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Sermon on the Mount. Should wrap it up sometime in 2017.

 

I'm not a Pastor, though I am an Evangelist. The last time I was graced to preach, the scripture the Lord showed me was:

 

Depends on where I visit. Or how the Spirit leads. I'll be teaching the Adult Sunday School class and preaching this Sunday. I had already agreed to teach the class, seeing as our normal teacher is going out of town. My Pastor asked me Wednesday night if I would stand Sunday morning.

If I feel led to visit another church, there is usually a better than 75% chance I'll end up preaching that morning, or getting an invite to come back later. The last time I was called on to help in a revival, last spring, I ended up preaching four times in six nights. God has really blessed me to feel His Spirit when I get the opportunity to stand and preach.

 

The sermon Series right now is Stogies and Stilettos.

Topics include
+NON-IMITATION INTIMACY: relationships of substance
+HE SAID SHE SAID: listening, being heard and understanding
+SUIT AND TIE: A fresh perspective on masculinity
+MORE THAN ROOMMATES: surviving and thriving post-vows
+LOVE AND WAR: romance and making awards
+HEARTLINES: the sex, passion and spirituality trifecta
+THE SPLITS: divorce, restoration and navigation
+AWAKE BEAUTY: farewell, rescued princess: hello, feminine potential:

 

Here are my notes (this is not a manuscript)

Christ the Light of the World​

John 1:1-5​

Introduction:

Making decisions in the dark can lead to some regrettable consequences. Back in the days before electricity, a tightfisted old farmer was taking his hired man to task for carrying a lighted lantern when he went to call on his best girl. “Why,” he exclaimed, “when I went a-courtin’ I never carried one of them things. I always went in the dark.” “Yes,” the hired man said wryly,” and look what you got!”

Source unknown

I. Christ in the beginning (v.1)

A) First we see Jesus is eternal
- John did not learn this on his own. He did not read it in some book. This was revealed to him by God directly. “In the beginning was the Word”
- We do see that Moses had a similar revelation directly from God in Genesis 1 “In the beginning God”

B) Second we see that Christ was with God in the beginning
- Christ is not only eternal on his own but He has eternally co-existed with the Father. “ He was in the beginning with God”
- Here we see both in a solid relationship as individuals and as being one God.
- Jesus goes on to say later that “the Father and I are one”
- How can this be
- We need to learn to be comfortable with both not understanding everything and knowing that it was not given to us to know

C) Christ is God
- God has always wanted to dwell with man
- We are His special creation
- This desire of God to dwell with man became known with Israel
- Exo_29:45 I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God.
- Exo_29:46 And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.
- It was true in the garden with Adam
- And it is true today and Christ is the answer to that predicament
- The predicament we find ourselves in because of our sin problem

II. Christ as the Creator (v.3)

A) Christ made all things
- We see in scripture over and over again that Christ is the hands and feet of God.
- When God decides to move something Christ is the mover.

B) Nothing was made without Christ
- Christ made everything in all of creation, the stars the moon the red rocks, the ocean, the weather etc.
- The Creator also became the Savior
- Christ is also the hands and feet, the boots on the ground when it comes to our salvation.

III. Christ is life (v.4)
- When we consider who Christ is and think of Him as God it may seem a bit too much to grasp or even relate to.
- But Christ as life for you and me means that we can know He wants a personal and an individual relationship with you and with me.
- Christ is the source of everything to include our food which is alive, beef cows, deer, elk, and our vegetables like squash, potatoes etc.
- But He is also the source for our physical life, our spiritual life and our eternal lives.

IV. Christ is the light (v.5)
- Christ came to reveal some things to his special creation man
- He came to reveal our sin and our blindness to it.
- It is just like stumbling around in a dark room and you cannot see
- He came to reveal that He is the resolution to that sin problem.
- He made it possible for us to see that we are wandering around in darkness.
- He came to dispel the darkness that surrounds us that we may walk in the light.
- But men have rejected us and Jesus said the do so because they do not want to come to the light.
- It is not because we did not present the light just the right way.
- It is because men love their sin more than they want the light and they choose to stay in their sin.


Conclusion:
- How is this light we have been given going to shine through us
- The bible says that Jesus not just the light for us but once we have accepted him in our lives we are now also the light of the world.

 

Closing Illustration:

The Man and the Birds
by Paul Harvey

The man to whom I’m going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn’t make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.

“I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He said he’d feel like a hypocrite. That he’d much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound…Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud…At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.

Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.

Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them…He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms…Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.

And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me…That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.

“If only I could be a bird,” he thought to himself, “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safe, warm…to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand.”

At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells – Adeste Fidelis – listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.

And he sank to his knees in the snow.

 

Really....have you Martyn Lloyd's Jones book on the subject?

 

Just read a preview. I just might download this one to my Kindle.

 

Preached this morning using this scripture:

Focus of the message was on how no work of ourselves is good enough to gain us salvation, but that we are dependent on Christ alone for our eternal life. Message lasted about 25 minutes and quite frankly wore me out. I may take a nap here in a bit. :smilewinkgrin:

 

Glad you had an opportunity to preach.

Thread topic! I'm exhausted after preaching. Worse than shoveling snow for an hour exhausted. Is it just you and me that need the Sunday nap?

 

Padre, I really got what we southerners call "freed up" this morning. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't. I've stood for 40 minutes and been fine. Today, after 25 minutes, I was absolutely worn out. It's difficult to describe preaching to someone who doesn't know what it means. It's not just public speaking. I can stand in front of an audience and talk for hours if need be, but that's not preaching. Something happens to the body during preaching that is different from any other type of speaking.

The pains I deal with on a daily basis, like my back hurting, seem to disappear when I preach. A few years ago I tore and dislocated my patella tendon, but during preaching my leg never bothered me. Like Paul said, after praying for his thorn to be removed, God informed him that His grace was sufficient. It's an awesome experience, but really tiring.

 

AM - Altar Ego, based on book by Craig Groeschel, this is the study that our Sunday evening small groups are doing, been well received.

Wednesday - Gospel of John

As we move closer to Easter will return to the Lectionary.