Sermon Notes

“In All Things Showing Thyself”

By Parrish Lee

April 25^th, 2010

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Titus 2:7          …in all things showing thyself a pattern of good works…

            Last weekend our General Pastor’s daughter, Holly, got married in Virginia, and several of us went down there for that.  I want to talk about the blessing that I received on the trip.  It started before I even got in the car.  I rode down with Jeff Lynch and Jason Burton, and it could have been a real discouraging trip if they had come with bad attitudes, but they didn’t.  When we first started out, I went to sleep for about two hours.  When I woke up, we were getting gas, and I found out that they had gotten lost.  They had gone about half an hour out of the way, and had backtracked for half an hour, even though we had a GPS.  I could have gotten miffy about them getting lost, but when they told me about it, they had such genuine smiles, and they told me that they had a good time sharing and fellowshipping while I was asleep, so instead of getting miffy, I started getting jealous.  I slept through a move of God?

            I have an I-pod, with lots of MP3 files (songs) on it, and as we got going, the song, “Days of Elijah” started playing, and these two guys started worshipping along with the music.  I wasn’t about to miss my blessing, so I started worshipping, too.  Jason reminded us that the word “Christian” means to be Christ-like, and pointed out that he knows that saying that one is a Christian doesn’t necessarily mean much; it is important that one lives as a Christian.

            The wedding was beautiful.  They had columns of sand, and each set of parents poured two columns of sand into a new column, and then Holly and Jonathan poured those two columns of sand into a new column, to show that they were combining their lives together.  These young people wrote their own vows, and these vows humbled my life.  After the wedding, we noticed that the family’s car was still there, and Jeff suggested that we go check on them, to make sure that they were alright.  Now, we had been driving the night before, and we were all tired, but we went and checked on them, and that really blessed the family that we would care enough about them to do that.

            Sunday morning, Pastor Ulysse did the service.  He preached about 6 things that God hates, and seven are an abomination unto him, using a passage from Proverbs as his text. (To listen to Pastor Ulysse's sermon, click here)

Proverbs 6:19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

            He went on to talk about when God called Abraham out of Haran.

Genesis 12:1-4            …Abram was seventy and five…

            Abraham was old when God called him, but he didn’t use that as an excuse.  I’m sure Abraham would have rather started sooner, but he didn’t complain; he just did what God asked him to do.  God gave Abraham his blessing, but Abraham didn’t receive it yet.

Genesis 12:7-14          …Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well…

            Now, Sarai (before she was Sarah) was sixty-five, and he is saying to her, “Babe, you’re gorgeous.”  But he is afraid that if the Egyptians decide that they want her, they will kill him and just take her.  So, he has her tell a half-truth (because she was his half-sister), but, a half-truth is still a lie.

Genesis 18:9-14          …Is there anything too hard for the Lord?...

            This was about twenty years later, so she is close to ninety now.  She was there behind the tent door, but, because this is God speaking, she heard him.  She didn’t laugh out loud, she just laughed within herself, but God heard it.  God reproved her right then.  He didn’t let any time pass.

Genesis 20:1-7            …She is my sister.

            Here he is, after all this time, trotting out the same old half-truth.  Now, don’t misunderstand, this is the father of all nations; we don’t have anything on Abraham.  God loved Abraham even though he still didn’t have faith enough to believe that God would protect him so that He could keep His promise.

Genesis 20:8-11          …because I thought…

            There it is.  Abraham felt like he had to lie, because he thought.  Not because God told him to, not because an angel warned him that he should, but just because he thought.  In the meantime, how many blessings did Abraham prevent for the people of Egypt and Gerar?  You don’t know that some of the things that you do could cause other people not to achieve the will of God.

Genesis 20:17-21:3     … For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age…

            A lot of time went by, from the time that God gave Abraham the promise before Isaac was actually conceived.  Was it the half-truth that kept Isaac from being born?  It’s worth thinking about; you don’t want anything that you do to hold back your Isaac.

                             Sermon notes by Pete Shepherd