Monthly Archives: January 2015

Beatitudes 2-Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

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Matt. 5:4; Luke 7:36-50-Mourning Turned to Joy-1/18/15

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. This is a great encouragement to us who sometimes reach those points in our lives when we feel like we cannot go back.

Maybe if we meet or know someone who feels that their whole life has been given over to a life of sin, who might think ”How could God ever love me?”

Friends, in the mercy of God, a sinful past is not a hopeless liability.

Forgiveness comes to those who truly love Christ. A wise man once said, “sinners make the best saints” Why? Because they can truly speak of the joy and peace and hope of having truly been forgiven by God.

We mourn and are sorry for many reasons: When we lose a loved one and we miss them, when we are sorry when we have hurt someone, when we see n the world the sin that breaks the heart of God.

So when Jesus says, “blessed are the mourners” which of these does he mean? All of them! They (and we) will be comforted.

In Luke 7, Simon does not greet Jesus as one typically would greet a guest. No kiss on the cheek or hand, no hug, no handshake, not even a head nod.

It would be the equivalent of being invited into a home, and your host does not even pay enough attention so as to offer to remove your coat.

I think Simon is trying to walk a tightrope and keep all of his bases covered.

“If Jesus is a prophet of God, well then he gets in good with God, because, hey, I did invite Him to a banquet.

…and if he is not a prophet…well, I can still save face because I did not really do all these other things for him.”

Friends, do not miss the irony here, Simon is a religious teacher, he studied the Bible, and he, more than most, was supposed to recognize Jesus, and yet Simon misses it.

He knew all about Jesus but did not know Jesus.

He was a fan, rather than a follower. Some people are fans of Jesus, while others are followers.

Many know a lot about Jesus, but His desire is to have us know Him, in a personal relationship, and that is what this woman is about to show us that she wants. That personal relationship with the Comforter of those who mourn

This woman seems like she has a great deal to mourn over. Some belief that she may have been a loose woman, a prostitute, a street-walker.

Suddenly, in walks this woman, and suddenly heads turn. Maybe she had to endure the glares and stares of those who would not associate with her, but as she beholds this man the call Jesus,

Something starts to happen. As she hears Him talk, she wonders, “Maybe this God loves me and wants to forgive me!”

She thought, “God may have given up on me, but I see Jesus and He tells me about God’s love for me. Maybe I can be a follower too!”

What she does next is reckless, and bold, and shocking, and exactly the kind of follower Jesus wants.

He gives her not a look of condemnation, but welcome, as if He is glad that she is here, like a daughter returning home to her father. And I can imagine as her gaze met His, the tears welled up, and she uses this hair to kneel and wipe his dirty feet, and she goes even further, she takes a jar of perfume, (her line of work needed this, so she would have used one drop at a time)

…and yet she pours it all out for she doesn’t care, she just wants to show her love to this, her Savior.

I don’t know if you have ever felt that you have reached a point in your life where you thought God could never love you anymore. I hope you have never felt that, but even if you haven’t, you probably know someone who has. Maybe that is why they say, “how could God want someone like me? I am too far gone”

No such thing friends, for Jesus says, “any who would come to me, I will never turn away.

When Jesus would heal someone, he would not only heal them physically, but he would declare that they are now made right with God.

This woman mourned, sought Jesus, and in doing so, felt that wholeness, that salvation, and that is what the Kingdom of God is all about. Blessed are you who mourn, and may you experience the peace and comfort of Jesus Christ today

Beatitudes 1-The Poor in Spirit

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1/11/15Advantages to Being “Poor in Spirit” from Matt. 5:3

Taken from Philip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew

–The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption.

-The poor know not only their dependence on God and on powerful people but also their interdependence with one another.

-The poor rest their security not on things but on people.

-The poor have no exaggerated sense of their own importance, and no exaggerated need of privacy.

-The poor expect little from competition and much from cooperation

-The poor can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.

-The poor can wait, because they have acquired a kind of dogged patience born of acknowledged dependence.

-The fears of the poor are more realistic and less exaggerate, because they already know that one can survive great suffering and want.

-When the poor have the Gospel preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a threat or a scolding.

-The poor can respond to the call of the Gospel with a certain abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose.

New Year; New Beginnings-Lamentations 3:22-24; Revelation 21:5

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Lamentations 3:22-24; Revelation 21:5-Sermon Notes

There is something refreshing about new things.

God promises to be faithful; His promises to never leave; He promises to take the challenges and pains that we face and not only walk with us through the struggle but bring the struggle itself to a point that will glorify Him/be for our ultimate good.

Jeremiah began to see his nation (Israel) fall. The people forgot God, and then they began to forget about each other. They forgot about the poor, they forgot about living holy and moral lives, and then finally, another army came and invaded them and destroyed everything even their church.

As you can imagine Jeremiah was asking those questions we sometimes ask when we get our worlds rocked…“Where is God?” “Has He forgotten about me?” “Is He angry with me because maybe I have done something wrong?”

True, God may have been angry but that does not mean He does not care about His people. Jeremiah’s grief ran deep.

He was the weeping prophet, and his tears flowed from a broken heart, and it was because the people had rejected God out of selfishness and sinfulness.

And Jeremiah does not hold back either. He is honest with God. Yet after he vents and is frustrated, his mood turns, and comes back to the one rock that He can always stand upon.

God’s faithfulness. Most important part of Lamentations. It is constant, yet always new.

God’s faithfulness, that constant-‘there-ness’ the fact that He is always there. That is new precisely because it does not change. The one we read who was at the table of the last supper with his disciples is the same one in who’s presence we worship here and who’s presence we eat our lovefeast.

Lamentations 3 from beginning to end, is one man’s cry out to God, in his time of need, and yet God brings him from a place of hurt to a place of hope. He had to be humble, to go from hurt to hope.

We all face our struggles, and we all have times in our lives when it seems like that walls of our cities are coming down on us. Even then, God offers us these great words of hope When we trust him day by day, we gain a greater confidence in his great promises.

We see how in Jesus, how God is faithful. We see Him coming to us, comforting and encouraging us, saying to us, “those who seek me will find life, true life, a life that is eternal, a life how it was meant to be” with Christ we always have a do-over. A chance to start newGod will dwell with his people, and he will make all things new. Friends, let us start 2015 with a sense of hope, and diligence.

Encouraging one another, that He has made us new, new creatures, new believers. Let us commit anew to follow him both here and in our daily lives. And wherever He calls us, whether it be to the familiar, or to the new…remember…Lam. 3:22-23. AMEN

SYMMETRICAL STRUCTURE OF LAMENTATIONS

1. She, Zion, is desolate and devastated: terrible reversal of Judah’s Fortunes; prosperous “days of old” (yeme qedem) are over; gates are desolate; fate of princes; desperation to acquire bread; pursuers allow no rest; reason: she has sinned (1:1-11)

2. I, Zion, was betrayed and defeated; there is none to help or comfort me; they rejoice over my fall; vain hope for help from allies; cry for vengeance (1:12-22)

3. He, Yahweh, has caused this in his anger; Yahweh has poured out his anger and wrath, which has devoured Zion’s structures like fire (2:1-8)

4. They,-princes, maidens, nurslings, children, mothers—suffer; children starve and perish in the town squares (2:9-12)

5. You, Zion, should cry out to God; let tears stream down like a river without ceasing or rest; enemies open mouths against you; Yahweh has slain without pity; prayer (2:13-22)

6. He, Yahweh, has afflicted (‘nh) me (the poet—a “man” [geber]); his complaint (3:1-20)

7. CLIMAX: YAHWEH’S GREAT LOVE (3:21-32)

6′. He, Yahweh, afflicts (‘nh) men (3:33-39) *Mitigating note: Yahweh does not enjoy afflicting men (geber); men shouldn’t complain if they suffer for sins

5′. You, Yahweh—to you I cry out; my tears stream down like a river without ceasing or rest; enemies open mouths against me; Yahweh has slain without pity; prayer (3:40-66) *Mitigating note: prayer for Yahweh’s justice

4′. They—princes, maidens, nurslings, children, mothers—suffer; children starve and perish in the town squares (4:1-10) *Mitigating note: Yahweh is just; his punishment was because Judah’s sins and iniquities were worse than Sodom’s 

3′. He, Yahweh, has caused this in his anger; Yahweh has poured out his anger and wrath, which has devoured Zion’s structures like fire (4:11-16) *Mitigating note: Yahweh is just; his punishment was for Judah’s sins and iniquities

2′. We, the people of Zion, were betrayed and defeated; our allies failed to help; Edom rejoices (4:17-22) *Mitigating note: Yahweh is just; he will restore Judah and punish Edom for her sins and iniquities

1′. We are desolate and devastated; terrible reversal of Judah’s fortunes; prosperous “days of old” (yeme qedem) are over; gates are desolate; fate of princes; desperation to acquire bread; pursuers allow no rest; reason: we have sinned  (chap 5) *Mitigating note: Poet’s prayer, “Restore us, so that we may return!”