The Weekend Sermon -- "Because He Is Alive"

      It is time for the Easter Weekend Sermon. Christ is Risen!!! He is Risen Indeed!!!

     As we enter the Easter weekend, I want us to focus on what is because He is alive. Jesus rose bodily from the grave on the third day after He was crucified. This is a fundamental Christian belief. If Jesus did not come out of the grave, we are those who have no hope. But, Jesus is alive. 

     Because He is alive, we know that sin and the consequences of sin are defeated. When sin entered into this world, the result of sin was and is death. Death passed upon all people because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. 

     Jesus came and was the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. When Jesus died on the cross, He took the punishment that we deserved for our sins. He bore our sins in His body on the cross. Jesus took care of sin on the cross. 

     Our Lord defeated the consequences of sin through His glorious resurrection. When He rose from the dead on Easter morning, Jesus defeated death, hell and the grave. The grave is no longer the victor, and death has lost its sting. 

     Because Jesus is alive, we do not have to fear death if we put our faith and trust in Him. Because Jesus is alive, we too will rise and be with Him when we die. Those who are in Christ immediately go to be with Him in the place that He has prepared for us when we pass from this earth. 

     Knowing this provides great comfort to me. Most of my family members and good friends have passed on from this earth. Thanks be to God, they knew Jesus as Savior and Lord. They are with Him right now, and one day I will see them all again. It is not because of anything that I have done, but it is because of what Jesus has done for me. 

     Because Jesus is alive, we have His peace and His presence with us until that day that we see Him face to face. He said that He would not leave us and that He would not forsake us. No matter what we go through in this life, Jesus is with us. 

     I hope that you know Jesus as Savior and Lord. If not, you can come to Him today. He will not cast out anyone who comes to Him. Thanks be to God that Jesus is alive. Amen.

Prayer Requests

      Please keep praying for peace. The whole Middle East needs peace. Sudan and Ukraine also need our prayers.

     Pray for those in Hawaii recovering from the floods. 

     For our prayer focus countries this week let us pray for those in nations of Suriname and Tajikistan. Pray that many will come to know Jesus. 

     Next week, I will post the message on Friday, and I will post the verses on Tuesday. May God bless you all. 

Good Friday

      Why did Jesus die on the cross? The Bible is clear about this. I Peter 2:24 says that Jesus bore our sins in His body while He was on the cross in order that we might die to sin and live righteously. He took our sins upon Himself as the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. Those who put their faith and trust in Him will be forgiven. 

     The Bible tells us in I John 2 that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. He came to fulfill the justice of God. Jesus bore our sins and He took the punishment that we deserved for our sins on the cross. On the cross the love and the justice of God were satisfied in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. 

     Jesus invites everyone to come to Him. He died for us because He loves us. Whosoever will can come to Jesus and receive His forgiveness and the abundant and eternal life that He offers to those who place their faith and trust in Him. 

     Jesus died for you. You can know Him today. 

Maundy Thursday

     Today is Maundy Thursday. This is the day that Jesus instituted the sacrament of communion in the Upper Room. Jesus washed His disciples feet showing that we are to serve one another and follow in the path of the humility of Jesus. 

     Maundy Thursday gets its name because of the mandate or the new commandment that Jesus gave to His disciples in the Upper Room. Jesus said to them in John 13:34 -- "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

     Jesus loved us sacrificially. He was willing to sacrifice His life in order that we might be redeemed. Those of us who follow the Lord Jesus need to care about one another and help one another. We need to be good and kind to those who are our fellow believers in the Lord. 

     This command of Jesus to love goes out to all who are in the world. Jesus has called us to love others as He did. He has called us to love our neighbor as ourself, and He has called us to even love our enemies. He has called us to show our love by doing what is good and right to the least of those among us. 

     On this Maundy Thursday, let us reflect on the love of Jesus and how we might follow His commandment to love one another. 

Verses For The Week, Update and Prayer Request

      This is Holy Week, so I want to update you on the blog schedule. On Thursday, there will be a Maundy Thursday post. On Friday there will be a Good Friday post. The Weekend Sermon will be posted on Saturday this week. 

     I would ask that you please pray that the really bad weather forecast for my area this week will not materialize. Thank you. 

Verses:

I Peter 2:24 -- "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness, by His wounds you have been healed."

John 11:25 -- "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."

The Weekend Sermon -- "Mark 3:7-19"

      Welcome to this week's message. I hope that everyone is having a good week. I know that my week has gone well, and I am thankful to the Lord for that. 

     Today, we are continuing in our series where we are going through the Gospel of Mark to see what the Lord would have us to learn. In our message today, there are a couple of applications from the text that I would like to point out. 

     As we have seen, Jesus began His ministry in the area of the Sea of Galilee with His home base being Capernaum. Jesus began His ministry by healing those who were sick and by freeing people from the bondage of evil. He taught with authority, and the people were impressed because they had not heard someone teaching in this manner before. 

     As Jesus healed and delivered more and more people, the news spread far and wide about Him. People began to come to where He was teaching from all of the area around the Sea of Galilee. However, news spread about the works of Jesus beyond that. People came from across the Jordan, from Judea and from as far away as Tyre and Sidon in present day Lebanon. 

     There is a point for us today that I want to bring up. People were attracted to the Lord because of the good that He was doing and the message of deliverance and love that He was bringing. If we as the people of the Lord today are going to bring people in to hear about Jesus, we are going to have to be doing the same things. 

     If people see that those who follow Jesus are doing good and helping this world to be a better place, they will want to come and find out more about Jesus. If they hear a message of love and forgiveness and deliverance like the Lord Jesus preached, they will be drawn to Jesus and want to give their lives over to Him as Savior and Lord. We have to be sure that we are doing good to the least of those among us and that we are not being hateful or nasty in any way in the things that we say or do. We always want to draw people to Jesus as His ambassadors here on earth, and we never want to push people away so that they do not want to learn more about the Lord Jesus. 

    Now, I want to move into the second part of our text for today. Jesus had many disciples. There came a point where He wanted to chose a select group to be the leaders. These would be the ones who He would invest the most time in teaching and training them to take over when it was time for Him to ascend back into Heaven. 

     Jesus chose twelve to be the core group. What impresses me is the diversity of those that Jesus chose. He chose the fisherman like Peter, James, John and Andrew that He had known for a long time. They were ordinary men who worked hard for a living. He also chose a tax collector in Matthew. He even chose a political revolutionary like Simon. 

     The point I want to get across is that Jesus calls all sorts of people today to follow Him and to do His work. You don't have to be from a certain race or ethnic group. You don't have to have a certain background. The Lord uses all sorts of people from all over this planet to do His will and to accomplish things for Him. He may even be calling you to be one who will do great things for the Kingdom of God. Don't think that God can't use you, or that God can't call you to His service. The Lord Jesus called ordinary people to do great things for Him. 

     In all that we do, let our lives be yielded to the service of the Lord. May we do what He has called us to do and be a light shining in the darkness telling all of the love of the Lord Jesus. Amen. 

Prayer Requests

     Please keep praying in regard to my health. I am gradually doing better. Thank you. 

     We must be in prayer for peace in this world. The war in the Middle East must come to an end. Pray for peace in this region. Keep praying for peace in Ukraine. Pray for peace in Sudan. That conflict is horrific, and we just don't hear that much about it. Pray for peace wherever you know there is war. 

     Pray for those who are dealing with the flooding in Hawaii. Pray that they will get the help they need. 

     For our prayer focus countries this week, let us pray for those in the nations of Yemen and Jordan. Pray that many will come to know Jesus. 

    Next week, I will post the verses on Monday. We have finished with the James commentary posts, but I will repost them again in the future. I will post the message next Friday. May God bless you all. 

James: A Commentary -- Chapter 5

 

James 5:1-6

     This section is a powerful indictment against those who have amassed great amounts of wealth. Some people say that the Bible does not say that it is wrong to have a lot of riches. Yes, it does. It says it right here. Jesus said it too.

     In these verses, James says that the rich will weep and howl and lose everything because they have hoarded wealth in the last days. This means that they had enough money to live well and they could have given to help people and they didn’t do it. God says that’s wrong.

     One way that the rich hoard money in the last days is through the exploitation of the worker. They do not pay a living wage with proper health benefits so that they can have more and more for themselves. But, God knows what they have done, and there will be a day of reckoning. They may have lived in abundance on the earth, but their eternity will be bleak. That is not me judging, that is the revealed word of God.

     Jesus said as much. In the parable of the rich man, the rich man had a great harvest so much so that he was going to tear down his barns and build bigger barns. God said his soul would be required of him. Why? He had more than enough and kept if for himself instead of helping others.

     Jesus also gave us the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had enough money to have purple clothing which was enormously expensive in that day. He bought that instead of helping Lazarus. The rich man ended up in hell.

James 5:7-12

     This is an important discussion on patience and perseverance in the midst of suffering in this world. What James is saying to us is that there will be suffering in this world while we wait for the promised coming of Jesus back to rule and reign in righteousness in this world.

     James gives us three examples of patient waiting for that which we are in expectation of. First the farmer. The farmer plants the seed in the field and then has to wait for the seed to sprout, for the sprout to grow, and then he has to wait for the fruit or grain to ripen. Eventually, the farmer will reap the harvest.

     The second example is the prophets. They told the people that the Messiah would come. They waited for years, and still, they did not see it happen in their own lifetimes. However, God kept His word. Jesus was born. He was the Promised One. The waiting of the prophets came to fruition in Jesus.

     James gives us Job as the third example. Job really went through a vast amount of suffering. In spite of it all, he never turned on God or cursed God. He waited for the deliverance of the Lord, and the Lord came to the aid of Job.

     We go through hard times now. Life is suffering. However, we have the promise that Jesus is coming. We wait and work for Him until the day we go to be with Him or He comes back to this earth.

James 5:13-15

     In these verses, we are given a guideline for praying for the sick who are members of the church body. A sick person should ask the church leaders to come and pray for him. They are to come and anoint the sick person with oil, and they are to pray for the recovery of the one who is sick.

     If the sick person has committed a sin, that individual is to confess that sin and receive forgiveness. A note on this. This passage is not saying that all sickness is caused by sin. It is saying that we are to confess and receive forgiveness. Some sickness may be caused by living a sinful lifestyle, but by no means is all or most sickness a result of that.

James 5:16-18

     These verses tell us about the power of prayer. The initial context is on praying for the sick. Prayer for healing is effective. I have seen the sick prayed for, and they recovered. I believe in the power of prayer. God does not always answer prayers in the way we want or expect. However, many people praying can have a great effect.

     As an example, James gives us the prophet Elijah. He was a great prophet of God. He prayed that it would not rain, and God stopped the rain for years. When he prayed again for the rain to come, it came back like a torrent. The fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much.

James 5:19-20

     James concludes his epistle by telling us one of the greatest things that we can do as a follower of the Lord Jesus. What is that? It is to turn sinners from the error of their ways. The Lord gave us the Great Commission to go and tell. When we tell others about the love and forgiveness of the Lord we are giving them the greatest gift in the world.

     Also, we are to help our fellow believers to turn back to the Lord when they have gone astray. We don’t do this by judging or condemning. We do that by being there for them when they need help and encouragement finding the way that they need to be on and the path that they need to trod.

Conclusion

     This journey through James has been exciting for me. I love this epistle and its message. I hope you will keep studying James, and I hope that you will apply the teachings of this book to your life.

 

Verses For The Week

 Psalm 103:8 -- "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love."

Ephesians 4:7 -- "But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it."