Sermons January 30 Galatians 1

Morning Sermon Audio Link

Evening Sermon Audio Link

Note: Don't be mislead by the early AM posting times on the blog. Much of what I write is done the day or two before and then I schedule it to post at about the same time every day. That's at least my goal. So, no, I'm not up posting sermon outlines at 4AM. I try to do this before I go to bed Sunday Night. I don't always, but I try.

Morning Outline:

“I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! ” (Galatians 1:6–9, NAS)

Fundamental: Abandoning the truth of the Gospel is exactly the same as abandoning the Lord Jesus Christ.//You cannot “respect Jesus of Nazareth” and reject the Gospel

All parts of the Gospel: Depravity of man, necessity of atoning sacrifice

1. Abandoning the message of salvation by grace: when we add works, we lose Jesus Himself

2. Abandoning the exclusivity of the Gospel: when we believe that the Cross was unnecessary, we desert Him who died for us

Fundamental: The truth of the Gospel is independent of the messenger

1. Messengers may change: some may have once preached truth but now don’t: change the channel now.

2. Don’t focus on the messenger: should the messenger fall short, God’s truth

Application:

1. Accept the Gospel: Surrender to Christ as Lord

2. If we accept that the Gospel is the only way to salvation: what price is too high to restrain us from telling the world?

3. Compare what people teach and preach now to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Hold to the standard of the Word

4. Be certain that you are not the stumbling block

5. Don’t let a constantly shifting world shift your Gospel---let it remain fixedly His Gospel

 

Evening Outline:

“For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ. ” (Galatians 1:10, NAS)

I. Paul has been, apparently, accused of having preached ‘grace’ to receive people’s approval

II. He is asking the Galatians to consider if he is now seeking man’s approval or God’s.

III. He then highlights the critical issue:

a. It is not always possible to please God and man

b. So, we must choose

IV. Is our goal in life to please people?

V. If we have been bought by the blood of Christ, it cannot be our goal to please men

VI. What does this mean for us?

a. At church:

i. We will not always be happy in church

ii. We are here to serve God

iii. We are here to please God

1. If these ideas result in us also pleasing mankind, great

2. If not, tough break

b. At work:

i. You do understand you don’t work for your boss, right?

ii. You work for Jesus Christ, your Master

iii. Please your Master and forget your boss’s opinions

1. Given that pleasing your Master results in:

2. Integrity

3. Industriousness

4. Intensity of effort

c. At home:

i. Husbands: you are not here in to please your wives

ii. Wives: you are not here to please your husbands

iii. You are both in your home to please Christ

1. In how you behave

2. In how you treat each other

iv. Children: you have to obey your parents because God commands it

v. Parents: your goal is not to raise kids that are:

1. Good students

2. Good mannered

3. Good citizens

4. Rather: that please God

5. If the first 3 happen, great (and they generally will)

d. At life:

i. What parts of your life are you trying to hold on to?

ii. Let it go…be obedient.

A letter to Jeff Fisher

Note: it seems that the blog-flavor of the month is the “Open Letter” to someone famous. Usually they’ve contained rebukes, but occasionally admiration. Many of these posts have been high-traffic. Not one to avoid shamelessly copying success, here’s one from me.

An Open Letter to Jeff Fisher:

Dear Coach Fisher,

We’ve never met, and likely never will. However, I thought I’d take the time to write you a brief note now that your name is all over the NFL news for a day or two. The first time I really heard anything about you was the Titans-Rams Superbowl. No, I don’t remember which one that was or what year, because I’m not that big of a football remembering person. I remember how that game ended, with your team about a yard from winning. I remember the “Music City Miracle” that it took to get you there. I was also happy you lost, because I was a Kurt Warner fan at the time.

Next time I saw you was when you appeared with Kurt as a Dove Awards presenter. Not many people bother even watching the Doves, and maybe you only did it for PR since they were in Nashville, but at the time I appreciated your graciousness with your ‘nemesis’ and enthusiasm for where you were as a coach and person. Over the years since, I’ve become a fan of the Tennessee Titans mainly because I’ve been a fan of you.

Now, I recognize that you are not perfect. Far from it, perhaps, but no more so than I am. I’ve seen your efforts over the years to produce teams that were not just effective on the field but that also contained men of character off the field. I know that, from what I’ve seen in media, some of the off-field situations have caused you personal grief. You’ve worked hard to rise above those.

I’ve seen your public reactions to success on your teams and adversity with them. You earned my respect years ago with how you handled yourself, and I have yet to see a reason for you to lose it.

It was with sadness I saw the initial “tweet” from the official Titans Twitter account that you were leaving. Any other source and I would not have even gotten on ESPN to check it, but there it was. I don’t know what finalized the rift there in Nashville these past few months, but it’s over.

I will remain, for a time, a fan of the Tennessee Titans. Growing up, I had a preference for the Dallas Cowboys, but a combination of losses and lost character has caused me to look elsewhere. In time, perhaps, the Titans will face the same response from me, not that they’ll notice.

You, however, have a fan in me. I hope that you land well from your departure, whether you go to broadcasts, another NFL team, a college, or, heck, if you go down the road and coach an Upward Flag Football team, I’ll watch when I can. I hope that you receive the success your commitment to excellence deserves. And yes, I know you have a commitment to excellence even though there were bad years at LP Field. You rarely made excuses and you certainly were not pleased with them.

From a fan, I wish you well in the future, but with that I have a request.

Don’t go to Oakland.

Doug Hibbard

Reboot my life!

Something that has become the vogue in Hollywood in recent years has been the "franchise reboot." What that seems to mean is that: 1.)They're out of new ideas; 2.)The old ideas were better; 3.)All they can do is tinker with the old ones!

Actually, the reboot works like this: a new writer takes an old idea, like Star Trek, uses the same characters and same general inspiration, and writes a whole different story line for it. This is what you've seen with Batman, Star Trek, Spiderman, The A-Team, Godzilla, and Robin Hood. The better reboots, like Batman, Star Trek, and Robin Hood, keep a level of truth to the original tales and universe of the first. The Star Trek movie, for example, even explains how both stories actually happen at the same time. Robin Hood keeps the characters and the important parts: bad King John, good Robin, Lady Marian as his love, and so forth.

This has somewhat driven me to this point: I think I'd like a life reboot. In fact, most of us could use one. Batman got rebooted because the years of growth in the franchise had added a bunch of superfluous nonsense to the series (like Ah-nold), and they wanted to get it back to its roots. Robin Hood had been saddled with Kevin Costner ('nuff said).

Our lives get saddled with nonsense and weird actors too. The truths we'd like to keep in remain the same. I'd keep: my wife, my kids, and my faith. I'd even keep my current home, job, and hometown. Yet there's so much else that would be great if it would go away (like the house in Mississippi!).

The joy is this: 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that God makes us new creations. It's the life reboot we need, that works from the inside out. No longer do we have to hold onto the things of the past or even the extras that we don't want. We do have to stay true to certain parts of the story: our family is our family, we are where we are, though it may change in time.

Of course the difficulty is this: just like William Shatner will always be Captain Kirk for me, I do like the newer version. I can't help but compare Russell Crowe to Kevin Costner (though one easily wins). So, I can't help but compare my life as it was and as I hope it continues to be, with questions about choices and changes.

Yet, in the end, I like the reboot. Some of the processes that are still happening will be less than fun, but the end result will be better. Just like having a Starship Enterprise that doesn't sound like it's shifting when it engages the warp drive….or a Robin Hood with a non-American accent (or, for that matter, one that actually acknowledges that King Richard never returned).

What parts of life would you like rebooted?

What movie reboots have you enjoyed?

Doug

Book Tuesday

Book Tuesday

I had planned to stop doing book reviews at random times and just do one every Tuesday. I expected that I would have enough books that I would be able to rotate through and keep things read and ready to post.

Well, the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray…usually distracted by cheese. The plan has faltered. First of all, there was a shipping delay with one book. Then two of the books I’ve gotten are not easy enough reading to knock out in a day, so those will have to come in another week or two. Finally, one of the books I’ve gotten is actually a scheduled blog tour, and I don’t even think it’s on a Tuesday.

So, I don’t have a book review for you today. I do, however, have a recommendation for you. It’s an important recommendation, one I feel well worth your time. Ready for it?

Read.

Read books.

Not just blogs or websites or magazines or even newspapers, but books.

E-books are good, especially if you get an Amazon Kindle and start loading up on out of print and public domain works that you’re not going to get anywhere else very easily.

Books. Those things that are often dismissed as long, boring, out of date, and many other derogatory terms, those books. They need to be read. Pondered, considered, and remembered.

Why?

I’m sitting here in a hotel room where I last night I watched a couple of History Channel specials about mysteries of history. These shows were about trying to decode what remained of evidence from prior civilizations. There are the hints of a double-hulled oar-powered ship that had 4000 rowers, a wooden ship that carried thousands of tons of cargo, and a Pharaoh that was thought to have been a traitor.

There was much effort spent to explain if each of these assumptions were true or false. The end result? Further guesses, doubts, and wonderings.

Because there are no major written records to actually answer the questions.

Were there no people that understood what was happening then? No, there were people that knew. They just lacked either the ability or, more likely, the desire to write it down. Along the way, it just wasn’t important enough to record.

We have to choose to first of all, learn from the past, learn from those who have gone before.

Once we do that, we need to pass on the knowledge. Both the practical knowledge and the pure knowledge, both directly to others and by preserving the information in ways we can be reasonably certain will endure for generations.

So don’t let your ability to read to go to waste. Use it to help you grow and use it to help others.

Sermons January 23: Galatians 1:1-5

LONG POST WARNING!!

I've been writing out more of my sermons, even though I don't preach it word-for-word from what I write. It helps me wrestle out some of the thoughts more clearly. The evening sermon is still more of a short outline. I'll post it first, then the morning preaching guide.

I'm in Galatians.  Here are the audio links to the:

Morning Sermon on Galatians 1:3

Evening Sermon on Galatians 1:4-5

“Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead), and all the brethren who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen. ” (Galatians 1:1–5, NAS)

Evening Outline:

January 23 PM Galatians c1v4t5 FBC Almyra

Rescued from this age, the evil one, for that age, where He is and His glory is unconcealed

4 who ^agave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from ^this present evil ¹age, according to the will of ^our God and Father,

5 ^to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen. ^[1]

I. Like the Galatians, we live in evil times—in fact, we live in the same “evil age” that the Galatians did: The age after Eden and before Paradise.

a. Evidence?

i. 53 million babies killed in the womb

ii. School shootings

iii. Government corruption

b. More evidence?

i. Religious apostasy

1. Predators in churches

2. Use of the church for personal riches

ii. Religious insanity

1. Date-setting apocalypse

2. Syncretism

II. We cannot get out of this on our own

a. We don’t always want to like we ought to want to

b. We don’t know how to anyway!

III. Jesus Christ came

a. First, to seek and save the lost

b. Second, though, to show us the way home

IV. WE HAVE BEEN RESCUED FROM THIS AGE!

a. While we sojourn on this earth

b. Our residence is in heaven, our citizenship there

c. When there is a conflict, home should win in our hearts

V. The non-accident of the Gospel:

a. “Gave Himself up”

b. “According to the will of our God and Father”

c. There was no other plan from the foundation of the world

d. Christ’s sacrifice was not:

i. Plan B

ii. An Accident

iii. A tragedy

VI. The glory of God

a. “Forevermore”= “Age of Ages”

b. We have been rescued from the evil age to the age of ages

c. To worship and glorify God

---

Morning Preaching Guide:

Sunday AM January 23 Galatians 1:3

“Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead), and all the brethren who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen. ” (Galatians 1:1–5, NAS)

Highlight Verse 3: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Introductory material:

Now that I’ve been here as your pastor for a few months, and we’ve upped the lighting here on the platform so you can actually see me, it’s time to share a few, well, secrets with you about preachers.

These aren’t dark and dirty secrets or anything like that. I certainly wouldn’t want you to have to sit through all the dark and dirty secrets of preacher lives, and it’s not about how, secretly, while we won’t cancel church for the Superbowl, a lot of us really think it wouldn’t hurt.

Instead, this is just a few secrets about preaching itself. If you’ve listened closely over the years, you’ve realized that most sermons are the same. Really, they are. It’s not that we all pull from the same website, although all sermons should be coming from the same Source. But there are just some rampant similarities to every sermon you hear preached. Here’s how a sermon goes:

I. Introduction story, which is optional

II. Scripture passage

III. Prayer

IV. Preacher explains the text:

a. Who wrote it

b. Who read it

c. What happened

d. Why it happened

V. Preacher then explains the meaning behind the text

Note that Scripture has, in essence, unchanging meaning in each passage. The application of that meaning may change, but what God intended remains the same.

VI. Preacher now explains why that meaning matters to the current audience

VII. Preacher gives audience a list of application points related to why the meaning matters

VIII. Those application points are, really, these things:

a. Surrender to Christ as Lord

b. Live like you’ve surrendered to Christ as Lord

i. Alone

ii. At home

iii. At church

iv. At work

v. At everywhere else you ever go

That’s it.

So, to break up the monotony, I’m going to preach differently today. Let’s go backwards. Not backwards so far that we do the invitation now, unless there are folks that know, right now, that they need to publicly profess Christ, ask for baptism, ask for church membership, or otherwise share a decision with the church family. We’ll come back, though, to that, in case you come to one of those conclusions in the next little while.

We’re going to start with application.

I recognize that the little preaching primer I gave you was a little generic, but the application part is still highly relevant. The idea in preaching is help you find the specific applications of each text for yourself, because I can’t possibly know what 50-60 people each individually have to do in relation to the text. However, the applications I listed I know need to happen:

First of all, there is no place in Scripture that does not resound with the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. If you do more than pick out a few happy lines in the midst of the whole, you’ll constantly encounter that people go through life expected to be in fellowship with God, but not. That we were made to reflect His image, and that we’re marred, warped, like a damaged mirror reflecting Him. All of Scripture points us to Christ on the Cross and not in the tomb, paying for our sin, to bring us forgiveness. Surrendering to Christ as Lord is not merely a good choice or a nice thought, but necessary. Not to make this life easier, but to have any hope that the next one will be tolerable. Eternity is spent either in the presence of God’s love and holiness or His wrath. You can surrender now or wish you had then. And until you have, that’s really the application of everything in Scripture, that’s the answer to every question you put before God: surrender. If you try and practice Christian morality without Christ in you, you’ll get either a Pharisaic legalism or a cultural shifting morality, but you won’t be saved from your sins or at peace with God.

The second application point is this: live like it. For many of us, we hear the “live like it” as a command to attempt the moral behavior of a Christian, the outward practices of a Christian, and the spiritual appearance of Christianity. Now, there are, truly, morals, practices, and spiritual habits that are characteristic of followers of Christ.

Yet that’s not truly where the application of Scripture begins. You can attempt to control behavior, but the work of God’s Holy Spirit begins in our hearts. No more than you’ll eat dinner today by smearing it on your skin, but rather you put it inside you and allow it to nourish and work from the inside out, spiritual application is the same way. We strive to behave, but first we must allow ourselves to be changed.

We are not supposed to be earning God’s favor. Rather we are living up to His gift of favor to us. Since His gift to us is greater than we will earn, we have a better attitude about our obedience. We are not short-tempered with our fellow Christians, we are not angry towards the lost. These attitudes are replaced by encouraging others in growth and lovingly sharing the truth of the Gospel with our lost neighbors, near and far. We will worship humbly with our whole hearts, and dedicate ourselves to serving the Lord with gladness rather than burden.

Why?

Galatians 1:3-> Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I. Grace: this is the word for unmerited favor at the hands of a greater party. It’s an unearned effort on the part of someone with more power, authority, and strength to strengthen and support a weaker party. It’s used 155 times in the NT, by nearly every author of the New Testament. In the Greek-speaking world, this was what you sought from a ruler when you were in a bind.

a. It’s also related to the Greek word for joy

b. And the word that we translate as “spiritual gifts”

II. Peace: Remember those angels talking to that batch of night sheep watchmen? “Glory to God in the highest. And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased”(LK 2:14). Peace. Not peace just in the sense of not at war, but peace in the sense of good relationships, right relations. Peace, not the “we avoid each other to get along” but “we can’t wait to be together” relationship.

III. To you: or in you (it’s a dative). Importantly for us, we need to see that this is one of the places that proper English fails Bible translators these days. “You” isn’t the right translation here. “Y’all” or even “All y’all” is the right word, because, you see, English lacks a difference in you-singular and you-plural. It’s all just you. Us Southern folks, though, have this down: we can tell if you mean one person or lots of folks: am I addressing “you” or “y’all”?

a. This is to y’all.

b. It’s to the church together. We need to understand that, while Paul may hope that the church would be left alone by the world, he’s not wishing for peace with everyone around them. He’s calling on the church together to be at peace with each other.

c. He’s pointing out that grace is a part of the whole church, is a gift to the entirety of the family of God. You don’t get more than the person next to you or the person in that other church over there. You get all you need, and they get all they need. He’s pointing the Galatians to the truth that all of them need grace, even the holiest of them.

IV. From God our Father

a. Our Father: Great or small, the same God is above every one of us. We may be older children or younger, smarter or not, but we’re all still one step behind: He is still the Father.

b. From God: what Jesus died to bring us is the grace and peace that is a gift from the Creator God of the Universe. Our relationship is not with a portion of who God is, but is with all of God.

c. And the Lord Jesus Christ (see above)

V. In all, this is a normal greeting from Paul in his letters. Here are some facts to gather from it:

a. The letter is to the saved ones in Galatian churches: “Our Father” shows us that

b. Paul is emphasizing God’s grace to them

Why does this matter to us?

To remind us that we are in need of God’s grace and peace as well. The consistent repetition of this greeting in almost all of Paul’s letters shows that no matter the church, the people need to remember God’s grace and peace. Need to experience those things, to live in light of those.

Live in light of knowing you are not earning God’s favor, but rather already have it.

Your neighbors in the church already have it. They didn’t need more than you did, either. They needed Christ to die for their sins. So did you. So bickering and envy and judging your neighbor’s worthiness to know God is out.

Your neighbors out of the church need to accept it. Most of them don’t know, though, that the church isn’t after them to change their behavior, but rather to see their hearts change to be like Christ. Will you tell them?

Will you extend grace to the people around you? Your family? Your friends? Your enemies? God has extended it to you, and if grace and peace are in your heart, they’ll show through into your actions.

Those actions will include being a part of the body of Christ, committed to a church that serves God.

We’ll live in the joy of knowing peace with God.

Do you have that peace? Do you have the relationship with God? You need that. You cannot earn it or make it happen any way other than His way.

Do you have that peace with others? Do you have God’s people in your life? You need them.

Finding Encouragement

"Efforts are nice, but results matter."—Unofficial UPS Training Motto

One of my ever-lasting goals, like millions of Americans, is to lose weight and get fit. To that end, I've spent money on various devices and gadgets. One of them is a Nintendo Wii. I won't try and pass the whole Wii off as for fitness, but a large part of it is.

Especially EA Active. This is a program that is designed to be a virtual personal trainer. It includes a strap to hold a Wii controller on your leg to measure leg movement and an elastic band for resistance. I won't call it fun, but it is challenging. The program also talks you through the variety of exercises and tells you how you're doing on each one. Good or bad, it gives encouragement or correction.

Except sometimes the Wii controller doesn't correctly detect the motion. Then, the virtual trainer will rebuke and not record that you've done the exercise properly. My record shows fewer calories burned and fewer repetitions done than I have actually done. I'm slightly aggravated with my virtual trainer for not recognizing my efforts.

Yet my clothes are fitting better and my energy level is up. I'm getting the results even though I'm not getting the encouragement I want.

It leads me to wonder: what things am I discouraged in even though I'm getting results? Am I more concerned that my efforts get noticed or that the results happen?

Encouragement is a necessity for most of us. It helps us endure until we see results from our work. When the results come, we should take our energy from seeing them.

Oh, and on the original thoughts, I've got a Gazelle you can buy cheap.

Doug

A name worth knowing

….though it's a name most of us have never heard. Robert Hunt. Ever heard of him? In context, he's one of the early settlers of America, Virginia to be exact. Still no good?

Robert Hunt is, more appropriately, the Rev. Robert Hunt. He was part of the settlement at Jamestown, and had come to settle in America and be part of the spiritual leadership of the colony. He led the first prayer meeting there, on the day of landing. He also died the first year of the colony.

Here's what the colonists, his flock said of him:

    His people, members of the Colony, left this testimony concerning him. He was an honest, religious and courageous Divine.
    He preferred the Service of God in so good a voyage to every thought of ease at home. He endured every privation, yet none ever heard him repine. During his life our factions were ofte healed, and our greatest extremities so comforted that they seemed easy in comparison with what we endured after his memorable death.

And to think, these days you'll hear us preachers complain of everything from lousy cell phone signals to having to use a PC when we want a Mac. Hunt traveled with the colonists, worked with them, and struggled with the same challenges that they dealt with, and had to help them get along. How would we handle those challenges?

He's the first church planter in America:

He planted the first Protestant Church in America and laid down his life in the foundation of America.

Yet he's barely remembered, except in a history book. His efforts have slid into obscurity, and his legacy, well, there isn't much of one. Am I willing to labor in such a way? To work, strive, heal relationships, and never "repine"? (be discontented, from pine: suffer a mental/spiritual decline, originating in Latin poena 'punishment')

It's a question that's often asked in success classes and in other settings, but it's worth re-asking: What will people say about you when you're gone? What will people remember?

And how will you feel if people forget? The colonists moved on, found new leadership for the church and Hunt's name is in a list of the colonists, but is hardly highlighted as that important to America today.

If my obituary becomes something that is only seen on an old microfiche of the Stuttgart News, am I ok with that? I must confess, I'd like to be more famous than that. Today, I'm challenged to grow in maturity and accept life as an historical footnote.

Doug

 

William J. Federer, Great Quotations : A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Quotations Influencing Early and Modern World History Referenced According to Their Sources in Literature, Memoirs, Letters, Governmental Documents, Speeches, Charters, Court Decisions and Constitutions (St. Louis, MO: AmeriSearch, 2001).