I want to share a story with you to set up why Heaven matters. As I share this I realize some of you have faced similar situations. This comes from Paul Enns’ book on Heaven.

[may summarize in my words]

After I had parked the car, Helen and I walked to the sanctuary, holding hands as we always did when we walked together. We had been husband and wife for forty-five years, yet I still felt like a newly engaged young man, smitten with love and thrilled by holding hands with the one he loves. Our pastor, Ken Whitten, became emotional and teary-eyed that Sunday evening as he spoke during the sermon of being with his father just before he died.

 Pastor Ken recalled how he told his father, “I’ll meet you at the tree of life.” I leaned over to Helen and told her, “I’ll meet you at the Eastern Gate.” She smiled and responded in agreement. After the service we visited with numerous people (as Helen loved to do) and finally walked to the car, hand in hand. I opened the car door for her, and soon we were on our way home. I was unusually tired that evening and headed for bed ahead of Helen.

 When she came to bed I was almost asleep, so I missed our nightly ritual. Before turning out the light we would clasp hands, and Helen would say, “Gutte nacht, mein schatz!” (“Good night, my treasure!”) I would respond, “Gutte nacht, mein schatze!” (“Good night, my little treasure!”)

 The next morning, as I was leaving the house to drive to Idlewild Baptist Church to teach an extension seminary class, Helen walked to the car with me—as she always did. She carried my mug of coffee, took a few sips (she wasn’t supposed to drink coffee since it made her heart act up), and then handed me the cup. She was wearing walking shorts.

“Go inside, it’s too cold,” I suggested. But I knew she wouldn’t go in. Whenever I drove away, she would always wave me off. I backed out of the driveway, and as I drove away she blew me some kisses and then waved to me.

 She was now in the street, and continued to wave until I turned the corner at the far end of the street. Our love was simple and sincere. We never got over the thrill and joy of the love we had for each other. That morning, as I taught about the bodily resurrection of Christ, I became emotional and began to cry. I couldn’t explain it. At two o’clock I finished teaching the class but stayed for another half-hour talking to the students. I arrived home about 2:45 p.m. to find the door was locked. That was unusual, since Helen would always unlock the door when she knew I was coming home. I unlocked the door and entered the house. “Helen,” I called. No answer. I called louder, “HELEN!” Still no answer. She must be working outside, I told myself. I put down my briefcase and walked into the kitchen.

 I screamed as I saw Helen lying face down on the kitchen floor. I ran to her, turned her over, but there was no movement.“HELEN, HELEN!” I shouted. I ran to the kitchen phone and quickly dialed 911, crying and screaming at the same time. The lady admonished me to calm down, so I could help Helen. I followed her instruction and gave Helen mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, pumping her chest as I was told to do. In a short time the ambulance arrived, and the men took over.

 For over an hour they sought to revive Helen. Finally, they came to me and said, “We could take her to the hospital, but the line is flat. She’s gone.” Words are incapable of describing my emotion at that moment. My beloved Helen was gone! I couldn’t begin to fathom that it had actually happened. Helen gone! I couldn’t fathom it. It’s not true! It can’t be!

 I had never gotten over the thrill of Helen. From the moment I laid my eyes on her smiling face and happy eyes, I was captivated by her. I have told people I was on a forty-five-year honeymoon. Now she was gone.

 Death is a harsh reality, one we don’t like to relate to ourselves. Helen and I had recently talked, and she had mentioned that we both have longevity in our blood, and we planned what we would do when we hit our eighties. But Helen was only sixty-five, and now she was gone from me. But death encompasses everyone. As someone has said, “Death is all-inclusive; it’s one out of one.”

 THOUGHTS OF HEAVEN That singular event has changed my life and my thinking. My thoughts are constantly focused on heaven. I’m absorbed with the thought of heaven. The thought of reunion with my beloved Helen! But that raises many questions.

What is heaven like…[1]

 That is the subject that we are going to continue. What is Heaven like?

Today, I want to talk about the present Heaven versus the eternal Heaven.

Jonathan Edwards, the great Puritan preacher, often spoke of Heaven. He said, “It becomes us to spend this life only as a journey toward heaven . .  . to which we should subordinate all other concerns of life. Why should we labor for or set our hearts on anything else, but that which is our proper end and true happiness?”[2]

So, let’s look at Heaven.

It is really difficult to talk about Heaven without looking up a lot of passages, but for flow I only want you to have to turn to one passage. I will have other passages in my notes which are in your bulletin. In Revelation 6:9-11 we see a scene of martyrs interceding in Heaven. This is a scene in Heaven and we can draw some conclusions from it.

Let’s read Revelation 6:9-11:

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained.¹⁰ They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” ¹¹ Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.

1. Let’s start by differentiating between the two Heavens.
   1. We find in Scripture that the future Heaven is not on eternal the end of the Bible. In Revelation 21 we find the reference to the future Heaven and that is the new Jerusalem. We find other references throughout the Bible to the New Jerusalem and that is the eternal Heaven.
   2. We also find through the Bible references to the millennial reign. We find this in Rev. 20:2-6 as well as Old Testament passages. This is not the New Jerusalem, nor is it the current Heaven.
   3. When we think of passages concerning the resurrection of the body, that will be for the new Jerusalem and maybe the millennial reign. When we think of passages about Jesus wiping every tear from our eyes and no more crying, etc. (Rev. 21) that is the New Jerusalem. A lot of what we talk about for the coming weeks will concern the New Jerusalem and eternal Heaven, so today I want to talk more specifically about the current Heaven.
   4. For the rest of the message I want to draw on 5 encouraging applications about the current Heaven. I will substantiate these applications from the Rev. 6:9-11 passage and a few others.
      1. We can be encouraged that we go straight to Heaven when we die. (Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23)
         1. Heaven is where God resides and we will go straight to Heaven. We can know that we go to be with God because those saints are with God and they are interceding for others.
         2. We also know in Luke 23:43 Jesus told the thief that that very day he would join Jesus in paradise.
         3. In 2 Cor. 5:8 Paul wrote about being absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
         4. In Phil. 1:23 Paul also wrote about departing and joining Jesus.
         5. We go to be with God in Heaven when we die.
         6. Now, where is Heaven? Scientists at Yale, Princeton, and Stanford, among others, postulate that there are ten unobservable dimensions and likely an infinite number of imperceptible universes.[3]
         7. I find that fascinating. Heaven is in a realm that we are imperceptible to, but God is there.
         8. We see it happen in Scripture, such as 2 Kings 6:17 when Elisha’s servant’s eyes are opened in order to see God’s angels all around him.
      2. We can be encouraged that we will have consciousness in the immediate Heaven. (1 Samuel 28:16-19; Luke 9:31; 16:19-31; Rev. 6:9-11)
         1. We see in Scripture that we will be conscious. If we simply think about this passage in Revelation, they are conscious and they are actually interceding for the persecuted church.
         2. We also see consciousness in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31.
      3. We can be encouraged that we will have contact with those who have gone before us. (Luke 16:19-31; Rev. 6:9-11: they worship, not one merged identity)
         1. In the Rev. 6:9-11 passage they are worshipping together. We see the people together again in Rev. 7:9-10:

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.  And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne,  and to the Lamb.” ^[4]

1. We see a group of people together.
2. There is no reason to think that our when people die they are not reunited with their loved ones as well.
3. By the way, these Scriptural examples are specific cases, it seems that Heaven is far greater than anything we can think or imagine.
4. Worshipping Jesus is exciting, standing before His throne, but Heaven will be more than worship.
5. Heaven will be fellowship, we see that indicated in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31.
6. Paul desired Heaven more than earth so it must be greater than we can think of.
7. In 2 Cor. 12 Paul wrote of some type of near death experience and said that he saw things that he was not permitted to speak of. He also did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body.
8. Now, is a good time for me to also say that it seems that the immediate Heaven is physical, not purely spiritual.
9. Listen, the physical body is not bad, it is good. It is Christoplatonism to think that it is bad. Remember I shared that last Sunday. Greek philosophy, Platonism, impacted Christianity to think the physical is bad, but it isn’t.
10. These descriptions in Rev. 6:9-11 and in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus give physical descriptions. They had voices to cry out. They were wearing white robes.
11. “The rich man and Lazarus are depicted as having physical forms. The rich man had a tongue and a thirst that he wished to satisfy with water. Lazarus had a finger, and there was water available to him in Paradise, into which he might dip his finger. Of course, these references may be entirely figurative. But they might also suggest the possession of transitional physical forms, existing in a physical Paradise, to sustain and manifest human identity between death and resurrection.”[5]
12. These bodies and this physical realm is still different than the New Jerusalem and the bodies are not our resurrected bodies, they may be temporary bodies, but it does seem physical.
13. The physical can go in and out of the spiritual. We see that all throughout the Bible when God interacts with humanity. Of course God is spiritual. (John 4:24), but the angels are physical and the interact with our realm. (Hebrews 13:2; Genesis 18: The Lord’s appearance to Abraham; Genesis 19 the angels visiting Lot)
14. We also know that God is unchanging, that does not mean that Heaven is unchanging. God can change Heaven as He sees fit. This means Heaven can be a certain way now, but then transition when the New Jerusalem comes down from earth.

4. We can be encouraged that in Heaven we will have a memory of life on earth, otherwise we would be a different person. (Luke 16:19-31)
   1. In the passage in Luke 16:19-31 the rich man and Lazarus had memories of their life on earth.
   2. I like how Randy Alcorn points out that without our memories we would be different people.
   3. Also, in 1 Samuel 28:16-19 Saul wrongfully tries to bring up the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel and Samuel remembered Saul and really was alert to what was going on.
5. We can be encouraged that it is likely our past family members and friends are interceding for us now. (Rev. 6:9-11)
   11. We see this in Rev. 6:9-11. They are interceding for the Christians on earth.
   12. Actually their intercession is more valuable than our prayers because they are with Jesus and so they are righteous. James tells us that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective and they are righteous or they wouldn’t be in Heaven. (James 5:16)
   13. This means they ae interceding for us, but that does not mean we should pray to them. We can pray straight to Jesus, why pray to anyone other than Jesus Who is Lord and God. (Hebrews 4:14-16)
   14. Just imagine that your friends and family are up on Heaven interceding for you, isn’t that amazing?

Conclusion:

So, we go straight to Heaven and then eventually to the New Jerusalem.

To illustrate, imagine you lived in a homeless shelter in Miami. One day you inherit a beautiful house overlooking Santa Barbara, California, and are given a wonderful job doing something you’ve always wanted to do. Many friends and family will live nearby.

As you fly toward Santa Barbara, you stop at the Dallas airport for a layover. Other family members you haven’t seen in years meet you. They will board the plane with you to Santa Barbara. Naturally you look forward to seeing them in Dallas, your first stop.

But if someone asks where you’re going, would you say “Dallas”? No. You would say Santa Barbara, because that’s your final destination. Dallas is just a temporary stop. At most you might say “I’m going to Santa Barbara, with a brief stop in Dallas.”[6] Similarly, the Heaven we will go to when we die, the present Heaven, is a temporary dwelling place, a stop along the way to our final destination: the New Earth. Another analogy is more precise but difficult to imagine, because for most of us it’s outside our experience. Imagine leaving the homeless shelter in Miami and flying to the intermediate location, Dallas, and then turning around and going back home to your place of origin, which has been completely renovated— a New Miami. In this New Miami, you would no longer live in a homeless shelter, but in a beautiful house in a glorious pollution-free, crime-free, sin-free city. So you would end up living not in a different home, but in a radically improved version of your old home. This is what the Bible promises us— we will live with Christ and each other forever, not in the intermediate, or present, Heaven, but on the New Earth, where God will be at home with his people.

On December 21, 1899, D. L. Moody awoke from sleep early in the morning and began to speak: “Earth recedes; heaven opens before me.” His son was at his bedside and thought he was dreaming and attempted to rouse him. “No, this is no dream, Will,” Mr. Moody replied. “It is beautiful. It is like a trance. If this is death, it is sweet. There is no valley here. God is calling me, and I must go.” Mr. Moody continued to talk as if from another world. “Then it seemed as though he saw beyond the veil, for he exclaimed, ‘This is my triumph; this is my Coronation Day! I have been looking forward to it for years.’ Then his face lit up, and he said, in a voice of joyful rapture, ‘Dwight! Irene! I see the children’s faces!’”—referring to the two little grandchildren God had taken from his life in the past year. Moments later Moody was gone. He had entered heaven.[8]

Paul Enns writes:

IN HEAVEN

Our existence continues.

We shall never die.

We are in our new home.

Angels will escort us.

Christ will welcome us.

We will be with Christ.

We will be reunited with loved ones.

We will be home.

We will be where Jesus wants us to be.[9]

Do you know Christ?

Luke 9:23

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

[1] Enns, Paul P. (2011-03-01). Heaven Revealed: What Is It Like? What Will We Do?… And 11 Other Things You’ve Wondered About (pp. 10-11). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[2] Alcorn, Randy (2011-12-08). Heaven (Alcorn, Randy) (Kindle Locations 352-354). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[3] Alcorn, Randy (2011-12-08). Heaven (Alcorn, Randy) (Kindle Locations 997-1005). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

^[4] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Re 7:9–10.

[5] Alcorn, Randy (2011-12-08). Heaven (Alcorn, Randy) (Kindle Locations 1443-1447). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[6] http://www.epm.org/blog/2015/Apr/22/present-heaven-future-heaven

[7] Alcorn, Randy (2011-12-08). Heaven (Alcorn, Randy) (Kindle Locations 978-981). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[8] Enns, Paul P. (2011-03-01). Heaven Revealed: What Is It Like? What Will We Do?… And 11 Other Things You’ve Wondered About (p. 43). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[9] Enns, Paul P. (2011-03-01). Heaven Revealed: What Is It Like? What Will We Do?… And 11 Other Things You’ve Wondered About (p. 39). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

A man arrives at the gates of heaven. St. Peter asks, “Denomination?” The man says, “Methodist.” St. Peter looks down his list, and says, “Go to room 24, but be very quiet as you pass room 8.”

Another man arrives at the gates of heaven. “Denomination?”

“Lutheran.”

“Go to room 18, but be very quiet as you pass room 8.”

A third man arrives at the gates. “Denomination?”

“Presbyterian.”

“Go to room 11, but be very quiet as you pass room 8.”

The man says, “I can understand there being different rooms for different denominations, but why must I be quiet when I pass room 8?”

St. Peter tells him, “Well the Baptists are in room 8, and they think they’re the only ones here.[1]

Years ago when I moved to Alliance, okay, it has only been five years and four months, but who’s counting? Anyways, I moved from Cincinnati, though I am originally from Dayton. One day I walked in a barber shop, it was a small barber shop that a local recommended, but when I walked in I felt like I stood out like a Steelers fan in the Dawg Pound. I saw a few guys shootin’ the breeze there and one of them asked me, “You’re not from around here, are you?” I said where I was from and they made me welcome, but I will never forget walking in there. The realization hit, “No, I am new in town.” It has only been ten years since I lived in the Dayton area, but everything has changed. Sometimes I like to go to the website of the school I graduated from or check it out on Facebook because it has all changed. Nothing, absolutely nothing, stays the same. Last year, they tore down my high school and built another one. I attended the same school district from Kindergarten through twelfth grade and it is all different. I like to think back; I think I do that more as my daughter gets older. I think about what it was like when I was five and what my dad was doing, though my dad was younger then I am now when I was that age. Everything changes. So, having moved just less than four hours from home, I am amazed at people who move overseas. I am amazed at people who left Germany, or Ireland in the late 19^th century to begin a new life in the States. Where are you from? Do you long to think back to the area you came from? Or, maybe you long to think back to a different age? Are you longing for something, or somewhere, or sometime? 

Paul Enns in his book on Heaven writes:

What are you looking for and longing for? In America, people sometimes long for the wrong things—and what they really want (although they don’t know it) and what they really need will remain elusive to them. Many think they need another car, a vacation home, the newest items in technology. They think the latest fashions in the shopping centers will satisfy their longings. They won’t. The longing that God has placed in our hearts is for heaven, a better place, a better country. But more specifically, it is a country of our ancestry.[2]

We may long for a place, a time, or something else, but what we are really longing for is Heaven. God created us for Heaven.

Theme:

My theme is simple: Heaven is real and you were created for it.

My application is hopefully encouraging: Long for Heaven, Heaven is paradise.

1. Heaven is real and you were created for it:
   1. Randy Alcorn: Heaven:
   2. The sense that we will live forever somewhere has shaped every civilization in human history. Australian aborigines pictured Heaven as a distant island beyond the western horizon. The early Finns thought it was an island in the faraway east. Mexicans, Peruvians, and Polynesians believed that they went to the sun or the moon after death. Native Americans believed that in the afterlife their spirits would hunt the spirits of buffalo. The Gilgamesh epic, an ancient Babylonian legend, refers to a resting place of heroes and hints at a tree of life. In the pyramids of Egypt, the embalmed bodies had maps placed beside them as guides to the future world. The Romans believed that the righteous would picnic in the Elysian fields while their horses grazed nearby. Seneca, the Roman philosopher, said, “The day thou fearest as the last is the birthday of eternity.” Although these depictions of the afterlife differ, the unifying testimony of the human heart throughout history is belief in life after death. Anthropological evidence suggests that every culture has a God-given, innate sense of the eternal— that this world is not all there is.[3]
   3. The Roman catacombs, where the bodies of many martyred Christians were buried, contain tombs with inscriptions such as these:
   4. In Christ, Alexander is not dead, but lives.
   5. One who lives with God.
   6. He was taken up into his eternal home.
   7. One historian writes, “Pictures on the catacomb walls portray Heaven with beautiful landscapes, children playing, and people feasting at banquets.”
   8. In AD 125, a Greek named Aristides wrote to a friend about Christianity, explaining why this “new religion” was so successful: “If any righteous man among the Christians passes from this world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God, and they escort his body with songs and thanksgiving as if he were setting out from one place to another nearby.”
   9. In the third century, the church father Cyprian said, “Let us greet the day which assigns each of us to his own home, which snatches us from this place and sets us free from the snares of the world, and restores us to paradise and the kingdom. Anyone who has been in foreign lands longs to return to his own native land.  .  .  . We regard paradise as our native land.”[4]
   10. Our native land is not here, nor is it overseas. Our native land is Heaven. We were created for it.
   11. S. Lewis wrote: If our deepest desires cannot be satisfied in this world, then we must have been made for another world.” He pondered this and other truths, which led him to Christ.
   12. There’s cartoonist G. Larson’s “Far Side” which shows a guy strumming a harp on a cloud in heaven saying: “Wish I’d have brought a magazine.” Mark Twain paints the same picture in Huckleberry Finn, telling how Huck doesn’t want to go there because of how the spinster Watson has portrayed it, and because she’s certain Tom Sawyer won’t be there, so Huck doesn’t want to be there without Tom (p. 7).
   13. What a contrast to Charles Spurgeon, Twain’s contemporary, called the Prince of Preachers in the 19^thcentury: “To come to Thee is to come home from exile, to come to land out of the raging storm, to come to rest after long labour, to come to the goal of my desires and the summit of my wishes.” (p. 7)[5]
   14. Part of the problem is that we have an inaccurate view of Heaven. Let’s begin to change that.
2. Heaven is a place
   1. I am beginning a series on Heaven, so I don’t want to spoil the series today, instead I just wish to set up the series.
   2. I will talk about several passages and you can look them up at home.
   3. Sometimes we think things in Heaven are only spiritual. This is not true.
   4. If things in Heaven are only spiritual then why does God use so many material objects to illustrate what we’ll have in Heaven, like “house, dwelling, clothed, rooms (Jn. 14), white robes (Rev. 6:10-11), rivers, gardens, and the tree of life in Heaven. (Rev. 2:7; 22:2) refers to the SAME Tree of Life that was physical in the Garden of Eden in (Gen. 2:9).[6]
   5. Randy Alcorn writes: Christoplatonism: Plato was “the first Western philosopher to claim that reality is fundamentally something ideal or abstract.” “For Plato . .  . the body is a hindrance, as it opposes and even imprisons the soul (Phaedo 65– 68; 91– 94).”
   6. But according to Scripture, our bodies aren’t just shells for our spirits to inhabit; they’re a good and essential aspect of our being. Likewise, the earth is not a second-rate location from which we must be delivered. Rather, it was handmade by God for us. Earth, not some incorporeal state, is God’s choice as mankind’s original and ultimate dwelling place.
   7. To distinguish the version of Platonism seen among Christians from secular forms of Platonism, I’ve [Randy Alcorn] coined the term Christoplatonism. This philosophy has blended elements of Platonism with Christianity, and in so doing has poisoned Christianity and blunted its distinct differences from Eastern religions. Because appeals to Christoplatonism appear to take the spiritual high ground, attempts to refute this false philosophy often appear to be materialistic, hedonistic, or worldly.[7]
   8. But Heaven is a real place. Jesus reminded His disciples to pray, “Our Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9).
   9. In the Bible it will refer to multiple heavens: 1) the atmosphere, the universe and where God resides.
   10. Look at these Scriptures: They are in your bulletin and on the screen:

Psalm 2:4

The One enthroned in heaven laughs…

2 Cor. 12:4:

I was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.

2 Cor. 5:6, 8:

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

2 Tim. 4:8:

Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Titus 2:14:

¹⁴ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Matthew 6:33:

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

2 Peter 3:11-14:

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives ¹² as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.^[a] That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. ¹³ But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

Col. 3:1-2:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

John 14:1-2:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God^[a]; believe also in me.² My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 

1. Heaven is a destination,
2. It will not be boring,
3. It is paradise.

• Significance of Heaven.
  1. Have you lost loved ones, you’ll see them again if they were in Christ.
  2. Are you having trouble walking or maybe you cannot walk, you will have a perfect body someday.
  3. Maybe your eye sight is failing, that not eternity, you will have renewed vision.
  4. Maybe your memory is struggling, you will know more and remember again (1 Cor. 13:9-13).
  5. Maybe you are watching a loved one suffer through something, know that this is not how God intended it. This is because of our sin-filled world. Your loved one will live again without these sufferings.
  6. Do you have trouble getting up and facing each day? Do you experience pain constantly? This will end and you will have a perfect body.
  7. Do you experience depression or mental illness? In Heaven this will be gone.
  8. Do you have a loved one that you cannot talk with because of Autism or something else? You will have conversations with that loved one in Heaven.
  9. Jesus reminded His disciples to pray, “Our Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9).
  10. Heaven is hope. I have talked to the Ear Nose and Throat Doctor about certain medications for our children. Sometimes he will say, “Yea, go ahead and give that homeopathic medicine to them. It won’t cause harm and it will make you feel better.
  11. Have you ever been at a family reunion and you wanted to see and talk to so many people, but there just wasn’t time? There will be in Heaven. And, you will be able to talk to Jesus, and Moses, and Elijah and all these other people.
  12. Do you want to see your parents again? Your grandparents?
  13. In Christ Alone: No guilt in life, no fear in death…

1. Different sources:
   1. As we talk about Heaven, I am studying from Scripture, but also several books and Bible dictionaries. Here are four of them.
   2. Randy Alcorn has two books on Heaven. One is simply called “Heaven.” The other is called “Heaven, Biblical Answers to Common Questions.”
   3. Paul Enns has a book called “Heaven Revealed.”
   4. Chip Ingram has a book called “The Real Heaven, What the Bible Actually Says.”

Close:

A few weeks ago a family of five died in a car accident. They were young parents, 29 years old, with three children. They were soon going to Japan as missionaries. The youngest was 2 months old. Their car was hit from behind by a semi and they died at the scene, all of them. That broke my heart. But upon further reflection, this is cause for praise. They all went to Jesus together. They could have experienced 80 years of suffering in this life, but instead they are in Jesus’ presence. They are in Heaven.

What are you longing for?

Almost two years after Meagan and I got married we moved from the farmhouse which we lived in to live with my parents. I was almost finished with college and it made more sense to live with my parents as we finished. My parents had moved to a place which cut down my drive time to school and Meagan’s drive time to work. We were both driving an hour each way. The nine or so months we lived with my parents were great, but we longed for our own place again. We longed to take our furniture out of storage and move into our own house and that day did come.

When Meagan was pregnant, both times, we longed for the day of our daughter’s birth.

But you know what we all, all of us as humans long for? We long for Heaven. We try to duplicate Heaven in our homes, malls, amusement parks, vacation destinations. We desire Heaven because we were created for Heaven.

Do you know Christ?

Luke 9:23

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

[1] http://jokes.christiansunite.com/Heaven/Shhhhhhhh!.shtml

[2] Enns, Paul P. (2011-03-01). Heaven Revealed: What Is It Like? What Will We Do?… And 11 Other Things You’ve Wondered About (p. 31). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[3] Alcorn, Randy (2011-12-08). Heaven (Alcorn, Randy) (Kindle Locations 265-274). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[4] Alcorn, Randy (2011-12-08). Heaven (Alcorn, Randy) (Kindle Locations 287-288). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[5] Rick Sams’ sermon on Heaven

[6] Rick Sams’ sermon on Heaven

[7] Alcorn, Randy (2011-12-08). Heaven (Alcorn, Randy) (Kindle Locations 8723-8724). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Introduction:

Let’s start with a music video. Play the Fruit of the Spirit VBS song video.

Chip Ingram: A Christian family is a witness:

I once heard a message by Chip Ingram where he talked about how the Christian family is a witness. He talked about a neighbor who was going through a divorce. She was in the process of moving and Chip was in his front yard passing the ball around with his children. The woman came over to him and said, “I’m done with men. I’ve been married three times [I think it was 3], but if I were to get married again I want a man who is a dad like you.”[1] This had nothing to do with a normal attractiveness to him, but that he was a dad to his children. Being a Christian is a witness. Actually, being a Christian is a witness for or against Christianity. Allowing your patterns of behavior to be shaped by Christ makes you a witness. Either you are a witness in great kindness and behavior. Or, you are a witness because of the opposite. Sometimes we are a witness because Jesus has changed us so much. Paul Dyksorn once talked about how after he became a Christian he actually liked people. He didn’t like people before that. Jesus changes us and this is a witness.

We are lifestyle witnesses.

What Is Your Biggest Sin?

Three preachers were on a non-productive fishing trip when they began to discuss various topics to pass the time. One preacher said he thought it would be nice if they confessed their biggest sins to each other and then prayed for each other. They all agreed, and the first preacher said that his biggest sin was that he liked to sit at the beach now and then and watch pretty women stroll by.

The second preacher confessed that his biggest sin was that he went to the horse racing track every so often and put a small bet on a horse.

Turning to the third preacher, they asked, “Brother, what is your biggest sin?”

With a grin, he said, “My biggest sin is gossiping.”

Submitted by Van Morris, Mount Washington, Kentucky

[Bring up a house plant with an apply in it or hanging from it.] What is wrong with this picture? Apples don’t grow on house plants, do they? No.

Likewise, Jesus produces fruit.

Jesus said in Matthew 7:16

You will know them by their fruits. ²Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?^[2]

We are known by the fruit that we produce. The Holy Spirit produces fruit.

My theme today is: The Church Has Left the Building Part III: Lifestyle Evangelism, Reflecting Christ in your life.

1. Christians have different fruit.
   1. The fruits of the world are in Galatians 5:19-21: The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹ and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God^[3]
   2. We are not going to talk about these today, but know that there is a major contrast between Jesus’ people and the world. That list includes who we are without Christ. People with these characteristics do not go to Heaven. They can’t this fruit is against God. This means we must be different.
   3. The fruit of the Spirit is in Galatians 5:22-23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.^[4]
   4. We are going to talk about these.
   5. Living this way makes us a witness.
   6. We talked about serving others, we talked about our relationships, but just think about our lifestyle. The patterns of our lives give off certain fruits. The fruit shows if we are an apple tree or a pear tree.
   7. The idea of “putting on” certain fruits is used more often in the New Testament: Col 3:12.
   8. Notice it says the “fruit” of the Spirit. This is singular. The Holy Spirit produces one fruit and it consists of these nouns: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The fruit is singular otherwise it would say “are” as in “Fruits are,” we can’t say, “fruits ‘is.’ No, it is one fruit that the Holy Spirit gives us.
   9. Many have written that it could say, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” This love is defined by joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Let’s break them down with “mental or God-ward qualities, interpersonal or other-ward qualities and general or self-ward qualities.
   10. Mental or God-ward qualities (v. 22)
       1. “Love” (Gr. agape, self-sacrificing affection for others)
       2. “Joy” (Gr. chara, deep-seated gladness regardless of circumstances)

• “Peace” (Gr. eirene, inner quietness and repose regardless of circumstances)

1. Interpersonal or other-ward qualities (v. 22)
   1. “Patience” (Gr. makrothymia, forbearance even under provocation)
   2. “Kindness” (Gr. chrestotes, benevolence and graciousness)

• “Goodness” (Gr. agathosyne, constructive action reaching out to others)

1. General or self-ward qualities (vv. 22-23)
   1. “Faithfulness” (Gr. pistis, reliability, trustworthiness)
   2. “Gentleness” (Gr. praytes, acquiescence to authority and consideration of others)

• “Self-control” (Gr. enkrateia, ability to master oneself)

1. Let’s take a moment to apply.
   1. We all mess up. We will all be lacking in the Holy Spirit’s work one day. We will be lacking in one of the aspects of the fruit of the Spirit someday. Simply own up to it and apologize. Simply tell someone that you were unloving in a comment. Acknowledge to yourself that you are lacking joy. Acknowledge and ask God to help you with peace.
   2. We all lack on at least a few aspects of the Fruit of the Spirit. It could be patience, it could be self-control, it could be goodness, it could be faithfulness or you name it.
   3. Imagine the witness if Christians were more gentle.
   4. Imagine the witness of Christians were known as those having self-control. Imagine if people thought of us as not those that are flying of the handle and ready to blow. Imagine if people knew Christians had power under control. Imagine the witness if Christians had more control in eating alone. Think about self-control.
   5. Remember the Lays potato chip commercial that used to say, “You can’t eat just one!” We need self-control with our eating and I don’t know if that is as bad of a witness as a lack of self-control with our temper or with our sexual appetites. But we need self-control. Trust me, I can lose my temper as quickly as you can, I can eat as many dips of ice cream as you can. I am working on this, I am praying about this.
   6. Imagine the witness if Christians were known as kind.
   7. Imagine if Christians were known as faithful. We need to be faithful to God and to others. Imagine if we were known as faithful to our family.
   8. Humor Inspired
      1. A preacher, who shall we say was “humor inspired”, attended a conference to help encourage and better equip pastors for their ministry. Among the speakers were many well-known and dynamic speakers.
      2. One such speaker, boldly approached the pulpit, gathered the entire crowd’s attention, and said, “the best years of my life were spent in the arms of a woman that wosn’t my wife!” The crowd was shocked! He followed up by saying, “And that woman was my mother!” The crowd burst into laughter and delivered the rest of his speech, which went quite well.

• The next week, the pastor decided he’d give this humor thing a try, and used that joke in his sermon. As he approached the pulpit that sunny Sunday morning, he tried to rehearse this joke in his head. It suddenly seemed a bit foggy to him.

1. Getting to the microphone, he said loudly, “The greatest years of my life were spend in the arms of another woman that was not my wife!” The congregation inhaled half the air in the room! After standing there for almost 10 seconds in stunned silence, trying to recall the second half of the joke, the pastor finally blurred out, “…and I can’t remember who she was!”

1. I am listening to a series of podcasts called “Presidential.” I am listening on my phone. They are made by the Washington Post. Turns out Warren Harding had an affair, actually many of them. Many, many years after his death many love letters were found. The family released them, I think to the Library of Congress, as long as they weren’t public for something like fifty years. I don’t know whether or not he was a Christian, but imagine if Christians were known as faithful.
2. What a witness is a Christian dad who is faithful to his wife and his children.
3. What a witness is a Christian mom who is faithful. I was listening to someone who wrote a book which included information about the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger. I am not going to diminish that they may have done a few good things, not that that offsets that many babies murdered. But she was not faithful, she ran off on her husband many, many times. He was faithful.
4. What a witness Christians can be when the fruit of the Spirit reigns in our life.
5. Imagine the witness.
6. People will ask us why we are different.
7. Maybe you already get this. Maybe you are different and people have asked.
8. But we can always grow.
9. Funny think about fruit, though, it only takes one bad fruit to ruin others. One Christian who cheats on his wife does more damage than 10 faithful Christians.
10. Okay, so, don’t diminish the witness that your lifestyle can be.
11. You are a witness when you strive to love like Jesus.

Close:

On a recent visit to two California vineyards, author Margaret Feinberg discovered that vintners must adopt a long-term approach to their work. According to Feinberg:

The first year a vintner plants shoots of vines rather than seeds because these yield the strongest vines. At the end of the first growing season, he cuts them back. A second year passes. He cuts them back again. Only after the third year does he see his first viable clusters of grapes. Serious vintners leave those clusters on the vines. For most vintners, it’s not until year four that they bring in their first harvest.

For those growing grapes for winemaking, they’ll bottle their harvest, but won’t taste the fruit of their labors until year seven or eight. Most vineyards in Napa Valley won’t reach a breakeven point for their investment until year fifteen, eighteen or beyond.

Applying these insights to her spiritual life, Feinberg writes,

Sometimes I look at my own life and wonder, Why am I not more fruitful? And why does pruning have to hurt so much? Why does cultivating a healthy crop take so long? Yet those questions circle around the here and now. God’s perspective is much different. Like a good vineyard owner, he knows how to bring about fruitfulness better than I ever will. And he is patient with me, more patient than I am with myself … [Also], as we fulfill our callings … we must recognize that like the vintner’s, our fruitfulness will not come overnight. The first harvest of our labors may not come for three or five years.[5]

We are in process God is working on us as long as we let Him.

You are a witness in living like Jesus.

Do you know Christ?

Luke 9:23

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

[1] heard on Living on the Edge, Moody Radio. My summary.

² Lit They do not gather

^[2] New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Mt 7:16.

^[3] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Ga 5:19–21.

^[4] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Ga 5:22–23.

[5] Margaret Feinberg, “Napa Valley on Leadership,” Q Shorts, http://www.Qideas.org

Below is the sermon from today. One thing that I did not touch on: sometimes, actually I would say most all of the time, God is working in our struggles to develop us. God is building us up and conforming us into His image.

Introduction:

Today is once again, question and answer Sunday. We are going to focus on the question “Why do bad things happen to good people”? To help minister to this need think about the hymn: It is Well with My Soul.

Show video of the story behind that hymn

It is interesting that some of our dearest hymns have been written by people who have undergone great trials.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

My theme and application:

God is in control, even when life is falling apart, we can trust Him even when we don’t have answers.

1. Let’s start by talking about why bad things happen.
   1. We can’t answer this entirely. We can try to reason, but we can’t answer why that car accident happened to you, or that terrible crime, or whatever it may be.
   2. I cannot answer why one person suffers from Alzheimer’s and another does not. I can’t answer why to these things.
   3. I can answer why bad things happen, we’ll come back to that.
   4. First look at this passage.
   5. Deuteronomy 29:29: The secret things belong to the Lordour God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
   6. When a parent decides to move their family from one place to another that is very difficult on the children, though they cannot understand why.
   7. I have seen other examples of how children just don’t understand. I recently heard a story about a child who was injured and getting a shot to numb the pain of the stitches. The child was told what was going on and how it would hurt for a minute, but then it would feel better. The child still reacted negatively. The child later was mad at the doctor, and even at his father, for allowing him to go through the pain, but it had to happen.
   8. Recently Abigail endured Hand Foot and Mouth disease. She had blisters throughout her mouth and throat. She would wake up screaming in pain. We could not get her to eat popsicles though they would help the pain. She just knew it hurt, she would not understand what would help.
   9. Isaiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
      neither are your ways my ways,”
      declares the Lord.
      ⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
      so are my ways higher than your ways
      and my thoughts than your thoughts.
   10. On an individual scale we must understand that God knows and we just can’t answer why something bad happened to me and not another.
   11. On an objective scale of why there is evil and tragedy, we can answer that.
   12. I want to try to answer this question as objectively as possible. Please understand, I don’t mean to be stoic and insensitive. I cannot understand how people go through what they do. I don’t understand how people endure the loss of a child or children and then write a hymn about it. I don’t understand how someone can watch their child die of cancer. I don’t understand how someone watches their spouse or relative go through Alzheimer’s. My heart breaks for these terrible situations. However, I am also very logical and my thinking is framed by a Biblical worldview and the Bible does answer the question of why bad things happen overall.
   13. In difficult times, focus on the other side of the hill. Many times while I am running I have to run up some steep hills. Many times I am thirsty while running up the hill, but I resolve not to take a drink until I get over the hill. Most always when I reach the top of the hill I get to run downhill, though you don’t know that by just looking at the hill. It is easy to focus on the hill, but it is better to focus on the other side of the hill. The other side of the hill brings relief as you have a beautify scene and can run downhill. It is similar with life, eternity is on the other side of our life.
2. So, think about humanity freewill brings sin
   1. One person writes: What kind of world God would have made depends on what God values. According to Christianity, what God values above all is relationship. But for relationship to be meaningful, it must be freely chosen; for relationship to be freely chosen, there must be the possibility of it being rejected; and wherever there is the possibility of rejecting relationship, there is also the possibility of pain and suffering.
   2. The Bible affirms this truth from its very first pages. We find a story of people who are in intimate relationship with God, and who know what He has asked of them. But then they hear this voice in their ears, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1). And they begin to doubt God. They begin to doubt that He knows what’s best for them. They begin to doubt that He isfor Ultimately, they begin to doubt what He has actually said—his word. And then they sin.[1]
   3. When sin entered the world God pursued them. God made them clothes. If you read more of those first few chapters of the Bible we see that the plan of salvation is already set in place.
   4. However, we also read that sin brought death.
   5. All of the world’s history can be summed up like this:
      1. Creation
      2. Fall

• Redemption

1. Restoration.

1. We are currently living in a fallen world. We are redeemed but we are waiting on God to make things totally right.
2. Romans 8:19 and following talk about all of creation waiting for restoration.
3. God created a world pure and good and God said that they could eat of every tree in the garden but NOT the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:17)
4. We focus on why they could not eat of the fruit of that tree, but think about this: they could eat of every tree in the garden they wanted to, except that tree.
5. That tree was our freewill.
6. Our ancestors ate of the fruit of that tree and that brought the fall.
7. Now, we freely choose good and evil.
8. We all die because of sin.
9. We all hurt people because of sin.
10. We are all effected by this indirectly and directly. But now, we all are effected by at least 6000 years of human/world history falling apart. The earth is falling apart, crime is increasing and it all goes back to the fall.
11. But this is also the goodness of God.
12. I know that seems weird, how is God good in bad things and evil?
13. He is good because those bad things still represent God giving us freewill. Without sin there is NO freewill. God did not create us as robots.
14. But also even in bad things God is good because He will restore everything. He will make everything right. He will redeem the world.

• We need to know that God suffers with us:
  1. One writes: A sixth response to the objection from suffering I take, somewhat ironically, from Friedrich Nietzsche. He wrote:
  2. “The gods justified human life by living it themselves—the only satisfactory [response to the problem of suffering] ever invented.” Nietzsche is actually writing of the ancient Greeks here, and in his bias he doesn’t make the connection to Christianity. But as a Christian, I am very pleased to agree with him and then point emphatically to the cross where Jesus died. The night before his death, as Jesus wrestled with what He knew the next day would bring, Jesus said to his friends, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38). Think about it. The God of the Universe, the Creator of all things, saying He is overwhelmed with sorrow, even to death….If you’ve ever experienced deep depression or thought about dying, Jesus is right there with you. There is no depth of agony and helplessness we can experience in this life that He doesn’t understand. At the Cross, we see the absolute uniqueness of the Christian response to suffering. In Islam, the idea of God suffering is nonsense—it is thought to make God weak. In Buddhism, to reach divinity is precisely to move beyond the possibility of suffering. Only in Christ do we have a God who is loving enough to suffer with us. The loving parent is not the one who never allows suffering in a child’s life. The loving parent is the one who is willing to suffer alongside their children. And in Christianity this is exactly what we find.[2]
  3. I am married to a woman with Multiple Sclerosis (M.S.). I see her suffering. She was diagnosed at 21 years old and it was a relief and made sense. But each day is a struggle. Each day Meagan does not know if she will have weakness and/or pain. A few years ago Meagan went for some three months with vision issues to the point of not being able to drive. When Meagan was diagnosed with M.S. I thought, “Okay, maybe she will have trouble walking.” I know, easy for me to say. But it is not just that. There is intense pain as well. But, for me, I could easily question why her, but I cannot question why there is M.S. M.S. exists because of the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden and so does M.D. and Alzheimer’s and cancer and autism and rape and tornadoes and everything else that is bad.
  4. BUT some day God will restore all things. Revelation 21:1-4: Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ² I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
  5. In the book, “The Case for Faith” Lee Strobel interviews one scholar who notes that the people who believe there cannot be a God because of all the troubles are not the ones going through trials. The people going through the trials have the stronger faith. It is the Americans who generally are not facing the trial who struggle.
  6. I could name a few, I already have with the hymn writer of It is Well With My Soul. But what about Jon Erikson Tada? She has been a quadriplegic since 1967 and she has composed and sung songs, she has painted and written books. She has a large ministry distributing wheel chairs all over the world.
  7. A. Carson shared about a man who has had all kinds of illnesses and when I asked how he is doing he says, “Nothing a good resurrection can’t take care of.”

Close:

Think about the hymn, ‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw2iiQo7apE

How does one write that?

How is it that people with the most trials write the best hymns?

Do you know Christ?

Luke 9:23

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

[1] http://rzim.org/just-thinking/if-god-why-suffering/

[2] http://rzim.org/just-thinking/if-god-why-suffering/

Introduction:

Relational evangelism:

Think about your relationships. We are all influencing other people for good or for bad. You are, we are, influencing other people.

When we think of the phrase “Relational evangelism,” the operative word is “evangelism.” If we are not sharing the Gospel with them then we really do not love them.

If we think about Phil. 2:5-11. Jesus died for our need, but what was the need? We needed salvation. He gave Himself up for us. Who are we giving ourselves up for?

I was researching this message and I was reading from the book Becoming a Contagious Christian and I was encouraged. I was encouraged because the best fertile ground for sharing the Gospel is NOT door to door evangelism, or “cold” calls. There is nothing wrong with those types, but the best fertile ground is in your relationships. If you want to be used of Jesus, be a friend. But don’t stop there. Be a friend and share Jesus with the friend.

Becoming a Contagious Christian says:

The fact is, all of us experience discomfort when someone outside our circle of friends tries to influence us about personal, significant matters. We all naturally gravitate toward people we already know and trust. Friends listen to friends. They confide in friends. They let friends influence them. They buy from friends — and that’s true of both products and ideas. So if we’re going to impact our world for Christ, the most effective approach will be through friendships with those who need to be reached. We’ll have to get close to them so they can see that we genuinely care about them individually and that we have their best interests in mind. Over time, that will earn their trust and respect.

Let’s read Luke 5:27-32:

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, ²⁸ and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

²⁹ Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. ³⁰ But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

³¹ Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ³² I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Theme: Build relationships and share the Gospel.

1. Let’s talk about the passage.
   1. Jesus talks to Levi, who is also called Matthew, and says “follow me.”
   2. The man immediately follows Jesus. There are no questions asked. It could be that they had conversations previously. He drops everything and follows.
   3. When he decided to follow Jesus there was no turning back.
   4. Verse 29 shows this to be true. He was a new believer and what did he do? He decided to share this with others. He decided to have a party. We now call these parties “Matthew parties” after him.
   5. We would think he would invite the religious people to his party in order to communicate, “I am now one of you,” but that is not what he did. He invited the other tax collectors.
   6. Tax collectors were known as thieves in those days. They were known as sinners who held allegiance to Rome. The tax collectors would take from other people extra money that would not go to taxes.
   7. But Matthew invited them over.
   8. What else did Matthew do? He invited them to his house.
   9. Matthew was willing to sacrifice his own home and pretty much have them over for a barbecue.
   10. This is an evangelism principle called “barbecue first.” We are to get to know them as we share the Gospel with them and they will listen more.
   11. I look at this and think, “I must be willing to host others, non-believers in my home for the Gospel.”
   12. So, these people are now all at Matthew’s house and you know who else is there? Jesus is also there.
   13. Jesus was later called a sinner because He ate with them, so what. He didn’t care.
   14. Jesus is there and they are all telling jokes, they are eating and they are drinking. Jesus was later called a glutton and a drunkard for eating with these types, but He didn’t care, He wanted to minister. (see Matthew 11:19)
   15. I don’t know what type of jokes Jesus was telling, but I think He had a good sense of humor. Maybe He said, “Why do cows go to math? Because they need a cooooow-culator…”
   16. They are partying. They are getting to know each other.
   17. Sometimes this is tough.
   18. Guess who is coming to dinner. In Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country there was an awkward moment when Captain Kirk invited The Klingons to dine with his senior staff.
   19. Play clip of Kirk inviting the Klingons to dinner.
   20. Do we have many non-Christian friends?
   21. We are the church and the church leaves the building every week and one of the best ways that we are to be the church is in our relationship.
2. Where do you find people?
   1. Suppose that you want to build relationships with non-Christians, but you wonder where to find people.
   2. Think about ways to get together with people you know. Are there relationships that could go deeper?
   3. People you used to know, are there relationships that you can reconnect with?
   4. People you would like to know, are there people that you can connect with but just haven’t?
   5. What about having a block party?
   6. What about having just a few neighbors over for dinner?
   7. There is also the ability to strategically shop at the same places and go inside at the gas station. Talk to the people who are at the cashier’s station. Build that relationship.
   8. Have a holiday party
   9. Have a “pie” party. This is a party where you invite people over and then they all pick up a pie on their way home from work.
   10. Go golfing with others
   11. Share everyday activities with others.
   12. Watch the game together.
   13. Make sure that you are looking to transition to spiritual conversations.
       1. Don’t wait too long to tell people you are a Christian.
       2. Don’t get drunk even if they are.

• If people share something ask if you can pray for them.

1. If people are commenting on scenery give credit to God.

1. Health clubs are good opportunities to meet people.
2. Sporting events are good opportunities.
3. Be creative.
4. God will use your relationships.
5. Most people come to know Christ through relationships.
6. You are the church, pretty soon the church will leave the building, be the church in your relationships.

Close:  

From Becoming a Contagious Christian

Mark learned this lesson the hard way. It happened a few years ago when our church was putting on a week-long presentation that combined contemporary music and drama to communicate Christianity to people who don’t normally go to church. He had bought four tickets for the Friday night performance, and along with his wife, Heidi, had invited another couple. But that couple cancelled at the last minute. Now it was the day of the event, and they were holding two extra tickets with no one to bring. Mark drove home from the office that evening, and as he turned into his driveway, he saw the young couple who lived next door walking on the sidewalk in front of his house. They weren’t married, had shown no inclination toward spiritual interests, and he only knew them by their first names. Still, he figured, why not give it a shot? “Hey, Scott!” he called out. “I was wondering if you two are busy tonight. You see, I’ve got these extra tickets to a concert at our church.” He quickly tried to dispel any stereotypes they might have and to convey that this would feature music they’d really like, that there would be professional-quality and up-to-date drama, good sound and lighting, and so on.

And then he asked if they would like to go. Push the pause button for a moment. If you think along the lines I do, you’re probably admiring the confidence Mark showed in forthrightly explaining this opportunity and inviting a couple he’d barely even met. It was the kind of thing a lot of us think about doing but find it hard to muster the needed courage. The only problem, as he found out, was that it was probably too bold and too quick. It risked the possibility of scaring them away not only from this, but also from future chances for interaction. Scott glanced shyly at his girlfriend for a moment and then looked at the ground. Somewhat awkwardly he finally said, “Um … thanks anyway, but I don’t think we’ll go this time … but, well, if you’d ever like to get together in the backyard for a barbecue, let us know.” As they walked away, Mark thought to himself, “Why didn’t I think of that? In fact, that’s the very thing I’ve been teaching in my evangelism seminars for years: you’ve got to barbecue first!”

As they walked away, Mark thought to himself, “Why didn’t I think of that? In fact, that’s the very thing I’ve been teaching in my evangelism seminars for years: you’ve got to barbecue first!” It’s so important that we make investments in friendships — what I sometimes call paying relational rent — in order to gain the person’s trust and respect, as well as to earn the right to talk to them about spiritual issues. Interestingly, Mark did follow up later with Scott. After a few weeks he called him and suggested that the four of them see a movie and then go out for dessert afterwards. When the night came, Mark and Heidi decided that they would not bring up topics related to church or Christianity. They knew they’d already gone too fast, and they determined to “barbecue” several times with the couple before even thinking about trying to steer the conversation into matters of faith. But to their surprise, that same night in the restaurant, Scott himself asked some questions of a spiritual nature![1]

So, my encouragement to all of us is that we build relationship with non-Christians and share the Gospel in the relationships. Don’t push it, but do wait for the opportunity.

You are the church, pretty soon the church will leave the building, be the church in your relationships.

Do you know Christ?

Luke 9:23

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

[1] Hybels, Bill; Hybels, Bill; Mittelberg, Mark; Mittelberg, Mark (2008-09-09). Becoming a Contagious Christian (p. 98). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Introduction:

When I was in college I was sitting in chapel when the President of the University shared a story which I will never forget. There was an adult book store opening in a community and there were many Christians outside protesting. They were standing with their signs when a group of Christians entered with mop buckets, brooms and cleaning supplies. They came into the book store and said, “We are here to serve you, we want to clean for you.” The store owners were shocked. All the other Christians were protesting and now this group wants to work for free! Surprisingly, if I recall the story correctly, that store was shut down eventually, but not because of the protest. The owners became Christians because of service. Why can’t we serve with no strings attached? Too often we are not known for service. Or, maybe we are known for service when we are a group of Christians, but why not individually?

Tony Campolo tells a true story of a Jewish boy who suffered under the Nazis in World War II. He was living in a small Polish village when he and all the other Jews of the vicinity were rounded up by Nazi SS troops and sentenced to death. This boy joined his neighbors in digging a shallow ditch for their graves, then faced the firing squad with his parents.

Sprayed with machine-gun fire, bodies fell into the ditch and the Nazis covered the crumpled bodies with dirt. But none of the bullets hit the little boy. He was splattered with the blood of his parents and when they fell into the ditch, he pretended to be dead and fell on top of them. The grave was so shallow that the thin covering of dirt did not prevent air from getting through to him so that he could breathe. Several hours later, when darkness fell, he clawed his way out of the grave.

With blood and dirt caked to his little body, he made his way to the nearest house and begged for help. Recognizing him as one of the Jewish boys marked for death, he was turned away at house after house as people feared getting into trouble with the SS troops. Then something inside seemed to guide him to say something that was very strange for a Jewish boy to say. When the next family responded to his timid knocking in the still of the night, they heard him cry, “Don’t you recognize me? I am the Jesus you say you love.”

After a poignant pause, the woman who stood in the doorway swept him into her arms and kissed him. From that day on, the members of that family cared for that boy as though he was one of their own.[1]

So, today I begin a sermon series titled, “The Church has left the building.” This is important because the church is not a building. The building is simply a facility. In fact, I know of a church which has been growing rapidly that has been portable for some twelve years. They have not owned a building.[2] But we are all the church and as part of the church we represent Christ wherever we are. Today we will talk about serving or should we say, “Service with a smile.”

My theme and challenge:

Serve others with the heart and mind of Christ.

Let’s read two Scripture passages:

Matthew 22:37-39:

 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b]

Philippians 2:3-4:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

1. Serving with the heart and mind of Christ begins in our thinking:
   1. In looking at the Philippians 2:3-4 passage I have note in one of my Bibles: ⁵ tn Grk “not according to selfish ambition.” There is no main verb in this verse; (“be of the same mind”) is implied here as well. Thus, although most translations supply the verb “do” at the beginning of v. 3 (e.g., “do nothing from selfish ambition”), the idea is even stronger than that: “Don’t even think any thoughts motivated by selfish ambition.”^[3]
   2. The Christian is to think about others. It begins in our thinking.
   3. Twenty-five years ago, when the New York Yankees were the dominant team in major league baseball, the manager would say to the rookies, “Boys, it’s an honor just to put on the New York pinstripes. So when you put them on, play like world champions. Play like Yankees. Play proud.” In similar fashion, the apostle Paul is attempting to inspire and to motivate the believers at Philippi by challenging them to walk worthy of the name by which they are called.[4]
   4. I like that story. We are reflecting Jesus. We are Jesus to other people. Walk worthy of the name we represent.
   5. The following is a true story. Granted, it happened several years ago. But I wonder how often such scenarios unfold. Two pastors were at lunch together. The older pastor paid for their previous meal, so the younger pastor picked up the tab for this meal. The younger pastor paid cash for the meal, so his older friend asked if he had included a tip. He said he forgot the tip, so he put some cash on the table. As they were departing, the younger pastor said he forgot something, and returned to the restaurant. The other pastor saw him through the window. The younger man went back to the table, picked up the cash, and put it in his pocket.
   6. What a sad story. The other pastor went back later and apologized and also gave a tip. We as Christians are to reflect Christ.
   7. This starts with our thinking. My thinking must not be about me first. I must perish the “me first” thinking.
   8. In preaching this passage I know that many, if not most, if not all of our congregation are pretty good at serving others. However, we all need reminded all the time. I know that I do. I also need reminded that I first must change my thinking.
   9. The passage says, “‘In Humility’ value others above yourselves.” It starts with a mindset.
   10. As Paul writes about this he gives an example and that is Jesus. Jesus valued us and that is why He went to the cross. Later in verses 19-20 Paul gives the example of Timothy who also valued the welfare of others.
   11. So, I ask all of us and I ask myself as well:
       1. How is our mindset?
       2. When we serve others is it because we love them or we are just duty bound?
       3. Do we look down upon certain people as “below” us?
       4. What about racial issues? Do we love others of different races and do we want to serve them as much as our own race? I have recently become more aware of something called “White privilege.” It is true that when I am running down a certain street I do not have to worry about being stopped by the police purely because of the color of my skin. Or, I do not have to think about training my children to be prepared to be looked upon differently because of the color of their skin. I have read articles written by African American Pastors and they write about having to teach their children to dress differently because of the perceptions based off of their skin color. Please know, I am not criticizing the police for these things or making judgments, but I am saying that we all have certain perceptions based off of first impressions of others and we must try to limit and eliminate them as quickly as we can. The first step is recognizing them.
       5. Another application is really not action oriented, but word oriented. Do we try our best to communicate love through our words and non-verbals? Sarcasm can be humorous or it can cut like a knife.
   12. I want to say something about loving others. A major goal is real love shares Jesus with people. If we really love them we make sure we share Jesus with them.
2. Serving with the heart and mind of Christ ends in action.
   1. A woman wanted a pet so she bought a parrot. She asked them at the pet store if it will talk and they said yea. She takes the parrot home and put it in its cage and it didn’t talk. After a while she goes back to the pet store and says, “it doesn’t talk.” They said, “Did you buy it a mirror. It must look at itself in the mirror and then it will talk.” She gets a mirror and the parrot still doesn’t talk. She goes back to the pet store and they said, “Did you buy it a ladder? Once it has a ladder it will talk.” She gets a ladder and it doesn’t talk. She goes back to the pet store. They said, “Did you get it a swing? When it swings it will talk.” She gets a swing and it still will not talk. After a few weeks it dies. She goes back to the pet store and says that it dies. They said “did it say anything before it died?” She said yea it said, “Don’t they have any food at that pet store.” [5]
   2. So, we want to make sure that people are receiving the basic needs. We want to make sure they have food.
   3. But these actions are not always material thinks. I know that some of us on some days do not have a penny to spare, but that is not to say we cannot love other people.
   4. Listen to this from Taylor Swift when she was eighteen years old:
   5. “I wrote that about the scariest feeling I’ve ever felt: going to school, walking down the hall, looking at all those faces, and not knowing who you’re gonna talk to that day. People always, How did you have the courage to walk up to record labels when you were 12 or 13? It’s because I could never feel the kind of rejection in the music industry that I felt in middle school.“[6]
   6. We can love people by befriending them and I am going to talk about that later this month in relational evangelism.
   7. But, I believe there are little ways I think we can help people.
      1. Praying with and for people. We will never know how much of a difference this will make.
      2. Sharing the Gospel with someone. You know that is a free gift you can share with another person?
      3. Bibles: give one away.
      4. Help people with meals. There are many times that our congregation serves people by helping them with meals during hard times.
      5. Visiting shutins and those in the hospital. Our caring committee can use your help. This is an easy thing for young moms to do. Take your children with you and visit a senior saint. Or, visit some of your own family members.
      6. Volunteer at the Alliance of Churches office.
      7. Volunteer at the Alliance Community Food Pantry.
      8. Sew for someone, teach someone to sew. Teach someone to cook. Help out at the Alliance Pregnancy Center.

Close:

An Elderly Woman Reaches Out to Homesick College Students

Daniel Meyer tells the story of an elderly woman who heard a sermon in which she felt God encouraging her to look for ways in which she could use her particular gifts and situation to minister to the needs of others. She thought about her gifts and realized that she’d been told by others that she had the gift of hospitality. She lived alone in a small apartment near a large university and had afternoons free. She pondered the needs around her and the people who tugged at her heartstrings. To her mind came the students nearby who were so far away from home. It was then that an idea both strange and simple suddenly arose. She got a stack of three-by- five cards and wrote on each one the following words: “Are you homesick? Come to my house at 4:00 p.m. for tea.” She included a phone number and address and then posted the cards all around campus.

After a slow start, homesick students began trickling into her house each week for tea. When she died ten years later, eighty honorary pallbearers attended her funeral. Each one of them had been a student who, once upon a time, found a hot cup of tea, a sense of home, and the gospel of Jesus in the hospitable heart of this faithful servant.[7]

Do you know Christ?

Luke 9:23

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

[1] Anthony Campolo, Who Switched the Price Tags

Swindoll, Charles R. Read in Swindoll’s Ultimate Book of Illustrations & Quotes. Thomas Nelson. Nashville, TN 1998. Pages 6-7

[2] Grace Chapel in Minerva, Ohio

^[3] Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition Notes (Biblical Studies Press, 2006), Php 2:3.

[4] Bill Hybels, “The Certainty of Suffering,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 164.

[5] Chuck Swindoll

[6]– 18-year-old country music star Taylor Swift speaking about the inspiration for the song “The Outside”, Entertainment Weekly, February 8, 2008, pg. 42

[7] Daniel Meyer, Witness Essentials (InterVarsity Press, 2012), p. 186

Introduction:

This is the last sermon in the “You are the Church” series. We have talked about preparing for Sunday morning worship. We have talked about being here now, meaning being present when we are here. We have talked about being fed and feeding yourself. We have talked about congregational praise. We have talked about being the church throughout the whole week. So, now we come back to Sunday.

Back when I was an associate pastor my senior pastor told me, “I want you to know that right now you preach periodically, but it can get draining when you preach every week.” He would say, “Sunday’s just keep coming.” Every week I work on a research paper for you and present it to you. It is my God given task and I will be judged for how I do this. I will be held accountable to God for how I handle this book we call the Bible. If I misrepresent the Bible and use it incorrectly, woe is me. I am sure that I have actually. Pray for me with this. That is actually one way that you can prepare for Sunday morning worship, pray for me as I present the Scriptures to you. Pray for me as I stand between God and His people.

I don’t want to neglect to mention that we have other singers and musicians that need prayed for as well. Preparing for Sunday morning worship ought to mean that you pray for them. We have Christian Connections teachers and others involved on Sunday morning. Pray for them. We believe that God speaks to us, so we must pray that He will.

So, today I will talk about the 3 R’s of discipleship which we ought to take care of before Sunday morning worship.

Repentance

Restitution

Reconciliation

My theme and application today is: You are not ready to worship if you are not right with others. This can be intentional or by ignoring a problem with someone else.

Let’s read Matthew 5:23-24:

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

1. Background: Let me tell you what is going on.
   1. Listen, right here Jesus is talking to the Pharisees and they thought they had everything all together. But that was not the case. In this passage Jesus is telling them you can have it all together, but someone else is angry with you.
   2. Look what Jesus say, “leave.” Jesus says to leave.
   3. Can you imagine? You arrive early here at First Baptist. You sit down to worship. Then you realize that someone is angry at you or maybe there is a barrier in a relationship, maybe a misunderstanding. So, what do you do? You get up and go in the parking lot and call them. Or, you go to your house, but you work it out. You apologize. You try to clear it up.
   4. Jesus is saying that you are not right with God when you are ignoring a problem with someone else.
   5. It could be that you have tried to make things right with someone else, but they won’t work with you. I don’t think that is what Jesus is talking about in this passage.
   6. I am sure, in a group of people this size, some of you have barriers in your relationships with your children and you have tried to work it out.
   7. I would ask, have you tried in humility? Have you tried to own up to your faults and apologize?
   8. I am sure that some of you have tried that and they still won’t accept it. They still won’t reconcile.
   9. You can try other things. You can try a mediator, a counselor, a group called Peacemakers, but sometimes you exhaust all your options.
   10. If that is the case I don’t think Jesus is addressing you.
   11. I think Jesus is talking about people who are ignoring problems. 1 John 4:20: Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sisteris a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
   12. In this case Jesus is talking about worship, making an offering to God.
   13. Jesus says to seek reconciliation while you can.
   14. If you look at the next few verses Jesus talks about the time coming where you are turned over to the judge for your crime and then you cannot do anything. The judge throws you in jail. Back then they had debtors prison. So what is envisioned is that you have failed to pay a debt and you realize that so you make that right prior to worship. Otherwise, you are thrown in debtors prison and you can’t pay a debt if you are in prison.
   15. What this means is if you ignore a problem with someone, then your relationship with Christ is hindered, even broken. Maybe you don’t know Christ. You could die tomorrow; we are never promised another day. Then you die and go to hell and you can no longer fix that relationship. Fix it while you can.
   16. You are not ready to worship if you are ignoring a problem with someone else. We love God and love people.
   17. Preparing for worship means loving others and we do that through: repentance, restitution and reconciliation.
2. Repentance: first we repent.
   1. Repent means to apologize and turn around.
   2. You come to worship and you realize that what you said to your wife was wrong. You said the eggs and bacon and pancakes and grits that she made you was terrible.
   3. You apologize, but say the exact thing later in the day. She makes steak and potatoes and you say they are just terrible. You say that she is absolutely a terrible cook. Were you really repenting? No. You were sorry, but you were not repenting. Further, you are now cooking your own meals.
   4. You need to realize, we need to realize, that we may need help being respectful and loving.
   5. Mercedes will say she is sorry, but she does the same thing later. BUT she is four years old. We are adults.
   6. Further, it is not enough to say we are sorry, we must ask for forgiveness. When we ask for forgiveness we ae humbly acknowledging failure and giving the person the ball. We teach Mercedes this. We tell her to say she is sorry and to ask for forgiveness.
   7. You are coming to worship and you are fighting the whole way to church. You sit in the parking lot and think, “What do we do?” Apologize and agree to take responsibility and work not to do it again.

• Restitution: So you repent, but you must make restitution.
  1. This goes along with forgiveness.
  2. Give them the opportunity to help you make it right.
  3. In Luke 19:1-10 Zacchaeus gave half his possessions to the poor and paid back four times the amount to people he had cheated. In Philemon 9-18 Paul  tells Onesimus to return to his master; Paul will pay all his debts.
  4. That is restitution.
  5. Restitution is generally, restitution is ___paying___ back something of material value that has been taken ___wrongly___ . It is a way to “___settle___ the ___account”
  6. Restitution:
     1. is consistent with biblical teaching
     2. helps release us from the effects of past sin

• weakens our prideful nature; brings forth humility

1. helps remove stumbling blocks from other people’s paths
2. reduces our tendency to repeat the same sin
3. demonstrates the sincerity of our repentance

1. We are not ready for worship when we are ignoring repentance and restitution with someone else.

1. Reconciliation: we must reconcile with others.
   1. Reconciliation is more important, even more important, than giving.
   2. In this passage Jesus is saying that this is critical.
   3. Like restitution, reconciliation “settles the account.” However, it is in the realm of ___character  Bitterness is the ___cancer___ of human relationships.  It grows where ___unforgiving___ spirits dwell.  It also prevents us from receiving the forgiving ___grace___ of God (Matthew 6:15).
   4. Reconciliation involves:
      1. Confrontation (Matthew 5:23-24; Galatians 2:11)
      2. Compassion (Ephesians 4:31-32)

• Concession (sometimes) (Romans 14:1)

1. You are not ready for worship without pursuing:
   1. Repentance
   2. Restitution
   3. And reconciliation.
2. Notice that I said pursuing this. This may take time, but you have to at least try. If you are ignoring problems with a brother or sister then you are not ready to worship.
3. Follow Matthew 18:15-17: Talk to the person alone. Then bring someone else with you, then bring another person with you.

Close:

So, preparing for worship means that we must seek a right relationship with others. Having a barrier with another means we have a barrier with God.

This week prayerfully commit to healing a relationship. Or, at least try. You are not responsible for their reaction. You are only responsible for your attempts to make things right. Pray first.

What does this look like? Just call the person up and see if you can go to Bob Evans for lunch or invite them over. When you meet ask openly if you have offended them in any way. Go from there. Pray. Pray. Pray.

Let’s celebrate together

Do you know Christ?

Luke 9:23

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

The intro and conclusion was different:

It is Sunday. This means that we are supposed to be at church, right? We are here to worship, we are here to grow, we are here to see our friends and maybe learn something and then we are done. True?

I don’t think so. We need each other through the week.

Have you ever been lonely?

I remember being in elementary school and at that time I had school friends and then friends at home. I did not want to cross connect those groups. If I knew you from school and saw you outside of school, I think it was a reminder of school. Obviously, as I got older I got over that. But during that time, I was also very lonely at school. I was an extreme introvert and that plagued me up until high school. In addition to that when I was in kindergarten they started taking me out of class and making me take special tests. Eventually, the specialist teacher, not my actual kindergarten teacher, was walking me back down the hall to my kindergarten class. She sat me on the bench and said, “You may wonder why we are doing these things.” I said, “Yes.” She then explained that some people need some special education or something like that in kindergarten terms. From first grade through half way through third grade I would leave my normal kindergarten class at certain points in order to join this learning disability class. That is what they called it, though till this day I don’t really know what my real disability was. I remember being told, “You will always have a learning disability, it will always be more difficult for you to learn things.” Well, I hated it. At least through first grade and part of second grade I felt different. I was already a shy and introverted kid and had a difficult time making friends, but it didn’t help that I was in and out of my home room class. The learning disability teacher would give me a picture of a clock and say, “At this time get up and walk out of the room and come to my class.” For a second grader it just felt like everyone was looking at me when I left and came back in. I remember entering my normal class and they had books out and were in the middle of something and I was wondering what they were doing. I always felt behind the rest of the class, even though I was really being helped. I remember in second grade we had three sessions of recess: morning, after lunch and then afternoon. At the beginning of the school year I went out to recess with my class. Then my learning disability teacher came out and yelled at me all the way into the school telling me that I am not supposed to go to recess because I am supposed to join her class during that time. She said I was told that. Therefore, for the rest of that year, I did not have morning recess. I know they meant well and I know I was helped, but it was hard emotionally. By third grade I was excelling and half way through the year I was able to exit the learning disability class for good. I did have to go to a tutor, but I was so relieved. Sometimes that catches up with me. I am still a very slow reader, though I think I learn things better now than ever and maybe it is because of that class. They always reminded me how grateful I should be that I had a school with a special class like that. I remember in an inductive Bible study class in seminary and something hit me. It was as if the devil was telling me, “What are you doing? Who do you think you are looking at these Greek words. Remember those days in the learning disability class? You can’t learn this stuff.”

I don’t write all that to make you feel sympathy for me. My point is that I was lonely. I hated school. I couldn’t make friends and that experience made my introvert self have a more difficult time making friends. I needed friends. I needed a friend my age, or more friends my age at school. I needed support. Now, they came eventually and I got through. I am here. But it was rather difficult. I remember thinking about what it would be like to be a normal kid, as if there is such a thing. We need each other. We all need each other. We are not meant to be alone.

I heard someone say:

“A friend is someone who walks in when everyone is walking out.”

Today, let’s talk about the church:

My theme: You are the church all week long.

The Application: Stay connected, support each other emotionally, spiritually and with real-felt needs.

Let’s read Ecclesiastes 4:9-12:

Two are better than one,

because they have a good return for their labor:

¹⁰ If either of them falls down,

one can help the other up.

But pity anyone who falls

and has no one to help them up.

¹¹ Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.

But how can one keep warm alone?

¹² Though one may be overpowered,

two can defend themselves.

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. ^[1]

1. We must let people into our lives.
   1. I do not doubt that many of you are connected with others. But I wonder, are you connected with others?
   2. Do you let other people into your life? Do I let others into my life?
   3. A problem with social media is that we only allow people to see what we want them to see. Many times I can only show the face that I want to.
   4. There are major problems with depression because of Facebook and social media. Truly, we get online and we see how happy these other families look, we see the vacation spots they are going to, but we don’t see their struggles.
   5. Of course because of this we don’t let others into our lives. We are ashamed.
   6. Don’t compare everything you know about yourself with everything you don’t know about someone else.
   7. We are stronger together.
   8. We must be willing to be humble and let others in our lives.
   9. We must get rid of pride and let others in.
   10. We must get rid of envy and let others in.
   11. We must understand that many times they are dealing with things we are as well.
   12. It will feel so good to share what you are going through with others.
   13. We must let people in in three ways: emotionally, spiritually and with real felt needs.
       1. Emotionally: many times this is really difficult. It is for me. It is hard to share emotions; they are so personal. But we aren’t meant to live alone. We need the support.
       2. Spiritually: This is difficult because we have privatized religion. But we cannot be helped if we not share with others. Listen, we can’t live the Christian life alone. We cannot discern God’s will on our own.
          1. We must check ourselves and see why we will not share our spiritual state with others.
          2. We must check for pride. Maybe we will feel less than someone else.
          3. Oftentimes the spiritual and the emotional go together.
          4. Meet with another believer and pray about your struggles and also your desires.
          5. Are you waiting on a spouse? Pray about that with a close friend.
          6. Are you struggling with your job? Pray about that with a close friend?
          7. Are you struggling with weight and diet? Pray about that with a close friend?
          8. Are you lonely? Pray about that with a close friend.
          9. Do you have a son or daughter or grandchild dealing with drug abuse or maybe an abusive relationship? Pray about that with a close friend.
          10. In praying with another believer you are supporting yourself emotionally and spiritually. You are also helping the situation.
          11. We become like rope weaved together and strengthened.
       3. Physical felt needs: This is the easiest to get help with. It is not humbling, or nearly as humbling asking for help with a move as it is asking for emotional help. It is hard to admit to depression. But for someone it is. So, the challenge is to let people in to help you with physical, felt needs.
   14. We must be willing to be involved in the lives of others.
       1. I must be willing to sacrifice for others.
       2. This goes both ways. We must be willing to listen to others and to pray with others.
       3. We must be willing to be that close friends.
       4. The Bible says a friend sticks closer than a brother. (Proverbs 18:24)
       5. Also, if someone shares their heart with you. Share something back. Share a struggle you have.
       6. We grow as Christians together. We grow stronger together. We weave that rope together as a Christian family when we add tension to the rope.
       7. The passage says that a cord of three strands is not easily broken. George Sheen once told me that he has a rope machine and it takes more than one person to make the rope.
       8. It also takes a church sharing together through the week to really be the church and really help us grow.

Close:

High school youth group and JROTC changed me.

You know, I had trouble making friends all the way through Jr. High. I was heavily bullied in Jr. High and I fought back which made it worse. The kids were cruel. We were the class of 2000 and so many people made a big deal of that. My aunt taught our class and said she never had a class like we were. She meant we were the worst. Maybe it was all the entitlement. But high school came and in ninth grade I was invited to a youth group. I met good friends at the youth group and I saw them at school as well. Now, I had friends at school with similar interest to me. Now, at school I could talk about the Bible and Christian things with friends who I knew through youth group. It was great. These new friends introduced me to other friends. I joined Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp. which is a high school military training group. I met more friends that way and I came out of my shell. I also had a few part time jobs and that helped me get out of my introvert shell as well. Things changed. School was not as bad. I still have friends that I met in high school youth group who I still keep in touch with. One of them is my wife and she became my permanent room-mate.

We need each other.

We need each other emotionally, spiritually and with physical felt needs.

I encourage you to join one of the Christian Connections opportunities at the church. Most of you know each other pretty well on the surface. Go deeper. Meet with one of our brothers or sisters for prayer. Meet often. Don’t just meet every other month.

We are the church through the week. God speaks through His Church. You won’t discern His will alone.

Do you know Christ?

Luke 9:23

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

^[1] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Ec 4:9–12.

Introduction:

I have keys up here, why?

Why do I need keys?

Do you all lock your doors? Why?

God has given all cultures general revelation. God has written on our hearts that certain things are right and certain things are wrong. This is God’s common grace to us. This is really not unlike how even in the animal kingdom they know how to take care of their young, this is because God has written it on their hearts. The Ten commandments are a formalization, writing down, of what is right and wrong. We know that in other ancient cultures they had similar lists of right and wrong such as the Code of Hammurabi. God has given us this common knowledge.

The Ten Commandments have been important to us for most of human history.

Play clip:

Movie clip:

Today is ask the Pastor Sunday and we want to talk about the relevance of the Ten Commandments. The question was submitted:

Does the New Testament teach all 10 commandments from the Old Testament? If so, where and how? If not, why not?

Today we will talk about the relevance of the Ten Commandments.

My theme sentence:

The Ten Commandments are still relevant: Love God and love people.

We just watched the Ten Commandments and so we are not going to read the passage. You can find them first in Exodus chapter 20. But I want is to read Matthew 22:36-40, please turn there with me.

Let’s read Matthew 22:36-40:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

1. The First four commandments relate to our relationship with God.
   1. In the passage we just read we see a person come to Jesus and ask what the greatest of the commandments is.
   2. This person was a lawyer and seems to be testing him.
   3. That is when Jesus gives the answer.
   4. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
   5. That sentence spoken by our Lord sums up the first four commandments:

(1) “Do not worship any other gods besides me” (Ex. 20:3).

(2) “Do not make idols of any kind” (Ex. 20:4).

(3) “Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God” (Ex. 20:7).

(4) “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Ex. 20:8).^[1]

1. We love the Lord our God so we do not have any other gods. Now, that is a sermon on itself which we will save for another day.
2. If we love the Lord, God we are not going to set up idols. That is another sermon we will save for another day.
3. We love God so we are not going to misuse His name. That is another sermon for another day; however, I will say that misusing the Lord’s name happens way more than we realize. We actually do not even know how to properly say the Lord’s name in Hebrew because the Hebrew people thought of His name as so sacred they would not say it out loud.
4. The fourth commandment is regarding the Sabbath Day. This is referenced in the New Testament but never as a commandment as such. It still fits in relation to God because we see at the end of creation the Lord rested. We are called to cease activity.
5. It is never listed as such a command in the New Testament, but we can easily make the case that we need a day of rest. This does not mean laying on the couch. This means a cease from our normal work. I think working on the house can be okay, if it is not your normal work. If your normal job is cleaning houses, you need a break from that. If your normal job is building houses, you need a break from that. If your normal job is teaching, you need a day off. We need rest.
6. In your bulletin, in the sermon notes, we have included a chart with the references to the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament and the references in the New Testament. When you look up those passages you can see that they are all critically important in the New Testament, though as I said the Sabbath is never given the same commandment. Though we do see that Jesus did observe the Sabbath.
7. But I wish to make the case to you that all of the Ten Commandments fall under Jesus’ response to the lawyer which is summed up, Love God and Love people. So, let’s talk about loving people.

1. The last six commandments relate to our relationship with others.
   1. This is summed up in Jesus’ words: And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
   2. Jesus Himself said that all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.
   3. Jesus is saying that the Old Testament law and all of the prophetic writings fall under the commandments to Love God and to Love people.

(5) “Honor your father and mother” (Ex. 20:12).

(6) “Do not murder” (Ex. 20:13).

(7) “Do not commit adultery” (Ex. 20:14).

(8) “Do not steal” (Ex. 20:15).

(9) “Do not testify falsely” (Ex. 20:16).

(10) “Do not covet” (Ex. 20:17).^[2]

Conclusion:

Let’s play a game. It is called crossover, but I don’t know that you all want to cross over so, let’s just play raise your hand:

• Raise your hand if you have been hurt by murder, directly or indirectly.
  • I had a co-worker murdered.
• Raise your hand if you have been hurt by some not honoring their father or mother.
• Raise your hand if you have been hurt by stealing.
• Raise your hand if you have been hurt by lies.
• Raise your hand if you have been hurt by covetousness.
  • Maybe we have hurt ourselves in this way.
• Raise your hand if you have been hurt by a lack of rest.

As I said, these Ten Commandments can easily be ten sermons. But I hope we all realize they are all critically important, still relevant. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor.

Do you know Christ?

Luke 9:23

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

Prayer

^[1] H. L. Willmington, The Outline Bible (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1999), Ex 20:1–8.

^[2] H. L. Willmington, The Outline Bible (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1999), Ex 20:8–17.