Instructions from God for a good outcome in your life! Respect elders. Encourage elders. Treat the younger as your brothers and sisters. Care for widows. What happens inside our homes counts! Important! The Christian home is the alternative community that is opposite to the dark, broken dysfunctional world that we live in. Politicians just reflect our broken culture. Church should be different. Debt free and living for others! Live more responsible with more to give away! Problem is the world does not see us any different from them. Just reminds them of themselves and what they hate. We must reinvent a new way of living. When the Church lives most unlike the world it has it’s greatest impact of reaching the world for Christ. Honor those in front of us. The older are farther along and have met things we have not. Wisdom comes from God and through time! Remember the word time means “to honor.” Old is gold. American culture spends between 90-100 Billion dollars each year for anti-aging gimmicks. Hopeless and expensive ways to try to stay young. The Bible teaches that grey hair is a gift from God. The elderly have great opportunities to help the younger. Many of the young today do not know how to ask questions. Be responsible to help widows. Seek out widows in need. John 19:25-27. Take care of your mother. With all the suffering and pain of the Cross and near death Jesus thought about his mother. A disciple took her from the execution place to care for her in his home. Why did not James take care of her? Mary was also his mother. If you read Acts Chapter 12 you will see James was killed a short time later. Joseph her husband had already passed away. Mary was vulnerable and Jesus saw it. John was the older disciple. Take care of a widow not related to you. James 1:27. Pure religion is to take care of widows and orphans and to keep your heart pure. Be family for them. Do 3 things. Find a widow. Look for them. Find, love and serve them. If you do you will come back here one year later and be a changed person. Joy and peace will enter into you. Honor your parents. Repay your parents. Practice your religion. Look not at them as a burden. Ask them how you can help them. Problem is not all parents are honorable. You could have had dysfunctional and abusive parents. Romans 12:17-18. Repay evil for evil? No! Do not become who you hate! Live at peace with everyone. Forgive. Break the cycle of family violence. Honor parents who are not honorable. Ephesians 6:2. Honor your Father and Mother and life will go well with you. The peace of God will accompany obedience. As a parent myself I do not always get it right. Neither will you. You get one shot in life at parenting. Parents work hard and then kids are gone. When we forgive we give away what we get back. Parents do the best they can at the time. Would we do differently if we could do over again? Yes. God gives us His Grace! Source; Pastor Brady Boyd, New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Message given on Sunday, October 13, 2013. Thankyou. James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Tag: community
Sermon On The Mount Series New Life Church
Matthew Chapter 5; The sermon on the mount is the most taught and least followed of all Jesus teachings! Jesus brings a new imagination ( image ) and a new people out of this sermon. Israel has a history of getting things wrong! They moved from holiness, sin, rebellion, repentance and back to holiness. The difficulty today is the church is just like Israel. Often we cannot tell the difference between the church and the world. Leviticus 18:1-4; God found us in Egypt! God did not want the Jews to be like Egypt or like Canaan. There are traps both in prosperity and bondage. Do not follow the practices of the world. The world is sinking sand. Build on the rock (Christ). The Jews wanted Samuel to give them a king. Why? Other nations had kings. We want to be like the world. God and samuel were greived. So they got Saul, David and a bunch of really bad kings out of forty. Ezekiel 20:6-8; It is possible not to lust, control your temper and live peaceably. Here is a summation of the sermon on the mount, “An invitation from Jesus to be like him and be set apart.” We are a covenant people serving a covenant God. As a mother feeds her baby through the umbilical cord so we are the branches attached to the vine. Moses could not follow the law! The sermon on the mount is not another set of rules. Jesus in you teaches you and enpowers you. John 15:5-6; Apart from me you can do nothing. Bare much fruit! Philippians 2:12; Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. God works in you! No individualism here but community. The disciples left the crowd but after Jesus changed their lives they went back to minister to the crowds! We are in covenant with God and the community. If we try by ourselves we will fail. Live with Jesus and others. No isolation from community in the covenant. The table of covenant is community. Together we servs the community. We serve each other and we serve Christ as He serves us! The Trinity of the covenant is serving community, each other and Christ! Source; Sermon notes, Pastor Brady Boyd, New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Sermon On The Mount Series, 28 April 2013. Thankyou. James Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Deviled Ham Luke Chapter 8, Verses 26-39
Jesus calmed a storm which really messed up the weather forecaster’s prediction and then the very next day met a naked crazy man on the beach. Even the crazy man knew someone messed up a perfectly good storm. The Gadarene area was a Roman colony made up of soldiers and gentile pig farmers. This story has helped advocate for the mentally ill over history. Jesus was and is today an advocate to help the mentally ill. The mentally ill are usually pushed to the outer fringes of a culture. Yes, all the way to the cemetary! Then bound with chains to be sure they do not disturb the dead! Satan will always try to isolate people. Whether through divorce, institutions or popular culture. Satan hates marriage and any unity that brings people together under righteousness! There are 4 area’s of theology in American culture. Area #1-No God, No Demons. Area #2- Big God, No Demons. Area#3- Big God, Big Demons. Area#4- Big God, Defeated Demons. The first 3 categories isolate people in our culture. Category 4 brings balance and unity to our culture. Jesus wanted to know the crazy man’s name? Jesus is interested in people not demon’s. A Roman Legion is about 5000 soldiers. The demons did not want to go to the abyss? Why? Their evangelism program would be over! They needed to take someone with them. They were pro-porkchop and wanted deviled ham! Jews considered pigs unclean and not redemptive. The local gentile community was making a living off the unclean. The next thing we see in this story is a man walking around in his right mind wearing clothes. Who gave clothes to this naked man? Does your church have a clothes bank? A wild man gets tamed! Jesus is more than a lamb he is a lion! Never try to tame God down and domesticate Him! Remember all this took place before the Cross! The Demon’s recognized Christ’s Divinity! The sane man wanted to go with Jesus and get out of town! Jesus wanted him to be a witness in his own community. If you are not a witness where you are do not waste time and money running somewhere else! Can you imagine the story he had to take back to his community? The community had to trade in 2000 pigs for a sane clothed man. The Gadarene’s did not like it and wanted Jesus to leave town! Their money was more important than this lunatic! Never get over your salvation! Others may try to tame you down but be wild for Christ! Christ will always make you a testimony of His love and power! Let Christ through you serve Satan a plate of deviled ham! Source; Personal notes from message given at New Life Church by Pastor Brady Boyd, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Thankyou. James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com