The Turning Point

Bulletin Feb. 17

Scripture

Genesis 12:1-9, Romans 4:1-17, John 3:1-17

Message by Serenia Smalls

If you listened to the message in that song, you could say that the Lady had reached a turning point.

Turning point is defined as a point at which a decisive change takes place. A point at which something or someone changes direction. A critical place.

In our text we see that Abraham had definitely reached a turning point when God simply told him to leave. He said Leave your county, your family and your father’s home land for a land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation, and bless you, I’ll make you famous, you be a blessing, I’ll bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.

God directed Abraham to do only one thing. Leave. And in return God would do 8 wonderful things for Abraham. Well, do you think that God could possibly do all those things without Abraham having to leave. I mean let’s face it, the scriptures never indicated that anything was wrong with Horan, his father’s homeland. After all, he knew the culture, he had grown up there. The familiar sights and sounds..everything. Leaving meant he would have to make new friends, learn new culture, familiarize himself with a whole new way of life. No big deal right? Keep in mind that he was 75 years old. You know the old saying, you cant’ teach an old dog new tricks. And if you’ve had any dealing with the elderly, its just not that easy to change. Turning Point. This would definitely take some faith on Abrams part. But the bible says, Abraham just left. He took his wife, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions and people they had gotten in Horan and set out. He entered into what God was doing.
HE HAD NO MASTER PLAN

The book of Hebrews tells us that “by faith Abraham obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going”. He had no map, no AAA brochure, no map quest, no lineup of motel reservations along the way. His caravan simply headed west toward the Mediterranean, and that was that. God had said he would show him where to stop sometime in the future when he got to wherever he was going.

We would struggle with this, wouldn’t we? Not only in our vacation travel, but in guiding our careers and our day to day decisions, we simply have to have a comprehensive plan. ” We do very few things by faith.

Abram didn’t have a clue. If you had met up with his caravan at some oasis, the conversation might have gone like this:

“Mr. Abram, where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, how will you know when you get there?”

“I don’t know that, either. God only said he would show me.”

“You have quite an entourage here. When you do arrive, who will supply all the food you’ll need? After all, if you’re going to survive in a new place, how are you going to eat”?

“I don’t know. He just said he would take care of me.”

“You don’t seem to have a security force. Who is going to protect you from the Jebusites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and all the rest of the warring tribes? “

Abram would just shake his head and wander away.

Romans the 4th chapter and the 16th verse tells us that “this is why the fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and God’s way, and then simply embracing God and what God does. By doing so, you are guaranteed to arrive at a Point at which a decisive change takes place, a critical place, a turning point.

Abraham is known as the Father of Faith, Well I guess so, because how quickly would any of us leave certain work situations, or sever pleasant relationships or make other difficult changes, without having any details and without knowing everything well in advance. But you see faith is content just knowing that God’s promises can not and will not fail. This is the excitement of walking with God. All throughout the Bible and especially in the book of Acts we never quite know what is going to happen with the next turn of the page, But our faith in the promises of GOD assure us that God is in control and God will do just what he said!! Even with the Apostle Paul, He had no clue of how he was going to Evangelize the world, didn’t even have a desire to until he reached a turning point on the road to Damascus, but he did and is doing so from the grave. Because God mapped out the route along the way.

Beloved, I believe it is safe to say, that all of us, if we haven’t already, will soon be embarking on our turning points. As God, instructs us to move, to leave, to make decisive changes, we must do so, just like Abraham, by faith. That means entering into what God is doing for us, and trusting God to set us right instead of trying to be right on our own, we will receive the promises of God.

Romans 4 Verses 4 & 5 “If you’re a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don’t call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, it’s something only God can do, and you trust God to do it, you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and how long you worked, well- that trusting him to do it, is what gets you set right with God, By God. Sheer Gift.

I challenge you today, and I do so by the Authority of Jesus Christ, to leave where you are in your faith, step out on the promises of God that He will never leave you nor forsake you, that Hell e with you always even until the end of the ages, that he will make you the head and not the tail, that you’ll be above only and not beneath, He’ll make you the lender and not the borrower, if you just embrace your Turning Point and trust god to guide you, He said, I’ll make you a great nation and bless you, I’ll make you famous and you’ll be a blessing, I’ll bless those who bless you, those who curse you, I’ll curse, and All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.

Beat it Satan!

Bulletin: Feb. 10

Scripture:

Deuteronomy 6:10-19

Psalm 32

Matthew 4:1-11

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” This is such a succinct and suitable description of our fears, isn’t it? Dear God, save us from evil – of the kind that possessed a man to take a gun into the Kirkwood City Council and shoot five people, or the kind that possessed the man who broke into my friend, Nancy Miller’s house and killed her.

Deliver us from evil. But even before we say that we say, Lead us not into temptation. Because we can’t be sure that we wouldn’t be the agents of evil ourselves if we were tempted strongly enough. It’s a pretty big fear – that we would be no match for evil temptation on our own.

When Jesus gave us that prayer, he knew how hard it is to withstand temptation. So he suggested we ask God to lead us away from it.

Matthew’s description of the temptation of Jesus personifies evil and temptation as Satan. I used to think of the devil as a scapegoat for the evils of humankind. You know those people who say, “The devil made me do it.” And somehow that excuses them from taking responsibility for their actions.

But by personifying evil in the character of Satan or the devil, we also acknowledge that temptation to behave that way is not just our own imperfection. It is an outside force that God can help us overcome.

Matthew gives us a good blueprint for resisting temptation, for saying, “beat it, Satan,” as Jesus is quoted saying in our passage today.

Jesus went into the desert, so there would be no distractions for his test. He didn’t eat or drink anything, so he would be weak and vulnerable and light-headed. And he was alone – except for the presence and strength of God.

The first temptation has been described as the desire to “have.” We Americans are quite familiar with the desire for immediate gratification. You want it, you got it. We’re not content with the marvelous Internet, now dial-up is too slow – we want speedy broadband. We’re not content to save our money to buy big-ticket items. We charge them right away. You want it? You got it.

You’re hungry? Turn those stones into bread, Satan says. It’s easy. No work involved. No waiting until you get back to town to share bread with other people. Just turn the stones to bread and eat your fill.

Well why not? Didn’t God send manna down from heaven for the Israelites with Moses? What would be wrong with turning stones to bread? Wouldn’t God want the best for his only begotten son?

Nope, Jesus says. This suggestion didn’t come from God. It came from the tempter. Jesus doesn’t focus on things, on physical needs alone. He says It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth.”

I think that’s why so many people today find so little meaning in the things that we buy, why we eat so much but don’t feel satisfied. We’re looking for meaning in the wrong places. We can’t get fulfillment from a new TV, no matter how clear the picture or fascinating the programs. No matter how delectable the cheese cake or perfectly grilled steak, as soon as we swallow, we’re longing for something else.

To stay alive – really alive – we need more. We need a steady stream from God’s mouth. That’s really good advice Matthew is giving us. Alcoholics Anonymous and the other 12-step programs to fight addiction are based on that idea. They call God your higher power. Giving your addiction over to your higher power is the absolute basic step to overcoming temptation. If we listen to a steady stream of words from God’s mouth, then we can say, Beat it, Satan!

It’s also a reminder that our efforts to share with others should not stop with the basics of food or other physical needs. Not that Americans are really all that generous. But when we give our cast-off clothing or write a few checks at Christmas, we’re not doing nearly enough. You here at Berea are opening a soup kitchen. That’s a good thing. But first, you opened your worship service. And when the people come to the soup kitchen, you’ll offer them prayer as well as soup.

To be alive, we need more than bread. Settling for mere things is a temptation we all need to resist. If we’re paying attention to the word of God, we may have the strength to say, “Beat it Satan!”

If the first temptation was the desire to have, the second temptation is the desire to do. The desire to perform miracles – publicly of course.

One African theologian I read in seminary called this temptation the appeal to magic.

I think Americans, too, long for miracles and magic. We’d like someone to wave a magic wand and make the economy better, give us all jobs. When a loved one has cancer, we’d like a magic cure. We have a tendancy to treat the sacraments as some magical rites. Get that baby baptized and then he’ll be OK, protected from harm by God’s angels.

Well, Jesus did perform miracles, didn’t he? He healed the sick, he fed the multitudes. What’s different about Satan’s suggestion that he jump down and let the angels save him?

For one thing, in the miracles in scripture, Jesus was the instrument of rescue and healing, not the recipient.

“Don’t test God,” Jesus says. He rebukes Satan not only for suggesting that Jesus call on angels, he also rebukes the temptor for misusing scripture. It’s not a competition to see who can call down angels and who can’t. God doesn’t work that way.

My mother lives in Florida, south of Tampa. A couple years ago, her town, Venice, was in the path of 2 or 3 hurricanes in a row. I called her after a near miss, one that looked like it was bearing straight down on Venice, but swerved at the last minute and hit somewhere else, causing great devastation.

“God turned that hurricane away,” my mother said. “It was divine intervention that saved us.”

“But Mama,” I said. “How do you think the people in Clearwater feel about that? Do you think God flattened their houses and destroyed their school just to save you?”

It’s not that simple. Jesus knew he was going to have to suffer. No angels were going to rescue him. In fact, God’s agents are nearly always people, not angels. If we’re waiting for miracles from angels, we’re misunderstanding the way God works.

The real miracle that saved my mother when a hurricane did hit Venice was the way the neighbors on her street helped each other, boarding up windows before the winds hit and sharing electricity and cooked food after the power was knocked out to part of the block. This was an everyday miracle of sharing – not a supernatural visit from angels, but people caring for each other.

When we’re tempted to wait for angel rescue instead of helping each other, we hear Jesus’s voice: “Beat it, Satan!”

And the third temptation has been described as the desire to Be. To be powerful or perhaps to be admired. All we have to do is devote our lives to Satan’s plan.

On the face of it, this seems an easy thing to resist. I’d hazard a guess that there’s not a single devil worshipper here tonight. None of us have been visited in the dark of night by Satan offering us power, glory, fame, riches if we’ll just bend a knee Satan’s way.

Or have we? This temptation is insidious. It’s the most outlandish on the face of it – who, besides Caesar himself ever would have the opportunity to rule even one nation, much less the world?

But that’s just the extreme, isn’t it? Who among us hasn’t wanted some control or power or admiration that we thought we might be able to get if we just devoted our lives to it. But if we are driven by anything other than the desire to do God’s will, we are worshipping a false god.

We worship false gods all the time. There’s a controversy sweeping American churches right now, including the Presbyterian church and the United Church of Christ. Factions are fighting over property, over control of who gets to be ordained, over whose interpretation of scripture is “right.” In the Catholic church the Archbishop is trying to rule on who can take communion and who cannot.

As if we could apportion God’s love among us. As if it’s up to us to decide who has God’s favor and who does not.

These are not archaic temptations limited to bible times. We give in to these temptations all the time: On the one hand, we call on God to solve our own personal problems that we ought to solve ourselves, and on the other we try to usurp God’s power over others.

Jesus told us to love our neighbors, not seek power over them. He told us to love God, not the Satan of our desires.

And he showed us how to withstand temptation:
Listen for a steady stream of God’s word, in scripture, prayer and discussion with others.
Don’t look for miracles from angels, but be ready to be God’s agent in the daily miracles of loving your neighbor.
And worship and obey only God.
As for Satan? C’mon, say it with me.
Beat it, Satan!