WORSHIP LEADS THE WAY VIDEO

For Family and Friends

April 26, 2013

This past weekend Carol and I ministered at Faith Community Church in Great Bend, Kansas. We have been at this church several times over the years and this weekend was a special treat for us. Saturday morning I spoke at a men’s breakfast, Sunday morning Carol taught the adult Bible class, and I brought the message in the Sunday morning worship service.

My Sunday message was entitled “Worship Leads the Way to Victory” and was based on 2 Chronicles 20.

Why should we worship when we are faced with impossibilities? How do you worship when all hell is raging around you? How do you worship when you don’t feel like worshiping? How does God respond to worship . . . or does He? How do the hordes of hell respond to worship?

I touch on all of these questions and much more in the message.

Thanks to Pastor Sandy Kennedy and Faith Community Church for videotaping and posting the message on their website. 

Below is a link that will take you to the Faith Community Church website. When you get there, just click on Media and then Video and you’ll be able to select my sermon to view.

Fasten your seatbelt!

www.faith4greatbend.com

PROTECTION WHEN WE NEED IT

I was on my way home from the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport when I happened to glance in the rear view mirror and was stunned at what I saw. No, it was not the flashing lights of a police car.  What I saw in my mirror was a cut-down golf cart about to pass me going at least 70 miles per hour!

The golf cart sped by me and the driver was laughing and seemed to be enjoying himself. This was the first time I had been passed on the freeway by a golf cart so let me try and describe what I saw. The cart had been modified so that it was basically a cut-down metal box, with two front seats and an engine in the back. There was no top on the box, no roll bar, no seat belts, a very small windshield — and the driver was not wearing a helmet. The ugly green box had the small wheels that you normally associate with a golf cart, not the larger size that are on off-road vehicles.

I watched the cart go by me and then take the exit ramp onto another freeway and that was the last I saw of it. The “thing” that went by me was unlicensed. Why is that no surprise?

As I drove on home, my mind was full of questions. Some of the questions have obvious answers and some will go unanswered because I doubt that I will ever meet the driver of the cart. Why do people consciously put themselves in situations where the chance of survival is minimal if an accident happens? Why do so many of us feel that we are immune to the really big problems of life? Why do we, when we know better, chafe at doing what we know is the right thing?

Jesus speaks to these questions in a story:

“Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great” (Luke 6:47-49, ESV).

Here’s the picture. There are two men in identical situations and they get the same set of instructions from the Lord. Both men are attempting to get to the same place of completion/fulfillment in life. They both build buildings, face the same stresses and strains of life, and yet have very dissimilar results.

One of the men had his life collapse around him; everything was a loss, complete destruction! The other man went through exactly the same adversity and life struck at him just as hard, but he survived it all; his life did not collapse, and he got where he wanted to go. This man had a level of security that the first man did not. How could this be and how can we lay hold of this?

Jesus said that the survivor, as he prepared to build, first “dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock.” The survivor dug through the sand and the debris and got to the bedrock. The second man decided to build without all that effort; most likely he got his shovel out, pushed the sand around, leveled the ground and removed any obvious imperfections like rocks and broken pieces of wood sticking out of the ground. He was more interested in looking good than he was in building right; his approach was cosmetic and not thoughtful and purposeful. He knew this was not the way to build but he did it anyway.

The survivor did not try to build his future on the sands of his past but on the Rock. The second man attempted to build his future on the sand and debris of his past life. When the storm struck, the cosmetic Christian did not survive; his quick-fix, look-good-now approach did not provide him any lasting protection; he was anchored to nothing but sand. The man who “dug down deep” and put in a foundation was buffeted and beat on by the same storm and came through it all because he was anchored to what really held him securely.

I am not talking about doctrine here. I really don’t think it matters all that much what you believe about the end times, about Calvinism or other debatable “hot button” issues. I am talking about having a solid relationship with God through His Son. I am talking about having a relationship with God that is not cosmetic but is real and vibrant. Now that’s a firm foundation and the rest is just interesting trivia. I’m saying that a solid relationship/foundation has to come first and then you can decorate the building with trivia.

If we “dig down” and lay that foundation of a relationship with God, when the heat is on and the going gets tough we will be anchored and have the protection we need. Jesus guarantees it!

  

PERSPECTIVE ON CURRENT EVENTS

On “60 Minutes” this past Sunday evening, they presented some of the parents who lost children because of the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. It was painful to watch and listen as the parents grappled with the aftermath of this tragic and senseless loss of life. As I watched and wrestled with my own emotions, it suddenly hit me: “The media is prophesying to the nation because the church is not!”

I hear the rants from the political left and the right about gun control, background checks, and even taking away all guns. I read the reports, as I know you do, about gun shops selling weapons at unprecedented levels, and supplies of ammunition being bought up within hours of being delivered from the manufacturer. Stores can’t keep bullets in stock! What does this say to us about our nation?

Forget all the rhetoric about assault weapons or size limitations on magazines. What is all the panic-buying of guns and ammunition saying to us? What is the increasing frequency of violent crime, shootings and stabbings saying to us?

How can I say that the media is prophesying to the nation and the church is not? The media is attempting to grapple with the problem and get it out in front of the nation. The media sees the problem as guns — and, specifically, the wrong kind of guns — getting into the wrong hands.  On that issue they are, right or wrong, prophesying to the nation. Large segments of the historic church agree with the media.

The real issue, as I see it, is not a second amendment issue but the lack of a proper biblical perspective on the end times. Sad to say, the contemporary church is largely silent about prophecy and the end times. I had one pastor of a megachurch tell me, “I will never talk about prophecy or anything prophetic. That’s a mine field and can too easily make me look bad.” His statement is pretty sad, but that’s just my opinion.

Let me share with you, from my point of view, a little perspective on the end times. I think we all can get a better grip on what is happening by looking at what three of the principal characters of the New Testament had to say about the days in which we are living.

First, let’s look at just one thing Jesus had to say about this moment in history.

In Matthew 24:3, the disciples asked Jesus, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” Jesus takes the disciples through a list of things that will happen, including famine, earthquakes, wars, rumors of war, and then says, “All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:8). The word sorrows in the original language means “birth pains.”

When a baby is close to being birthed, the mother’s pains begin to increase in frequency and intensity. As the moment of birth comes, the pain goes from being sporadic to continuous until birth takes place. Jesus was saying to us that the end-time events would become increasingly painful and continual in occurrence.

Second, let’s look at what the apostle Paul had to say about the end times.

“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come” (2 Timothy 3:1). The word perilous means “harsh, savage, dangerous, hard to deal with.” The word describes a society that is barren of virtue but abounding with vices. The word describes a society whose children think it is okay to film a drunken girl being raped and then pass the video around on their cell phones. We are living in a society that is being drained of virtue.

Finally, we come to the words of the apostle John, the writer of the book of Revelation. “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time” (Revelation 12:12). 

  

This passage, I believe, is speaking primarily of the devil’s frantic activities on the earth because he knows that his time here is limited. The word wrath means “exploding anger, impulsive outbursts of hot anger or rage.” Isn’t this what we are seeing in these senseless shootings and stabbings taking place with obviously increasing frequency?

So why would I say that the media is prophesying to the nation and the church is not? The media is driven by its own self-importance to try and correct what it views as a wrong in the world. Can or will God use the secular? The Bible is full of instances of God using pagan kings and nations to achieve His purposes when His people were in disobedience. The contemporary church is not going to prophesy to the nation, because they have largely given up a sense of urgency in order to facilitate a need for acceptance and the perception of success.

IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT

I love the quiet of the night hours; no ringing phones, no unnecessary conversation, no interruptions. It is in the night hours that I do some of my best praying, some of my best thinking . . . and my most intense worrying.

It has been years since I have slept through an entire night; I just don’t do that anymore. I often go to bed and sleep two or three hours and then I am awake. The worst thing for me is to just lie there, and I have learned that I need to do one of a short list of things:

1. Stay in bed and pray. I know this will come as a shock to some, but sometimes I don’t want to pray—I’m not that spiritual!

2. Get up and read until I get sleepy again. I love to read my Bible at night; it seems that it is easier for me to focus and to be less distracted during the night hours.

3. Turn on the TV. Television is bad enough in primetime but in the middle of the night, you might do better to study the weave of your carpet.

In the quiet of the night, anxieties that we keep at bay during the day are free to run rampant in our minds. Perhaps the daytime activities keep us occupied and away from the minefields of anxiety and worry. Anxieties are often based in reality but can become overblown. In the night hours, our unrestrained minds seem to magnify the potential problem to unrealistic ends.

But it is also in the night hours that I have many of my most intimate encounters with God. The same quiet hours that find me with my guard down with the potential of anxiety overwhelming me are also the moments when I am most open to free-flowing and intensely personal encounters with our heavenly Father. As I have quietly worshiped the Lord in the night seasons, I have experienced the fulfillment of Psalm 22:3: “You (God) are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel” (NLT). When we praise Him we are setting Him afresh on the throne of our life and He responds to our worship!

It was in the night hours when the young boy Samuel (1 Samuel 3) heard the voice of the Lord, and at first it frightened him. The temple was quiet at night; it was never silent like that during the day. When Samuel heard the voice calling his name in the still of the night, at first he thought it was Eli the priest calling him and he quickly ran to him. Eli was a corrupted priest who had not heard God speaking for a long time. He didn’t understand that God was speaking to Samuel, so he sent him back to his bed. When it happened again, Eli’s response was as dull-witted the second time as it had been the first. Again, he sent the boy back to his bed. When it happened the third time, Eli realized that maybe, just maybe, the boy was hearing the voice of the Lord. Eli told Samuel, “Go back to bed and if you hear the voice again, say this, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant hears’” (1 Samuel 3:9).

Samuel heard the voice of the Lord say again, “Samuel, Samuel!” and this time he did as Eli had told him. “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.” God then spoke a very dramatic word to Samuel about the cleansing of the priesthood in Israel and, specifically, how it would affect Eli and his corrupt family. What Samuel misunderstood as a call from his mentor, and Eli mistook as an interruption in his rest, was actually a call to an encounter with the Lord. It was Samuel’s first encounter with the Lord and the first time God had spoken to anyone in Israel in a long time. Samuel did not have the experience and understanding to initially know the voice of the Lord when he heard it. Eli’s corruption had caused him to lose his sensitivity of spiritual hearing; his disregard of the voice of the Lord in the past had caused him to treat this word of the Lord with little regard.

Could it be that interruption in your sleep is not the result of too much coffee or too much heavy food late in the day or the cares of life pressing in on your needed rest? Could it be that the Lord is reaching to you and nudging you awake with an invitation to come and spend time with Him? Could it be that He has a word for you? Could it be that He is hungry for fellowship with one of His children? Or do we relegate our time with Him to the fifteen minutes in the morning or the evening when “we have time for Him”?

I love the night seasons, when all is quiet and I am vulnerable and hear His voice calling me.