Monday, March 30, 2015

Sermon Recap for March 29

In the morning service, the choir presented the musical Thank You for the Cross. It was very good. And very much covered under copyright laws regarding rebroadcasting it, so it’s not here.

Evening sermon came from Psalm 199:9-16. Here’s the audio link. You’ll notice the lighting is odd. The power went out during Q/A time before the sermon, so it was just getting darker as we went…That’s the way it goes.

March 29 PM Sermon

Water buffalo--Philippines

When I was a kid, we lived in the Philippines. No, I did not meet Tim Tebow in that time :) One of the problems we had, as did many of the people there, was access to pure water. You could drink the water, but at times there were risks of disease from it. Especially if there were problems with the purification systems on the Air Force Base.


The solution? Water buffalo. Not the animals, but these giant trailers that the military would fill with purified water and you could and fill a couple of 5-gallon jugs. This would be your drinking water and tooth-brushing water for the next few weeks. (Any cooking water you typically boiled!)



Psalm 119:9-16

1. Consider purity

     A. Is it worth it?

     B. Is it knowable?

     C. Is it standard?

2. Consider the Word

     A. Do you know it?

     B. Do you treasure it?

     C. Do you hold it exclusive above other ideas?

          This is the core of our problem: we put things alongside the Word that do not belong there. Whether it is the latest fads of psychology, the aged wisdom of the last generation, or our favorite preaching heroes, there is absolutely no substitute for the Word.

     Loving the preaching of the Word is not the same as knowing the Word and treasuring. Loving conferences, speakers, teachers, writers, are not the same. If you cannot dig into the Word, then you are missing something. You should value those God has equipped and provided to help you, but  if you are not moving from relying on them to being equipped to grow on your own--you are not growing in the Word.

Come back to the water buffalo with me. It met the need--and in times of crisis, it was enough.

But we couldn't live a life that way. The running need was to fix the problem--drill new wells, deeper wells, fix the equipment. Provide the security to the power grid.

Relying on others to always sort our truth for us is the same thing as always expecting the water buffalo.

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