Oppotunities for Worship and Study
Tuesday, Feb. 15th... 7:00 PM Bible Study
Thursday, Feb. 17th... 7:00 PM Choir Practice
Friday, Feb. 18th ... 6:30 PM Chards in the Parsonage
Sunday, Feb. 20th... 9:15 AM Sunday School Opening
9:30 AM Sunday School
10:30 AM Worship Service
4:00 PM Golden Age Meeting - Library
6:00 PM Youth Fellowship
Birthdays this Week
Monday, Feb. 14th... Pattie Leonard, Margret Truell & Weston Miller
Wednesday, Feb. 16th ...Melinda Burton & Lena Shaw
Thursday, Feb. 17th ...Jessica Morris & Ellie Hepler
Saturday, Feb. 19th... Jane Hege
With great sadness we morn the passing of Joe Hege on Monday, February 14, 2011. He will be deeply missed.
Visitation @ Davidson Funeral Home Wednesday Evening, February 16th 6-8
Funeral at Pilgrim Reformed Church Thursday 2 PM
THIS PASTOR’S VIEWPOINT
I am astounded every week at the number of people who are suddenly cast into the role of hero. Some may be driving their children to school or on the way home from work. Some may be standing in line at a teller’s window, sitting in a fast food restaurant or listening to their Congresswoman in Tucson, Arizona Any of us may be called upon to perform some act we would never consider if given time or opportunity for thought. Many later consider themselves to have simply been at the wrong place at the right time. Maybe it’s simply that, wrong place, right time and no time to think about it that turns many ordinary people into heroes. Some, perhaps in an effort to be humble, will later say, “I’m no hero. I just did what anybody would have done in my shoes,” or in the case of the man I came across in last weeks Bible reading, “I really didn’t have any choice.”
Well, maybe or maybe not. A man named Simon, perhaps just as ordinary as you or I, found himself standing by the side of a Jerusalem road when an event that would forever change world history was passing by. In Matthew 27:32 (NLT) we read, "As they [the soldiers] were on the way, they came across a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, and they forced him to carry Jesus’ cross.”
We have no idea how Simon felt about this task that was forced upon him although I suspect that he was somewhat less than pleased. The burden of a cross was not a light one. It wasn’t for Simon then and it isn’t for us today.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that each one of us today, everyday, is really standing by the roadside with a cross. We aren’t forced to carry it, as was Simon, but, we are challenged to do so and it is not Christ’s cross, it’s ours.
Jesus said in Matthew 16:24 (NLT), “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me”.
You may or may not become a hero but you can’t say “I didn’t have a choice.” You do! Are you going to follow Jesus or not?
Sermon for Sunday, February 13, 2011
WILLING AND ABLE
An Upbeat Word for a Downbeat World, #7
Mark 1:40-45
40 A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
41 Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. 43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.
Did you know that a few years ago a former Mouseketeer, Billie Jean Matay, 52, sued Disneyland? It’s a fascinating story.
It seems that Mrs. Matay sued her former employers in the Disney organization after being robbed in the parking lot of Disney’s Anaheim amusement park. She says that she and her three grandchildren were held for hours by security officers.
She was asking damages because her three grandchildren saw some famous Disney characters getting out of their costumes. The children were allegedly traumatized to discover that the Disney characters weren’t real, but simply human beings in disguises.
Now forget the lawsuit. I don’t even know how it was resolved. Focus instead on the three children. They were forced to come to grips with what they believed about Mickey and Goofy and all the rest of the Disney characters.
Our text for today calls us to come to grips about what we really believe about God.
A man with leprosy came to Jesus. He knelt in front of the Master and pleaded, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
This man knew Jesus was able. He had seen him heal others. Jesus’ reputation was soaring. People were discovering that here was a man who could still storms, tame demons and restore sight to the blind. Surely he was able to cleanse this poor man from leprosy. The man knew Christ was able.
I wonder if many of us understand that Christ is able? Many modern, secular men and women have a small God, a God who is captive to His own creation. It’s true. The onward march of science and technology has robbed many people of their sense of wonder about the Holy and the Transcendent.
It’s not that these people don’t believe in God. It’s that they feel they don’t have much need of God. They have modern medicine to deal with their physical distresses. They have the supermarket to provide their daily bread. And, unless they are trying to cope with something unmanageable like a fatal illness they really don’t see much use in taking time for God.
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote of a concept which he called the Last Man. It is a philosophy that cuts a little too close to home for citizens of affluent “First World” countries like ours.
According to Nietzsche, the Last Man is the man who, lulled by too much comfort and affluence, becomes apathetic to the world around him. He has no passion or compassion.
He rejects “religion, transcendent ideals, or (any) causes larger than his own self-interest.” In fact, the Last Man’s life consists of nothing more than sitting in his easy chair and watching the world go by.
Nietzsche may be describing some of us. Have you lost that fervor you once had for God? Do you have a sense of God’s presence in your daily life?
We love the 23rd Psalm, especially that part that says, “Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives.”
Well, just who, do you imagine that “goodness and mercy” is? The Good Fairy? And yet we still often wonder if Christ is able to help us with any problem we have today?
And God is able, writes Paul in Ephesians 3:20, “to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us”.
The problem is not with God. Something in our modern world has robbed US of a sense of both God’s presence and God’s power. A man with leprosy came to Jesus because he knew that Jesus was able to cure him. Can you say that?
Can you say that Christ is able to help you with any problem you have today? The man with leprosy knew Jesus was able. What he wanted to know was if Jesus was willing. Mark tells us that “he knelt in front of the Master and pleaded, If you are willing, you can make me clean.’” If you are willing.
Think about it for a moment and it makes perfect sense. Sure Christ was able, but did the Master really care about his suffering? After all, there were so many others who also had great needs. Would Jesus take time for him?
In his novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens tells about two very different men Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Darnay was an innocent Frenchman, and yet he ended up a victim of the excesses of the French Revolution. He has been sentenced to die by the guillotine.
Sydney Carton, on the other hand, lived life without much thought to conscience. But, he and Darnay had become friends. Knowing of Darnay’s fate, Carton decided upon a scheme to save his friend. He decided to exchange places with Darnay, to sacrifice himself for the life of a man he knew to be innocent.The night before the execution, Carton enters the prison for a final visit with Darnay. He drugs him, changes clothes with him, and ushers him out of the prison. The inattentive guards notice nothing.
The next day, Carton faces the guillotine. A frightened young girl looks into his face, searching for bravery. She recognizes he’s not Darnay. Astonished, she asks, “Are you dying for him?”
Carton answers, “And for his wife and child.” And thus Sydney Carton climbed the stairs to his death. He died thinking, “It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done.”
Is it possible for one person to care that much for another? Yes, throughout history people have laid down their lives for others. But notice this: Sydney Carton laid down his life for someone whom he knew to be innocent. When Jesus mounted the cross of Calvary in our behalf, he knew us to be guilty.
On the one hand, we ask, is he able? But on the other, we ask, is he willing? And the answer is always a resounding, “Yes!”
A man with leprosy knelt in front of Jesus and pleaded, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Mark tells us that, “Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ “Immediately,” Mark tells us, “the leprosy left him and he was cured.”
What an upbeat word for a downbeat world. Christ is able and he is willing. But there is a question we need to ask: How about us? Are we willing? Are we able? Notice the ending to our story: After healing this man with leprosy Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”
But this man ignores Jesus’ admonition. “Instead,” Mark tells us, “he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.”
Surely Jesus knew he was asking the impossible from this man. Don’t tell anybody? He had been healed from leprosy. Leprosy was one of the worse diseases ever to plague humankind. Lepers were exiled to the deserts and trash heaps outside the city. No well person could touch, or even stand near, a leper for fear of becoming unclean. The threat of uncleanness from lepers was so great that we even read in Leviticus 14 that lepers’ houses were taken apart and destroyed. Don’t tell anybody? You’re kidding, right?
You’ve got to be kidding. He was telling everybody. He became one of the Lord’s first evangelists. He couldn’t help himself. He had been healed. His world had been turned right side up. And that’s what we need in the church today, people willing to tell others what God has done in their lives. How else can we deal with this Last Man syndrome that Nietzsche warned us about?
There is something about modern life that will rob us of our sense of God’s presence and God’s power if we are not careful.
One way we can guard against that is if we will share with the people we meet what God means in our life. That is why each of us needs to be involved in some form of ministry to others. Not for the sake of others, but for ourselves.
A man named S. R. Morris writes about a ministry in which he is involved. He says that in July 2000 at the urging of what he believed to be the Holy Spirit, his wife and he decided they could no longer wait until God erected a billboard with their names on it detailing exactly what God wanted them to do in the area of ministry for others.
A friend had been distributing cold bottled water to homeless people for some time, and they had accompanied her once to see first hand what it was like. They decided to begin a similar ministry. They decided to take cold water bottles to a park near their old home, a place they knew was a hangout for the homeless.
They talked about it, and even though they both understood that they really didn’t know how to begin or what to say or what they would actually encounter, they decided just to do it. What began with a case of bottled water and a bag of ice in a cooler has steadily grown. Within a couple of weeks they added lunch sacks filled with sandwiches, fruit, and cookies.
A few weeks later, as they discussed the needs of the homeless, they decided to cook an entire meal, just as if they were having a family picnic. They unloaded their picnic meal and invited the park’s homeless to join them. It now takes several of the homeless to help carry the coolers, thermoses, pots, pans, and other containers they unload from their pickup each Sunday afternoon.
In less than a year their original group of about 10 to 15 has nearly doubled. On an average Sunday they cook about 20 pounds of potatoes, make a half gallon of gravy, go through several loaves of bread and a large pot of beans or other vegetables, and feed two to three dozen people.
How can they afford it? S. R. Morris says that at one time he would’ve told you that they couldn’t. However, they have claimed the promise from Proverbs 19:17: “He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward him for what he has done.” Their annual income has increased by nearly $10,000, much more than they spend in feeding the homeless. “God is indeed faithful,” says S. R. Morris.
Their lives have changed in other ways since they made the decision to begin helping the homeless. Whereas S. R. once argued that homeless people were that way because of their own bad choices, he knows now that this is not always the case.
While it’s true that many are homeless because of drug and alcohol addictions or because of various other wrong choices they have made in life, some have simply been victims of abuse, divorce, poverty, and other circumstances we’ll never understand.
Life is good for S. R. Morris and his wife. They discovered the power and presence of God in their life. They discovered that God is able and willing to meet their every need. They have experienced the presence of God because they, too, are willing and able to serve the needs of other.
Indeed, an upbeat word for a downbeat world!
Amen.
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