Today,
Our Main Verse comes to us from The Book of Micah
6:8.
However,
today we will be referring to many scriptures and, in your bulletins, on the
back of your center handout,
·
As an aid to you,
·
There is a list of Scriptures,
·
Which are in the order as we will be coming to them.
But-
before we get start there,
Let’s
just go over a few basic things.
PLEASE, TELL ME IF YOU DISAGREE:
SIN Separates us
from God?
And
the Definition of SIN is Knowing of what
is right and wrong and then Choosing
to act upon what is wrong.
And the Result or the Effect of Sin
is Our Separation from God.
And then this Separation causes Diseases and Death in You and Me!
That is Disease and Death of this World as well as within
the next for All Eternity!
YEK!!!
Now –
within this start-up, I don’t believe I have introduced any new thought
pattern here but:
For ME, the QUESTIONS WHICH IS JUST
DYING TO BE ASKED IS:
·
How do we get out of Living in a Sinful World
·
And How Can we keep from returning to it?
Eight Steps
1. We can be saved by Putting our faith in
Him.
2.
Living within a
relationship with our Lord.
3.
Surrendering
ourselves totally over to Him.
4.
Repenting and asking
for forgiveness of all our sins.
5.
As well as to forgiving all who
have sinned against us.
6.
And being Baptized, asking for the Holy Spirit to come into our lives.
7.
And then Repeating 1-5 for the rest of our lives.
8. OR – Just To Live a Pure Life and Avoid Sin! (But how has that
been going for you so far?)
(If anyone who has not been baptized, and would like to visit
about it, stop by and mention that to me.
Or, if any of us would like to be rebaptized, to draw a new hard
line in the sand, stop by and visit with me.
I would be more than happy to help you with either one of those.)
Now, who can tell me what is happening in 4 nights
from now?
On October 31st?
Halloween – you bet.
· So, is there
anything associated with Halloween which we should be aware of?
· Is there anything in
there that can get us into trouble?
I find it very fascinating to learn about where
·
And how we come up with our traditions that we have
today.
·
Where they got there start.
·
What purpose did they have then?
·
And how popular were those traditions then?
o And how they influenced the lives of the people then?
o And how that Compares to how they are influencing our lives here
today.
·
Did you know that the Season of Halloween is now the most US Celebrated holiday of the
year?
·
And with its base being founded in the Scary – Dark – And even in the Dead,
o It really shouldn’t surprise any of us that Halloween
o Comes with a very interesting and of course,
o A very dark and terrible history.
Can I ask for all of the children to come forward, I
have a little Children’s Corner for them today?
·
On the
insert which I talked to you about at the beginning, about the list of the
Scripture for today’s Lesson, I have also included in that insert, some of the
origins of some of the areas of Halloween.
o And I would greatly
encourage our adults to read it and for parents to consider if our older youth should
also read it so we all may become more aware of the choices which we make.
It surprised myself to learn that even though I have
celebrated Halloween for so many years when I was younger.
·
I never
took the time to understand what was really behind what I was celebrating in.
Very eye opening to say the least.
So - How many of us carve out pumpkins and put them
out on our front porches?
And that is the very
reason that I have Mr. Jack-o-Lantern up here with me this morning.
But let’s talk a
little about Mr. Jack-O-Lantern.
·
The use of Jack-O-Lanterns comes from an Irishman who
actually lived so-so many years ago.
·
And of course, his name was Jack.
·
Now Mr. Jack just loved to play tricks on the Devil.
o He Teased the devil and flirting with him but it didn’t have a
good result.
o Oh, no. Not at all!
·
See, as Jack found out, with being such a prankster
with the evil; it comes with a very great cost.
·
Did you know that all of our actions that are
against God come with a very high cost?
See the legend has
it that upon Mr. Jack’s death, he was not able to go to heaven nor into hell.
·
But rather he was stuck in-the-in-between world for
all eternity.
·
He was forced to wander the world day and night.
·
Never being able to rest for even a moment.
·
See - The devil’s goons were always after him.
·
And all during this time, even carrying on into our
world today, he is blind to everything except for what he can see from the
light of his lit lantern.
And this is why even
today,
· We hollow out our pumpkins and set them so proudly by our door
steps with a candle lit inside of them to scare off all of the evil spirits.
But just –
· How ridiculous is the logic in that?
However, how many of
us carve out our pumpkins or have plastic pumpkins and put them outside by our
door steps?
But before you go
back and sit with your parents,
Who wants to stick your
hand inside our pumpkin and feel the goo that is inside of him?
But let’s see if we
can learn some great knowledge from our Mr. Jack, the lost soul Irishman.
·
Are we like Mr. Jack?
·
Do we also “flirt” with the devil?
And if we do,
·
Does that really cause any harm to come upon us from
just being a little “flirty” with sin?
I believe we all know that we Can
NEVER Do Enough Of Anything to remove our sins from ourselves!
·
Right?
Ephesians 2:8-9 says (NLT),
“God saved you by his grace when you believed.
And you can’t take
credit for this;
It is a gift from God.
Salvation is not a
reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”
It is ONLY BY the
GRACE of God in which we are saved.
·
That it is ONLY Through the Death and the Resurrection
of Jesus Christ, which He makes us even possible to even begin to be
presentable to God.
By using our Mr. Jack-o-Lantern as a symbol of us,
(Remove the insides)
·
Just as Mr. Jack cannot remove his gooey and yucky
stuff out of him by himself,
·
We can’t remove our own yucky sins from ourselves
either.
Light the candle)
Only Jesus can do
this.
·
He is the only
one who can remove our sins from us.
But let’s take another
look at our passage for today but this time, I would like to go back and begin
to read from verse 1 and see what is leading up to the Scripture that we have
for today.
Micah 6:1-8 (NLT)
(Micah) Listen to what the Lord is saying:
(GOD) “Stand up and state your case against me.
Let the mountains and
hills be called to witness your complaints.”
(GOD) “And now, O mountains, listen to the Lord’s complaint!
He has a case against
his people.
He will bring charges
against Israel.”
·
“O my people, what
have I done to you?
·
What have I done to
make you tired of me?
ANSWER
ME!
For I brought you out of
Egypt and redeemed you from slavery.
I sent Moses, Aaron, and
Miriam to help you.
·
Don’t you remember, my
people, how King Balak of Moab tried to have you cursed?
·
And how Balaam, son of
Beor blessed you?
·
And remember your
journey from Acacia Grove to Gilgal,
·
When I, the Lord, did
everything I could to teach you about my faithfulness?”
(6) (The People) “What can we bring to
the Lord?
·
Should we bring him
burnt offerings?
·
Should we bow before
God Most High with offerings of yearling calves?
·
Should we offer him
thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
·
Should we sacrifice
our firstborn children to pay for our sins?”
(8) (GOD) “No, O People, the Lord
has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you:
·
To do what is Right
·
To Love Mercy,
·
And to walk humbly with
your God.”
It always amazes me how
we want to react.
·
Don’t we always want to make it not our fault.
·
And in our fixing, we want to “Do the Fixing” rather
than to “Be” the fixing.
·
And to that point, we always do it the wrong way which
ultimately, is in “our own” way.
o Let me offer you some burnt offerings.
o Let me offer you all of my yearling calves.
o Let me offer a million of my rams and ten million gallons of olive
oil.
o Let me offer you my firstborn child.
·
Isn’t this still our response when we get caught today
when we are in trouble?
·
Don’t we start out with small stuff to fix it but we
end up with a most ridiculous type of statement,
o blowing it all out of apportion, just to deflect the blame from
ourselves.
·
All the while, what we are really doing is,
o
Saying, “It Isn’t My
Fault!!!”
Just how seriously
do you take your sinning?
·
Is one sin greater than another?
·
But isn’t all Sin equal to any Sin?
YES - All sin has the
same effect!
·
It separates us from our Lord God.
·
And it brings death upon us.
Let me put it this
way.
When Adam and Eve’s
sinned, what did it cause?
Genesis 2:16-17 “But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every
tree in the garden – except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
If you eat its fruit,
you are sure to die.”
And then what happened
after they ate from it?
·
There was the FIRST KILLING of All Times!
o Animals were killed by God himself for their clothing.
·
Adam and Eve now wore the death as their outer skin.
·
Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden.
·
No longer being able to walk in personal harmony with
God.
·
The gates where locked, sealed and a
o Mighty cherub with a flaming sword was placed to guard the Garden.
·
Just How Seriously
was it?
The Paradise was lost!
And in Romans 6:23 we read Paul’s writing
of God’s words: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God
is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”
So, if sin is sin, it
is equal with all other SIN
·
What is the cost of
our own sin today?
Every time that we sin,
· We create the very exact existence
o As there was in the Very First Sin.
DEATH
So, this brings me
back to our verse for today.
Micah 6:8
· How do we do what is “Good”?
· And what is “Required” of us?
“No, O People, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is
what he requires of you:
·
To do what is Right
·
To Love Mercy,
·
And to walk humbly with
your God.”
Do you recall what the
very
1st
Commandment says?
In Exodus 20:3, we find the
beginning of the 10 Commandments and the 1st Commandment says
“Thou shalt have no
other gods before me.”
“You must not have any
other god but me.”
And then later, Jesus
told us of what was the Greatest
Commandment.
This is found in Matthew 22:36-40
Jesus said:
“You must love the Lord
your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
This is the first and
greatest commandment.
A second is equally
important:
Love your neighbor as
yourself.”
The entire law and all
the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
I believe Jesus Words
which were recorded here in Matthew, the two greatest commandments, that is VERY
similar to what God shared with Micah.
Here is a thought for
us all to think about.
·
What comes to mind
when you hear the words: “False gods”?
Do you think of the
Golden Calf?
·
Well, maybe.
·
But what is our Golden Calf or Idol
of Our World Today?
An idol by
definition is anything that comes before or occupies the place of God within
our lives.
·
Oh, you say.
·
I don’t have any of those.
·
So, I must be Alright! Right?
It is anything other than God that
we allow to dominate and control us.
It is Any Item or Any Activity
that we have or do more for our:
·
Own self-image
·
And our own desires of emotional needs
·
Than for the pure pursuit of Christ’s Kingdom.
We are very good at this.
We can make idols out of just about anything.
·
Our
holidays -Halloween, Christmas, 4th of July
·
Our
Children
·
Our
Work
·
Our
Success
·
Our
Church Involvement
·
Our
Home and Home Improvements
·
Our
Family Obligations
·
Or
anything else that we find more joy, peace, acceptance, or worth in other than
in God.
We all have them.
·
But
we need to find them,
·
Then
we need to dig them up and remove them so we can be of God.
Let me use our Mr.
Jack-o-Lantern to help communicate this clearer.
As I go through a list
of some of our possible idols,
· I will be placing a
piece of our Mr. Jack-O-Lantern back into the holes so as to symbolize our
indulgence in those idols.
As we allow our idols
to take over our lives, just like on Mr. Jack here,
· We will be able to see that our idols will block people from being
able to see
· God’s flicker of Love
· And of His Work of Salvation from inside of us.
Some of our idols
which live within us are:
·
Greed
·
Cars,
·
Boats,
·
Toys,
·
Just Stuff
·
Sex
·
Sex out of marriage,
·
Affairs,
·
Pornography
·
Power
·
Within the home,
·
At Work,
·
Seeking your Career
·
All types and forms of personal indulgences and experiences.
·
The Extreme involvement of video gaming
·
Drinking,
·
Socializing
·
And sports involvement.
·
And even within the Church,
·
The Pursuing of Beliefs and Practices
§ Which hide our fears without actually reaching out
§ And keeps us from growing dependently upon God.
·
Just coming to Church each week.
§ And just to be here
§ We can make even that a Pursuit of Selfness.
·
The very practice of putting your tithe in the basket
just so you have it covered,
·
And even with baptism, Being Baptized but in our
hearts, not interested in pursuing a personal relationship God.
·
Even within our culture,
·
When we pursue and place our hopes
§ And ambitions through the deceptive promises of our world’s ideas
and values.
·
Declining of Our Moral Statues,
·
Following and supporting Laws which go against God and
His Word.
·
And
finally – Even Flirting with the Devil,
·
By Partaking in Activities of this World
·
Being part of those activities, which support risky behavior
·
Tempting us to behave in ways which we shouldn’t.
We are very good at
making personal things as well as ways of Living into our Very Personal Idols.
We build hidden worlds
for us to live differently in
·
And in them, we try to hide them in secret from
everyone.
·
Thinking that others won’t know about them and they
won’t be able to see us indulge in them either.
We are so good of having Idols, so good in fact that this becomes Our
New Truth.
But the Real Truth is, You Can Not Hide ANYTHING From Our Lord
And Everyone else will also know of it as well.
·
Even though you think you are doing it in secret,
Through your actions, it will cause it so
·
No one will be able to see the New Life, the Christian
Life that you once had within you.
But here is the Great News
·
We have been given the power through Jesus Christ
·
To dig up these idols
·
And to get them out of our lives.
·
And if we take God’s Word seriously,
·
If we want to be faithful to God,
·
That is exactly what we must do.
·
As Christians, we are to have
·
No other gods,
·
No other idols,
Nothing at all that comes between us and Our One and True God.
Exodus 20:2-3 (NLT) “I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land
of Egypt, the place of your slavery. You must not have any other god but me.”
And Our God is a
Jealous God
Exodus 20:5 (NLT) “You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I,
the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for
any other gods.
I lay the sins of the
parents upon their children; the entire family is affected – even children in
the third and fourth generations of those who reject me.”
He desires our total
devotion.
·
So, we must Not Be like Mr. Jack and flirt with the
evil one,
·
We must not allow the evil even close to us not alone,
inside of our lives
·
Through the creation
§ And our worship of our personal idols.
So, What Do we Do with the Idols we have?
How do we get out of them?
STEP
1
The first step of purging ourselves of our evil is to understand
that there are 3 different types of idols that we can be within us and they
are;
1.
Personal Pleasing Ones,
2.
Religious Ones:
a.
They can even hide within our own Religious worship
3.
And of our world today:
a.
If you just look around our world today, they are
growing like a wild fire and taking so many strong holds within our culture.
STEP
2
In addition to understanding what we are attacking, we must pray to Our God.
·
Asking Him to work through the Holy Spirit within our
own lives.
·
Praying that the Holy Spirit will help us to move away
from our playing with the devil’s Fire.
STEP
3
The 3rd step is a Hard One for us to follow through
with.
·
We must preach the gospel to ourselves!
·
If we wait
o And just learn,
o And just hear
o And we only read of God’s Word while we are here in Church,
o Then that is about only 1 hour out of the 112 hours in every week!
(leaving 8 hours a day for sleeping)
Tell me, would you pay someone 112 hours of work if they only
showed up at work, 1 hour of those 112 hours?
With living a life away from
·
Read of God’s Word,
·
Teaching it,
·
Sharing it,
·
Meditating over it
·
How is that being faithful in a pursuit of growing a
personal relationship with God?
STEP
4
Then the second to the last step is
·
That we need to always,
·
And I mean always remind ourselves of what Jesus has
done for us, that is for you and for me.
·
This is required so that we can become closer and
fully accepted in Him.
STEP
5
And for last step but IT IS MOST Certainly not the Least,
·
We need to constantly remind ourselves that
·
Only True and Pure Joy,
·
Total Peace
·
And True Self-Worth
·
Can be found within a strong personal relationship
with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
For God has told you
Micah 6:8
“What he requires of
you:
·
To do what is Right
·
To Love Mercy,
·
And to walk humbly with
your God.”
And for whatever your plans are
·
For Celebrating Halloween,
·
Do it with Christian Honor
·
And within your Walk
·
with the Lord, Your God.
Amen
