I’ve been a student of faith for many years, and I still consider myself in the first grade of faith. There’s so much more I need to know. But I have learned three things about faith. First, without faith it is impossible to please God. Second, God always rewards our faith. And third, God always tests our faith.
2014 Christmas Program, featuring the Celebration Choir and Orchestra under the direction of Mike Parks.
How many people will be declared righteous by performing religious acts? Zero. How many mouths will be able to give an excuse for their behavior? Zero. How many of us will be held accountable to God? All of us. So with this truth, Jesus moves on to address the true nature of sin and righteousness and it has nothing to do with the way you wash your hands or whether you eat catfish or not.
The disciples were afraid the boat was going to sink and they were going to drown. They were afraid of going into the water, and the water going into them, and then they would die. So don’t miss this important truth: The very thing they feared the most, the water, was under the feet of Jesus. And leads to a very important life lesson: Any problem over my head is already under his feet.
Jesus took the minnows and muffins and turned it into an all-you-can-eat buffet. It fed 5,000 men and their families and the Bible says they were all filled, satisfied. If the little boy had kept his lunch to himself he would have only had two minnows and five muffins. That might not have filled up a growing boy. But because he gave it to Jesus, he got to eat all he wanted.
The Baptist preacher, John, publicly preached that it was both illegal and immoral for Herod to be sleeping with his niece and sister-in-law. This public disgrace infuriated Herod’s wife, Herodias, and she demanded that Herod kill him. But Herod recognized that John was a man of God, so to make his wife happy, he arrested John and put him in jail—but that didn’t satisfy Herodias.
The Bible is full of stories of personal failure. Abraham was a liar but he shook of the dust and became the father of a great nation. Moses was a murderer, but he shook of the dust and became a great leader. David was a womanizer and an accessory to murder, but he shook it off to finish strong. Peter cursed and denied Jesus three times in one night, but he repented and shook off the dust and became the leader of the first church.
The people of Nazareth had a dead faith. They doubted Jesus was the Son of God, and there were no miracles done there. The Centurion had a dynamic faith and God rewarded that faith with a miracle. When you face any challenge in life, you’re going to approach it with either doubt or faith and it’s your choice.
Jairus was desperate to get Jesus to his dying daughter in time, but Jesus stopped along the way to heal a sick woman. A day is a like a thousand years and a thousand years is like one day with the Lord. And when you get in a hurry for God to answer your prayer, don’t be surprised if God isn’t in a hurry. Jairus had to learn that lesson, and it’s a lesson for all of us.
When the woman suffering from bleeding grasped Jesus’ robe, the Bible says, “At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him.” I studied this miracle for many years before I picked up on this amazing nugget of truth. There were dozens of people crowding around Jesus. How did Jesus know someone touched Him in faith? He told Peter He literally felt healing power flow out of His body. That really opened my eyes to the fact that every time Jesus performed a miracle, power flowed out of him.
If Jesus was willing to cross a dangerous, stormy body of water just to help one troubled man, you need to know He cares for you in the same way. He crossed the great gulf between heaven and earth to bring hope, healing and forgiveness to you. If you had been the only one who needed help, He would have made the trip just for you.
Sometimes life is good. It’s like a summertime when the living is easy. Fish are jumping and the cotton is high. Your daddy’s rich and your momma’s good looking. There’s certainly no reason to cry when life is like that. And it’s also not a time when your faith is tested. Instead, God tests our faith during the difficult times when the living is hard. Fish aren’t jumping and the cotton is burned. And you have no idea what’s going on with your daddy and momma. That’s when God tests our faith.
The spiritual impact of a Bible message isn’t based on the content of the message; it depends on how the Word is HEARD and RECEIVED. Jesus repeated this phrase many times, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” In this powerful parable Jesus shows us there’s a wrong way and a right way to receive God’s Word.
Knowing Jesus isn’t the same thing as knowing facts about Jesus. I know facts about Abraham Lincoln, but I don’t know Abraham Lincoln. I know facts about Dwight D. Eisenhower, and I can say, “I like Ike.” But I never had the privilege of meeting President Eisenhower. But I met Jesus when I was nine years old and he’s more real to me than the carpet on this floor. He’s more real to me than the wood, concrete, and steel in this building. Because one day, all this will be gone, but Jesus will still be large and in charge.
Some people look at the Korean War and wonder: What was the use? It seems we wasted our time in Korea. That’s looking at it from man’s perspective. Let’s look the Korean War from heaven’s perspective for a moment. There was a terrible war going on, but we sent almost 2,000 chaplains to Korea. They preached the gospel to the people of Korea, especially the children. When the war started, only 2% of South Koreans were Christians, today 32% of South Koreans are followers of Jesus. The work of our military chaplains had an amazing impact on the children who would grow up and become the leaders a generation later.
So, what is the unforgivable sin? Let me tell you what it is NOT. It is not murder. Moses was a murderer and he’ll be in heaven. The unforgivable sin is not adultery. King David committed adultery and God forgave him. It’s not divorce. The woman at the well had multiple divorces and she was forgiven. It is not suicide. Suicide is self-murder and it is no different from homicide—both are forgivable. Once you are a Christian, you don’t have to confess every single sin you commit in order to go to heaven. We confess our sins to stay in fellowship with God, but when you surrender your life to Christ, every past sin you’ve committed and every future sin you will ever commit is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.
The Bible says Jesus called His disciples “that they might be with Him.” Jesus wanted to hang out with these guys so He could pour His life into them. The primary responsibility of a disciple is NOT to go out and work for Jesus; it is to get alone with Jesus and spend time with Him. The way we do that today is by spending time in personal prayer and Bible study.
Some people think all anger is sinful, and they have a hard time justifying that Jesus got angry, because Jesus was supposed to be sinless. He was. The Bible talks about different kinds of anger. Some anger is harmful and destructive. But there is a kind of anger that is holy and just.
The religious whiners of Jesus’ day didn’t like His teaching because it was so revolutionary. It was new. He said things they never heard before. His new teaching shocked and offended them. The religious leaders could not handle this new wine Jesus was offering. They were like the inflexible old wineskins. Their attitudes were “If it is new, it can’t be true!” Every time Jesus said or did something new you could almost hear the sound of straining and stretching until “pop!”—so they killed the messenger instead of accepting the message.
Becoming a Christian can be summarized into three words: Admit, submit, and commit. Jesus is a doctor for those of us who are suffering from the fatal sickness of sin. But before you’ll ever go to the doctor, you’ve got to admit that you have a problem. You must admit you are sinner. Then you have to submit to the doctor’s care. You must submit your wounded heart to the Healer. Then you’ve got commit yourself to the doctor’s plan. You need to take the medicine every day; or follow the treatment regimen every day. You’ve got to be committed to the cure. In the same way, you’ve got to commit to follow Jesus every day.
Part of our job as followers of Jesus is to build skylights to bring light to dark places. I think the main focus of this miracle should be on those four unnamed friends who brought their paralyzed buddy to Jesus. These four guys formed the Faith Skylight Company by believing if they could somehow get their friend to Jesus that Jesus could make a difference in his life. I think God wants everyone of us to be employed in the Faith Skylight Company.
Our sin sickness operates in the same way leprosy does. Although we are born with a tendency to sin, our first sins are usually what we would call minor. However, unless we allow Jesus to fix our sin problem early in life, sin grows and spreads like a metastasis until it consumes us. The growth of sin in a person’s life can sometimes happen so slowly that they don’t even notice it.
So who killed Jesus? You might say the Jewish leaders did; the Roman government did; I did; and God did. But when it comes to CSI, the Cross Scene Investigation, we’ve got to simply close the case. Because when it comes down to it, when you ask, “Who Killed Jesus?” It’s a moot point, because He isn’t dead! He’s alive today. You can’t have a murder trial if the supposed murder victim is alive.
The Bible says Barabbas was part of the insurrection movement against the Romans and had committed murder in the process. There was a roman cross waiting for him. But in the last moment, he suddenly found himself free, and Jesus was sentenced to die on the cross that had been prepared for him. To be honest, I’ve never liked Barabbas. I’ve always been a little angry about this guy. He was a murderer and he got off Scot-free. I want the crowd to yell, “Release Jesus!! Crucify Barabbas!” But instead they yell, “Release Barabbas! Crucify Jesus!” Barabbas, a scoundrel, a sinner, a murderer, was declared innocent and Jesus took his place on a cross meant for him. When I look inside myself I realize the reason I don’t really like Barabbas is because I am Barabbas. We’re in the same sandals. You are Barabbas, too. We’re the guilty ones. We’re the scoundrels, but we get to go free and Jesus died in our place.
I’ve heard of the Garden of Gethsemane most of my life, but it was only a few years ago I learned the meaning of Gethsemane. Gethsemane is a parable of what Jesus endured. The olive tree is called the tree of life because it provides oil for light, medicine, food, and soap. To harvest olives, cloths were spread under the branches, and then the harvesters took heavy sticks and beat the branches to make the olives fall onto the cloths. That reminds me that Jesus was beaten with wooden sticks by both the Jewish guard and the Roman soldiers.
When Jesus announced that one of the twelve disciples would betray him, the disciples didn’t suspect Judas. He was the treasurer of the group, the one you trust the most. Each one honestly wondered if they would betray Jesus. In Luke’s account, Peter was the only who spoke and bragged that he would die with Jesus, but he would never leave him. And we know how that boast turned out, cock-a-doodle-do. And that night, one disciple betrayed Jesus and another disciple denied Jesus three times. But before the night was over, all the other disciples ran away into the night leaving Jesus alone.
Jesus led a busy life. He was always in action. And yet, though He was busy redeeming the world, Jesus saw the value of setting aside a time to be alone with His Father in prayer. There are seventeen different accounts of Jesus praying in the four gospels. And he often sought solitude for His prayers.
Think about Jesus’ temptation for a moment. Remember, Jesus was God in the flesh. He was the creator of the heavens and the earth. Jesus created Lucifer and all the other angels. He had the power of life and death. So, Jesus could have just snapped His holy finger and Satan would have disappeared, forever. So, why did Jesus endure forty days of fasting, and then this temptation? He did it for our sake.
Remember, the word “baptize” means “to immerse.” There is a baptism that is more important than baptism in water. It is baptism in or with the Holy Spirit. Water baptism in an outward act that symbolizes the cleansing of your sins but it only touches your body. Spirit baptism is an inner act that literally purifies your soul and spirit; you become Holy because the Spirit of God is Holy. That’s why He is called the Holy Spirit.
This is a religious area. With almost 500 churches in Smith County, you’d think that this area would be the purest, most moral, most ethical, most law- abiding place on the planet. But there’s a difference between religion and righteousness. I think when Jesus looks at Tyler He feels the same way he did when he looked at Jerusalem. It’s a city full of religious people, but many people who don’t really know God.
There is a fundamental difference between performing random acts of kindness and intentional acts of kindness that point people to God. The question is, “Who gets the credit?” If you perform a random act of kindness to someone, and say nothing, then you get the credit. If you perform an anonymous act of kindness, the force of human goodness gets the credit. But if you perform an act of kindness in the name of Jesus, you are pointing people to God.
God doesn’t just want your first fifteen minutes of a day; He wants you to acknowledge His presence 24/7. He wants you to pray without ceasing. And God doesn’t just want you to serve the Lord here at church two or three hours a week, He wants you to serve Him every day and in every way. And God isn’t just interested in getting 10% of our wealth. What He really wants is YOU–all of you.
