Saturday, May 19, 2007

May 20 2007 sermon - Freedom Acts 16:16-40

May 20 Sermon Freedom
Acts 16: 16-40

You hear this story about Paul and Silas and it has to make you wonder some times. There is a little girl walking behind them yelling out the truth. Why in the world would Paul want to shut her up? Well with a cursory reading, you would think the obvious. This little kid is bugging the heck out of him and he wants her to stop.

That could very well be true. Even though she is telling the truth about the two men, she could just be annoying them so much, Paul wants it to stop. Another option is that maybe they did not want all the attention brought on them immediately. Christianity is a great faith to pass on one-on-one. Stadium conversions do happen and Billy Graham is one of the greatest evangelists of our time.

A great illustration of this is the movie Pay It Forward. Young Trevor McKinney is caught up by an intriguing assignment from his new social studies teacher. The assignment: Think up something to change the world and put it into action. Trevor conjures up the notion of paying a favor not back, but forward…repaying good deeds not with payback, but with new good deeds done to three other people.

Trevor’s effort to make good on his idea brings a revolution not only in the lives of himself, his mother and his teacher, but in the ever widening circle of people completely unknown to him.

One person affecting 3 other people who each affect 3 other people, so on and so forth. Let me ask you a question. How many people have you shared your faith with in the last 6 months? 1 Peter 3:15 says to “Always be ready to give a reason for the hope that lies within you, and do it with gentleness and respect.” If you said (in your heart) zero, do you really have the hope within you that Peter is talking about?

But let’s look at it another way. There are approximately 300,000 churches in America. Now let’s say that every one of these churches took Jesus serious when he said “Go and make disciples”. This isn’t a “maybe people from other churches will start coming to our church” or “yeah, we send out post card invitations to our church every year.”

It’s a “This person is an unbeliever and they come to believe the truth because we share it with them.” Each one of these 300,000 churches reaches just 3 people in 2007. Holy Cow. The Holy Spirit just moved 900,000 people to join the kingdom of God. Since the average church in America has 100 people in it, it’s like adding 9000 churches to America.
85% of the people in America say they are Christian. But let’s be honest. There are many people in that 85% that have never had a transforming experience for Christ; just like there are people in this church today that have never had a transforming experience. Our total population is 300 million. Let’s say 60% are real Christians.

Each of those new converts shared their faith with 3 people. The church still does what it’s supposed to do, making 3 other disciples. Do you see what an awesome impact the church and the transformed Christians could make in America by sharing their faith??

Back to Paul and the slave girl. Paul was not looking for some cultural catch-phrases that, while true, did not convey the gospel in a way it would be heard by (as Jesus said) “people who had ears to hear”. This girl was yelling out “these men are servants of the Most High God. They are showing the way of salvation.”

The statement was true, but it was disruptive. There was no message. There was no depth. It was a catch phrase. “God is Good. All the Time. All the Time. God is Good.” Having the sign out front of our church that says “Sardis United Methodist Church” tells everyone around that we are a congregation meeting to worship the one and only Triune God based on Christian scriptures and beliefs.
The building/the sign/the cross outside are not the message. It’s the surface. It can be a distraction or it can be a help.

The slave girl was a distraction. Paul’s discourses were well thought out and flowed where everyone who heard could understand, but this girl made that a problem. To free her, Paul went up to the girl and said “In the name of Jesus Christ, come out of the girl.” And the demon did.

Did you hear the 6 most important words known to humans and angels. IN-THE-NAME-OF-JESUS-CHRIST. We flippantly throw these words around without thinking about them. We add them to the end of our prayers thinking “well in scripture it says to pray in the name of Jesus so if I say that at the end of my prayers then I know God will act on them.”

Or we add it to the end of letters and other correspondence. It doesn’t matter if the letters have no reference to God or even if the letters go against everything God would want, we still add those 6 words in our desire to speak the “Christianeze” and sound like some one else we want to emulate. These 6 words are the most powerful words we can ever use.


In our scripture today, these words call a demon out of a girl and free her from that burden. Unfortunately, not everyone wants to see freedom. Not everyone desires the light. Those in the darkness like the darkness. It’s comfortable there. There is no truth, but there is no responsibility either. Ignorance is bliss and those in the darkness are some of the most ignorant people you will ever meet.

Verse 19 - “But when the slave girl’s masters saw their hope of profit gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities.” The darkness loves money doesn’t it? It’s not “Praise God our slave girl is free from the torture she has endured for so many years.” What is more important?? Money or freedom? Slavery or salvation? Status Quo or Transformation? Death or life thru Jesus Christ?
PAUSE

Paul and Silas are thrown into jail where the hardened criminals are kept and locked up real tight. Then they do what anyone would do when locked up like this…they sing hymns. OK…maybe that’s not a normal thing to do. But when things look bleak and its dark all around and you’re shackled to a stank dungeon of hopelessness, you must go back to what you know.

Prisoners of War would sing hymns and say the Apostle’s Creed and the Lord’s Prayer to keep them going and keep them sane when all else looked bad. Paul and Silas praised God that they were able to be an example to those around them even in this dank dark prison. They were more interested in pleasing God than pleasing men, and God gave them great boldness and confidence even in that awful place.

Paul actually remarks about this same experience in 1 Thessalonians 2. He says:
“You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News boldly, in spite of great opposition. So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery. For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts.”

Imagine the impact of these things Paul and Silas said on the jailer and other inmates. It was a far cry from the oaths, threats, and curses usually heard in these places. The message had its effect on the listeners…… it always does. The kind of effect depends on each individual heart, but it is always there.

Marilyn Oden tells in her book Abundance about a prison in the Czech Republic. She says that “Though hardened criminals are sent there, the prison does not harden them further. They are treated with respect, many for the first time in their lives. As we entered, I noticed that neither the guards nor the warden wore guns. There were no “prison” haircuts, uniforms or cells.

They lived in unlocked dorm style rooms that opened onto a large locked hall where they were free to socialize. Capital punishment is illegal in the Czech Republic and the warden took Marilyn and her husband into the murderer’s section. The 3 mingled with murderers. The only guard, unarmed, was at the entrance. It was amazing that she did not feel afraid. These men respected the warden and engaged in easy conversation with him.” Through the Christian warden and some Czech United Methodists, these men experienced the healing presence of God’s love.

Have you been a healing presence to anyone this week? Each day offers us an opportunity to journey in compassion with our sisters and brothers and, through God’s grace, to be windows thru which others can see God’s love. When we experience God’s transforming love and our lives reflect it, we see with our souls.
PAUSE

It was midnight, and an earthquake shook the jail, and all the cells opened and chains fell off. When the jailer woke up and saw what happened, he did what was expected of him. He had failed his job and in this heathen society he was expected to do the ‘honorable’ thing and take his own life.

The tables turned. Paul and Silas were freed and the jailer was under the law, even if it was ignorant law. Paul stopped him from killing himself. And the jailer knowing this could only be by the power of God, fell at the feet of Paul and said what any one of us would say “What must I do to be saved?”

That is a proper question to ask. There is something we must do to be saved. The Word of God tells us what to do. The jailer needed to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s more than knowledge about Jesus. A lot of smart people (and those who think they are smart) get it wrong. Even the devil knows Jesus is the Son of God – the 2nd person of the trinity – God himself.

To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ means to give your entire life over to Jesus as your Lord and Savior. It means total submission and obedience. Transformation has to happen. Turning from your old crabby pain in the butt self and being transformed into what God wants you to become. God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to leave you that way. PAUSE
Who do you identify with in this scripture today? The slave girl and Paul and Silas are in chains. The slave’s master and the jailer hold the keys and are free. But is this really the truth, or is it just a front? Thanks to Paul and the power of the name of Jesus, the slave girl becomes free. Yet she is not free in society. She is a piece of property. And instead of her “free” owners rejoicing in her healing, they desire to lock up the apostles.

When Paul and Silas are beaten and bloody and locked up in a dark cell, they are strangely free to sing. But the jailer is not free. When the chains come off, he decides suicide will be the best way to die if his prisoners have escaped. Having a key to someone else’s cell does not make you free. By the end of the story, everyone who appeared to be free, the slave master and jailer, is a slave. And everyone who first appeared to be enslaved, the girl, Paul and Silas, is free.

Those who are free, live for the truth. Those who are in slavery (and maybe don’t know it) live for the lie. Are you in bondage right now? Do you go thru your day and sometimes saying “This is wrong. What I am doing is wrong. What we are doing is wrong”? The transformation Christ calls us into is counter-cultural. It’s not normal, in the worldly sense of the word.

Would an outsider walking into a group of people be able to pick you out of the crowd as a Christian? Has the transformation happened in your life? Are you counter-cultural or do you look and act like everyone else in society yet go to church on Sunday morning?? Are you free?

If true freedom and transformation has occurred in your life, YOU ARE DIFFERENT. Otherwise, you are a slave? “Well I’m not a slave to anyone pastor.” If you’re not free (and therefore a slave to God), then you are a slave to this world and all the seduction it has on you……and you have no part in the Kingdom of God.

If you desire to be free….that is, if like the jailer you see the state your in and want to yell out “How can I be saved”, you can today. If you recognize your bondage and slavery and want to be free and you want to be transformed, come up to the alter rail during our last hymn. No I didn’t bring my baptism water gun, but even if you have been baptized before, transformation and freedom can still come today.

Everyone stand up and we will sing this last hymn.



Acts 16:16-40
One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’ She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, ‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour.
But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market-place before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, ‘These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.’ The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They answered, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
When morning came, the magistrates sent the police, saying, ‘Let those men go.’ And the jailer reported the message to Paul, saying, ‘The magistrates sent word to let you go; therefore come out now and go in peace.’ But Paul replied, ‘They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.’ The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens; so they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home; and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, they departed.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Forgiveness According to Jesus

Keith Giles has a great article on his blog about forgiveness. Here is an excerpt and a link to the article.......

FORGIVENESS ACCORDING TO JESUS by Keith Giles One of the things I love most about Jesus is that he rarely says things that we expect him to say. He is more dangerous, more scandalous, more radical than our Sunday School teachers would have us believe. He speaks with such authority and a shocking sense of raw audacity that sometimes we are tempted to water down his words at times. Thankfully the writers of the Gospel felt no such need to pull any punches when it came to quoting our Lord. In Matthew, right off the bat, Jesus gets things started with a teaching on forgiveness that seems overly harsh to our ears. He says, "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." - JESUS (Matthew 6:14-15) I don't know about you.....More here

Sunday, May 13, 2007

May 13th sermon Prevenient Grace Acts 16:9-15

Acts 16: 9-15
Title: grace
May 13, 2007

I grew up in the small town of Sonora Texas, population 3000. My mom took me to a typical Methodist Church and when I was in Jr. High, I started in the Youth Group. It seemed like the right thing to do, being at church an extra time each week, and the popular kids were doing it, so I went.

A year later I was baptized at the same time as 5 other kids. It seemed like the popular thing to do so I did it. I couldn’t tell you what we did in youth group. I think I got some blessings from God by osmosis. You know, I was in church more than just on Sunday. I did all the right stuff. I was a good kid.

Then I got into High School and church was an after thought. I graduated and went to college. I thought about going to church sometimes, but after a Saturday of partying (or just sleeping late on Sunday morning), I had no interest in it.

Anyway, I saw the kids who were part of the Student Fellowship at my small college and didn’t think they were really holding up a good example of what a Christian was. Later I got married and had a baby (well not me but my wife), and we bought a house.

All this time, something was tugging at me. In the back of my mind I could hear a small voice saying “Sean, your journey needs to take you to Jesus. Look for him.”
Today I am talking about grace.
The root meaning of the word “grace” is gift. Christ Jesus, who is God, offers us a gift. It’s the gift of a relationship with him. It’s not any normal relationship, but one that includes salvation, reconciliation, and eternal life.

This grace, this gift from God, has many facets. John Wesley describes grace as prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying. Each of these relate to a particular time in our spiritual journey. The term prevenient means “to come before”.

For a Christian, it is the grace that comes before we make any decision for God. This is the grace that is at work before we are even aware of it. It is the love of God wooing us. It is the will of God drawing us. Maybe my mom taking me to church and praying with me was a form of prevenient grace.

Prevenient grace is present with us from the very beginning. It is at work in us from conception until the moment we accept the relationship God offers us through Christ. In the bible, God says “I knew you before you were born. I even knew you before you were conceived.”
PAUSE


Now, picture in your mind a big block of black ice. You know what black ice is right. When it rains in the winter time, the water on the road mixed with a little oil and other nasty stuff and freezes. It looks like the regular road, but is actually ice.

Picture a big block of ice as completely black. You can’t see thru it at all. This ice is so hard and so cold it doesn’t melt. That is your life, and my life, and the life of everyone we know and don’t know. But God’s grace is at work. It’s a big ice pick. And it starts chipping away at the cold blackness in our lives. Each time God’s prevenient grace nudges us, another chip of ice comes off.

For all of us, the sizes of the chips are different. For Bob the chips might be small. For Billy they might be huge. But God’s grace is working every day to break thru that wall of ice around our soul.
PAUSE

In the beginning, God created the universe, the world, and everything in it and saw that it was good. God created humans in his own image and likeness. The relationship between humans and God was deep and meaningful. When he created us, God gave us some of his attributes. He gave us love, so each of us has the capacity to love and be loved.
He gave us a spirit, and it’s that spirit that makes us who we are. You could say we are ‘hard wired for God’ from the beginning.

Because we were created in the image and likeness of God, all of us long for a deeper and better relationship with Him. It’s that relationship some of us had with our mothers. The theologian Augustine said “Our hearts will not find rest until they find rest in Thee O God.” The good news is we are made in the image of God. The bad news is……human sin.

Adam and Eve made wrong choices that got them kicked out of the Garden, yet God still provided for them. Each of us has made wrong choices in our past that separates us from God and diminishes our spiritual lives. That is the black ice surrounding our soul. Yet God provides for us. God’s love and grace are greater than all our wrong choices.

The good news is God desires a relationship with us even more than we desire to have a relationship with Him. The relationship is that of covenant love. In the OT, the prophets continually called the Hebrew people back to a genuine relationship of love and obedience to God. They proclaimed God’s promise to make a new covenant with the people. And no matter how many times they turned away, God always called them back.

Jesus offers us a new covenant and a new relationship with God. It’s a relationship of love and grace. The love is that of divine love coming straight from the heart of God, a seeking love (that searches for us at all times), and an everlasting love that will never ever diminish. It is a gift (that grace we talked about earlier), a gift, that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

God takes the initiative to seek us out. It’s not up to us to seek God (and in actuality, without his grace and him seeking us first, we would never find him). This prevenient grace helps us to overcome our brokenness and alienation from God.

You wonder now…how do we experience God’s prevenient grace?
That grace had been chipping at the black ice around my soul for years, and even after Brandy and I got married. And then I went on a spiritual retreat in Boerne, TX, called the Walk to Emmaus. Every chance I got, or better yet every chance He got, God sent me out into the “wilderness” outside the building to pray. Just like the Israelites in the OT, I was in a spiritual desert, searching for some nourishment, but not finding any.


I was not sure what I was praying for, what I was looking for, or exactly what God wanted from me, but I still prayed. And then on Sunday morning, God’s grace broke thru that black ice and his light was shining into my soul, blowing on that flicker of a flame to build it into a roaring fire.

I didn’t know what had gotten a hold of me. Instead of just believing, I accepted. No, I KNEW the truth, the truth of Jesus Christ and transformation. That roaring fire got so hot so fast, the black ice exploded and I was finally free from its grip.

Christianity…my life with Christ at the helm, was now a reality. It was only thru the Holy Spirit chipping away at the ice on my soul that I finally got free.
PAUSE

The Holy Spirit can speak to us in many ways throughout our lives. Looking back over that time before Grace broke thru, I can see events happening and people around me that God was using to touch my life. For example: God used my mom to guide me thru the waters of life.

The Holy Spirit can speak to our minds and hearts thru the struggles, frustrations, difficulties, and pain… of unemployment, divorce, tension in your house or church, or the loss of a loved one.

We can experience God’s grace thru the care and sacrifice of others who embody God’s love toward us, such as parents, relatives and friends.

Our church can help us to experience God’s grace and presence thru family worship, prayer, communion, and small groups. The Holy Spirit can awaken our conscience and convince us we can never reform ourselves or earn a place in God’s family without his grace and love in our lives. And God can work thru OUR words, attitudes, and actions to help others open their hearts and lives to the prevenient grace of God.

The critical question for you today is will you open your heart to God and accept the relationship God offers you in Jesus Christ?? Don’t wait another minute and miss the opportunity of a lifetime.


Acts 16:9-15
During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony.

We remained in this city for some days. On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.