Teach Your Children Well

[The following is a manuscript of my sermon delivered on Sunday morning, the 18th of June, 2017 - Father's Day.  Look for the video on our Vimeo channel:  http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]

Today is Father’s Day, the day when we pay honor and tribute to our fathers by giving them tacky neck-ties and homemade Father’s Day cards.  For many of us, it’s the day when we remember all the good things our fathers did for us, while somehow forgetting any of the not so good times.  For those of us who are fathers, it is a time to reflect on just how precious that title “Daddy” is to us.

Are we a good father?  Have we been the best we could be?  Our Bible tells us there is far more to being a father than simply contributing our DNA in forming a new life.  Listen and follow along to the advice the Apostle Paul offers us, from his letter to the Ephesians, chapter 6, verses 1 through 4, and I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation of our Bible…

1 Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. 2 “Honor your father and mother.” This is the first commandment with a promise: 3 If you honor your father and mother, “things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.”

4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.

--Ephesians 6:1-4 (NLT)

Let us pray…  Happy Father’s Day, God!  You are such a wonderful Father!  Teach us, Lord.  Speak to us now through Your Holy Spirit directly into our hearts, that we might receive, understand, and obey Your message this morning.  In the blessed name of Jesus we pray.   Amen.


A small boy in church for the first time watched as the ushers passed the offering plates.  When they neared the pew where he sat, the youngster piped up loud enough for everyone to hear: "Don't pay for me Daddy, I'm under five."


Ah, Father's Day...  One year on this day I gave my Dad $100 for his gift and told him to buy himself something that would make his life a little easier.  So he went out and bought a present for Mom.

Mark Twain once commented on a phenomenon I think we all may have observed at one time or another when he said, "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant, I could hardly stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

The older I’ve grown, the more I’ve come to understand just how much my father tried to teach me, how much of the wisdom he himself learned through life that he tried to share with me.  Those memories of my Dad and the topic for this message are all surrounded by the lyrics of an old song by Crosby, Stills, and Nash that says "Teach your children well".


For those of us who grew up knowing and feeling our father’s love, we may not be able to grasp how a father could not love his child.  Those of us that are fathers may find it difficult to fully understand how so many fathers today can completely ignore their offspring, going through their own selfish life like they don’t even have children.  They may have fathered a child, but they definitely fail to follow the biblical role of a father.

Even those of us who are fairly decent fathers probably don’t fully live up to biblical standards.  The Apostle Paul cautions us not to provoke our children to anger.  How many of us Dads have ever made our kids mad at us?

In Proverbs chapter 22 verse 6, wise King Solomon tells us…

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

--Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV)

We try to raise our children right, don’t we?  We want them to have more opportunities, greater happiness, and a brighter future than we had.  We try to train them in the way they should go and hope and pray they will not depart from that path as they go out into the world on their own.

In Psalm 78, verses 4 through 6, Asaph writes…

4 We will not hide these truths from our children;
we will tell the next generation
about the glorious deeds of the Lord,
about His power and His mighty wonders.
5 For He issued His laws to Jacob;
He gave His instructions to Israel.
He commanded our ancestors
to teach them to their children,
6 so the next generation might know them —
even the children not yet born —
and they in turn will teach their own children.

--Psalm 78:4-6 (NLT)

His instructions are a little more explicit.  We are to teach our offspring the truth of God, what He has done for us, what His laws mean to us.  And we are to teach our children well, so that they can teach their children in turn.

And Dad, it isn’t enough to make sure they come to church on Sundays.  We must live what we are trying to teach!  The best teacher is often the example we ourselves set for our children to follow.  If we want to train up our child to walk in the path of Jesus, then we must live a Godly life for Jesus!


So Dads, and I include myself here, are we good fathers?  Do we fit the biblical role?  Maybe in one regard.  In his Gospel account, the Apostle Matthew records Jesus talking about fathers, in chapter 7, verses 7 through 11…

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”

--Matthew 7:7-11 (NKJV)

None of us would give a hungry child a stone or a snake to eat when they asked for bread or a fish.  And most of us give nice gifts, don’t we?  We give as good as we can, and sometimes better than we can afford, or perhaps should give.

But Jesus hit the mark when he called us “evil”, meaning sinners.  For we are sinners, we are evil when compared to God.  And if we mere mortals can do good by our children working with nothing more than our earthly resources, how much more can the all-powerful Creator of everything do for His children?  God has more at His disposal than we can even dream, and He will give it all to His beloved children.


So that leaves the question of who are God’s children?  We confess that Jesus is God’s Son, and in fact we claim Jesus is God’s only begotten Son.  If Jesus is God’s only child, where do the “children” come in?

The key words there just might be “begotten Son” when referring to Jesus.  Paul makes it a little clearer, in his letter to the Galatians, chapter 3 verse 26 through chapter 4 verse 7…

3:26 You are all sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, and there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

4:1 Now I say that as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ from a servant though he is lord of all. 2 But he is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father. 3 So when we were children, we were in bondage to the elements of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born from a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth into our hearts the Spirit of His Son, crying, “Abba, Father!” 7 Therefore you are no longer a servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

--Galatians 3:26-4:7 (MEV)

We are God’s children.  Once we accept His Son Jesus as our Master, God adopts us as His own.  We may not be begotten of His Spirit as Jesus was, but we are filled with His Holy Spirit and brought into His great family when we acknowledge Jesus as Lord.  And the full, rich kingdom of heaven is ours to inherit.  This is not only something for us to understand and remember, but also for us to teach to our children.

One thing we can all do is to make sure we are right with God, that we are righteous in His eyes.  Use these next few minutes and our prayer time to repent of any sin and seek our Father’s forgiveness.  Let’s teach this also to our children, that our loving Father in heaven will forgive us if we but ask and promise to turn from our sinful ways.

We must teach our children well the ways of God.  In the holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.


Let us pray…  Father God, You love us more than anything else in Your creation and You show Your love in so many ways.  All we have to do is truly believe in and follow Your Son Jesus and You give us Your very Holy Spirit and promise us all of heaven as our inheritance.  You are so good to us, Father.  Help us turn from our sin.  Forgive us our disobedience.

Please hear us now, Father, as we silently speak to You from our hearts, repenting of our sin and once again giving ourselves to Your Son Jesus…

Lord Jesus, You are the only begotten Son of our Father God, but through You we are adopted into His wonderful family.  God is now our Father and You our brother and the Holy Spirit our indwelling guide and constant friend.  There is nothing more we could ask, but sometimes we still seem to want more.  Help us, Lord, to not desire the physical things of this world that have no permanence, but to want only to serve You and to seek only God’s face as we strive toward the eternal.

This we pray in Your glorious name, Lord Jesus Christ, our Master and our Savior, the one true Son of God, in whom we place all our hope, all our trust, all our faith.  Amen.

A Little Goes a Long Way

[The following is a manuscript of my sermon delivered on Sunday morning, the 11th of June, 2017 - Trinity Sunday.  Look for the video on our Vimeo channel:  http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]

Today is Trinity Sunday, when we honor the three persons of God.  Our heavenly Father, His Son Jesus, and His Holy Spirit form the Holy Trinity.  Let me share an example of how the Holy Trinity can work.

At the beginning of the week, I was looking through some scripture of one of the many passages that showed the relationship between God and Jesus along with the influence of the Holy Spirit on man.  As I got to the real meat of the passage, the Holy Spirit nudged me back to the beginning of that particular chapter and pointed me to something else entirely.

Last week when we looked at the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we saw that He will act as our guide if we let Him.  In this case, He guided me to a passage that shows how Jesus warned us regarding those who would change or ignore the laws of God.  God the Father, Jesus His Son, and His Holy Spirit, working together to give me today’s message.

Please listen and follow along to an encounter between Jesus and some Jewish leaders, and later with His disciples, as recorded in the Apostle Matthew’s Gospel account, chapter 16, verses 1 through 12, and I’ll be reading from the Modern English Version of our Holy Bible…

1 The Pharisees and Sadducees came and, testing Him, asked Him to show them a sign from heaven.

2 He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ 3 and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and overcast.’ O you hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. 4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” So He left them and departed.

5 But when His disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. 6 Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

7 They reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have taken no bread.”

8 But when Jesus perceived it, He said to them, “O you of little faith, why reason among yourselves, that it is because you have brought no bread? 9 Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you collected? 10 Or the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many baskets you collected? 11 How is it that you do not understand that I spoke to you not concerning bread, but that you should beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees?” 12 Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the yeast of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

--Matthew 16:1-12 (MEV)

Let us pray…  Father God, Your Son Jesus had so much to teach us, yet the Pharisees and Sadducees refused to listen and even His own disciples were slow to catch on.  Speak to us now, Father, through Your Holy Spirit directly into our hearts, that we might hear and understand Your message this morning.  In the blessed name of Jesus we pray.   Amen.


Gertrude, the church gossip and self-appointed monitor of the church's morals, kept sticking her nose in everyone else's business.  Many members did not approve of this behavior, but they feared her enough to remain quiet.

Gertrude made a mistake one day, though, when she accused Ralph, a fairly new member, of being an alcoholic.  Her proof?  She saw his old pick-up truck parked outside the town's only bar one afternoon.  Gertrude emphatically told Ralph, and everyone else in earshot, that anyone seeing his truck at that den of iniquity would know exactly what he was up to.  Ralph, a man of few words, stared at her for a moment.  He didn't try to explain his whereabouts, defend himself, or deny her accusations.  He simply turned and walked away.

Later that evening, Ralph quietly parked his old pick-up truck in front of Gertrude's house...  and left it there all night.


Sometimes our words can come back to bite us, can’t they?  Gossip has no master.  It will quickly and easily turn on the one who gave it birth.  Just ask Gertrude.


The Pharisees and Sadducees just didn’t get it.  As the religious leaders of the children of Israel, they were supposed to be representatives of God on earth, in tune to His laws, His commands, His word.  Instead, they perverted His word to their own ends.  They bent His commands to fit their agendas.  They held firmly to the absolute letter of the Law, without trying to understand its intent.

As our scripture reading begins, they are once again trying to trap Jesus, this time by asking for a direct sign from heaven to prove He is divine.  Jesus bluntly tells them they’ve already received all they need – the sign of Jonah the prophet, whose story they should be quite familiar with.

I guess Jesus was still fuming over this little encounter with the religious hypocrites when He and His disciples got together.  They were preoccupied with thoughts of the bread they forgot to bring along, and He with how badly the Pharisees and Sadducees missed the mark.  So when He mentions the “yeast” of these hypocrites, the disciples think He is chastising them.  Eventually they understand that Jesus was not talking about physical yeast or bread, but about the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and how those teachings can lead people astray.


I think to get another angle on what Jesus was trying to impart, we need to look at what the Apostle Paul wrote in his 1st letter to the Corinthians, in chapter 5, verses 6 through 8…

6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch? 7 Therefore purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new batch, since you are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. 8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old yeast, nor with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

--1 Corinthians 5:6-8 (MEV)

It only takes a small amount of yeast to leaven a whole batch of dough.  A little bit goes a long way.  The erroneous teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees worked through the entire Jewish peoples like yeast in a lump of dough.  The lies and mistruths spread just like those I mentioned to the kids earlier.  They kneaded the dough that was the Jewish people with the old yeast of wickedness and malice, spoiling the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

One small lie can spread through a nation.  One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.  One final straw can break the camel’s back.  The Pharisees and Sadducees kept piling the straws on higher and higher.  They were the little spoonful of yeast leavening the whole lump with malice and wickedness.  They were the bad apples, spoiling the chosen of God.


Once the lump of dough has been leavened, you can’t take yeast back out if it’s bad.  But you can save the good apples by removing the bad ones.  The same goes for grapes in a bunch.  In chapter 65 verse 8 of his book of prophecy, Isaiah spoke for God when He promised to spare Israel…

8 “But I will not destroy them all,”
says the Lord.
“For just as good grapes are found among a cluster of bad ones
(and someone will say, ‘Don’t throw them all away — some of those grapes are good!’),
so I will not destroy all Israel.
For I still have true servants there.”

--Isaiah 65:8 (NLT)

You don’t have to throw away the entire bunch of grapes just because a few have started to rot.  There are still good grapes there, grapes that can be saved.  Even though the Pharisees and Sadducees clung to the cluster like rotting grapes, God chose not to destroy all of Israel because there were still good servants among its people.

And there are still good servants today.  Sure, there are bad apples here and there.  There are grapes in the bunch that are starting to rot.  And as Jesus warned at other times in scripture, there are branches of the vine that will be pruned.  This is done not to punish the bad grapes, but to save the good so that they might survive and flourish.

The bad apples, the rotting grapes work against Jesus and God’s plan just as did the Pharisees and Sadducees.  They leaven God’s dough with malice and wicked intent.  They plant seeds of negativism and dissent whenever they can.  They make unfounded accusations and spread falsehoods and mistruths.

They may even think they are doing good, following what God would have them do.  But Jesus would call them hypocrites, because they are working against God.  They are forgetting first and foremost to love one another, as they strive to achieve their own agendas rather than God’s will.


There is one aspect, though, where a little yeast leavening a whole lump can be a good thing.  Just like a little bad can turn a lot of good bad, a little good has the chance to turn a bunch of bad to the good.  Showing the love of Jesus and sharing His Gospel with others can turn non-believers onto the path of righteousness, the way of goodness.

Be that kind of yeast.  Don’t be a bad apple.  Don’t be a rotting grape.  Don’t leaven God’s great lump of dough with the yeast of malice and wickedness.  Don’t be a hypocrite.  Because a little goes a long way.

In the holy name of God our Father, Jesus Christ His Son, and His most Holy Spirit.  Amen.


Let us pray…  Father God, You gave us Your law for our good, but we perverted it to our own advantage.  Often we don’t even realize when we are working against Your will, when we are leavening the dough with the yeast of malice and wickedness, when we are having a negative influence on others as they try to be righteous in Your eyes.  Forgive us, Father, when we allow a few bad apples, a few rotting grapes, to spoil the whole bunch.  Forgive us especially when we are a bad apple, a rotting grape.  Help us to be good leaven, spreading Your love, doing Your will, bringing others back to You.

Please hear us now, Father, as we silently speak to You from our hearts, repenting of our sin and seeking Your forgiveness, once again giving ourselves to Your Son Jesus…

Lord Jesus, the religious leaders of Your day simply didn’t see the truth.  They refused to listen, even when You reminded them of the words of their own revered prophets, the words of Your Father God.  Sadly, Lord, too many of us follow their example even today.  Too many of us leaven our Father’s children with malice and evilness.  Too many work against You and the Holy Spirit’s influence over our lives.  Help us, Lord, to love as You loved.  Help us see others as You see them.  Help us to do God’s will and to promote righteousness.

This we pray in Your glorious name, Lord Jesus Christ, our Master and our Savior, the one true Son of God, in whom we place all our hope, all our trust, all our faith.  Amen.

A Wonderful Gift

[The following is a manuscript of my sermon delivered on Sunday morning, the 4th of June, 2017 - Pentecost Sunday.  Look for the video on our Vimeo channel:  http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]

Today is Pentecost Sunday.  We should all be familiar with what happened at Pentecost.  The events and results of that day, and the sermon Peter gave regarding those events, can be found in chapter 2 of the Apostle Luke’s Book of Acts.

There are some folks who consider that our Bible mentions four distinct instances of Pentecost targeting four separate audiences, with the one in Acts chapter 2 being called the Jewish Pentecost because those in attendance were primarily faithful Jews.  The next, as recorded in Acts chapter 8, involved the Holy Spirit descending upon the Samaritans - folks that good Jews looked down on.

The third and fourth instances of Pentecost are of more interest to us, because they deal with the Gentiles and with those who believed in Jesus but had not yet received the Holy Spirit.  That last is often called the Christian Pentecost and is saved for us in Acts chapter 19.

What I’d like to look at today is the Gentile Pentecost and the remarkable revelation God made to Peter, and to us.  Listen and follow along to how the Apostle Peter reacted to what God showed him, from chapter 10 of Luke’s Book of the Acts of the Apostles, verses 34 through 45, and I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible…

34 Then Peter replied, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. 35 In every nation He accepts those who fear Him and do what is right. 36 This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel—that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee, after John began preaching his message of baptism. 38 And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

39 “And we apostles are witnesses of all He did throughout Judea and in Jerusalem. They put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross, 40 but God raised Him to life on the third day. Then God allowed Him to appear, 41 not to the general public, but to us whom God had chosen in advance to be His witnesses. We were those who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. 42 And He ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all—the living and the dead. 43 He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in Him will have their sins forgiven through His name.”

44 Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message. 45 The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles, too.

--Acts 10:34-45 (NLT)

Let us pray…  Father God, as You did for Peter, help us to clearly see Your will and Your purpose.  Speak to us now, Father, through Your Holy Spirit directly into our hearts, that we might receive, understand, and obey Your message this morning.  In the blessed name of Jesus we pray.   Amen.


Sally the Sunday School teacher lined up the children in her class so they could recite the creed they had been memorizing the past few weeks:
"I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth," Robbie began.
"And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord," Suzy said next.
"Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary," said Timmy.
"Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, buried," said Molly.
"He descended into hell," said Jimmy.
"The third day he rose again from the dead," said Alice.
"He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty," said Billy.
"From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead," said Jill.
Then followed a long silence. Finally Timmy spoke up again and said, "The boy who believes in the Holy Spirit isn't here today."


I’m hoping all of us here today believe in the Holy Spirit, because He believes in us and He is certainly here with us this morning!  Peter definitely believed, and he was moved by God to go to Caesarea to the home of a Roman centurion named Cornelius.  And as Peter was speaking to the household, telling them about Jesus and what God had shown him, the Holy Spirit fell upon them all.

The Jews that had accompanied Peter were astonished that God’s wonderful gift had also been given to the Gentiles.  But as Peter noted, God shows no favoritism.  In His eyes, we are all His children.  Once we have accepted His Son as our Lord, He blesses us with the gift of His Holy Spirit.


Gifts from God.  There are so many instances in our Bible of God blessing us.  One of the earliest can be seen in Numbers chapter 18 verse 6, when God effectively set up the priesthood by telling Moses and the chosen people…

6 “Behold, I Myself have taken your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel; they are a gift to you, given by the Lord, to do the work of the tabernacle of meeting.”

--Numbers 18:6 (NKJV)

Jesus also mentioned a gift from God when He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, as recorded by the Apostle John in his Gospel account, chapter 4 verses 9 and 10…

9 The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are You asking me for a drink?”

10 Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask Me, and I would give you living water.”

--John 4:9-10 (NLT)

And the Apostle Paul wrote of the greatest gift of all in his letter to the church in Rome, chapter 6 verse 23…

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

--Romans 6:23 (NKJV)

Peter understood how much of a gift the Holy Spirit is.  He said as much during his impromptu sermon there at the first Pentecost, that we celebrate this morning.  In Acts chapter 2 verses 37 and 38 Peter responds to those in attendance who saw the wondrous act of the Holy Spirit…

37 These words of Peter’s moved them deeply, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”

38 And Peter replied, “Each one of you must turn from sin, return to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; then you also shall receive this gift, the Holy Spirit.”

--Acts 2:37-38 (TLB)

The Holy Spirit is a gift, freely given by God.  We cannot earn it, we cannot buy it, we cannot acquire it in any way except as a gift from our Father above.  A sorcerer named Simon learned this the hard way.  It happened during the second Pentecost, the one to the Samaritans, as recorded in Acts chapter 8 verses 14 through 21…

14 When the apostles back in Jerusalem heard that the people of Samaria had accepted God’s message, they sent down Peter and John. 15 As soon as they arrived, they began praying for these new Christians to receive the Holy Spirit, 16 for as yet He had not come upon any of them. For they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then Peter and John laid their hands upon these believers, and they received the Holy Spirit.

18 When Simon saw this — that the Holy Spirit was given when the apostles placed their hands upon people’s heads — he offered money to buy this power.

19 “Let me have this power too,” he exclaimed, “so that when I lay my hands on people, they will receive the Holy Spirit!”

20 But Peter replied, “Your money perish with you for thinking God’s gift can be bought! 21 You can have no part in this, for your heart is not right before God.

--Acts 8:14-21 (TLB)

God’s gift of the Holy Spirit cannot be bought.  But it can be forgotten, set aside, ignored.

Faith is another of God’s gifts, but once it is in our possession we must use it, strengthen it, live by it, share it with others.  Once we have been given the wonderful gift of God’s Holy Spirit, it is up to us to put that gift to good use.  The Holy Spirit will guide us, if we let Him.  He will comfort us when we’re hurting.  He will support us through our times of trial.  He will even speak to our Father God for us when we can’t come up with the words to say.

Evangelist Francis Chan calls the Holy Spirit the “forgotten God”, because we too often put greater emphasis on Jesus the Son and God the Father while giving very little thought to the person of God that actually lives right here within us!  We talk about making disciples and helping bring people to Christ, but it’s the Holy Spirit who does all the tough work of softening hearts and touching lives and taking someone by the hand and giving them to Jesus.  It’s the Holy Spirit that lights fires and can bring an entire nation back to God.

There’s a story of a village atheist that was not a bad man, he just didn’t believe in God.  He wasn’t interested in church, even though there was only one in the area.  Sadly, this church was mostly a social club, heartlessly and spiritually dead, with no conversions or decisions for Christ having been made in quite some time.  One day the church building literally caught on fire, and everyone in town ran to help extinguish the flames - even the village atheist!  Someone noticed the non-believer and hollered out: “Hey, this is something - this is the first time we’ve ever seen you running to church!”  The atheist replied, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen the church on fire!”

Are we a church on fire?  I don’t just mean this church that calls itself Pilgrim.  I mean the entire church of Jesus, the body of Christ left on earth to carry out His work.  Is the church on fire to serve Jesus and do His bidding?  Or have the flames slowly grown cold and died out?

God’s gift, the Holy Spirit, can fan those flames back into a raging fire if we let Him.  He can touch men’s hearts and soften them so that they can truly see Jesus and come to know Him as their personal Savior and Lord.  But we need to keep Him alive within us so He can overflow outward to others we encounter.  We must keep Him alive and well within us so that His fruits will be evident in our lives.  We must cherish God’s gift, and share His Holy Spirit with all the world.

In the glorious name of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.


Let us pray…  Father God, You have given us so many wonderful gifts in our lives, it’s tough to say which are best.  Sending Your Son to earth to offer us salvation, giving us faith, and filling us with Your own Holy Spirit are definitely at the top.  Your Spirit joins with our spirit to guide us, to comfort us, to be our constant Companion, and to speak for us to You when words will not easily come.  Thank You, Father, for this wonderful gift of Your Spirit.  May we never take Him for granted or ignore Him in our lives.

Please hear us now, Father, as we silently speak to You from our hearts, acknowledging our belief in Your Son Jesus and our acceptance of Him as our Master, rededicating ourselves to Your service, promising to repent of our disobedience and sin, seeking Your forgiveness, listening for Your voice…

Lord Jesus, when You returned to heaven, You asked our Father God to send us a Companion to always be with us.  You asked Your Father to share His own Holy Spirit with us, so that we might never be alone.  Thank You so much, Jesus, for caring about us that much.  Help us to follow God’s Spirit and God’s commandments in all we do.

This we pray in Your glorious name, Lord Jesus Christ, our Master and our Savior, the one true Son of God, in whom we place all our hope, all our trust, all our faith.  Amen.