Proverbs 13:10

Arrogance leads to nothing but strife, but wisdom is gained by those who take advice.

Arrogant people are hard to deal with and especially to get along with. It takes a lot of patient endurance to deal with someone who thinks more highly of themselves than they should. The truth is we are all arrogant at some level over something. If we are honest within ourselves we all struggle with thinking too much of ourselves or our self-importance. Let me first begin with a few questions for us to ask ourselves:

¨ Am I an open person?

¨ Do I get defensive easily?

¨ Can I take constructive correction?

¨ Are I willing to listen to advice?

¨ Do I ever seek out advice from a trusted friend?

¨ Am I a “know it all” person? 

These are only a few questions, but important questions that may help us become introspective enough to see our own arrogance. Arrogance is a sinful spiritual disease where we try to take over the role of God in our lives. Humility is the crown of honor and no matter how high we are in the eyes of man, we still find ourselves below the nature of God.

For many of us the reason our lives stay in such constant turmoil with others around us is reflective of the pride we may struggle with deep within. We all have to admit that sometime we are simply the problem and the quickest fix to that is seeking humility and apologizing. Owning our own prideful ways and asking God and others that we have impacted by our arrogance to forgive us, and then seek to be under the control of wisdom which is only found in the Lord Himself.

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This weekend we celebrate Father’s day. For many this will be a time to celebrate, for others, a time to mourn either the loss of their father no longer here or that lack of a father they longed to have but never received. For many this is why the idea of a Heavenly Father is a big pill to swallow because they don’t have a good picture of earthly father in mind.

Our Heavenly Father came to be for us what our earthly fathers never could. He came not only to show us love and forgiveness, but also to be a gift of light on a dark path, to guide us in uncharted waters, and to be a safe place to come to when life is overwhelming. Our Heavenly Father knows us better than we know ourselves, and didn’t think His creation would be complete without us. He loves us more than words can say, but He proved His own love for us in that He sent His own Son, who was willing, to take our place because of our sin. Jesus wanted us to be a part of His Heavenly family that the Bible says because of our faith in Christ we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. Jesus was willing to share His own rightful inheritance with us so that we too could call His Heavenly Father our own.

So whatever position you may find yourself in this weekend, whether celebrating a wonderful dad, or mourning the loss, or lack thereof in regards to an earthly father, now in Jesus, you may reach out to your Heavenly Father. He will be a dad to you forever and ever. He loves for His children to call out to Him not because we give Him new information, but He loves to hear the voice He created in us.

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—. Philippians 2:14-16

I was talking to my uncle the other day who said that he had been in and out of church most of his life and had never been regular until these last few years, but he was taken aback at how Christians can argue over the silliest of things. I agreed! Over the years as a pastor, sadly, too many of my phone calls are not pertaining to theological questions, but where people have gotten upset over one thing or the other. This is NOT the Christian way!!!

First, I want to apologize to anyone who has been hurt by “church folk” and hope that you never judge Jesus by our brokenness. As a sinful follower of Jesus myself and part of those “church folk,” I may not always represent Him like I should, but that is why I need Him cause I’m still a work in progress. I am just one beggar telling other beggars where the bread is.

Second, if you are a believer, apologize to the world in how you have misrepresented Jesus by complaining or arguing over silly things. The truth be told when we stop and count our blessings there should be no complaining at all, only praise to our King.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or
stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night. Psalm 1:1-2

This past Sunday we discussed the exclusivity of truth, and the claim that Jesus is the only way to God. Now many in our culture don’t like the term exclusive because we are often as a culture guilty of thinking with our feelings and not with our minds. People love the word tolerance, but then again who wants to be tolerated? On a side note, we must learn to disagree with civility and learn the art of debate again in our society.

Pause for a second in regards to religion and consider any claim regarding truth. We believe that 2 + 2 = 4 is a true statement for evidential reasons, and any other statement that contradicts this statement is false. For instance, any other sum regarding that equation would be false such as the statement that 2 + 2 = 5. The nature of truth is true not only in every other subject of life, but also when it comes to religion as well. World religions do not say the same thing, and to those who believe they do, they are only exposing their ignorance of world religions. They can’t all be true because of the nature of truth. When two subjects make claims that contradict each other, they can’t both be true. Truth by nature is exclusive regardless of the subject, otherwise, we could never take a true/false test. Truth excludes any statement that is false, and that which is false excludes any statement that is true. So when Jesus makes the statement that ‘no one comes to the Father except through Me”, one, He is making Christianity exclusive, not Christians, and two, He is only being logical to the nature of truth. If the claims of Jesus are true, in other words they correlate with reality regarding the evidence of His claims, then any claim contradicting His claim would be by definition false.

Love is a most confusing term these days because what many call “love” isn’t love at all. So today to get a better understanding of what love actually is I will let the Apostle Paul speak for himself.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 HOLMAN

If I speak human or angelic languages but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for languages, they will cease;

as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But

when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child,
I spoke like a child,

I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man,
I put aside childish things.

For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

… But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”   Joshua 24:15

Every day we are faced with choices to make. Some of us like making decisions and some of us run from making decisions in our lives. We are faced with choices in how we are going to spend our time, money, educational goals, etc. that one day will make up the sum of our life. One day all of us will look back and see what kind of life we lived based on the culmination of choices we made throughout our lives. This is important to remember because it is in this thought that often forces us to reconsider what choices we are making. The choices we make today create the legacy we leave behind tomorrow.

In Scripture, Joshua made a declaration that as for he and his household they were going to choose to serve the Lord. In the context of this verse he was giving the people an ultimatum of going back to their old ways and serving foreign deities or making a conscious decision to serve the only living God that brought them out of Egypt. So here is the question for us today? What god are you serving in your life? Is it the god of self or is it the only living God? I’ve noticed in my own life that when I choose to serve the living Lord that I am proud of the decisions that I make in doing so. Our choices are derivative of whom we serve in our hearts. May I encourage all of us to serve Jesus.

How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.   Matthew 23:37 

Jesus spoke these words in a pretty heavy conversation with the religious folk of His day. He was addressing the push back and hypocrisy of those who said they knew God, yet were poor representatives of God. Can you imagine how it would go over today to have someone be so honest as to call the leaders a bunch of snakes? Yet, that is how honest and truthful Jesus was to the religious leaders of His day a few verses earlier in this passage. He was telling them they have misunderstood who God is and gave evidence in how they have been guilty of leading others away from Him.

In this statement, Jesus, in a context of sadness over these religious leaders, reveals the very heart of God. The Lord longs to gather the sinful to Himself. He gives us a picture of a hen gathering her little ones to herself which is a very comforting and nurturing picture of God versus the picture that many of us have of a God ready to do away with us when we mess up. God wants to pull you in under His wings so that you can feel safe, comforted, nurtured, protected and looked after in a world that so easily can hurt us. Sadly, many miss this invitation of God because of our own unwillingness to see Him as He is, a loving Lord. What is keeping you from coming to Him today?

This Sunday is Mother’s Day, and I wanted to take just a moment to celebrate the role mothers have with their children. I know my mother has played an instrumental role in who I am today. I think of three things when I think of my mother. First, she delivered me. She delivered me into this world physically, but also lead me to the Lord so she was a part of my spiritual delivery in my coming to know Jesus. Second, she has been there to show devotion to my life to raise me in a Christian home with integrity and a sense of principles to live by. She was at my ballgames, school events and when I started playing music she came to everything I did. She was devoted to supporting me, and there was no greater support she could give than by praying for me as she did. Third, she disciplined me. Now this third one wasn’t so fun for me, but I’ve come to learn it wasn’t that fun for her either. But she loved me enough to discipline to help shape my character. I remember her telling me that she loved me enough to not let me get away with things, and now I appreciate it. What I see so much today are children parenting the parents rather than the parents parenting their children. Discipline is not a cruel thing, but to not discipline is a cruel thing.

Our parents are our first “God template”. Everything we ultimately look for in God such as love, nurture, safety, correction, protection etc. we first look for in our parents. This is why many have a distorted view of God because they have no point of reference in their life for what some of the characteristics of God look like outside of a theory. If a parent abandoned you, then it is hard to imagine God, who you haven’t seen, not abandoning you. Not everyone has been as fortunate to have a solid, stable mother in their life as many have, and for that I am sorry. For those that have then this Sunday tell them how much they have meant to you because a mother’s presence and love truly can shape future generations even after they are gone.

Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.– 1 John 2:6 NLT

The 19th-century British evangelist Rodney (Gypsy) Smith once said, “There are five Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian—but most people never read the first four.” The reason so many people doubt Christianity today is because many have not seen the authentic life change in those who claim to be believers. It’s easy to go to church, hear three points and a poem, shake everyone’s hand and bid everyone a good week, but it is difficult to actually surrender the details of our lives to Christ so that He can be revealed in our day to day living.  As the quote above relates, why should people bother with the four Gospels if they can’t get around the life of the Christian believer.

So the question to pose is to the Christian: What kind of Jesus are you revealing to the world this week? Is it your ‘personal pet Jesus’ that overlooks the things you do, ‘denominational Jesus’ that fits nicely within your traditions, or the actual, authentic, historical Jesus of the Bible?  I’m reminded of a story where a young boy named Joe brought his friend for the first time to church. The teacher ask the class, “Who would you like to be like?” The young friend, not knowing who Jesus is, said Joe. The teacher, trying to set the boy up for the Sunday School answer, stated, “Wouldn’t you like to be like Jesus?” The young friend said, “Yes! If he is anything like Joe.” Would someone say that about you this week?

John 14:6  I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

This past Sunday we discussed the exclusivity of truth, and the claim that Jesus is the only way to God. Now many in our culture don’t like the term exclusive because we are often as a culture guilty of thinking with our feelings and not with our minds. People love the word tolerance, but then again who wants to be tolerated? On a side note, we must learn to disagree with civility and learn the art of debate again in our society.

 Pause for a second in regards to religion and consider any claim regarding truth. We believe that 2 + 2 = 4 is a true statement for evidential reasons, and any other statement that contradicts this statement is false. For instance, any other sum regarding that equation would be false such as the statement that 2 + 2 = 5. The nature of truth is true not only in every other subject of life, but also when it comes to religion as well. World religions do not say the same thing, and to those who believe they do, they are only exposing their ignorance of world religions. They can’t all be true because of the nature of truth. When two subjects make claims that contradict each other, they can’t both be true.

Truth by nature is exclusive regardless of the subject, otherwise, we could never take a true/false test. Truth excludes any statement that is false, and that which is false excludes any statement that is true. So when Jesus makes the statement that ‘no one comes to the Father except through Me”, one, He is making Christianity exclusive, not Christians, and two, He is only being logical to the nature of truth. If the claims of Jesus are true, in other words they correlate with reality regarding the evidence of His claims, then any claim contradicting His claim would be by definition false.