Such A Time As This
(All my sermons use illustrations found at www.sermoncentral.com and ALL scripture is NIV unless otherwise noted)
If you watch the news, or listen to the radio, actually if you have a pulse, you know that our world has changed, and continues to change everyday.
DO YOU REMEMBER "DO OVERS?"
They were part of the "Good Ole" Days. I know, Let’s play a little game… Everyone raise their hand. Now put it down when you can’t remember what I mention next…
How many of you remember…
90’s – Beanie Babies; Teenie Beanies; Grunge; and the phrase CHA-CHING!!!
80’s – PacMan; the Rubic’s cube; Leg Warmers; the Fraggles TV show.
70’s – 8 track Tapes; platform shoes; and leisure suits.
60’s – LP’s; Troll dolls; and the first lava lamps!
50’s – Wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside, Hula-hoops, and putting peanuts in your ten-cent 7 oz glass coke bottle before you drank it.
40’s – Party lines on your telephones; and Big Band Music.
All of us can remember the good ole days
When you could happily catch fireflies for an entire evening.
When money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly."
And it wasn’t odd to have two or three "best" friends.
When being old referred to anyone over 20 years of age.
When the net on a tennis court was the perfect height to play volleyball – with no real rules.
Remember when the worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties."
How it was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb.
Remember when you were finally tall enough to ride the "big people" rides at the amusement park and when a foot of snow was a dream-come true.
And the best part for me was how you could correct any mistake by yelling, "do over!" Well the good ole days are not done! God gives us a “Do Over”!
SUCH A TIME AS THIS
I truly believe that we Christians are here in the NOW, because there is something we can do about the place where our society finds itself. In the book of Esther a decree was issued to kill all the Jews and Mordecai and Esther could have despaired and decided to keep to their own and save only themselves. Instead they saw that God had placed them in their positions for a purpose, so they seized the moment and acted.
Est 4:13-14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"
PRAYER
When it is within our reach to save others, we must do so. We cannot withdraw, or wallow in the things we do not have, but we must ask God for direction and ACT! I for one believe that God put our church here “for such a time as this.”
In Bill Gates’ new book Business @ The Speed of Thought, he lays out 11 rules that students do not learn in high school or college, but should.
He argues that our feel-good, politically correct teachings have created a generation of kids with no concept of reality who are set up for failure in the real world.
RULE 1 - Life is not fair; get used to it.
RULE 2 - The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3 - You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone, until you earn both a high school and college degree.
RULE 4 - If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.
RULE 5- Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping, they called it opportunity.
RULE 6 - If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
RULE 7 - Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills; cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents’ generation, try "delousing"
the clothes in your own room.
RULE 8 - Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they will let you try as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
RULE 9 - Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
RULE 10 - Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to their jobs.
RULE 11 - Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
As I grow older I realize that the things I learned from My Dad still apply today and perhaps many of you have heard thses things as well. The top ten things I learned from Dad.
10.When he was your age, kids had to walk six miles to school in the snow and rain . . . uphill both ways.
9. If he had acted like you, his father would have knocked him into the middle of next week.
8. When he was your age, kids had to make their own fun.
7. You weren’t born in a barn.
6. When he was your age, he had to work for what he got.
5. You don’t wanna make Dad stop the car.
4. “Because I said so” is a reason that makes perfect sense to an adult.
3. You’d better stop crying or he’ll give you a reason to cry (like you didn’t already have one).
2. You’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached.
And the #1 thing you learned from your father . . . 1. Money doesn’t grow on trees!
So what can we do TODAY, what can we as a church DO in times like these:
I. LIFT UP CHRIST
John 12:27-33 "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again." 29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. 30 Jesus said, "This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."
We need to lift up Christ, we need to defeat the power of Satan in this world and lift up Jesus, so that ALL men are drawn to Him.
You may notice that in verse 27 Jesus says, “now my heart is troubled” Jesus is human, and He does not want or desire to go to the cross and die a horrible death, take the sin of the world upon Himself and be separated from His Father, but instead of asking God to change the plan Jesus knows that this is the very reason He came to the earth, and He does what He needs to do in order to bring GLORY to God. And folks I say in the times we live in, it is time to stop worrying about whether or not we are comfortable, and ask ourselves what would God have me to do. Jesus did not want to die on the cross, He was troubled, BUT, not His will but the will of the Father. These are words that truly bring glory to God. This is what we as Christians and as a church need to speak and practice today, in “such a time as this.” It is NOT about our will, it is NOT about our desires, it is NOT our comfort, it is ALL about doing God’s will to bring Him the glory.
Many times I have found myself in a place where I am truly less then comfortable. I have served in ministries where I often wondered WHY? I have had to trust that the congregation would feed us because we did not make enough money to pay the bills and still feed ourselves. We have been in places where people did not like us, and places where we struggled, and yet I know that God was glorified simply by doing His will and not mine.
ANOTHER way to lift up Jesus is to drive out the enemy. Verse 31 says, “now the Prince of this world will be driven out.” The truth is that the verse is telling us of the time of judgement when Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire. BUT, we bring God glory when we drive Satan out of our lives and our world and our church. Now I know that many here today will believe that Satan cannot be in our church. They have bought into the lie that this building is somehow Holy and Satan can not eneter into our assembly. Yet, I am here to tell you that is not true, Satan will use whatever weak Christian he can to divide and conquer. He will only sit back when things are slow and complacent. If things are moving according to the Will of God, Satan will step in and do whatever he can to divide the church and make it go backwards. Satan will use PRIDE or GREED and make people his tools.
Many years ago C.S. Lewis wrote the Screwtape Letters. Screwtape was an assistant devil writing to his nephew Wormwood. Screwtape was telling his nephew how to make the "patient" leave the camp of the arch enemy, the Prince of Peace, and dwell in the camp of the real boss, the prince of darkness. It is a great read!
I would like to share with you another letter, this one written by Twisttape to his apprentice Harshwood as they discuss his training and graduation from devil’s school.
The letter begins: Dear Harshwood,
I have read the notices that you are about to graduate and begin your work on earth. Glad to hear that your training went well. I see that you will be a graduate with honors. Splendid!
Apply all of your knowledge to the task at hand, for the enemy, the Prince of Peace, God of Love is a resourceful enemy. Just when you think you have him in your grasp or one of this people, he pulls a trick and low and behold you stand empty, you lost your soul for the fires of hell.
I would like to give you one piece of advice, one bit of wisdom as you begin your tour of duty in the enemy’s camp. Throughout my tour of duty, I have learned one thing about these humans which I feel can be so very useful for you.
Humans usually have a very high regard for themselves. They think they are pretty good. They can see the faults, the sins, the evil in another, but they see only good in themselves. My advice to you my dear Harshwood, is to encourage that thinking. Encourage it for all its worth.
The chief antagonizer, that Christ fellow, wants the humans to see their own sins, but Harshwood, blind their eyes, their hearts, their souls to that revelation. Let them think only of the good in themselves, and you, may dear friend Harshwood, will meet your quota of human beings who will spend the rest of their lives with our master, the lord of the heat and fire, Master Satan.
Let them see that when repentance is called for it is not them who needs to repent. Let them see over and over again that they are really better than the guy next to them in the pew. When the pastor reads about John the Baptist, let them fall asleep, turn to other thoughts, so they will not realize that it is them John is talking to. Let them see that they are indeed really pretty good, no need for repentance, no need for forgiveness, and then you will have them. You will have them because they will see that they do not really need that Christ fellow, and they really need is themselves. Then, then they will be ours.
For you see my dear Harshwood, when these humans see themselves as great, then they are filled with self pride, and they don’t need that Jesus fellow. This is how it will begin. They you will have them in your claws.
Good luck on your tour of duty, my heart goes out o you as you use every trick, every scheme, every evil desire, every good intention, every proud thought to win souls for our side. Signed : Your admiring friend Twisttape
We must do God’s WILL and we must drive Satan out and lift up Jesus to a world of people who are lost.
II. CULTIVATE CARING CHRISTIANS
The time is right folks for our church and God’s people to begin cultivating caring Christians. Now I say this thinking about how the generation of today acts about others. “I don’t give a care.” Improper English and really bad attitude. BUT, the truth is that many of today only care about themselves.
Jesus taught us well, he was asked, by a teacher of the LAW, how a person could inherit eternal life. Jesus asked back, “What does the law say?” Actually He said, “How do you read it?” And the answer is correct, the teacher of the law says, Luke 10:27 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
But when jesus tells him he is correct he follows up with another question to try and trap Jesus, he asks, “And who is my neighbor?” Now Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. This story is important to us because it shows that we need love ALL people with the love of God.
What joy to love the saints above When I get home to glory.
To love below, the saints I know, Well, that’s another story!
To love mankind I always find To be a simple task.
To have love for the man next door Is more than one should ask!
Love’s full and free when two agree; It isn’t hard at all.
But easy it ain’t to love the saint Who drives me up the wall!
When someone’s kind, and has Christ’s mind, I love him with great ease.
But one who hurts with words he blurts, Don’t make me love him, please!
If no one needs my loving deeds, I love unstintingly.
But hungry saints with real complaints Should stay away from me!
But Jesus said, to those He led, “By this all will discover
That you are Mine. This is the sign – That you love one another.”It is not always easy to love your neighbor as yourself, but in times such as these it is vital and important. The world can not know the love of Jesus if they can not see it in the church. If we do not take care of each other and stand united, how will the world see us as place they need to be?
Selfishness MUST be replaced with selflessness.
Where self is involved, there is no afterthought. Either we focus on us or we focus on others. Either way there is little left over to sift through when the deed is done. That is the nature of self; it commands all of our attention, becoming either a soft wrap into which we slip by whose warmth and security we are compelled to remain, not venturing out for anything or anyone, or it becomes wrap in our hands by which all who touch it are comforted, strengthened and benefitted. Self is like a bubbling drink, full of carbonation. There is are only two ways to handle it. Leave it in the can so that it retains its full carbonation or open the can and drink it. Once opened, however, the dynamics of carbonation are changed. Drink it or lose it. These are the only choices.
Selflessness is an art. By nature none of us are really into it nor do we really aim to master it. It requires a change in us, something that puts away the old nature of selfishness and takes on a new nature of selflessness. Our nature is to keep “us” for us. Or, at the very least, share some but keep some. But, like that carbonated drink, sharing implies using, not retaining. To truly deny oneself, to die to oneself, requires an all or nothing effort. In Ernest Gordon’s true account of life in a World War II Japanese prison camp, Through the Valley of the Kwai, there is a story that never fails to move me. It is about a man who through giving it all away literally transformed a whole camp of soldiers. The man’s name was Angus McGillivray. Angus was a Scottish prisoner in one of the camps filled with Americans, Australians, and Britons who had helped build the infamous Bridge over the River Kwai. The camp had become an ugly situation. A dog-eat-dog mentality had set in. Allies would literally steal from each other and cheat each other; men would sleep on their packs and yet have them stolen from under their heads. Survival was everything. The law of the jungle prevailed...until the news of Angus McGillivray’s death spread throughout the camp. Rumors spread in the wake of his death. No one could believe big Angus had succumbed. He was strong, one of those whom they had expected to be the last to die. Actually, it wasn’t the fact of his death that shocked the men, but the reason he died. Finally they pieced together the true story.
The Argylls (Scottish soldiers) took their buddy system very seriously. Their buddy was called their “mucker,” and these Argylls believed that is was literally up to each of them to make sure their “mucker” survived. Angus’s mucker, though, was dying, and everyone had given up on him, everyone, of course, but Angus. He had made up his mind that his friend would not die. Someone had stolen his mucker’s blanket. So Angus gave him his own, telling his mucker that he had “just come across an extra one.” Likewise, every mealtime, Angus would get his rations and take them to his friend, stand over him and force him to eat them, again stating that he was able to get “extra food.” Angus was going to do anything and everything to see that his buddy got what he needed to recover. But as Angus’s mucker began to recover, Angus collapsed, slumped over, and died. The doctors discovered that he had died of starvation complicated by exhaustion. He had been giving of his own food and shelter. He had given everything he had -- even his very life. The ramifications of his acts of love and unselfishness had a startling impact on the compound.
“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12). As word circulated of the reason for Angus McGillivray’s death, the feel of the camp began to change. Suddenly, men began to focus on their mates, their friends, and humanity of living beyond survival, of giving oneself away. They began to pool their talents -- one was a violin maker, another an orchestra leader, another a cabinet maker, another a professor. Soon the camp had an orchestra full of homemade instruments and a church called the “Church Without Walls” that was so powerful, so compelling, that even the Japanese guards attended. The men began a university, a hospital, and a library system. The place was transformed; an all but smothered love revived, all because one man named Angus gave all he had for his friend. For many of those men this turnaround meant survival. What happened is an awesome illustration of the potential unleashed when one person actually gives it all away.
INVITATION
