Weekly Message

March Madness - Betrayal

Bill — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:02:57 +0000

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

In spite of his faith Bishop John Rucyahana, humanly speaking had a reason to hate. Bishop John, a Tutsi Rwandan, left his homeland at the age of 14 because of the genocide that was taking place. The genocide continued in Rwanda for many years. In the early 90’s, the Hutus of Rwanda brutally raped and killed his own niece. In the mid 90’s Bishop John felt God’s call to return to Rwanda. Upon returning to Rwanda, he found sun bleached bones littering the streets and open graves fouling the air.

Bishop John worked with others to begin the Umuvumu Project, which has brought together thousands of perpetrators and victims of the genocide, offering the offenders the opportunity to confess their crimes and victims the chance to forgive. It is amazing enough that Bishop John would speak to Hutu perpetrators of genocide. It is even more amazing when you consider that the group did to his own family. It is even more amazing to think that he is seeking to find ways to offer the offenders forgiveness and reconciliation.

Where did he get this idea? What gives him strength to carry out this noble mission? Jesus. Jesus shows us what many would called madness when he illustrated and prescribed “Love your enemies.”

Can you name the twelve disciples? Chances are probably not. But whether you know them all or not you probably know five - the big three, Peter, James and John, the doubter Thomas, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus. Not only was Judas one of the disciples, but apparently he is seen as one who can handle responsible and so he is placed in charge of the finances of the disciples and Jesus. He was gifted and no doubt had a lot of opportunity to hear and learn from Jesus and do great things for the Kingdom of God. But he also criticized other believers as he did with Mary who poured perfume on Jesus’ feet. John 12: 4But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5"Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages.[

Are we ever like Judas? Do we ever wish that Jesus was something that he is not? On Wednesday there was a man at the corner of Kenwood and Maryland with a sandwhich board that said Jesus said one man and one woman. Boy did that tick some people off. While I don’t necessarily agree with his tactics many were upset because they want to do what they want to do. They want freedom. And they want their friends to be able to do what they want to do. And so standing right beside the man was someone from LGBT with their flag. People drove by in the cars honking, not honking in agreement but in disagreement. How do I know? It was the hand gestures that they gave that showed their hatred of Jesus. Apparently a lot of people want Jesus to be someone he is not. Have you ever wished that Jesus hadn’t said some of the things he said. Like honor your father and mother. Like take care of the poor. Don’t steal someone else’s work. Or maybe you wish he said things that he didn’t say, Like you don’t have to listen to the government when they are just being stupid like with the drinking age. Have you ever felt like that what you have done is unforgivable?

If you have ever had a Judas in your life, someone who is close to you, someone who knows how you feel, what you believe and what you stand for, who trashes you for his or her own personal gain. You know what Jesus was going through with Judas. And you know what Jesus is going through with you and me. The now deceased atheist comedian George Carlin often was condescending toward Christianity. He said like many do that Christianity is a crutch, an easy way out to life. While I disagree because what can be on eof the most difficult things to do is to forgive someone when they don’t deserve to be forgiven. Like Jesus does for you and me. One of the most difficult things is not to love someone who loves you, not to love someone who is in peril but that you will never really see, but to love someone who has openly demonstrated hatred of you. Like Jesus has done for the world, you and me included. Romans 5:8-10 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

The madness of Christ turns the world upside down. He allows people to make mistakes. He doesn’t put us in armor suits and hi-jack our brains. He gives us the opportunity to express freedom and love in our lives. And we all know that we have used that freedom and used his love to perpetuate and scheme for sin. And when we do this Jesus throws out his hand and dies. God dies for the ungodly. God forgives the unforgivable. God loves the unlovable. And that is what is driving Satan mad. Because love conquers all.

So who/what are you going to conquer with God’s love?

a]" 6He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. priests, and said to them: What will you give me, and I will deliver him unto you? (Matthew 26:14-5) He was found out. He thought he was getting away with something but it was clear to Jesus. And so as Jesus, Judas and the other disciples are eating the celebration Passover Meal Jesus announces: (Matthew 26:21And while they were eating, he said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me." 22They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, "Surely not I, Lord?" 23Jesus replied, "The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. 24The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born." 25Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, "Surely not I, Rabbi?" Jesus answered, "Yes, it is you."[a] He was bold rebellious. Some believe he was angry at Jesus for not being a political leader. He became a hypocrite. And he feigned friendship with the kiss of betrayal. After the betrayal he had a boat load of money that he would never spend. In fact, in remorse he returned it. He had come to the first part of repentance, that of being truly sorry for his sin but he never made it to the second part of repentance, that of receiving forgiveness from God which was readily available. And so we see that he was money hungry, craving more and more of it. He profited off of Jesus. He was also a thief not just craving the money but taking the money. He had guts. He had influence. He was sly. The evidence of these characteristics is seen as he is able to make his way to the chief

Avoiding Culture's Flytraps - I Can Never Change

Bill — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:50:46 +0000

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

I was talking with a friend this past week on skype this past and he could tell that there was something different about me since the last time he saw me. He said he could see it in my face. Well what has changed over the last couple of months is that I have lost 15 pounds and still have about another 5 to 10 to go. Most of us have something about ourselves that we would like to change. Maybe it is our physical appearance. Maybe it is an addiction to something like gambling, drugs or pornography. Maybe it is financial situation that we would like to have an extreme makeover. Maybe we have so much anxiety going on in our life. We think about all the bad things that could happen and we are on the edge. Most of us have at least one thing that we would like to change but most of us never will. Why? Because we have come to believe a cultural assumption that says, “I can never change. I am who I am. I am what I am.” And you know why we have come to believe this myth that I can never change? Because we have tried! We have tried and failed. In fact we have tried and tried again and failed. New Year’s came around and we vowed to change and we did, for a couple of weeks and now we are back to our old self. Do you know that the whole concept of “I can never change” stands in radical opposition to what the Bible says. A big part of Christianity is Life Change, not just for an eternity but also for now.

Let’s take a peak into 1 Cor 6 so I can show you what I am talking about: 9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. That is a radical transformation! And I know maybe some of you are saying, “I see that in the Bible but I don’t see it in my life. I’m stuck in the same negative behavior.” Here is what we need to do: We need to start changing our thinking to change our action. We need to change the way we think. There was an even an article about this in the Milwaukee JS within the last couple of weeks. It talked about white kids not being able to play basketball as well as black kids because they think they can’t. And it talked about black kids not being able to do math as well as white kids because they think they can’t. So I will ask us all: Do I need to change my thinking?

Avoiding Culture's Flytraps - All Roads Lead to Heaven part 2

Bill — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:07:22 +0000

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Flypaper. Gum. Tape. Super glue. These are all sticky things. Our culture has some commonly held assumptions that are sticky. They are hard to get away from and they are false. Today we are continuing our series, Avoiding Culture’s Flytraps. In this series we are looking at commonly held assumption in our particular culture that are incorrect. It can be a sticky situation as they assumptions look to pull us in and entrap us like a Venus Flytrap plant. Two weeks ago we talked about relativism - that it doesn’t matter what you believe. Relativism also proclaims that are no absolutes to which I asked, “are you absolutely sure?“ I closed that message with three absolutes. 1) There is a God. 2) That God is not me or you. 3) No matter what you have done, said, thought, schemed God loves you so much that he died in your place and rose again to life so that you might live with him forever. Last week we began to look at the cultural assumption that All Roads Lead to Heaven. We considered that the truth is exclusive by its very nature. And so to say that Christianity and Islam and Buddhism, for example really all teach the same, is to stipulate that all religions are about is morality and ethics. But we need more than a religious system for morality and ethics, we need a Savior from sin. Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive. We started looking at Jesus’ resume . And as we did so we were looking him fulfilling the prophecies of the Messiah, the Savior of the world. We noted that the probability of someone being able to keep just eight of the hundreds of prophecies in the OT was 1/10

Aisha was six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad. She stayed in her parents' home until the age of nine, when the marriage was consummated in Medina. The Quran says that a man is to have no more than four wives. While the actual number of wives that Muhammed varies according to different sources, but every source mentions way more than four. Joseph Smith is convicted of “fortune telling.” According to court records he admits that he was wrong and that he will not work for an honest living. He then goes back to his practices as he translates the golden tablets into the Book of Mormon. In John 8 Jesus tells his enemies can you point to anything in my life that doesn’t stand up to the standard of perfection. In John 8:47 Jesus’ critics stood in silence. 17.

We are going to continue to look at Jesus’ resume today and see why he alone could say, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

As we turn to page two of Jesus resume, the page is entitled miracles. You do realize that very few of Jesus’ miracles were done without a large audience. Our gospel reading, Mark 5:21-43, illustrates a time when Jesus healed in front of a great crowd and a time when he healed with just a few. (review the account) For the most part, people saw the miracles. They weren’t done in a vacuum, or a hidden closet but in the laboratory of the public eye. Jesus performed the miracle of feeding the five thousand right in front of the five thousand. Jesus changed the water into wine right there at the wedding. These weren’t covert operations. The were examples of love in action.

Part 3. His life. If you look at the leaders of other religions you might be shocked to find such thing as immorality. Like Mohammad marrying a

Part 4 Death of Jesus. It was a horrible death. There was no crime committed but a claim to be the son of God a claim of blasphemy. Don’t you think if what Jesus said and stood for were false, he would have said so. Like maybe when the soldiers were stretching his arms out and getting ready to pound in the nails. Don’t you think he would have said before he went through this nerve wrenching pain he would have confessed and said, “I was only joking. I’m really just a carpenter’s son, a construction worker. Sorry you took this so seriously. This is not a good way to spend a Friday. But he never backed down from the claim.

The final part of the resume is his resurrection. The acid test of deity is to conquer death don’t you think. To conquer his own death. On Easter morning the tomb is empty. Maybe his enemies stole it. Perhaps. But when the disciples started to tell others about the resurrection and people started to follow. Don’t you think the enemies could just the body and squelch this teaching. How about the disciples stealing his body. But history tells us that at left 10 of the 11 left died a martyr death for proclamation of the resurrection. Dying for a life? I don’t think so. At least one of the ten would have cracked. “Let me show you the body.” But it never happened because they didn’t have the body. There were hundreds of eyewitnesses to Jesus after his resurrection. How about the other religions? No other religions founder claims to conquer the grave. Muhammed, Buddha still in the grave. Jesus backs up his claim “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” by the resurrection.

But isn’t it arrogant to say that he is the only way. Maybe some Christians are arrogant by the way the say and act. But Christians have no reason to be arrogant. We are all on the same sinking boat of sin. We are saved by grace, undeserved love. We don’t make the claim, Jesus did. As we review back over the resume of Jesus do we see arrogance? No, we see someone who puts the needs of others before his own. When he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” It was out of arrogance but out of compassion. Our sin separates us from God. For Jesus not to tell us “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” would not be loving and compassionate. He would haven’t done us any favors.

Here is the deal. If all that we needed was a religious system to make us better people that would be fine but you and I don’t need a religious system but a Savior. Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good. Jesus came to make dead people alive. We are sinners not in need of a system but a Savior but Jesus is unique, a one and only, the Savior with the name above all names. The only name that leads to heaven. Amen.

Avoiding Culture's Flytraps - All Roads Lead to Heaven part 1

Bill — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:23:11 +0000

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Video of Venus Flytrap in action (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PJiEP_z-F4&feature=PlayList&p=3FC9198C68E0484C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=40). Today we are in the second week of our series Avoiding Culture’s Flytraps. In this series we are confronting the commonly held assumptions that our culture wants us to entrap us and lead us away from God. Today we are going to talk about likely the most controversial idea of all that All Roads Lead to Heaven. This is belief held not only by those outside of the church but often inside the church as well. Evangelical Christians were polled and 68% believe that good people from other religions will go to heaven. The idea that all roads lead to heaven has grown larger as the world has grown smaller. In our day in age you can be basically anywhere in the world in 24 hours. On average 350K international students come to college in the US everywhere. And we get to know them and find that they are real people, good people and so to many it just seems to make sense that all roads lead to heaven.

The lines have become blurry because people all seem to believe that what they believe is based on personality, experience, heritage and part of the world. People like to make the assumption that just because you can climb at mountain from different paths, you can take the straight path or the winding path, you can start from the east, west, north or south and you will finally get to the top, so also you can take different paths to heaven. You can take the Christianity path, the Judaism path, Islam path, Buddhist path, Hindu path etc.,

Because after all, Don’t all religions basically teach the same thing and so it doesn’t matter? It is true that religions that we are talking about today talk about being a good person, to love and respect others, and connect with God so they all teach the same thing right? Well in the area of morality and ethics there are many teachings that are similar. All religions basically teach you to do unto others as you would have them do to you. Buddha teaches us to pursue honesty, charity, service and to abstain from murder and lust.

But in vivid contrast to this cultural belief that all roads lead to heaven, Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And people say that is bold, prideful and politically incorrect. Today Jesus is still pretty popular. Every now and then Jesus’ image is on Time. People look at him as a good man and perhaps even the best man ever. His teaching on morality and ethics are revolutionary. Then Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Now people cringe. Just stay with the morality and the ethics and it will be all good. Then he speaks of his deity. And now it sounds so exclusive.

Let’s look at a few things: Judaism, Islam and Christianity all teach that there is one personal God, creator of the universe. Islam teaches that Jesus is a good man who performed miracles with his own hands. So there are some things that if we jump to conclusions can lead us to say that they are the same.

But there are some significant differences. While Judaism, Islam and Christianity all teach that there is one God but Hinduism teaches that there is not 1 God but millions of gods, in fact everything is god. Buddha wasn’t sure there was a god. If there was a personal God, he couldn’t do anything to help you out. You have to do it through self-fulfillment, achievement, actualizations. If all roads lead to God which God are they leading to? One God? Many gods? No gods? How do you reconcile that.

In Islam and Christianity you and I die and face a judge. Now the judge is different in Christianity and Islam but we face a judge. In Hinduism you die and you are reincarnated over and over again into different life forms depending on how you lived your life based on the cosmic laws of karma. Buddhism teaches that there is no life after death. They can’t all be true because they teach different things - life after death, reincarnation, no life after death. How can they be the same when they don’t teach the same things? You see truth is exclusive. 2 + 2 = 4. We understand that and can prove that. But 2 + 2 = 22 no matter how sincere we are in that belief doesn’t make it right. 2 +2 = 4 and 2 + 2 = 22 can’t both be true if they contradict each other.

There are key differences but who is to say which one is true. Don’t all religions have equal claim to the truth? Doesn’t come down to what works for you. You have yours and I have mine. Now tolerance is a good thing. We are truly blessed to have the freedom of religion in our country. All religions are equally protected in the US and that is good. But what many have come to think is that since all are equally protected that then they must all be equally true.

Let’s open up Jesus’ resume and see if anything unique or one of a kind that stands out. First up on the resume are the prophecies to be fulfilled so that we can have relationship with God (next week we will consider the miracles, life, death and resurrection of Jesus). As we look at what are hundreds of prophecies here are some highlights: offspring of Abraham, descendant of the Jewish tribe of Judah, born in Bethlehem, betrayed by a friend for exactly thirty pieces of silver, a trial with false witnesses, his hands and feet would be pierced and this is before crucifixion had been invented, he would be offered wine and vinegar to drink, he would pray for his enemies (Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing), no bones would be broken (thieves legs were broken) cast lots for his clothing and buried in a rich man’s tomb. Every single prophecy Jesus has fulfilled. Now I know some would say, “Of course, it is his book. We would expect that. Do you know that secular historians have written about the Jesus of the Bible. Jesus backs up his claim of, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” by fulfilling the prophecies that were made over hundreds of years before he was born.

Here is the deal. If all that we needed was a religious system to make us better people that would be fine but you and I don’t need a religious system but a Savior. Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good. Jesus came to make dead people alive. We are sinners not in need of a system but a Savior. Jesus is unique, a one and only, the Savior with the name above all names. The only name that leads to heaven. Amen.

Avoiding Culture's Flytraps - Relativism

Bill — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:11:26 +0000

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

When I was in like the fourth or fifth grade one of my favorite science projects was when we studied the Venus Flytrap plant. I thought it was so cool had the prey would land in or crawl in and then the plant would close in around it. It was pretty cool. (I remember some putting their pencil inside the plant so that we could watch the plant close up.) Today we are beginning a new series entitled, Avoiding Culture’s Flytraps. Every culture has common held assumptions that are incorrect. They are lies but they become the accepted way of life. They are lies that entrap us.

There is a moral decline in business, education, entertainment, politics and even religion. Today in the Western World with the abundance of information and rhetoric we find ourselves in a setting of truth decay. Sixty years ago when your grandparents were your age almost everyone agreed on what was right and what was wrong. Now, not everyone did what was right but they knew what was right. Forty years ago people were willing to tell parent’s of a child’s misbehavior. And parents were willing to make the wrong right. It’s not like that today, is it.

One cause is individualism. Individualism says, “I live for myself. I can judge what is right and wrong.” This is not new to the early 21^st century. About 3,000 years ago back in the Old Testament we learn (Judges 21:25

But I can bring it a little closer to home. Because what is Culture’s Flytrap - Relativism. Relativism says, “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere.” Let me set this up for you with a true story. A woman a couple of years was entering Hwy 41 in De Pere. She wanted to go south toward Milwaukee. She was sincere about that. But she turned down an off ramp instead of an on ramp. So she was going to go south while the traffic would be traveling north. Now relativism would say that if someone rolled down their window and told her she was going the wrong way, “who are you to tell me that I am doing wrong. You are so judgmental and narrow minded.” Right? To finish the story, she sincerely thought she was going the right way but she was not. The result was a fatal head on crash. People who tell the truth are not judging they are loving. People in the flytrap of relativism say, “there are no absolutes.” I usually respond with, “Are you absolutely sure.”

The highest value in America today is tolerance not truth. The worst sin in our society is intolerance. Tolerance used to mean, “I respect you and treat you with dignity but I disagree with you. “ Pastors used to say, “Love the sinner hate the sin.” Embrace all people but not all beliefs. Jesus accepted people without accepting their lifestyle. Remember the women caught in adultery. He said to her, “neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” He didn’t say to her, “neither do I condemn you. Go and do whatever you want.” But tolerance today means that everything is equally true and equally right. All choices must be praised or we are bigots. Truth is a matter of taste and preference. Whatever you want is ok. Proverbs 14:12 says, “

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit. A second cause is secularism. Secularism says, “God is not necessary.” Secularism believes in God but doesn’t need him. And so God is taken out of schools, government, media. In Secularism God is regulated to Sunday morning. And in our society the majority doesn’t even go to worship. So where do people get their morals and their standards, if it is not God and not parents? The media. Romans 1:25 explains it this way, They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. So people today worship created things, like homes, careers, recreation. God is not necessary so I live for myself. Sound familiar? There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.
Isaiah 5:20 says, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.
So how do we change culture? Or how do we have a life of value in a world that can decide what is right or wrong?

Let’s take a step back just for a moment and ask: What makes something wrong? Something is not wrong, like relativism because I say it is wrong. Something is wrong because it is anti-God, anti-God’s character. God is honest there if we are dishonest we are wrong. God is faithful therefore if we are unfaithful we are wrong. God is love therefore if we are unloving we are wrong. God is just therefore if we are unjust we are wrong. Anything that is different from the creator who made us is wrong. Anything that is like the Creator who made us is right. God is the one who shows us what is right and wrong. Consider these proof passages. 2 Timothy 3:16

　

Ever since Satan lied and told Adam and Eve they could be like God knowing good and evil people have been trying to look inside for the truth. The Bible tells us what is inside is selfishness. Jeremiah says our heart is deceitful and beyond cure. We need to drop the wisdom of self and the wisdom of the world and get back to God. He is the source of all truth. And I am here today to tell you that believing the truth will cost you but not believing the truth will be even more costly. Rachel Scott one of the teenagers killed at Columbine for confessing that she was a Christian to the gun men or shall I say gun boys, wrote in her diary about a year before that day, “I’m not going to apologize for speaking the name of Jesus. I’m not going to hide the light God has put in me. If I have to sacrifice everything I will. It can be costly.

Whose values are you going to live by? The internal source - truth is in me. I decide what is right. The external source - truth comes from our society. Or the eternal source truth comes from God. What will your standard be? Me, the world or God.

There are three realities you can count on. 1. There is a God. 2. Neither you nor I am not it. Those are absolute. The third is this: No matter what you have done, what you have become, what you have believed, what you have practiced. Because of God honesty, faithfulness, love and justness through Jesus God loves you enough to die for you to make you one with him. That is absolutely an absolute

Avoiding Culture's Flytraps - Relativism

Bill — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:11:26 +0000

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Christmas at The Point - Imagine Christmas!

Bill — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:54:36 +0000

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Remember when we were little kids how excited we were for Christmas! We would watch the Christmas Specials like A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, The Grinch that Stole Christmas, Santa Claus is Coming to Town , . . . and a whole lot more. Our parents would go shopping and suddenly we would end up with mom or dad while the other one was buying our gifts. We would strain our eyes trying to see what store name was on the bag, straining even harder to see if we could see any writing on the box in the bag so that we would know what we were getting. Remember the excitement, the curiosity leading up to the day we would be able to open up the presents. Our imaginations ran wild.

Go ahead, raise your hand if you ever found one of your Christmas gifts hiding or unwrapped one under the tree early. You guys are so sick. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Oh yeah, me too. I spent many December afternoons after school snooping through my parent’s closet looking for gifts. And then finally it was Christmas. Time: to rip apart the wrapping paper and be filled with joy at the train, the doll, the ball, the game after we found the present with on it our name. We wanted to see if our imaginations and reality matched up. And oh, how we hoped it did.

Now we are older. We make our Christmas list and we pretty much know what we are going to get. Sometimes we even buy it for ourselves and hand it to our spouse or parent or brother or sister and have them wrap it. This way we are sure to get what we want. A lot of us are even old enough to say, I really don’t want anything. And we don’t. And then we start looking at all those advertisements that weigh down our newspaper and fill our internet in box and suddenly we are a little less content. But the excitement and curiosity are muffled. We don’t do a lot of imaging these days because we are jaded and cut because we think that money can buy everything. The only question is whether we have enough money or not. Oh, to be a kid again. To be filled with excitement and curiosity and imagination.

Let’s go. Let’s go back to Bethlehem. Come on. Hurry up. We are going to see someone who is beyond imagination. And the scriptures says, “So they hurried off.” And when those who first hurried off to inner city Bethlehem they found a mom tired from childbirth, and an earthly father, or so it was thought, humbled by the whole experience of childbirth. And there was a baby, not wrapped up in one nice one warm blanket but wrapped in, only what Mary and Joseph had, strips of cloth lying, in a manger with his tiny little heart beating at about 140 beats per minute. But this is not just a cute baby, this is God, true God. Really!

What do you see when you look in the manger? At first we may have to strain our eyes to see just who this child is. Do you see just a baby or do you see fulfillment of so many promises? Do you see just a baby or have we opened him with the imagination that is faith? Do you see just a baby or have we torn this wrapping paper off so that we can see the gift he is and the gifts he brings? Do you see just a baby or do you see God? Do you see just a baby or do you see The King of Kings? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one whose glory outshines all the angels? Do you see just a baby for you to admire or do you see the one who admires you way more? Do you see just a baby to love or do you see the one who loves us with unbounded love? Do you see just baby or do you see the one you can spend sleepless nights talking to in prayer? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who gives comfort when someone in the family is sick? Do you see just a baby or do you see someone who understands our deepest trials? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who holds you together when the world comes crumbling around you? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who is patient with our weaknesses and sins? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who will be with our parents when they close their eyes for the last time here on earth? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who brings peace? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who came to live in our place? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who makes us rich even if we are poor? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who covers us with integrity when our commitment is weak if not non-existent. Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who came to die in our place? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who paid with his body and blood what money could not pay for? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who saves us from hell? Do you see just baby or do you see the Savior of the world? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who brings hope? Do you see just a baby on earth or do you see the baby who has prepared heaven for us? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who has blessed us with every blessing? Do you see just a baby or do you see the one who brings everlasting joy?

To be honest, a lot of times when we were little our imaginations didn’t match up with reality. We may have even received what we had hoped for but it didn’t last. It didn’t do what we thought it would. We got bored with it. As we arrive at the manger in Bethlehem and see the baby Jesus sometimes our imaginations and reality don’t match up. But this time it is because in our imaginations don’t match up with the reality of God. Too often we only see a baby and not the God of the universe. Too often we only see a baby born of a young girl but not the author of life. God becomes tangible in the manger. The Creator becomes the created. The King becomes one of us. The unconfinable becomes confined. The locked doors of heaven become unlocked. The hole in our soul gets filled. The victory out of reach becomes our trophy to hold. Imagine Christmas!

Run. Hurry. Hurry off to the manger. There is no time to waste. This baby is out of this world if you will only imagine Christmas through the eyes of child-like faith. Amen.

Heaven Beyond Imagination 3

Bill — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:05:39 +0000

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Today we are going to conclude of series, “Heaven Beyond Imagination.” So let’s do a little review. In week one we learned that the last day and Jesus second coming is the exact same day. So when we watch movies like 2012 and see all the catastrophic events, we can know that there will be a majestic event that is far more amazing. We talked about how to wait for Jesus to come back, which could be at anytime: we are to love God and love one another. We also talked about that when Jesus comes again, we don’t have to worry about missing him. He will come back in such a magnificent way that all people no matter where they live will see him. Last week we saw that in heaven there is complete freedom from sin, death, Satan and all consequences of evil. These things will not even be a memory. So heaven will be a place of “no-mores.” No more: hunger, thirst, tears, crying, pain, trials, tribulations impure things, etc., and no more death.

Today we are going to play, Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I will ask you the question and give you four possible answers. And you pick the correct one. You are in the hot seat. Ready. Here we go.

Will my family pet be in heaven? 1) Yes. 2) No. 3) Better not be any pets, I hate animals. 4) Ahh, I don’t know.” For a lot of us, we really enjoy our pets. We even call dogs, “man’s best friend.” For others, they are allergic to pets and for some the thought of pets is repulsive. So if it is going to be an awesome place, then they aren’t going to be there. Right? Here is what Scripture says, Isaiah 11:6 The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling ^[^a^] together; and a little child will lead them. ⁷ The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. ⁸ The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. There are a couple of things with this passage. First it really doesn’t talk a lot about family pets in our typical sense. It talks about animals. The second thing is, could this passage be talking metaphorically to show us that there will be no hatred or law of the jungle because the context is one of peace and harmony. So the final answer is: we don’t know for sure. The one thing we can be sure of is that there will be peace that is beyond imagination.

Who will we recognize when we get to heaven? 1) Only our immediate family. 2) Nobody. 3) Just the people that we knew on earth. 4) Everybody. From the account of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17), we learn that Peter, James, and John recognized Moses and Elijah even thought they had never met them before. A Lutheran theologian by the name of Gerhard said in summary: We will recognize our loved ones and people we never met on earth and it will bring great joy to our being to see these fellow believers. So the answer is we will recognize everybody who is there. We will recognize our loved ones and people that we never met. So we will be able to talk with King David, Abraham and all the Biblical characters plus mom and dad, our earthly spouse and friends. Side bar: We get to eat at a wonderful banquet with them all that is beyond imagination!

What will my body be like in heaven? A) Like it was when I was in my prime. B) Like it was when I died. C) Like it was when I came to faith. D) I will get a new body. Bruce Springsteen had a recorded a song (before most of you were born) called Glory Days. One of the verses talk s about a high school pitcher who had everything but that was then back in the glory days. Is that how we are going to be in heaven? Like we were when we had the best physical attributes that we had. Or will we have the same physical attributes as we did on the day that we died or on the day that Jesus came back? Yikes, I hope not. I mean I’m already this old can’t do a lot of things. And while I have done things in my thirties like dunk a basketball that I never did before. And while I ran a marathon in my 40’s. I know of a lot of people who die with fingers that are hard to straighten out. I hope it is not when we die. Well this is what Scripture says, Philippians 3:²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. Most people don’t like their bodies here anyway right. We spend billions on make-up and clothes to covers up. People have face lifts and tummy tucks and all sorts of things to change the flaws in our bodies. In heaven, we will have glorious bodies. Our bodies will not get tired, feel pain, get sick or move slower in time. Our eyes will not grow dim, our hearing won’t fail. Our teeth won’t fall out. And you won’t have hair. Just kidding. Our hair won’t fall out either.

The questions go on and one. Will there be TV in heaven? Computers in heaven? Blue Ray Movies? I doubt the Apostle Paul ever dreamed of an airplane that could make a transatlantic flight in our hours. We have to keep in mind that about 80 years ago the first TV, if you can call that, I mean it was black and white, came on the scene. We have to keep in mind that 70 years ago people banged things out on a type-writer without correction tape. People 100 years ago couldn’t visualize you and me accessing libraries, news sources, entertainment sources, from our laptops. The point I’m trying to make is that people through time thought they had the neatest and the lastest, that they couldn’t do without gadgets of the day. Don’t set your sights so low. Heaven is going to blow what we know out of the water. In an e-mail conversation with Alex, he phrased it like this: that’s not good enough for you. Heaven is going to be full of that’s not good enough for you’s. So dream away, demand that you have certain things, and when you get to heaven you will find all those things will fall into God’s category of, “that’s not good enough for you.”

One last one, who and how do we get to heaven. 1) Everybody goes. 2) Those who earn it. 3) Those with faith and who added their good works to it. 4) Those who are brought to faith by the Holy Spirit. There are beliefs out there that range from when you die that is it to everybody goes to heaven. Scripture is very clear, in any number of places that there is a real heaven and a real hell (cf. Matthew 24-25, 1 Cor. 15, Revelation, Isaiah to name a few). Scripture is not hazy on the teaching of how one gets to heaven. For example: John 14:6 ⁶Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Acts 4:12 speaking of Jesus, Peter says, ¹²Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." And Ephesians 2:8-9 says, ⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. Eternal life is not given as a reward of merit. Christ earned it for us. Christ won it for us. A person may go to heaven without health, without wealth, without fame, without name, without learning, without earning, without culture, without beauty, without friends and without a million other things but a person cannot go to heaven without Christ.

If you are here today, and would like to pursue the person, life, message and love of Christ, please talk with me after worship. If you are here today and you really don’t believe anything I have talked about, but some day in the future you become interested, look me up. If you are here today, and God has brought you to faith do know that no matter what earthly Christmas gift you receive this year from a Lexus to meeting the person you are going to marry, what God has in store for you is really, really way beyond imagination.

Heaven Beyond Imagination 2

Bill — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:24:08 +0000

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

I don’t know about you but I’m just sick. I’m sick of H1N1 or some other type of flu or even the obnoxious stuffing head cold: the struggles and trials of those who have broken bones to those who are blind to those who are deaf, let alone those who have strokes, heart disease and cancer. I’m sick of everything people go through that causes emotional pain and leads to thing like depression, OCD, eating disorders, PTSD to name a few. I’m sick of the hole inside of people that they try to fill with the over consumption of alcohol, participation in drugs and drug addiction. I’m sick of gossip, greed, insecurity, jealousy, judging and being judged, manipulation of people by looks, money, position or power. I’m sick that people take advantage of others and force their wills on others. Our world is sometimes upside down: we have teachers who can’t teach and students who don’t study. I’m sick of forgetting things, people not wanting to hear about Jesus and personally struggling to read God’s word and have prayer time and to love: misplaced priorities. I’m sick of car trouble and car wrecks, scrimping to pay the mortgage: and crime. I mean if I get one more safety alert from UWM for another strong armed robbery, I think I will scream. I’m just sick that people who once loved each other and committed their lives to one another and are now calling it quits on God’s institution of marriage. I’m sick about moral failures, casual sex and empty promises. I’m sick the sin, the sinful world, my sins and the sins of others. Sometimes all of this sin is almost beyond imagination.

I don’t know about you but I’m sick of watching separation anxiety play out on TV as another set of troops is deployed oversees: hearing of deaths in war by enemy fire and friendly fire. I’m sick to find out that another person has had their life snuffed out by an assassin’s bullet or by some ingenious person shooting out of his or her car window as they drive by: Gang violence; obituary columns announcing the death of someone’s mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandfather, or grandmother and for some this is just another person close to them who has died in a short amount of time: people being emotionally devastated when a loved one dies: I’m sick of people being traumatized by the thought of death and by death. I’m sick of death that comes at the end of a courageous struggle and I’m sick of death that catches everybody off guard. I don’t know about you by I’m just sick of death. The pain and agony and the all of death is almost beyond imagination.

I don’t know about you but I’m sick of Satan too. The Scriptures tell us: 1 Peter 5:8 Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Satan has marked us, his prey. Satan hates you and me. He hates our loved ones. He hates God. He causes havoc. He rips into people and their lives. Satan fills our hearts and minds with lies. He is sneaky. He has no rules accept to break all the rules. He plots to deceive us all, sometimes even audaciously calling God’s unconditional love into question. I’m sick of that lying, mean SOB. The evil be brings is almost beyond imagination.

I was reading in the book of Matthew this week and found Jesus advice for us: Matthew 6: ¹⁹"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. There are a lot of blessings here but there is also a lot of bull that messes up one blessing after another. Even the joy we feel over the most wonderful of earthly gifts of God, our families, our homes, our friends, even this joy is clouded by the knowledge that this will last for only so long.

Thankfully Jesus says to us: I am coming soon. (Revelation 22:20) When Jesus comes back it will be in power, glory, and love. He will send his angels to gather the believers from the ends of the earth. There will not be anything that could possibly bring any kind of unhappiness. Revelation 21:4 says of Jesus, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. It will be a new reality that is beyond our imagination. All the things that inflict punishment, pain, duress, hate, insecurity, you name it will no longer even, get this, even be a memory. Nothing that harms us or others will be there. There will be no funeral homes, orphanages, hospitals, prisons or police. There will be no more burdens or deadlines, fears or insecurities. Heaven will not be a stagnant place. It will be a fulfilling place. It will be a glorious place where all the consequences of sin will be a thing of the past, where all the damage that Adam did to God’s creation and that we have compounded by our own sin will be forever undone. It is beyond imagination of our lives that is so infected by sin, death and Satan.

But that is not all. Heaven is not just a place where we will be free from all evil forever. It will be a place where we will have treasures and joys that we have never know on this earth. Revelations 21:2-3 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. “Imagine and dream what it will be like. And know no matter how grand you can make it with your creative God given mind, heaven will be better because it is Beyond Imagination!

"Heaven - Beyond Imagination

Bill — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:00:48 +0000

Mark 13:5-12, Matthew 24:36, 2 Peter 3:9

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

You may not have noticed it because for the most part it has been a part of your life since you were little on. We live in a time of information overload. Just the amount of information that was sent our way in advertisements for the Thanksgiving weekend shopping sprees was mind boggling. Let alone all of the other information that was at our finger tips over the past four days. We live believing that we have to know and know now. And because we have to know and know now we often jump to conclusions that are incorrect. One of the things that has always intrigued the western world and even the eastern world is the last times. Alexander Riley, a sociology professor at Bucknell University has incorporated eschatology, or the study of the last times, into his syllabus. He says of the intrigue of the last times, “it’s been a constant part of the landscape in the Western world for a long time, though it has been particularly present in recent times, perhaps driven by the ever-quickening social and technological change.” (Watch video of 2012 from wing clips)

People have been guessing when the world is going to end for a long time. The early Christians assumed that is was going to happen already back in their day. Perhaps that is why the gospel spread so quickly because they didn’t want to think what life would be like in heaven without family, friends and even strangers and enemies. Hippolytus an early church martyr reportedly assumed that the world would end by the year 500. In researching this I found that the years right before the year 1000 were filled with predictions of the end. Christopher Columbus was not only an explorer but was a student of biblical prophecy. He wrote a volume of called “The Book of Prophecies,” in which he predicted the world would end in 1556. He wrote, “There is no doubt that the world must end in 155 years.” Luther wrote in the 1500’s, “We have reached the time of the white horse of the Apocalypse. The world won’t last any longer. Christians and non-Christians have been guessing when the end will come. Most if not all of you know that the ancient Mayan calendar which has set the date on the end of the world. It is going to be December 21, 2012. (A new movie was released this past Wednesday called The Road. It is a post-apocalyptic tale of a man and his son trying to survive by any means possible.)

When is the end of the world going to come? Before we look at what Scripture says on that I want to make sure we are all connecting the dots. The end of the world and Jesus second coming are the same day. So while movies and books are concentrating on cataclysmic and catastrophic, I would encourage you to think glorious and majestic. The catastrophic and cataclysmic are imagined on the movie screen, but the glorious and the majestic are beyond imagination.

Here is what is what Scripture says it will look like as Jesus in Mark 13 does not withhold the vivid reality of what the end times will be like. He tells us that the religious scene will be affected. Many will come in My name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. Jesus tells us nature will be affected: There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. We are going to live in times of scary headlines. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars… Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Even families will be affected in these last days: Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. The Christian faith will be called into question You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues… On account of Me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them… All men will hate you because of Me.

Do we have these things happening today? No doubt, right. Have these things been happening for a while? No doubt. That is why people in history were so sure that Jesus was coming soon. So with all these signs over all this huge period of time, did God lie to us? Is he indecisive? Not at all, this is why Jesus has not yet come and the world has not yet ended: 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. So please don’t misinterpret any delay in God’s action. It is not actually a delay. It is happening right on time. He is just waiting for everyone who is going to come to faith to come to faith. Then he will move forward. God moves forward in grace not haste. For the human mind this is beyond imagination.

What would happen if God told us the exact day of his return? This is a true story from last weekend: A 19 year old girl came to Hope Church for the first time. She is a very typical college student who is concerned about the end of the world. After the service the pastor talked to her and asked if she had seen 2012. She said that she has not seen it and will never watch it because when she watches movies like that or Armageddon, or Day after Tomorrow, she literally cannot sleep for days because she is afraid of the end of the world. Really? The pastor asked… thinking she might be exaggerating, but she was not. She is terrified of the end of the world and because of it she has not dated (what is the point) and she has resolved to never have kids (why bring in new life to experience this terrible time). She is convinced that the Mayans are right. First, Scripture says in Matthew 24:36 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,^[^a^] but only the Father. So she is going down that line of need to know and need to know now and jumping to a false conclusion. It is false in one of two ways, what if Jesus was to come before December 21, 2012? Secondly, what if Jesus comes after December 21, 2012? One of the problems of having a date is that it can cause fear and perilization which she is going through right now. Secondly, if the world were to end 12/21/012 why not eat, drink and be merry break all the rules and set the clocks for a little reminder on the 12/20/2012.

So what are we to do? The day might be today, or tomorrow or thousands of years from now. God doesn’t want us to waste our time paralyzed in fear or letting our sinful nature run free from conscience. Jesus gives us this direction over and over again in the book of John, Love God and loves one another. So that is what I’m going to set out to do, Love God and love one another. And you know if we all do that together it will make a huge difference. In fact the difference will be so big that it will be beyond our imagination.

And when Jesus comes again, don’t worry. We won’t miss him. It won’t be like the first time he came, when he was born in a small town called Bethlehem and a few angels appeared. When Jesus comes back everyone will see him at the same time, whether living in Africa or Russia, Australia or the North Pole, Brazil or West Africa. Jesus will come back in all his glory with angels to numerous to count. We will see God face to face. And that will be Beyond Imagination! Amen.