Honor God, Respect Yourself, Own Your Heritage

February 26, 2012

Acts 8:26 - 40

God is a God who sent Jesus for all people. Jesus died for the sins of the world.

In Acts the church in Jerusalem was being persecuted. So everyone had to scatter for their lives. As they scattered they were not ashamed to share the gospel. When you are on the run you still need to share the gospel on the run. In the process there is revival.

Acts 8:26; An angel of the Lord sends Philip to meet a black (Ethiopian) man on the road. The Ethiopian is on the road reading the Old Testament on the way home from Jerusalem. He has a divine appointment with Phillip to receive spiritual guidance. God tells Philip to overtake the chariot and when God spoke the man of God obeys. Philip asks if the Ethiopian understood what he was reading and the Ethiopian asked him to explain it to him. There are people who read God’s Word and are clueless as to what it means. God sends us alongside them to example that which God has revealed to us.

Philip goes on to explain about Jesus and the eunuch accepts Christ. Along the way, in the desert, they come to a body of water and the Eunuch asks to be baptized so Philip does just that. In all we do we must honor God. We become a people who instead of honoring God we follow the foolishness of the world.

Honor God: As black people we will tweak God’s Word to fit our lifestyle. God’s Word is true and he doesn’t apologize for writing it down. God says in Deuteronomy (in the law) do not change one word or add one word to God’s Word otherwise you will not be written in the lamb’s book of life. We dishonor him by saying it is outdated but God says he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Obedience may not mean not doing it but asking God to help you not to do it. The key is to honor God in ALL we do.

Respect Yourself: We live in a society where disrespect for ourselves is high and accepted and celebrated. Psalm 139:13-18. Nobody has the same DNA you have. Even identical twins do not have the same fingerprints. You are unique and fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God. The difference between ego and respect is that God is in one and not the other. People dislike themselves to the point of plastic surgery saying to God you did not do a good enough job. And they always want more. You become a spectacle.

Jeremiah 1:5. The talents we have are not because of our own abilities but because God has placed that in us. We have to learn how to respect and love ourselves. We don’t have to be ashamed of ourselves because God gave us a nice sized nose, or our lips or our figures. We cannot/should not let anyone make us feel ashamed of ourselves.

Own Your Heritage: We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; EVERY color, creed, and nationality. We think silence is good but it is destructive. We need to instill in our children what is right and let them know that we will not protect them when they do wrong. The wrong may seem small but doing wrong will destroy us. Sin will take us as far as we let it. We are no longer enslaved but slavery is still around subtly. We need to teach our children about the rich heritage that we possess.

Honor God because when we honor God he will fight our battles. When we respect ourselves others will have to respect us. Own our heritage and just as God loves us, we can love our God, love ourselves and love our people.  He didn’t bring us this far to leave us. Wade in God’s Word. Satan can’t touch you there. Honor God, respect yourself, and own your heritage.

Pastor Pete

There is Love

February 5, 2012

1 Corinthians 13

THERE IS LOVE (Paul Stookey)

- Wedding Song -

He is now to be among you at the calling of your hearts.
Rest assured this troubador is acting on His part.
The union of your spirits here has caused Him to remain,
for whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name,
There is love. There is love.

Oh, a man shall leave his mother, and a woman leave her home.
They will travel on to where the two will be as one.
As it was in the beginning, is now until the end,
woman draws her life from man
and gives it back again and there is love.
Oh, there's love.

Well then what's to be the reason for becoming man and wife?
Is it love that brings you here or love that brings you life?
For is loving is the answer then who's the giving for?
Do you believe in something that you've never seen before?
Oh, there's love. There is love.

He is now to be among you at the calling of your hearts.
Rest assured this troubador is acting on His part.
The union of your spirits here has caused Him to remain
for whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name
there is love. Oh, there is love.

Lyrics retrieved from http://www.romantic-lyrics.com/lt4.shtml 

Some people love themselves so much they look at themselves in the mirror and don’t move. And think that’s love. That’s not love. Love is other focused.

To love means a leaving of something and a cleaving to. And God is in the midst of it.

Is it love that brings us here or love that brings us life? Both.

Relationships require faith.

1 Corinthians 13

 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

 What is it, this thing called love?

We always want to see in our relationships, in our friendships that we can care about the person we are in a relationship with; to see that we can have their best interest at heart. Paul puts the love chapter between the chapters on spiritual gifts and prophecy because we need to understand that no matter what we have it depends on how we perform it that matters to God. In the world it’s about size, it’s about position but in chapter 13, we can talk so well that sugar melts but without love that is nothing but noise. If I’m spiritual and serving God I can pray well and know the scripture backward and forward but if I don’t have love I’m useless. I can give to charity or nail myself to a cross but without love it profits nothing. Love is the end because God is love, He is loving because he is love. All that he is comes from love. (v1-3)

Love suffers. Why? This world has become so messed up screwed up we don’t know what love is and have lost the definition of it. We are a selfish world, self-focused, self-absorbed. This is why love suffers. We put out our love-scope and along the way we meet people who won’t receive it. 

Love doesn’t just accept anything. It waits.

Love is kind. In the waiting our kindness dwindles as we keep getting knocked down. We want to give it as it’s dished out.

It does not boast, but we parade ourselves and ask, “Don’t I look good?”

Love is not easily provoked. That’s tough. God is a perfect example of the right knid of love. He has justification to destroy us but doesn’t.

Love thinks no evil. We find this difficult when people do us wrong.

Love never fails. We fail, a lot of things fail but love never fails. Love isn’t in us. You hurt me I’ll hurt you more. This love is not God's love.

We want to love the right way and be loved this way. The only way that we can is by God enabling us to do so.

Love is an unconditional decision, sometimes deliberate, sometimes responsive. But it is ALWAYS a decision.

When we walk up and look on the other side of the bed or see friends we have to decide, will I talk to them today. It is a decision to actively care for, build up, be committed to, to be honest with, and to love someone else. Not I love you if, I love you because… It’s just I love you.

Love requires an invitation and a response to be complete. If that’s the case you have to move on. The inviter and the responder have to be self-less and other focused. It’s dangerous when we meet vain, selfish people because there is no real connection there. 

There is no such thing as falling in love. You grow into love. We never fall down and say yes, that was great. Falling is not a good thing. We block things out because we love the person and then later on it becomes a big issue. 

In the process of loving, what do I have to offer? In friendships and relationship, what do you bring to the relationship? Love is honest, it doesn’t lie. If you see things in a person you love, challenge them on it. You don’t watch someone you love jump off a cliff hoping someone will catch them.

Love doesn’t know everything. We say I know you, I know why you did that. Instead we should be willing to ask why. We feel we are perfect but we are not. We can struggle together to become perfect in God. It takes two in both friendships and relationships. Love says you are of value to me and I want you to blossom as God intended. Flowers don’t water themselves.

Love is mature. We have to be able to say we are wrong. Part of life is about saying you messed up. Its about maturity. We don’t know stuff about ourselves and are unwilling to find out. But we can’t love someone if we are not willing to be self-reflective.

If God is really love, He can lead us to grow in love. When you allow God to touch your life you don’t know how you will touch someone else’s life. God’s love in you will lead others to be touched by you. For if love is the answer… God’s love changes our whole life. It is a healing love and we can begin to love like He loves. The first thing he heals is our souls. It begins with a step of faith. God’s love penetrates any and everything.

There is love, will we allow his love to touch us and to heal us?

Pastor Pete

If God Really Loves Us, Let Him Prove It

February 5, 2012

John 15:12-14

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. If God really loves us, Let Him prove it

It is easy to speak love; it is difficult to perform love. When God brought the Word into to being it was never with the mindset for it to just be spoken. God had it that when he wanted to express how he feels about us he wrote it down, in the Bible. In His love letter to us He doesn’t give just the fluff, He is honest. He shows us the standard we are to live by. It’s the same standard He holds for himself; Holiness.

Love without sacrifice is not love. When you are called upon to serve someone love will lay down whatever one is doing to help the person in need. That is what God did. Jesus calls his disciples friends. God only requires of us what He has already done himself. Jesus is saying if push comes to shove, if I need to die so that you can live it is a done deal. That is how much we mean to Him.

God uses friends here and not family because we are born into our family. Once you’re born into it that’s it, but you choose your friends. Jesus says I choose you as my friends; even Judas was given the opportunity to be his friend. Even knowing that Judas would seal his death warrant he still loved him.


Hebrew 2 – without blood no remission of sin

God made a standard that an innocent sacrifice be made to atone for our sin. The dilemma was how do you sacrifice a life to save a life yet enable the sacrifice to live and to be rewarded? A sacrifice is dead, and then you drain the blood out because life is in the blood. Then once it is dead you burn it. The aroma goes up into heaven; God smells the aroma and then eases his judgment on you.


God had it that Jesus was that sacrifice. He was tried and hung on a cross so that the blood of the sacrifice would drain down. They knew He was dead but 3 days later He was alive and walking around. What was seen as a dilemma for man was nothing for God. He sacrificed His Son’s life so that we might live.

God sent Jesus back to put life back into His body. What’s a dilemma for us is not a dilemma for God. The testimony was that he was sinless. In God’s holy economy you cannot pay for your own sins and live; that is what the dove or lamb was for in the old testament. Now, Jesus blood is the payment for our sins.


Jesus doesn’t have to self-proclaim anything. His Father would proclaim him. He didn’t have to demand us to worship him. After He has changed our lives we will praise Him freely.


God has proven that He loves us. Love requires sacrifice and He has proven it. The question is: Will we receive the proof He has given us? God will always honor His word. He has a standard of holiness and the minute He changes it he ceases being God.

He proves it every day of our lives when the clock rings and we hear it and we get up and start on our way. His being with us every second is quality. Let us receive the proof that he gives.

Pastor Pete

Communion - February

Communion

February 5, 2012



I Cor. 11:24-26
The communion table is a table of love but also historical. It is a reminder that by his death our sins are paid for.

and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

Jesus was willing to die to give his life for his disciples and for us. The purpose of his coming was to die. But look at who he is, his deity; he laid that all down. He had felt no pain; He who is holy, doesn’t exercise his stature instead He humbled himself to be vulnerable to the things we are vulnerable to. He experienced our pain in his body. Everything that happened to Jesus he allowed to happen. The purpose was to know that coming to know him is not about power being displayed it was about being an example so that we know what it means to be Christ-like. He took on the likeness of man, was a baby, and humbled himself to his parents and to the disciples even Judas who betrayed him. 

He said, I’m gonna give my life up so that I can be the sacrificial lamb. And whoever receives the life flowing out of me will receive my glory. A new covenant, never had been done, has been done, and never to be done again. It has changed the direction of the world and our lives. As we partake let it be a reminder of our savior’s sacrifice for us and let it proclaim his death til he comes.