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.
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.
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.
In my opinion, it’s just too dark for an office environment. So when the youth at the previous church where I was pastor asked me one day to choose a color for my office…I chose orange. A few weeks later at one of the Wednesday evening services, one of the kids came up to me and took me by the hand. She said she wanted to show me what the youth had done for me. She led me up the stairs to my office, and from that point, the rest is history. I had an orange office!
I loved my orange office. It wasn’t an optic orange, nor was it a deep, warm orange like one would imagine in autumn. The color was straight-up, out-of-the-box-of-Crayons orange. One of the church members was gracious to make a set of curtains that matched. I even ended up with an orange “Pastor” plate on the door. I had many good experiences in that office, including the recording of several sermon examples for preaching classes in seminary.
It has been my vision for some time to start a ministry blog. Since finishing my seminary work in 2016, I have needed an outlet for sharing the gospel and other practical and theological matters. It fell upon me one day that “Orange Office Ministry” would be a good beginning, however, my interest in writing wasn’t piqued until my retirement from public education in June ’18. Now that I have time for more reading and sermon preparation, I find that I also have more time to write for people I may never physically meet.
Soon after retirement from teaching, I also found myself moving to the pastorate of a new congregation, Providence Baptist Church in Adair County, Kentucky. With the move, I suspected that my residence in an orange office would come to an end. Thankfully, soon after I arrived at Providence, the pastor’s office was repainted…kinda orange! It’s a deeper orange than the office before. But it’s close enough that “Orange Office Ministry” is going to commence from the walls of my new church abode. Thank you for joining me.
Titus 2:11–14 (NASB95)
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,
13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,
14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
Orange Office Ministry 