When I pick someone up from the airport, I always try to get there early. But the problem is knowing where to wait. You can sit way out in the cell phone lot. You can keep driving around the loop. Or you can do like me and try to hide out at the bottom of the sidewalk in front of the baggage claim. Of course over the loud speaker there’s a recording “The white zone is for loading and unloading. Please do not park.”
One time Karie’s mom was supposed to be out any minute and I didn’t want to make the huge loop again. So I sat about 30 feet down completely out of the way of any cabs or cars. And they must have seen me on a camera because this TSA security guy comes running down the sidewalk yelling and motioning at me—like I have a bomb in my trunk. And I’m thinking “It’s a Civic. Don’t you think I’d at least drive an SUV.”
I’ve wondered sometimes if it wouldn’t be good have a loudspeaker in the church parking lot like that. A recording would say “The worship zone is for living and listening to God only. Please do not park.”
Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 is about worship, entering God’s house. And we see that church is not a place to just park, and sit, and go through the motions.
Solomon has dealt with the emptiness of worldly wisdom, the emptiness of vain pleasure, the emptiness of injustice. Now He looks at the emptiness of wrong worship.
He shows us that passionate worship is careful worship.
John Wesley (1703-1791) broke away from the Anglican Church and founded the English Methodist movement. He adopted this for his rule of life:
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.
We will learn about the 6th fruit of the Spirit, “goodness”, and what it means and how we might attain it.
Why would Paul waste ink telling Timothy, who was so close to him, who was like a son to him, about his apostleship? Did the great apostle think Timothy was so young he didn’t grasp the importance of Paul’s apostleship and so he’d forgotten it? Or did he think that Timothy suspected Paul was getting senile, and he had to write and let Timothy know that he still knew that God had made him an apostle? Ludicrous. But then why did he write about it in a personal letter to his beloved son in the faith? Actually the answer involves a fundamental doctrine of Scripture!
And then what did it mean to be an apostle? And weren’t there only twelve? Don’t the scriptures themselves teach that one of the qualifications for being an apostle is that you had to be with Christ and taught by Him during His ministry on earth (around three to three and a half years)? If so, then wouldn’t you have to count Paul out?
If you listen closely to this morning’s message you will not only get a better understanding of apostleship and some of its ramifications but you will find out about an important application of an apostle to yourself!
Every time we have a terrorist attack, a school shooting, or an earthquake where lives are lost, who usually gets blamed? More than Al Quaeda, or rap artists, more than the government, more than FEMA, who gets blamed? God.
People start asking “How can a good God allow this to happen? How can God be good?”
Maybe you’ve had a friend ask this question while going through cancer. Maybe you’ve been tempted to ask it.
Well to begin with, we know that suffering is often a direct result of sin-drunk drivers kill, violent criminals murder, corrupt governments cause famines. And suffering is often an indirect result of sin. The Fall has given us a world ravaged by disease and disasters.
It’s not God’s fault that people are sinning. It’s not God’s fault that we live under a Curse. Yes, God is good. In fact He uses even these evil acts and natural disasters for good.
Rom. 8:28 reminds us “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God…” God can use even our suffering for His glory and our good.
God is good and kind. And this evening we come to the 5th fruit of the Spirit, we find the Greek word chrestotes. In Gal. 5, this word is translated “gentleness,” but the other 9x it occurs in the NT, it’s translated “goodness” or “kindness.”
It refers to providing what someone’s needs. A concern to treat others gently. Sometimes we call this God’s common grace-that everyone experiences.
Matt. 5:45 says that He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good. He sends the rain on the just and the unjust. He gives food and air and pleasure and beauty to everyone on the planet. No matter who you are, God has been good to you.
God is good. God is kind. Are you? Are you kind? Would your friends describe you that way? Are you concerned with treating others gently? Are you concerned about meeting people’s needs?” You say “sometimes.” The Bible says this should be true all the time.
This is a fruit of the Spirit. If you’re saved, if you have the Spirit in you-this is a fruit that should be growing in your life every day.
We live in a world that is lonely. According to a study of half a million Americans over a couple decades, they found that our lives are becoming more and more isolated.
For instance, the research showed that the #1 sport in America is bowling. More people bowl in an election year, than vote.
Yet while more people than ever are bowling, participation in bowling leagues has plunged 40%. We’re bowling alone. We have all this social technology, but we’re just getting more fractured and isolated-more alone.
And that is not how God created us. God created us for relationships because He is a relational God.
Have you ever thought about the fact that God has always existed in a relationship? There’s never been a day in the history of the universe that God was alone.
He is a Trinity with three persons of the Godhead living in perfect harmony. All three work together perfectly in Creation, in our salvation.
The only time they were ever separated was on the cross. And it was almost more than Jesus could bear.
We were created in the image of a relational God. We were created to need each other.
God looked at every aspect of His creation and said over and over again “It is good.” But for the first time in Gen. 2:18, He says, “It is not good that man should be alone.” God created us for relationship.
God made all of His creation (plants, animals and humans) to live together in perfect harmony, just as He did in the triune Godhead. That was Eden. That was the paradise He created. But sin destroyed all of that.
Sin severs our relationship with God. Sin severs our relationships with each other. Sin ruined even the beautiful relationship man had with creation.
And so the point is- if you’ve had poison ivy or an animal bite; if you’ve been through a break-up or a broken heart, a divorce in your family or a falling out with a friend-that’s not how God created things to be.
He created us to be relational like Him-to live in perfect harmony. What you’ve experienced- is the effect of sin.
Christ Jesus devised the Lord’s Supper and asked his followers to carry it out in his memory (“In remembrance of me”). Today we will remember how he came as a meek Lamb in humiliation to serve us, even to the extent of giving his life as a sacrifice for our sins on the cross. We will also examine the fact that this memorial points to the future, (“Ye do show the Lord’s death til he come”)
We will use Scripture itself to imagine what it would be like to see him, next time, not in humiliation, but in glorification; to see the risen, splendid Christ face to face - Can there be anything more encouraging and inspiring than this doctrine? than these truths bound up in this object lesson of the Lord’s Supper? One more, climaxing it all. One that has powerful and practical implications for all of the the human race (especially all those who have believed).
In this Father’s Day message we visit the people of God deep in the Old Testament, during a dark time in their history, characterized by a demoralized priesthood, an alienated people and a silent God.
Reality shows have become so popular in recent years but God gives us reality “drama” throughout Scripture, even thousands of years back into Old Testament times. Of course there were no video cameras to record the action but the Holy Spirit had an inspired writer describe the situations going on in people’s lives and even thought processes, with divine accuracy.
With such a lense the author of 1 Samuel focuses in on the leader of God’s people for 40 years during this dismal time, Eli, the high priest. His is a dramatic story filled with suspense, excitement, paradox, highs and lows. God pronounces judgment on him and yet as we examine his life we find him to be an exceptionally godly leader in his ministry. He failed however as a Father, and that brought him and his nation untold suffering.
If you like dramatic true stories, you need to hear this biographical sermon. It comes with sobering applications and lessons for Fathers and for all of us: “A Sacred But Fatal Trust”.
We saw last time, that God is in charge of everything. Every season of life, the good times and the bad, are under His providential rule. And like ingredients in a recipe, He knows what’s best for us, and is making something beautiful in His time.
Now that sounds good-at least in theory. But what about real life?
The problem is, Solomon says 29x in the book of Ecclesiastes that we live under the sun. We live on a fallen, cursed earth. And if you look around, you’ll see sin, oppression, wickedness, death. You’ll see injustice. And the longer you live, the more you’ll see.
And so sometimes it’s hard to believe that this world is in the hand of a wonderful loving God.
For a world that’s supposed to be under God’s control, it sure doesn’t look that way lots of the time, does it?
This is what we find the psalmists complaining about over and over. “God why are you allowing so many bad things to happen to good people. And even worse, why do so many good things happen to bad people.”
This is the problem of injustice. And we have a hard time with this.
We prefer happy endings to stories, to movies, to fairy tales. We want the good guy to get the princess and everyone to live happily ever after.
But this doesn’t always happen. Samson gets killed in the last chapter. Romeo and Juliet do too. Even Humpty Dumpty can’t be restored by all the king’s horses and men.
So even in our fairy tales, we can get used to less-than-happy endings. But what we really can’t handle are unjust endings.
What if the 3 little pigs couldn’t light their pot of water and the big bad wolf ended up having a pork roast? What if the Handsome Prince had fallen for one of Cinderella’s stepsisters. What if the Grinch never had a change of heart and kept all the presents?
But in real life, this is often what happens.
The nice guy finishes last. The bad guy takes his job and his girl.
The godly family is poor and has medical difficulties. The godless actor lives in luxury.
The oppressor gets richer. The oppressed gets poorer.
Within the last few months we watched the horror unfold that resulted from an earthquake that blasted Haiti and created incomprehensible devastation, including the loss of thousands of lives. Just before the Haiti earthquake, an even larger earthquake on the Richter scale hit California, though the location and superior superstructure of buildings prevented the massive loss of life that took place in Haiti. Shortly after the earthquakes rocked Haiti, a larger earthquake created devastation and took lives in Chile. During this same time period, volcanos have erupted.
Who can forget the recent destruction and loss of life caused by Hurricane Katrina, even here in the USA where we think we are better prepared? In the last few weeks a number of people have been killed here in the mid-west by destructive tornadoes. What is going on? Even non-Christians are asking me about it. “Pastor, doesn’t the Bible say this kind of thing is going to keep happening and even get worse in the end times?”
I’m generally an optimist. I like to think of “whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report,” things of “virtue,” and things worthy of “praise” (Phi. 4:8). But to be realistic, and biblical, yes, we are warned these natural disasters are going to get worse until they come to a climax of God’s judgment during the soon to come Tribulation!
This morning I will take you into the heart of the Apocalypse and the great earthquake that these “little ones” are “rehearsing” for. Not only will we see what the Bible says is going on and what is going to happen, but we will also look at why God’s Word warns us it is coming and how that can affect us and even help us be prepared!
William Henley, the English poet, contracted tuberculosis when he was 12. Later he had to have his leg amputated.
After the amputation, he wrote a poem “Invictus,” in which he speaks of what most people desire— to be in control of their lives.
Out of the night that covers me
black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
my head is bloody, but unbowed
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
looms but the horror of the shade
and yet the menace of the years
finds, and shall find me, unafraid
It matters not how strait the gate
how charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul
Henley was so bold and defiant, that he became the inspiration for Long John Silver.
His friend Robert Louis Stevenson, wrote him…
I will now make a confession. It was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot Long John Silver…the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound was entirely taken from you.
He may have been dreaded in his day. He may have defied death. But in the end, Henley was not the master of his fate or captain of his soul. He’s been dead for over a century.
You see, as much as the humanists, the secularists, the atheists, the William Henleys of life want to control what happens to them, they can’t.
We can’t even control the biggest events in our lives.
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