Joyful, Joyful

 

[The following is a manuscript of my devotional message delivered on Sunday morning, the 30th of June, 2024, at Pilgrim Reformed Church.  This is a fifth Sunday service where we sang our favorite hymns.  A recording should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

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

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord!

Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.

Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;

Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.

For the Lord is the great God,

And the great King above all gods.

In His hand are the deep places of the earth;

The heights of the hills are His also.

The sea is His, for He made it;

And His hands formed the dry land.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down;

Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

For He is our God,

And we are the people of His pasture,

And the sheep of His hand.

Amen.

                                        --Psalm 95:1-7a

Please listen and follow along to the joyful and reassuring proclamation the Apostle Paul made to the church in Rome, and to us, as recorded in the first 11 verses of the 5th chapter of his Letter to the Romans, and I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible…

1 Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. 2 Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.

6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of His Son while we were still His enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of His Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.

--Romans 5:1-11 (NLT)

We have been made right in God’s sight, not by anything we’ve done, but by the faith God Himself gave us and the sacrifice Jesus made for us.  We do not deserve the grace God shows us, the blessings He pours out over us.   Those were bought by the precious blood of Jesus.  When we realize how truly, richly we are blessed, we should be filled with joy and rejoicing, confidently secure in the promise that we will share in God’s glory.

Now yes, I know... some days it feels like we are far from blessed.  Some days the world is laying too heavily on our shoulders.  Some days it’s a struggle just to get out of bed.  Some days we feel far from blessed.  But you know, Family… those days are a blessing, too.

There’s an old saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  Our tough times help make us stronger. They build endurance, which strengthens our character.  They show us that we can survive, not matter what befalls us.

And this feeds our hope and trust in God’s words, in Jesus’ deeds, in our promise of salvation that leads to eternal life.  This trust and this hope will not disappoint us, for God loves us, a love made manifest by His gift of His Holy Spirit dwelling within us, a love shown by the sacrifice of His own Son.

So let us always be joyful in this life, in good times and bad.  And right now this morning, let us make a joyful noise to our Lord!  For God is good all the time.  And all the time, God is good!

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

Let us pray…  Father God, thank You for choosing us to follow Your Christ, Your Son Jesus.  Thank You for giving us faith that we can be made right in Your sight.  Father, because of our faith, we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing Your glory.  Please help us be more merciful and kind, more humble and gentle, more giving and forgiving in our daily walk, so that we might show the world Your love through our love.  May we always sing Your praises, glorifying You in all we do.  This we pray in the blessed name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.

We Tell the Truth

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 23rd of June, 2024.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

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

How many times have you watched a TV show or movie scene set in a courtroom where they call a person up to the witness stand, have them put their left hand on a bible and raise their right hand and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?  And the person always says, “I do”.  I just wonder how much validity that oath would hold if the person swearing to it were an atheist.  Would it matter to them if they told the truth or not?  Would their hand burn just a little bit on the bible?

Yes, I do think about weird things at times.

I think this is a valid concern, though, because our judicial system is based on people telling the truth.  And just how many people tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in our society today?  In recent months alone we’ve seen some high-profile cases where folks just flat out lied in public statements, on legal forms, even in courtrooms under oath.  And with artificial intelligence and deepfakes and cheapfakes and fake news, just how much of what we see and hear anymore can we trust to be the truth?!?

Well, I’ve got good news for you, Family - there is one place we can turn where we can fully trust in what we are told.  There is one source of information we can be sure will always tell us the truth: our Holy Bible.

Our Bible contains the word of God, authored by men and women that He inspired to write everything we need to know to get us through this life and ready for the next.  We can trust those men and women for they have no reason whatsoever to try and trick us.  They have nothing to gain by lying, nothing to lose by being completely truthful.

One of those authors was given special insight into God’s word and God’s will by God’s Son Jesus.  Please listen and follow along as I read the first 15 verses from the 4th chapter of the 2nd letter that the Apostle Paul sent to the Corinthians, and I’ll be reading this from the Living Bible version of our Holy Bible…

1 It is God Himself, in His mercy, who has given us this wonderful work of telling His Good News to others, and so we never give up. 2 We do not try to trick people into believing — we are not interested in fooling anyone. We never try to get anyone to believe that the Bible teaches what it doesn’t. All such shameful methods we forego. We stand in the presence of God as we speak and so we tell the truth, as all who know us will agree.

3 If the Good News we preach is hidden to anyone, it is hidden from the one who is on the road to eternal death. 4 Satan, who is the god of this evil world, has made him blind, unable to see the glorious light of the Gospel that is shining upon him or to understand the amazing message we preach about the glory of Christ, who is God. 5 We don’t go around preaching about ourselves but about Christ Jesus as Lord. All we say of ourselves is that we are your slaves because of what Jesus has done for us. 6 For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made us understand that it is the brightness of His glory that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.

7 But this precious treasure — this light and power that now shine within us — is held in a perishable container, that is, in our weak bodies. Everyone can see that the glorious power within must be from God and is not our own.

8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but not crushed and broken. We are perplexed because we don’t know why things happen as they do, but we don’t give up and quit. 9 We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going. 10 These bodies of ours are constantly facing death just as Jesus did; so it is clear to all that it is only the living Christ within who keeps us safe.

11 Yes, we live under constant danger to our lives because we serve the Lord, but this gives us constant opportunities to show forth the power of Jesus Christ within our dying bodies. 12 Because of our preaching we face death, but it has resulted in eternal life for you.

13 We boldly say what we believe, trusting God to care for us, just as the psalm writer did when he said, “I believe and therefore I speak.” 14 We know that the same God who brought the Lord Jesus back from death will also bring us back to life again with Jesus and present us to Him along with you. 15 These sufferings of ours are for your benefit. And the more of you who are won to Christ, the more there are to thank Him for His great kindness, and the more the Lord is glorified.

--2 Corinthians 4:1-15 (TLB)

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, we thank You for inspiring so many men and women to write down Your word so that we would have it today, after centuries have passed.  Our Bible is our users manual, our book of instructions.  It contains all we need to go forward and live a righteous life.  Thank You for sharing Your word with us, for sharing Your truth with us.  Sadly though, Lord, not everyone believes in the Christian Bible being Your inspired word, nor in it being completely truthful.  And not even all those who follow Jesus as Lord spend time reading the Bible.  Satan is hard at work in this world, keeping people blind to the truth, turning them away from You.  Please help us use our Bible and its truth as a weapon against the devil, a shield to defend ourselves from him.  Help us reach out to the non-believers of the world, sharing the Good News of salvation that is only available through Jesus.  Help us show the truth to all we encounter.  And please forgive us when we hesitate to serve You and Your Son Jesus.

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 our Bible.  Help us make the best use of our instructions manual while we walk this earth.  And help us share Your love with all the world.  This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

Two men had an argument.  To settle the matter, they went to a judge for arbitration.  The plaintiff made his case.  He was very eloquent and persuasive in his reasoning.  When he finished, the judge nodded in approval and said, "That's right, that's right."

On hearing this, the defendant jumped up and said, "Wait a second, judge, you haven't even heard my side of the case yet."  So the judge told the defendant to state his case.  And he, too, was very persuasive and eloquent.  When he finished, the judge again nodded and said, "That's right, that's right."

When the clerk of court heard this, he jumped up and said, "Judge, they both can't be right."  The judge looked at the clerk of court and said, "That's right, that's right."

A large part of our society experiences a great deal of difficulty discerning the truth.  Even so, they increasingly surround themselves with people who will tell them what they want to hear, including their teachers and preachers.  Many of our leaders, like this fictional judge, simply tell whatever group of people they’re speaking to what that particular group wants to hear, with little or no regard to the actual and complete truth.  And not telling the whole truth is just as bad as not telling any truth.  That’s what we call a lie of omission, misleading someone by leaving pertinent information out.

But spreading falsehoods is nothing new, and certainly not limited to our modern culture.  The first lie we know of came in the Garden of Eden, when the serpent promised Eve that eating the forbidden fruit would make her and Adam like God.

Fast forward to the times of our Lord Jesus.  The Pharisees and scribes had long been trying to trap Jesus in any breach of the Law of Moses, waiting for Him to slip up, but they had no hard evidence against Him to take to the Roman authorities.  So they made up evidence.  They lied about Him, and had others bear false witness about Him, too.

When He was finally hauled before the Roman governor for trial, Pilate asked Jesus if He was a king.  Jesus responded, “I came to bring truth to the world. All who love the truth are my followers.”  Pilate then rhetorically asked, “What is truth?”, without waiting for a response.  (John 18:37-38 (TLB))

But earlier, the Apostle John recorded where Jesus had already answered that question in the 6th verse of the 14th chapter of John’s Gospel account, when He told His disciples…

6 “I am the Way — yes, and the Truth and the Life.  No one can get to the Father except by means of Me.”

--John 14:6 (TLB)

Jesus is truth – the Truth.  Jesus is the only Way to the Father.  And Jesus is the true light.

John opened his Gospel account with the truth.  Listen to the first 9 verses of the 1st chapter of John’s account…

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

--John 1:1-9 (NKJV)

John, who we call the Baptist, was given the mission by God to bear witness to the world about Jesus.  Jesus is the Truth, the Life, and the Light, sent by God to bring us out of the darkness, if we would only believe in Him and trust in Him.

Can we trust what we see on TV, what we read in any of our news sources, what we find on the internet?  No, not completely; some yes, but definitely not all.  Sadly, most of what we are shown or told is meant to mislead us for one purpose or another.  Anything we see or hear in our modern society should be taken with a great measure of skepticism.  If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

But Family, we can trust in Jesus.  We can trust in the Word of God, saved for us in our Holy Bible.  We can trust God, because, as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews assures us, “it is impossible for God to lie”.  (Hebrews 6:18b (TLB))

Jesus is truth, and we need to share this truth with all the world.  So let’s get out there and be a witness like John the Baptizer.  Let’s tell the world the truth.  For this is God’s will for us.

In the blessed name of Jesus our Christ, the Son of God, the Truth and the Way.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, thank You for giving us truth we can depend on, the Truth in the person of Your Son Jesus.  Thank You for Your holy word, the word of truth.  Sadly though, Father, not everyone believes Your word, and we are slow to share it with them.  We hesitate to open up to others about our faith.  We too often fail to approach people to share the Gospel truth so they can lead a righteous life.  We’re too timid, too shy, too afraid to talk to someone about Jesus or even anything in the Bible.  Please forgive us these times, Father.  Help us share the truth, the Good News.  Help us fulfill our assigned mission for Jesus.  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, You are the Truth, the Life, the Light, and the Way.  You shine in the darkness of our sin to show us the way to righteousness and life everlasting.  Through You, and only through You, are we granted eternal life.  Help us share this news of salvation, Lord.  Help us reach out to the unbelieving world.  Help us tell folks the whole truth, and to do so in a loving way.  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.

Away From Home... For Now

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 16th of June, 2024 - Father's Day.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

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

Vacations are nice, aren’t they?  It’s nice to get away for a while, to just relax or to go off and see new places, enjoy new experiences.  But have you ever noticed that after some amount of time has passed, maybe four or five days, you begin to get just a bit homesick?  Doesn’t your own bed start to call out to you?

Yes, it’s great to get away, but it’s also great to get back home again.  When we’re away from home, things can be quite different, and that can cause stress.  We can find ourselves quickly losing control of a situation, with stuff getting out of hand around us.  We’re out of our comfort zone, no longer in the friendliest of environs.  And it can get scary quickly.

Family, this is the position we are in right now, and every day of our life on this earth.  We are away from home, away from our true home, away from the home God has ready for us.  And it can be really scary at times.

The Apostle Paul speaks to this in his 2nd letter to the church in Corinth, and it offers us reassurances, too.  Please listen and follow along as I read the first 10 verses from the 5th chapter of the 2nd letter that Paul sent to the Corinthians, and I’ll be reading from the New Living Version of our Holy Bible this morning…

1 Our body is like a house we live in here on earth. When it is destroyed, we know that God has another body for us in heaven. The new one will not be made by human hands as a house is made. This body will last forever. 2 Right now we cry inside ourselves because we wish we could have our new body which we will have in heaven. 3 We will not be without a body. We will live in a new body. 4 While we are in this body, we cry inside ourselves because things are hard for us. It is not that we want to die. Instead, we want to live in our new bodies. We want this dying body to be changed into a living body that lasts forever. 5 It is God Who has made us ready for this change. He has given us His Spirit to show us what He has for us.

6 We are sure of this. We know that while we are at home in this body we are not with the Lord. 7 Our life is lived by faith. We do not live by what we see in front of us. 8 We are sure we will be glad to be free of these bodies. It will be good to be at home with the Lord. 9 So if we stay here on earth or go home to Him, we always want to please Him. 10 For all of us must stand before Christ when He says who is guilty or not guilty. Each one will receive pay for what he has done. He will be paid for the good or the bad done while he lived in this body.

--2 Corinthians 5:1-10 (NLV)

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, we thank You for choosing us to follow Your Son, and for giving us the faith to believe in Him.  Jesus suffered the punishment we deserve.  He took our sins upon Himself so that we could stand clean before You at the end of time.  Thank You for having mercy upon us, Father.  And thank You for having a home prepared for us – our real home – when our time on this earth is over.  Sadly though, Lord, not everyone is willing to follow Jesus, to obey Him or even acknowledge that He is Your Son.  This condemns them, and pleases the devil.  Satan is hard at work in this world, keeping people blind to the truth, turning them away from worshiping You.  Please help us put to use the strength of our faith.  Help us reach out to the non-believers of the world, sharing the Good News of salvation that is only available through Jesus.  Help us show Your love to all we encounter.  And please forgive us when we hesitate to serve You and Your Son Jesus.

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 giving us this body, this earthly house, to live in while we are away from our true home.  Help us make the best use of this body and of our time while we walk this earth.  Help us share Your love with all the world.  This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

In his book, The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis writes, "We are very shy nowadays of even mentioning Heaven.  We are afraid of the jeer about 'pie in the sky,' and of being told that we are trying to 'escape from the duty of making a happy world here and now into dreams of a happy world elsewhere'.  But either there is 'pie in the sky' or there is not.  If there is not, then Christianity is false, for this doctrine is woven into its whole fabric.  If there is, then this truth, like any other, must be faced, whether it is useful at political meetings or no."

And in Mere Christianity, Lewis adds, "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.  It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this."

It should be quite visible to us just how ineffective the church has become in modern society.  Mr. Lewis says that a huge contributing factor to this decline lies in our reluctance to place emphasis on the next life, on what follows after one’s walk through this life has come to an end.

According to our Bible, there are two – and only two – outcomes we can expect.  And both extend for all time; both are eternal.  We can either experience everlasting happiness and peace in heaven with God and His Son Jesus, or unending pain and torment in the lake of fire with Satan and his beast.  Why have we stopped talking about this?  Why do we no longer put any emphasis on the choice between heaven and hell, to use the popular term?

Well, part of the reason is because no one wants to listen, not even some Christians.  The world does not want to hear about a heaven and a hell because they don’t want to be held accountable for what they do in this life.  Of course, part of their reluctance to hear the truth may stem from how it was “delivered” to them before.  Simply shouting, “You’re going to hell!”, at someone isn’t going to win many converts.  Fortunately, we have better ways to tell folks about heaven and hell.  And those better ways come from Jesus Himself.

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us not to gather up treasures here on earth, where they’ll rot and decay, but to save them in heaven, where they will never rot or be destroyed.  And He told many parables comparing the kingdom of heaven to things His audience could relate to… that we can relate to.  Like the tiny mustard seed, that when planted can grow into a tree that birds can nest in for shelter.  And like a field where a valuable treasure has been buried, and like a pearl of great price.

He also compared God’s kingdom to the man who sowed good seed in his field, but while the man slept, his enemy sowed weeds in the same field.  At harvest, the grain is taken to safe storage while the weeds are pulled up and burned.  Believers are the good grain, while those who refuse to believe are the weeds.  Safe storage is heaven, and where the weeds are burned is what we call hell, the lake of fire.  This is what awaits us all – either a wonderful home, or eternal pain.  The choice is ours.

Of course, Paul is speaking to a church family of believers, just like I am now.  In this life, we live by faith because we are not physically with Jesus.  We long for heaven, our permanent home, and we know it awaits us because we do believe.  We believe in Jesus and we believe in God’s words and His promises.  We want that new, incorruptible body, the one that won’t ache or hurt or age or break down.

We long for heaven.  We’re homesick for the home we haven’t been to yet.  I can still hear the voice of our dear brother Leon Cline singing, “I'm kind of homesick for a country to which I've never been before.  No sad goodbyes will there be spoken for time won't matter anymore.”  Sweet Beulah Land.

We’re away from home, Family.  For now.  But while we still live this life, while we're away from home, we need to do the work assigned us.  We know what this work is, for Jesus gave us our assignment, and I’ve repeated it often.  Paul also reiterated our instructions and gives greater insight into what we can do to carry them out.  Listen as Paul continues his exhortation to us in chapter 5, verse 14 through the first part of verse 20 in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians…

14 The love of Christ puts us into action. We are sure that Christ died for everyone. So, because of that, everyone has a part in His death. 15 Christ died for everyone so that they would live for Him. They should not live to please themselves but for Christ Who died on a cross and was raised from the dead for them.

16 So from now on, we do not think about what people are like by looking at them. We even thought about Christ that way one time. But we do not think of Him that way anymore. 17 For if a man belongs to Christ, he is a new person. The old life is gone. New life has begun. 18 All this comes from God. He is the One Who brought us to Himself when we hated Him. He did this through Christ. Then He gave us the work of bringing others to Him. 19 God was in Christ. He was working through Christ to bring the whole world back to Himself. God no longer held men’s sins against them. And He gave us the work of telling and showing men this. 20 We are Christ’s missionaries.

--2 Corinthians 5:14-20a (NLV)

The love of Christ puts us into action.  Because Christ Jesus loves the people of this world so much that He doesn’t want to see anyone suffer eternal punishment, so He puts us into action to help save the lost.

He gave us the work of bringing others to Him, of reconciling the world to Him.  Jesus died for us that we would live for Him.  We are His missionaries.  This is our work, this is our job, while we are away from home.  So let’s get out there and get to work.  For this is God’s will for us.  In the blessed name of Jesus our Christ, the Son of God.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Your Christ, our Christ, to redeem us of our sin.  Thank You for promising us a new, more wonderful home when our time on this earth is over.  Sadly though, Father, we don’t always share the love and forgiveness You’ve shown us.  We hesitate to do the job Jesus gave us.  We too often fail to approach people to spread the Gospel, let alone tell them about the next life, in heaven or in hell.  We’re too timid, too shy, too afraid to talk to someone about Jesus or even anything in the Bible.  Please forgive us these times, Father.  Help us share the Gospel message.  Help us fulfill our assigned mission for Jesus.  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, You died for us so that we might live for You.  And You promised us everlasting life in heaven, with You and God, in a new and incorruptible body, when we finally come home.  All we have to do is use the faith God gives us to believe in You and follow Your commands.  Help us as we try to continue Your work, Lord.  Help us reach out to the unbelieving world.  Help us tell folks all about the Gospel, and to do so in a loving way.  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 Sabbath

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 9th of June, 2024.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

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

And I still can't change text color, so no "red letter" version again.]

Family, if we look at our calendar, what is the first day of the new week?  It’s Sunday.  But what do we usually treat as the first day?  Monday, right?  We treat Sunday as if it were the last day of the week because it is the last day of our weekend, and we treat Monday as the first day, probably because it is the first day of the work week.  And in the world of business, Monday is the first day.

But Sunday was set as the first day back in 321 by Emperor Constantine who established the seven-day week for the Roman calendar.  Constantine was also the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, and basically the father of the Holy Roman Empire.  We use the Gregorian calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII who introduced it in 1582.  You can see that our calendar and our seven-day week both have been greatly influenced by Christianity.

We tend to think the Sabbath is just a Jewish thing, and yes it is that, but it is much more.  God gave us the Sabbath as a day of rest, and a day to spend in worship of our Lord.  He created all there is in 6 days, then rested on the 7th, not because He needed rest, but to set the example for us, in how to treat ourselves, and how to treat the world.

By our reckoning, creation would have occurred on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  Then comes the Sabbath, and it is Saturday, for us.  Our word "Sabbatical" comes from "Sabbath" and is the one period of rest after six periods of labor.  It is most often applied to pastors or priests or ministers being given a year to rest and spend in worship and study after every six years of service.  The earth can also benefit from a Sabbath, notably allowing a field to remain fallow for a year after being planted for six.

The ancient Jewish day ran from sunset to sunset, not like our midnight to midnight day, so their Sabbath, or Shabbat, began at sunset on Friday and ended at sunset on Saturday.  The Christian "Sabbath" - our day of worship - is Sunday, although we certainly don't observe it as God intended.

By the time of Jesus’ day, the religious leaders had taken God’s establishment of the Sabbath to the extreme, so much so that a person wasn’t even supposed to prepare a meal during those hours, but instead to eat what was prepared before sunset.  Devout Jews were so obedient to God's command to do no work on the Sabbath that they even held off preparing the body of Jesus for burial until after the Sabbath (by which time, of course, He had risen from the grave).  God forbid they should consider doing any work, like harvesting crops.

And that leads me to our scripture reading today.  Please listen and follow along as I read from chapter 2 verse 23 through chapter 3 verse 6 of the Apostle Mark’s Gospel account, and I’ll be reading from the New King James Version of our Holy Bible this morning…

2:23 Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. 24 And the Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”

25 But He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him: 26 how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?”

27 And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 28 Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”

3:1 And He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand. 2 So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. 3 And He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Step forward.” 4 Then He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they kept silent. 5 And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. 6 Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.

----Mark 2:23-3:6 (NKJV)

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, we thank You for setting aside a period of time for all of Your creation to rest.  You gave us the Sabbath to allow us this rest and to also allow us to stop and reflect on all the mercy and goodness You extend to us.  Thank You for the Sabbath day, Father.  Sadly though, Lord, we no longer respect the Sabbath as we should.  Many have to labor through it, either out of personal necessity or out of greed.  Many treat it as a day to enjoy themselves, without giving a thought to You or Your lovingkindness.  Satan is hard at work in this world, keeping people blind to the truth, turning them away from worshiping You.  Please help us remember why You set aside a day for rest and worship.  Help us reach out to the non-believers of the world, sharing the Good News of salvation only available through Jesus.  Help us show Your love to all we encounter.  And please forgive us when we hesitate to serve You and Your Son Jesus.

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 seeing our need to rest and giving us a time to do so.  This is just another sign of Your love for us, for Your creation.  Help us share Your love with all the world.  This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

American theologian L. S. Chafer, co-founder of the Dallas Theological Seminary, told this little story:

One man challenged another to an all-day wood chopping contest.  The challenger worked very hard, stopping only for a brief lunch break.  The other man had a leisurely lunch and took several breaks during the day.  At the end of the day, the challenger was surprised and annoyed to find that the other fellow had chopped substantially more wood than he had.  “I don't get it,” he said.  “Every time I checked, you were taking a rest, yet you chopped more wood than I did.”  “But you didn't notice,” said the winning woodsman, “that I was sharpening my ax when I sat down to rest.”

When we stop to rest, we "sharpen our tools" for the labors ahead.  And by that I mean our personal, bodily tools.  Our heart and lungs need some downtime when they’re not having to work so hard to supply us with blood and oxygen in our exertions.  Our brains need time to decompress, and to work through some of the events of the day, or just to go wandering off into some strange and wonderful, or frightening, world.  And even our spirits need time to rest, to reenergize.

Some of the early signs of sleep-deprivation are mood changes, difficulty handling even simple problems, hallucinations, depression.  We need enough rest time for our bodies, minds, and spirits to sharpen up and get ready for use again.

So, at one point during His ministry, Jesus and His disciples happened to be passing through a grain field during the Sabbath.  Let’s just imagine that it was around noon on that Saturday, and they were far from any town or village.  They were hungry, so the disciples began to pluck heads of grain as they walked and ate them.  Some Pharisees saw this and immediately shouted, “Stop!  You can’t do that!  It is not lawful!”  What was their offense?  Harvesting grain on the Sabbath; laboring on the day of rest.  No matter that they were hungry.  No matter that they were eating all they “harvested” and not setting any aside for later or for sale.  They were breaking the rigid code of the Sabbath.

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees by reminding them of the time that David and his men, on the run from King Saul and his troops, had eaten some of the showbread that only the priests were allowed to eat.  And then He issued an even greater rebuke, and what should have been an obvious truth: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”  God did not create man so that the Sabbath could be observed, but instead created the Sabbath so that man might rest and worship their Creator.

“And oh, by the way,” Jesus continued, “I am the Lord of the Sabbath, so what I allow to take place on the Sabbath is OK.”  The term Jesus used for Himself, here and quite often in His ministry, is “the Son of Man”.  This term comes from the Book of Daniel, where the prophet describes the Messiah as “One like the Son of Man”.  God in human form.  The Pharisees didn’t like that.

Nor did they care much for what Jesus did next.  He entered their synagogue, saw a man with a withered hand, and healed Him, again doing something the Pharisees deemed unlawful on the Sabbath.  In response to their unspoken accusations, Jesus rhetorically asked if it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save life or to kill?  In the Apostle Matthew’s telling of this event, Jesus also asks of the gathering, who, on the Sabbath, would not lift a sheep out of a pit that it had fallen into.  Sometimes, some form of labor just has to be performed, even on the Sabbath.

We might think the Pharisees’ attitude about the Sabbath to be extreme, and it certainly is by today’s standards.  But in all fairness, they were just following what they saw as God’s rule, as relayed from Him through Moses.  God commands us to keep the Sabbath, as recorded by Moses in his books of Deuteronomy and Exodus.

Hear what Moses wrote in Exodus chapter 20, verses 8 through 11…

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” 

--Exodus 20:8-11 (NKJV)

Do no work.  And this is a command not just to people, but to our animals as well, those that labor for us.  So yeah, we can almost say the Pharisees were justified in their behavior, but they could have been a bit more merciful in their application.

Today, we have moved to the opposite end of the spectrum, way past what even Jesus allowed.  Even our Sabbath day has changed, at least for us Christians.  We consider Sunday as our Sabbath day, and call it the Lord’s day.  Sunday is the first day, and Jesus was raised from the dead on the first day.  So this has become our day of rest and of worship.  But how many of us do?

Even among those who claim to be Christians, how many actually spend the day resting and worshiping our heavenly Father?  Many don’t even make it to church, taking advantage of the day off from work to go do other fun things.  They may “rest”, in the sense of enjoying recreation, but worship seldom enters the picture.

And then we have those who actually labor on Sundays.  Now, granted, there are some folks who must do so.  Life does not come to a halt on Sunday; stuff happens, and there are certain people who must respond when life rears an uglier head.  Our first responders, our hospital and nursing home staff, our military service people, our clergy, all must be on duty and ready to serve on Sundays just as on any day.

There are some who have to work because their employers are open for business on Sundays and require their employees to work at least some of them.  And then there are those who are just greedy and see Sunday as an opportunity to make more money.  I must admit that it is nice for my family and I to be able to go out and share a meal each Sunday after church, but I do really hate that some have to work just so we can enjoy that time together.

Our modern culture sure doesn’t make it easy for us to rest or to worship on Sundays.  How many times has one of your kids or grandkids had a ball game or other extracurricular activity scheduled on a Sunday morning, during church hours?  The church itself has become less and less important, less relevant, to the community, so our opportunities to skip worship have increased and become more attractive.

When we look around and lament what the world is coming to, and especially where America seems headed, we need to take a long, hard look in the mirror to see part of the problem.  Christianity has become diluted.  We have allowed Satan to infiltrate our ranks and poison our wells.  To often, the face we show the world is one of hatred and bias, bigotry and distrust.  Where is the love for our neighbors Jesus commands us to?  Where is the compassion, the mercy, the forgiveness?  Can anyone see a difference in us?  What has happened to our day of rest and worship?  To me, our failure to faithfully observe the Sabbath as God intended is a symptom of our greater sin of not truly following Jesus as Christians.  We claim with our lips what we don’t necessarily show through our actions.

There’s an old song that says “O Lord, send a revival, and let it begin with me”.  We can’t change things overnight.  And we can’t change everything that’s wrong.  But we can change our attitude.  We can change our priorities.  And we can start today, our Christian Sabbath.

Let’s make an effort to get more rest – I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but sometimes we have to purposely set our minds to do something, even if that something is to do nothing.  And let’s spend more time today in offering up praise and glory to our Father God.  Worship Him by spending more time with Him in prayer.  Worship Him by being more loving, more forgiving.  For this is God’s will for us.

In the blessed name of Jesus our Christ, the Son of God.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, thank You for seeing to our physical and spiritual needs by giving us a day each week that we can – or should - devote to rest and worship.  Sadly though, Father, we have gotten away from the intent of our Sabbath, and now treat it as just a day off from work, a chance to go out and play.  Some of us have no choice but to continue working.  We don’t spend time in worship like we should.  We don’t praise You and give You the glory in the presence of others.  We too often fail to approach people to share the Gospel.  We’re too timid, too shy, too afraid to tell someone about Jesus.  Please forgive us these times, Father.  Help us share the Gospel message.  Help us fulfill our assigned mission for Jesus.  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, as Lord of the Sabbath, You allowed that some labors could be performed on that day of rest.  But You did not take away anything from our need to worship our God on that day.  Lord, we have strayed far from how we should observe the Sabbath, our Lord’s day.  Help us see the need for rest, and for worship.  Help us return to our true Christian faith and roots.  And in that regard, help us tell folks all about the Gospel, and to do so in a loving way.  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.

Starting Out, Starting Over

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 2nd of June, 2024.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

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

Family, last Sunday was a time of celebration for us.  We recognized two fine young men as recipients of our scholarships, and we congratulated all our young ladies and gentlemen who have graduated some level of schooling.  All these young people will soon be starting out on a new and different phase of their lives, entering the world as adults.  Many will be leaving the nest for the first time, taking wing on their own, with much love and support from home, of course.

And then we also welcomed two of our own back into fellowship with us; two who had been away from us for a while but had now returned.  In a way, they are starting over by renewing their membership, digging back into the life - and the work - of the church.

In our invocation, the Apostle Peter spoke of starting over when he instructed us to repent of our sins and turn to God.  This also applies to those just starting out, for we all sin, we all have fallen, we all bear the sin of Adam.

The Apostle Paul also speaks of starting out in his 2nd letter to the church in Corinth, who in many cases were just getting started in their new-found faith.  Please listen and follow along as I read from the 5th chapter of Paul’s 2nd letter to the Corinthians, verses 14 through 21, and I’ll be reading this from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible…

14 Christ’s love urges us on. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.

16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know Him now! 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to Himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to Him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

----2 Corinthians 5:14-21 (NLT)

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your loving kindness and mercy.  When we were stumbling around in the darkness of our sin, You sent Your Son to shine Your light and give us new life.  Thank You for allowing us to start over again.  Sadly though, Father, too many people simply do not believe that Jesus is Your Son, that He came to save us, that He died and rose again from the grave.  Satan is hard at work in this world, keeping people blind to the truth.  Please help us reach out to the non-believers of the world, sharing the Good News of salvation available only through Jesus.  Help us show Your love to all we encounter.  And please forgive us when we hesitate to serve You and Your Son.

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 letting us start over and start out on this new life in Jesus.  Help us share Your love with all the world.  This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

The first electric light was so dim that a candle was needed to see its socket.  One of the first steamboats took 32 hours to chug its way from New York to Albany, a distance of 150 miles.  Wilbur and Orville Wright's first airplane flight lasted only 12 seconds.  And the first automobiles traveled 2 to 4 miles per hour and broke down often.  Carriages would pass them, with their passengers shouting, “Get a horse!”

Beginnings, like childbirth, are often painful.  It can take a long time before they begin to gain traction.  We just have to be patient, learn to walk before we can run, take time to get things right.

We’re in an age of microwave ovens cooking dinner in minutes, instantaneous communications, connections to the world’s knowledge on our arms and hips or in our purses, everything faster, everything now.  But none of this came overnight.  Everything had a beginning, and most of our technological advances had many start-overs to get to the point of what we see now.  It’s really not a bad thing to start all over again, to get a fresh perspective while not losing sight of what didn’t work before.

I can’t even count the number of times I’ve started over or started out on some new journey.  I’ve tried quite a few different careers and professions in my life, a couple of them being completely new and different from anything before.  My last new job choice was by far my best, finally responding to God’s offer and leading me to here.

I’ve taken up new hobbies quite often, getting bored with one and moving on to the next.  I’ve even started out on new relationships, not always with the best results.  Sometimes I’ve learned from past mistakes, while too often just repeating them.

But starting over, and starting out on something new, gives us anther chance at living the way God will see as pleasing.  We just need to pay attention to what we’re doing so we don’t blow it.

In our scripture reading, Paul speaks for himself and Timothy when he says, “We believe that Christ died for all of us, and so we also believe that we have all died to our old life.  He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live for themselves, but will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.”

We receive this new life Paul speaks of when we accept Jesus as the Son of God and our Lord.  We can never repay Jesus for what He did for us, but we can pay it forward – to use the popular phrase – by living our new life for Him, by serving Him, by carrying out His command to spread the Gospel and make disciples.

Part of living this new life means we must stop evaluating each other from a human perspective, a human point of view.  We need to try to look at others in the same light that we look at ourselves.  Do we forgive ourselves for our flaws, faults, and failures, especially the little, insignificant ones?  Then we should forgive others of theirs, and stop treating their flaws as greater than ours.  It’s like Jesus scolded us, to stop being overly concerned about the speck in someone else’s eye while walking around with a plank in our own.  We can’t really start over or start out on something new until we rid ourselves of our old habits and attitudes.

Long before Jesus came to renew us by taking on our sin, the great prophet Isaiah gave as some insight into starting over.  Hear what Isaiah wrote in verses 18 and 19 of the 43rd chapter of the book bearing his name…

18 “Do not remember the things that have happened before. Do not think about the things of the past. 19 See, I will do a new thing. It will begin happening now. Will you not know about it? I will even make a road in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

--Isaiah 43:18-19 (NLV)

Now Isaiah isn’t saying to forget all about what’s happened before, but instead just don’t dwell it.  Don’t live in the past - put it behind us, because we can’t change it.  God will give us the chance to start over fresh, starting right now, if we’ll let Him.  He will open new roads, new pathways for us, bringing encouragement and strength to our spirits just as a river flowing in the desert.

I said earlier that new beginnings can be slow and painful, and this applies to beginning again, too.  Starting over simply means that we’re starting out again.  It may not necessarily be an entirely new experience, but we should be approaching it with a new perspective, a new plan of action, a new heart, while hoping and praying for a new outcome.

When we start over, we need to remember what we did wrong the first time so we don't make the same mistakes all over again.  We need to forget about past hurts, especially those hurts that were caused by others.  This is the only way we can be successful.

When we accept Jesus, God wants us to be new, to be different, to not be the same as we were before.  He gives us the opportunity to start over, and this time, to get it right.  We’ll never get it right until we throw off our old ways, our old life, and fully embrace the new life God gave us.  Stop looking at others – judging others – through our old eyes, our human perspective, and try seeing them through Jesus’ eyes, through the eyes of love.  We must quit harping on what we think are someone else’s faults and start giving more honest consideration to our own.

Let’s reboot and start all over again, and this time let’s approach everything, and everyone, in a loving manner.  For this is God’s will for us.  In the blessed name of Jesus our Christ, the Son of God.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, You are the God of second chances, and we thank You for giving us a second chance to get things right.  You sent Your Son into the world to offer all of us new and eternal life.  Sadly though, Father, not all believe.  Some refuse to believe, and we aren’t always willing to try to help them see the truth.  We too often fail to approach others with the Gospel.  We’re too timid, too shy, too afraid to tell someone about Jesus.  Please forgive us these times, Father.  Help us share the Gospel message.  Help us start anew in our mission work for Jesus.  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, You said that You are the Living Water, and that all who drink from You will never thirst again.  Lord, the Living Water is now welling up within us, bringing us eternal life.  Help us lead others to this well.  Help us tell them the truth, the Gospel, and to do so in a loving way.  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.