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In my High School/Young adult class this morning we were taking a look at the sermon on the mount and came to the part that said… “blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness’ sake for they shall be filled”. I told them I worked on Saturday and at lunch went to Mike Cotton’s BBQ and had a sliced brisket sandwich. I even told Cotton’s what cut of the brisket I wanted on it. That sandwich was so good that I dream about it and can’t wait for the next one.
Imagine if we hungered and thirsted after spiritual things like I did for that BBQ sandwich. It would be like watching the congregation like a hawk for an opportunity… where are the widows? Where are the meek and those who mourn, the persecuted, etc. I’m going to find them and do whatever I can do to help. I dream of that spiritual BBQ sandwich… I’m obsessed with it and won’t be stopped.
Imagine if the whole congregation was that way… what would it look like? To the world it would look like a bright shining light. To God it would smell like a sweet aroma. To Satan it would feel daunting and horrifying.
We have some work to do brothers and sisters!
This morning in our High School/young adult class we talked about loving people so much that we feel a sense of obligation to advise them when we see them headed in the wrong direction (Galations 6:1).
Of course timing is an important part of that. For instance, you would wait for the drunk to sober up first… right? Also if someone is inappropriately angry you would give them time to settle down before you approached them. Or if you were angry with them… probably should take a little time to settle down first.
Of course the text says you should offer counsel in a spirit of gentleness… not self-righteousness or spiritual arrogance. Or derogatory language like… you’re just like your momma.
Let me offer one more thing… if you’ve never said an encouraging word to that person or done anything to help build them up then you’re not qualified to critique them either. I don’t have a verse for that one but think that I have the spirit of God with me on that concept.
It’s easy just to ignore people and their behaviors like they don’t even exist. Of course that’s not love right? And if someone is ignored long enough they start thinking they don’t matter to anyone and drift back into Satan’s flock. How horrible.
James 1:27 states “Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this… to visit the widows in their affliction…”
In our High School class we have been talking about this concept and things we can do.
Of course in the Mosaic Law farmers would let widows glean their fields but I hardly think today we could get the widows to go out into the cotton fields during the hottest month of the year to glean after the mechanical cotton strippers have done their job. We live in a different world… I doubt they would glean those fields even if they were air conditioned.
Many years ago I knew a fellow who had a huge antique tool collection and I bought some things from him. That had to be back in the 1990s and he has since passed. I happened to run into his daughter several months ago and she told me her mother would be glad to let me look at those old tools again.
That was months ago. Two days ago I called the 90 year old widow and she showed me that marvelous collection. Of course along the way she talked my ear off… I’ll probably never be able to wear eye glasses.
Anyway… all her stuff was really quite valuable and more than I wanted to pay but I told her I wanted to help her and told her and I knew someone in the auctioneer business who could sell all her stuff for her. She was very excited and thanked me because she had been trying to sell it for a long time and had given up.
So I took a lot of photos and messaged them to my friend and added that I would have liked to purchase some of her things but did not feel comfortable making an offer that might be viewed as taking advantage of a widow. BTW, this same auctioneer had helped another widow I identified for him. Here was my friend’s response…
“… you are one of the few people I know that won’t do that. Most do and it’s usually a relative or a real good friend that has no problem taking advantage of someone”
How sad.
Most of our widows today have plenty to eat but there’s also plenty of other things we can do the help. Look for those opportunities to help and to not take advantage of a widow.
Back when I was a junior or senior in High School we had a Bible class teacher that was truly memorable (for me). He was confident, he was dynamic and he knew his Bible. I still remember one of the lessons he taught us.
First he went to Ephesians 1:22, “… and gave Him (Jesus) to be head over all things to the church which is his body…” Conclusion… the church is Christ’s body.
Then he went to Ephesians 4:4, “There is one body, one Spirit…”
Conclusion… the church is Christ’s body and there’s only one body. Therefore there is only one church… the Church of Christ.
Very powerful logic but there’s only one thing wrong with it… its dead wrong. Those verses don’t teach that. What my teacher failed to recognize is the church exists in a general or universal sense and it exists in a specific local sense.
Paul in his letter to the Ephesians was addressing the church in a general or universal sense. He was trying to illustrate that there couldn’t be one church for the Greek Christians and one church for the Jewish Christians but one broad universal church that was inclusive of all races and all nationalities.
I loved that teacher and still do (even though I have lost track of him) and I guess the learning point here is don’t be so enamored with a teachers personality and teaching style that you fail to judge his message critically because I swallowed that teaching hook, line and sinker and taught it myself. Of course I was only 17 or 18 years old at the time so I forgive myself.
In Matthew 12 Jesus warned his disciples to “be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy”
This is interesting to me because generally we consider our own sin to have only consequences for ourselves. This passage suggests otherwise.
Yeast affects the whole loaf of bread and the same concept is repeated in 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul admonishes the Corinthians to keep the local congregation free from “yeast” (sin).
The Pharisees hypocrisy affected the whole of God’s Jewish nation because the Pharisees were in a position of leadership. Their hypocrisy could permeate and adversely affect the ones they were teaching and influencing making them hypocrites as well.
How can church leaders today be hypocrites? Here are a few things off the top of my head.
- The teacher who teaches kindness and compassion towards the poor but when given the opportunity to help the poor comes up with some excuse not to.
- The teacher who teaches the need for hospitality and the “oneness” hospitality helps create but is not hospitable at all except perhaps to his friends.
- The teacher who urges the congregation to invite their neighbors to church but never does himself.
I wish we had some kind of spiritual mirror where we could view ourselves as God views us with 20/20 spiritual vision. Of course we can look in God’s word but too often when we look in that mirror our eyes are often blurred with selfish hypocrisy that can harm the entire congregation and render it the Church of the Hypocrites.
We’ve been studying the Parable of the Talents in my High School/young adult class and have learned, correctly, that God assesses our ability and based on that assessment expects some kind of productivity out of us.
I asked my class that if God revealed to us what he thought of our individual abilities... how would that make us feel?
For instance, if God revealed to the whole class that we were all just one talent people what would be our response? Would we just respond by thinking… God knows everything and I am what I am or would we be so indignant at our own correctly assessed ability that we decide… I’m not going to be a one talent man… I’ll prove that I can be better?
What if God told everyone in the class that they were all five talent men what would our reaction bethen? We might be pretty happy and smug and maybe rest on our laurels.
If God told me that I was a five talent man I think that might motivate me to be even better. I might think I’m going to do so well they are going to have to write a new Parable about the 10, 5, 2 and 1 talent men.
You see, in John 15 we find out that God prunes his most productive people so we can be even more productive… that’s how a low talent man can be a higher talent man… by letting God prune him. And as one of the students pointed out this morning… pruning hurts the plant a little but it’s a pain that is soon forgotten, especially in comparison to the great joy we feel at pleasing God.
Let's be the best children of God that we can be and trust his process.
I think an interesting study would be to compare the beginning and the end of Jesus’ ministry.
Of course it began with Jesus’ baptism and choosing to fast in the wilderness for 40 days and then to be unsuccessfully tempted by Satan.
Jesus’ choice to begin his ministry is interesting. My guess is he did it in this manner to foreshadow how his follower’s personal ministry must also begin by being cleansed by the waters of baptism and to receive the promised “gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
At the beginning of his ministry Jesus voluntarily deprived himself of a necessity of life… food.
At the end of his ministry he was deprived of another necessity of life… all his friends, followers and family.
Jesus was all alone at the beginning and all alone at the end.
Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness in an attempt to make Jesus his servant. Satan never tried that again but at the end successfully tempted Judas and Peter and manipulated the Jewish and Roman governments to kill Jesus. If Satan couldn’t make Jesus his servant he would kill him… or so he thought.
When Jesus was baptized a loud voice came from Heaven… this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
When Jesus died on the cross God spoke again by tearing the veil in the temple, sending an earthquake and making the dead rise from their graves.
Surely Jesus baptism foreshadowed his death, burial and “rebirth”… buried in the waters of baptism and buried in the ground. Arising from the waters of baptism and arising from the tomb.
All of this was an example for us. Remember… Satan never gives up. Sometimes he changes his tactics but he doesn’t give up and if we don’t give up either then like Jesus we can live for eternity in God’s presence and among the “principalities and powers in Heavenly places”.
