Long Sermons
Dan Betzer
Next time your pastor preaches a few minutes longer than you think he should, open your Bible to Acts 20 and read about the sermon preached by the Apostle Paul at the seaport town of Troas. He was still going strong at midnight. That’s when tragedy struck.
According to Luke’s narrative, the meeting was in a third story room, lighted by burning lamps (which certainly gave some illumination, but they also burned the oxygen from the air). A poor fellow named Eutychus was sitting on a sill by an open window when he fell asleep and slipped backward to his death three stories below.
Paul rushed down to him, prayed a prayer of faith, and life came back into this kid -- whereupon, Paul went back to preaching and continued until dawn. Now, friend, THAT is a long sermon.
Strange, isn’t it, how we regard the length of time in church? Now if we go to a baseball game and it goes extra innings, we are thrilled! Or if a football or basketball game goes into overtime, well, we have just hit the jackpot, haven’t we? But let a church service get a little long and we get fidgety.
No, preachers should not abuse the privileges they have in declaring the Gospel. Many of us are finished long before we stop speaking, if you get my drift. But on the other hand, if God’s Spirit is at work, be patient.
And, for goodness sake, don’t get up and leave during the altar call. How people can walk out of church when people are coming to the altar is just beyond me, but they do. I often wonder if they would leave just as the ballgame goes into overtime.
cbn
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
IS GOD'S WILL A MYSTERY?
Romans 12:1-6
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--His good, pleasing, and perfect will. 3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.
The young man was facing his senior year of high school without much direction for the future. Unsure what the next year would bring, he concluded that the future was a mystery for everyone. "After all, nobody really knows what God's will is," he said.
Is he right? He equated an unsure future with an inability to know ahead of time exactly what God wanted him to do the following year. All he knew about God's will was that it was some mystical thing God wanted a person to do in the future. And since he wasn't sure whether he'd be a college student or a hamburger flipper next year, there was no reason to know God's will.
But is it true that this indecisiveness translates into not knowing God's will? I don't think so. Often we translate the concept of His will into the ability to discern what kind of job or schooling or marital situation we will be in at some future time. When we limit the idea of God's will to this kind of thinking, however, we ignore an important reality about living in the center of His will: God has told us exactly what His will is for each of us, and that will is no different from one believer in Jesus to the next.
God has told us that His will for us is that we do good in order to stop foolish people from talking ignorantly (1 Peter 2:15). The best way to shut down foolish talk is by good, honorable behavior.
Another element of God's will is choosing to give Him thanks, no matter what the circumstance. That's not easy to do when bad things happen--but that's what God wants us to do.
One more item. God wants us to be pure in regard to sexuality and to avoid immorality (1 Thessalonians 4:3). As we follow God's will, we are more able to find what Romans 12:2 calls God's "good, pleasing, and perfect will." Living in the light of God's approval allows us to know how He wants us to serve Him.
Do we know God's will? Yes. As we act on it, trust Him, and wait for His direction, He will reveal how we should spend our lives for His glory. --Dave Branon
DESTINATION POINTS
* Perhaps it would be a good idea for me to do a word study of the term "God's will." What are some references to it in Scripture? What does the term mean?
* What are some ways that I've been a little lax in fulfilling God's will for me?
bottom line: To know God's will, know Him well.
soul journey
Romans 12:1-6
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--His good, pleasing, and perfect will. 3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.
The young man was facing his senior year of high school without much direction for the future. Unsure what the next year would bring, he concluded that the future was a mystery for everyone. "After all, nobody really knows what God's will is," he said.
Is he right? He equated an unsure future with an inability to know ahead of time exactly what God wanted him to do the following year. All he knew about God's will was that it was some mystical thing God wanted a person to do in the future. And since he wasn't sure whether he'd be a college student or a hamburger flipper next year, there was no reason to know God's will.
But is it true that this indecisiveness translates into not knowing God's will? I don't think so. Often we translate the concept of His will into the ability to discern what kind of job or schooling or marital situation we will be in at some future time. When we limit the idea of God's will to this kind of thinking, however, we ignore an important reality about living in the center of His will: God has told us exactly what His will is for each of us, and that will is no different from one believer in Jesus to the next.
God has told us that His will for us is that we do good in order to stop foolish people from talking ignorantly (1 Peter 2:15). The best way to shut down foolish talk is by good, honorable behavior.
Another element of God's will is choosing to give Him thanks, no matter what the circumstance. That's not easy to do when bad things happen--but that's what God wants us to do.
One more item. God wants us to be pure in regard to sexuality and to avoid immorality (1 Thessalonians 4:3). As we follow God's will, we are more able to find what Romans 12:2 calls God's "good, pleasing, and perfect will." Living in the light of God's approval allows us to know how He wants us to serve Him.
Do we know God's will? Yes. As we act on it, trust Him, and wait for His direction, He will reveal how we should spend our lives for His glory. --Dave Branon
DESTINATION POINTS
* Perhaps it would be a good idea for me to do a word study of the term "God's will." What are some references to it in Scripture? What does the term mean?
* What are some ways that I've been a little lax in fulfilling God's will for me?
bottom line: To know God's will, know Him well.
soul journey