BETHEL MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH
SUNDAY 24JAN10
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From: LifeTruths (Holman) & LifeWords (KJV)
Text: Ecclesiastes 2:4-8; 5:10-16

Ask today's leaders to share a key moment or two from their groups.

WRESTLING WITH STUFF
I Have A Lot Of Stuff
I Want More Stuff
I Don't Want To Leave My Stuff
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From: Explore The Bible
Mark 8:34-10:31 (esp. 9:33-43, 47-50)

Ask today's leader to share a key moment or two from their group.

HOW TO GET ALONG WITH OTHERS
Show Others You Care
See Others As Coworkers
Sacrifice For Other People's Sake
Season Other's Lives

Today's Sermon

or

Is anyone else here feeling tired?

Not just physically tired but emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually tired?

Let's begin with a prayer, one which may bring us to a more teachable place from perspective.
A friend forwarded the following prayer for Haiti to me, I have modified it some:

“Lord, my heart cries out ...

Thank You because this morning my home was still standing.

Thank You because this morning I was able to drink a glass of clean water and take a shower.

Thank You because this morning I was able to turn on the light and heat.

Thank You because this morning  I woke up and knew where my children were. 

Thank you because this morning  I am not crying because my husband, my child, my brother or sister is buried in a mass grave underneath the pile of collapsed concrete debris that killed them.

Thank You this morning because I still have life and a voice to cry out for the people of Haiti.

Lord I cry out to You, the One Who makes the impossible, possible, the One Who turns darkness into light, I cry out that those mothers will receive Your strength and accept Your peace that 
surpasses all understanding.

I pray that You will clear the way so that help can come and that more doctors and nurses and other health care workers will respond to Your call to go to Haiti – bringing tons of medical equipment and supplies from across the world.

I pray for protection from evil and selfish thieves who would steal the food and water and supplies that the people of Haiti so desperately need.

I pray for safety for Haitians and disaster relief personnel from accidents, disease, and violence.

I pray that those nations and people who have failed to respond, especially the oil-rich nations in the Middle East, will quiver in fear before You and share their wealth lest they loose it.

I pray a word of thanks for all of the generous people, many of them struggling to pay their own bills, who gave their “widows mite” to help the people of Haiti.

I pray most of all that Your power will be seen and Your Word will be heard and that those who 
are most faithful to Your truth will be received as Your “angels” of love and mercy and that the most important “relief” in Haiti will be from false teachers and voodoo.  May your Truth be heard and many be blessed with eternal salvation!

OK, that helped, but many of us are still feeling tired.  True?

Perhaps we are not resting in the Lord?

Perhaps we are too in-the-world to be free enough to serve others?

Sure, we want to rush to the front line to serve, but we have commitments and conflicts and doubts and fears and … we are already really tired.

Perhaps we are living from our own strength and not Yours, Lord?

Perhaps we just can't seem to let go ...

~ Play CD ~

Third Day \ Take My Life
How many times have I turned away
The number is the same as the sand on the shore
But every time You've taken me back
And now I pray You do it once more.
Chorus:
Please take from me my life
When I don't have the strength
to give it away to You Jesus
How many times have I turned away
The number is the same as the stars in the sky
But every time You've taken me back
And now I pray You do it tonight.
Repeat chorus

Let's look at the early Gospel account and elsewhere in the Bible to see what God has to tell us about our bondage to the things of the world and our relationship with others.

MATTHEW 6:19 “Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. 6:20 But accumulate for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  6:22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If then your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 6:23 But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!  6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

READ:  People buried with strange objects.

Do you know that unsaved people are, in the eyes of Heaven, spiritual lepers.

According to the lookup at bible.org the Word of God uses the term 54 times.

Lepers were social outcasts everywhere.  It was believed that their disease was contagious and, for the religious, that it made them “ritually unclean”.  

Num 5:2 “Command the Israelites to expel from the camp every leper, everyone who has a discharge, and whoever becomes defiled by a corpse.

Leprosy was used by God as a powerful punishment for disobedience.

2Ki 15:5 The Lord afflicted the king with an illness; he suffered from a skin disease until the day he died. He lived in separate quarters, while his son Jotham was in charge of the palace and ruled over the people of the land.

Jesus healed leprosy as a reward for faith:

MARK  1:40 Now a leper came to him and fell to his knees, asking for help. “If you are willing, you can make me clean,” he said. 1:41 Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing. Be clean!” 1:42 The leprosy left him at once, and he was clean. 1:43 Immediately Jesus sent the man away with a very strong warning. 1:44 He told him, “See that you do not say anything to anyone, but go, show yourself to a priest, and bring the offering that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 1:45 But as the man went out he began to announce it publicly and spread the story widely, so that Jesus was no longer able to enter any town openly but stayed outside in remote places. Still they kept coming to him from everywhere.

God makes it clear that disobedience is, like leprosy, a barrier to acceptance into His eternal “camp” - Heaven.

Money becomes, for some, an idol that displaces God.  Rockefeller “How much is enough?  Just a little bit more.”

LUKE 16:13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

Prior to His crucifixion and resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost Jesus explained the difference between spiritual freedom and slavery to those who had believed His teaching about the Messiah but who continued unrepentently in their sin and rejected His assertion of divinity.

One cannot be a disciple if one is unteachable.

JOHN 8:31 Then Jesus said to those Judeans who had believed him, “If you continue to follow my teaching, you are really my disciples 8:32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 

Neither community heritage, organizational membership, or tradition can save anyone – only obedience to the calling and salvation of Christ:

JOHN 8:33 “We are descendants of Abraham,” they replied, “and have never been anyone’s slaves! How can you say, ‘You will become free’?” 8:34 Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin. 8:35 The slave does not remain in the family forever, but the son remains forever. 8:36 So if the son sets you free, you will be really free. 8:37 I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. But you want to kill me, because my teaching makes no progress among you. 8:38 I am telling you the things I have seen while with the Father; as for you, practice the things you have heard from the Father!” 

8:39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father!” Jesus replied, “If you are Abraham’s children, you would be doing the deeds of Abraham. 8:40 But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth I heard from God. Abraham did not do this! 8:41 You people are doing the deeds of your father.”  Then they said to Jesus, “We were not born as a result of immorality! We have only one Father, God himself.” 

Even before the arrival of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God people were held accountable for the “fruit” of obedience:

JOHN 8:42 Jesus replied, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come from God and am now here. I have not come on my own initiative, but he sent me. 8:43 Why don’t you understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot accept my teaching. 8:44 You people are from your father the devil, and you want to do what your father desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies. 8:45 But because I am telling you the truth, you do not believe me. 8:46 Who among you can prove me guilty of any sin? If I am telling you the truth, why don’t you believe me? 8:47 The one who belongs to God listens and responds to God’s words. You don’t listen and respond, because you don’t belong to God.”

Every single human being is a “slave” either to Satan or God, the first is from birth, the second only by “re-birth”.

A truly saved Christian becomes a “bond-servant”, not truly owned by Satan but obligated and obedient, when they sin.  God still “owns” them in an eternal context, He is saddened by our 
disloyalty, and He will not bless us in our disobedience.

ROMANS 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? 6:17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, 6:18 and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. 6:19 (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 6:20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness. 

6:21 So what benefit did you then reap from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. 6:22 But now, freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. 6:23 For the payoff of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When we are in rebellion against God, whether Christians in sometimes-sin, or the unsaved in constant sin, we are spiritual lepers.  But God is merciful and powerful:

Mar 1:40  Now a leper came to him and fell to his knees, asking for help. “If you are willing, you can make me clean,” he said.

So, are you sick and tired of being sick and tired?

It's time to let go ...

~ Play CD ~

Third Day \ Take My Life
How many times have I turned away
The number is the same as the sand on the shore
But every time You've taken me back
And now I pray You do it once more.
Chorus:
Please take from me my life
When I don't have the strength
to give it away to You Jesus
How many times have I turned away
The number is the same as the stars in the sky
But every time You've taken me back
And now I pray You do it tonight.
Repeat chorus

CONCLUSION & PRAYER

Dear Lord,

I have a lot of stuff, I far too often want more stuff, and I don't want to let go of my stuff.
I need to show others that I really care, I need to see other believers as coworkers and not competitors, I need to sacrifice for other people's sake, and I need to season other's lives with the gospel of Christ – and they need it to see it in me more than they hear it from me.

I cannot do this of my own strength – so Lord, take my life from me – and make me completely Yours!

Amen

Invitation

As we sing our closing song please come forward - and pay no attention to anyone or any thing but the Holy Spirit Who is encouraging you right now to come.  If you are shy - please catch one of us afterwards - we will stay as long as necessary to serve you. 

Prayer of Dismissal