So as some of you know I am a Deacon at my church. What you may not know however, is that I have been called on several times to man the pulpit when the reverend was on vacation. I just preached this past Sunday and I thought I'd share my sermon with you. I'd be interested in any feedback or comments, but no flames...

Luke 6:36-42

"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. And do not judge and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return."

And He also spoke a parable to them: "A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit? A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher. And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye."

That scripture reading has always been one of my favorite and yet I confess that I sometimes struggle with the moral behind it. So often a first impression is formed which can influence future dealings with another person, whether consciously or not. We see a kid with his pants hanging half way down his backside and a cap on sideways and think – slacker –

We meet a woman dressed provocatively with her undergarments exposed and the first thing that comes to mind is – tramp –

There’s a kid with cornrows in his hair and tattoos all over his body. He must be a thug.

Or a guy who looks and smells like he hasn’t showered in a few weeks, perhaps the smell of alcohol on his breath. – Bum –

And if he’s a slacker or a thug or a bum what does that make us? Well, superior to them naturally. But are these people really of less value than you and I? Are they less worthy of respect or a kind word or salvation for that matter? Certainly not in the Lord’s view. Maybe the dirty guy has just fallen on hard times. How much would the opportunity to clean up mean to him. Something that you and I take for granted on a daily basis. Perhaps the kid’s tattoos honor his wife or child or mother, or maybe they glorify the Lord. We’ll never know if we don’t take a closer look.

And you know what; it’s really just a matter of perspective anyway. To them I might just be some Bible thumping snob, or a conformist pretty boy… Why are you laughing?

Of course we don’t just judge others based on the way they look. We judge them on their opinions, their politics, the way they speak, and even the way they worship, among other things.

The problem is how we view the sins and weaknesses of others while at the same time not noticing - or dismissing our own. It is easy to do, and almost everybody does it once in a while. The source of that problem is that we look out at the world from two eyes, situated at the top of our head, facing in just one direction. That forces us to see the world from a perspective that is not shared by anyone else.

We see them, from here! We look out, not in. We cannot see ourselves as others see us. We often don't even want to see ourselves as others see us! That way we can see their weaknesses and their sins with great clarity, but we can ignore our own. We can pretend that our shortcomings are less apparent, our weaknesses less significant, our flaws and failings less obnoxious than those of the people we judge. Our first mistake is forgetting that what we see is prejudiced by our perspective.

The second mistake is that we actually judge another person. God forgives us, but we take it upon ourselves to judge and not forgive. Now, you might merely judge them by thinking evil of them. That, all by itself, is sin and can injure that person by coloring how you deal with them, whether you trust them, or condemn them to your suspicions and ill-will. You may also judge them by speaking evil of them. People often judge others by gossip. And every time you listen to gossip you encourage and enable this evil against another, and every time you repeat something other than good about another, you condemn them to live with a tarnished reputation, with snickering and backbiting going on behind their backs. You find them guilty of whatever the gossip is, and sentence them to the sorts of things that follow when someone's good name is stolen from them.

Another problem with passing judgment on someone else is that we forget that we are just like them. There are people who are offended by us. They probably have no real reason, necessarily. It is just that they think that we should be different- we should do something we do not, or stop doing something we are doing. We are too calm, or we are too excitable. We are arrogant or snobby, or we meddle with everyone's affairs. Everyone has their weaknesses and shortcomings, and your neighbors see yours more clearly than you can imagine! Of course we like to think that our idiosyncrasies are minor - and endearing. In our minds we’re nothing like those we judge.

But God says otherwise. In fact, He tells us that when we judge someone else, we establish the criteria by which He will judge us! We set the standards for our own judgment. We establish just how tolerant, or how demanding and sensitive, God should be when He examines our life and conduct. The horror we feel at our neighbor's conduct or offenses is the horror we instruct God to feel at us when we fail or when we sin. Every evil thought you have about another sets the standard for God's judgment of you.

But we are here today to rejoice that God doesn't deal with us like we deal with one another. God has been gracious and kind, forgiving and blessing us with a wealth of riches. He does good to us unfailingly - even when we know that we deserve His wrath, and when we are sure that we deserve God striking us down.

But He doesn't strike us down, does He? He forgives us instead. He sent His Son to die for us. Jesus ascended the cross on our behalf and was nailed in the place that was rightly ours, so that He might bear the wrath of God and the just judgment against our sins for us. He freely forgives, because Jesus has been punished already. He pours out love and goodness and grace and salvation, and it is received by faith. Simply by knowing the truth of God, which is found in Jesus Christ and the cross and the empty tomb, and by taking God at His Word when He promises us forgiveness and life eternal and resurrection from our graves, we have in full the promised goods. Your sins are forgiven. You possess life everlasting and you will rise to life eternal on that last great day!

Do not judge.

Do not condemn.

Pardon one another.

Give to one another.

This is precisely how God deals with us. God doesn't wait for us to be good to others before He is abundant to us. His goodness to us flows from His great love for us. Can we not afford to be the same with one another?

God is inviting us to be as He is. He asks that we not alter our behavior toward others on the basis of what we think we see in them, but treat others as God treats us.

God even makes us promises in regards to resisting the temptation of judging one another. He says, do not judge and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.

God promises grace and blessing and even abundance of blessings when we are His faithful people and we act toward others just as He has acted toward us.

Any other behavior - any judging and condemning of some else, someone who is likely no more sinful than we are, is as silly as trying to remove a simple speck from someone else's eye when you have a big piece of something in your own eye obscuring your vision. We are truly blinded when it comes to judging others objectively by our eyes being in the front of our heads, looking out. We are not to judge another - and the Bible means here to judge their heart and their intentions and even their spiritual condition.

That does not mean that we cannot see evil and know that it is evil, and even call it by name! We can say that our brother is committing adultery if we catch him in the act, or that he has done wrong by stealing or murdering, when we have the evidence against him. We can, when we are called as a jury, judge their behavior. Then it is our duty. But when it comes to judging their hearts, or evaluating their intentions from their behavior - to judge like that is to take the place of God, who alone is the judge of the hearts of men - and who alone is able to judge clearly and truly.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Amen

I preach again on August 3rd - Thoughts on a topic for a sermon?

Faulty Thinking

Matthew 20:1-16
"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; and to those he said, 'You too go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.' And so they went. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing; and he said to them, 'Why have you been standing here idle all day long?' They said to him, 'Because no one hired us.' He said to them, 'You too go into the vineyard.'
"And when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.' And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. And when those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; and they also received each one a denarius. And when they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, saying, 'These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.' But he answered and said to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?'
"Thus the last shall be first, and the first last."


The Scripture reading this morning gives us a lesson in how we think and how God thinks - a lesson in grace. In the parable, we are presented with people who think very much like we think. But it isn't the way that God thinks about things.
Jesus contrasts this kind of faulty thinking to the thinking of God. You see the Jews of His day, and ours, think that they deserve something special. They have been God's people among the heathen nations. They have endured many troubles because of their relationship with God. We often hear their complaint today in reference to the holocaust. They wonder where God was and how could such things happen? Particularly, they wonder how such horrible things could happen to God's chosen people.
It wasn't much different in Jesus' day. They Jews lived as a captive nation, subjected to Roman rule and therefore to the Romans abuses. They chafed and they imagined a dozen different Messiah's - each of whom failed and was killed in their turn. They cried out to God about their miseries, and they were utterly confident that they deserved the best from God, that no Gentile could measure up to them, that God would permit them to do anything to anyone, but that anyone who abused them faced the wrath of God. Just like the Jews today believe.
But before anyone accuses me of being anti-Semitic, let me add that Christians today often think the same way. We have been the faithful ones. We deserve something extra, something special from God. When Christians talk about their faith or Christian life, you often sense that it is not a joy, not a free gift of love to God, not something that they really desire to do - but a chore and a good work which they do in order to shine brightly before God.
You may have heard this attitude, you may even have expressed it yourself. It is the attitude you hear when people talk about deserving because they have gone to church regularly, because they never miss Bible Study, because they spend so much time and energy on the church, or they give so much money to the church.
And please don’t interpret anything I am saying to mean that regular church attendance is not good, or that Bible Study is not a good idea, or that stewardship of your time, talents, or money is not important. Those things are vitally important, and each carries with it its own blessings. But some people think that because they do those things, they deserve and merit special blessings and protection from life's rough spots from God.
But when troubles come, sickness, pain, sorrow, hardships of one sort or another, such people cannot understand, and are usually vocal about it. How could God deal with them that way after all they did. They sacrificed, they served, they are surely among God's favorites in every way because they serve and love and give and so forth. Right???
Jesus says otherwise. Jesus tells us in the parable about those who were hired and worked long and hard. When those who came later received what those who had worked all day were expecting, then those who had worked all day assumed that they were going to receive more. The Jews assumed that their long history as the chosen people entitled them to something more than humanity in general was going to get. Christians, likewise, often feel that because we are God's favorites that we are going to have it better and suffer far less than the average.
What Jesus teaches us is that God gives by grace - not by our merit or deserving it in some way, but by His own standards, and for His own reasons. Jesus, the Son of God, suffered horribly for you. He died on the cross because you sinned. He faced your death so that you might have His life everlasting. Because of Jesus, your sins are forgiven. Because of His pains and awful agony, and death, you will rise from the grave and live for eternity in joy and peace and perfection. It is the gift of God by grace through faith. It is possessed by simply trusting God to do what He has promised for Christ's sake.
But that promise doesn't say anything about how this life is going to be lived. In fact, what Jesus did promise is that we would suffer and be persecuted. He promised that the world would hate us. He promised that we would be just like Him. Why should we not endure hardship? Jesus did. Why should we not endure the hatred of the world? Jesus did. Why should standing on the truth be easy or comfortable, or popular with the people around us? It didn't work that way for Jesus. And Jesus said, If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Knowing that we will share in sorrows and pains as Christians, like our Savior shared in ours, is what we call a theology of the cross. We who are redeemed by the cross, must also bear the cross.
You see, the promise of the Gospel is not comfort, health, riches, or popularity. It is forgiveness of sins and everlasting life beyond pain and sorrow, sin and sickness. That was what we signed up for when the Lord found us lounging in the marketplace and invited us to go to work in His vineyard. Just because someone else has more, or better doesn't mean that you will get, or that you deserve more or better. What we get is eternal salvation, and that is pretty darned good!
If you think you deserve more, your thinking is faulty. What do any of us really deserve other than to be part of “the circle of life” to use a Disney expression. You’re born, you grow, if you’re lucky you fall in love and have a family, and you eventually pass on and give way to the next generation. The good news is the gift of forgiveness and life, and the comfort of knowing that God is with us to bless us and keep us through every trial. We deserve far worse than any of us has or endures. What we get is the gift of life and the joy of knowing the will of God for us. And what is the will of God for you?
The workers in the parable needed to learn that what they got was not about what they deserved in relation to what they thought others deserved, and what those others received. What we need to learn is that it is not about deserving but about the goodness, the generosity, the grace of our God. Thank God we don't get what we deserve! We get eternal life instead!
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

God Bless you. Im glad there are other christians on this board.

I believe in Jesus Christ with all my heart but sometimes doubts creep in but I realize that what happens when you are imperfect..

I preach again on August 3rd - Thoughts on a topic for a sermon?

you should be praying about that, God normaly gives you what to say to his people.

I must say I'm very surprised to see you are a deacon..

you should be praying about that, God normaly gives you what to say to his people.

I must say I'm very surprised to see you are a deacon..

Inspiration comes from many places. In fact my first ever sermon was inspired by a developmentally disabled young man whom I have known and worked with for many years. I had intended to speak about forgiveness which I believe to be central to the Christian faith. But he reminded me that the trait that truly embodied what our lord is about is LOVE.

You see sometimes God answers your prayers through other people. So I try to be open to any serious, thoughtful and mature suggestions...

This was my first ever sermon. It's a bit short and disjointed being my first, but in some ways it is my favorite...

The Parable of
Good Samaritan

Luke 10:30-37 Jesus answered, "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the host, and said to him, ‘Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.’ Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?" He said, "He who showed mercy on him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus is asked “Who is my neighbor?” He answers with a poignant story of a man who fell among thieves and was beaten and left for dead. A priest and a teacher do not offer assistance. Then a person identified as the traditional enemy binds up the wounds and carries the man to an inn where he pays the bill.

Is our neighbor more than the guy next door? Could he or she be someone in our community or almost anyone we meet? Could our enemies also be our neighbors? Jesus says that it is so.

“Love thy neighbor” is not as hard as it looks on the surface. It simply means respecting others and regarding their needs and desires as highly as we regard our own. The Message expressed in John 1:14 is as follows: The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

As many of you know, I was sick and in the hospital a few weeks ago. I was lucky enough to see this glorious generosity and tremendous outpouring of Christian love first hand. From those people who came to visit me to those who brought food to the house or watched the kids so Pam, my wife, could visit. Not to mention everyone who prayed for my family and I. I felt the Lords work being done through my church family and I was truly blessed.

During the past week as I considered what I should speak about today, I kept coming back to these selfless acts of generosity and kindness, and an amazing thing happened. When I started focusing on Gods love and what it means to be a Christian, I started seeing examples everywhere.

Children holding the door for the elderly at the library; A man mowing our neighbors lawn last week because he knew their mower was broken. Even simple things like commuters signaling in other motorist on a busy street.

And it reminded me of one of my favorite movies Pay It Forward, in which a seventh grade teacher assigns his class the task of coming up with an idea to change the world and then put it into action. Haley Joel Osment, the student, comes up with a revolutionary idea of how to spread the Christian ethic of loving thy neighbor throughout the land by helping those in need. Just imagine, you do a favor that really helps someone and tell him or her not to pay back the favor, but to pay it forward to 3 other people. In turn, they each pay it forward to 3 more – and on and on into a global outpouring of kindness and decency. You think that would make God happy? I sure do.

So I am going to leave you with this challenge. Help someone in need this week. Whether it is a well know friend or a complete stranger. And when our neighbors see the love that is in us, with a little help from the Lord, maybe they will be inspired to emulate these Christian traits and actions to.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

I preach again on August 3rd - Thoughts on a topic for a sermon?

Maybe incorparate god helps you solve problems when you use prayer and maybe the battle of jericho would be a good example..

I know august 3rd passed but you could use this idea in a future sermon if you want

I don't make it to church often but once the pastor at my church gave a sermon on what Heaven would really be like.

I never realized how out of touch my idea of Heaven was from what the Bible actually promises.

lyrics are dope
but yere flow is whack
dont quit ur day job

lyrics are dope
but yere flow is whack
dont quit ur day job

:p

Hey abdiel did you finally learn to drive?

Maybe incorparate god helps you solve problems when you use prayer and maybe the battle of jericho would be a good example..

I know august 3rd passed but you could use this idea in a future sermon if you want

Thanks for the suggestion. I preach again this Sunday. I may use your idea. And if not this week then another week...

I don't make it to church often but once the pastor at my church gave a sermon on what Heaven would really be like.

I never realized how out of touch my idea of Heaven was from what the Bible actually promises.

Was it from the book of revelations?

:p

Hey abdiel did you finally learn to drive?

lmao
i always drive
i just dont got a license
lol
but shhhhhhhhh