Ready or Not!! The Return of Jesus - Sunday Sermon Review

June 9, 2013
Sunday Sermon Review ( from my home church I attend regularly )
Matthew Series - Matthew 24:36-51 and Matthew 25:1-13
Speaker - Pastor Ben

We are continuing on in our Matthew series. This Sunday we covered a lot of verses. Pastor Ben started out by reminding us of the child's game of hide and seek. One person will count while the other children hide. Everyone is listening for the person who is counting to shout "Ready or not - here I come. Pastor Ben drew the comparison to our waiting for the return of Jesus Christ. When the time has come, Jesus will come whether you are ready or not.

Here is some more of what Pastor Ben said:

Don't be deceived - there is only one Savior and that is Jesus.
We know that before Jesus does return, things are going to get difficult - Christians will be hated and persecuted. Jesus will return and do away with evil. The question is - When will He return?
The  temple was destroyed in 70 AD. 
We do not know when Jesus will return.
Verse 36 says But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
We need to be ready to meet Him whenever He does return. We know He could return at any moment but we also know it could still be 2000 years from now. We just do not know.
We need to be ready to meet Jesus at any time. We could die at any moment - accidentally or tragically. We know we could be called to stand before God at any moment.

Keep Watch therefore and Be Ready

How do we get ready? We should always be ready.
When our church prepares for Communion, we announce it a week before to allow time for people to prepare. But we should always be ready to participate in Communion and to stand before the Lord.
Be ready in your ordinary normal life.

Repent and Confession
Make your peace with God and with others.
We need to accurately represent God in our world.
 Be ready in a moment of crisis to represent Christ in our world.
We confess we have failed many times.
We confess we have sometimes lived for ourselves and not served others as we should.

Ezekiel 36:20 And when they entered unto the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These are the people of the Lord, and are gone forth out of his land.

We will now kneel down in a prayer of confession and repentance.

Now is the time to move forward and to change.
Commit yourself to living the life God wants for you.

Watch - open your eyes to the realty of god.
We can meet with God now.
Jesus is present with us.
Do we have our eyes open to see Jesus in our present world and lives.

Nature is infused with the glory of God. Spend time in nature - see God's creations.
Are we awake to the reality to the reality that God is here ever present with us?

Get Ready
To prepare for something you must practice ( examples are - learning to drive, rehearsals, sports events, playing music ) We have to practice.
So practice showing love to people.
Practice . It's okay if its not 100% right away - keep trying and practicing.
Practice praying. - keep practicing.
Practice reading your Bible. - Work at it. Its okay if you don't understand everything.

God is all around us, inviting us to be involved.

Watch, Wake up to the reality of God, Be Ready!

Matthew 24:36-25:13 (King James Version)

36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

43 But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?

46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.

47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.

48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;

49 And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;

50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,

51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

25 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

2 And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.

3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:

4 But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

5 While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

6 And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.

9 But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

10 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.

11 Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

12 But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

13 Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

Lent Series - Sin and Addictions

Sunday Sermon Review - March 10, 2013
( from my home church I attend regularly )

We are continuing on in our Lent series. This is the 4th Sunday of Lent. Today our topic was "Sin and Addictions". Pastor Ben was our speaker today. Next Sunday Mike will be speaking on the topic of "sickness" in our Lent series.

Ephesians 4:15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

Today we had a student from SBC share about his recent missions trip to Mexico. He spoke of the work that the missionaries are involved with there and the ministry opportunities that the SBC team had to share with the people of Mexico. Seventeen Mexican people came to know Jesus as Lord and Saviour during this time. Praise God!

The Thought for the week : "The wages of sin is death....Repent before payday."

Pastor Ben was our speaker today. His discussion was about stepping in to help people who are living in sin and addictions. This includes the homosexual issues that are surfacing around us including in our schools.

 Here is some of what he said:

As Christians, we are God's representatives in this world. We are all broken in some way.

As we walk together, speaking to sin and addictions we will find things getting messy.

* A broken relationship with God is the primary problem.

Ephesians 4:15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

First Love
We are to speak the truth in love. Both love and truth.

What is our goal in speaking?
Is it to create morally responsible citizens? - That is great but it is not the calling.
Matthew 28:19 says  Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

A disciple pursues Jesus. Becoming morally responsible will happen as a result of being in right relationship with Jesus. Therefore a broken relationship with the Lord is the primary problem.

We need to see people with the eyes of Jesus
- you are not your sin
- you are desperately loved by God
- you have been created in the image of God

The Holy Spirit plays a part
- God's Spirit is very active
- He has not abandoned us
- trust He is here, PRAY

What does " speaking in love" mean?
- love is action
- love is not merely words or feelings
- love is taking action
- do we really care about this person who is living in sin, caught in addiction?
- do we want what is best for him/her -(  for life now and eternally speaking )


How are we doing this?
- what is the action we are going to take?
- do they know that I love them?
- if they don't, then why not?
- what should I be doing differently
- love is fundamental, they need to feel that you love them

John 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
We have messed this one up.
Sometimes we have turned our backs to the problem.
LOVE DOES NOT IGNORE things - pretending everything is alright is not an option!

Now Truth
What does it mean to speak the truth?
- this means we are speaking about things that are destroying and ruining lives
some examples include - any kind of sexual activity outside of marriage, greed, lying, habitual lying, gossip, unforgiveness, bitterness and more

It is not OK for these to continue
- admit these are problems
- pray, pray for wisdom
- remember our purpose as God's representatives is to rescue and restore
- to draw people into close relationship with God

Excuses we give for not speaking up
- we are nervous, scared to talk about these things
- maybe the person we are confronting will not like us anymore after this
- we don't want to hurt people's feelings
- they will think we are intolerant

People might become offended but we still need to speak up - out of compassion because this is ruining the person's life!

We need to go humbly remembering that we also do not have it all together. We may be more messed up than we ourselves realize. Are we willing to also accept and be ready to be challenged for what we are doing?
Jesus is not saying we should not challenge others but we must admit our own brokennesss as well.
Take care of the stuff in our own lives and then go help others.

When do we intervene?
- no three step answer
- each situation is different
- pray for the Holy Spirit to guide you

Biblical Repentance....

We see the need of repentance in our own personal lives. We see the need of it in our churches and on a national level. If we want to see God withhold His Hand of judgement in our lives and in our churches and on our nation, we need to come to Him in humility and repent - turn from the wickedness and seek the Lord God with our whole heart.
But what is repentance? Repentance is a change of mind to the point where it changes your actions. It is a point of turning. You are going in one direction - you come to the knowledge of sin and you make a complete change and turn from it. You seek forgiveness from that sin with a determination to not repeat again.
In the Old Testament we read many places where it uses the word repent to describe how God withheld the punishment he was going to inflict on people when they turned from their sinful ways. A good example of this is in the story of Jonah. Jonah preached to the people of Nineveh saying that God would destroy Nineveh in 40 days if the people continued on in their sin and in Jonah 3: 10 it says  And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
The story of Jonah is also a good one to show us what real repentance from sin looks like. It is not just saying "oh sorry God I messed up" and then continue on without any further thought and next thing you know, you are doing that very same thing again and the quick "sorry God"  did not change you at all.
Our sin grieves the heart of God and in the story of Jonah, God was grieved over the sin of the people in Nineveh. In Jonah 1:2 God says to Jonah - Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. Jonah did not go as the Lord God instructed and he had that whole experience inside the belly of the great fish. But in Jonah 3 God again sends Jonah to the city of Nineveh.and this is the message he brings -  Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. At hearing this the people acknowledge their sinful ways and turn to the Lord for forgiveness. Jonah 3:5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. Here we see that the realization of their sin brings sorrow to their hearts. They believe God's message - God is Holy and we have sinned against Him.
Jonah 3: 8-9  But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

Repentance involves your mind, your emotions, and your will.
1) Mind - within your heart you must be convicted that God has the authority to tell you what is sin. You must believe the Bible when it tells you what God considers to be sin. The Ten commandments tell us the heart of God. I would encourage everyone to read my blog post on the Ten Commandments. If anyone reading this doesn't know what grieves the heart of God, Galatians 5: 19-21 tells you
¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
²⁰ Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
²¹ Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

2) Emotions - You become broken and ashamed of your sin. This definitely involves crying out to God for mercy and you grieve over your sin and for most people this would involve the shedding of some tears.
3) Will - You need to have a plan of action. You need to plan how you together with the help of God are going to make this change happen. This involves making things right with other people. This involves prayer, burying yourself in the Word of God, seeking Him with your whole heart. You hate the very sin that you used to love because now you see it as God sees it. You hate the sin and want no part in it at all.

You will know you have repented when you see these Fruits of Repentance in your life:
1) Absence of rationalization - you are no longer looking for a way to justify what you have done, or blame it on others or explain it to make it seem like no big deal. There is an absence of phrases like - "everyone is doing it" or " the devil made me do it", or "I just couldn't help it", or " it's just how I am and you will just have to accept it", etc
2) Genuine Sorrow, Heartbrokeness - You are genuinely sorry for what you have done. Even if you get the chance to do that sin thing again, you will not do it because now you hate it, the very thought that you did it other times sickens you. As I mentioned earlier you are grieving over your sin.
3) Open Confession of Sin - You are no longer trying to hide it. It is out in the open now. You have stepped away from that former lifestyle. You need to confess this to the people close to you and sometimes to your church. You are accountable to God.
4) Restitution - You want to make things right with those you hurt. You are willing to do whatever it takes to make things right. We see the heart of one who wants to make restitution in the story of Zacchaeus  Luke 19 verses 8-9 :  And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.  And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham.

So again I say we see the need of repentance in our own personal lives. We see the need of it in the churches and on a national level. If we want to see God withhold His Hand of judgement in our lives and in our churches and on our nation, we need to come to Him in humility and repent - turn from the wickedness and seek the Lord God with our whole heart.

Mistakes at home and school...

It is safe to say that we all make mistakes. It is also true that we learn from the mistakes we make. The mistakes we made as children can actually be a benefit to us if we are able to learn from them.  In childhood the consequences are usually much more minor than they are in adulthood. The Bible says that we all fall in many ways. James 3:2 -For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
I am thinking about a few specific instances in my growing up years where I did wrong and I think that through these mistakes I learned that it is better to do right from the start.
The first situation happened while I was quite young, probably around seven years old. As I have mentioned in some of my earlier posts, I have five sisters. This one particular sunny day my mom and older sisters were doing laundry. I had been in the house with them and it seemed that one of my sisters was having a particularly hard day and was having a hard time being cheerful and was downright grumpy. So I went outside to play. I noticed my other sister at the old well, hand pumping water to take to the house. I decided to giver her a fair warning about my other sister's grumpy disposition so I called out to her "beware". My mom overheard me and asked me " Did you say that to her because of your other sister? - because if you did, I am going to give you a spanking". Mom knew it!  I did say that as a warning to my sister but I sure did not want a spanking so I lied.   I said " No, that is not why called out the warning to....beware".  I got away with my lie  that day and I did not get the spanking I deserved and she asked no further questions. The only problem was that I felt very very guilty. We had been taught that we should not lie and I had lied on purpose in an instant to avoid pain. I didn't do anything about it for a long while, just kept it inside me and the guilt rose up inside every time I thought about it. I finally confessed to my Mom several years later. She laughed about it when I told her but to this day I remember it so well. I learned that lying and being untruthful makes me miserable. I learned that I need to face up to my wrong actions.

The second incident involved cheating on a school test. in grade 8. I usually studied hard, tried to be honest and kind and did pretty reasonable on my assignments and tests.  I can still see where I was sitting in the classroom writing the test. As I remember the teacher was Mr Revel who gave the class the test. One question puzzled me and I did not know the anwer. I looked over to the student's paper on the desk across the isle and I saw the answer that student had chosen. I marked down the same answer and felt confident that I had made the right choice. A few days later, the teacher had marked the tests and returned them to the class. To my disappointment, the question that I had cheated on was marked wrong.  From then on I knew that rather than looking over at my neighbor's papers, I would just take an honest guess if I did not know the answer on a test. Cheating did not help me at all. I believe it was to my benefit that I did not get the right answer there and I got it wrong as I deserved.

The last situation I am thinking about also happened in school in grade 9. It was in Mr. Switzer's class. Mr Switzer assigned work to the class and with orders that we were all to stay in our desks till he returned as he needed to step out for just a couple of minutes. As you may know from some of my earlier posts, I was very good friends with a girl named Nettie. So when Mr Switzer left the room I got out of my desk and went over to Nettie's  desk to help her with a few questions. I was not the only student who disobeyed but when Mr Switzer walked in and saw us out of our desks he was understandably upset. He said " Everyone of you who was out of your desk has detention at noon today. You know who you are and I know who you are so I will see you at noon." I knew that I was guilty and I had been caught. So when noon time came, I went for detention. When he saw me walk in he said to me "you were not out of your desk, you do not have detention". This was confusing for me but what could I say?  I was willing to do my time but I was shown grace and let go inspite of my mistakes. I learned that it is better for me if I own up to my mistakes and am willing to face the consequences than to hide from it.  Proverbs 28:13 - He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy

The same is true in our relationship with God.  God wants us to come to Him and confess our sins to Him and repent of them and He will forgive us and cleanse us.     The Bible says in 1 John 1:9 -

⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.