Psalm # 10
Preached: 21 Mar 2010 Des Arc First UMC Nursing Home
SCRIPTURE READINGS Psalm 10: 1, 12,
16—18
Today’s Psalm is a call for help from people who are being victimized by
the Evil forces of this world.
When the giant Goliath challenged Israel to send out it’s mightiest
warrior for a duel, no one imagined that it would be David who would
do the job. The youngest, weakest, and least impressive of his
brothers. David was a mere shepherd boy — he was completely
unskilled in the issues and ways of war.Nonetheless, God was with him, and Goliath was defeated.
We believe that only the wealthy, only the strong, only the brave can
qualify for God’s help.
However, God aids whoever calls upon him, who honors him, and
entrust themselves to his care. No matter what giant problem you
face today, trust in God to make you victorious. Commit to doing his
will and watch every obstacle crumble before you.
Well that is all nice and dandy we say, but we don’t or won’t believe it.
We feel that God can not or will not help us as long as we are
sinners. We sometimes become the Pharisees who want every sin
cleaned up and every Sinner put out of the church or the town so
that the Messiah can come back and set up a Kingdom where we will
get everything we want. Jesus came to tell us to stop thinking about
our own wants and desires and put our trust in God instead. Most if
not all of the worlds troubles come about because we are to mule
headed to understand this.
If you ask a lot of Christians what is the Gospel they will probably tell
you that it is Jesus Christ who came to this world to take away our
sins and give us eternal life in heaven. But that is not the Good
News that Jesus spread in his ministry. The Good News was and is
that Kingdom of God is at hand.
So you ask who can that be. We have been waiting for 2000 years for this
Kingdom to come. For peace to reign and for the evil of this world
to end also. Well what have you done to stop the wars of this world
and what have you done beside go to church when you felt like it to
make God’s kingdom come about on this world.
If you are like most people you have given money to missions and needs,
but only after you have taken care of your own wants and desires.
You have said your statements of Faith and the next day gone about
your business of making money so you can get things rather than
getting down to the business of doing God’s work in his Kingdom.
This world, The evil of this world will never end as long as we humans say
one thing and do another.
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Are you living the life God has
called you to live?
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Are you doing all that you can and
then going the second mile when called upon to do things in your
church or city?
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When was the last time you said Oh I
can do without that new car, new toy, new boat, new gun, new you
name your favorite food or drink you just can not live without.
This is the Last week in lent before we go into Passion week. In my church
I preached on Ash Wednesday that we needed to prepare for Easter by
living life as if we only had 30 days to live and we have been going
through many of the things Jesus taught us to do to accomplish this.
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He taught us to live passionately not
like a bunch of scared toads sitting in the mud waiting for
something to happen to us.
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He taught us to love passionately,
God and our fellow mankind. Not just the ones we like but all of
mankind—yes even our enemies.
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He taught us to learn humility—to be
able to humble ourselves so we can be of use to God in his Kingdom
and to quite trying to take the steering wheel out of his hands so
we control our own future and so we can do whatever we want to do.
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Finally he taught us to leave boldly.To leave this world a better place than what we found it when
we arrived.
Are you living with a passion in your life, and what are you doing about
it? Are you loving all of mankind even the ones you can’t really
stand to be around? Are you humbly submitting your life to God and
his desires or are you wanting your own desires in life and finally
are you going out of this world Boldl? Are you going to be
remembered for what you gave this world instead of how much to you
took from this world?
Where and why do we have evil in this world, because we don’t live with a
passion for Jesus, because we don’t love all of God’s creation,
because we don’t humble ourselves instead of always trying to raise
ourselves higher and because we take more out of this world than we
are willing to put back into it. When will you bring justice to the
orphans and the oppressed so people can no longer terrify them or
you? Step out into a new life, a new way of thinking. Stop worrying
if you are going to get to heaven or if you have been saved, or what
is the least I can do and still be in the book of life and start
doing God’s work now and forever more.
Just say Yes:
- To God your
Creator
- To Jesus Christ your savior
- To the Holy Spirit your
advocate
- And to a brand new way of life.