Opportunities for Worship, Service and Study the week of January 9, 2011

Sunday, Jan. 9th
Noon...Consistory Lunch
3:00 PM Property Meeting : Library
Tuesday, Jan. 11th
7:00 PM ...Bible Study
Thursday, Jan. 13th
7:00 PM ...Choir Practice
Sunday, Jan 16th
9:15 AM... Sunday School Opening
9:30 PM...Sunday School
10:30 AM Worship[ Service.

6:00 PM Youth Fellowship

BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK

Friday, January 14, 2011 ...Charles Ward, Jr.
Saturday, January 15th...Reggie Leonard & Samatha Black

We continue to be in prayer for the families of Don Miller and Reese Miller who passed away last week. We also ask for the continuing prayers for Robert Farabee and Jack Shaw

LOOKING AHEAD
On Thursday, January 20th we are planning a Senior Adventure trip to the Billy Graham Museum/Library in Charlotte. We will leave the church at 9:00 AM.

Also...
CHICKEN PIE SALE: Whole, unbaked pies, ready to bake or freeze will be sold on Tues, Jan. 25th. - $8.00 each. Please place orders by Jan. 16th. Proceeds will go to our History Room Fund and our Faith Promise Mission Fund.

THIS PASTOR"S VIEWPOINT

We have made it through the first full week of a brand new year all seems well. We’ve entered it, so to speak, with a clean slate. I have quietly moved the files for 2010 from my desk. Those that I need to prepare my taxes can’t really be just put aside quite yet, but soon.

As I looked at many of the rest, those papers that represent sermon and Viewpoint material, I try to evaluate what good all these papers represented to God’s kingdom here on earth. Did they represent accomplishment, building, and spiritual growth? I hope so, but only time will really tell. Now they are a part of the past and perhaps are no longer important concerns.

What is important, are those empty file folders, the ones that await action. This is true for us all as the calendar is after all, very much like my files, empty days waiting for us to fill them.

All our training and experience tells us to sit down and set some goals and do some planning. And so we do this. We do it as individuals, and as families. In our church, committees from the consistory on, are all getting down to the nitty-gritty of planning for 2011. We establish long range goals, things we wish to begin this year but will take longer than a year to come to fruition, and many short term goals which we plan to complete this year.

When we individually and collectively put our pencils down, our plans completed, we often feel good about what we have accomplished, for after all, Proverbs 16:9a (NIV) says, In his heart a man plans his course…"

I think, however, that the tragedy of much of our planning efforts lies in the fact that we see them as our plans and we tend to want to do them our way. The problem is that we haven’t paid much attention to the last part of Proverbs 16:9 (NIV) which says, …but the Lord determines his steps.

This year, let us an put an opening paragraph on all our plans that perhaps says something like this: "Lord, this is just my/our idea of what we would like to do for you, but Lord, keep our hearts open to your will and direction. Help us all to remember that it is your kingdom we are building and not ours. Guide our steps.”


Sunday's Sermon
THE UNRECOGNIZED PRESENCE
An Upbeat Word for a Downbeat World, #2
Sermon Text: Acts 19:1-7

While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2 and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
3 So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?”
“John’s baptism,” they replied.
4 Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. 7 There were about twelve men in all.

We are continuing our series, An Upbeat Word for a Downbeat World. We noted last week that we live in a crazy world.

A veterinarian tells about a client who brought a litter of golden retriever puppies to his veterinary clinic for inoculations and worming. As the look alike pups squirmed over and under one another in their box, the vet realized it would be difficult to tell the treated ones from the rest. So he turned on the water faucet, wet his fingers, and moistened each dog’s head when he had finished with it.

After the fourth puppy, he noticed his talkative client had grown silent. As he sprinkled the last pup’s head, the woman leaned forward and whispered, “I didn’t know they had to be baptized, too.”

It’s a crazy world, we concluded last week. But, it’s also a God-invaded world. When life gets crazy, when we are ready to despair that anything in life will work out, we remind ourselves with Martin Luther, “I have been baptized.” God is at work in the world. And God is present in our lives.

The Apostle Paul came upon some people who had been baptized by John the Baptist. “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” he asked them.

They had never heard of the Holy Spirit. So Paul explained to these disciples of John that John’s baptism was one of repentance and repentance, while it is not the total meaning of baptism is still important.

In fact, it would be good if we reminded ourselves from time to time that baptism begins with repentance.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the small town bank president who absconded with a million dollars of the bank’s assets. Two residents of the town were talking. “That was terrible,” one of them said, “about Mr. Jones stealing all that money.”

“Yes,” said the other, “and who will we get to teach his Sunday School class next Sunday?”
Baptism begins with repentance. Like it or not, you and I are held to a higher standard than those who have not been baptized. Certainly we have been saved by grace and not by works, but it is Christ’s will that we should shine a light into this world of darkness. That is why Christ came; to create a community of faith that would be his body in the world. When we who have been baptized live shoddy lives we bring dishonor on Christ’s body. Baptism begins with repentance.

But it does not end there. Or else, John the Baptist would have been sufficient for the world. We would never have needed Jesus. Paul asks these followers of John the Baptist if they received the Holy Spirit at their baptism. John’s baptism had been one of repentance.
And that was good . . . as far as it goes. Certainly we all need to repent. But repentance is just one part of the Good News.

The Good News, in all of its fullness is that when we are baptized, the Holy Spirit of God comes into our life to give us the resources we need to overcome whatever heartaches we might encounter.

We might call this resource the UNRECOGNIZED PRESENCE in many Christians’ lives. That is why many of us live lives that are so spiritually anemic. We have within us the awesome Spirit of the Almighty, and we are not even aware of it!

I fear that all too often we look upon our baptism, in most cases for us done when we were infants, as merely a ritual -- a formality -- simply a symbol of our entering the Christian community which we acknowledged upon actually joining the church.

At your baptism, the Spirit of God came into your life. Now, many Christians separate baptism and the coming of the Spirit. These Christians await a second baptism, often a dramatic experience accompanied by signs and wonders. We have no quarrel with them. We simply believe that there is no need to separate the two. Every baptized person has the Spirit of God within.

In Galatians 3: 26 and 27, Paul writes, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

Scholars tell us that the word clothed referred to a robe or toga. The Romans had a practice where, when a young man reached the age of maturity, he went through a ceremony in which he was given a robe to wear, signifying that he was no longer a child, but a man with all the rights and responsibilities of man.

When you and I were baptized, we were clothed with the Spirit of Christ. His Spirit came upon us, even if we were unaware at the time.
Now, there are some misconceptions about the coming of the Spirit. For one thing, having the Spirit of God in us does not mean we become better than others. It’s sad. Many so-called spiritual people become puffed up with pride and therefore, terribly obnoxious. Is there anyone more repulsive than a self-righteous saint?

A man was talking about a married couple he knew. He said they were so spiritual that you could tell it by just by listening to them talk. The husband always speaks in King James English. He then felt compelled to add that the man’s wife doesn’t speak in King James English; she speaks in the Amplified Version.

Alistair Begg, in his book Made For His Pleasure, shares a memory from his childhood in Scotland. The church his family belonged to planned a day cruise down the river Clyde.

A great crowd boarded the steamer on the Saturday morning as they set off on their voyage “doon the water,” as they say in Glasgow. In the midst of the usual banter and high-spirited conversation, young Alistair began to pick up a negative theme. The men were quoting Deuteronomy 22:5, and the source of their agitation was a woman who had appeared on the boat wearing . . . (Are you ready for this?) . . . trousers.

Now despite the fact that the skirts of the other women were blowing in the breeze and revealing more than their ankles, this poor lady was being tried and convicted for her sensible attire. She had on pants.

No, they did not throw her overboard, but if a storm had come up Alistair Begg says he had little doubt that some would have suggested that as a possible solution perhaps like some female Jonah.

What really made Begg wonder was how the men could adopt such an inflexible position when some of their own gender were on board walking around in kilts!

What rubbish! Can we not see that if we are clothed with the Spirit of Christ we do not act like the Pharisees who put Jesus to death? Some people confuse being spiritual with being proud and self-righteous.

Other people mistake the coming of the spirit with a particular emotional experience. Emotions play a big role in our faith. No doubt about that, but the fact that you have never been bowled over by your emotions does not mean that the Spirit has somehow by-passed you. Emotional experiences are wonderful but they can be misleading.

There is a true story about a woman who spent some months serving God in South Africa. On her final visit to a remote township she attended a medical clinic.

As the Zulu women there began to sing together, she found herself deeply moved by their hauntingly beautiful harmonies. She wanted to always remember this moment and try to share it with friends when she arrived home. With tears flowing down her cheeks, she turned to her friend and asked, “Can you please tell me the translation of the words to this song?
”
Her friend looked at her and solemnly replied, “The words go something like this: ‘If you boil the water, you won’t get dysentery.’”

Thank God for our emotions but they are not always a reliable guide when it comes to matters of faith. There will be times when we do not FEEL God’s presence. But that does not mean God has forsaken us. Our faith rests not on our emotions, but on the promises of Scripture: “We are baptized.”

That means that God’s Spirit will never leave us. Paul writes, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

You may not feel Christ’s presence in your life right now, but the Word of God guarantees us that he is there. And that means your life has unimaginable potential. Never think of yourself as a loser or somehow disadvantaged. You have a power within you greater than any obstacle you may encounter.

Many of you know the story of Olympic star Wilma Rudolph. She was born in a shack in the backwoods of Tennessee. Her parents were very poor. She was prematurely born and weighed only four and one-half pounds. At age four she had double pneumonia and scarlet fever that left her with a partly paralyzed left leg. She had to wear a steel brace.

But Wilma had a mother who constantly told her that she could do whatever she wanted to do with her life, that all she needed to do was have faith and persistence and courage and a never give up spirit.

So at the age of nine Wilma did away with the brace. In four more years she finally developed a rhythmic stride that enabled her to run. At 13 she entered her first race and came in dead last. But Wilma kept running. And one day she started winning. Finally she made it to the 1960 Olympics to run the 100-meter race against the unbeaten and world record holder, Yetta Mynie from Germany.

Wilma won. She won again in the 200-meter. Finally came the 400-meter relay. She was the anchor, the last runner on the U. S. team, and her competitor was Yetta Mynie. Just as the baton was handed to Wilma she dropped it, giving Yetta the lead. Yet, somehow Wilma Rudolph caught up and won!

Wilma Rudolph, the little girl with the steel brace and a paralyzed leg became the fastest female runner in the world. You and I know that Wilma Rudolph’s accomplishments didn’t come from the outside, but from within. On the outside she had every reason to quit --- to give up in despair. But there was something within her that gave her the drive to overcome.

You and I have the Spirit of Christ within us. We have been baptized. That means more than that we are nice people. It means more than that we have repented of our sins. It means the Holy Spirit is alive and well within us --- even if we do not feel that Spirit in our present circumstances. He may be an unrecognized presence, but he is still there.

And if we will allow God’s Spirit to work through us, we will do more and be more than we ever dream possible.

It is one more upbeat word for a downbeat world.

Amen