Was
pretty stressed out the last few days.
Was working hard at work to get some things accomplished and also had to
teach/preach at the Youth service last night. The stressful part was that I had no
time to practice my sermon before giving it. I wrote it fairly well a few days ago
and knew the materiel pretty well but still had no time to practice and felt
pretty - well not ready. I guess it
went off okay.
Anyway,
below is the text of my sermon. It
was written to be spoken so I hope it doesn't lose anything in
translation...
Also, I
will be gone next week on vacation with my family, Deb's sister and her Mom
& Dad who "sponsored" the main portion of the excursion. It should be fun!!!!!
Can God
do what He says He can do?
We hope for all kinds of
things - Pass a test, find a boyfriend, get into High School, get out of High
school, get into college, get out of college, get a good job, find a wife or
husband, have some kids, buy a great house, live long enough to have some
grandkids... then what?
Isn't there a need to
Hope for something more?
Is this all there
is? This life? And then there's
death?
When it really comes down
to it we seem to hope on a daily basis for things that kind of disappear over
time, don't we... we don't come out and say this but our hopes here in this
world are fleeting - you kind of conquer them one by one and then move
on...
So, what is hope
really? Don't we really want to
hope and pray that there is something MORE? Something beyond this world. Something beyond this life. We are really hoping that life doesn't
end when we take our last breaths.
I mean is there anyone
here who doesn't want to live forever?
I know I do. I'm not 15
anymore and I'm over half way done with my time here on earth. All those things I talked about hoping
for... I've kind of done... Now I hope for things for my kids. I hope they don't make the same mistakes
I do, I hope they go to college, I hope they get a good job, get married, have
kids, have grandkids, make enough money to take care of me when I'm
old.
So, I'm kind of turning
my thoughts these days to things of a longer-term nature. I am hoping there is something
more.
1 Peter 3:15 says,
"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the
reason for the hope that you have."
I can tell you that not
only do I hope for that something more... I can tell you what it is, and I can
tell you why I have confidence in the fact that my hope will come
true!
That hope is for an
eternal life with my creator, that hope is that all things will be made new, my
hope is that I will see the dead come to life again, my hope is that in this
eternal life - there will be no tears, and there will be no destruction, and
that I will get to lay down with lions...
Because if that is not
the case... if that stuff isn't there... this life I'm living and this short
time on earth, it just seems like such a struggle and such a short time and
there absolutely has to be something more.
So, I know what I really
hope for, and I also know why I hope... one of the reasons why I hope is that I
know who God is through all his names.
If you've been at Flood here the past few weeks, you have heard his
names... The Lord Provides, The Lord Heals, The Lord is my Banner, what were
some of the other ones...
all these names tell you
something about Him and they fuel your hope that there is something more... but
more importantly they give you a hint of the fact that the Lord can do what He
says He can do. These names did not
come about because some really devout guy or gal was walking along and said,
"hey you know what...I'm going to call the Lord Jehovah Shema" - no, something
happened. Something that was only
attributable to God. Only God could
have done that. These are called
Miracles.
I have hope that there is
something more, something greater because God is the God who performs
miracles.
If there are no miracles,
there can be no hope! Did you hear
that? Without miracles there can be
no hope that there is anything greater than this life to hope
for.
C.S. Lewis - a great
Christian writer... wrote the Chronicles of Narnia and the Guy who helped bring
J.R.R. Tolkien to Christ - said "You can not separate Christianity from the
miraculous".
He knew that without
miracles there is not Christianity.
Psalm 77:13-14 "Your
ways, O God, are holy. What god is so great as our God? You are the God who
performs miracles; you display your power among the
peoples."
Now how many of you have
been to the NET classes on Sunday morning for the last month or so? Good... the rest of you - get there -
but if you were there you'll recall that we have gone over the miracles of
Christ. We covered 5 of them...
- Water into
wine
- Heals over a long
distance (Centurions Son)
- Feeding of the 5000
which is really maybe 13,000 or more
- Calming the
Storm
- and Lazarus - raising
Him from the dead
And each one of those
classes was geared to show you something about Jesus/about God and what He can
do and what He cares about.
Water into wine - small
stuff like parties.
Centurions Son... Jesus
doesn't have to be physically there to heal you; to make you better, He can do
it from where ever He is...even now... right?
Feeding more than
13,000... Anybody do the math that day in Net? To feed 5,000 from 5 fish He's would
have had to come up with 2 ton's of fish!
For 13,000 say 5 tons of fish, but he also fed them bread, so that's
another 5 tons of food at least. Do
you know that we could probably not store that much food right here in this
FLC? We'd need fork lifts and
pallets, and crates and all they needed was a miracle from God! So, this was the God about provision...
He is going to provide for you...
Then he calmed that
storm... huge storm, wind, rain, thunder, lightning, etc. God knows how to calm the storms in your
life too.
Then there was this
raising from the dead thing.
Lazarus. If that Miracle was
done today...Jesus would walk out to that cemetery right behind us there, have
you and me dig up the grave, lift the casket out of the dirt, open the lid, and
Jesus would thank God and call to the dead person...Hey John come out of that
casket. And he would sit up, crawl
out of the casket and be completely alive.
Now those are some
miracles aren't they?
There are people that say
that miracles don't happen today. I
mean when was the last time someone dug up a grave and a living person walked
out of it? So that doesn't happen
in our lives today.
Then there are people who
say that everything is a miracle.
I'm thinking that it is somewhere in between. I know that it is absolutely a miracle
that I am standing here with you today.
I spent 36 years running away from God and Him saving me is nothing short
of a miracle. Same for you. Are there instances of Miracles in this
world we live in. I'd have to say
yes. But let's focus back on the
Miracles of God that we have recorded for us in the Bible.
So, are these huge
miracles, these ones where tons of food show up, where storms stop in their
tracks and disappear, the ones where people come forth out of the grave... are
these miracles useless to us? God
NO! John says at the end of his
gospel this...
"Jesus did many other
signs (miracles) in the presence of His disciples, which are not recorded in
this book; but THESE are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God, and that in believing you may have life in His name." John
20:30-31
Okay, so I believe that
He did these things, I believe He's the Son of God. How does this believing give me
life...?
One way is because these
miracles show you more about God than they first appear. They provide the basis of the HOPE that
is in me. They show me that I can
Hope confidently in an eternal life with Him because He can actually Do what He
says He can Do!
Let's look at one miracle
that really kind of drives this point home better than I can and we'll look
really fast so we can bring this to a close and get out of here
okay...
So, grab a bible and look
up Matthew Chapter 9 and follow along with me. No really... if you don't a have a
bible, then grab one from somewhere, share, or what ever. This is not going to be up on the
screen... I'd instead like you to use the new technology, it's really high
speed, it's the actual printed Word...
So, I'm going to read
this to you and you know I don't know how you feel about reading but I am pretty
sure that Jesus did not say these words in a monotone voice. So, I'm not sure how He said it but I'm
going to try to interject some feeling here. Maybe when you read the bible for
yourselves you could also do that and some of His words might come alive for
you...
So, Matthew Chapter 9
Starting at Verse 1...
So you guys out there in
challenge land should grab those bibles and read verses 1 thru 6 here before you
move on... come on now... do I have
to beg you as well... open them up!
This guy is
paralyzed. Can't do anything. They don't have wheelchairs there so
some guys carry him there on a mat or bed as they called it. Jesus sees him and walks over says, Son
your sins are forgiven you. Now
there is a whole bunch of people there and some start thinking what? What just happened here? It's God's job to forgive people their
sins and this human just did it... that is Blasphemous! That would be like "oh Josh, you look so
poor there all crumpled up and not able to walk... your sins are forgiven
you..." The rest of the crowd is going, Like what are you doing? We brought this guy here because you
heal people and you're just gonna leave him there still crippled and just say
his sins are forgiven? What's up
with that?
Jesus, being God and all,
knows what they are thinking and say to them in effect... what do you think is
the harder thing to do? Do you
people think it is harder to forgive sins or is it harder to heal this guy’s
paralysis?
Jesus is asking them to
think about this! How about you
think about it to? Is it harder to
heal the paralysis or is it harder to forgive his sins? Let's think about this really... from
God's perspective is some paralysis here on earth really hard to fix. I mean it is a temporary thing. I can fix your paralysis son but I'm not
going to worry about your ETERNAL self!
That is the wrong approach.
It is infinitely harder to forgive you your sins for eternity so I can
repair your relationship with me so you can be with me forever instead... so I
forgave you your sins, 1st!
Jesus, then explains this
to the crowd. He says, "But that
you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to..." What does it say? "Forgive sins". He's gonna heal this man of his
paralysis. Not to show you that he
can heal paralysis. He's here to
show you that He can heal SIN!
You see miracles show you
that God can control things here on earth.
But they are all supposed to point to something more than the temporary
relief from the junk that happens here on earth. They are supposed to give us HOPE. And that HOPE comes by the fact that we
can see that God can do everything that He says He can do.
You see these miracles
that are depicted in this bible.
Well, they are temporary.
There was another wedding with more wine and I'll bet someone else ran
out of wine. Jesus did not make
water into wine at every wedding.
He healed that
centurion's boy... I'll bet that the boy got sick again. And where is that boy today? He's Dead. He finally got sick and died. Jesus did not save him from every
earthly disease, did he?
Those 5 or 13 or 15,000
people - they were hungry again the very next morning. Jesus did not feed them again day after
day, did He?
Were there ever any more
storms? Yep... Lots! Have people
died in storms since?
Yep.
And how about Lazarus...
I actually would have hated to be him.
He gets seriously ill -
which anyone who's been sick knows that it is just not that fun. Then he has to endure the pain of
dying. Then he gets to be with God
and God send him back and says nope you get to live some more... and then
eventually he gets to do it all over again! I mean Lazarus is not here is he? He's dead.
Miracles done here on
earth are temporary. But Miracles
that show us that Jesus has the power to do what He says he can do... now there
is something to HOPE for.
I don't know about you
but I'm hoping for a God that can make an eternal wedding feast in heaven with
lots of wine... that good Baptist wine of course.
I'm hoping for a God that
provides endless amounts of food that can sustain me forever in
heaven.
I'm hoping for a God that
can take away all the illness, disease, and pain forever in
heaven.
I'm hoping for a God that
can control weather and earthly things because I'm hoping for a heaven that has
no storms, no Tsunami's and no tornados.
And mostly I'm hoping for
a God that can raise my body out of the grave, even if my body has been
decomposing for several days and make me completely new...
forever.
I have Hope. I have a hope that is grounded in the
proof of Miracles that show that God can in fact do what He says He can
do.
Let's pray
together...
And everybody
said..."Amen"
Take care,
friends!
Until next week time ~
Dave
To make comments, to
suggest topics you'd like me to tackle, to get past devotionals, or to be added
to this weekly "devotional email" please write to: Dave Hansen at
philip419@earthlink.net