The Problem With Robots!

Introduction:

It appears that since workers in the United States want 15 dollars a hour; to take food orders and put cheese burgers together, or make fries, McDonalds are replacing cashiers with automated cashiers. However, these robotic machines, can only do what they have been programed to do. They cannot think and can only respond in their limited capacity.

God did not want us to be robots. He could have designed us, whereas, we could only listen to Him. He could have designed us not to sin. He not want to make us having no other choice but to serve Him. He wanted us to choose for ourselves whether we would love Him, and obey Him out of that love.

Before I get into the sermon, let me admit to you something. I always teach my kids to use all of their available resources, whether they are studying for a test, working on a thesis, or doing a research paper. Use all of your available resources.

Today I have been using my students as part of my available resources. I have been teaching my kids how to prepare Christ centered messages. Anything apart from this is not really preaching. Therefore, this sermon is a by product of my students and I working together as they learned to prepare Christ centered messages.

In this text we see three verbs needed in order for our lives to be renewed in Christ Jesus.

I. The First Verb Needed In Order for Our Lives to be Renewed in Christ Jesus is Change:

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Change is not something we like to do. The sentence that has killed more churches in America than any other sentence: We have never done it that way before. Change is never easy and yet, we must not remain where we have been or where we are at today.

It is a true saying that God will accept us where we are at when we come to Him. In Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God-what is good and well pleasing and perfect.”

The Apostle Paul expresses the need for believers to be Holy in the site of God. Paul doesn't show a free grace gospel but shows a connection between justification and holiness. The cannot be separated. You cannot have one without the other. The thought should be hated, that we think we ca live a sinful life and still be justified. No one can be dead and alive at the same time.

Change has to take place in our lives. I am thankful that I am not the same person today as I was even six years ago. Those students I have worked with, some of them have been baptized into Christ Jesus.

I have tried to influence my students by giving Christ centered messages. When changes takes place in our lives; that does not mean we will not fail. I have had more failures in my life, then I have had successes.

When I was first born, I was taken from my mother at birth because family services felt that my family were not a good family to be raising children.

Before I was seven I was rushed to a Children Hospital two hours a way. They put me in a funeral car because they thought I would be dead by the time I reached the hospital.

It was determined that I was mentally handicapped and would not be able to complete the fourth grade, it was determined that people should not worry about my schooling because I would not go beyond the fourth grade.

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I was severely beaten and molested in one foster home. My head was put through a window at a young age. I have a deformed spinal cord, epilepsy, and bipolar. The reason I am receiving disability.

However, God had a different plan for my life. Not only did I graduate from elementary to high school, I have three college degrees and a Honorary Doctorate of Divinity for the work I have done in the field of youth ministry. While I have had many failures God has turned them into successes and presently I am an American Ordained Ministry Partner with the United Church of Christ of the Northern-Western Samar Conference and I could not be more happy. I have been assigned to do something I love doing and that is teaching my students to become church workers in their various congregations. But in order for this to take place I had to undergo changes in my life, that I would be all that Christ wanted me to be.

Transformation is important to change. I have been taking a Bible course at Setting the Captives Free. I once was entangled in the sin of pornography, and want to mentor other men to get out of this sinful addiction.