← ArchiveSunday, December 21, 2014DateDecember 21, 2014Speaker—TextRomansPassages in this sermonExodus 22:79:19Mark 2:1712:55Romans 4:7–813:09Colossians 113:25Romans 815:06John 5:2418:35Romans 5:2118:52Matthew 13:4–821:49TranscriptMachine transcribed. Click any line to jump there.0:00Amen. Thank you, Greg. Thank you. Thank you, choir. Man, I just love hearing that choir sing. Isn't it great? Awesome. I do hope someone handed you one of these packets of coins right there as part of our sermon, as I said a moment ago, and we'll share some of that in just a few minutes.0:26It's kind of some trigger points. I just want to ask you the question, do you feel like it's Christmas? Do you really feel like it's Christmas? Are you ready that Christmas is here? Are you ready for Christmas? Can you relate to this? The older I get, the faster time flies by. It just seemed like I was having turkey and dressing. It just seemed like we were celebrating Thanksgiving, and then boom, we're right into the Christmas season. It moves fast. Survive or celebrate is our topic today.0:55You know, we can get into this mode a few days, and Christmas is here. We celebrate Christmas in a couple of days, and some of us are thinking, I'm not sure I'm going to make it. I'm not sure. Man, I'm not sure all the lights are working. I'm not sure the tree. You know, we get all the hustle and bustle, and you know, even some people are saying, man, I got more days to go and not enough money to make it happen. And I mean, it's just on and on and on the tension. I love what Rick Warren1:25said. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Community Church out in California, one of my favorite pastors, and he's a tremendous leader. And here's what he said recently. Ironically, at most Christmas parties, the person whose birthday you're supposed to be celebrating is completely ignored. He's never, ever mentioned. Although Jesus is the reason for the season, he's often overlooked or merely mentioned1:48along with Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus, the Grinch, the elves, and a long list of celebrated fictional characters. He's often overlooked. We move into survival mode sometimes during this type of season, do we not? We move into the survival mode, and we overlook the reason for the season. We2:13overlook Jesus because the rush of the season and the rush of the hour, and sometimes we're not feeling well. Recently, I was at the doctor. I don't go to the doctor often, but when I just finally got to the point where I just couldn't breathe anymore. I mean, I was, it was, my head was all congested, so I went to my doctor. He's a good friend of mine, and I love him. We go to worship together, and he's a great friend of mine, and so he gave me the shot, and gave me the antibiotic, and charged me an enormous amount of2:41money, hit my Blue Cross Blue Shield card, and all of that stuff, and then I had to come back because he, I forgot to get the prescriptions. I forgot, I just left them there, and so he, in seeing him the second time, I didn't actually have to be charged, and they slipped back there, and I went in there to see him. He said, hey, I got a funny story to tell you. I said, what's that? He said, you know, between the time you came, and then the time that you came back, I treated one of my older patients.3:11I said, older than me? He said, yes, it's hard to believe that there's people older than you, Dan, but he said, yes, older than you. He said, he's about an 80-year-old gentleman, and he's been one of my patients for as long as I've been practicing here. He's been one of my patients, and I said, well, great. I hope he was well. He said, yeah, he just came in for his routine annual physical, and I gave him his physical. He said, but the funny story is this. I was coming to the practice today,3:37and I saw two people jogging down the road in front of my car. They were jogging. One was an older gentleman, it looked like. He was struggling to run, and the other was a younger, very pretty, blonde-headed lady, because she had her hair in a ponytail, and she was, you could tell she was young. And he says, as I passed by, I noticed that I didn't know the lady. I didn't know the young lady,4:02but I knew the old gentleman who was one of my patients that I'd just seen a couple of days before, and I said, my goodness, what is this guy doing? So he said, I finally got to a point where I could pull my car off. He pulled my car off the side of the road. He said, I stopped my car, and I got out, and they jogged up to me, and she said, well, hello, can I help you? And she's standing there jogging in place, and there's my patient standing there trying desperately to jog. I said, sir, what are you4:31doing? He says, doc, I'm just following your orders. He said, what? He said, you told me to get me a hot mama and to be cheerful. He said, no, no, no, you misunderstood what I said. I said, you got a heart murmur, and you need to be careful. You see, I want to challenge you today to leave the world and hear my voice today. Leave the world of survival mode, and let's get into that celebration mode.4:59Let's determine today, over the next few days, that we are going to celebrate. I love what Luke's Gospel, chapter 2, and I'm going to read a translation today that maybe you don't have, but I'm going to read a translation. It's a New Living Translation, and I want you to listen to how it sounds. That night, some shepherds were in the fields outside the village, guarding their flocks5:23of sheep. Suddenly, the angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them, and they were terribly frightened, but the angel reassured them, do not be afraid, he said. I bring you good news of great joy for everyone. The Savior, yes, the Messiah, the Lord, has been born tonight in Bethlehem in the city of David. This is how you will recognize him. You will find a baby5:51lying in a manger wrapped snugly in strips of cloth. When the angel had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, come, let us go to Bethlehem. Now, that's the first Christmas rush. They took off in a blazing speed. Come, let us go to Bethlehem. Let us see the wonderful thing that has happened,6:15which the Lord has told us about. So they ran to the village, and they found Mary and Joseph, and there was the baby lying in the manger. And then the shepherds told everyone what had happened, and what the angel had said to them about this child. The shepherds went back to their fields and their flocks, glorifying6:42and praising God. If I have a message truth, here it is. The message truth is this. We are people of forgetting, yet our faith is strengthened by remembering. We are a people of forgetting, yet our faith is strengthened by remembering. Can you remember when you first encountered Jesus7:08Christ as your personal Savior and Lord? Can you remember that moment? Can you remember the excitement that was indwelled inside your life? Can you remember the energy that you felt during that time? Can you remember when you trusted Christ as your personal Savior and Lord? The thrilling moment. I am forgiven. What a moment. What a moment that was. What excitement built up in your life. The Bible was7:34something more than just a placeholder on the coffee table that gathered dust on it. We read it and it became alive to us. So here's the million dollar question. What happened? Why did you lose that sense of excitement? Why do we wait to this time of year to only celebrate the birth? I was asked the other day,8:00when do you celebrate? I celebrate the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ 365 days a year. I have Christmas every day. Not that I receive some gift or I give some gift, but I rejoice. I celebrate. So I'm here to challenge you today. What happened? If you were saved by His grace, whatever day it was,8:27many years ago, or last week, or yesterday, or maybe this morning, why would you want to stop celebrating? He is worthy to be celebrating, is He not? He is worthy to be celebrating not only for one time a year, but it's a time that we should celebrate all the time. The problem is not His worthiness, it's forgetfulness. We just forget. Sometimes the old good news has been there, done that. It's become8:54God's Word is not alive like it once was. The old good news has become old news to you. It's become informational rather than transformational, has it not? And sometimes we need to remember. So I, how do we celebrate? We celebrate, first of all, by remembering. Exodus chapter 22, verse 7 and 8.9:19Listen to what the Living Translation tells us. Then the Lord, Moses, the Lord told Moses, quick, come go down the mountain. And the people brought from Egypt have defiled themselves. They have already turned from the way I've commanded them to live. They have made an idol shape like a calf. They have worshiped and sacrificed to it. They're saying, these are your gods, O Israel, brought out,9:43brought you out of Egypt. Folks, let me tell you something. We need to remember. I love what Matthew's Gospel, chapter 16, verse 10, 9 and 10 says. Don't you remember the 5,000 I fed with five loaves and the baskets of food that were left over? Don't, don't you remember the 4,000 I fed with seven loaves and the baskets of food left over? Folks, let me tell you something. We need to jog our10:10remembering. Our remembering. We need to remember just what God has done for us. So I've brought us some trigger points. I've got, I'm bringing us something that will help us remember. Now, all of us have some coins, I'm sure, laying around the house. Many of us, like myself, you, you, you take your coins out at the evening or, or whatever you have in your pocket and you put them in a jar and you just keep10:38mounting, mounting up like that. And eventually you go, you have them all rolled up and you either put them in your bank account or give them away. And we, we choose to throw the coins in that bucket and every so often, once a quarter, we, we gather all those up and we rent them and get them in a, into a, the coin holder thing, the little paper things. And then we give that money to missionaries and stuff like that. So we just continue to do that. And I want to rejoice with you today, by the way. And when I said missionaries, it reminded me of the $10,000 goal we have for11:06Lottie Moon folks. And on top of nearly $20,000 worth of toys you gave away a couple of weeks ago, we are $1,800 away from meeting a $10,000 goal for Lottie Moon. Amen. What? I rejoice in that. Every dime goes directly to the mission field. Not one dime, not one percentage of Lottie Moon Christmas offering. Goes for administrative costs. That's why I get giddy about that. Because the missionaries have those resources. So I started thinking about, we're, we're11:36moving a lot of money around right now, are we not? We are giving money, buying toys and gifts and stuff like that. And we're doing a lot of neat things and that's great. But I want us to use these coins today as an object lesson. These are trigger points for us to consider when we forget that we can remember. I think about the penny. Now the penny, when I look at that penny, those things really annoy me. Don't they, you? A penny is one cent. What's that? You can't hardly buy anything with that,12:06can you? Can't buy anything for a penny, right? But the penny is unique. It's got Lincoln's head on it. It's an old coin and we've had it forever and it's never, it's never going to go away. You put 10 of those, that's a dime. You put 100 of them, that's a buck. I'm telling you, a penny is worth something once you start realizing it, that it can be a trigger point in your life. The penny, I would say the P in penny stands for past. My past is forgiven. Every time you look at a penny, think with me12:34that I say, wow, that penny, I remember that old message from that hack interim we had. And yes, yes, that penny that reminds me of my sins were forgiven. Mark chapter 2 verse 17, Jesus said, it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous,13:02but the sinners. Romans chapter 4 verse 7 through 8 says, oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight. Yes, what joy for those whose sins is no longer counted against them by the Lord. Colossians 1 verse 13 and 14, New Living Translation says it this way, for he has rescued us from the one who rules the kingdom of darkness. That meaning he's rescued us13:31from Satan. He has brought us into the kingdom of his dear son. God has purchased our freedom with his blood and has forgiven our sins. But God demonstrated his own love towards us while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. He paid the penalty for our sin. He took care of my past sins. We never have to13:57think about, oh, sins ever again. They're gone. As far as the east is of the west, as far as the east is from the west, they are forgotten for all of eternity. They're under the blood for their shedding of blood. There will be no forgiveness of sin. There was shedding of blood and there was forgiveness of sins for those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. For God so loved the world14:21that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish. But what have life in life everlasting? My sins are forgiven. That's what the penny stands for. The nickel. Now the nickel, you know, it's kind of an odd shaped coin, isn't it? The nickel is just a little bit larger than the penny, but a great deal larger than the dime. But it's a nickel. What does that stand for? The end means14:48now. The spirit of the living God is indwelled in my life. I have the spirit of God now in me. God's spirit is in me. Listen to what Romans chapter 8, the declaration of freedom chapter. Listen to what verse 11 says. When God lives and breathes in you, he does as surely as he did in15:13Jesus, and you are delivered from that dead life. With his spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ. Most of us can remember that our sins were forgiven. But some of us in this room are like me. You forget that God's spirit dwells in your life for all of eternity. When I was 17 years old,15:37I invited Jesus Christ into my life at First Baptist Trust. It was a monumental moment in my life. You've heard some of this story. I was a member of the church forever. My name was on the church row. It was on the youth choir row. It was on the youth ministry row. It was on Sunday school row. It was on every kind of row we had up there. I was a church member. My dad was chairman of the deacons. My mom sang16:03second soprano in the choir. I mean, it was, I've been in church all my, I've been in a popcorn, putt-putt piece fellowship church ever had. Been to church all my life. And that day on youth Sunday, that day in April 1971, I came to faith in Christ. And when I said, dear Jesus, come into my life and save me, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit indwelled in my life. You shall receive power when the16:26Holy Spirit has come upon you. You shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the remotest part of the earth. So the power of the Holy Spirit, no matter what kind of lifestyle I have, the indwelling power of the living God is inside my life. The same power of the Holy Spirit that saved the apostle Paul saved us. The same power of the Holy Spirit that saved Billy Graham16:55saved us. So the nickel represents God's spirit within us. So when you see a penny, my sins or past sins are forgiven. You see a nickel say, boy, I remind you that I am motivated and driven and every step I make is guided by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now wait just a second. Some of us have been acting17:19ugly over a time or two in our lives, have we not? Am I the only chief sinner amongst us that's been that way? We've all said things and done things we shouldn't have, right? We've all robbed God somewhere along the way, have we not? Every one of us are sinners and we should have a spot in hell, but Jesus reached down and snatched us out of hell. And when he did, he infused the power of the Holy17:46Spirit to prick us, to guide us, to direct us. When we go wrong, he snatches us back a bit. So the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit is in us and the dime represents the determined destiny of believers. My destiny is determined because I have a place in heaven. If you're a Christ follower in18:12this room, you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord. You know beyond a shadow of doubt, if you die today, you would spend eternity in heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ. You have a place in heaven for all of eternity. I love what John chapter 5 verse 24 says. John chapter 5 verse 24 says,18:35I assure you, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins. They have already passed from death into life. Romans chapter 5 verse 21 says, so just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God's19:03wonderful kindness rules instead, giving us right standing with God and the result in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I had the privilege of doing a funeral recently. Some are fun because they've lived a long life. This is one of them. He was an 80 plus year old gentleman and it was a joy because he's a19:27leader in the church and I tried to find some things that people didn't like about the guy, but not one person could say anything bad about him. He said he was a deacon. He was a servant leader. He took care of the widows and orphans. I mean, he took care of people. He had his family planned. He took care of his ministry. He took care of his family. He loved people, loved God, loved his pastor, contributed19:52tithes and offerings. He went over and above the call of duty in his job. He was wonderful. His name was written down in the Lamb's book of life. And so all we did was celebrate the life of this wonderful gentleman. The question we beg today, if I did your funeral this week, what would we say? Would we have to kind of wash over some of those things or could we dig in there and find some20:21things? You see, if you're a Christ follower in this room, the dime represents my destiny. Money is determined. Then I got to the quarter and I started scratching my head. Now, goodness gracious, what does this represent? What does 25 cents represent? Now, 25 cents is a great coin to flip, you know, those kinds of things. I was telling one of the men in the church just a moment ago before he came by, we were talking a little bit and I said, yes, Miss Debbie and I will flip a coin20:50tomorrow. It's not that we're gambling or anything like that. We're flipping a coin. Who's going to go to the grocery store for the final run for the Christmas meal? The last three years, I've gotten to sit at home and watch her go. I've won the coin flip, but I kind of think that she's found a coin that's got two heads on it and so she's going to make me go to that grocery store. I can tell you I'd rather not go because I buy things I'm not supposed to get. I'll tell you that right now. There'll be some cookies21:18I shouldn't be buying because she's baked cookies, right? But I started thinking about the quarter, the quarter, the 25 cent piece and it reminded me not only is my, the penny represents my past is forgiven. The nickel is God's spirit is indwelled in my life. The dime represents my destiny is determined. The quarter, it represents that I, my spiritual growth, I can continue to grow. You say,21:40wait a minute, that doesn't represent that. Listen to what Matthew chapter 13 verses 4 through 8 says. In the Living Translation, as he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road and the birds ate it, 25 percent. Some of the fell on gravel and it sprouted quickly but didn't put down roots, so the sun came up and withered it as quickly, just as quickly, 25 percent. Some fell in22:10the weeds and as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Another 25 percent. Some fell on good soil and produced a harvest beyond its, his wildest dreams. 25 percent were eaten up by the birds. 2522:29fell in the rocks, fell in the rocks, dropped some roots but it didn't stay there long because it wasn't solid roots. Some came by and and and and went into the weeds and the weeds and strangled it and died and 25 percent of it took root and went down and grew and it produced a fruit beyond your wildest22:57wildest dreams. So that I can continue to grow and to produce a harvest beyond my wildest dreams. Next year, we're going to launch beginning January 1st, a brand new theme for next year called a heart23:28for one. I'm going to challenge you from the pulpit. The leaders are going to challenge you in Sunday school and every other area of the ministry. We're going to challenge you to have a heart for one. Can you imagine every one of us in this room, every one of us, bringing one person to this faith family, being being involved in this faith family, we double this building. Amen? And if we duplicated that again, y'all, we're going to have some aggressive people. We're going to bring two. Then we're going to have23:57seating problems, right? Can you imagine if every one of us had a heart for one person, one family, one member, one person? Folks, let me tell you something. Their spiritual journey is in the balance and if you don't go, somebody may not go and they will spend eternity withered away. And folks, let me tell you something. Spiritual growth means as you go, make disciples.24:23Spiritual growth says, I'm going to dig my roots deep into the soil so that I can produce the harvest beyond my wildest dream. Actually, this chapter 34, verse 22 says, And you must remember to celebrate. Past sins, celebrate, are forgiven. Now I can rejoice because24:44the spirit of the living God dwells in me. I can praise his holy name because my destiny is determined and I have a place in heaven for me. And until he returns, I can enjoy the daily spiritual growth,25:07spending time in the word, sharing what God has done so richly and so blessed me with. You can survive Christmas, go through the motions, eat the food, enjoy the gifts and the giving of the gifts,25:24or you can truly celebrate Christmas. You do that by remembering. For it is he who will save his people from their sins.25:49Let's pray.More sermons on Romans →
