FB, Cherokee
January 11, 2004
Sunday Morning
“Great Is His Faithfulness”
Intro.: With approximately 250 hours into the New Year, how many of you have faithfully kept ALL of your new year’s resolutions? Any of them? How many of you don’t even care to make New Year’s resolutions?
Not only is this a new year but this is also our church’s Centennial year. For 100 years First Baptist Church Cherokee has been ministering in and through the name of Jesus Christ to people in and out of Alfalfa County. Our ministry is not only measured in miles but also in geography.
Over these 100 years the physical and spiritual elements have changed. Obviously, many of them for the better. People’s lives and needs have changed. Ministry opportunities have changed. Many things have changed but one thing has stayed the same. The message of the gospel has always been “saved by grace through faith alone!”
To accompany our church’s centennial year your staff has developed a theme. “Great Is His Faithfulness – Lord Of Our Past, Love Of Our Life, and Light Of Our Future.” This morning I want to take the first two theme points as two compound points.
I. Lord Of Our Past – Some Things Never Change
A. JESUS.
1. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8.
2. Whether we read this verse in 1904 or 2004 it’s the same.
3. In a world of constant change it is good to know that Jesus Christ is always the same.
4. In a world of pluralism and humanism it is good to know that He is always here for us, that He will always love us.
5. It is good to know that His sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection from the dead will always be sufficient.
6. I don’t hear God calling His Son from heaven again to redeem mankind from their sin.
7. Over 100 years our country has had 19 different presidents but the same Jesus.
8. Over 100 years our city has had 21 different mayors but the same Jesus.
9. Jesus’ sameness yesterday, today and forever is a comfort in this day and gives us a rock solid foundation regardless of changes our city and nation encounter.
B. THE BIBLE
1. Last week I preached a message about reading the Bible and I said, “The Bible is nothing more yet everything else – the revelation of who God is.”
2. The Bible stands for all times as a revelation from God’s mouth to our ears.
3. It has never changed nor will it ever change.
4. It is as current and relevant as today’s Newspapers.
5. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:8.
6. The Word of God is where we get our directives for worship, for our lives, and most of all for salvation.
7. The first person saved in this church to the last will need to trust Christ by grace through faith.
8. This will never change and it will never take second place over man, woman, a policy book, or a church constitution.
9. God’s Word has worked for 100 years in this church and as long as I’m your Pastor it will work for another 100 years.
10. It doesn’t need to be improved, changed, enhanced, altered, or made better.
11. The doctrinal truth taught in the Bible does not change and anyone who tries to change it or water it down or take it away from this pulpit or a classroom will be refuted from the Word of God.
12. God’s truth and the divine principles He has given us do not and will not change.
13. Jesus has been Lord of our PAST, He is Lord of our PRESENT and He will remain Lord of our future when we live by His Word and don’t try to change it or make it fit our lifestyle.
C. SPIRITUAL NEEDS
1. Listen – in every generation that has ever lived, people have hungered for spiritual truth.
2. From Adam to the last baby born this minute.
3. Some more than others in different generations but people have always hungered for spiritual truth.
4. Perhaps more today than ever before people are seeking spiritual guidance in their lives.
5. The World Wide Web has greatly enhanced this possibility.
6. 25% of surfers have searched for religious or spiritual information on the Internet.
7. People’s spiritual needs over 100 years has not changed but the way in which we seek information and answers has changed dramatically.
8. Acts 17:27.
9. The God in which you are seeking today is closer to you than ever before.
10. It is a biblically fact that we will always have spiritual seekers among us – this will never change – nor will our attempts to reach those seekers with the Gospel.
11. Some things never change and as long as we keep our eyes, ears and hearts on the Word of God Jesus will remain Lord of our lives and Lord of our church.
II. Love Of Our Life – Some Things Always Change
A. We Change As We Grow Older.
1. Hopefully we get wiser, more mature, and are able to have better discernment as we age.
2. The older I get the more I realize how smart my mom and dad really are.
3. We change physically. My body is not in the same physical shape it was 20 years ago – neither is yours.
4. Someone has once said, “There are four sings of approaching age: baldness, bifocals, bridges, and bulges.
5. It is true that the older you get the more you are worth: gold in your teeth, silver in your hair, gas in your stomach, precious stones in your kidneys.
6. “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:19.
7. It’s a sober reminder but as we grow older we change.
B. There Are Radical Shifts In The Way Our Culture Views Itself And Processes Information.
1. We all familiar with the industrial age, the transportation age, the information age and now the technological age.
2. From the telegraph transmitter that passed information via print patterns to the digital disc that can hold more information than some libraries.
3. There have been radical changes over the past 100 years: It has brought forth Band-Aids and penicillin, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Camel cigarettes.
4. For some we remember when the first man landed on the moon and all of us have seen this week’s picture from the planet Mars via a remote control vehicle called Rover.
5. Jesus preached from a boat at the Sea of Galilee, creating a natural amphitheatre – I use a lapel microphone.
6. Paul wrote on papyrus with a quill and ink – this week I used Microsoft Word on a Pentium computer.
7. The early church studied from the scrolls and parchments – today we have dozens of translations to hold in our own hands and Bibles on computer where we can look up Scripture in milliseconds.
8. Paul wore a toga while he was preaching – aren’t you glad I wear a suit.
D. Why am I sharing all this history with you in this message?
1. Listen # 1 – Everything that the culture has had to face the Christian has to face at some point.
2. We didn’t get the label “post-modernism” by ignoring the changes over these 100 years.
3. Listen # 2: In every situation the culture and the Christian has to decide how they are going to respond.
4. Though the years have seen many changes in and outside of the church, the message has always remained the same.
5. The reason we are able to acknowledge Jesus as the LORD OF OUR PAST is because He has been the LOVE OF OUR LIFE.
6. That’s not something that just happens over night.
7. 2003 – God’s Word: LEARN It, LOVE It, LIVE It.
8. It takes discipline, exercise, perseverance, consistency.
9. It involved sacrifice, leadership, faithfulness, integrity.
E. We don’t change the message – the message changes us.
1. The only way that God can be and was the LORD OF OUR PAST was to make Him the LOVE OF OUR LIFE.
2. “I obtained mercy because I did it (lostness) ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.” I Timothy 1:13-14.
3. The only way that He will remain the LIGHT OF OUR FUTURE is to keep him the LOVE OF OUR LIFE.
4. Paul is teaching us that it’s the power of the gospel that changes ones life.
5. It’s not what man does it’s what Jesus did.
6. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17.
7. I’m not the same person I was physically 20 years ago, but I’m not the same person I was 20 years ago spiritually either.
8. Though we may change physically, our ethnic makeup may change, technology may advance in megabytes, the message of the cross can never change – but the message of the cross will forever change those who believe and accept what Jesus did on the cross.
Conclusion: The Lord has remained faithful and present at First Baptist Church, Cherokee Oklahoma for 100 years because as individuals and as a church we have remembered Him as the LORD OF OUR PAST, because He has remained as the LOVE OF OUR LIFE.
Next week we will look at the third part in our church theme for 2004. Today this message and invitation calls the church to prayer. Thanking Him for His faithfulness as the LORD OF OUR PAST. And to pray earnestly that He will remain as the LOVE OF OUR LIFE.
Invitation # 275 “I Surrender All”
