Sermon
A Sacred Time
Mark 1: 35-37
FABC of Longmont
9/22/19
by Hunter Irvine
+ Open in prayer.
= Mark 1: 35-37 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” (NIV)
1. Duffy Robbins & Merrill Tenney:
A professor named Duffy Robbins has served at Eastern University in Pennsylvania for decades. Duffy is a nationally renowned Youth Ministry professor. I read several of his books when I was a student at CCU, and they were good textbooks. And I have had the privilege to hear him speak twice at seminars. He is a gifted teacher.
Duffy also spoke at CCU a few years ago, and I attended the symposium to listen to him. In that talk, Duffy told of the time he had an opportunity to have lunch with Dr. Merrill Tenney, the outstanding Bible scholar.
(There is a book by Merrill Tenney in this church up in the chapel bookcase. And I have a Bible dictionary by Dr. Tenney on my desk.)
So Duffy was extremely excited to meet Dr. Tenney, and during lunch with the famous scholar, he asked him a big question: “How do you spend your quiet time with God?”
Dr. Tenney replied, “I read my Bible, and I pray.”
That was all he said.
Now I think some other spiritual practices are great.
I sing one song every morning to conclude my quiet time.
Journaling is a special spiritual practice for me.
Many people do a variety of other activities during their personal time with God.
Yet Dr. Tenney got to the foundation of growing in Jesus day by day: Read your Bible and pray.
2. Solitude is needed:
Solitude is a word many people do not like. They equate it with being lonely.
Yet when you seek solitude for your quiet time with God, you will not end up lonely because you will end up spending the time with God!
Spending time with the Lord God Almighty, you will end up fulfilled rather than lonely!
We need to seek solitude, to get away from the countless distractions, so we can spend sacred time with God.
3. Your sacred time? :
Do you have a specific time and place where you spend your sacred time with God?
Of course we can spend time with God anytime, yet having a daily discipline usually promotes consistency.
In the book Manna, by Steve Farrar, in Chapter 5, Red Leather Chair, he tells of his daily practice of waking up early and reading his Bible and praying in the same red chair, morning after morning. He emphasizes that time with the Lord is foundational for the way he lives his life.
Do remember the key is not the time or the place, yet the key is interacting with your Father in heaven.
* All loving relationships require loving interaction. Spending time together, talking, and listening, are all needed for a healthy relationship. Spending such time with our Heavenly Father is imperative!!
4. My sacred time with God:
My personal time with God has been a key to my growth in Christ ever since I was a new Christian.
Most days, I spend time reading the Bible and praying after breakfast. I cherish the time.
* I am the Christian man I am today, because day after day, year after year, I have spent sacred time with God.
5. Jesus got recharged for preaching the Good News:
Did Jesus read His Bible and pray?
Again, from the book Manna, from that same chapter on page 112, Mr. Farrar states, “In the gospel of Matthew alone, we find Jesus directly quoting from the Old Testament seventy-six times.”
And we learn from this passage that Jesus prayed.
Jesus was fully God, and He was also fully human, and even He prayed when on earth.
Spending that time alone with the Father, Jesus got recharged to preach, to teach, and to heal!
Sacred time with the Father prepared Him to preach.
And Jesus preached the good news!
The word “Gospel” means good news.
What is that good news?
+ The Gospel
Jesus Christ died on a cross for the forgiveness of sins of anyone. He was the substitute for the consequence of sins, which is spiritual death. Then He was resurrected. If you believe in Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you will have eternal life with Him in heaven.
+ Invitation
If you do not know Jesus as your Savior and Lord, I invite you today to give your heart to Jesus. You can receive Him by simply believing. Believe in Jesus, and you will spend eternity in heaven.
Jesus loves you!!!
Sermon
Jesus Offers Heaven
Matthew 4: 12-17
FABC of Longmont
September 15, 2019
Hunter Irvine
+ Open in prayer.
= Matthew 4: 12-17 When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he returned to Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali—to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:
“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, along the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”
From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (NIV).
Why not Galilee of the Jewish people??:
Why is the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali called “Galilee of the Gentiles?”
After all, Zebulun and Naphtali were two of the twelve tribes of Israel, and their land was part of Israel.
In 931 B.C., there was a split in Israel – the northern kingdom, Israel, and the southern kingdom, Judah. The northern kingdom had 10 tribes, and the southern kingdom had 2 tribes.
After the split, there was much disobedience by kings and many Israelites in the northern kingdom, year after year. God warned them to stop turning to false gods and doing other sins, including violence. But the leaders did not listen, so God allowed the invasion of the Assyrians. Isaiah gave a specific prophecy that Assyria would conquer Israel.
In 722 B.C., the Assyrians conquered Israel, the northern kingdom.
The Assyrians were terrible. They would conquer a country, and then to reduce the chance of that country rebelling later on, they would deport most of the people to another country they had conquered. Then they would send foreigners from the other country to live in the newly conquered country. So they were not only conquering countries, they were ripping people out of their homeland.
Thus much of the area which had been Israel became filled with people from another country, or countries.
Later on Judah was conquered by Babylon, and then came the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., which I will not get into because that is a complete sermon in and of itself.
Some Jewish people did return, but…:
So Galilee was inhabited by Gentiles, however, there may have been a few Jewish people who were able to remain in 722 B.C., but moreso, a few centuries before the time of Christ, some Jewish people were able to return to their homeland in Israel, in addition to all of the Jewish people who continued to return to Judea from Babylon.
And as the Roman Empire expanded, the roads made travel easier, and people were able to more easily move. Some Jewish people who had been dispersed all over the place returned to their native land.
Thus in the region of Galilee, you had both Jewish people and Gentiles.
Yet this Scripture lets us know the area was dominated by “Gentiles.”
A religious mess:
Now Gentiles were any people who were not Jewish. This sounds rather racist to be segregating people by such terms. However, the Biblical distinction was concerned not with ethnicity, rather with false religion versus the one true God.
The ancient world was filled with devotion to a plethora of false gods. I learned in my Western Civilization class at CCU that most people in the ancient world were polytheistic, meaning they believed in the existence of many gods. Monotheism, the belief in a sole God, was an attribute which set the beliefs of the Israelites apart from other people of other nations. (There was one ancient Egyptian king who advocated monotheism, which really set him apart in history.)
God wanted the Jewish people to be set apart from the people of other nations in order to preserve their relationship with Himself, Yahweh, the true God!
But rather than devotion to Yahweh in Galilee, besides a minority of people who were Jewish, the region was filled with a whole bunch of people with devotion to a whole bunch of false gods. And all this was under the Roman Empire, which had its own pantheon of false gods, most of which were false Greek gods with different names.
It was a religious mess.
Jesus offered heaven:
And in the midst of the religious mess, Jesus started preaching about heaven.
Heaven is the offer of Jesus!
Yes God wants good things for us in this world, and He has made other promises to us, such as He will be with His children up to the end of the age. Yet His primary offer is heaven!
In the Sermon on the Mount, in parables, and in other places, Jesus taught about heaven!!
Heaven is His offer to us!
Memorial services:
Being a person called to vocational ministry, I have known many people who have died.
And I have been to many memorial services.
Once in a church, we had three members die in a period of only a few months. It was a rough time for our church family.
Yet what a blessing to know all of those people who turned to Jesus are now in heaven.
Heaven is for real, made possible by Jesus Christ!
+ The Gospel
Jesus Christ died on a cross for the forgiveness of sins of anyone. He was the substitute for the consequence of sins, which is spiritual death. Then He was resurrected. If you believe in Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you will have eternal life with Him in heaven.
+ Invitation
If you do not know Jesus as your Savior and Lord, I invite you today to give your heart to Jesus. You can receive Him by simply believing. Believe in Jesus, and you will spend eternity in heaven.
Jesus loves you!!!
