Sermons - August 2009

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This page was last updated 02/18/10

Week Of: August 2, 2009

Title: Sunday Everyday of Week

Series: Ministry of Worship-Part 15

Scripture: Acts 5:42; 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2

See Pastor for this week's sermon notes.

Week Of: August 9, 2009

Title: Church Leadership: What does it mean?

Series: Deacon Elections

Scripture: Ephesians 4:11-16

1. What is leadership? Does anyone know? Take a moment for reflection. Maybe, in general terms, leadership is the ability to influence others!!! If this is true, then everyone is a leader because we all can influence people. The only questions are how much, and in what way do we influence people?

2. Some people say that the most critical problem facing America today is a lack of leadership in our nation. Church growth experts also believe that the most critical problem facing the church today is the leadership vacuum that grew during the 20^th century.

3. A few years ago the church expert and statistician, George Barna, wrote: “Leadership remains one of the glaring needs of the church. People are often willing to follow God’s vision, but too frequently they have no exposure to either vision or true leadership.”

4. After fifteen years of digging into the how’s and whys of church growth he writes: “…I have reached several conclusions regarding the future of the Christian church in America.…the American church is dying due to lack of strong leadership. In this time of unprecedented opportunity and plentiful resources, the church is actually losing influence. The primary reason is the lack of leadership…”

5. I’ll confess that I am a little hesitant about telling you this because as our constitution and by-laws state, apart from Jesus Christ Himself, the Pastor is supposed to be the number one leader in this congregation.

6. However, I do believe that in any church if it is to be successful there has to be folks besides the Pastor who are excited enough about God working in their midst to become an active leader in the church.

7. Now let me remind you of something about leadership—you don’t have to be an outspoken, flamboyant, charismatic, overbearing personality in order to be a leader in our church and our community. You just have to care enough to get involved and quietly influence people for the good and for God’s kingdom. To be a leader in our church you don’t even have to get elected to a position of leadership…you just have to show people in our church and community that you care by getting involved and committing your time and energy to God’s kingdom and His work through and in the church.

8. Let’s look at our scripture this morning. Turn to Ephesians 4:11, Paul names 5 leadership roles in the church: apostles (in which some believe died with the apostles), prophets, evangelists, Pastors, and teachers. We could just dwell on these 5… but I believe that anytime you say there are just 5, 10, 19, 21, 30, or 40 of anything in the church you are attempting to put limitations on what God is trying to do in His church.

9. Instead, what I would like for you to look at is the purpose of leadership… again not just the Pastor or Deacons, but anyone who consciously wants to influence others for God’s sake. Look at verse 12, the NIV version reads “for the equipping of the saints.” My Father was a Jack of all trades…the man could do almost anything he set his mind to. He always said, “To do a job right you needed to have the right tools.” You needed to be well equipped to do the work at hand. So to much of mother’s chagrin, he brought plenty of tools.

10. For people to do the work of the Kingdom they needed to be equipped, trained with the right knowledge of the Bible, the right understanding of what God’s work is all about, and what ministry means.

11. Now you don’t have to be an expert—I am not saying that, and Paul is not saying that. You just have to understand yourself what is right, good, and true, and pass that desire to help and minister to other people around you.

12. In addition, according to Paul, this ministry of serving and influencing people builds up the body of Christ. It builds up the kingdom of God and God’s church becomes stronger and better.

13. What this new stronger church looks like is seen in verse 13, he writes: “till we all come to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the statue of fullness of Christ.” In other words, he is saying: “We come to a Unity of faith—a belief in God and personal knowledge of Jesus Christ that unifies us into one body that looks more and more like Jesus every day.

14. The outcome, among many things, is that we are no longer just spiritual children—influenced by every doctrine of every radio and TV preacher that comes along. We are growing more and more in a solid understanding of who we are in Christ Jesus, and things don’t unnerve and upset us like they used to.

15. But look at the quality of the spiritual life of the congregation when the leadership of the church is equipping the saints (Verse 14-16).

16. Deacons election remarks…

Week Of: August 16, 2009

Title: Holy Greetings

Series: Ministry of Worship - Part 16

Scripture: Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14

1. A greeting is an act of communication in which we intentionally make our presence known to each other, to show attention to each other, and to acknowledge a “certain” level of relationship to one another.

2. Different cultures, at different times have different greetings. Some greetings are appropriate for some people and not for others. Some people are comfortable with some greetings and others are not.

3. Can you name some different ways in which people today greet one another? Bowing, cheek kissing, Eskimo kissing, fist pounding, high-five, low-five, handshaking. Some researchers have suggested the handshake may have been introduced in the Western World by Sir Walter Raleigh in service with the British Court during the late 16th century. The handshake is thought by some to have originated as a gesture of peace by demonstrating that the hand holds no weapon (Wikipedia). What about hand-kissing, hat tipping, hugging, kowtowing (sign of deep respect in which someone bows and touches their head to the floor), Namaste (head-bowing and hands together in prayer), Roman salute (arm held straight out with palm down), military salute, smiling, waving, verbal greetings, and of course, the Mike Moore handshake.

4. In our scripture this morning Paul mentions kissing 4 times, calling it the Holy Kiss and Peter once calling it—the kiss of love. Ancient Middle Eastern people, as was their custom, often greeted each other with a kiss. In some Middle Eastern cultures, the kiss was just reserved for family, but in others close friends or associates greeted each with a kiss. Many times it was lip to lip (which sounds rather nasty) but had no sexual overtones. It was similar to today’s handshake. A kiss in their culture was just a way of showing that you were friends with one another.

5. Jesus was kissed. Do you remember the more famous of the kisses that Jesus received? Judas’ kiss was a kiss of betrayal, but was that kiss ever actually delivered? Anyway in John 7:45, Jesus complained that he wasn’t greeted with a kiss as He entered someone’s home, and in that same chapter and verse there was a sinful woman that continuously kissed Jesus’ feet.

6. By the time of Paul’s writings, greeting each other with a holy kiss became not only what family, close friends and associates did, but also what the Christian churches did. In fact, in our scripture today, Paul and Peter commanded their churches to greet each other that way. Peter called it the “kiss of Love.” The Holy kiss or kiss of love has nothing to do with sexuality. It is a holy kiss, a “holy greeting,” that expressed a pure platonic brother and sister love that came because of being a part of the same Christian family. It is a deep reflection of the love that Jesus has for each of us. A love that would be willing to lay down your life for another.

7. The Holy greeting was a unity symbol that said “we are one in the bond of love.” It says you and I am not just a resident of the same town or community, but you and I am a part of the same body. It means that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female for you (we) are all one in Christ Jesus.” It means that at our best nothing can divide us.

8. Now preacher, are you suggesting that we kiss one another when we come to church? Na…that would be nasty and some people would abuse it, misconstrue it, or misunderstand it!

9. Instead, greet one another as if you mean it, as you are comfortable in doing so that shows that you really care for one another.

10. Personally, I would hug every one of you if you were comfortable in doing so, because you are my family, and I love this church, and the people that are a part of it. And as Pastor I want everyone to feel as I do…

11. What I am saying is, don’t take our unity for granted. Don’t take one another for granted because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

12. Don’t be exclusive about your love. There are people out there that would give their eye teeth to have what you’ve got for one another. They are friend-less and, as far as they are concerned, love-less. Therefore always be ready to widen you circle of love.

Week Of: August 23, 2009 - Guest Speaker / No Notes

Week Of: August 30, 2009

Title: Scripture and Worship

Series: Ministry of Worship – Part 17

Scripture: Luke 4:14-30

1. Christianity has been called a “religion of the book.” It is hard to overestimate the importance of the Bible for Christians, especially conservative evangelical Christians.

2. Yet there are some that would suggest that “Bible believing churches” are actually using less of the Scriptures in their worship services than more “liberal” or mainline churches.

3. Keith Drury in The Wonder of Worship: Why we Worship the Way We Do says:

A recent form of worship is “entertainment worship” requiring the “audience” (congregation) to be constantly captivated and interested by what is happening on the “stage.” In this form of worship, the reading of Scripture is often eliminated. As a well-known, super-church pastor likes to say: “Reading to modern men and women is what you do to put them to sleep.”

4. Reading Holy Scripture aloud should not put spiritual men and women asleep of any church or generation.

5. However, at the risk of putting you to sleep with a history lesson, let’s review some history and some Scripture concerning the Word of God.

6. First of all, when we talk about Scripture, we are talking about the Bible. How many books are in the Bible? Protestant Bible (39 OT books, 27 N.T) 66 Books. The Catholic Bible has the same 66 Books plus 14 other writings called “the Apocrypha.”

7. The Bible (Protestant Bible) was written by over 40 men over 1600 years from 1500 B.C to about 100 A.D. According to 2 Peter 1:21, these “men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

8. Whether these men realized it or not at the time, later generations would believe like Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2: “we speak not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.”

9. These spiritual truths were written originally in the Hebrew and Common Greek. These were languages that can be learned today but for all practical purposes are dead. They were translated into Latin and other languages a long, long time before they were translated into English.

10. The first translation of the English Bible was started by a man by the name of John Wycliffe and completed by a gentleman named John Purvey in 1388 A.D. The King James Version that many of us love was written in 1611 and by the way did have “the Apocrypha” in it.

11. Question—Was the Bible originally written in chapters and verses? No, the Old Testament was divided into chapters as late as 1448 A.D. by R. Nathan and the New Testament by Robert Stephanus in 1551 A.D.

12. Trivia questions- Do you know the number of chapters in the Bible? 2118!

13. Verses? (31, 164) Shortest verse in the New Testament—John 11:35 (Jesus wept!); Shortest verse in the Old Testament 1 Chronicles 1:25. (Eber, Peleg, Reu,) Kidd you not, they were the three sons of Joktan.

14. Words? Depending on the transcripts which are used, Old Testament-622,771 words; New Testament-184,590 words; grand total—807,361 words.

15. Unusual things in the Bible, for example:

· A man who lived to 969 years old—Genesis 5:27

· There were sons of God who married the daughters of men—Genesis 6:2

· There was a baby that had a scarlet thread tied around its hand before it was born—Genesis 38:28-30. (Zehah)

· Man was spoken to by a donkey. Balaam (Numbers 22:28-30)

· Sun stood still for a whole day. (Joshua 10:13)

· A woman killed a man by driving a tent peg through his head. (Judges 4:17-21)

· There were an army with 700 left handed men (Judges 20:16)

· There was a man who had 12 fingers and 12 toes. By the way, he was one of the four giants that David and his men killed. Did you know there were four giants instead of just one, Goliath? Read 2 Samuel 21:20-22.

· 2 Kings 6:1-6 has an axe head that floated in water.

· 2 Kings 6:28, 29 has the story of a woman who boiled and ate her son.

· 2 Chronicles 11:21 has a father that fathered 28 sons and 60 daughters. He also had 18 wives and 60 concubines.

· Isaiah 37: 6 tells the story of 185,000 soldiers destroyed in single night.

· And last but not all of the interesting facts in the Bible, “Did you know that a harlot was an ancestor of Jesus Christ?” (Matthew 1:5)

16. The Bible is full of interesting things…it is the most interesting book that has ever been written.

But the most important thing according to Paul is that “it expresses spiritual truths in spiritual words.”

17. For example: It is inspired by God—to lead folks to salvation in Jesus Christ. It is inspired by God to lead us to maturity and growth in faith: By its teachings! By its correction and by its rebuke! By its training in righteousness! By its illumination of the human spirit! By its encouragement and reassurance! By its recording of God’s promises! By its passing the test of time and of trustworthiness! The Bible is God infallible, inspired, and Holy Word.

18. It is in the Bible that we hear God speaking to us and telling us what He has done in history, and believing that He is also alive and working in our hearts today as well.

19. Where would the world be without it? To the cynic I would say a lot worse than it is today.

If you think the world is in terrible shape today, I would not want to see it without the influence of Christian scripture and Christian teachings. The world needs more scripture being read both privately and aloud while being applied to its collective heart rather than less! We need more rather than less Bible. We need to be a people of God’s Word who worship by being lead by God’s Word. The Bible and the Holy Spirit should be the center pieces of Christian worship.

First Baptist Church of St. Paul, Virginia

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