A Time for Everything

If I asked you what time it is, how would you answer? Time is a great equalizer in our lives. We all have time to spend, and, at any given moment, we all have the exact same amount of time. As stated in the song by the Byrds, there is a time for all things, and the song is based in part on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. There are fourteen points of contrast in these verses, and the word time is used twenty-eight times to remind us of our personal accountability.

What we do not have time for is procrastination. What if Noah had done things in his own time rather than God’s? We must be redeeming our time rather than spending it. In II Kings 20, Hezekiah is terminally ill, but his prayers to God result in fifteen years added to his life. How might we behave if we knew exactly how long we have left?

Effectively Redeeming Our Time
Proverbs 25:28 talks about having walls of self-control. Do we use our time to build these walls, or do we let time wear this self-control down? Before we can make a difference in others, we first have to make a difference in ourselves. If we don’t discover the weaknesses in our own walls, the devil will find them for us. He will put things in front of us that will waste and squander our time when our encouragement of ourselves and other Christians should be a constant goal of our time.

Hebrews 3:13 encourages us to edify each other daily – as long as today is today. The author encourages us to hold our confidence in Him until the end. In this, we have to protect our environment when it comes to what we allow influence our spirituality. I Corinthians 14:26 reminds us that all things should be for the point of edification, and Acts 4:26 tells us about the man Barnabas – named so based on the encouragement he was to others.

Ecclesiastes 3:11-12 reminds us that all is done in God’s time and that eternity is placed in our hearts, resulting in us dedicating our time and energy into doing good. The uncertainties of life teach us to rely on and trust in God. Birth and death, peace and war, joy and mourning: we have little control over when these times come. John 13:1 shares some insight into Jesus’ time to die, and we see that He loved those He came for to the end.

Conclusion
This life will be insignificant, in terms of time, when compared to our afterlife. The things that bring us joy or anger in this life will pass away forever. As our futures unfold, doors will open and close. Joys and sorrows will come and fade (Romans 12:15). We cannot try to hold time in a bottle, leaving our greatest deeds undone. Through simple procrastination, we let days, weeks, months, and years pass. We can either live no with some pain of self-discipline, or we can live in immortal regret.

I Thessalonians 5:21 encourages to examine things carefully and hold unto what is good. Identify and abstain from those things that affect you negatively. Finally, II Corinthians 13:5-6 tells us to examine ourselves to see if we are allowing Christ to dwell in us. In our days to come, we will be presented with opportunities that we will use how we choose. Will we spend these opportunities making difference for our own agendas and worldly concerns, or will we redeem our time, investing in spiritual priorities?

sermon by Mike Mahoney

Unity & Corinth: Part 2 - A More Excellent Way

This lesson continues our study of the church at Corinth and the topics of unity, love, and spiritual gifts. The previous lesson provided a cultural backdrop the this church and how society shaped the attitudes and values of the Christians in Corinth, and Paul appeals to the knowledge these individuals think they have ten times in chapters twelve through fourteen of this epistle while encouraging them to become more spiritually minded and more united in their conduct.

Disunity & Worship
The attitudes of superiority and class consciousness affected their worship. Paul addresses their “coming together” five times in chapter eleven. He is addressing their problems during services, most notably the abuse of the Lord’s Supper. Furthermore, worshipping together is brought up several times in chapter fourteen. Their carnal minds were affecting their service to God.

Again, it seems that the Corinthians placed a great emphasis on the spiritual gift of tongues – that is, speaking a foreign language with no prior knowledge of that language. He reminds us in verses 4 and 5 that each gift is equally important and that they all come from the same source. The functions are different, but each gift is equal in power and importance. We cannot deny the usefulness of other Christians dependent on a sense of self-importance.

The More Excellent Way
Verse 25 reaffirms the fact that unity within the congregation is important, and he promises to reveal a more excellent way. What is the way? Is it a way to get spiritual gifts? Rather, it is a more excellent way to unity and spirituality: Love. Before looking at chapter 13, here are three immediate reasons love is a more excellent path to spirituality.

• Everyone can posses love. This is in direct contrast to spiritual gifts and various abilities.
  
  
• Love will never go away. Again, this contrasts spiritual gifts, and this contrasts basically everything else we can hold to in this world, for love will be what continues into Heaven. Even faith and hope will no longer be needed in Heaven.
  
  
• Love distinguishes true believers from pretenders. In John 13:34-35: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another.”

The first three verses of chapter 13, emphasize the importance of love: praise, generosity, spiritual gifts – all of these are worthless without love. He then goes on to enumerate the qualities of love, and all of these descriptors of love are verbs in the Greek. Love is active, not conceptual, and we will look into these qualities in a subsequent lesson. Paul also speaks of partial gifts – like speaking in tongues – passing away like childhood when the perfect, or the complete/mature, is made known.

Realigning Priorities
In chapter 14, Paul returns his attention to misconceptions the Christians in Corinth had in regards to spiritual gifts. He tells them to pursue love. He goes on to contrast tongues and prophecy.

Paul reminds them that speaking in another language does not benefit the congregation as a whole if an interpreter was not present. (Remember, the person speaking the language did not necessarily understand the language they were speaking.) On the other hand, prophesying would, yet tongues were more highly valued by those in the church at Corinth.

Paul also points out that tongues are a sign to unbelievers (verse 22) while prophecy is most beneficial to believers. Take Acts 2 for example. By the crowd’s assessment, the apostles were ignorant individuals, meaning their knowledge of foreign languages would clearly be a miraculous event. Likewise, such a miracle would be useful in a city that had so many transients from other lands. Furthermore, in verses 23-25, Paul asks them what it would look like to a visitor to the congregation if everyone was speaking in diverse languages. In contrast, a prophecy may personally touch this individual. What is more valuable? Is it more important to look impressive, or is it more important to save souls?

Paul concludes this chapter by explaining the outcome to properly aligned worship: edification. Paul brings up edification multiple times in chapter 14, and he reminds us that God is the author of peace rather than confusion. This is in direct context of the love and unity spoken about in these verses, and the word translated as confusion comes from the Greek for discord or instability. God does not want his church to be split up and unstable. He wants it unified in love. He wants our worship to be orderly and decent (verse 40) in our attitudes toward one another, our behavior in the assembly, and our views of what it means to be spiritual.

Conclusion
A godly church works for love, edification, and unity. However, in order to work toward edification and unity in love, we need to understand what Christian love is, and we will be looking at the love of I Corinthians 13 in our next lesson.

sermon by Tim Smelser

Jesus' Cup

We see Jesus use an expression in the New Testament that is also present in the Old Testament regarding His death. He calls His death His cup. From the beginning of His ministry, He knows what lays ahead of Him, and, in Matthew 3, we see Jesus baptized. Upon this act, God declares, “This is My Beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased,” combining a resurrection Psalm (Psalms 2:7) and a passage of the suffering servant from Isaiah 42:1. This is a death sentence. In Matthew 16, Jesus asks His apostles who people say He is, and in verse 21, He begins to show His disciples the things He will suffer. This becomes a continual theme of His later ministry, and His death is reaffirmed by the events of the transfiguration.

Jesus knows He will suffer and die. However, He does not approach this impending fate casually. Consider Matthew 26:36 when Jesus prays in the garden. In Mark 14:32, He is in great distress. In Luke 22:46 describes the nature of His prayers to God, and Hebrews 5:7 reinforces the emotional tone of Jesus’ prayers. To Jesus, there was nothing matter-of-fact about His death. He discusses His death as a cup He must bear.

The Cup of God’s Wrath
In, Mark 10:35, James and John ask to sit by Jesus in His kingdom, and Jesus asks them if they are able to drink of the same cup as He. Matthew 26:39 records Jesus praying that His cup pass from Him. John 18:11, after His prayers are concluded and Peter has tried to defend Him from the soldiers, Jesus tells His apostle that He must drink of this cup. This cup is one’s lot in life, but, in the Old Testament, it is almost exclusively associated with God’s wrath.

• Psalm 75:8 describes a foaming cup in describing God’s judgment against the proud and arrogant.
• Isaiah 51:17 speaks of Jerusalem drinking from the cup of God’s wrath in their punishment.
• Isaiah 51:22 promises the people that God will take His cup of judgment from their hands.
• Jeremiah 25:15-26 tells of nations that will drink of God’s cup of wrath.

God’s cup is associated with God pouring out His righteous anger and judgment, and this is the imagery that Jesus invokes in speaking of His fate on the cross. The New Testament authors tell us Jesus became sin on the cross. Sin brings separation. Sin brings punishment. Sin brings the cup of God’s wrath. Can we better understand Jesus’ cry on the cross in this context? Can we understand more His pleadings to escape this fate? Yet in all this, He does not seek human sympathy. In Luke 23:28, Jesus tells the women mourning His fate to cry for themselves and their children rather than themselves. Furthermore, regardless of the cost, Jesus is obedient. Despite His pleads for an alternative, He continually repeats the refrain, “Thy will be done.”

Following in His Steps
Jesus asks James and John if they are able to drink of His cup in Mark 10:35. Peter, in I Peter 2:21 calls on us to follow in His steps and suffer as He did. Jesus tells James and John that indeed they will endure what Jesus will in endure. In II TImothy 3:12, Paul says that all who live godly will face persecution. This does not mean we have to treat such trials stoically or casually. Our Lord was not stoic, but God expects us to be faithful in the face of difficulties.

Jesus was affected by His suffering, and He is affected by ours. Hebrews 4:15 and Hebrews 5:7, and Hebrews 2:18 tells us that Jesus knows and relates to what we go through. He does not treat our trials and sufferings casually. Likewise, we should not view His suffering as something common. Hebrews 6:4-6 warns us of crucifying Jesus through our actions and attitudes, making ourselves guilty of His death. We should instead humble ourselves before the cross, putting away the empty distractions that keep me from serving Him, and I should dedicate my life to His service.

sermon by Tim Smelser

What Do We Seek?

In Matthew 11:28, Jesus invites those who are heavy laden for rest. His invitation is a simple one. While we look at complex topics and lessons when the message can be broken down to this: we will find what we are looking for in Him. In Matthew 7:7, Jesus tells the the multitude to seek, ask, and knock to receive. We will find what we are seeking. The real question is what we individually seeking. Are we seeking forgiveness in Him? Do we seek rest? Do we seek a Christian family?

Sometimes we tend to skip parts of chapters in the New Testament when Paul or other authors enter into greeting specific Christians, but these individuals are people like you and me. They are seeking something, and they happen to have helped Paul or others in their service to God while seeking Him.

Improper Seekers

• In John 6:14, after Jesus has fed thousands miraculously, many acknowledge His identity as the prophet-to-come. Jesus withdraws from them, knowing they would make Him an earthly king, and He and the crowd encounter each other again on the other side. Jesus admonishes them for seeking Him based on material reasons. We may turn to God for financial reasons, for health reasons, or others. We seek a bailout in God.
  
  
• III John describes a glory-seeker by the name of Diotrephes. This is a man seeking preeminence among Christians. He is not interested in the message so much as the attention he can receive. This is his opportunity to be somebody, improperly seeking glory rather than God.
  
  
• In John 12:3 records Mary anointing Jesus feet with an expensive ointment. Judas objects, citing that the oil should have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor, but his heart is not in the right place. Judas is seeking fault in Jesus and others. He is looking for what is wrong in others.
  
  
• I Corinthians 1:21 tells of individuals who seek after worldly wisdom. The simple message does not make sense to these individuals. It is not something quantifiable by their standards, so they turn from God’s wisdom, seeking the wisdom of this world in His stead.
  
  
• In Matthew 26, we see Peter seeking Jesus from a distance. He stays back to see what would happen. He wants to be a seeker and a follower, but Peter also wants to blend in. He wants to be indistinguishable from the world while seeking after Christ.

Seeking Wisely

• In Acts 18:24, we are introduced to Apollos, who is teaching baptism improperly. However, when corrected, he received the word gladly. He is a truth seeker. He doesn’t argue based on interpretation or long-held misconceptions. Because he seeks truth, he corrects himself.
  
  
• Onesimus, in Philemon 12, is seeking to make peace with Philemon. Colossians 4:10 records Mark being with Paul while he is in prison. This is the same Mark who was once a source of contention, but now he is an encouragement (II Timothy 4:11). Paul and Mark had made peace. These are peace seekers rather than grudge bearers.
  
  
• I Corinthians 10:33 describes Paul as a soul seeker. He is looking out for those he can save through the word of God, those who are seeking His truth.
  
  
• In Acts 6 and Acts 15, we see examples of Christians being solution seekers. They look for peaceful ways to solve their differences – whether scriptural in nature or physical. Instead of allowing themselves to dwell on the problems they face, they work together to seek solutions.
  
  
• II Timothy 1:16 describes the kindness of Onesiphorus and the reputation he has for helpfulness. Onesiphorus is a service seeker. Like, Barnabas of Acts 4, he seeks opportunities to encourage others. These both seek what they can do for others more than what they can do for themselves.

What Am I Seeking?
We find what we are looking for. If we seek materialistic and carnal things, we receive our reward in these. If we see to find fault in others, our faults will be revealed by God. If we seek worldly wisdom, we might accomplish much in this life, and if we seek God from a distance, we will be kept distant in judgment. However, if we seek truth, we will grow to love truth. If we seek peace, we will live more peacefully. Soul seeking leads to encouragement. Seeking solutions brings about resolution, and seeking service and encouragement will build ourselves up as much as others. If we keep seeking, asking, and knocking for the correct things, we will find rest for our souls.

sermon by Tim Smelser