Faith, Triumphs, Tests, and Trust August 7, 2016

Change Your Perspective July 31, 2016

The True Philosophy - July 24, 2016

It's Actually Pretty Simple

We can make a lot of things too complicated in an effort to solve them, the Colossian Church included. Paul had to tell them it is pretty simple...Jesus. Lets get back to focusing on the basics.

The Press

The Press- Philippians 3:12-14

I like to study words and it intrigues me, when a word is used as slang, but those using it for slang are actually using it in its proper definition unknowingly. I remember a scene from The Wire; a character called Monk was giving out money to the kids in the neighborhood so they could purchase school clothes and a young man named Michael wouldn’t take the money out of pride. Michael’s walked away and Michael’s friend Randy asked if he could have Michael’s share. Michael’s other friend Namond told Randy not to press. It was slang for being bothersome, but the slang was the actual definition. When someone is obsessed with someone else, others will say that person is pressed. I like that word press, some definitions include:

a :  a crowd or crowded condition :  throng

b :  a thronging or crowding forward or together

a :  an action of pressing or pushing :  pressure

b :  an aggressive pressuring defense employed in basketball often over the entire court area

To move or cause to move into a position of contact with something by exerting continuous physical force.

That is what the Apostle Paul is speaking on in the text, a continual force, pressing toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call, or in the King James Version the mark for the prize of the high calling, takes continual force. Tony Robins says that repetition is the mother of skill, and when we press toward the mark we need to do it repeatedly.

At the beginning of chapter 3, Paul says rejoice in the Lord, he says it again in chapter 4 rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice. Now scholars like to argue over the proper use of the Greek for that verse because the word can be used to mean rejoice, and so, and finally, to me I don’t want to spend that much time worrying about it, because I think whether it is the beginning, middle, or end, we need to rejoice in the Lord and praise him anyhow.

Psalm 34

Praise for Deliverance from Trouble

¹ I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

David wrote that while in a foreign land, his own people wanted to kill him so he sought refuge with the Philistines, well David had killed Goliath so he wasn’t going to get much refuge there, played crazy to get away from them. If David could bless the Lord at all times while 2 different kings wanted him dead, surely we could rejoice in the Lord always.

Back in the Philippians Paul says he has reason to boast, he was circumcised on the 8^th day, from the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, Paul knew the law because he was a Pharisee, and persecutor of the church, righteous when it came to the law, blameless. If anyone had something to brag about it was Paul, good family, good education, good reputation, but when he compared it all to Christ it meant nothing, it was worthless.

That word rubbish in verse 8 does not adequately describe what the Apostle Paul was saying in the Greek. I would suspect because it is in the Bible, and would be read in church during worship that the translators would want to tone it down a bit. The Greek word skubalon, meant more than trash, it was actually dung, fecal matter, but not the biological terms the vulgar terms we would use when describing those things. All his education, all of his bloodline and professional status meant nothing when it came to Christ. All of his accolades were “rubbish” and discarded that he might gain Christ. What to do we worship? You can tell what you worship by looking at your bank account and credit card statements, seeing where the money goes to most. Looking at our calendar, seeing where we spend the majority of our time. What are we willing to sacrifice or lay aside to get closer to Jesus?

The good thing is we can get closer to Jesus by faith, in verse 9 there is some discussion among the scholars about what is going on here. The church at Philippi was one that was mixed, meaning there were some Hebrew believers, and there were Gentile believers and the scholars believe that the Hebrew believers might have thought that they were better than the Gentiles. I mean I could see that, I could see some saints, a church, or even a denomination, caught up in their methods, to the point that they would not work well with other new members and visitors, I can see the Hebrew people being used to doing something a particular way and then going against the influx of new people on the scene. The seasoned saints had done a whole lot of things under the law prior to Jesus coming, now these Gentiles didn’t have to jump through the same hoops to get to Jesus, so they got treated bad. Paul was saying the righteousness didn’t come on our own through the law but through faith.

Paul wanted to become like Christ, and in all the work he did, he still was working toward that goal. Nobody is perfect, but we work towards perfection when we try to be like Christ. Paul in all his accolades said he had not obtained or reached the goal but he pressed, he pressed to make it his own because Christ Jesus had made him his own. You cannot be perfect on your own but you can be perfect in Christ Jesus. You can’t be perfect on your own, but you can be perfect with some help. Just like the football coach that says the individual players are not perfect, but if they all work hard together and press toward the goal they can be perfect. Press toward perfection. I said earlier that when you press you exert continual force you do something repeatedly. One thing I learned from playing sports in school is the value of practicing and conditioning. Take the 100 meter dash, they said during a 100 meter dash, a sprinter may only run at their top speed for 30-35 meters, the rest of the race is building up to that top speed, trying to maintain it, then trying to keep it together as they slow down. The continual training is what helps the runner get to their top speed before their top speed before the competition, the continual training is what helps them maintain the top speed for 35 meters instead of 30, the continual training is what helps the runner keep their form once they start getting tired, what you see on race night is 6-8 weeks of preparation and conditioning.

The same is true with Christianity, this is not just a Sunday experience for an hour and a half, this is a way of life. The continual prayer and fasting is what will keep us having a peace that passes all understanding,

1 Thessalonians 5:17New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

¹⁷ pray without ceasing,

Philippians 4:6-7New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

⁶ Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Not vain and repetitive prayer, but you must do something often if you expect to see some results, I can’t go to the gym work out one time, and then wonder why I am not losing any weight. I must bench press repetitively, shoulder press repetitively, leg press repetitively, and then over time, I will start to see some results.

When we press toward the mark, we also can’t be reminded of our past, our past is there for us to relearn it, not to relive it. Going back to the athletes, the best athletes I know have short memories, they don’t get caught up in their mistakes because that would mess with their confidence, the keep moving forward leaving the past in the past.

 

2 Corinthians 5:17King James Version (KJV)

¹⁷ Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Paul is telling us to press forward, don’t quit, we are closer than we think we are, closer than we have been before. We just have to keep trying, and learn from our mistakes.

Thomas Edison famed inventor, had 10,000 failed inventions, but we remember the things he invented that worked.

He is quoted “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

And some of these “failures” went on to be ideas that others made work,

Edison tried to invent a voice recorder but it didn’t work, someone thought to press on with that idea, He tried to invent an electric pen that made multiple copies of handwritten documents, somebody pressed on with that idea.

Edison invented a talking doll for kids, but if you dropped the doll it would stop working, then the voice would get weak if you used it too much, but somebody pressed on and made working talking dolls.

Edison came out with a home service club, you join it, and they sent 20 records in the mail to you a month, didn’t work, he also was the first to put projectors in people’s houses to watch movies at home, all these things and more people pressed on with ideas and made them work.

Steve Jobs got fired from the company he started, he worked harder, pressed on came back and brought Apple to world dominance.

What I’m saying is, whatever idea God put in you, don’t quit, keep going, the work is for you to be better than the competition at that one moment. The word used for Goal in the Greek is about achievement, maturity, the accomplishment of the goal, it is more about the end and working towards it, than your win loss record when you get their. At the end of the season, the champion is the champion regardless of what their seasonal record was. If they make the playoffs and keep pressing toward the goal they win.

We press on because Jesus didn’t quit, didn’t quit in the garden of Gethsemane, didn’t quit when they took him, didn’t quit when the whipped him with a cat of nine tails, didn’t quit on the way to Calvary, didn’t quit on the cross, didn’t quit in the grave, didn’t quit when he rose again, and didn’t quit because he is coming back again!

Dealing With the Contradictions (Romans 7:14-25)

Human behavior is something we all strive to understand, we offer degrees in psychology and sociology, those who work well with others or are likable seem to go further in life, we spend time trying to be with and to better understand our mates. We spend a great deal of our time trying to figure out why and how somebody did something. We spend so much time trying to figure these things out because the stuff that we want to do, we sometimes don’t, and the things that we don’t want to do, we sometimes find ourselves doing. We become this walking talking mass of contradictions. I know I should work out a whole lot more than I do, but I’m still working on it, I know I need to drink less sugary drinks, but I am working on it.

Michel de Montaigne (Renaissance Author) said:

‘I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.”

Thomas Merton(Catholic Monk) said:

“The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of God's mercy to me.”

During the time of this writing you had Pious Jews in the area that believed in strict observance of the law, the lived every day scared that they were going to break it. You also had pious early Christians out there struggling to observe the rules as well. This life becomes a struggle of the flesh and the spirit.

Paul doesn’t minimize his struggle and neither should we; yes we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and the apple of God’s eye but we still have our struggles. The Apostle Paul exercises some self-examination if you will, he takes a “selfie” without the camera. As I was researching for this sermon, one of the commentaries I read said that some scholars don’t want to believe that the Apostle Paul was speaking on his own struggles, that he didn’t have any. They go so far as to say even though he is writing IN FIRST PERSON, using terms like ‘I’ and ‘me’ he did that just to relate to the readers of the epistle, but didn’t really have any struggles to talk about.

That is why a lot of the secular world doesn’t want anything to do with Christians because some of us walk around like we are perfect, and the higher “rank” you think you have in the Body of Christ, the worse off it seems to be. Don’t be on the Trustee board, or a Baptist Deacon, elder, or mother of the church. Then you are really big stuff, but the men and women of the cloth seem to be just as bad. I am in a few Facebook groups and there are people in there who will get mad if you don’t address them by their titles when responding to their posts in the groups. You want me to call you Chief Apostle, Archbishop Primate, Presiding Prelate or whatever and have the nerve to say something about it every time someone doesn’t do so. Why? I am not one to despise small beginnings but if I had 10 names in my title, and only 2 members in your congregation, maybe I would be a little short on honorifics, pomp, and circumstance and little longer on some ministry. We all struggle, there is no use trying to pretend that we don’t, the bible says

Romans 3:23New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;

We cannot think of ourselves as perfect, if we did, I think it would be hard for us to see the God in others.

So what do we do about it?

1. It won’t be effortless

Verse 17 – Paul can speak on the flesh and “nothing good, that dwells within me” because God gave him an understanding of Donald Lawrence’s song before he wrote it, we are not natural beings having a spiritual experience, but we are spiritual beings living a natural experience. And in this natural experience we will always have a way out.

1 Corinthians 10:13New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

13 No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

2. Expect to encounter enemies

Verse 21 – When I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.

A man with no enemies is a man with no character.

Quoted in Paul Newman: A Life in Pictures, ed. Yann-Brice Dherbier and Pierre-Henri Verlhac (2006), p. 120

Variant: If you don't have enemies, you don't have character.

As quoted in Words of Wisdom : From the Greatest Minds of All Time (2004) by Mick Farren

Simply put, all the greats are hated on.

If you are in a position where everybody likes you all the time, you might want to take a look at some of your values. Does that mean you need to get into a fight everyday, no, but you cannot please all the people all the time without lying to somebody.

Furthermore it will not be easy, success takes a lot of hard work, they say you need 10,000 hours of practice at any given skill before you become proficient at it. I was watching the movie Rocky II at home on Friday and Rocky’s trainer a character named Mickey was talking Rocky and he said to be able to last in the ring 45 minutes you need to train for 45,000 minutes, now that is a 1,000 of practice for every minute he needed to last in the ring.

We have become this culture with a microwave mentality to the point that we expect success to come without much time and without much effort. I have seen it in the way we treat our athletes. Now I am not the biggest Lebron James fan, I will be the first to admit it, but the man has a tremendous amount of pressure on him, everybody is expecting him to be the next Michael Jordan to the point that if he does not lead his team, and I say lead as in start, and contribute the most not like some of the others who just happen to be in the right place at the right time on winning teams; but I digress, if he does not lead his team, whatever team it is, to 6 or more championships, he will be viewed as a failure. There is video out, someone edited it together Michael Jordan’s “Maybe” video with Lebron James’ “Rise.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEVCjUG1Mww

The video shows Lebron and Jordan talking in voice over’s and Jordan says, “maybe its my fault, maybe I led you to believe it was easy when it wasn’t, maybe I made you think my highlights started at the free-throw line and not in the gym.” Repetition is the mother of skill, we need to find time to fill our time with the things of God.

3. Expect to call upon your extraction

Full Definition of EXTRACTION

1:  the act or process of extracting something

2:  ancestry, origin  - This is the definition I am focusing on

3:  something extracted

Verses 24-25 – the way we deal with it is practice, by ourselves we are wretched, but with the help of the lord we are the righteousness of God. Our daughter Elle Bea has a toy she likes to play with, a doll by the name of Caillou, nice looking toy, but the head comes off, often. The first time the doll’s head came off; Elle Bea could not be consoled, even after I put the head back on, she was still crying for a little bit, now the head comes off and she calmly walks over to me, hands be the doll and just says ‘Daddy’ she has had practice turning her problems over to her father because she knows that he can fix it. 

The bible says

Matthew 18:3-5New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

3 and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

We ought to spend more time handing over our broken things to our Heavenly Father, he has the know-how to put things back together. That is why I appreciate some of the traditional  Gospel songs, they tell us we can’t make it on our own.

Jesus, keep me near the cross,
There a precious fountain—
Free to all, a healing stream—
Flows from Calv’ry’s mountain.

Refrain:
In the cross, in the cross,
Be my glory ever;
Till my raptured soul shall find
Rest beyond the river.

We need Jesus to keep us near the cross

I serve a risen Savior
  He’s in the world today.
I know that He is living,
  Whatever men may say.
I see His hand of mercy;
  I hear His voice of cheer;
And just the time I need Him
  He’s always near. He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.
He lives, He lives, salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know He lives?
    He lives within my heart.

Verse 1
I've had many tears and sorrows,
I've had questions for tomorrow,
there's been times I didn't know right from wrong.
But in every situation,
God gave me blessed consolation,
that my trials come to only make me strong.

Chorus
Through it all,
through it all,
I've learned to trust in Jesus,
I've learned to trust in God.

Through it all,
through it all,
I've learned to depend upon His Word.

I’m a testimony
Look at me, I'm a testimony,
I didn't make it on my own,
I'm not standing here all alone.
It is Jesus who gave me this opportunity,
look at me, I'm a testimony.

Verse:
(It's Jesus) who made me a possibility,
(nobody but Jesus), who never gave up on me.
(Jesus), who put all His trust in me,
(Jesus), found me, fixed me, and decided to use me;
look at me, I'm a testimony.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

7 even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep[a] me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.[b] 8 Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, 9 but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power[c] is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

Isaiah 40:28-31King James Version (KJV)

28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

That is how we deal with the contradictions, we call for help, we cannot make it on our own, in out weakness God makes us strong. God keeps us putting one foot in front of the other, keeps giving us grace and mercy which are new every morning. God gives us the ability to carry on.

Living Victoriously (John 17:1-11)

http://goo.gl/wpU82B (link to live sermon)

            This particular passage of scripture is called the High Priestly Prayer, and also the Farewell Discourse. The Gospel according John Chapter is divided into 2 books, the book of signs, and the book of glory, it is also has 7 discourses;

Sign No. 1wedding at Cana-John Chapter 2

Sign No. 2            Healing of the nobleman's son-John Chapter 4

Sign No. 3            Healing of the lame man in Jerusalem-John Chapter 5

Sign No. 4            The feeding of the 5,000-John Chapter 6

Sign No. 5            Jesus walks on water-John Chapter 6

Sign No. 6            Healing of the man born blind-John Chapter 9

Sign No. 7            Raising Lazarus from the dead-John Chapter 11

Discourse No. 1            Early Judean ministry: Nicodemus-John Chapter 3

Discourse No. 2            The Samaritan woman: woman at the well/living water-John Chapter 4

Discourse No. 3            The discourse on the father and the son-John Chapter 5

Discourse No. 4            The bread of life discourse-John Chapter 6

Discourse No. 5            Feast of tabernacles: the spirit-John Chapter 7

Discourse No. 6            Jesus as light of the world-John Chapter 8

Discourse No. 7            Jesus as the good shepherd-John Chapter 10

But John chapters 14-17 are known as the Farewell Discourse, it is given by Jesus to 11 of his disciples after the Passover meal, that we Christians refer to as the Last Supper. This is a passing of the baton of sorts, Jesus knows what he has to do, so he is preparing himself and the Disciples not only for what is to come, but what they have to do afterwards.

As I was studying the passage, I thought this was going to be a real complicated piece to preach, I thought I was going to have to prune and take it piece by piece not trying to overcomplicate the message with some sort of profound revelation, but the more I studied the more I realized the purpose of this prayer was real simple. Eternal life is to know God and know Jesus. All right there in verse 3, know God and Jesus, you will know eternal life. That is what we are all here for right? Once we get past tradition, and maybe our parents making us come, that is why we are all here, we want there to be something more than the 70-100 if we are real strong, years on this planet. Here Jesus provides a prayer and gives us the answer, because he gives us the answer, he is operating like he already has the victory.  Notice also this prayer is not alone, clutching a rock, like so many artist have painted when he is in the garden; this prayer is right within earshot of all the other disciples.

Jesus prays for his own glorification in the first 8 verses, and he prays that the people know God, that word that Jesus uses for know in the Greek, is comparable to the Hebrew word used for know in the Old Testament, it means to intimately know God, develop a relationship with Him. The next part of the passage, Jesus intercedes for the disciples praying for them because he is going to the Father, they still have work to do on Earth. Jesus is not praying with defeat, he is praying from a position of victory.

I am a fan of video games; I am a fan of all kinds of games but mostly video games and particularly those from the 80s and early 90s, for the home console systems. Something that I understand about those games is that they are expensive to make. Teams of computer programmers, hardware and software specialist come together to make a video game along with testers, graphic designers, musicians, etc. They work together for a year or some years to develop a game, which is why they cost so much. These days, they try to make the video game long to play  (60 hours on some) so that the customer doesn’t feel like they wasted $60, but back in the 80s and 90s there was not much room on the disks and cartridges so to make the customer feel good about their purchase, they made the game hard. I would spend entire weekends, and when school was out, the whole summer trying to figure out how to win some of these games, some I got really good at, others, not so much.

Just recently I came across a group of professional gamers who “speed run” they have made a career out of playing a video game better than everybody else, and some specialize in beating the game in the fastest way possible. So games that would take me all weekend to get halfway through, they can beat from start to finish in 10-15 minutes. Some of these speed runners put on an annual charity marathon where they speed run these games live and raise money for charity. For example somebody will call in to the marathon and say they will donate $1000 to autism research if someone can beat a certain game in 13 minutes, and the speed runner will do it.

Now after getting over the pain of watching them make my childhood video game skills seem trivial I started to watch how they played and noticed they didn’t play the same way I used to play or play now, they have a whole different approach, and I found a sermon in it. The speed runners play the game victoriously.

First off, they prepare, they know the game sometimes better than the people who programmed it. We should all study our craft no matter what it is.

2 Timothy 2:15

King James Version (KJV)

¹⁵ Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

That word study has other translations, be diligent, do your best, The Message Bible even says concentrate. The fact is if you want to be victorious, you have to prepare. One of my favorite music producers Leon Lewis, says all the time, “I am not the best musician, not the smartest, not the most creative, but you will NEVER out prepare me.” We ought to spend time studying what ever it is we want to do, but especially study God’s word.

Something else I noticed about the speed runners, they don’t stop when the enemy comes, nor do they fight every enemy. I watched the speed runners walk right past enemies, straight up ignore them and what they were doing, didn’t fuss, didn’t stress, didn’t stop, just kept moving. That is hard to do for some of us, we won’t allow ourselves to be disrespected. We argue every motion, fight every battle, resist every bit of change, because we want to do it our way and our way is best. We might think so, but I noticed in the game when you stop to fight every enemy, you might win, but you lose energy.

Psalm 23:4-5

King James Version (KJV)

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Thirdly when they enemy does lay a hand on the runner, they allow the damage caused or the way that they enemy hit them, push them forward. Everything is used to push the runner forward and not backwards, instead of sitting around complaining about getting hit they let the hit push them further toward the end. Too many times we let our setbacks be our stopping points, we want to spend the rest of our lives talking about something that happened years ago instead of learning from it and moving on.

Philippians 3:13-14

King James Version (KJV)

¹³ Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

¹⁴ I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Last point I noticed about the runners, they played with victory in mind, they knew in the end, they were going to win, just like Jesus knew in the prayer Glory was his. Even though it was the last supper he knew he had to be whipped all night long. Crown of thorns on his head, nails in his hands, piercing in his side, fed vinegar for water, hang his head and die. Be put in a borrowed tomb, but early on the third day rise again!