Category: Sermons

For the past nine months two groups of people from Woodbine have been involved in Disciple Bible Study. Disciple is produced by the United Methodist Publishing House and has been in existence for over 15 years.

Disciple I takes the group on a journey through approximately 75% of the Bible in order to take in the broad sweep of Biblical history. Other studies in the series focus on different specific parts of Scripture.

The whole point of Disciple can be summed up in these few verses.

“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:31-32 (ESV)

There are three words I want us to consider as we think about what it means to be a disciple.

Abide
If we abide in Jesus’ word we are his disciples…

To abide means to remain, dwell, continue in the words of Jesus. In other words. We are to establish a permanent relationship with the Word of Christ, a relationship which includes hearing, understanding and obeying.If we abide, continue in Jesus’ word we will be his disciples.

The opposite is also true. If we do not abide, no matter what we think or say we are not disciples — we have no relationship with Christ. The only way to have a relationship with a person is to be engaged with their words, their expressions of themselves. To have a relationship with Jesus is to be engaged with his words. A disciple is one who is learning from the master, seeking to be like the master. That is our goal as disciples: to increasingly become like Jesus in our life situations. In order to do that we must become engaged with the words of our master Jesus the Christ

The Truth
If we abide in Jesus’ word we are his disciples and we will know the truth…

Outside of a relationship with Christ we can only assume the truth about him. As we enter a relationship with Jesus through his word we discover the truth about him and more.
Abiding in the word of Jesus Christ tells us:

• The truth about God: his nature, will, purpose
• The truth about Jesus: his identity, mission
• The truth about ourselves: identity, sins, gifts, mission
• The truth about the church: identity, mission
• The truth about the world: their need

When we know the truth it changes every perception we have

Freedom
If we abide in Jesus’ word we are his disciples and we will know the truth and the truth will make us free.

The freedom Jesus brings is the freedom to become who God created us to be. One way to envision this is through the image of the exodus.

In slavery the Jews were the people of God and had a mission to reveal God to the world, but they couldn’t do it in slavery. God sent Moses as their deliverer to bring them our of bondage. At Sinai they got a glimpse of who God is, who they were and what their mission was. It started at Sinai with the Commandments and continued with the wanderings and settlement of Canaan. With every event the people learned more about who God was and who they were are God’s people. Finally they learned about the mission in the world to be a light to the nations.

This is an apt analogy to our life in Christ as well. In Christ we are delivered from slavery to sin. Through God’s word we learn the truth about God, ourselves and the world in which we live. We are then set free to be the people of God in a broken world so others can see and join us in this kingdom life.

That is what Disciple is all about. Disciple helps us to learn about the people of God in the past and how God taught them and lead them to be a light to the world. God did that through their successes and failures. And so God does with us as well.

In Disciple we learn to abiding in God’s Word, become disciples of Jesus Christ, discover the truth, and are set free to live out the mission we have been given.

Maybe you have struggled to do all of this on your own. If so, I invite you to join a Disciple group and see the power and grace of God released in your life in new ways.

Ephesians 5:25-33

This week’s sermon was based on the book Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. [Please visit his website to get more in depth and specific information.] He suggests that many problems in marriage can be traced to one of two things:
1. Husbands doing unloving things toward their wives
2. Wives showing disrespect toward their husbands
These, of course, can be done intentionally or unintentionally.
Here are some examples:

A Husband acts in unloving ways when he:

• Forgets anniversaries, birthdays or other important dates
• Doesn’t share his feelings with his wife
• Leaves his clothes on the floor, again
• Clams up or walks out the room when there is a disagreement
• Doesn’t apologize
• Doesn’t follow through on commitments
• Refuses to connect with his wife emotionally

A Wife acts in unloving ways when she:

• Rejects her husband’s insight into problems
• Criticizes him in public
• Criticizes his attempts to connect her
• Rejects him sexually or uses sex to manipulate him
• Ridicules his attempts to provide for her
• Complains because he is not being the leader in the home, but then criticizes him when he tries

The Crazy Cycle
These actions often times sets up the crazy cycle where the wife reacts to the unloving acts of her husband in disrespectful ways. The husband then reacts in unloving ways and the cycle repeats. Some times it starts with the husband, sometimes with the wife. On and on it goes a before long no one knows why.

We can get off the crazy cycle when we:

• Assume both are good willed
• Understand that a husband needs respect just as much as a wife needs love.
• Realize what is happening
• When one of you decides to be the mature one and refuses to get on the crazy cycle.
• The cycle stops when one of you decides to grow up and be mature

How can husbands to show love to their wives?

Closeness

• Your wife longs to connect with you

Openness

• Open up to her, share your day with her, ask about her day

Understanding

• Listen when she share a problem, don’t try to “fix it”
• Don’t dismiss her fears no matter how irrational they may appear

Peacemaking

• Learn to say, “I’m sorry, please forgive me.”
• Let her vent her frustrations and hurts without getting angry
• Keep the relationship up-to-date and resolve hurts quickly

Loyalty

• She needs to know you are committed to her
• Be involved with the things that are important to her
• Don’t look lustfully at other women
• Keep your commitments
• Speak highly of her in front of others

Esteem

• She wants you to honor and cherish her
• Encourage her and praise her for whatever she does
• Open the door for her
• Teach the kids to show her respect

How can wives show respect for their husbands?

Conquest – his desire to work and achieve

• Thank him for working
• Listen to his work related stories
• Don’t dishonor or criticize his work

Hierarchy – his desire to protect and provide

• Verbalize your admiration for his desire to be willing to die for you
• Don’t put down his job or how much he makes

Authority – his desire to serve and lead

• Husbands are responsible before God to lead
• Support his image as a leader
• Praise his good decisions; be gracious with the bad ones
• Disagree with him only in private

Insight – his desire to analyze and counsel

• Thank him for his advice
• Be respectful when you dis agree
• Realize when you see things differently, his ideas are not wrong just because they are different

Relationship – his desire for shoulder to shoulder friendships

• Sometimes doing nothing together can build your relationship
• Tell him you like him and show it
• Engage in recreational activities together or watch him
• Encourage him to spend time with his guy friends
• Don’t denounce his shoulder to shoulder friendships

Sexuality – his desire for sexual intimacy with you

• Husbands crave sexual intimacy the way wives crave emotional closeness
• What if your husband didn’t talk to you for 3 days, weeks, months?
• You can’t get what you want by depriving you partner of what they need
• Allow him to acknowledge his sexual temptations with out fearing he’ll be unfaithful and without shaming him
• Don’t use sex as a bargaining chip

1 Corinthians 13:1-8

Every couple I have ever joined in marriage were sure they were in love. I’m sure that is the case with most every couple who has ever been married. So why did many of these couples end their marriage in divorce?

It could be that we don’t really know what love is.

New Testament words for love

The New Testament uses several words for love from the Greek language.

• storge – affection demonstrated in families. It is only used in a negative sense in the NT and is translated in the ESV as “heartless.”
• philia – the love of friendship. It the loves that exists between people because of their association with one another e.g. brotherly love.
• eros – a love that seeks satisfaction wherever it can. It is a love that captivates. This loves sees desirable traits in another and moves to satisfy its hunger. It is a sensual love. Eros see the value in an object and seeks that object with all of its might. This was the highest type of love for the Greek philosophers.
• agape – Paul and the other NT writers choose this little used word to signify the love God has for us and we are to have for others. agape love bestows value on an object, simply because it is loved by the subject. This is what is known as unconditional love.

The Elements of Love

Dr. Robert Sternberg, formerly of Yale University, has given us some help in understanding love and his description fits well into a biblical framework. Dr. Sternberg discovered that love involves three elements:

Passion is the motivational side of love. It gives us the urge to pursue someone. It is the sensual side of love.

Intimacy is the emotional side of love. This is where know the person. They become our soul-mate or best friend. Intimacy fills our deepest desires for closeness and acceptance.

Commitment is the cognitive, willful side of love. This is where love looks to the future and promises to be there no matter what. It anchors of love with passion burns low and difficult times come. This is the side of love that is celebrated in the marriage ceremony.

The goal of any marriage is to hold each of these in balance. There maybe times when there is fluctuation in these areas, but it is the presence of each of them that holds love strong and keeps a couple working in the marriage.

Challenge

The challenge for this week is to grow in each of these areas.

Passion: find ways to deliberately move toward you mate. Rehearse again in your mind what it was that first drew you to each other.

Intimacy: Reconnect to each other. Create a safe place in your relationship without criticism, ridicule and invalidation. Then deliberately share with each other you hopes, dreams and even your fears. Ask questions with curiosity and wonder.

Commitment: find ways to reaffirm your commitment to one another. You both stood before god and made vows to, “love… comfort… honor …and keep one another In sickness and in health, And forsaking all others.” You also promised to:

To have and to hold
From this day forward,
For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
In sickness and in health,
To love and to cherish,
Until we are parted by death.

Did you mean it? Are you a person of your word? Then do what it takes to make your commitment firm and clear.

This is the way God loves us. God loves us with passion, intimacy and commitment. And because he loves us this way we can love others that way!

Genesis 2:18-25

The Problem

It is common knowledge today that half of all marriages end in divorce. What is shocking is that that statistic holds true even for Christian marriages. In addition, second marriages are failing at a rate approaching 70%.

A few years ago the State of Alabama reported that the average length of first marriages in that state was 9 years; the average went down 2 years for every subsequent marriage.

Cohabitation

In light of these statistics, many couples are opting for living together to avoid divorce. Cohabitation, however, has it own problems.

• the majority of couples break up after only 2 years
• twice as many cohabitating couples are conflicted than other couples
• cohabitating couples score lower on indicators of personal happiness and higher in the area of depression
• couples who cohabitate before marriage have a higher rate of divorce than other couples
• when those couples come for pre-marital counseling, they score lower in almost every area of the inventory

Obliviously cohabitation is not the answer to a lower divorce rate

Observations from Genesis

1. Marriage was God’s idea. Marriage is a gift from God it is meant to be a blessing
2. Marriage is for companionship. God created the woman so the man would have a companion compatible with him. Marriage is closest relationship possible for two people. They are to be “one flesh.” Husbands and wives are “heirs together of the grace of life.”
3. Marriage involves a new relationship. Couples leave the families of origin to establish a new family.
4. God intends marriage for our good. Marriage was the answer for something that was “not good.”

God’s goals for marriage

• Personal fulfillment. God wants the very best for us in marriage. God wants our marriages to be a source of happiness, joy and contentment.
• Personal Growth. Because marriage is the closest relationship possible between two people, it gives us great opportunities for growth. We can grow in perseverance, patience, forgiveness, servanthood, love and many other character qualities.
• A witness of God’s love to a broken world. Paul reminds us that the marriage relationship is an object lesson of the love that Christ has for the church. Our marriages have the potential to reveal Christ to others.

One answer to the problem of divorce is to rediscover God’s purposes for marriage and allow God to shape our character through our marriages.

Acts 2:1-4ff

In a world plagued by religious fanatics, many are prone to thing of the Holy Spirit as optional equipment for the Christian life. Jesus, however, makes the Holy Spirit absolutely necessary for the life and mission of the church (favor with all the people).

• Empower ministry ( healing, exorcisms, miracles)
• Teach and illuminate truth
• Convict of sin and the need for repentance
• Deepen and make fellowship possible
• Live upright lives in the community (favor with all the people)

The Holy was sent to enable the church to carry out its mission. That means if Woodbine is going to accomplish its God given mission, we, too must receive the enabling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will enable us to:

• Reach out in the name of Jesus
• Grow into the likeness of Jesus
• Live all for Jesus

How do we open ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit so we can accomplish the mission God has given us?

First we make sure that we have made Jesus the Lord of our lives and ask God to fill us with the Holy Spirit…then:
• Pray – continue to maintain our connection with Jesus
• We must spend time in the Word and apply what you learn so that we can continue to grow in our relationship with Jesus
• We must make ourselves available to used in ministry by the Holy Spirit. This is how we experience the power of the Holy Spirit in ministry

With this post I will begin to summarize the past Sunday’s sermon and talk about the action points. If you are a part of Exciting Woodbine feel free to comment and I will try to respond as often as I can. Not all comments will be posted online. I reserve the right to allow only those comments which will benefit us all.

The text from Joel 2:28-32 is one of several where God promises to send the Holy Spirit (Isa 32:15; Ezek 36:25-28). The prophet Joel was calling the people of Israel to repentance in preparation for the Day of the Lord. One of the blessings The Lord says he will grant is the giving of the Holy Spirit to young and old, male and female, slave and free. If we look closely, we will be able to discern some of the things we can do to prepare for Pentecost.

In the Sermon on May 20 I outlined three things we can do to get ready for Pentecost.

1. We get ready for Pentecost through repentance. Joel’s message was a message of repentance. “Rend your hearts and not your garments” Joel said. Repentance brings us to the point of humility we need in order to see our sin and for the Holy to move in our lives.

2. We get ready for Pentecost by allowing god to begin the restoration in our lives. When God points out sin in our lives in is not so he can gloat over how sinful we are, it is so that we will allow him to begin a work of restoration on our lives. In God’s eyes repentance in a means to an end and the end is reconciliation and restoration.

3. We get ready for Pentecost by giving God control of our lives. This means God wants to guide our live into fruitfulness. We often think of giving God control of the big areas, but maybe we need to start to give God control in the small things of our lives.

Four challenges as we prepare for Pentecost:

– Make prayer a priority

– Bring our brokenness to the Lord

– Ask God to restore us and change us

– Open ourselves to new opportunities

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Alan