Genesis 4:17-24
Do you ever feel that you are trying to become someone of worth but your goals are driven by worldly influences? The Bible teaches us that we are created to be dependent upon God, not ourselves, and that God created each of us with a good purpose ordained by Him even before the creation of the world. This sermon teaches that we live our best lives when we are submitted to God’s will for our lives and fulfilling the purpose for which He created us.
Today marks Time-Tithe Day 2019. I haven’t heard the term before. So, if you have a copyright on Time-Tithe, by all means, comment and take credit for coining the phrase!
Today is the 37th day of 2019. So, today at noon, 36.5 days have elapsed this year. That means if you had started giving 100% of your time to the Lord when the ball dropped at midnight, January 1, 2019, you will have fulfilled tithing your time for this year. What is a time-tithe, anyway?
Tithing our time is a legalistic way of offering our time to serve the Lord. Technically, if we want to tithe our time to the Kingdom, we would have to serve 2.4 hours per day. But surely the Lord wants for us to sleep! Right? Let’s assume we get eight hours of sleep per night which would subtract 0.8 hours from our waking tithe, leaving 1.6 hours to serve. Are you doing that? Serving 1.6 hours per day in the Lord’s Kingdom?
I posed some questions to my congregation this past Sunday: 1) What have you completely surrendered to Christ? 2) What are the evidences that you have completely surrendered anything to Christ? It was a bit of a surprise to see the looks on their faces when confronted with these questions along with a sheet of paper and a pen with which to write. It was even more of a surprise to the congregation when I, their pastor, admitted that I had more trouble answering these questions than I should have.
We want to be in control of everything in our lives, including our time. But we often find that we are poor managers of our own time. What might be a plausible solution. Let’s consider 2 Corinthians 9:6-7 (NASB95):
6 Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
7 Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
If you aren’t realizing good productivity for the time you are spending this year, perhaps you have sown sparingly in the Kingdom. By giving God freely of our time, He blesses us with more productivity and the knowledge of better stewardship. I don’t propose we make tithing our time a legalistic pursuit. I propose we try giving God as much as we cheerfully can and then expecting to reap abundantly for doing so. Blessings to everyone!
Our friends up north are always amused by the paralysis suffered by their fellow-Americans to the south whenever we have a snow event. We do them a favor, though, by staying in and not crashing our vehicles when the roads are bad–less crashes, lower insurance rates!
Being a minister, I don’t get to hear other sermons live very often. When I do have occasion, usually by attending a conference, I am usually intimidated by the skill and presentation of the highly experienced preachers who are used to preaching in front of thousands of people every time they stand in the pulpit.
If you are a minister, snowed-in today and not able to travel, take this opportunity to watch a sermon online. Listening to other people helps us to realize where we may need to improve our exposition or presentation. People are not bored by the Bible. People are bored by bad sermons. We owe it to our calling to be as skillful as possible at the preaching craft.
If you are a lay person and are snowed-in today, take the opportunity to listen to an online sermon preached by someone other than your pastor. It is not being unfaithful to your church to listen to other preachers. As a matter of fact, sometimes it helps motivate us to hear encouragement from someone besides the one we are used to hearing. The message captures us afresh and we find ourselves in a good place to serve the Lord and to serve others. Blessings to everyone for a great week!
The final Lord’s Day of the year is coming up day after tomorrow. I hope you are planning to worship God with others somewhere this weekend. Don’t try to find a church where everyone else is like you. Try to find a church where you will fill a need because they don’t have anyone else like you!
Next year, 2019, is going to be a good one. How do I know that? Because I have planned for it to be a good year. I’m not going against biblical advice and bragging about my plans without acknowledging the Lord’s input. Nor do I dismiss that He may intervene at any time and alter his will for my life. These are things which I have prayed about, acquired the proper tools for their implementation, and have a detailed plan going forward for each.
First, I am going to be organized. My schedule is becoming formidable to only keep in mind rather than have written down with corresponding activities and measurable outcomes. I’m going to start off using a weekly format which I foresee being sufficient for my needs. I may have to make adjustments later.
Second, I am going to stay in good physical shape. One of my seminary professors aptly told a class of preaching students that our usefulness will be limited if we are dead. His rightful thinking was that, statistically, Baptist preachers tend to be on the weightier side of the scale. Combining too much heft with stress and inactivity is a recipe for a massive heart attack, which I am not interested in having.
Thirdly, I am going to organize my studying and research on the subject of Fruit of the Spirit into book form. One of my major propositions is a little different from what others have written. But I believe that I have sufficient biblical data to make its claim tenable. I hope that once it is published some of you will take the opportunity to read it. I’ll be chronicling the progress here at times and I also will answer questions anyone may have about the content.
Well, 2018 is nearly history. Let’s finish strong. Go to worship this weekend and have a plan for when you wake up next Tuesday morning beyond how to conquer a hangover from New Year’s Eve. Blessings to all of you and thank you for visiting the Orange Office.
Have you started thinking about your New Year’s Resolution yet? Don’t tell me that you had a resolution in the past to not make any more! That’s a lazy cop-out. Everybody needs a restart every so often and this is a good opportunity. If you aren’t being evaluated periodically by someone to help you set goals for improvement, then you need to get motivated to do some self-evaluation and set your own goals.
It may be better not to wait until December 31st to make your resolution for next year. One of the ways to ensure success with your resolution is to have a plan going into it. I’ll be honest, I haven’t set mine in stone yet, but I can tell you that one is going to have to do with fitness and the other is related to organization.
I’m a new retiree from public teaching. I minister at Providence Baptist Church in Adair County, Kentucky. My congregation is small. But, in order to do my best work, I can see improvements that need to be made in my organization. So I’m not going to wait until January 1st to start implementing change. I’ve already assembled some tools and ideas to help me get started so that when the first day of the year rolls around I’ll be ready to fully implement changes in my organization.
As far as fitness goes, I haven’t developed a full regimen yet. But I have started working on cardio at the elliptical and lateral trainers. I’ve also been doing some light resistance training. I can already feel a difference in my fitness. So, when the first day of 2019 is upon me, I will be able to put in a solid day of training on my new program. A lot of people wait until Jan. 1 to get started. Then they find that they are miserable because of their eating habits over the holidays, so they quit training or working out two or three weeks into the year.
The same can be said for kicking a habit. Don’t plan to quit smoking after the first of the year. Start a program now so that you will be quit January 1, 2019. Then you can experience an entire year of success without feeling days of failure from the beginning. Set your self up to begin with success and you will have a much better chance at continued success.
I’d like to hear your ideas and maybe share some past successes and failures if you would like. Just respond below. Thank you for visiting the orange office! Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
For as long as I have been teaching and preaching about the Fruit of the Spirit, people have told me the two they seem to struggle with the most are patience and self-control. Perhaps it’s not surprising, because both can cover a lot of territory. In terms of self-control, we could be talking about eating, spending, controlling our tempers, time management, exercising, reading our Bibles or even going to church. We may tend to think that each of these activities are disconnected and that our habits with regard to them are independent of each other. But there may be a common thread which could help us end our struggles with success related to our self-control.
1 Corinthians 9:24–27 (NASB95)
24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.
25 Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.
26 Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air;
27 but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.
I think the point that Paul is trying to make here is this: If you are going to bother running in the race, why not run to win? But at the same time, Paul also reminds his readers that there can only be one prize-receiver. Does winning always necessitate receiving the prize?
I suppose it would depend upon whom you ask. If you ask the majority of college and professional football coaches this Friday if winning this weekend means that they are going to score the most points, I think an overwhelming number of them would reply in the affirmative. But if you asked a 70-year-old runner if they plan to win the Boston Marathon next year, I would say most would answer that they do not expect that outcome.
What if you asked the 70-year-old runner, “What would be a win for you at the Boston Marathon next year?” We might be surprised by his or her response. Maybe a personal best time. Perhaps to place in the top ten of his or her age category. Winning an earthly race doesn’t always mean taking home the prize.
One way we can help ourselves be better prepared to win is to have goals. We are quickly coming upon the season to make New Year’s resolutions. One of the ways we can be better equipped to serve the Kingdom is being in good shape physically. Another is to become more organized. I’m going to work on my resolution for the New Year over the next couple of days. I’ll meet you back here to discuss mine. You are welcome to discuss yours here, too, in the Orange Office.
I haven’t always been a kind and gentle soul. There may be those who would argue that I’m still not! Eight years of teaching alternative school provided me with insight about the value of gentleness. I’ve also witnessed the value of gentleness when a father was teaching his son or daughter how to hit or catch a ball. I’ve definitely witnessed some bad outcomes when husbands tried to teach their wives how to play golf without implementing copious amounts of gentleness!
One of my favorite verses in Scripture comes from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Mt 5.5, ESV, Crossway). The reason I like the verse so much is because it basically says that nice people WILL finish first! Contemporary society teaches us that we have to posture and preen a bit to be noticed or get ahead. I’ve been around many leaders whose effectiveness was diminished by their attitudes and by their putting themselves upon pedestals above their co-workers. I’ve also seen gentle leaders who were quite effective because they never asked people to do anything they wouldn’t do themselves and they led from a position of servant-leadership.
While it is true that some people need a bit more “prodding” than others, being gentle usually results in more satisfactory results than being aggressive. In my opinion, meekness and patience are closely related and often depend on each other. What do you think?
Faithfulness, or steadfastness, is rooted in perseverance. We are faithful when we are constant. We are faithful when we are truthful. We are faithful when we are dependable. Faithfulness may be the most important Fruit of the Spirit to our family and friends.
Faithfulness is an attribute of God on which we rely heavily. If not for God’s unwavering faith, we could not be sure that all of our sins would be forgiven. Not sure that eternity is forever. Not even sure if Heaven really exists.
But, as it is, God will forgive us for a multitude of sins. We don’t have to worry about how many or which ones. We are assured that when we enter into our final state, it will be an eternal existence. And we not only are sure that Heaven exists, we read in the fourth chapter of Revelation about John’s glimpse into the throne room of God. Yes, we count on God’s faithfulness for everything we have and for everything that is to come.
In what do you put your faith? Does it demonstrate steadfastness and perseverance, or is it fleeting and tenuous? Trust in the Lord. He will never forsake you.
Everyone have a blessed weekend.
Glen Campbell released a song in 1970 with the title above. Some of the lyrics are as follows:
…And if you try a little kindness
Then you’ll overlook the blindness
Of narrow-minded people on the narrow-minded streets…
There are people who are certainly unkind due to narrow-mindedness: racists, misogynists, and xenophobes to name a few. People with prejudices, or irrational fears are often unkind to people to the point of treating them as less than humans. If you are mature follower of Christ, it is my prayer that you do not fall under this category of narrow-mindedness. Hatred of others because of their differences to us is a grievous sin, one that would cause someone to have to perform some serious soul-searching to establish his or her relationship with God.
In contemporary society, there is an unwarranted type of unkindness shown to narrow-minded people, namely to those who follow the teachings of Jesus. As written by John:
John 14:6–7 (NIV)
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Some have equated the singularity of Jesus’ position as the sole way to Heaven as “narrow-minded thinking.” Such a proposition is tantamount to asking followers of Christ to expand their thinking about the number of letters in the word “Christmas”. To a follower of Christ, the belief that Jesus is the only way to Heaven is as sure as there are nine letters. There is no reason for unkindness to anyone who believes that Jesus is the only way.
Followers of Christ, then should reflect the image and kindness of Christ when they interact with those who do not believe in the exclusivity statement. We have every reason to disagree with those who believe in another way to Heaven, but never have a right to be unkind, no matter how we are treated.
If you read the verses listed in yesterday’s post, you may have noticed some commonalities between them. Joy used with faith. Joy referenced with the Spirit. Joy as a way of life, not an emotion.
I fear that one of the greatest disservices we have done to the Christian faith is perpetuate an untruth that the life of a follower of Christ is a guaranteed happy life. We are not assured of “happiness” when we accept Christ. What we are assured is that we have a good God-given purpose. Embracing that purpose is the key to living our best lives, satisfaction and the joy that ensues from having served our Creator in the way He would have us serve.
Calvin Miller wrote, “Joy is our response to the creation of God.” (Joy: Cultivating Spirit-given Character, Thomas Nelson Pub. 2008). I get my greatest spiritual joy from contemplating the intricacies of God’s handiwork. Have you ever thought about how amazing the human ear is? It takes speakers of all shapes and sizes to accurately produce the sounds of music. Yet, the tiny membrane in our ear vibrates in such a way that our brain can interpret all the sounds we hear. Scientists have attempted to explain emotions through chemical reactions related to our sensory organs. But even happiness is a creation of Almighty God. We wouldn’t have the ability to feel excitement, infatuation or awe without them having been created by God and given to us in the makeup of our bodies.
During this week of fellowship and thanksgiving, I pray that you find yourself joyful that God has given you life, a good life with a good purpose. And I pray that you find joy in the simplest of God’s creation. Puppy breath, the need for hugs and love for family are given to us by the Lord so that we may find joy in His beautiful creation.
Orange Office Ministry 