Sermon Nuggets Mon May 14
Verses Gen 12
The Beginning of a Spiritual Journey
One summer I read the biography of
Billy Graham. I always find it inspiring to see how God works in some people’s
lives who demonstrate great faith and experience God’s blessing on their lives.
Each person’s story is unique as God calls us to himself and then to follow him
in various paths in their lives.
What is your spiritual journey
like? I’m not talking about just a certain segment that seems spiritual, but
the secular as well. For instance, when
someone goes on a short terms missions trip they are inclined to call that a
spiritual journey. If someone is called into full time Christian service that
might be looked upon as a spiritual journey. When someone is involved in a
special ministry or periodically makes an important spiritual commitment that
is only part of your spiritual journey.
Now I know in my life there are
times when the Holy Spirit is more evident in decisions and guidance in my life
than at other times. My call to follow Christ began my spiritual journey when
in fact the Holy Spirit came into my heart by accepted Jesus Christ into my
life. There were other times which were extra ordinary that some may have and
others may not. I was called into full time Christian service. I have had the
privilege of praying with people at the time of their conversion. I have seen
significant decisions and commitment made at weddings, at births, as well as in
the hospital and at crises times in people’s lives. It has been an incredible
experience to walk with people on their journey and share the truth of the
Bible, not everyone has that privilege.
But there are most other times in
my life when the daily routine does not seem to have much divine guidance. If
my car is on empty I don’t particularly have a time of prayer before the Lord
asking if I should stop at the gas station. Going to the grocery store,
although it should be a spiritual experience, I don’t consciously consider it
such. I pick up what is on the list and what catches my eye and what is on sale
and when the bagger at asks me, “paper or plastic”. I don’t see that as much of
a spiritual journey.
But there are times when I am going
about my daily chores, not my pastoral business, when the Lord will bring
across my path someone with whom I speak, or a situation in which I sense his
closeness that seems to me an intervention that this thing was planned all
along by God.
A spiritual journey is frankly all
of our life when God lives in us. There are a few times when we are called upon
to act with faith, but most of the time we carry on our activities as He allows
us to do with the common sense and personal interests and desires that seek to
live our lives in obedience to Him. But if Christ is in my life my journey
allows me to at times experience the closeness and experience the blessing of
God and other times I am not aware that He is around, but He is. He is there
when I sin. He is there when I resist temptation. He is with me all the time
and even in the mundane activities of the day, whether it is doing the dishes
or washing clothes, or making beds, or paying bills, and even coming to church
that is part of our spiritual journey. The more we walk with God the more we
are aware He wants all of our life in all areas to be of faith.
We introduce the life and journey
of Abram today. God gave him the name Abraham later on, but the lessons of his
beginning this journey of faith are also lessons we need on our spiritual
journey.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Tues May 15 –
Verses Gen 12:1-3 The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your
country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you. ”
Our Journey is to involve Trust
Abram was living Haran after
leaving the land of Ur. Technological developments began to abound during that
time. We talked last week of the tower of Babel and since the people who spoke
Egyptian migrated to that part of the country many years past when built
pyramids, wrote literature, and expressing their culture and religious beliefs
through art and music. The same was true in Mesopotamia. They were doing
geometry long before the Greeks and Arabs. They knew how to construct the arch
and the vault and the dome. They were doing things that we cannot do today,
from an architectural standpoint. It was a highly complex, sophisticated,
technological society. That, of course, corresponds closely with our age today.
But there was also a moral decline.
Their literature shows that, as a people, morality was running rampant. In
Canaan they had a degraded sort of cultic worship. There was sacred
prostitution of both sexes and homosexuality that was culturally accepted, and
most of their literature was frankly pornographic. There was also a terrible
spirit of despair. God not only has preserved the Scriptures for us, but also
has preserved secular writing so we can know what was going on in these times.
Now God wanted to do a new thing.
He wanted to show His works through rising up a people whom he would bless as
they demonstrated faith. He decided to choose Abram to begin. So he told him to
“leave this land and go where I will show you.”
If you do as I say, I will bless you, great nation, great name, great
people
D. L. Moody said: "Trust in
yourself and you are doomed to disappointment; trust in your friends, and they
will die and leave you; but trust in God, and you will never be confounded in
time or eternity."
What is this trust in the Lord
like? For Abraham it meant to forsake what you know and have grown accustomed
to, in order to receive something that you are not sure you are going to get,
but are willing to chance it anyway. It is a step of faith to leave High School
which you know as seniors all your life and begin a new life in college, or
work, or marriage where there are unknowns. But the question kids ask is,
“where is God in my life” There are
times when God has a unique plan and through various ways may let us know He is
calling us to a spiritual journey.
Abram was quite comfortable in Ur
of the Chaldeans. But it was a place without God. God calls Abram to leave this place, there
was no future here! God wanted Abram to
find a new environment where God give Abram an opportunity to show the world
what a real living God can do compared to lifeless idols.
It had not been Abram seeking God,
it was God who called to Abram to follow Him, to suddenly change what you
believe in was a radical change; this is God's way for salvation! Trust believes in a God that ultimately when
that journey ends it is right and worth it, even though we do not know where it
is going to lead.
God had great plans for Abraham,
but it would not be easy for him and it is not always easy for us. It doesn't
always mean a smooth ride, just a meaningful one! Trust gives us a perspective
that God is in control and is worth following even during the hard times of
life. To someone without faith in God their lives simply stumble forward, and
they are always anxious about what may be around the next corner. To someone
without faith there is no sense of meaning to life. There is no larger picture
to existence.
When we read biographies like the
life of Billy Graham, or the life of Abram we see how God works through the
circumstances even when someone isn’t aware what is going on. We see how God
works through our mistakes and sins. We know we are in the hands of God and
there is blessing. Verses 1-3 relate the specific promises that God made to
Abraham. God said to Abraham, "I will make you a great nation." That
certainly has been fulfilled in the numerical growth of the nation of Israel.
We have no way of knowing how many millions of Jews have been born since the
day of Abraham, four thousand years ago--perhaps billions. There are at least
twelve million Jews living today.
But I think God was referring also
to the influence that the Jewish people would have on their world. They have
been great not only in numbers, but in their impact. Someone told me that
twelve percent of all Nobel prize winners were Jews. They have been poets,
philosophers, scientists, kings, and warriors and have made a tremendously
vital contribution to the world, wherever they have gone. Of course, through
the Jewish people came our scriptures and our savior which was the most
important of all. Jesus the Messiah came through the Jewish nation. So the Jews
have truly made a great impact upon the world. This prophecy literally has been
fulfilled. God made from Abraham a great nation.
As it also says in Galatians it was
the faith that gave Abraham his blessing, and we are sons and daughters of
Abraham also by our faith in Jesus Christ.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Weds May 16
Verses Gen 12:4-6 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him;
and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from
Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had
accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for
the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the
great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7
The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.
” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
Our Journey is to involve Obedience
Trust is the quality of believing
God, but a close cousin must be obedience. He left Ur, as the Lord had told
him. He brought with him his nephew and his wife Sarai and all his possessions.
We sing the song, “Trust and Obey
there is no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” We realize
there are people who say they have faith, and others who claim they have works,
but the book of James tells us you do not have faith without works and works
does you no good without faith.
Obedience is following God wherever
he leads, and if he is not apparently leading then do what we know He wants us
to do according to the word. Later in the book of Exodus we know that God
physically and literally led the people of Israel out of Egypt with cloud
during the day and pillar of fire at night. Don’t you wish God would lead you
that way? There would be some heavenly sign so you know you were to go to his
job, or this person to be your spouse, or this home to buy?
However, when that cloud and pillar
stopped they stopped and when they stopped they went on with life taking care
of kids, teaching and studying the law, packing cleaning, cooking, and raising
sheep and cattle and fixing tents, they went about their regularly work as part
of their journey call, not just when they were moving, and so when you are
stopped it is part of the obedience to do what tasks are at hand as part of
God’s will and direction for your life. If you have a job, stay at it as a
means of supplying an honest wage to provide for you and your family, and the
Lord’s work through your tithes.
If you have dirty clothes wash
them, If you have a broken tent or house fix it. If you have school, study. If
you find a person with similar faith in Jesus and you’ve prayed about asking
God to direct you to someone as a special life partner, you seem compatible and
love each other and desire to spend your lives together and other affirm that,
take that as God’s approval. As you continue to talk and plan God has the power
to break off the relationship before your marriage commitment. But after
marriage commit yourself to that person for life. If it doesn’t seem right,
wait.
We call this the "one step at
a time" moment -- one day at a time, one place at a time, and one thing at
a time. Abram does not know the answer to the "where" question. He
had no idea where God was leading him. He just trusted Him. He only knew
"who" he was following, and that was enough for him.
Such great faith however also has
great rewards when we are obedient to what we know God’s word says and how his
spirit leads when God’s word does not specifically say as we pray and offer
ourselves to His disposal.
One of the men from our church was
telling me that he got up in the morning and asked the Lord what He had in mind
for him to do today. His life was
willing to serve. Not long after that someone called and needed help. “Thank
you Lord” was his prayer.
Abram's obedience brought him to
the place called the "promise land", but remember while it was a
"promise land" it was still full of Canaanites! Trusting and obeying isn’t a one time
experience. You can't just get "saved" and then sit back and not live
for the Lord the rest of your life. Real faith has real obedience every day of
our lives!
Many Americans are willing to believe in God
and go to church, but obeying God and living by His standards rather than our
own is the tough part of our faith journey
God wants far more from us than just knowledge. He wants us
to allow Him to work out His mighty acts and through us together to show the
world that He is real! Imagine Abram
telling his family that a new God had spoken to him, one that they have never
heard of before and asked him to take his family and start traveling toward a
land none of them had ever been to before, without really knowing what life was
going to be like even during the trip!
Abram could have stayed in, but his
name today would be unheard of, or he could obey by faith and watch God do
something through his life that would last for eternity!
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Thurs May 17 –
Gen 12:7-9 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your
offspring I will give this land. ” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who
had appeared to him.
8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and
pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an
altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.
9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.
Our Journey is to
involve Worship
Now what happened when Abram
arrived to the land to the place of Shechem, to the land of the Canaanites-
this Promised land? He has a worship experience through witness and prayer. I
appears at the time of Moses the people could see the tree of Moreh at Shechem
and said this is the place where Abram and God talked. This was the place of
prayer and communication with God. And prayer, this two way conversation with
God and Abram, isn’t all recorded but some of it is. But what we know is the Lord
appeared to Abram and told him he had arrived. This land is where your
offspring will settle.
Abram prays and worships by
building an altar part as a personal expression of thanksgiving, as well as
public monument to the work of God and the relationship of God in his life. It
involved sacrifice of an animal, or more. Abram travels throughout the land,
east, west, south and north he is checking out what will one day be his and his
offspring.
Yet, during Abram's lifetime he
owned very little of this territory, only a small area used for a burial plot.
Once he had arrived, God had not only "showed him the land" but now
promises to "give his offspring the land". It no doubt involved Lot
and Sarai and servants. It was a means of sharing a testimony about the work of
the Lord.
It’s like sharing our personal
testimony-- to tell others who we were before, where we have been, what we now
know, and how are we different.
I was reading about one church that
practiced what they called. a thanksgiving gathering. I was impressed with the
idea. We have a testimony time at Thanksgiving and New Years of events that
people want to share. We have a sharing time, often in Sunday School and at
others times when people want to praise God for what he has done.
A thanksgiving
gathering was usually a one-time home fellowship where the hosts invited their
friends, relatives and church members to share in the blessings of a special
event. A thanksgiving gathering was usually a one-time home fellowship where
the hosts invited their friends, relatives and church members to share in the
blessings of a special event. Often within a home they would sing, followed by
the host’s testimony about how God had blessed the family, and a short
devotional by the pastor or one of the leaders. Then they would fellowship around
refreshments
I had been invited to a home of
a couple who moved in to a new home. It was a time of thanksgiving. There were
also a number of people were invited to the home for dedication, prayer, and
thanksgiving testimony of the way God worked in their lives and how they got
their new home. Maybe that idea will catch on more.
God called
this man Abrab into a relationship with himself, called him out of a
civilization just like ours, just as decadent, just as complicated, just as
difficult to live in. He called him out of that environment, called him into a
relationship with him. And there was a thanksgiving gathering of prayer and
worship and testimony.
Now the expression, "calling
on the name of the Lord" does not mean merely prayer, or even worship. It
was also a means of testimony to the people of Canaan. Abraham demonstrated and
witnessed as a public example his trust and obedience in God He would commune
personally with His creator. That was something the people did not do
personally with their gods. They would try to appease them and sacrifice to
them, and priests would go through rituals, but there was no personal
communication, for there was no true God, but the one creator of heaven and
earth.
In your faith journey how is your
daily walk with God? I don’t know how people can grow in their faith unless
they spend personal time in the Bible and in prayer. Then to live out your
faith among your neighbors. To pray without ceasing is like saying, “Good
morning Lord,” as you get up in the day and “Good night Lord”, as you go to
bed, conscious of the fact that He is involved in all of your life, secular and
sacred. Is your life open to let Him surprise you and lead you and use you, and
even if it is with struggle or heart ache that you will trust that He will see
you through? For Abram it meant living out, through his life and through his
word, the relationship that he had with his God.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets- Fri May 18-
Verses Gen 12:10-20 Now there was a famine in the land, and
Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was
severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know
what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say,
‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you
are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be
spared because of you.”
14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai
was a very beautiful woman. 15 And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they
praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram
well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female
donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.
17 But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and
his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram.
“What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?
19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now
then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about
Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he
had.
Our Journey is to
involve Truth
Most Christian biographies skip the parts after
someone becomes a believer where they have sin and struggles in their lives. I
am glad the Bible is honest and tells it like it is. I am glad this part is
included in Abram’s spiritual journey.
Even though Abraham obeys and has a personal relationship with God in prayer
and worship and testimony, there are times when he falls short and sin
prevails. That is true in my life and yours as well. God does not dismiss him
as unworthy to be used. God does not take away his promises. God does not
reject him forever. There is a correction and path back that God uses in his
life. And you will see him fail and fall again. But that gives me hope.
The book ‘The Day America Told the
Truth’ says that 91 percent of those surveyed lie routinely about matters they
consider trivial, and 36 percent lie about important matters. 80 percent lie
regularly to parents, 75 percent to friends, 73 percent to siblings, and 69
percent to spouses.
A psychologist at the University of
Virginia, Bella D. Paulo, did a 1996 study of 147 people between 18-71 who were
asked to keep a diary of all falsehoods told over a week. He found that most
people lie once or twice a day. Lies do not stop. While 1 in 7 instances of
lying were discovered, more than 70% of liars surveyed said they would tell
their lies again.
The fact that Abram said Sarai was
his sister can be explained in a literal sense that he did not lie because in
fact she was a relative, technically, yes. In truth, she was his sister from a
different mother (20:12). Sarai was not only Abram’s sister, but also his wife.
But since a lie is a purposeful deception Abram is guilty because he was
deceiving not an act of faith, but fear.
Abram did not trust God, he trusted himself. He did not obey going to
Egypt He was not sent there, but rather went because of the circumstances that
surrounded him. He purposely deceived the people and allowed the Pharoah to
take his wife, which is also against any marriage vow and did it to save his
own neck.
The first big test for Abram came
in the form of a famine. He panicked, and took shelter in Egypt because it had a better economy.
Abraham was bombarded with three
separate questions: What have you done to me? Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my
sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife?
All history is moving toward an
appointed end that God has decreed. And all these things are for the purpose of
saving those who have found a relationship with God’s Son, Jesus Christ,
through faith. We don't live for just the temporary things of this world, we
live by faith that God has a great future in store for all those who continue
to have faith in Him. It is hard to convince unbelievers of this future
reality, but whether they believe or not won't change the fact that it is
true! The call that God has for us is to
live faithful to truth, in spite of the circumstances, or even the dangers.
Our faith journey is going to be
confronted with the truth of God or the lies of Satan. Satan will deceive us
and make us think that God’s ways are not best. He will want us to trust our
feelings instead of his truth. That’s what God Abram into trouble and Satan
delights in that.
Oswald Chambers said, “The
remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing
else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.”
The lies of the world are to be
selfish and save your own neck. The lies of the world is use other people for
your own purposes, the lies of the world are to acquire riches at others
expenses. You might consider that that next time you want to go to the casino.
It is taking other peoples losses for selfish greed and gain.
But truth is not believing the
lies, but following God and his word. And Abram learned the lesson and came
back where he left God to Negev. And once again we will see that he calls upon
the name of the Lord and back in a relationship is based on faith.
Maybe this day on your spiritual
journey you need to come back to the Lord where you left him. Not going your
way, but His way in your life. For soon or later, there is blessing that the
world cannot give. The journey is exciting and unique for each of us. But it
begins with trust, obeying up your life to let Jesus lead, It responds in
obedience, in a devotional prayer and communication, and lastly in truth.
Pastor Dale
