Preach the Word

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 28th of April, 2024.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams.]

A couple weeks ago I noted that the Apostle Luke wrote two books, both addressed to Theophilus.  The first book was his Gospel account, the book now bearing his name, detailing the life, acts, and teachings of Jesus during His earthly walk, ending with Jesus’ return to heaven.  The second book is called the Acts of the Apostles – or, more simply, Acts – and it deals with the rise and growth of the early church.

As I did before my vacation, I’d like to look at that second book this morning, at a time when the church was just beginning, yet already being persecuted.  Our reading follows the day that Stephen was martyred, stoned to death by a Jewish mob led by the religious leaders who laid their cloaks at the feet of a young Pharisee named Saul.  Please listen and follow along as I read from chapter 8 of Luke’s Book of the Acts of the Apostles, verses 1 through 8 and then 26 through 40, and I’ll be reading from the New King James Version of our Holy Bible this morning…

1 Now Saul was consenting to his death.

At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.

3 As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

4 Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. 5 Then Philip went down to a city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. 6 And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. 7 For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. 8 And there was great joy in that city.

26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a deserted place. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.”

30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this:

“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter;

And as a lamb before its shearer is silent,

So He opened not His mouth.

33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away,

And who will declare His generation?

For His life is taken from the earth.”

34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. 36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”

37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”

And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. 39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.

--Acts 8:1-8, 26-40 (NKJV)

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, we thank You for ensuring that Your Son’s church could withstand severe persecution and endure throughout the ages.  The church has seen hard times over its nearly 2000 year existence, and will continue to experience difficulty and persecution until Jesus returns and calls it home.  But through You, Father, it has the courage and the strength to continue until that day.  Sadly though, Father, the church seems in decline numerically.  Satan is working overtime to pull people away from You, away from Jesus.  Our godless culture impacts the church in a negative way.  Please help us reach out to the non-believers of the world, sharing the Good News and showing Your love.  Help us spread the message of salvation through Jesus to all we encounter.  And please forgive us when we hesitate to serve You and our Lord, even though we know we should.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit within us and better understand Your message today.  Thank You for the faith, the strength, and the courage You give us.  Help us share the Gospel and preach Your word in our daily walk.  This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

One pastor never prepared during the week, and on Sunday morning he'd sit on the platform while the church was singing the hymns desperately praying, "Lord, give me your message, Lord give me your message."  One Sunday, while desperately praying for God's message, he heard the Lord say, "Ralph, here's My message: You're lazy!"

James Packer, in his book Your Father Loves You, notes that the Apostle Paul saw himself as Christ's herald.  When he describes himself as an appointed preacher of the gospel, the noun he uses means a herald, a person who makes public announcements on another's behalf.  When he declares "we preach Christ crucified," the verb he uses denotes the herald's appointed activity of blazoning abroad what he has been told to make known.  When Paul speaks of "my preaching" and "our preaching", the noun he uses doesn't mean the activity of announcing, but the thing announced, the proclamation itself, the message declared.

Paul, in his own estimation, was not a philosopher, not a moralist, not one of the world's wise men, but simply Christ's herald.  His royal Master had given him a message to proclaim; his whole business was to deliver that message with exact and studious faithfulness, adding nothing, altering nothing, and omitting nothing.  And he was to deliver it not as another of people's bright ideas, needing to be beautified with the cosmetics and high heels of fashionable learning in order to make people look at it, but as a word from God spoken in Christ's name, carrying Christ's authority and authenticated in the hearers by the convincing power of Christ's Spirit.

We don't have to be preachers to preach.  And we don't have to be all fancy and learned.  We just need to share the message that Christ Jesus has given us, to be His herald, telling the world what He told us.  And what He told us isn’t all that earth-shaking.  It’s just about loving each other, loving our neighbors, even loving our enemies.

And love is in such short supply these days.  When we watch or read the news, all we see is people fussing and fighting with each other, trying to solve their differences through violence rather than through discourse and understanding, through give and take.

Among other things, Jesus said blessed are the meek, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers.  These are the words of our Lord Jesus.  We need to get out and preach the word, for the world desperately needs to hear it.

We all know the story of Saul, the fervent Pharisee who severely persecuted the infant church until he was struck blind by Jesus on the road to Damascus.  It really is a beautiful story of redemption, of how God can take anyone, even a man who hates the church and is dead set on destroying it, and can change that person and remake him into arguably the greatest evangelist the church has ever known.  But our reading actually centers around another Apostle, a disciple who had walked with Jesus during His ministry on earth.

Saul was wreaking havoc on the local church, going into any place they were meeting and hauling the believers off to be tried and imprisoned.  So a lot of Christ’s followers were leaving Jerusalem in fear of their lives.  As these disciples scattered, they spread the Gospel message along the way.  This included Philip, who fled to a city in Samaria, where he preached Christ Jesus to the people there.  They listened intently and witnessed the miracles Philip was able to perform, and they came to believe in the Lord through his words and deeds.  And Luke tells us there was great joy in that city.

But then an angel of the Lord came to Philip and told him to head south and follow the road that ran from Jerusalem to Gaza.  Even though this was mostly a deserted area at the time, Philip did as he was told.  And soon he came upon an Ethiopian eunuch.

Now this was no ordinary man, but one of great authority under the Queen of that nation and who was in charge of her treasury.  He was returning home from Jerusalem, where he had gone to worship the one true God.  He was sitting in his chariot reading from the prophet Isaiah when the Spirit told Philip to go to him.  Philip asked the man if he understood what he was reading, and he replied that he could use a guide.  So Philip began with the scripture the eunuch had been reading and proceeded to preach Jesus to the man.

The man came to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, and was baptized by Philip.  When the man came out of the water, Philip was gone, having been whisked away by the Spirit.  And the eunuch went on his way, rejoicing in the Lord.

Philip preached Jesus.  One of my mentors, early in my own ministry, urged me to just preach Jesus.  It didn’t matter what was going on in the world around us, or what other preachers might be doing, or what people might think or say.  Just preach Jesus and everything will be OK.

In the 4th chapter of his 2nd letter to his young protégé Timothy, verses 1 through 5, Paul urges his friend by saying…

1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

--2 Timothy 4:1-5 (NKJV)

Preach the word.  Be ready at all times, in any place, for any reason.  We don’t know when we might be called on, or when we might be given the opportunity, to help show someone the path to salvation, so we need to always be ready.

And Paul adds that our chances to do so may be running short, for there will come a time when people will only hear what they want to hear.  They’ll no longer listen to the truth, wanting only to be told that anything they do is OK.  But we must be watchful and careful that we not fall into that trap.  We must continue our work for Jesus and steadfastly endure as we fulfill our personal ministry.

And Family, we ALL have a ministry of our own.  We can all preach the word.  And we have been told to do so by none other than Jesus Himself.  Listen to what He commanded us, as recorded by the Apostle Matthew in the 28th chapter of his Gospel account, from the second part of verse 18 through the first part of verse 20…

18 “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

--Matthew 28:18b-20a (NKJV)

This is our mission, our great commission, to go into the world making disciples.  Like Philip did with the Ethiopian eunuch, we are to teach people all about Jesus, about what He did and what He commanded us.  We are to share the Good News of salvation through Jesus, and through Him alone.  And we can take strength and courage from knowing that He is with us and will always be with us, even to the end of the age.

So Family, let’s get out there and preach Jesus!  Let’s preach the word.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord, the one true Son of God, who came in the flesh to redeem us, who was raised from the dead into flesh and returned to heaven, and who is coming again to judge us all.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Almighty God, thank You for saving for us the Old Testament writings that tell of our Lord Jesus, Your Christ, who will come to us to save us.  And thank You for our New Testament that bears witness to all the things He did and said during His ministry on earth, preparing us for our own mission.  Sometimes though, Father, we hesitate in carrying out our assigned duties.  Sometimes we are too timid, or too scared, to approach someone, especially a stranger, and try to tell them about Jesus.  Please forgive us these times, Father.  Help us share the Gospel message.  Help us preach the word.  And as we do so, please help us be more forgiving, more merciful in our dealings with others.  And Father, guide us around any pitfalls in this life and strengthen our spirits to do Your will.  And please help us do a better job of sharing Jesus with others so that they too may be saved by Your mercy and His sacrifice.  

Father, please shield us from Satan as he attacks our faith, trying to make us his own.  Help us be better servants, glorifying You in all we do so that the world can see You in us, through our deeds, in how we live.  And help us remain strong, faithful, and true to You in all things, no matter what the world throws at us or holds out before us.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to Your commands, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, there is so much You did and said during Your short time among us as one of us.  We have Your great example to live by and work by as we carry out our mission today.  Thank You, Jesus, for leaving us a treasure trove of material to study and work with.  As we walk through this life, please help us be more understanding, more merciful, more giving and forgiving of others, knowing that this is our Father’s will for us.  Help us reach out to the non-believing world with the Gospel message, showing Your love through our love.  Give us the words to say, show us what to do to help bring the lost to You.

Lord Jesus, please shield our minds and our hearts from Satan’s lies and the world’s empty promises.  Guide us around all the devil’s traps and snares.  Help us see though his temptations and all the false teachings.  Help us fend off his attacks.  Please help us be faithful and true to You, putting all our trust in You, all our hope in You.  Heal the hurts that separate and divide us one from another.  Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on anything this life might offer.  This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.

Our Kingdom Come

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 14th of April, 2024.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams.]

The Apostle Luke wrote two books, both addressed to a person named “Theophilus”.  That name literally means “loved by God”, or, a little more loosely, “friend of God”.  We don’t know who Theophilus was, but in his Gospel account, Luke addresses him as “most excellent Theophilus”, a phrase usually applied to an important or esteemed person.  From most accounts, Luke was a well-educated doctor, so would have been considered important and esteemed himself, and could probably include a number of other esteemed persons among his friends and acquaintances.

Anyway, Luke addressed two books to Theophilus.  The first, his Gospel account and the book now bearing his name, detailed the life, acts, and teachings of Jesus during His earthly walk, ending with Jesus’ return to heaven.  The second book is called the Acts of the Apostles – or, more simply, Acts – and it deals with the rise and growth of the early church.  And it is the opening of this second book I’d like to look at this morning, for it answers a question that has been repeatedly asked for nearly 2000 years:  When will Jesus come again?

Before we get into that, though, I want you to think about how many times Jesus spoke to His disciples, alone or with the multitudes, telling them about the Kingdom of God.  In the opening chapter of his Gospel account, the Apostle Mark says that Jesus began His Galilean ministry by “preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God”.

And there were all the parables, where Jesus compared the kingdom of God to a pearl of great wealth or a field holding a great treasure, to the man who scatters seeds, even  to mustard seed.  He said only those like innocent children can enter the kingdom of God, and that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter God’s kingdom.  His first command to us all, then and now, was to repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.  And on and on and on.

So maybe it won’t surprise us to see that Jesus was still telling His disciples about the kingdom of God even after His resurrection, before He ascended back into heaven.  And we should also expect Luke to mention God’s kingdom in his account for Theophilus, since it was such an important topic for Jesus.  Please listen and follow along to the opening of the second book Luke wrote to Theophilus, in the first 12 verses of the 1st chapter of his Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible this morning…

1 In my first book I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do and teach 2 until the day He was taken up to heaven after giving His chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit. 3 During the forty days after He suffered and died, He appeared to the apostles from time to time, and He proved to them in many ways that He was actually alive. And He talked to them about the Kingdom of God.

4 Once when He was eating with them, He commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift He promised, as I told you before. 5 John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

6 So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking Him, “Lord, has the time come for You to free Israel and restore our kingdom?”

7 He replied, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be My witnesses, telling people about Me everywhere — in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

9 After saying this, He was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see Him. 10 As they strained to see Him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday He will return from heaven in the same way you saw Him go!”

12 Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, a distance of half a mile.

--Acts 1:1-12 (NLT)

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, we thank You for the promise You made to us in Your word, that some sweet day Jesus will return and restore Your kingdom, our kingdom, on earth.  You will make all things new and will live among us.  We anxiously await that glorious day.  Sadly though, Father, not everyone believes in You or Your promises.  There are even many who believe in You, but do not accept that Jesus is Your Son, sent to save us from sin and eternal death.  Please help us reach out to the non-believers of the world, sharing the Good News and showing Your love.  Help us spread the message of salvation through Jesus to all we encounter.  And please forgive us when we hesitate to serve You and our Lord, even though we have no good reason not to do so.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit within us and better understand Your message today.  Thank You for the hope You give us through Your Son Jesus, a hope that will not fail.  Help us share the Gospel, this Good News in our daily walk.  This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

An unknown author once wrote, "As a boy, I thought of heaven as a city with domes, spires, and beautiful streets, inhabited by angels.  By and by my little brother died, and I thought of heaven much as before, but with one inhabitant that I knew.  Then another died, and then some of my acquaintances, so in time I began to think of heaven as containing several people that I knew.  But it was not until one of my own little children died that I began to think I had treasure in heaven myself.  Afterward another went, and yet another.  By that time I had so many acquaintances and children in heaven that I no more thought of it as a city merely with streets of gold but as a place full of inhabitants.  Now there are so many loved ones there I sometimes think I know more people in heaven than I do on earth." 

Charles L. Allen, in his book Home Fires, tells of a little girl taking an evening walk with her father.  Wonderingly, she looked up at the stars and exclaimed; "Oh, Daddy, if the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, what must the right side be!"

What is our view of heaven?  We’ve been told that it is more beautiful and wonderful than we can even imagine, but some of us have pretty vivid imaginations.  The land of milk and honey with streets of gold.  According to our bible, though, we won’t live in heaven, exactly, at least not for long.  For when Jesus returns and brings forth our new kingdom, it will be the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven onto the newly reformed earth.

The Apostle John in his Book of the Revelation of Jesus tells us this new Holy City will be shining brilliantly like a jewel, the city wall made of jasper and the city itself of purest gold.  The foundations of the city will be decorated with every kind of precious jewel, each gate made from a single pearl, the streets paved with gold.  The city will need no sun nor moon for the glory of God will be its light and Jesus its lamp.  And this will be our home.

Now we need to realize that John was shown an image more beautiful and glorious than anyone can imagine, and then he had to try to put what he had seen into words, even though he had no words for it.  It’s like in other parts of the Revelation, where we can see what is described as possibly being the effects of nuclear warfare, or even space-based weapons in action, but John had no knowledge of such things so he had to describe them in words of his times, in a way his audience might understand them.

And so I think it is with heaven and the new Jerusalem.  John had no words to adequately describe what he was shown, and neither would we.  When we look at how beautiful God’s creation is that He gave us to live in now, we can’t even imagine how gloriously, wondrously beautiful His greatest creation will be for us to live in forever.

I once read some advice to a single person, and have since shared it with some of those folk who have become a little depressed in their search for a soulmate.  And that advice is to stop looking all around, stop focusing on other things, and start running toward Jesus, focusing only on Him.  As you run, if you happen to see someone running in the same direction, run alongside them, for that is the person you should be with.  Focus on Jesus, seeking first the kingdom of God.  Don’t let anything else distract you.

In our congregational reading we acknowledged that we must discipline ourselves to seek God’s kingdom.  Self-discipline, self-determination, is key, because Satan will try every trick to draw our gaze elsewhere.  Two of his favorite tricks are worry and guilt.  He’ll make us feel guilty about things we really have no control over, or he’ll make us worry about anything and every little thing.  Jesus tells us not to worry about what we might or might not have, but to set our sights on living righteously.  Please listen to how the Apostle Matthew recorded this in chapter 6 of his Gospel account, verses 31 through 33, during Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount…

31 “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ 32 These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. 33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need.”

--Matthew 6:31-33 (NLT)

Live righteously and God will give us everything we need.  At another time Jesus said the even though the birds do not labor, they still have plenty to eat because God sees to their needs, and we are more precious to Him than the birds, so He will see to our needs, too.  Some people ponder over that word “righteous”, thinking it only refers to the very devout and pious, and certainly not to a sinner like me.  Well, living righteously simply means living in a manner that is right in God’s eyes, doing the things He would have us do, serving Him by helping others, obeying His commands.

We’re all sinners – that’s why God sent Jesus to us – but we can still live righteously by turning from our sin and serving God.  He will make sure we have what we need, so we’ll have no reason to worry.  We just need to seek first - before anything else – first seek the kingdom of God.

As the disciples watched, the resurrected Jesus was taken up in a cloud, rising into heaven.  Two white-robed men suddenly stood with them, explaining what just happened.  Jesus had returned to heaven, but someday He will come back to the earth, and in the same manner that He just left.

Jesus had said the same thing earlier, while He still walked among us, that He would return in the clouds.  And it is repeated in John’s Revelation, when Jesus calls His church to Him in the clouds.  This is the promise we believers hang on, not that He will come in the clouds, but that He will call us home.  And then, once He has judged the world, God will make all things new again, including our new home.  This is the coming of His kingdom, our kingdom, what we have to look forward to.  Please listen to what the Apostle John wrote of the coming kingdom in chapter 21 of his Book of the Revelation, verses 1 through 5…

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

3 I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among His people! He will live with them, and they will be His people. God himself will be with them, their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

5 And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then He said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.”

--Revelation 21:1-5 (NLT)

When our kingdom has come, God will make His home with us.  He will live with us and we will be His people.  God Himself will be with us.

Family, this is beauty beyond measure, beyond our greatest imaginings – that God will be with us.  Forget about precious jewels in the foundations of the city or streets of gold.  These are things meaningful and desired in this life.  When we have come into our kingdom, the only thing meaningful or precious will be the presence of God Almighty among us.  Everything we know, everything we’ve experienced, everything we treasure in this life will be gone and forgotten, for God will make everything new.  Write this on your hearts, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.

Just as He had done during His time on earth, after His resurrection, Jesus continued telling His disciples about the Kingdom of God.  They were more concerned about the kingdom of Israel, and the return of its freedom and glory.  Nowadays, people seem to obsess on America becoming greater than ever, although there are many differing viewpoints on how that should happen.  But if we were wise, we would be more concerned about the kingdom that is yet to come, that has been promised us, that the "two white-robed men" alluded to as Jesus vanished into the clouds.

We have received the promised Messiah.  We have received the promised Holy Spirit.  And now we await the coming of the promised kingdom.  We who believe pray that day comes sooner rather than later.  Come, Lord Jesus, come.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord, the Son of God, who came in the flesh to redeem us, who was raised from the dead into flesh and returned to heaven, and who is coming again to judge us all and then to usher in our kingdom with God.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Almighty God, thank You for the promises You made us, for they give us courage and hope as we face our greatest enemy and all that he throws at us.  You provide for our needs, including the strength to face each day.  Thank You, Father, for watching over us.  Sometimes, Father, we become distracted and our focus slips.  Sometimes we obsess over things and events in this life and lose sight of Your great kingdom.  Please forgive us these times, Father.  Help us prepare for our new life.  Help us be more forgiving, more merciful in our dealings with others.  And Father, guide us around any pitfalls in this life and strengthen our spirits to do Your will.  And please help us do a better job of sharing Jesus with others so that they too may be saved by Your mercy and His sacrifice.  

Father, please shield us from Satan as he attacks our faith, trying to make us his own.  Help us be better servants, glorifying You in all we do so that the world can see You in us, through our deeds, in how we live.  And help us remain strong, faithful, and true to You in all things, no matter what the world throws at us or holds out before us.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to Your commands, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, You spoke often of the kingdom of God, trying to help us understand what wonder and beauty awaits us.  You wanted us to focus more on this than on anything else.  Thank You, Jesus, for being patient and constantly reminding us of what is yet to come.  As we continue our walk through this life, please help us be more understanding, more merciful, more giving and forgiving of others, knowing that this is our Father’s will for us.  Help us reach out to the non-believing world with the Gospel message, showing Your love through our love.  Give us the words to say, show us what to do to help bring the lost to You.

Lord Jesus, please shield our minds and our hearts from Satan’s lies and the world’s empty promises.  Guide us around all the devil’s traps and snares.  Help us see though his temptations and all the false teachings.  Help us fend off his attacks.  Please help us be faithful and true to You, putting all our trust in You, all our hope in You.  Heal the hurts that separate and divide us one from another.  Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on anything this life might offer.  This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.

Believe and Live

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 7th of April, 2024.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams.]

Last Sunday, some of the women who had followed Jesus from Galilee went to His tomb and found it empty.  As they returned to tell the others that Jesus had risen from the dead, just as He said He would, He appeared before them in the flesh.

Later that day, two of the disciples were on the road to Emmaus when Jesus joined them, but they did not recognize Him until later, when they had stopped for the night and He blessed and broke the bread.  The two ran back to Jerusalem to tell the others what had happened, when He…

Well, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.  Let’s just say the risen Jesus had a busy day that first day of the week, that third day from His death, that first ever Resurrection Day.

According to scripture, Jesus and His disciples had come to Jerusalem to observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread, to celebrate the Passover.  They came in on Sunday, but then on Thursday He was arrested and persecuted throughout the night.  On Friday He was executed, crucified on the cross, the sacrifice of the Spotless Lamb for the atonement of our sin.  And as the sun set, the Passover Sabbath began.  Then Sunday came, and we found the tomb empty.

Last Sunday, Easter Sunday, we celebrated just what that empty tomb means to us.  And now it is a week later.  I would like us to once again step back in time to these two weeks in the resurrected life of Jesus.  Our scripture reading this morning starts out on Easter Sunday and then skips a week to the eighth day of Jesus’ resurrection, counting Easter day itself.

Please listen and follow along to the events of these two Sundays as recorded by the Apostle John in the 20th chapter of his Gospel account, verses 19 through 31, and I’ll be reading from the Easy-to-Read Version of our Holy Bible this morning…

19 The day was Sunday, and that same evening the followers were together. They had the doors locked because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them. He said, “Peace be with you!” 20 As soon as He said this, He showed them His hands and His side. When the followers saw the Lord, they were very happy.

21 Then Jesus said again, “Peace be with you. It was the Father who sent Me, and I am now sending you in the same way.” 22 Then He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of anyone, their sins are forgiven. If there is anyone whose sins you don’t forgive, their sins are not forgiven.”

24 Thomas (called Didymus) was one of the twelve, but he was not with the other followers when Jesus came. 25 They told him, “We saw the Lord.” Thomas said, “That’s hard to believe. I will have to see the nail holes in His hands, put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side. Only then will I believe it.”

26 A week later the followers were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. The doors were locked, but Jesus came and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here. Look at My hands. Put your hand here in My side. Stop doubting and believe.”

28 Thomas said to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”

29 Jesus said to him, “You believe because you see Me. Great blessings belong to the people who believe without seeing Me!”

30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs that His followers saw, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you can believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Then, by believing, you can have life through His name.

--John 20:19-31 (ERV)

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, again we thank You for sending Your Son Jesus into this world to offer us salvation and forgiveness of our disobedience.  He atoned for our sin by the shedding of His own blood.  And then You raised Him back to life to show not only that He lives again and will live forever, but that we also will live again, in new, incorruptible flesh.  Sadly, Father, not everyone believes in Jesus as Your Son and accepts Him as their Lord.  Please help us reach out to the non-believers of the world, sharing the Good News and showing Your love.  Help us spread the message that all anyone has to do is to believe in Jesus and accept Him as Lord and they will live again after this mortal life ends.  And please forgive us when we hesitate to serve You and our Lord, even though we have no good reason not to do so.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit within us and better understand Your message today.  Thank You for saving the eye-witness accounts of the resurrected Jesus so that we might read them and believe.  Help us share this Good News in our daily walk.  This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

Little Philip, born with Down's syndrome, attended a third-grade Sunday School class with several eight-year-old boys and girls.  Typical of that age, the children did not readily accept Philip with his differences.  But because of a creative teacher, they began to care about Philip and accept him as part of the group, though not fully. 

The Sunday after Easter the teacher brought in some L'eggs pantyhose containers, the kind that look like large eggs.  She gave one to each child and told them to go outside on that lovely spring day, find some symbol of new life, and put it in the egg-like container.  Back in the classroom, they would share their new-life symbols, opening the containers one at a time.  After running about the church property in wild confusion, the students returned to the classroom and placed their containers on the table.  Surrounded by the children, the teacher began to open the eggs one by one.  After each one, whether a flower, butterfly, or leaf, the class would ooh and ahh. 

Then one was opened revealing nothing inside.  The children exclaimed, "That's stupid.  That's not fair.  Somebody didn't do their assignment." 

Philip spoke up, "That's mine." 

"Philip, you don't ever do things right!" one student retorted.  "There's nothing there!"  

"I did so do it," Philip insisted.  "I did do it.  It's empty.  The tomb was empty!" 

Silence followed.  From then on Philip became a full member of the class.  He died not long afterward from an infection most normal children would have shrugged off.  At the funeral this class of eight-year-olds marched up to the altar not with flowers, but with their Sunday school teacher, each to lay on it an empty pantyhose egg.

We believers have a couple of symbols we use to denote our faith.  Early Christians used a sketched image of a fish, knowing that Jesus had first chosen fishermen to follow them with the promise of making them fishers of men.  They were persecuted and could not use anything obvious to show they were Christians, so they would draw the image of the fish in the dirt to recognize each other, a sign that could easily be obscured by a simple sweep of the foot.  And we still use that sign today, even though most folks now know it as a Christian symbol.

More prevalent in our culture, though, is the cross.  We use the cross as a reminder of the sacrifice that our Lord Jesus made on our behalf.  Our churches have crosses on prominent display, we wear them on our clothes, in our ears, and around our necks.  Some use them as a mere decoration, but we know what the cross truly means to us.

While the empty tomb might be a more appropriate symbol of our faith, it would not be an easy one to reproduce as jewelry or church adornments.  Which makes little Philip’s idea an exceptionally good one, I think.  I’m not sure if they still make L’eggs pantyhose anymore, but an empty box could serve the same purpose.  

Or maybe an empty glass.  In his 2nd letter to his young protégé Timothy, the Apostle Paul writes, "For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand."  (2 Timothy 4:6 (NKJV))  Jesus poured Himself out for us, leaving behind an empty glass, an empty tomb.

Little Philip got it right.  The empty tomb is indeed a great symbol of new life.

Jesus had been arrested, beaten, and crucified, but He was the Messiah!  If they could do this to Him, what couldn’t they do to His followers, too?  So the disciples went into hiding.  Some scattered, leaving Jerusalem as soon as they could, before the authorities could come for them.  Two of them that left town actually ended up walking with the risen Jesus without realizing it.  When they finally did recognize Him, they hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the others.  Even though they had left earlier out of fear, they came back to share their good news.

And suddenly, Jesus appeared among them!  He came right there into the locked room, right into their midst, and simply told them to be at peace.  And then He told them that if they forgive the sins of another person, that person’s sins will be forgiven.  But if they don’t forgive that person’s sins, they will not be forgiven.

Now we need to remember how Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive the trespasses of others”, and when He said, “You will be judged with the same measure that you judge others”.  I just wonder if we don’t forgive the sins of another person, and their sin is not forgiven by God because of it, are we taking a risk that our sin won’t be forgiven, too?  Just to be on the safe side, let’s be sure to forgive the sins of others as we seek forgiveness for our own sin.

Now we don’t know why, but Thomas was not in the upper room with the others that first Easter Sunday.  When he did finally join them, the others told him about Jesus’ visit and how they saw Him in the flesh.  But Thomas didn’t believe them.  In his defense, their story would have been tough to accept, had Jesus been an ordinary man.  The only way he would believe that Jesus was alive and in the flesh again would be to see Him with his own eyes, to see His hands and touch the nail holes and stab wound.  Then, and only then, would he believe.

Fast forward a week to the following Sunday.  The disciples were all together in the same place as before, and this time Thomas was there with them.  Again the doors were locked, barred from the inside, and again Jesus just suddenly appeared among them.  That in itself would be quite startling and a bit unnerving, wouldn’t it.

After His usual greeting of “Peace”, Jesus looked right at Thomas and said, “Put your finger here. Look at My hands. Put your hand here in My side. Stop doubting and believe.”  And of course, Thomas believed – he no longer had a reason not to.

Now the Apostle Matthew, in his account of these times, recorded that Jesus sent word to the disciples through the women who had gone to the tomb to go to Galilee and He would meet them there.  Please listen to Matthew’s last entry in his Gospel account, from chapter 28, verses 16 through 20…

16 The eleven followers went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus told them to go. 17 On the mountain the followers saw Jesus. They worshiped Him. But some of the followers did not believe that it was really Jesus. 18 So He came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth is given to Me. 19 So go and make followers of all people in the world. Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach them to obey everything that I have told you to do. You can be sure that I will be with you always. I will continue with you until the end of time.”

--Matthew 28:16-20 (ERV)

This is our great commission.  This is the mission Jesus gave us.  We are to go and make followers of all people.  We are to go to them, not wait for them to come to us.  And we are to go to all people, not just those who look and think like we do.  Anyone and everyone is fair game because God wants everyone to be saved.  He sent His Son Jesus that the whole world might be saved through Him!

Black or white or yellow or red or brown; rich or poor; knowledgeable or ignorant; liberal or conservative; make or female or any other sexual orientation or chosen lifestyle…  None of that matters, because once we believe, once we accept Jesus as Lord, we are changed into new creations – the old has passed, the new has come.

Thomas became a believer in the resurrected Jesus because He had seen his Lord in the flesh, risen from the grave and alive again.  We are blessed – truly blessed – to believe without having seen Him, without having touched His wounds.  We believe without seeing, because that is what faith is all about.

God gave us faith, and we are truly blessed.  Because through our belief, we can have life eternal through the power of the name of Jesus.  And so can anyone.  Let’s help others believe, and live.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord, the Son of God, who came in the flesh to redeem us, who was raised from the dead into flesh and returned to heaven, and who is coming again to judge us all.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Almighty God, thank You for giving us the faith to believe in Your Son Jesus so that we can enjoy eternal life.  We believe, even though we have not seen Him with our eyes, or touched Him with our fingers.  We believe!  Thank You, Father, for so great a gift of love.  Sometimes, Father, we hesitate to share this gift with others.  Sometimes we even refuse to forgive someone for what they did to us.  Please forgive us these times, Father.  Help us be more forgiving, more merciful in our dealings with others.  And Father, guide us around any pitfalls in this life and strengthen our spirits to do Your will.  And please help us do a better job of sharing Jesus with others so that they too may be saved by Your mercy and His sacrifice.  

Father, please shield us from Satan as he attacks our faith, trying to make us his own.  Help us be better servants, glorifying You in all we do so that the world can see You in us, through our deeds, in how we live.  And help us remain strong, faithful, and true to You in all things, no matter what the world throws at us or holds out before us.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to Your commands, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, You blessed Thomas by allowing him to see You in the flesh and to touch Your wounds so that he could believe.  And You bless us for our belief even though we have not seen nor touched You except in our hearts.  Thank You, Jesus, for following our Father’s will and giving of Yourself for us.  Please help us be more understanding, more merciful, more giving and forgiving of others, remembering that we are all created in our God’s image and that You came to save us all.  So Lord, please help us reach out to the non-believing world with the Gospel message, showing Your love through our love.  Give us the words to say, show us what to do to help bring the lost to You.

Lord Jesus, please shield our minds and our hearts from Satan’s lies and the world’s empty promises.  Guide us around all the devil’s traps and snares.  Help us see though his temptations and all the false teachings.  Help us fend off his attacks.  Please help us be faithful and true to You, putting all our trust in You, all our hope in You.  Heal the hurts that separate and divide us one from another.  Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on anything this life might offer.  This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.