Short Thoughts

I was reading Psalm 119:136 and was touched by these words:

Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for Your law is not obeyed.

The Psalmist felt grief when he witnessed God's law being disobeyed.

Christ mourned over the fate of Jerusalem, the direct result of the sins of the Jews. We can read His words that reveal His pain and sorrow.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, but you were not willing.
Matthew 23:37

Sometimes Christ was angry over sin, as God is often angry in the Old Testament. But more often we see God's sorrow in both Testaments.

The Sin Out There In The World....

I wonder about my own reaction to sin. When I hear a news item that reflects man's evil deeds -- do I sorrow, or am I angry? I think usually I am angry. But not always a 'godly, righteous anger,' but an angeroften tinged with my own pride....like the sinner has committed an affront to my own standards, my own comfort zone. Maybe it has infringed on my own sense of security and well-being. I don't know exactly, but I do know that my own anger at sin is sometimes (often?) concealing some of my own pride and self-righteousness.

I think it would be better if my initial reaction to the evil and sin in this world were more of a sorrow -- a sorrow that the ones who commit the sins are disobeying God's own righteous standards set up for all mankind and so are grieving Him; and a grief for them because they "know not what they do."

The Sin Right Here In My Own Heart....

My own sin -- I am sorry more than angry. I am compassionate and seeking mercy and forgiveness from God. "Forgive me, O God, even though I know what I do."

So I tend to feel sorry for myself for my own sin and feel anger when I see sin in others..... an example of my own double standard.

C. S. Lewis talks about this -- how we can say we 'love the sinner but hate the sin' -- and how that seemed hard for him to understand -- until one day he looked in the mirror and it dawned on him. "Yes," he said, "I am a perfect example of that idea.
I hate my sin, but I love myself."

Thoughts from Acts 2

What a great service today! (Dec 19)

Carolyn Anderson played Simple Gifts for the offertory and Emily Valdez sang I Wonder as I Wander...she did a super job. And it all started with the Jubilaires singing What Can I Give to the King?

Bro. Mike took us back to Acts 2. He began with an illustration from air flight - about how course adjustments have to be made during a trip. Sometimes we need to do that in our church, also, checking to see that we are being led, directed, motivated, fueled and defined by the Holy Spirit. This applies to everything we do.

On the Day of Pentecost described in Acts 2, God was making a major course adjustment. He moved to a new address. Away from the temple in downtown Jerusalem to the residences of the human hearts. He used the miracle of tongues to get the people's attention.

But many, in verse 13, mocked the whole scene and blamed the event on 'too much wine.'

I guess to them it was just gibberish. The text says the disciples were talking about the wonders of God. So the unbelieving, disbelieving mind would not hear the words.

What would it take to get their (the mockers and scorners) attention? The obvious miracle of the tongues did not do it. (When you think about it -- how could any of it be related to drinking too much? Over drinking does not make people speak in actual foreign languages -- or we would have a new Berlitz course -- how to learn Spanish by drinking tequila or French by speaking Bordeaux).

This was not a marketing ploy. Not a special meeting to determine how to reach people with the gospel. Not a media survey on 'felt needs.' (It was 'seeker friendly', though!)

It was a God-thing.

How does God work?

1. God chooses to work in ways that reveal the condition of people's hearts.
His ways are not our ways. God's work at Pentecost revealed the condition of the hearts of the listeners and observers. Some marveled and some mocked.

2. Unbelief can be the result of optimum circumstances of life. Deuteronomy 8 warns the Israelites about this pitfall. Moses reminds his people that God had humbled them in the desert during the long years of wandering. Now they were getting ready to enter the promised land -- the land of plenty.

When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land He has given you. Be careful that you don't forget the LORD your God, failing to observe His commands, laws and decrees....then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God.

Some people have fortunate lives. But they refuse to acknowledge that God has blessed them. Sometimes it's dangerous to be blessed too much. It may mean we do not feel the need of God. We need some place in our lives where God can reach in and speak to us. Something that needs to be 'fixed.'

3. Unbelief must be approached from the perspective of spiritual deadness.

If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this world has blinded the eyes of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
2 Corinthians 4:3-6

People don't require a smart, witty, popular evangelist. They don't need an intellectual giant or an entertaining singer. It is God who commands the light to shine out of the darkness. It is His Holy Spirit that bring us to Him.

Illustration: Luke 16, when the rich man died and cried out from hell for Father Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers so that they would repent and not come to that place of torment.

Abraham said, "They have Moses and the Prophets." The rich man said, "but if someone comes from the dead they will repent."

Abraham says "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead."

Bro Mike's last question: Does God have a trick up His sleeve for my friends, family, loved ones who reject Him? (My hearts cries out "Yes, God, have something up Your sleeve!"

But Bro Mike points out....the answer is usually No...there is nothing else "up His sleeve." The evidence is already here. (However, we can't predict God's sovereign ways -- like the children in Narnia tried to describe Aslan -- He is not a tame lion!)

The key is God's Word -- it's all there. And all our activities at church must reflect the treasure of God's Word. Worship services, prayer meetings, choir, Sunday School, Awanas, the outreach ministries of Lighthouse and Basketball --it is the Word of God that we must keep proclaiming. Even if our loved ones are mockers and scorners...we must keep sowing the seed of God's Word.

God's Word is for us the knowledge, the Truth, and the power of God. To the mockers it is just foolishness. We must keep sowing the seed and praying that God will work on the soil.

Acts

More from Bro. Mike's sermons on Acts.....

On the 12th of December, Bro. Mike concluded his sermon with thoughts about the goings-on at that Pentecost (Acts 2). What was the commotion really all about?

About a loving God reaching down to bless the whole world with a gift He desired to give.

It was the reversal of what happened at Babel thousands of years before (Genesis 11)

Here at this Pentecost, in Jerusalem, Jews and Jewish converts from all over the world were hearing the disciples in their own languages. "Utterly amazed, they asked, 'Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappodocia, Pontus and Asia....Cretans and Arabs--we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!'" (Acts 2)

It was about a loving God reaching down to bless the whole world with a gift He desired to give.

In order to give it, He had to get their attention! And so He did!

Grace is truly amazing. Just a few weeks before these people had condemned Christ and demanded His crucifixion. The same Peter who had denied even knowing Christ was now speaking to this crowd and proclaiming that Christ was, indeed, the promised Messiah.

God is finished filling His temples. He is now filling us with His Spirit. Do we focus on that? Do we reveal that in our daily lives?

(Personal Note: I have been thinking a lot lately about God's sovereignty. In Isaiah 46: 10, He reminds us, "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient time, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please." I love that -- it makes me feel great joy -- He will do exactly what He pleases!

Then the Psalmist, in Psalm 135, says "I know that the LORD is great, that our Lord is greater than all gods. The LORD does whatever pleases Him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths." He does whatever pleases Him.....not me, but Him!

I enjoy these reminders that our God is up there watching over us all and sometimes reaching right down into history and turning things all around and upside down! Just like at that Pentecost. God is good. All the time. All the time God is good. And God can surprise us!

Then this morning in Chuck Colson's Breakpoint article he talked about the invocation given during the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancun. In the woman's invocation she invoked the Mayan goddess, Ixchel, a deity who demanded human sacrifices, and "prayed" that the deity would "inspire" the delegates!

Is this for real? I don't think we could make up a story any funnier! And they get paid for that?
So is global warming related in some way to the pagan sacrificial fires they threw their prisoners, and even their own children, in? Sorry, I know that's not funny. It was, and is, horribly real.)

Notes on Acts

My Journal notes from Bro Mike's series on Acts...December, 2010

Acts 2:1-4

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

They were waiting for the promise of the Father. Waiting as Christ instructed them to. This event in Acts 2 marks the end of the Old Testament.

There was no preaching, no teaching, no youth group, no Sunday School, no VBS. They were just waiting.

The main action in town was over at the temple. Many thousands of Jews had arrived at Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. But this group of 120 or so were at an unimportant room, waiting for God's promise.

God had an appointment there no one else knew about. God was looking down on that upper room, not on the temple mount.

Ezekiel 37. The Valley of Dry Bones. This valley full of dry bones; hopelessness.

God told Ezekiel, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will now that I am the LORD.'"

Earlier, in Ezekiel 36:26, God had said

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep My Laws.

Back to Acts 2:3.
Sound - temporary
Flames - momentary
What stayed? The Holy Spirit.

They were all filled -- all who had waited.

What does it mean to me?

Romans 8:9-10. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.

Do you know if the Holy Spirit is in you?
When was the last time you were aware that the Holy Spirit was in you?
What evidence of the Holy Spirit is in your life?
See Galatians 5: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Has the Holy Spirit taken residence in you?

Notes on the Acts in Acts

Bro Mike has been taking us into Acts these past weeks. I know I have read the book numerous times before, but this study is opening my eyes to see much more

This series (he is calling it a short series, a 'mini-series') he began on November 21.

The first decision to be made by the disciples after the ascension of Jesus was the choosing of Matthias to replace Judas in the group of "Twelve." (Acts 1) This would be the first decision of the church.

In doing so, they

1. Acknowledged God's Word as the ultimate authority for all decisions. Peter quoted from
Psalm 69, "it is written." We believe in the existence of "absolute truth." Most of our culture does not. Sometime ago the idea of relative truth began to emerge in our culture. Now it is not that truth is "relative," but that there is no truth at all.

2. Acknowledged God's standard for apostolic leadership

3. Determined a procedure for discovering God's Will

Bro Mike also emphasized the importance of "waiting" -- as Christ commanded -- for the "gift My Father promised and which you have heard Me speak about." They waited and were empowered by that gift of the Holy Spirit.

How about us?
1. What place does God's Word have in our lives?
2. Are we continuing steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine?
3. Have we personally determined a procedure for discovering God's Will?
Faith? Prayer? How do we make decisions in our own lives?


The next week (November 28) he started out by talking about dates and why they are important. We all know what happened July 4, 1776, December 7 (which is today, by the way), 1941 and September 11, 2001.

But do we know what happened October 16, 1846? (anesthesia was 'invented' -- by the way, the word was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes -- I didn't know that -- I just found out when I looked up how to spell anesthesia). What about April 22, 1955? (Salk vaccine)


What about Pentecost? An important date for Jews all over the world and now an important date for all of us Gentiles.

Jerusalem would have been crowded as Jews from all over the Empire came to celebrate this feast. It was 50 days after Passover.

This particular Pentecost was observed by the 120 followers of Jesus in an unknown, unimportant upper room. There, at that time and in that obscure place, God brought His Spirit and changed the lives of all those present who were witnesses to His wonderful gift.

What happened?
1. God honored His Word to Abraham (Genesis 12)
2. God honored His Word to His disciples (John 14:12ff)
3. God honored the favorable atmosphere -- all together in one place -- how can we form a favorable atmosphere that God can honor is a special way?

This is great series --right where the "rubber hits the road"...

More later...stay tuned...tune in again next week....(film at 11?)