Sermons Archive
Worst Job Description Ever!
Summary: God’s appointment is seldom to do easy tasks. God appoints us to do hard things, and He equips us to fulfil what He has appointed us to do.
Two years ago, Paul David Tripp published an article bearing the title of this message. [2] His article stimulated me to focus on the difficult tasks God sometimes calls us to undertake. God does not always call us to the mundane, the routine; in fact, He will often call His people to attempt the impossible. Or worse still, God will appoint us to do things that we just hate. God will back us into a corner where we have no choice but to do what He appoints us to do, and we hate it. If we will ever get the job done, it will be obvious that it was God that did the work. We may have been the instrument of grace that He used, but He did it.
If The Bugle is Expected, A Flute Will Not Do
The context of the Apostle’s instruction is the people of God at worship. Worship is so simple, and yet, the act is complex. How could it be otherwise when we are speaking of ascribing worth to the Creator, the God of all the universe? Worship is simple in that mere mortals are ascribing worth to the Living God; there can be no complexity in that since we have so little to offer. However, worship is, of necessity, complex because it is being offered to God Who is infinite. How can mere mortals exhaust the knowledge of God who gives life to all things? How can man, impure and imperfect as he is in this fallen state, truly glorify and magnify the Living God who is perfect in righteousness, in holiness, in purity?
The Glory Of Christ Is Witnessed Where?
We become pretty blasé about those with whom we share worship week-by-week. Seriously, how do you think of those sharing this service with you? Do you see them as friends? Certainly, I would hope that to be the case. Perhaps you see your fellow worshippers as people engaged in the same daily activities that are characteristic of your life. I mean, they live pretty much as you live and conduct their daily routines in a manner not dissimilar from your own life. Nevertheless, what is likely not prominent in your understanding of your fellow worshippers is their identity given by the Lord Himself as “the glory of Christ.” And I would hope that you are included in that assessment as one who is counted among people as “the glory of Christ.”
The Gospel of “nice” Will Be the Death Of You
The gospel of nice will provide a blessing for suicide. The gospel of nice will encourage the discouraged to quit, to give in to despair. The Gospel of Christ will reach out to the weary traveller, endeavouring to lift up the individual with a broken spirit. The Gospel of Christ will strive to encourage the discouraged. The gospel of nice is based on sentimentality, not on love. The gospel of nice prioritises short-term happiness instead of what is good. The gospel of nice leads to blessing self-murder rather than offering the hard, but loving, words, “This is wrong.” The gospel of nice will exalt the individual’s personal desire over the welfare of others.
Taught by the Gospel of Christ, we love people. Because we love people, we seek their welfare. The love of Christ compels us to warn people that abortion takes the life of a child. Abortion is not something to celebrate; abortion is an act to grieve. It is not hate that leads us to counsel a woman to spare the life of the child she is carrying as she struggles to cope with a pregnancy she didn’t anticipate in the aftermath of an illicit affair. It is love that leads us to counsel the young man who impregnated his girlfriend that he must support her and the child, accepting responsibility for his actions. However, progressive churches have raised the gospel of nice to an art form, blessing abortion clinics and even same sex “marriage.” [4] The gospel of nice seeks to make sure people feel good about themselves rather than honouring God.
The High Cost Of Arrogance
Summary:
Arrogance kills. Should anyone question that statement, they need but study an incident when a king whom God anointed requested consideration from a wealthy farmer. What happened next is a warming against becoming arrogant.
Nabal thought only of “my bread,” “my water,” “my meat.” Rather than seeing himself as an administrator of the grace of God, he was certain that his hand had acquired everything he possessed. Moreover, he was assured that everything that he possessed was for his own pleasure. There was no consideration that the strength he enjoyed was a gift from God, that the abilities he employed were divinely given or that the opportunities that came to him were permitted by the LORD—Nabal was the centre of his universe.
Key Words: Arrogance, Fool, overabundance
Complacency Kills
Complacency Kills 2 Samuel 6:5-11
It was only a momentary slip of the beasts’ feet, but it was enough to rock the Ark which was on the cart they were pulling. The priest driving the cart reached back to steady the Ark so it wouldn’t fall; but the moment he touched the Ark, he fell dead.
While the judgement the worshippers had just witnessed was not as severe as the judgement on the men of Beth-shemesh, Uzzah now lay dead beside the Ark of the Covenant. What wasn’t immediately clear was why Uzzah had to die. All that the people knew, and all we are told in the text, is that “God struck [Uzzah] down because of his error.” We are left to wonder what his error might have been. In fact, that Hebrews word rendered “error” in my translation is very difficult to translate into English. It only occurs once in the Bible, and that is in this seventh verse.
Anyone Can Serve, Can’t They
P2 From Men Whom God Killed Series
Anyone Can Serve, Can’t They
Scripture warns believers, “[Divine judgements against God’s people] took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.” We ignore the accounts of those who preceded us in the worship of the scripture warns believers, “[Divine judgements against God’s people] took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.” We ignore the accounts of those who preceded us in the worship of the Living God at our own peril.e Living God at our own peril.
The Race
Summary:
Each Christian is running in a marathon. Our Christian life is not a sprint, but a marathon which demands our best always.
Dear people, we must never allow ourselves to forget that we are running a marathon. As we run, we have been preceded by a “great cloud of witnesses.” These witnesses passed the baton, anticipating that we would succeed because they had prepared the way, because they had successfully completed the earlier laps. Those who have gone before rightfully expected us to take up the baton and continue the race, the race that will not be completed until that day the Master returns for His own. Let each follower of the Master hear the call to push himself, to push herself, to excel. Let each of us refocus our eyes, looking to Christ our Saviour who even now is at the finish waiting to receive us into glory.
What The Stones Are Saying
Memorials have meaning. When they are destroyed, the meaning is forgotten for the generations that follow. The monuments of a nation speak of the values of that nation. When a nation begins to destroy that which once anchored it, the foundations are being destroyed and the nation is moving toward insignificance and desolation. To deny the heritage of the nation through disavowal of the past is to ensure a tumultuous future. The people who forget where they came from are a people moving toward dissolution and ruin. For this reason, I fear for the west as we jettison our heritage to embrace whatever the latest fad may be.
Foundational to the heritage that defines the western world is the Faith of Christ the Lord. Though modern politicians seek to deny this truth, their denials are evidence of their ignorance. Obviously, those who would deny our western foundations have never read the founding documents of the nations constituting the West. One cannot read British history without concluding that the Faith of Christ the Lord was woven in the warp and woof of the land. Similarly, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence fairly shout out dependence on the Eternal God as foundational for the United States of America. Canada, arising from a British heritage, is likewise founded on principles of the Faith once delivered to all the saints.
At The Intersection Of Expectation And Disappointment
Who among us will be honest enough to admit that more times than you can count, you have stood at the intersection of Expectation and Disappointment? You had your life mapped out, but somehow things didn’t turn out as you had planned. You thought everything was going swimmingly, but then there came that day when the doctor told you that you needed an urgent surgery if you were to survive. Your life was transformed by the new reality and your dreams died that day. The surgery would mean long weeks of being in bed and weeks of therapy after the surgery. It meant pain—intense, constant pain whether you had the surgery or not. You were standing at the intersection of Expectation and Disappointment.
A Child’s Responsibility To Parents
Summary: A Mothers’ Day message urging parents to instruct their children to honour them, and urging children to show honour to their parents. To be certain, children need to hear the biblical basis for showing their parents respect, and for accepting that they have responsibilities due to those whom God has placed over them. What may be missing from the instruction provided in the contemporary assembly is the fact that until our parents pass from this life, we still have responsibilities toward them. Until the end of days, a child is responsible to honour her father and her mother. Even after a child’s parents have passed from the scene, a young man or woman is responsible to honour their memory. What began in childhood will continue throughout life. Each of us will be responsible to honour our parents until they die and even beyond.
My Self Esteem And What Became Of it
The message was finished and I had gone to the back of the auditorium to greet the congregation as they were departing the building. One woman, a counsellor in our community, was moving toward me with a clear sense of deliberation. Obviously, she had something to say, and she was going to say it. “Pastor,” she began, “you’re just wrong. If we don’t feel good about ourselves, we’ll never be able to serve God effectively. We have to feel good about ourselves.”
I had stressed in the message that much of the modern educational effort to teach students “self-esteem” was producing a generation of people ill-equipped to function in the world. I had said that students, even when unable to read or to perform simple mathematic calculations, felt “good” about themselves. I argued that modern education efforts were guilty of child abuse through failure to equip youth for life. And the churches were equally guilty of failure to call people to holiness, choosing instead to emphasise the need for people to feel good about themselves.
The Foundation For Worship
Worship is the eternal occupation of the redeemed. Since this is true, one would expect that the people of God would prepare themselves for worship. All that we do in the realm of worship during this life is but preparation for our eternal occupation. In fact, I am bold to say that if you have no desire to worship the True and Living God, you will not enjoy Heaven. I wonder if the reluctance to worship witnessed among our contemporaries arises from a misunderstanding of what constitutes worship. Perhaps we have never worshipped. Perhaps we are ignorant of what God expects.
Worship! The term speaks of ascribing worth to the One worshipped. Worship is the natural response of the heart set free and delivered into the presence of the True and Living God. If we saw the glory of the Lord—and recognised that divine effulgence as His glory—we would unquestionably worship. Worship is ascribing to God His worth. It is giving God the glory that is due His Name. To worship is to honour God. It is to permit oneself to marvel at His grace, to adore His Person, to wonder at His majesty, to rejoice in His goodness and to be fascinated with His love.
Worship may be loud and noisy, or worship may be quiet. There may be shouts of exultation or there may be only the quiet word always associated with worship, “Oh!” Tragically, the “Oh” is missing from much of our worship, whether noisy or quiet.
The Theology Of A Thief
On either side of this “King of the Jews” hung a thief—men who had been condemned to death because of their criminal activities. At first, these dying men had railed against him, much as a wild animal that has been injured will snarl and snap at anyone who comes near during the death throes of the animal. However, as these men hung there, between struggles to breath or to find relief from the burning pain caused by the cramping of the legs, one of the criminals began to pay attention to the man in the middle. The man in the middle wasn’t raging as most would have reacted to such indignities, to such pain. This man was obviously in severe pain, but he was not calling down vile imprecations on those who tormented him. He was solicitous for his mother and for the young man who stood with her. He didn’t curse his situation or those who caused his pain, rather, he prayed for His tormentors.
The account is well-known, and yet it is unknown in the sense that we give little thought to what happened. The story has been recited from multiple pulpits, but it seems doubtful that many people have given much thought to what the condemned man believed. His theology is on display; and that theology speaks of the theology each of us must hold if we will receive the blessings that were conferred on this man. Join me in exploring the theology of a thief.
Two Men Enter Heaven
Death fascinates us. We cannot avoid speaking of the last enemy, this final scourge of all mankind. Though death is the last thing we talk about, it is nonetheless inevitable. The Word of God speaks of some who die only to be condemned to eternal separation from the love of God. As an example, recall that Jesus related an incident that occurred when two men died. One of those men was a poor man named Lazarus. The other individual was a rich man, and though we are not given his name, it is obvious that he was well-known in his community. The Master related at the appropriate point in the account, “One day the beggar died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In the afterlife, …he was in constant torment” [LUKE 16:22-23 ISV].
In another week, we will celebrate the conquest of death! We’ll celebrate the Resurrection of our Master, Jesus, who is the Christ. He conquered death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. Today, preparing our hearts to rejoice in Christ’s victory over death, hell and the grave, I ask you to focus on two men as they entered Heaven. We’d be inclined to say that one of those men should never have entered into the precincts of Heaven; the other man, we’d likely agree, surely merited being received into heavenly mansions.
Weaponised Narratives
An old proverb states that truth is the best advertising, propaganda and public relations tool. Fact-supported truth is a powerful narrative. Unfortunately, the truth can be hidden, ignored, obscured or inundated by error, creating what is identified as a weaponised narrative. The concept of a narrative has become increasingly popular in contemporary society. One American President popularised the idea of the narrative in political and social discussions. A native activist complained that a Catholic school boy “stole his narrative.” Of course, this hasn’t turned out quite the way the native activist thought it would.
This concept of “the narrative” has been trumpeted by talk-show hosts and politicians of various stripes during the past decade. Promoting the idea of a narrative implies manipulation of perception to ensure a particular outcome during debate between proponents of opposing views. Narratives as currently employed have a tangential relationship to truth, at the best. Increasingly, the idea of a narrative is being weaponised in contemporary society.
There Is No Sin In The Cemetery
The message I seek to deliver this day is intended for those individuals who follow Christ as Master of life. For any who are outside the precincts of grace, the message does not apply directly. It is not that I am unconcerned for those who do not follow Christ—I am tremendously concerned that all who are outside of Christ should be saved. Any who are not following Christ are lost; they are under divine condemnation now. Walking with Christ is an impossibility until such are born from above and into the Family of God.
Christ-followers struggle with sin. I don’t mean that they look for opportunities to sin; I mean that they are conscious that they do sin, and the knowledge disturbs them. The ongoing struggle is prominently displayed when the Apostle writes in his Letter to the believers in Rome, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Well Known And Yet Unknown
Cities dye their rivers green in his honour; political dignitaries and athletes march in parades named for him and people drink beer dyed green in honour of him. Around the world, countries celebrate this day set aside in his name. All this in honor of a man whose real story few people actually know. As a Christian, you should know his story.
Imagine that you were credited with 120,000 conversions and the planting of three hundred churches. How would you begin your memoirs? Here’s how Patrick began his memoir: “I Patrick, a sinner, the rudest and the least of all the faithful, and an object of the greatest contempt to many…” In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I commend a reading of his “Confession.” [2] Anyone doing so will undoubtedly be astounded by what they find, especially will you be astounded by his genuine humility as an instrument of God’s grace.
Revival Must Begin At Home
Scripture gives me scant hope for God’s continued blessing on our nation. Speaking with a woman some weeks past, we were discussing the moral climate of the nation. As we spoke, I commented that witnessing the moral choices being made by many professed Christians, I was distressed, disappointed. She agreed, noting that many of her single friends were promiscuous—they were openly sleeping with multiple sexual partners—and the women of whom she spoke were professing Christians. Excusing immorality appears to be rather common among the professed people of God; demands for holiness from the pulpit are increasingly rare.
Reading morning devotions one crisp morning a few weeks past, I heard the voice of God speaking through Jeremiah. Jeremiah warned the nation, “‘Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!’ declares the LORD. Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: ‘You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the LORD. Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the LORD’” [JEREMIAH 23:1-4].
In A World Gone Mad, Where Is God?
Have you ever prayed the psalmist’s prayer? “How long, O Lord, will you look on” [PSALM 35:17]? When did you first ask the question asked by the prophet so many years ago, “Why does the way of the wicked prosper” [JEREMIAH 12:1]? Why, indeed? Life is not fair! Drug dealers get rich, feeding on the death of men and women whom we know. Sex offenders are not held to account. Politicians continue to lie their way into office, far too many of them exposed as crooks. Murderers are not called to account for their misdeeds. And among the churches, charlatans weasel their way into positions of authority and destroy the Zion of God. Hypocrites abound, and we question God. How long will injustice flourish? Where is God in all this? Is He unable to put an end to the evil that seems to plague our world?
Seated At The Table Of Brokenness
The story is told of a child who brought a cocoon into her bedroom. She had been told that in time a butterfly would emerge from the cocoon; so, in her eagerness to free the butterfly, she carefully snipped the silken threads so the butterfly could emerge without a struggle. The child didn’t understand that the struggle to emerge was necessary if the butterfly was ever to fulfil the destiny for which it had been created. Without the struggle to free itself from the cocoon, the butterfly would never be able to fly as it was created to do. By “helping” the poor creature, she doomed it to a brief life of walking, rather than a full life of flying, even migrating great distances. The tiring struggle to free itself from the cocoon was necessary for the butterfly to be transformed into the beautiful creature God created it to be.
Just as this child thoughtlessly neglected the truth that the butterfly needed to struggle if it would fulfil the destiny for which it was created, we are prone to forget that it is precisely the struggle that confronts us day-by-day, the wind in our faces, the seemingly constant opposition, that makes us strong. If you will ever be the beautiful example of the believer God intends you to be, you will need to inure yourself to hardship. The trials you are facing today are designed to transform you into the gracious example of a redeemed individual that glorifies the Saviour.
