(Matthew 9:1-13. Pastor Stewart spoke about Jesus who was no ordinary man. Normally, a contaminated object contaminates a non-contaminated object. A portion of fecal matter contaminates an apple rendering it inedible, (unless it is really a brownie.) Jesus was not contaminated by leprosy, illness or demons from others, but rather overcame each and everyone. Since Jesus Christ lives in His followers, we are not contaminated by the world, but rather can overcome the contamination in the world.
Pastor Stewart Carson, our transitional pastor, delivered a message on how Jesus' ministry began. March 12th, 2017 was a farewell service for Pastor Bob and Audrey. I am including some excerpts here for those who were unable to be there. The first is a short presentation by Jim Laverette, Area Minister.
The second is a short presentation by Terry Fossen, Associate Area Minister. The third is a short presentation by Pastor Bob and Audrey. The fourth is a song written by and sung by the Carroll grown children to their parents and congregation. Pastor Bob speaking from Nehemiah 8:1-12 tells us the final message from the Old Testament. This takes place 440 years B.C. The central message of the Bible is that God loves us, Jesus loves us. Pastor Bob gave his last message at Northgate today; we will miss him. The Story
Chapter 21 “For The Bible Tells Me So” Nehemiah 8:1-12 Intro - So what does a pastor say to the church he loves so much on his last preaching day? Since next week is our farewell service and I won’t be doing a sermon… I will do my best to hold it together today emotionally, but I’m not sure how successful I’ll be… Thankfully the decision on what to preach has already been made for me in the schedule of The Story series…(the staff and Pastor Stew have every intention of continuing the series…) So today I’m speaking on the story of Nehemiah…AND, amazingly enough, this is the last OT chapter in the series! How about that, eh?! I get to finish the OT…the old guy finishes the old…and then the new guy gets to do the new…how awesome and significant is that timing from God! In case you’re wondering why I’m not speaking on Malachi since its the last book of the OT…it’s because the last chapter of the book of Nehemiah is likely the very last recorded event of OT history…ch 13 where Nehemiah issues his final reforms… And Bible scholars place that event at around 440 BC…and then you know what happens after that right? We have the 400 silent years…400 years of no recorded Bible history…we hear nothing from God in His word during that time. BUT we know He is up to something huge in the upper story, because the silence is finally broken in Mt. 1 with an angel delivering God’s message to Joseph in a dream… Anyway, so I know what I’m supposed to preach on today, but I think I actually got my message this past Tuesday as I was visiting our current oldest church member, Bertha Carlson… -Bertha is 99 years old! She will be 100 on May 5. But she isn’t doing well. Living at Venta. She isn’t eating and that’s not a good sign. But her mind is still sharp and her faith is strong. And when I asked her how she was doing, she said to me, and I quote: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so…” She repeated this several times throughout our visit. And I was struck with the fact that here’s a person who has known Jesus for many, many years, who is pretty close to seeing Him face to face…and it all boils down to a simple, child-like truth like that, “Jesus loves me, this I know. And how do I know? For the Bible tells me so.” And that’s what I want you to know, dear church family. If there’s any message I have wanted to communicate to you since 1999 and particularly as your senior pastor these past 7 years, it is that “Jesus loves you…this you can know, for the Bible tells you so.” You can know with certainty that God really, really loves you…that’s He’s for you and not against you…that He is unrelenting in His love for you…that He will stop at nothing to bless you and help you and pour out grace after grace upon you…He’s a good, good Father… And I want you to know that, not only in your head, but also in your heart…to receive His love, respond, be moved by… let God’s love touch you deeply in your heart… Now I can hear what some of you are thinking…it’s the same thing my grandkids sometimes say when I tell them I love them…”Ya Grandpa, we know that!!” But all of you don’t know that…and I can relate, because too often I close my heart off to God and try to go it alone and think I don’t really need Him…until…He gets my attention again…softens my heart thru His word…so I can relate to Him as my loving Heavenly Father instead of…anything else… eg what God has been doing in me during this two month time of leg pain… So here’s the connection with Nehemiah. We are going to see how the OT ends for the people of God, and it’s good… Finally good! They actually come to a place where they are re-discovering, after hundreds of years, that their Heavenly Father loves them…and this they know…because the Bible, in this case the Law of Moses, tells them so. We are going to end the OT by looking at a gathering of returned exiles living in Jerusalem, after they have rebuilt the wall of the city…and what happens when the people ask Ezra the priest to read from the law of Moses… …when the people gather and they ask to hear God’s word read to them…something they have not heard for about 140 years. And what needs to amaze you, is that this is the people’s idea…it’s not coming from Ezra or Nehemiah, or any of the other prophets…it’s coming from the people themselves… …which goes to show you how far they have come on the long way back to God from the days of the Kings…(divided kingdom). They are finally experiencing what God promised many years earlier that His people would return to Him with a new heart, a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone… …they are experiencing God’s love first-hand…not just hearing about it, but embracing it with their whole being…and this is such a great way to end the OT, on this note instead of the sin and rebellion we saw over so many centuries… OK, turn to Nehemiah, chapter 8…Prayer…read vv.1-12… What a new era for God’s people! What a new attitude…new heart…instead of: - hard hearts, they have open ears… - being stubborn and stiff-necked, they raise their hands in worship… - rebellion and sin on their minds, they weep with hearts soft and repentant before God… …these are spiritually starved people who are desperately hungry for God’s word and are hearing God’s word read to them for the first time in their lives…and the result is overwhelming…they stand for hours, drawn in by what they’re hearing, they’re attentive to God’s spoken word… -they respond with praise and worship to what they’re hearing…bowing before the Lord with their faces to the ground… -they are able to understand what they are hearing…the meaning is made clear to them… - engaging emotionally with what they are hearing… many of them are weeping… -that weeping turns into great joy and celebration as they go off to share a meal with one another and send gifts of food to others and no doubt to talk about what they had just learned… These people were hearing God saying to their hearts through His word and by His Spirit, “Jehovah God loves me, this I know, for the Law of Moses tells me so…” And although we stopped reading at v. 12, further on in the remaining chapters perhaps the greatest response to God’s word takes place…the people of God show that they are not just committed to gaining information from God’s word… but they are actually committed to obeying what they hear… …changing their lives in obedience to God’s word…to bringing their lives into alignment with God’s requirements, commands, values… So we end the OT part of The Story with the people of God in a very good place… One of the reasons the Lord lead me to do The Story series in the first place, was not only to get a birds eye overview of the main theme of the Bible…which is…God loves you; He created you; but then He lost you because of sin; so now He is on a rescue mission to bring you back to Himself through Jesus Christ… …but I also did it to get all of us as a church family into the Bible together…and give us a structure and plan to do so… …and to help some of you get back into the Bible again, perhaps after a long absence… And my hope was that by engaging with this series on a personal level through reading the book and hearing the Story preached on Sunday and then interacting with the material in your weekly small group, that we’d all learn to love God’s word even more than we already do…to develop even a greater hunger and thirst for God’s truth…and that our lives would align more closely with the way He tells us to live our lives… And that, most importantly, we would really hear God saying that He loves us, that “Jesus loves us, this I know…” e.g. The Father’s Love Letter…on info table…(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJvqmhGs1Y8) So it is my final call to you as your pastor, that you commit yourselves anew to God’s word, the Bible for the duration of your time on earth…to reading it, learning it, listening for God’s voice in it…and obeying it… …letting it break your heart and bring you to repentance… letting it comfort and encourage you…teach and inform you…but always lining up your life with it rather than twisting it to make it say what you want it to… One of my most often repeated quotes: it’s not so much a matter of mastering the Bible, but letting the Bible master us. And please remember: it is ultimately the work of God’s Spirit that opens our eyes, ears, hearts, minds to God’s word, makes it come alive, transforms it from words on a page to a living word from God Himself…gives us a desire (hunger and thirst) for God’s word… God’s Spirit wants to help you love the Bible even more than you already do…He gives us love for the Lord which makes us love His word…so ask the HS to do this… All we need to do is to make a choice to open the Bible and read…and to find a group of people to do that with…discuss, share together, discern what God is saying together… Do this and you can’t go wrong; don’t do it and you can go very wrong… The Next Chapter Now, because of our farewell next Sunday, we are going to skip over chapter 22, which is the birth of Christ…but the series will be picked up again on March 19 with chapter 23…just keep reading according to the schedule you have received… But, there is no greater way to end this message than to say that when this series resumes, you’re going to be hearing lots about the ministry of Jesus…and ultimately about the death of Jesus…which is the main event of the whole Bible…the centre of it all…the peak to which the whole story ascends…when Jesus did what God planned from the beginning…for Him to come and to die on the cross for our sins as our Saviour… Communion So that’s where we want to end it today, at the communion table…celebration of Jesus’ death on the cross… -and when we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are recognizing the whole gospel story…that Jesus’ body was put to death on the cross as a punishment for our sins…He was our sinless substitute…suffering in our place… And when we take that cup we are remembering that Jesus’ blood was shed for our sins…the price Jesus was willing to pay for our souls to belong to Him…to be bought back to Him as our rightful Owner…rescued from sin and death… The communion table says, ”Jesus loves me this I know…” Dear friend, if you have not yet received the gift of forgiveness and eternal life, then I invite you to do so today… Conclusion So what would a pastor say to the church he loves so much on his last preaching Sunday? Audrey and I love you all… (Bob, I know…) and you’re going to be OK…the church is going to be OK… …more than OK, things are going to be great…because the Good Shepherd is going to take good care of His flock that He loves more than any human leader ever can… …and He is going to lead you into new paths of righteousness for His name’s sake…greater things in His kingdom…the best is yet to come…the glory days are still ahead…God has plans to bless and prosper and give us a hope and a future… So remember: (sing with me) “Jesus loves me…” Worship…Communion… |
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