Raise the Roof

The following are notes from Pastor Tapp’s sermon review for September 22, 2012.

Introduction
The Gospel of Mark, not unlike the others, reveals that in many circles, Jesus was a man of great popularity, although primarily due to His ability to heal people of their infirmities.

Lessons Learned from the Story of Jonah

Our media and outreach pastor, Paolo Esposito, preached today’s sermon while our senior pastor is with his wife on vacation celebrating their wedding anniversary.  The following are his sermon notes.

Main text: Jonah 1-4

1. God calls us, and when He calls us He has a plan.
2. You can run, but you can’t hide.
3. When we turn away from God’s call, the only way to go is down, we put other lives in danger.  We start “playing with fire.”
4. Sometimes it takes a storm to get us to testify.
5. People are often more willing to repent and believe than we are to testify and witness.
6. Many times, “gentiles” are more sensitive to God’s voice and exhortations than His own people.
7. Many times we love ourselves, or other things more than God’s own children.
8. God is merciful, even with the most stubborn of His saints.

If God used a stubborn and angry prophet like Jonah, what is stopping Him from using us today?

The Enemy of Our Faith

Our senior pastor, Charles A. Tapp preached on how our emotions can be the enemy of our faith this Sabbath.  The following are his sermon notes.

Main texts: Proverbs 3:5-6, Mark 5:35-43

Introduction

There is an enemy that we as Christians confront on a daily basis who is more powerful and more deceptive than the enemy called the devil, or Satan.  If we are not extremely careful, this enemy will place us on a path that will ultimately lead to the destruction of our souls.

• Because making decisions is always connected to the unstable and dangerously unreliable nature of our feelings, the enemy’s strategy is to tempt God’s children to rely completely upon them in navigating through their Christian experience instead of relying wholly upon a “thus saith the Lord.” Matthew 4:1-4; Habakkuk 2:1-4
• The danger of relying solely upon one’s feelings is that due to the impact that sin has had on the totality of man’s depravity, they cannot be trusted. Proverbs 14:12;  28:26; Jeremiah 17:9-10; Romans 1:21; Ephesians 4:17-18
• Relying completely on our feelings as an indicator of whether God is at work in our lives is a dangerous course of action for the Christian to follow because they are not always an accurate indicator of the spiritual reality that may exist.  Genesis 17:15-17; Romans 8:35-39; Mark 5:35-43; Ephesians 2:7-9
• God’s Word, and not one’s feelings, has to be the definitive factor for the Christian in making day-to-day decisions that will ultimately impact one’s eternal destiny.  Proverbs 3:1-7
• Although our feelings can lead us astray at times, they are an integral part of who we are as beings, created in the image of God.  Feelings are a part of man’s character because they are a part of God’s character.  Matthew 21:12; Hosea 11:8
• If we are going to successfully coexist with our feelings that have been  ”darkened” by the impact of sin, then we must be willing to place our lives under the complete submission of the transforming power of the Word of God.  Romans 12:1,2

Conclusion

Faith is taking God at His word, regardless of the nature of the circumstances that might surround us.  What’s import is not so much how we feel about God, but how or what we believe about Him.

Questions for Reflection

Are there areas in your life where you have been guilty of feeding your feelings more than you have been feeding your faith?  What are some of the areas in your life that may help contribute to this?

Words of the Week

First faith matters more than feelings; faithfulness to the high and hard standards of Christian behavior matters more than doing what you feel like at the time. –N.T. Wright

Those who would not fall a prey to Satan’s devices must guard well the avenues of the soul; they must avoid reading, seeing, or hearing that which will suggest impure thoughts.  The mind should not be left to wander at random upon every subject that adversary of souls may suggest.  ”Gird up the loins of your mind,” says the apostle Peter, “be sober, … not fashioning yourselves according to the former lust in your ignorance: but as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of living.” – Messages to Young People, p.285

Recommended Reading - Feelings and Faith: Cultivating Godly Emotions in the Christian Life–Brian S. Borgman (Crossway Books)

The book above is also available at Amazon.

Beyond the Sermon Notes

Our hymn of response today was My Hope Is Built.  Pastor Tapp explained the phrase “I dare not trust the sweetest frame” to mean frame of mind, or feelings.

 

 

 

The Heart of the Matter

Our senior pastor, Charles A. Tapp, preached on the tenth commandment this Sabbath.  The following are his sermon notes.

Main texts: Psalms 37:1-4, Exodus 20:17

Introduction

There is a well-known American proverb that states, “the grass always looks greener on the other side.”  The problem with this statement is that it is true.  The grass does “look” greener on the other side.  But the sad reality is that most times this reality isn’t discovered until you have actually made it to the other side.

• The sin which is prohibited in the tenth commandment is by far th emost dangerous of all the sins mentioned throughout the Ten Commandments.  All the other sins can be seen at work in one’s life through some type of action or behavior, whilst the sin of covetousness is concealed in the heart.  Jeremiah 17:9; Proverbs 23:7; Genesis 6:5; Matthew 15:18-19; James 1:13-14
• Because the sin of covetousness is the root of all other sins, the tenth commandment is God’s way of placing limits on man’s insatiable desire to always want more than what he really needs.  Ecclesiastes 1:8; Luke 12:15; Proverbs 4:23
• Because of the sinful nature of our hearts, if God had not placed boundaries on our desires, they would inevitably take us down a path that would lead to death and destruction.  Genesis 6:5-7; James 4:2-3; Matthew 5:29-30
• The sin of covetousness reveals a spirit of discontentment in the heart of the believer as well as a lack of faith in God.  Philippians 4:10-13; Proverbs 30:7-9; Hebrews 13:5; 1 Timothy 6:6; Galatians 5:26; Colossians 3:5
• Covetousness only becomes a sin when it places our thoughts on things that God has deemed as being outside our reach.  1 Corinthians 12:31; Matthew 6:33; Galatians 5:26; Psalms 19:7-10
• The sin of covetousness is what has led many believers and nonbelievers alike to place themselves in a position of slavery to the financial systems of this world.  1 Timothy 6:9-10; Proverbs 22:7; Matthew 6:24-25; Romans 6:16; 1 John 2:15

Conclusion

The key to overcoming the sin of covetousness is by allowing ht empower of God to gain full access to the recesses of our hearts (minds).  Jeremiah 31:33; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5; Isaiah 55:7-9; Hebrews 4:12; 1 Corinthians 9:27; Hebrews 12:1-2; Ephesians 6:10-18; Romans 7:24-25

Weeding the Garden

Unifiers and purifiers are two types of people you will find in every church. I referred to the latter last week as gatekeepers.

Pastor Roberts attacks the myth of the perfect church by using the parable of the wheat and the weeds. He gave a lot of examples of how our church has ignored that advice.

He described modern Christianity as having developed a mean streak, amplified in part by the relative anonymity the Internet provides. I believe Pastor Roberts is right not only about our church, but about another sphere he didn’t discuss–our politics. We hear far too much from far too many members of our political class about faith and how we should live and see far too little of that faith demonstrated in how they treat their colleagues and opponents (much less in how they live). Because of this, I don’t blame anyone who has a skeptical or hostile view of Christianity–we’ve done (and continue to do) more than enough to earn it.

Pastor Roberts ended his sermon with this challenge to his congregation:
1. Follow Jesus fully
2. Interact with each other kindly
3. Stand humbly for truth

Free At Last

This Sabbath, our senior pastor continued on the topic of grace.

He began his sermon with one of the same verses I used in last week’s post, Jonah 4:1-2.  But that passage was just a springboard to tell us as believers some even harder truths about ourselves.  Pastor Tapp extended his message on grace to Galatians 3:28:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul fights against the legalism that has crept into church–which sought to replace salvation by grace through faith with works.  In Galatians 2, Paul’s enemy is the idea that circumcision should be a requirement for salvation.  In Galatians 3, he is fighting the imposition of the old worldview of the Judaizers on the Christian church.  As our pastor told it, the order of Galatians 3:28 was deliberate because it described the hierarchy that the Judaizers believed in: themselves (as Jewish males) at the top, then non-Jews, then slaves, then women at the bottom.  Paul reminds the Galatians that the distinctions the world makes have no place in the body of Christ.  Galatians 3:29 goes further to disconnect salvation from one’s lineage (children of Abraham) and connect it to being in Christ.

Where Pastor Tapp took his message next confronted us with some especially hard truths, truths that highlight the hypocrisy we display as Christians.  If we are really all one in Christ, then being a minority should not be a disadvantage in the church.  If we are really all one in Christ, then being a woman should not be a disadvantage in the church.  Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.  By way of example, our pastor related the story of a phone message he received at his office.  What began as an argument with his theology was revealed to be nothing more than racism, because Pastor Tapp is black.  In 2011, my denomination still does not ordain women as pastors.  Shortcomings like these continue to hinder the church in being a credible messenger when it comes to the gospel.

Pastor Tapp quoted from some speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the proper role of the church within the state.  I haven’t found the exact references yet, but I did come across his sermon “Paul’s Letter to American Christians” , written nearly 60 years ago that speaks powerfully to the issue of being one in Christ.

A Fall From Grace

Today our senior pastor, Charles Tapp, continued a series on grace. His texts were Galatians 5 and Jonah 2.

His use of Jonah in talking about grace did a great job of focusing our attention on this concept: we should be willing to give grace to others because we’ve received it from God through Christ. Jonah was quite grateful to be delivered from the belly of the whale. But when it came to extending God’s grace, to the Ninevites, Jonah was far from charitable. When the Ninevites repented and God spared them from destruction, he responds this way in Jonah 4:1-2:

But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry.He prayed to the LORD and said, “Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.

Pastor Tapp didn’t use this passage in his sermon, but I use it here to extend his point.  There are times that we can be so selfish that we go out of our way to deny others the grace we’ve received from God.

Our pastor chose Joshua 6 as another example of God’s grace.  Jericho could have been destroyed right away, but God gave them seven days.  A similar example that comes to mind is the flood.  At least 100 years elapsed between the time God told Noah He would destroy the Earth with a flood and the event actually taking place.  God allowed Abraham to bargain with Him over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.  There are countless other stories of God’s grace.  The challenge that faces us as Christians every day is to extend that grace to others–no matter how difficult it is.