many ways in which we have disappointed and betrayed You. You have given us continual opportunities to serve and love others, but we have withdrawn into lives of selfishness and greed. We have turned our backs on others in need. We have denied the gifts you have given us. Your voice calls to us to come home, to come to you unafraid, to receive forgiveness and healing. Open our hearts this day to receive these magnificent blessings. Help us understand the many ways in which you love us, and help us share that love with all those whom we meet. For we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. AMEN.

Happiness

Happiness - Mark 12:28-34

All of us have some needs in life beyond the basics of food, clothing, shelter, and security. We see this in our Scripture this morning. All people need some type of self-worth, intimacy with others, and of course intimacy with God. All other laws of Scripture really hang on this great commandment.

In other words, if we are loving God and loving others, everything else falls into place and life works out for us and not only for us but for the glory of God. If we obey the great commandment, then we are really obeying all other commandments. Love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself.

So how do we do this? How does this give us a happy, fulfilling, meaningful life. This morning I would like to look at several key ideas that should make your life better.

First of all, commit your daily life to be a walk with Christ. Use every day and every opportunity that comes your way to glorifying God. Start each day with a prayer of thanksgiving. Ask God for the opportunity to bring Him glory today. Pray for self-control and the strength to get through whatever situations arise throughout the day.

Spend time each day not only talking to God, but reading and meditating on His Word to us and of course apply what you have discovered.

It seems as though our brains are programmed from childhood to be selfish and sinful. It seems as though we automatically lean toward doing the wrong thing. The more we do the wrong thing, the easier it is to deny that we are doing anything wrong in the first place.

The prophet Jeremiah saw this. He said, (Jeremiah 17:9) “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked who can know it.” We need to reprogram our brains with God’s Word, with godly things. If we are going to live a happy, content life then we need to align our thoughts with God’s Word, not the ways of the world.

We need to get rid of the garbage that is bouncing around in our brain and replace it with the faithful Word of God. Some of that garbage comes from others. Ephesians 4:26 tells us to get rid of our grudges daily. We all get angry sometimes, but we need to deal with our anger in appropriate ways.

I am convinced that another key of a happy, meaningful life is taking time and building your relationship with your spouse and children. Sure other close relatives, like parents, siblings, and so on have a high priority, but your spouse and children should always be at the top.

Sometimes conflicts arise when we are with family. It is important to address the issue and do whatever you can to resolve the conflict. Don’t ever seek vengeance on family members. Instead, create an atmosphere of healing love and leave the rest up to God.

No doubt family relationships are important, but so are friends. Fellowshipping with other Christians is important to your overall well being and spiritual growth. In Proverbs 13:20 Solomon writes, “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

You can’t usually choose your family, but you can select your friends. Choose wisely. You will find that your friends will have an influence on you. If they are fellow Christians progressing on their spiritual journey then you feel that effect on your life as well. If on the other hand, they are Christians in name only, then you too will feel that effect on your life.

Now, that isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be friends with non-Christians because we should. In fact, our life should be a witness to those nonbelievers. We just need to make sure their worldliness doesn’t rub off on us. In fact, we need to rub off our Christ-likeness on them.

The idea is to obviously love others and be friendly and peaceful with all, but try to cultivate those deep relationships with other Christians that are also maturing in their faith. We all need friends. You know how you get friends? You go out and be friendly! We have to earn our friends.

Today, I think it is tough to have time for family and friends because our lives are so cluttered with stuff. They’re filled with activities and other things that just suck up our time. I find this especially true with families. It is like Mom and Dad are simply chauffeurs for their children taking them from one event to another, but never actually spending any time with them.

Many people’s lives seem to be very haphazard today. I think we all need a daily routine. One that includes a nice balance of the topics I have mentioned here this morning, but one that is also personally satisfying to you. It is the idea of being convinced that this is what God wants for your life and you find joy, peace, and satisfaction serving your Lord through your daily routine activities of life.

Your daily routine should include time for God, time for yourself, time for your family, time for your job, and of course time to glorify God through your life.

Finally, you want to be happy, you want to feel like you have a meaningful life, then each week do something nice for someone. It doesn’t matter who and it doesn’t matter what, just do something nice.

It can be a physical activity like raking leaves or cutting the grass. It can simply be a visit to someone who doesn’t get out much or maybe a phone call or card. It doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming, just do something nice for someone.

Ask God at the beginning of the week to show you someone who needs something this week and see it through. Do something nice for someone else. Not to get a pat on the back, but because this is what God wants from us.

I truly believe that if you love God, love others, and love yourself you will find doing all of the ideas mentioned here to give you that happy, meaningful, fulfilled life. Of course, for anyone who truly knows Jesus Christ and receives Him as Lord and Savior of their lives will indeed have a happy, eternal life with Him.

Closing prayer

Lord, we thank you for our time in your word this morning. Help us this week to focus our life on living out your will. Help us to love you, to love others, and to love ourselves. Make your desires our desires so that you will be honored and glorified through us.

AMEN

Dealing with Demons

Click here for the audio message of – Mark 5:6-13

For the past few weeks we have been looking at one of God’s most unique creatures. That is angels. We have seen that they worship God like we do. They can appear to us like normal people even though they are not people and people are not angels.

They also have special supernatural abilities like power, strength, and speed. We also compared the angels to Jesus and have proved that Jesus is not an angel, but better than the angels. He is the Son of God, the Sovereign Lord of all.

This morning though, we are going to look at yet another aspect of the angelic realm. See not all angels help us out. Not all are on God’s side. When Satan fell from heaven, he took some angels with him. And those angels, what we call demons are now working for Satan. Their goal is to try and stop us from being close to God.

No doubt many of you have heard the excuse, the devil made me do it. People use this excuse to justify why they did bad things. Many psychologists and other people have completely dismissed the idea of demons and demon possession and other supernatural things.

However, it is real. Demons are real. Have I ever seen it? No, not that I am aware of. So, how do I know its real? Because it is in the bible. That is where our scripture picks up this morning.

Jesus arrives at the country of the Gadarenes. As soon as He got out of the boat there was a man that approached Him. This is the first thing that we need to make a note of in our passage. This was a person, just like any of us.

This guy is in bad shape. He lived in the tombs where there would be dead people. It was not only a ceremonially unclean place, but it would have been a physically unclean probably smelly place.

This man was possessed with unclean spirits. Demons we would call them. We are told that this man possesses superhuman strength. The people could not bind him. He would break the chains. He was a wild man and he lived a miserable life. He suffered physically because of these demons. He suffered emotionally and mentally because of these demons.

But when this man saw Jesus. He ran up to him and bowed down and worshipped him. Here is this man, tormented by demons, yet while in the presence of Jesus has the strength to run up to Him and worship Him. That right there shows you the power of God over Satan.

Right after this, the demons regain control of the man and finish the conversation with Jesus. Today, a professional would probably say this man was a schizophrenic or something. He would seem to have split personalities. That is what the demons would do to him.

The many demons inside this man knew who Jesus was and they knew of His power over them. So they request that they not be sent out of this land, rather they request to be sent into a herd of pigs nearby.

Jesus grants their request. Why? I don’t know. Maybe just to give the man and the other people around the area a graphic depiction of His power over Satan. The demons leave the man and enter the pigs. The pigs then all run off the cliff and drown in the water below.

The herdsmen are mad and afraid so they run off and tell the townspeople. The townspeople come out and tell Jesus to leave, they don’t want Him around. Before He leaves though He tells the man who was demon possessed and is now demon free to go home to his people and tell them how God had mercy upon him.

What an interesting situation we have here. Imagine if you were one of those townspeople and had to live near this demon possessed man. It probably wouldn’t be a real safe thing. You wouldn’t want your kids out playing too far from home. Anytime someone died and needed buried in the tombs you could be risking your life going near this man.

Yet, when Jesus comes and removes the demons from this man. The townspeople become afraid and ask Him to leave the area. They don’t care who He is. They know how bad and powerful those demons were, so if this guy Jesus is stronger than those demons, then they don’t want Him around either.

Not only that, but He destroyed their livelihood when all the pigs ran off the cliff into the sea. What would you do? What do you do when you see the power of God triumph over the power of evil?

Scripture doesn’t tell us how this man became possessed by demons. Some people today worship Satan and try to become possessed with evil spirits. They think it will give them power and freedom to do what they want.

But notice in our text that these demons knew who Jesus was. Demons believe in God, but they do not have the saving faith in Him. They knew He had power over them. They knew they were going to be judged for the things they did to this man, so they pleaded with Jesus. They begged Jesus for mercy and Jesus showed them mercy.

In our society today, we probably would not expect to see people possessed by demons acting like this. We are too “advanced” so to speak to believe in or see that type of thing. We would give this type of demon possession a medical term or something.

But we still do have people that are controlled by demons today. Satan is definitely using the people here in America carry out his plan. It is much more subtle and sophisticated today than it was in our Scripture reading this morning. Satan uses the highly educated people to propagate his lies.

You know why we don’t have prayer in school today? Not because somebody complained and they passed a law and the courts have upheld that law, but because Satan used those people to further his plan.

So we see this morning, that bad angels, called demons, exist as well. For some reason these demons have the power to possess people. I have found no evidence in Scripture of good angels possessing people. Only the Holy Spirit will indwell a believer.

There are a lot of demons out there and they are under the control of Satan. They are working for Satan to accomplish his goal. Thankful, as our Scripture demonstrates this morning, Jesus has power over Satan and his demons.

That is a great lesson for us to remember. We do not need to be afraid of Satan or his demons. Sure, we may allow evil to encroach on our life sometimes when we give into certain temptations, but we know we have the power of God on our side.

When we feel evil encroaching in our life or we see someone else being controlled by evil, remember to ask God for deliverance. Talk to that person and explain to them the power, the love, and the mercy of God.

Closing Prayer
Thank you Lord for defeating Satan for us. Thank you for your protection over the forces of evil in this world. Deliver us from the evil one and enable us to carry out your will.

AMEN.

Your Faith Makes You Well

Mark 10:46-52
Length: 17:28

This is a message given on October 25, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

Your Faith Makes You Well

We finish up our study of the life of Christ this morning by looking at the healing of the blind men at Jericho. This was right before Jesus Entry into Jerusalem and the final week of His earthly life.

The city of Jericho is located about fifteen miles northeast of Jerusalem. It was the last major stop for people traveling to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. This is Jesus’ only recorded visit to Jericho in Scripture.

If you look at the parallel account of this healing in the Gospel of Matthew there were two blind men healed. The parallel account in the Gospel of Luke says Jesus healed them on the way into Jericho.

The New American Standard reads in verse 46, “Then they came to Jericho. And as He was leaving Jericho.” This seems a little confusing to us. So, which was it? Were there two men or one blind man. Was Jesus leaving the city or entering the city?

If you think back to the Old Testament in Joshua chapter 6, you will no doubt remember the story.

Joshua 6:1-5
Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel. None went out, and none came in. 2 And the LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor. 3 You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days. 4 Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. 5 And when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him.”

After the walls fell, the city was in ruins. Rather than clean up the rubble, the city was rebuilt right next door, so you essentially have Jericho OT and Jericho NT, two cities built right next to each other.

So, Jesus leaves old Jericho and enters new Jericho or whatever you want to call it. As for Matthew mentioning two blind men and Mark and Luke only mentioning Bartimaeus, again this is no big deal. Mark and Luke simply focus on the more vocal of the two blind men which is Bartimaeus.

Bartimaeus and his friend are sitting by the roadside begging. That is about the only way a blind man could make a living in those days. These men had staked out a good place on the main road to Jerusalem.

Remember, these men are blind, not death. So they hear all this commotion as Jesus and the crowd pass by. So Bartimaeus asks someone what’s happen. Who is leading this group? They tell him it is Jesus of Nazareth.

Wow, what great news Bartimaeus thinks. No doubt, he has heard the story’s of this man named Jesus. He probably heard about the raising of Lazarus from the dead, since Bethany is only a few miles away.

He also probably heard some rumblings about the Sanhedrin and other religious leaders being out to get this guy. But Bartimaeus doesn’t really care about what the religious leaders think. He simply wants to be healed and believes this man, Jesus can do just that.

He beings to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” The crowd told him to be quiet. They try to shut him up, but the more they tried the more aggressive, assertive and louder he got. Finally, he gets Jesus’ attention.

Jesus stops the procession and calls for Bartimaeus. Suddenly, the people who were yelling at this man to be quiet are now encouraging him to come forward to Jesus.

There is no doubt in Bartimaeus’ mind. He is going to be healed. He is full of confidence, he throws his cloak off and runs to Jesus. Think about it for a minute. If your blind, you keep your possessions with you, especially something as important as a cloak to stay warm with. But as I said, Bartimaeus is confident he will be healed and able to see his cloak to retrieve it.

Jesus knows what Bartimaeus wants, but asks him anyways, “What do you want me to do for you?” Again, Jesus wants Bartimaeus to demonstrate his faith, which he already has by leaving his cloak along side the road, but Jesus also wants the crowd to understand.

Jesus heals him, saying your faith has made you well. Bartimaeus’ physical and spiritual eyes were opened. The outward healing reflected also his inner salvation as well. Jesus tells Bartimaeus to go, but Bartimaeus choose to join the procession going to Jerusaem.

Perhaps this will be his very first Passover. What a wonderful experience that would be. Seeing all the sights and participating the Passover with someone special for the first time. I would also have to assume, that Bartimaeus was also there to witness the shocking execution of the Man who gave him sight. No doubt, Bartimaeus was feeling on top of the world at the beginning of the week, but by the end, he too was crushed.

The blind man could see who Jesus really was. He knew He was the Son of David, the Messiah. The religious leaders on the other hand could not. They refused to see Him for who He truly was and is. They were blinded to His true identity.

Bartimaeus’ faith made him well. He was healed. He was able to see. He was saved. No matter how desperate your situation may seem, if you call out to Jesus in faith, He will help you. But don’t take my word for it, take His!

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us another example of faith this morning. Help us to truly remember who You are and that You are there for us when we need you.

We thank you for these past several months of studying Your life and Your teachings. Help us to take what w have learned and apply it to our lives. We do this all for Your honor and glory. AMEN.

Servant Leadership

Mark 10:35-45
Length: 19:42

This is a message given on October 18, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

Servant Leadership

Our Scripture this morning picks up on the theme we saw a few weeks ago regarding humility. Apparently, James and John hadn’t learned that lesson yet. They still didn’t understand that Jesus was going to die, not build an earthly kingdom. So the disciples, in particular James and John, are trying to assure a place of predominance in the coming kingdom.

According to the parallel account in the Gospel of Matthew, James and John were accompanied by their mother Salome. And Salome actually spoke first, then James and John reiterated the request we see here in the Gospel of Mark.

It is probable that the two sons asked their mother to bring the request to Jesus. She may have more influence over Him than they did. Plus it looks a little less selfish if you have someone else ask a question like this. It is also possible that Salome was Jesus’ aunt.

Their request is a pretty open-ended question. They start by saying “Do for us whatever we ask.” How bold is that! It is obvious from their opening question that they knew their request was a little bit over the top.

I mean Jesus has already been over this topic once. He just got done telling everyone they must be like children. And in verses 35 and 36 He once again stated that He must die and rise again. As usual the disciples weren’t understanding, and in fact will continue this discussion up to the very night Jesus is betrayed.

Jesus replies, “What do you want me to do?” They reply, “We want the seats on the left and right hand side of You.” These would be the places of highest prominence and honor.

Jesus tries to open their eyes and change their way of thinking by talking about the Cup that He will drink from and take the Baptism that He will take.

As we know, they weren’t heading to Jerusalem for a victory celebration. Rather it will be the ultimate suffering and sacrifice. James and John want to be considered Jesus’ closest companions, sitting on either side of Him. They think this will be a promotion not persecution. They believe they can drink the Cup and be Baptized like Christ.

The Cup and Baptism Jesus refers to here is enduring suffering and death as Jesus would. Indeed, both James and John would be persecuted and suffer, just like their Master. As we see in Acts 12:2 , James is the first Apostle to be killed because of his faith.

As we know from Revelation, John, on the other hand, will be the last surviving Apostle. According to church tradition, John was the only Apostle who didn’t die a martyr. His life was spared, but that does not mean he didn’t suffer persecution.

Jesus can promise them persecution but not position for the Kingdom. That is His Father’s choice alone. After His resurrection, Jesus will be given all authority on Heaven and Earth, but during His ministry He lives in submission to the will of the Father.

Jesus submits Himself to the physical and spiritual needs of sinners. He comes as a servant and invites His disciples to do the same. Honors in the Kingdom of God are not based upon selfish ambitions.

While Jesus is telling James and John this, the other disciples must have been within ear shot or came closer to hear what Jesus was saying. They become upset with James and John, not because of the question or their lack of understanding, but because James and John beat them to the punch.

Each one of the twelve still want the place of honor in the kingdom. Even after three years of walking and listening to Jesus, they still didn’t get the purpose of His ministry, which was to die as a servant of humanity.

You would think those twelve would have figured it out, but they didn’t. In fact, almost 2000 years later that lesson is still not understood or implemented.

The problem is simple. We imitate the ways of the world, not the way of Jesus. It seems as though we pattern our church using government, business, or other secular methods rather than the Bible.

We seem to want power and titles and salaries to go alone with our recognition. No doubt this breaks Jesus’ heart when he sees this kind of stuff happening. In fact, at the beginning of His ministry and at the end of His ministry Jesus cleanses the temple. I think if He were here walking today, He would do the same to our Churches.

The way to greatness in the Kingdom is not climbing some ladder like in the corporate world. Rather it is picking up the basin and towel as Jesus did that night in the upper room. This is not difficult for anyone to understand, yet so few actually implement it.

Verse 45 really sums it all up, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served; but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” He came to serve humanity by dying for our sins.

Jesus was the ultimate example of servant leadership. He is the King of kings and Lord of Lords, but He gave up His privileges and He gave up His life as a selfless sacrifice in serving others.

He paid the price for those who put their faith into Him. The ransom price was paid to God to satisfy His justice and holy wrath against sin. In paying it, “Christ bore our sins in His body on the cross.”

As we see from the example of Christ, true greatness comes from serving others, not using them as the world does. A real leader has a servant’s heart. Rather than seeking ways to have your needs met, look for ways you can minister to the needs of others.

Servant leaders realize the worth and value of other people. They also realize they aren’t above any job or duty If you see something that needs to be done, don’t wait for someone to ask. Take the initiative and do it like a faithful servant.

So often, Christians try to influence the world to live like them. I believe we need to stop living like the world first and truly start living like Christ did. Only then will we truly make a difference.

Closing Prayer

Lord, we thank you for these wonderful lessons that we learn here each week. Help us to truly apply them to our lives. Help us this week to be servant leaders. Help us to be truly great, by serving others out of love for you and love for them.
AMEN

The Rich Young Ruler

Mark 10:17-27
Length: 19:17

This is a message given on October 11, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

The Rich Young Ruler

As Jesus makes His way to Jerusalem a rich young man stopped Him and asked Him a question. Even though this man was young and rich, his question to Jesus appears to be sincere. It isn’t a trap like the questions we see from the Pharisees, it is simply an honest question.

In fact, the Scripture tells us the man knelt before Jesus and appealed to His integrity by calling Him a good teacher. This young man asks the question that everyone wants to know the answer too. “What must I do to inherit eternal life.”

There are really only two types of religious systems. One where you earn your way to eternal life and the Christian way of accepting salvation through Christ. The Jews were taught the legalistic way of earning your salvation by doing good works.

Right away, Jesus questioned the young man about the reason for calling Him good. “Why do you call Me Good? No one is good except God alone.” By saying this Jesus challenged the young man to think about who Jesus really was.

Since only God is Good, was the young man prepared to affirm Jesus as God? Only after understanding this will the young man be able to understand the answer Jesus is about to give. Jesus goes on to say, you need to obey the commandments.

This was a typical Jewish response. The Jews were convinced that a person gained favor with God by their own good behavior. All of the commandments Jesus states are commands with interacting with other people, not necessarily God.

The young man hears the answer and responds by saying, “Yeah, I’ve heard that many times before and I obey those commands. What I am still missing?” Again, this was a sincere response by the young man. He probably has externally obeyed those commandments, but internally his attitude and motives may not have always been right.

He feels something missing. He knows that none of his previous good deeds have earned him eternal life.

So, Jesus tells this man to give away all of his possessions and give the money to the poor. By saying this Jesus was not making either philanthropy or poverty a requirement for salvation. Rather, Jesus was simple exposing the young man’s heart.

See, this young man thought he was innocent, but in reality he loved his possessions more than others. More importantly though, he refused to obey Christ’s direct command by simply walking away.

This young man chose earthly riches instead of obeying God and receiving eternal life and heavenly riches. He would not submit to the Lordship of Christ. He went away sad, because the price was too high for him. He loved his wealth more than God.

Every disciple of Jesus Christ is called to follow Him in faith. But sometimes there are obstacles that stand between us and Jesus. We must remove those barriers in order to be faithful to Him.

For this young man, the barrier was money. For others it might be their family or their business. Just because the obstacle is different for us, it doesn’t make the demand any different.

We live in a materialistic society today. We need to remember that God owns it all, He just lets us use it while we are here and we are to use what we have for His purposes.

This young man goes away sad, still looking for a way to gain salvation and keep his money. That is the way a lot of people still think today. However, we know that is not how salvation works.

In order to be saved, you must receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You must make a choice as to where you will focus your time and attention. On earthly pursuits or Godly ones?

As Jesus watches this young man walk away, He turns to His disciples and says “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

This was a shocking statement to the disciples and the crowd. The Jews believed that wealth was a gift from God, which indeed can be true. But wealth could also be a curse. See, wealth tends to create self-sufficiency and a false sense of security. This often times leads those people with wealth to think they don’t need God or the things He provides for them. They can live life on their own.

The crowd asks, “who can be saved then?” We know the answer to that. We aren’t saved by works. We must abandon all that stands between us and Jesus. We need to trust God alone and Him completely. Salvation is God’s gracious gift to us through faith.

The story described in our Gospel reading this morning is a simple one. A man comes to Jesus looking for the answer to eternal life, but goes away sad because he doesn’t want to pay the price.

How about you? You have heard the price this morning. Jesus demands 100%, are you willing to make the commitment or will you walk away? The choice is yours.

Eternal life s more than just eternal existence, it is a different quality of life. Eternal life is in Christ alone. Those who possess it have “passed out of death into life.” They have died to sin and are alive to God. They have the very life of Christ in them. And they enjoy that relationship with Jesus Christ that will never end.

Does that describe your life? I hope so. Eternal life lasts forever, but begins right now. Enjoy it. Salvation and all its benefits come from God, both in this life and the life to come.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you this morning for this simple story. It is laid out so well for us and so easy to understand. Help us to follow through with our commitment to you and not walk away like this young man did.

Strengthen us to keep our material wealth in check and help us to remember where it all came from in the first place. Help us to use what you have given to us, to honor you. AMEN.

Hard Hearts in Marriage

Mark 10:2-12
Length: 17:50

This is a message given on October 4, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

Hard Hearts in Marriage

Jesus is continuing his journey to Jerusalem. The crowds continue to grow. The Pharisees are still monitoring Jesus’ activity and teaching, just waiting for the right opportunity to pounce on Him.

They decide to ask Him a question about divorce. Not because they are really in need of any answer, but simply to stir up trouble. Everyone stops and focuses their attention on Jesus to hear His answer. See, divorce was one of those hot button issues then as it is now as well.

The Pharisee’s had two main schools of thought on the issue. One division followed the teaching of Hillel who said a man could divorce his wife is she displeased him for almost any reason. If supper was burnt, the husband could divorce his wife. If the wife spoke disrespectfully of her in-laws, the husband could file for divorce.

The other group followed the teaching of Shammai, who said a man could only divorce his wife for a serious sexual offense. This view is of course closer to Jesus’ teaching, but still not close enough.

So as you can imagine, whatever Jesus says He is going to upset half of the group. You might be wondering why the Pharisees bring the topic of divorce up now. Well, Jesus is in the neighborhood of John the Baptist.

And if you remember it was over this issue that John was beheaded. So no doubt the Pharisees are thinking they can get Jesus to say something that will cause Him to be beheaded as well.

Jesus responds, “What did Moses command you?” Jesus is setting the ground rules for the debate. The answer to the question does concern someone interpretation or feelings. Rather, the answer lies in scripture.

We know that God designed a man and a women o be married to each other. This goes back to Genesis 1:27. They belong together physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This involves leaving your father and mother and being one with each other. Marriage is a covenant with commitment and faithful intimacy.

This is God’s design from the beginning. They become life partners, co-laborers. They are yoked together. One man with one women. God ordains marriage and that covenant should not be broken.

The Pharisees answer Jesus’ question by responding that Moses commanded a man to divorce his wife and send her away. The Pharisees response is partially correct. Moses did permit divorce, but didn’t command divorce as the Pharisees were implying.

Moses is not advocating divorce, but he does regulate it. And remember, this isn’t Moses, rather it is God using Moses to lay down the law. We also need to keep in mind that this was truly a male-dominated society where women and children were treated as property not people.

Jesus tells the Pharisees that God allowed divorce because of the hardness of their hearts. So Moses isn’t stopping divorce, but he is creating some regulations for it to protect the people involved, especially the women and children.

So a couple of questions arise from Jesus’ teaching. Since Jesus is confirming the possibility of divorce, what are the grounds?

It is clear that Jesus grants permission to divorce an unfaithful spouse. This isn’t a command. In fact, if there can be a reconciliation and forgiveness their should be. Christians are part of the body of Christ, therefore, Christians should seek the counsel and guidance of other members of that body. But most importantly, to seek council from God through prayer and reading His Word.

So, is unfaithfulness the only reason for divorce? Well, we learn from 1 Corinthians 7:15 that if an unbelieving spouse wants out of the marriage the believer is to let them go to keep the peace. The key to these two circumstances is that the commitment and the faithfulness of the covenant was broken.

We must be faithful to what the Scripture teaches. And part of the Scriptures tells us to be compassionate. So we need to apply the Word of God faithfully to our lives, yet still maintain sensitivity and compassion.

To finish up our scripture this morning, in verse 10, the disciples question Him about divorce some more, so they can have a more thorough understanding of His teaching. Jesus’ final statement is showing “equal” rights to men and women.

Men and women have the same rights when it comes to divorce and remarriage. There are no differences.

The sanctity of marriage is serious business in God’s eyes. Make no mistake about it, divorce is always bad. Malachi 2:17 plainly tells us that God hates divorce. It is a failure and should be recognized as such. That being said, we need to remember that we live in a fallen world and sometimes the conditions of life are less than perfect.

We don’t always have the option of choose between good and evil or right and wrong. Sometimes we need to choose bad over badder or wrong or wronger! How’s that for proper grammar!

Though God hates divorce, there are times when it is the lesser of the evils and would prevent a future and even greater catastrophe. So He allows it.

Let me close by saying, if you are divorced or have been divorced, God still loves you. You are not automatically rejected from Him. It is not something that will keep you from Him.
The marriage relationship is beautiful and is a part of God’s plan for many of us. They do however, take a tremendous amount of time and energy. Let us not forget that God has given some of us the gift of singleness, as well.

Whatever our situation might be, married, single, divorced, remarried. Let us remember that whatever we do, we do for God’s glory and honor. We should live by His Word.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly father, we thank you for our marriages. We thank you that you enable us to become one with other. We thank you that they are able to strengthen us and fill our weaknesses. Help us to truly honor our commitment to them and to you for you glory. AMEN.

Are You Salty?

Mark 9:38-50
Length: 20:42

This is a message given on September 27, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

Our scripture reading this morning continues with the theme we saw last week. That is of humility and being like children.

After Jesus’ teaching about humility, John’s conscience was obviously bothered by something he had done or witnessed. So John speaks up and explains they had caught someone casting out demons in the name of Jesus and they tried to prevent the man from doing that because he was not a part of their group.

Apparently Jewish exorcisms were relatively common. This man was using the name of Jesus to cast out demons. This isn’t surprising because Jewish exorcists used the names of powerful historical people to perform their rituals.

The surprising thing here is the fact that using Jesus’ name worked! This tells us that the unnamed exorcist was not a fraud, but was a true believe in Jesus Christ. John and the other disciples opposed this man because they didn’t know him. He wasn’t openly and officially a member of their group.

Jesus ordered them not to hinder the exorcist. “Anyone who is sincerely working for me, in my name, is not going to quickly and easily turn from me.”

There is no neutral ground with Jesus. Those who are not against Him are on His side, but by the same token, those who are not with Him are against Him. Jesus considers acts of kindness done to His followers as if you were doing that act of kindness to Jesus himself.

The point of this passage is not really about denominations as we know them today, however, the application is there. Just because we aren’t Lutherans or Catholics doesn’t me we should try to shut those churches down.

Just because someone doesn’t follow all the rules of the United Methodist Book of Discipline doesn’t mean they aren’t a follower of Christ. Allegiance to Jesus is essential to fellowship. It is a call to cooperate with others to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ.

The Catholics claim Peter as their founding father. That is great. The Baptists claim John the Baptist is their founding father, therefore, that makes them better. Well you know what?

As you saw in our Scripture last week, we shouldn’t be having discussions about which one of us is better. We are all followers of Jesus Christ right? Then let us all humble ourselves and serve God.

Back to our Scripture, Jesus moves from discussing children to discussing discipleship. God takes care of His children as a father cares for his children. Anyone who messes with your child is going to be in trouble, right? God feels the same way about us.

Anyone who tries to trick or trip up a Christian is going to be in a lot of trouble. Jesus said it would be better if a millstone was hung around his neck and cast into the sea. A millstone was a huge stone that was used to grind grain.

This would be a horrifying death. The person would sink to the bottom of the sea real quick and there would be no chance of escape or survival. Even this type of death would be better than what will happen to you if you lead a believer into sin.

Now living in this world today, we cannot possible avoid all temptation to sin. But we cannot avoid the personal responsibility when we are the cause of another person to stumble. We also cannot avoid the responsibility of our own sin. We cannot say the devil made me do it.

Jesus then talks about body parts that “cause” you to sin and removing them. Normally and most often I take a literal view of what the Bible says. This is one of those cases where we are to interpret what Jesus is saying figuratively.

No amount of self-mutilation can deal with sin, it is a matter of the heart. Jesus is simply emphasizing the seriousness of sin and the need to deal with it appropriately, drastically, and immediately. This is simply a call to repentance, a change of life.

Jesus also gives us a very vivid description of Hell here. Gehenna, which is the name of a valley south of Jerusalem, had a garbage dump where a fire was constantly burning. The smell was no doubt repulsive and the heat would have been intense. This became a picture of God’s eternal place of punishment.

Finally, in verse 49, we see a difficult statement from Jesus. “For everyone will be salted with fire.” Verse 50 tells us salt is good, but verse 48 tells us fire is bad! So which is it?

Salt was an essential ingredient in early days before refrigeration. It preserved food. Today, we pretty much just use salt to increase our blood pressure!

There have been many different interpretations about this saying. The way I understand it is you can either suffer with and for Jesus now or you will suffer later and eternally if you aren’t walking with Him.

We know that believers will suffer while working for Jesus in this world and we are purified through that suffering and persecution. When Jesus says to have salt in yourself He is saying that the work of the Word of God and the Spirit of God in your life will produce Godliness and will enable you to act as a preservative in the world.

So what do we get out of Jesus’ teachings this morning?

For one thing, we share a common faith with other Christians, no matter what denomination. And since we share the common faith we also share a common goal. That is to live and proclaim the Word of God.

Correct theology is important, but should not be an excuse to avoid doing what we are supposed to be doing for God. People who are on Jesus’ side have the same goal and our personal differences should not interfere with that divine mandate.

Finally, Jesus used extremely distributing language to stress the importance of removing sin from our lives. Painful discipline is always required of true and faithful followers of Jesus Christ. It might require us to give up a job, a relationship, or a habit that is pulling us away from God. Nothing should stand in the way of our faith.

As salt makes a difference in the way food tastes, we too should make a difference in the lives of those people that we come into contact with. When we lose that desire to salt the earth with the Gospel, then we become useless to God.

Think about how you can make a difference this week. Think about how you can be salt to this world.

Closing Prayer

Lord, help make us the salt of the earth. Help us to make a difference in our surroundings. Help us to reach out to others in faith to minister to the world. Most importantly, help us to recognize and remove the sin from our lives. Help us to truly be salty people. AMEN

Humility

Mark 9:30-37
Length: 20:23

This is a message given on September 20, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

At the beginning of Mark chapter 9 we read about the transfiguration of Christ. We studied this a few months ago on transfiguration Sunday, so we can skip over it this morning. When Peter, James, John, and Jesus return from that mountaintop experience, they see a large crowd arguing with the other 9 disciples.

Jesus asks what the argument is about. A man speaks up and says, “Teacher I brought my son to your disciples to be healed from his demon possession, but they could not do it.” The father admitted his lack of faith and asked Jesus to increase his faith. Jesus did and commanded the demon to leave the boy alone and it does. The boy is healed.

The crowd starts to grow large, again, not because they want to follow Jesus to eternal life, but because they wanted their physical needs met. Jesus was still following His heavenly timetable. He knew he needed to continue privately preparing the disciples for what was about to come.

So He took the disciples and starting heading through Galilee to Capernaum. The cross is now only a few months away. On the way to Capernaum, Jesus again gives a clear prediction of His death and resurrection.

Even though Jesus clearly stated this prediction, the disciples still did not fully understand and they were afraid to ask Him for further clarification. It wasn’t all their fault though. The parallel account in the Gospel of Luke says that the full meaning was hidden from them. So there is some divine concealment here.

As they continue their journey some discussions arise among the 12 disciples. The discussion or more likely a debate was about which one of them would be the greatest in heaven. Can you believe that?

Here are the future leaders of the Christian church talking themselves up, all while Christ is talking about His impending death. In fact, this was the first of three times that the disciples have this discussion, this debate, this argument if you will about being the greatest.

Quite possibly this discussion broke out because of the privilege that Peter, James, and John had in witnessing the transfiguration of Christ. This discussion also shows the difficulty with which even the disciples had in understanding and practicing the teachings of Christ.

Jesus, knowing their thoughts, asks them what they were discussing. The disciples were of course a little embarrassed to admit their topic of conversation, so they remain silent. Finally, according to the parallel account in the Gospel of Matthew, one of the disciples asks Jesus the question: Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

This question would become more important to them. As I mentioned this is the first time of three that they discuss this question. This was also a common discussion among the religious teachers of the day.

The attitude behind this question is the same attitude that many people still experience today: egoism. It is natural to most people. Most people want to be first in line, they want to have the best seats in the theater, they want the biggest piece of pie.

Egoism is nothing new or unique to us, nor to the people of Jesus’ day. Think back to the beginning, the very beginning with Eve. Why did she eat the fruit? She was deceived into believing she could be like God. She though she would be in charge and she could determine her destiny.

Egoism causes arrogance, selfishness, war, greed, jealousy, and many other evils. Our culture today pretty much accepts it as normal human behavior. It is very widespread and ingrained throughout our lives.

But here, almost 2000 years ago, we see the 12 disciples arguing about which will be the greatest. Who is the best, who is first? Who will get to sit on Jesus’ right and left hand side? No doubt, each disciple could make his case for being the greatest, although each had their weaknesses and failures as well.

So Jesus introduces them to something called humility. “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” It is through humility that Jesus sees our value, our worth. No doubt, all people are precious to Jesus, but the greatest among us will be the servant of all. As we humble ourselves before God, he will exalt us.

The idea of humility is very easy for us to understand, but it is extremely difficult to put into practice consistently. Most of us have no problem believing that Jesus loves us. The problem we have is believing that Jesus loves our neighbor as well.

To help further clarify His point, Jesus embraces a child and probably sits the child on His lap. Jesus tells the disciples they need to be like children to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is warning the 12 and us as well, unless you change your attitude, you will not make it into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Notice, Jesus doesn’t say childish, but rather He says childlike. Children are totally dependant upon their parents to provide for them. That is the way we need to be with God. Sure God expects us to do stuff for ourselves. But He is the one who ultimately provides and cares for us.

Children are trusting by nature. They trust adults, and through that trust their capacity to trust God grows. God holds parents and other adults who influence young children accountable for how they affect these children’s lives.

How about you? Are you humble? God humbled the disciples many times and He gave Paul a thorn in his side to keep him humble.

Do you serve God or do the things you do, so you can be lifted up and praised and honored? Or do you do the things you do for God. To lift Him up, to honor Him, to give Him the glory.

Do you love your neighbor? Jesus does. What about children? Do you influence children in godly ways?

These are some things to think about as you go about your business this week.

Closing Prayer

Lord, help us to be humble people. Help us to serve others out of love and compassion. Help us to lift you up and give you the glory. Strengthen us so that we may do your will. Watch over our children and enable us to teach them and raise them according to your standards. AMEN

Who Do You Say I Am?

Mark 8:27-38
Length: 18:57

This is a message given on September 13, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

As we now approach chapter 8 of the Gospel of Mark, we see some similar events take place in the life of Christ.

We see the feeding on the 4,000, which is very similar to the feeding of the five thousand, except the 4,000 are mostly if not all Gentiles.

After feeding the people, Jesus leaves and heads back to Jewish territory where the Pharisees and Sadducees confront Him again. They ask Jesus for a sign from Heaven to prove who He is. Jesus knows their wickedness, so He and His disciples leave the area.

On their way to Bethsaida, Jesus warns His disciples about the teachings of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians. Jesus then heals a blind man before we get into this mornings Scripture of Peter’s great confession.

As I have said in previous weeks, we are well in to Jesus’ third and final year of ministry. And the disciples still do not have a clear understanding about everything Jesus represents and does and will do.

After His prayer time, Jesus turns to His disciples and asks two questions. First, he asks “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” Now, Jesus already knows the answer to this question, so He really isn’t looking for an answer from the disciples. He is looking more for a response from them and to jump start their thinking about who He really is.

Of course, the disciples give an answer rather than a response. “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”

Now for sure, Jesus’ characteristics resembled these people, or maybe we should better say that these people resembled Jesus’ characteristics. All of these people spoke the truth. They confronted the religious and political leaders of their day. And they all essentially got beat up for the things they said and did, for standing their ground for what is right and honorably to God.

After the disciples answer, Jesus asks the tough question, “But who do YOU say I am?” As usual Peter is the first to speak and often speaks for the group in general. Now, as you are aware, sometimes Peter says and does some stupid things. But this is one instant and in fact probably the best instance where Peter shines with God’s glory.

He says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” You are the Messiah, the anointed one. You are Prophet, Priest, and King. You are alive, not some dead pagan idol. Jesus responds with a blessing upon Peter and the other disciples. They will be the leaders of His church.

This, by the way, is an important question. In fact, it is a question that everyone will need to answer. Who do you say Jesus is? The answer every person gives to this question will determine their eternal destiny.

After Peter’s confession, Jesus knows it is time to make known to His disciples who He really is and what must be done. Jesus has alluded to His death a number of times, but the disciples really did not pick up on the hint.

This confession of Peter’s really marks another turning point in the teaching of the disciples. From this point onward, Jesus makes clear to the disciples that He will be executed. As I have mentioned before, anytime Jesus talked about His death, He also spoke of His resurrection as well.

The disciples know that Jesus is the Messiah, but they don’t fully understand what that means yet. They think the Messiah is going to setup an earthly kingdom with a human army. However, they will really get a heavenly kingdom and a heavenly army.

They expect the Messiah to conquer Rome, when they will really get a risen Lord who conquers their sin. It will take time for them to learn this, but they do. Jesus’ death was necessary, not only to fulfill God’s plan but to pay for our sin.

After hearing Jesus plainly state that He must die, Peter takes Him aside and rebukes Him. “Never Lord!” You don’t have to die, surely that is not God’s plan. Jesus turns and says, “Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.

Peter goes from being the rock to the stumbling block, all in a matter of minutes. Peter, who had just been praised for being God’s spokesman is now being condemned as Satan’s mouthpiece. Jesus’ sacrificial death was God’s plan and whoever opposed it was advocating Satan’s work whether they realized it or not.

Near the end of our Scripture lesson this morning, Jesus gives a few statements for us to live by. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
“If anyone is ashamed of me and my words…the Son of Man will be ashamed of him.”

Those who reject the demands of discipleship prove themselves to be ashamed of Jesus Christ and the truth that he taught. Therefore, they are not redeemed from sin at all.

Who do you say Jesus is? Is He your Lord and Messiah? Jesus wants us to deny ourselves and follow Him. Stop trying to control your own life and destiny and let Him direct you. Christ knows us and this world better than we do, let Him be in control.

Closing Prayer

Lord, we thank you for this lesson this morning. It is so nice to read about the Apostle Peter and what a wonderful believing man he was. But it is comforting to hear, that even he screwed up sometimes.

Help us to learn the lessons that he did. Help us to obey Christ, to deny ourselves and follow him. Help us to set our minds on heavenly things this week, so that your power and glory may shine through us.

In Jesus name. AMEN.

Do YOU Get It?

Mark 7:24-37
Length: 15:31

This is a message given on September 6, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

Our Scripture this morning involves two different episodes in the life of Christ. The healing of the Syro-Phoenician woman’s daughter and the healing in Decapolis.

As we saw last week, the Pharisees and the crowd are becoming a little more hostile to Jesus and His disciples. So Jesus takes His disciples to Tyre for some private time, where He can further instruct and prepare His disciples for the future.

Somehow, this Syro-Phoenician women, a Greek gentile, finds Jesus and requests help for her daughter. She has a simple problem. Her daughter is demon-possessed. She knows Jesus can help her, even though she has no right coming to a Jew for help.

Essentially, this gentile women is asking to be blessed by the Jewish Messiah. The women asks Jesus for help, and she does it in a respectfully way and appealing to His Jewish heritage. Jesus hears this and wants her to understand who He really is before He will heal the daughter. So he initially rejects the request by ignoring her.

This seems strange to us. This does not sound like the kind, caring, compassionate Jesus that we all love and know and talk about. He has always helped those in need and this lady is way up there on the needy list. Her daughter is demon-possessed.

The women is persistent though and keeps bugging Jesus, following Him around, and begging and pleading for help. According to the parallel account in Matthew 15, the disciples become annoyed with this women and ask Jesus to address the situation.

The women leaves any pride and dignity she may have and comes to kneel and beg at the feet of Jesus to help her daughter. Jesus flat out tells her that His first responsibility was to preach the gospel to the children of Israel, the Jews.

He then equates her to a dog. To the Jews dogs were dirty animals and it was also a common term the Jews gave to Gentiles. So Jesus is calling this women a dirty dog! That really doesn’t sound like Jesus does it!

This woman was a Greek and the Greeks viewed dogs much like we do today, as wonderful pets and companions. The women responds by saying, even dogs receive table scrapes and crumbs right?

Now it all starts to make sense. Jesus came to preach to the Jews first, but this also meant that there would be a time for the Gentiles to receive God’s blessings as well. This women knew Jesus could help her daughter and now she also realize that she too could be a part of God’s Kingdom.

With this realization she is now ready to receive God’s blessings through Jesus and He is happy to grant her the healing she requested for her daughter. The daughter is healed. Now, this is not the first miracle done for the Gentiles, but it does make it clear that Gentile are part of God’s Kingdom.

The second portion of our Scripture this morning involves another healing and even into Mark chapter 8 we read about the feeding of the 4,000 people. There is really no new presentation of anything with these portions of Scripture.

The only difference we see is from this point on Jesus starts to include the Gentiles into more of His activities and teachings. We need to keep this in mind as we continue to study the life of Christ.

After healing the women’s daughter, Jesus leaves with His disciples to Decaoplis, another Gentile area. The last time He was in this area He cast out a demon and sent the demon into a herd of pigs which all killed themselves. The locals were a little upset and threw Jesus out of their city.

The townspeople heard Jesus was in the area and brought a deaf man, who could hardly talk, to see Jesus for healing. The man’s friends ask Jesus to help him. Jesus takes the man to a private area. Again, Jesus is on a heavenly time table and is not trying to impress crowds, rather He is trying to stir the faith of people.

Jesus puts His fingers in to the man’s ears and spits on His tongue. Then He prays, “Be Opened.” The man is immediately healed. He can hear and talk normally. Jesus commands the Gentiles as He did to the Jews, not to speak of this miracle to anyone.

Again, He did not come as a physical healer and provider. He came as Savior to the world. From the parallel account in Matthew 15, we read that large crowds came to him, bringing their lame, blind, and sick to Jesus for healing.

Just like the Jews, the Gentiles were coming to Jesus for those physical needs, not Spiritual needs. They too missed the point.

That is the question for you this morning, Have you missed the point? Jesus came to save sinners. That was His main purpose. Along the way he helped many people with their physical or mental troubles, but His goal was to save their souls.

Many people spend a lot of time ministering to the physical needs of the poor, sick, and dying, which is great. We should be doing that. But how much time do you spend ministering to the spiritual needs of people.

Think about it the next time you are ministering to the physical needs of someone, try adding a little Spiritual nourishment to the routine as well.


Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for sending your son to us. Not to heal us or feed us physically or mentally. But to save us from our sin. Help us to convey that message to others we meet this week. As we come to your table this morning, enable us to truly recognize your hand in this world and in our lives. AMEN.

Traditions or Faith

Mark 7:1-23
Length: 20:17

This is a message given on August 30, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

As we saw last week, the crowds have abandoned Jesus. The Pharisees are picking up their attacks on Jesus and His followers. Here we see the Pharisees complaining that the disciples did not wash their hands according to the ceremonial traditions before eating.

The Jewish tradition had an elaborate system of washing your hands to sanctify them or make them clean. This was not for hygienic reasons as we wash our hands today, rather it was purely a ritual washing.

For this ritual, the water was poured over the person’s hands. The hands are then raised up so the water will run down to the wrist. This insures that the entire hand was cleansed and the dirty runoff water doesn’t run back over the fingers defiling them again.

It sounds like quite a process doesn’t it. Now there is nothing wrong with this process. In fact, before performing surgery, Doctors and Nurse’s have a similar hand scrubbing procedure. Although, theirs is for hygienic purposes.

The problem arises because the traditions the Jewish people followed became more important than the actual Word of God. It sounds appalling doesn’t it? But believe it or not the same thing still happens today, not only among Jews, but among Christians as well.

Even today our religious institutions move away from the Word of God and move toward the interpretation of it by man. This isn’t necessarily motivated by any form of disrespect toward or motivation against God. It is simply the appeal of believing that this scholarly person or group of people is right and by obeying them we will be obeying God. That, unfortunately, is not always the case.

So the Pharisees approach Jesus and ask him, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders?” As usual, the Pharisees really have a hidden agenda. They were really accusing Jesus of teaching His disciples to disobey the traditions of the elders.

But, as usual, Jesus doesn’t answer the question directly. Jesus doesn’t even try to defend Himself or His disciples.

Instead He gets to the heart of the issue as we have seen him do so many times before. First, He calls the Pharisees hypocrites or two-faced. They pretend to honor God, but their true nature is self-serving. Second, He quotes Scripture from Isaiah. The Pharisees follow the traditions of men because it is a mechanical system rather than a heart system

The Pharisees say all the right things, but they say them for the wrong reason. Their hearts are not focused on God, rather they are focused on themselves. This makes their worship worthless and their teachings corrupt.


Jesus then proves His point with an example. The honoring of your father and mother was an important command to uphold. In fact, it was so important, if you did not honor your father and mother the punishment could be death!

The Jews had this tradition of Corban. If you classified something as Corban, then you were designating it as a gift to God, but you could still use.

This sounds like a wonderful idea and it is. You are dedicating the things that God has given to you back to God. You are essentially putting your belongings into a trust for you to use and take care of for a while, but then you return to God for His continued work.

So, lets say a young Jewish man was well off, but his elderly parents were sick and struggling. The Jewish man could label all of his assets as a gift to God. This meant that he could not sell them and use the proceeds to help his parents.

“Gee, Dad. I wish I could help and honor you. But everything I have has been dedicated to God. Sorry.” You can see how this, well intentioned, idea of Corban was then abused.

Jesus then returns to the original question about being defiled by not following the ritual washing. Jesus knows that you do not become defiled by not washing your hands before a meal. Sure, you might get sick from a health related stand point, but you won’t be defiled spiritually.

What makes a man unclean is what enters his mind and comes out of his mouth from his heart. After saying this, the Pharisees leave, obviously very upset, and Jesus and the disciples enter a house.

The disciples ask Jesus to explain what he meant by saying the things that come out of our mouth is what defiles us. Our words express the goodness or evilness of our heart. To make the point clear, Jesus even gives a list of some things that come from the heart filled with desires of this world:

evil thoughts, fornication, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness

That is what defiles us. Not ignoring traditions. A person’s defiled heart is expressed in both what he says and what he does.

The Pharisees were hypocrites. They worshiped God for the wrong reason. They wanted money and status. Today, we too can be hypocrites. We can pay more attention to our reputation than our character. We can appear to be somebody in public, but inside we know it is just an act.

We can also appear to follow all the rules of our Church, denomination, even the Bible, but inside still be distant from God. We can also brag about our virtues while pointing out others sin.

Many people are cautious these days about what they eat and drink. It seems like there is always a new diet out there. But do you pay attention to the things that you are putting into your mind and heart?

An evil action begins with an evil thought. Allowing our minds to dwell on lust, envy, hatred, or revenge will lead to sin. Don’t defile yourself by focusing on evil.

In Philippians 4:8, Paul tells us to program our minds with thoughts that are true, noble, right, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy.

Look to Christ for guidance about your own behavior. We become pure when Christ renews our minds and transforms us into His image.

Above all else, read God’s word and pray. Ask God to help you focus your mind on what is good and pure and holy. It takes practice and dedication, but it can be done.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the good, pure, noble, and just things of this world. Help us to focus our attention on them, rather than the evil, lustful, and deceitful things of the world. Help us to not be like the Pharisees and other traditionalists that believe their good deeds will get them into Heaven. We know that Jesus Christ is the only way. Strengthen our faith and our faithfulness. In Jesus Name we pray, AMEN.

Teaching, Healing, and Feeding

Mark 6:30-34
Length: 21:05

This is a message given on July 19, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

In our Scripture lesson this morning we see similar things happen as before. This is really the height of Jesus’ ministry now. This is the peak of His popularity.

We see the Apostles return from their ministry expedition. No doubt it was an exciting and productive time in the Apostles lives. As they gather around Jesus I am sure they all want to talk and tell Him about their adventures and successes. How they healed, cast out demons, preached to the crowds and saw people’s hearts turn in repentance.

As we have studied the Apostles for the past few months now, we know what they were like. They were hyper, impatient, excited, ready to act. As with most conversations the stories probably got bigger and better. Each Apostle was trying to tell their story and make it more exciting and more interesting than the others.

And there is Jesus in the middle of all this, listening with patience and enthusiasm for His students. If you remember from our scripture last week, a group of John the Baptists disciples approach Jesus and informed Him of the sad news that John is dead. He was executed by Herod.

Jesus is listening to the Apostles with excitement, while feeling the intense sadness of the death of the greatest man born of a women and the last Old Testament prophet. Not only that, but John the Baptist was a friend and family member of Jesus’.

What a difficult position to be in. Showing exciting for your students but also grieving the loss of a great man.

Jesus knows it is time for some rest again, to reflect on the recent events and to consider the next step in their ministry. Jesus knows that doing God’s work is extremely important, but to do it effectively we need periodic rest and renewal.

So Jesus invites them to a secluded place for rest and privacy from the crowds. But, the crowds keep coming. Some come because of Jesus’ popularity. Some have no doubt followed the Apostles back. Some have showed up over the outrage of John the Baptists death. Whatever the reason for coming, they were there. And there were lots of them.

Jesus and the Apostles jump in their boat and start to cross the Sea of Galilee once again. The people wait for a minute to see which direction the boat heads and then they start their journey by foot to the other side of the Sea.

As it turns out, some of the crowd actually beat the boat across the lake. When Jesus arrives He is once again moved with compassion for the people. He ignores His own tiredness and hunger to minister to the crowds.

Instead of showing impatience with the needy crowd, Jesus welcomed the people and ministered to their needs.
He teaches them. He heals them. And as we will see next week, He feeds them. What a wonderful model of ministry we see here. Teaching, healing, and feeding. Surely, we as a church should be doing this today.

We can all be teachers can’t we? If you are a parent, you are a teacher. We should be teaching our children and grandchildren about Christ. It is so wonderful to see children and families in Church.

Scripture tells us we are to bring our children to Christ and teach them in God’s way. We are to tell them of the miraculous works of God.

Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching, and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

We should be introducing Christ to our neighbors and friends and encouraging them to come to Church as well.

Teaching the gospel of Christ isn’t hard to understand. In fact, most of you here have probably taught others what it is like to be a follower of Christ whether you realize it or not. Sometimes our actions speak louder than our Words.

I remember Dr. Cook, from the Walk with the King broadcast, telling a story about how he went in to a store one day and bought some tapes. When he got out to his car, he realized he was under charged for the items.

He went back in to the clerk and explained the mistake to the clerk. The clerk replied, “I didn’t make a mistake, I just wanted to see if you practice what you preach!”

That is a testament to the gospel. You may teach it in words, but do you live it in your actions?

What about healing? We don’t have the power to heal do we? Well some of our Charismatic friends would argue that we do. I’m not so sure about that, but I do know that God has the power to heal.

How can we heal today? Easy. We can pray for healing, of others and for ourselves. We can also minister to those people that are sick. We can cook for them, clean for them, visit them, call them on the phone, send cards or letters. Everyone needs some maintenance on their homes, right? We can do whatever is needed to help them.



And finally feeding. Today this is probably the easiest type of ministry for us to perform here in the United States. We have an abundance of food. And not just an abundance, but a wide variety of food as well. We can donate money or food to the local food banks and soup kitchens. We can even volunteer at these places.

There are many poor and needy people out there, but there are also many people just going through a difficult time economically.

Listen to the words of Leviticus 25:35, “If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him, like a stranger or sojourner, that he may live with you.”

Can you imagine if we all lived like that? No one would be hungry. No one would have need. It would all be provided for.

This is what Jesus did. He taught, healed, and fed. Isn’t this what we ought to do too? Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we need to do this to be saved.

I am simply saying, if we truly serve Christ, wouldn’t we want to do what He wants us to do? And isn’t that what he did?

Yes, I know we are all tired and this world seems to wear us out. When someone interrupts your schedule how do you view it? Is it an annoyance or is it an opportunity for you to minister to that person.

Living the Christian life means living like Christ and Christ obeyed the Father’s will.

Deuteronomy 10:12 says, “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord our God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”

That is what the people of the Old Testament needed to do. That is what Christ did and it is what we too need to do today.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time in your Word this morning. Help us to take what we have learned and apply it in our lives. Strengthen us so that we may live as Jesus did, teaching, healing, and feeding others. All so that you may be pleased, honored, and glorified. AMEN.

Conscience

Mark 6:14-29
Length: 19:56

This is a message given on July 12, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

“Conscience”

Our scripture starts off with King Herod hearing some exciting news about Jesus of Nazareth. Many people during this time truly believed in resurrections, but they had some false notions about it.

For example, they believed that the spirit of a dead person could come back in another person. They is why some people thought Jesus was John the Baptist or Elijah. It appears as though King Herod believed this as well, as he kept saying “John, whom I beheaded, has risen!”

By this confession, Herod proved that he could not forget the evil he had done. This shows that he too had a conscience that plagued him with guilt. Obviously, though, his desire for power was greater than his conscience.

In verse 17, Mark launches into a flashback of the events that led up to the beheading of John the Baptist.

As we know, John the Baptist was not a soft-spoken kind of guy. He was direct and rigid with his messages. He spoke out against Herod’s illegal and illicit marriage as well as other ungodly activities.

See, Herod was married to the daughter of the King of Arabia. After a while, Herod took a trip to Rome and stayed with his half brother Phillip. While in Rome Herod fell in love with Phillip’s wife, Herodias, and got married.

Herod’s first wife got word of this and escaped and told her father about the situation. The reaction is typical of any father and the King of Arabia declares war against Herod. Rome steps in to the picture and bails Herod out of the mess.

As I mentioned the marriage was illegal and illicit. Illegal because Herod was married already and Herodias was married too, even though she technically got a divorce. It was illicit because Herodias was his half-niece so they were technically related.

Even though Herod enjoyed listening to John preach and teach, he could not let anyone speak bad of him. So Herod had John arrested and put into prison. Herod’s wife wanted John dead, but Herod knew John was a righteous man and no doubt had him protected while in prison.

A while later, Herod throws himself a birthday bash. Part of the entertainment featured a “special” dance by his step daughter. Herod is so “impressed” by the dance that he offers up to half of his kingdom to the girl for her “performance”.

The girl is urged on by her mother to ask for the head of John the Baptist. Herod agreed and had John’s head brought to the girl on a platter as requested. Herod felt bad, but wanted to save face in front of his guests so he gave the order.

Once again we see Herod’s desire for power quiet his conscience. What a sad story this is, but it typifies people even today as they make wrong choices in their life.

Herod had John the Baptist killed. This plagued him personally and publicly. His conscience made him believe that Jesus was empowered by John spirit. And, of course, the public was outraged that a righteous man was killed for nothing.

Second, his marriage to Herodias ruined not only his marriage, but his brother’s marriage as well. It brought warfare from another country and forced Rome to get involved to settle the conflict.

Eventually, Herod continued to screw up and was stripped of his power by Rome and he was banished to Gaul with his wife.

It is indeed sad. The even sadder part is the fact that we still see this type of thing happening today. People are more focused and concerned with money or political power that they are willing to shut down their conscience and focus on their greed, lust, and desires.

When I think about listening to your conscience I always think of a couple of Old Testament men. Listen to the word’s of David in 2 Samuel 24:10:

“And David’s heart condemned him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the Lord, ‘I have sinned greatly in what I have done; but now, I pray, O Lord, take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.’”

David sinned against God and his conscience convicted him of it. There was no escape. To ease his conscience he had to confess his sin to God and repent of it. David was a servant of God and he screwed up quite a bit, but he always came back to God deeply sorrowful for the things that he did.

The story from the Old Testament that I think about when someone mentions the word conscience is the story of Joseph. I am sure you are all familiar with the story. His brothers were jealous of him and left him for dead, but decided to sell him and make some money instead.

Years later, in Genesis 42:21, the brothers said to one another, “We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear therefore this distress has come upon us.”

The brothers knew like David did. Their conscience convicted them of their sin. They knew their sin and they knew they would be punished for it. It needed to be confessed and repented of.

We too need to listen to our conscience today. That little voice in your heard is there for a reason. God put it there and uses it for his purposes.

The conscience is our internal warning system. It allows us to think about our motives and actions and determine right from wrong. Of course, in order for it to work properly, we need to have it filled with the Word of God, which gives us the absolute right and truth.

Our conscience should accuse and convict us of our sin. Don’t ignore it, but embrace it and repent of your wrongs.

Our conscience isn’t all bad though. Yes, it convicts us of our sin, but it also should affirm in you that you are a believer. It did for Job, it did for Paul, and Peter. It will for you as well.

Remember, only the blood of Christ can purify us (Heb 9:14) who offered Himself without spot to God for our sins. Only He can cleanse us to serve the living God.

Knowing this, we should walk obediently with Christ. Then our conscience will affirm to us that we are believers in the true and living God.

Living in this world can indeed be a challenge today. There are many distractions and things to draw us away from a godly life.

We are to “conduct ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God.” (2 Cor 1:12)

What does your conscience say? And more importantly are you listening and obeying it? Think about it this week. Pay attention to your conscience and seek to glorify God with your actions.


Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time in your Word this morning. We thank you for the lessons that we have received. We thank you for faithful men like, David, Job, Peter, and Paul. Help us to live out our faith and walk in this world as these men did. We thank you for our conscience, we ask you to send your Spirit to purify it and make clear to us what is right and what is wrong. Give us the strength to do what is right and honorably and glorifying to you. In the precious name of Jesus. AMEN.