It’s a busy week at First Baptist.
- Monday: Board Meeting at 4 pm
- On Tuesday evening, we’re pulling out the BBQ for our first “Prayze Dogs” of the season, grilling burgers on the West lawn. All welcome! Food Pantry will continue to be open every Tuesday 5:30-7, while Prayze Dogs will be every other Tuesday through the summer.
- Wednesday: Bible Study at 6 pm (still on Jeremiah)
- Thursday: Book Club at 6 pm (reading Is Atheism Dead)
- Friday: Game Nite at 6 pm (playing a variety of board and card games, with snacks)
- Saturday: Men’s workday starting at 8 am (working on outdoor cleanup)
- Sunday: As usual, Sunday School at 10 am, and Worship Service at 11 am followed by snacks in the Fellowship Hall. Looking forward to seeing you soon!
Message: Jesus Asked, Do You Want to Get Well?
In the midst of my sadness, I looked for help and really looked, maybe for the first time I was ready to listen to another for real answers, and a way ahead. Immediately my head swelled with thoughts of the grandeur and majesty that was all around, and finally things began to click into sync, and clarity of thought became achievable in the only true essence that could save me from me. My sovereign Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.
If that sounds familiar, I’m gratified. If it sounds strange to you, but you are curious, I am hopeful. If it sounds off the wall but hey you have a couple of minutes to kill before you had something planned for your Sunday so; “what the heck”, then today is especially for you!
And so, let me extend the question of the day, Do you want to get well? I know for some the question seem froth with drama, so will think; who are you trying to manipulate? Others will say flat out, no problem here. Fact is, this question is given to all who breathing.
For all the hardship that I know some of you are going through right now, I want to extend this hopeful thought your way right now. You are not alone. The grief, and fear, and sorrow that some of you have felt are not a conspiracy aimed towards you, or the result of a loving God, no longer loving you. It is the reality of being a fallen person, living in a fallen world. A world in which your Father still loves you, and His Son our Lord Jesus Christ is still ready to redeem you, and God’s Holy Spirit, stands ready to sustain you, walk with you, and comfort you through any and all trials that may come our way.
In fact, we have our Lord instructing us on salvation, and how to live by keeping His Commandments. To do this God will equip us in our efforts. In fact, God’s Holy Spirit has been provided as yet another gift of grace from a God who loves us in spite of us. I am reminded of our Lord’s instruction from the Gospel of John, where Jesus tell the disciples that the Holy spirit will be given for our sustainment and guidance. Reading from the Gospel of John, this time from John 14: 23- 27;
23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
Side Bar; And we know the Lord’s teaching and commands are; loving God with all we have, and loving others. That among all of the hardships that many of you are enduring, our relationships with other people are sometime the hardest to understand and to flourish in. But if we work at it the Father and the Son will come and be with us in the form of the Holy Spirit. Continuing now at verse 25;
25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
Knowing that the creator of all, is there, has always been there, and will always be our God, gives me hope, when everything seems to be falling apart. And it does, and it will, but only in a temporal sense. In English that means long after all of this has faded away, we will look back together and realize what real importance really is.
If you are suffering today, you have family who loves you, and a God who will sustain you, and walk with you. The Lord instructs us that “27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” Your God is instructing all of us to put our future, our trust, and our hope in Him, love God and other people He places in your life, and when we do, we have His peace. Then I won’t let my heart be troubled by all the petty-anti nonsense of the age we are living in.
Throughout all of scripture, God is consistent about His blessings and expectations. This brings the blessing that is today’s Call to Worship Reading from Psalm 67, back into view for me. For God even in the days of the Covenant of the Old Testament showed where blessings and salvation come from. Reading again; Psalm 67;
1 May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face shine on us-
2 so that your ways may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.
*Side Note; This blessing of a psalm begins a whole lot like the benediction that we invoke at the end of our services on Sundays. The Blessing from God through Mosses and Arron in Numbers 6:24-26;
24 “‘“The Lord bless you
and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord turn (lift) his face toward (upon) you
and give you peace.”’
Today’s Call to Worship reading builds on that blessing of God’s children out in the wilderness with Moses, and has our blessing from God being given to us and through us to inform and bless the nations or our neighbors across the globe. Continuing now with today’s Call to Worship, with verse 3;
3 May the peoples praise you, God;
may all the peoples praise you.
4 May the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you rule the peoples with equity
and guide the nations of the earth.
**Cutting in Again; to say God in so many words is telling
Israel back then, and you and me today, that we are not the only game in town. That God loves all of His creation and is excited to bless those who will embrace Him. Israel is still His chosen people, and we who have accepted the Lord’s invitation are still blessed, and adopted into the family, but the size of His family doesn’t end with us… Our job is to share the joy we have found in Him with others who are struggling to find a better way. Continuing now at verse 5;
5 May the peoples praise you, God;
may all the peoples praise you.
6 The land yields its harvest;
God, our God, blesses us.
7 May God bless us still,
so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.
All of the earth’s fear should be rooted in the fact that the creator of the universe is calling and much of the created are going it on their own or are in outright rebellion with God. My fear for me personally is the thought that I am not taking the opportunities God provides to share His kindness, His forgiveness, and His Good News with the people He places in my life all the time.
Oh, and by the way, if you are one of the people, I mentioned earlier that was struggling in their walk, through hardship and just having a hard time with life’s challenges in general, a conversation with our God through His Holy Spirit, is just what the doctor (Christ) would proscribe. Our Advocate (The Holy Spirit) is also the provider of discernment, guidance, and hope. And finding someone worse off than you to help in your own right with the Spirit, is an excellent way to grow closer to the Lord who you are searching answers from.
And before I go further, let me ask; do you want to get well? All of us are being asked this question. All of us, from a God that must be exasperated about the fact that we are not coming to Him, asking Him, and then listening to Him when He stands ready to guide us. Truth is many don’t think they are sick so the doctor can’t help them. I’m referring to the Gospel of Mark 2:16-17;
16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Other people don’t want to hear what God or anyone else has to say, they aren’t listening and don’t plan to. While some actually get it. That this is a hospital where the Good News is curing many daily of their sickness of: greed, selfishness, self-centeredness which feed guilt, envy, and fear, which is sin. And all of the above is death, because they all lead to separation from the one we need to be close to in order to really live.
It’s as time old as the Bible itself, reminding me of today’s Message Reading also from the Gospel of John, John 5:1-10;
1Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
*Side Note; How satirical God can be in scripture at times! Here we have the Lamb of God Jesus, hanging around the Sheep Gate just north of the Temple where the lambs were brought in for sacrifice to God to cover humanity’s sin. For the deep stuff in life, you can’t beat our God for the irony of life.
7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
**Side Note Again; Notice the invalid didn’t answer the question; do you want to get well? So many of us are so enmeshed in our afflictions, that we can’t see the forest from the trees. We are buried and in serious need of help. That’s when God is needed the most, and we must be listening to His answers that are all around us if we are available to His Spirit, His voice, His mercy.
There is a saying that for the rest of our lives, we are reliving our High School days all over again in the day-to-day venues of our lives. You have the in-crowd, the drop out of society clicks, and everything in between. (In my school we had Jocks who could participate in athletics, and Freaks who participated in extracurricular activities, and those of us that had to work and no time for either, who called ourselves the Frocks.)
The further into retirement, the more some of us see the same reality resurfacing with gusto, where some people are in, regardless of the demographic you are looking at, and some are on the outs. Then there are those going a different way, and are ready serve God by serving the needs of society in God’s creation.
Unfortunately, for many, the habits we learned in youth will hang with us the rest of our lives, to include cutting in line or not looking after those in need. Until that is we are transformed by our relationship in and with the Lord. Continuing now with verse 8;
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
A miracle has happened, the man these people have known for 38 years struggling as an invalid, is now walking, and all they can see is the apparent sin of carrying a mat. So much for the religious leaders, they wouldn’t know God if He were standing in front of them. And in fact, that just happened in this passage.
There are those in this life who will correct everything they deem incorrect on the spot, on the fly, to the point that you are not even able to have a conversation with them. Because throughout the entire dialog they are correcting instead of communicating. They also are not available in many cases for the promptings of the Spirit, because they are too engaged with substituting, sitting in for God and making everything right before them. How could a doctor help, even if they wanted too?
May you all find your stride this week in your faithwalk with your Lord! May all of us answer the Lord’s question in the affirmative of; yes… We do want to get well! And then be available to aid others in our journey together towards Him that loves us in spite of us.
Amen!