Love is Kind

Introduction
Yesterday, on September 11^th, many remembered what they were doing in 2001 when two planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, one crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth was brought down in a Pennsylvanian field by passengers who bravely fought back against hijackers.  I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing the morning of September 11^th.  A more hopeful memory comes from that evening when I attended a church services at North Point Community Church in Alpharetta.  We poured out lamentations for the death and destruction  caused by evil and we prayed for our country.  They cut in with a broadcast of  a brief message from President Bush on the screens in the church.  I was struck by how the President quoted Psalm 23 and his obvious faith in God that fortified his resolve to lead the nation through the crisis.  While the terrorists sought to destroy America, their evil act united us as we set aside all our differences and came together as Americans--at least for a few weeks. 

Twenty  years later, we are under attack from a different kind of enemy—a virus so small you cannot see it.  What’s more, we’ve been under attack for a year and a half.  People are weary.  We just want our world to go back to normal. Unfortunately, normal seems a long way off.  At this very moment, they are conducting a funeral at Salem Baptist Church for Rodney Lee, a beloved PE teacher from Varnell Elementary School, who died from COVID.  It is clear that we have not returned to normal yet. 

Will we ever return to normal?  I don’t know.  God hasn’t shared those details with me.  However, God has reminded me that what the world needs now, more than anything else, is love.  Whether we find ourselves under attack from terrorists or a virus, love is the answer.  Some may think it is just like a preacher to say something like that.  “What an empty, cliché!”  

Friends, don’t mistake my statement as froo froo, pie in the sky religious nonsense.  The love of which I speak is not some empty, worldly platitude.  The love of God described in the Bible is as deep as the ocean and more powerful than an atomic bomb.  It not only changes people, it changes generations and alters empires.  And biblical love, God’s love, is not the same as the love offered by the world. 

God’s love was demonstrated when Jesus died on the cross for our sins, not because we deserved it, but because we desperately needed God’s grace and forgiveness.  And so Jesus, God’s only son, who was perfect in every way, atoned for our sin.  Jesus died in our place, to pay the price for our sin, even though He was totally innocent.  In Christ, we see the picture of real love.  For he said in John 15:13, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” 

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 defines the kind of love Christ demonstrated, the kind of love that changes people and generations and empires.  It is the kind of love the world needs now and Christians are called to give at all times and to all people.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
⁴ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 

Kindness
Today, I want to focus on only the second element of divine love—love is kind.  Kindness is being friendly, generous, and considerate.  It’s not hard to understand kindness.  It’s so simple, even a child understands it.  The challenge with kindness is doing it and doing it to all people, even those who are unkind to you.  We get so wrapped up in ourselves it is hard to turn our gaze outward to others who need kindness.  When we struggle to meet our own needs and wants, who has the energy to be kind to someone else?  The ironic thing is that I find showing kindness to be energizing.  When I am depleted and show kindness, it doesn't empty me.  Somehow it fills me up. 

Jesus was kind.  In his day, like our own, they practiced strict social distancing.  In particular, you were not to come near anyone who was unclean.  While they weren’t worried about COVID-19 in the first century, there were many things that made a person unclean.  The most obvious was leprosy.  Leprosy is a contagious skin disease that causes severe, disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage in the arms, legs, and skin areas around your body.  Lepers were required to live apart from the rest of society, so as not to spread their disease to others.  While in quarantine, they couldn’t work normal jobs, couldn’t go to worship, and couldn’t visit with family and friends because that would make them unclean too and they would have to quarantine for 7 days—even if they didn’t get sick (see Leviticus 13).

Of course, being that Jesus lived in the first century, a time with little understanding about how to properly diagnose one disease from another, any skin disorder could be mislabeled as leprosy.  I have heard it said that even a teenager with severe acne could be labeled as a “leper” in first century Israel.  People were irrationally afraid of leprosy, because it was a social stigma as well as a legitimate health risk and it was something they didn't understand. 

Luke 5:12

¹² In one of the villages, Jesus met a man with an advanced case of leprosy. When the man saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground, begging to be healed. “Lord,” he said, “if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.”

Here was a leper who was required by law to stay away from people.  He was supposed to stand off at a distance whenever people came around and yell out a warning that he was “Unclean! Unclean!”  But this leper has already committed a social taboo by approaching Jesus.  He is desperate.  He begs Jesus to heal him.  And Jesus loves him and is kind.

Luke 5:13
¹³ Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared. 

The Antonine Plague (165-180 AD)
Jesus was the Son of God, imbued with miraculous power.  We might think it was easier for Him to put His health on the line by reaching out in kindness to touch and heal a leper.  Surely, God would not allow His only begotten Son to be infected by leprosy because of an act of kindness. But what of Jesus’ followers?  Are we to show similar acts of
kindness, even if it risks our own health? 

To be sure, Christ does not wish Christians to be cavalier with their life and health.  I believe Jesus would encourage American’s today to take proper precautions to limit the spread of COVID-19.  It is an act of kindness to the community to wear a mask, take a vaccine, and limit physical contact with others.  However, Jesus is clear that His followers are to be willing to suffer and even risk their lives for the sake of the Kingdom.  For Jesus said, “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.” (Matthew 10:39) 

Early Christians in the first century showed incredible loving kindness in the face of plagues far deadlier than COVID-19.  The Antonine Plague during the second century killed 1/3 of the population of the Roman Empire.  the plague, thought by modern historians to have been measles or smallpox, killed 25% of the people who contracted the disease.  Non-Christians Romans were so scared they fled from the infected cities, which merely spread the pandemic further because they took the disease with them wherever they fled.  Pagans abandoned their sick to die alone, while “the earliest Christians would stay and tend to the sick and dying, knowing full well that it would likely result in their own deaths. They showed works of unreasonable, sacrificial mercy that simply dumbfounded the pagans. In Rome, the Christians buried not just their own, but pagans who had died without funds for a proper burial. They also supplied food for thousands of people on a daily basis.”[i]  In another plague in the fourth century, the Emperor Julian, who was not a Christians, said pagan priests needed to act more like the Christians and show love and kindness.[ii]  

Christians’ loving kindness during the darkest plagues of disease and death during the Roman era  changed society so much that the Roman Empire itself adopted Christianity as the official religion in the fourth century.  Christian ideas about forgiveness, love, kindness, and sacrificial service changed Rome and the world forever. 

Two thousand years of Christian influence teaching people to love to the point of putting your own life on the line for the sake of others has left an indelible mark on our world—even among non-Christians.  It is Christian core values that led firefighter and first responders to rush toward the burning twin towers on September 11^th, putting their own lives at risk for the sake of others.  Whether they were Christian or not, whether they were conscious of it or not, their bravery and self-sacrifice traces roots back through the centuries to those early Christians and to Jesus himself, who died on the cross for the sake of a world who desperately needed His love, even though they didn't deserve it.  Some might think self sacrifice is a universal human trait.  It is not.  It was not normal for people to do this before Christ taught the world to do so by his teaching and his actions. 

If you are a follower of Christ, you are called to love one another and to exhibit Christ’s love to the world—even to your enemies.  Last week, we learned that Christian love is patient.  Today I tell you love is also kind. 

When I think of our world today, of how mean-spirited we are with one another, and how we are so quick to condemn and argue and accuse and think the worst of each other, when I think of I think of how we call each other names and demean those with whom we disagree and call people evil, it breaks my heart.  We are tearing each other apart.  We are destroying each other in way the 9/11 terrorist could not.  And self-professed Christians are sometimes the worst.  We must repent and do better.  We must follow Christ.

The Kindness Challenge
I challenge you to be more kind this week.  Make a commitment to be kind.  Start each day with a prayer that God would help you be kind.  The type of kindness real love requires is something beyond human capability.  It must be empowered by God’s Holy Spirit.  So choose today to follow Christ as your Lord that He may save you and fill you with His love. 

What are some practical things you could do this week to be kind?

• Write a note to someone to encourage them. 
• Pray for someone and pray that God would show you one way you could do something kind for them. Then do it.
• Buy for a stranger’s meal if you are out to eat.
• Offer to return a stranger’s grocery cart to the front of the store.
• Don’t take the closest parking spot in the parking lot. Leave it for someone else.
• Sponsor someone to receive and Operation Mercy Drops grant.
• Bring treats to your local fire station.
• If you use social media, use it to be kind to others. Wish someone a happy birthday. Say a kind or encouraging word to someone online. Be creative, but don't be mean.
• Be kind to yourself. Sometimes, we are our own harshest critics. Cut yourself some slack. Be kind to yourself.

What are some other things you can do to be kind this week? Share your ideas in the comments.

[i] https://midtowncolumbia.com/blog/early-christians-and-the-plague

[ii] https://biblemesh.com/blog/the-compassion-of-early-christians/

What the World Needs Now is Love (Love is Patient)

Introduction
One of the most cherished words in our world today is also one of the most misunderstood and misused words.  Love.  In 1965, Jackie DeShannon sang, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.  It's the only thing that there's just too little of.”  

I do believe love would solve the majority of our problems if we could learn to love one another.  This is the biblical message of the Christian faith.  However, the love that will change our world for the better must be the true kind of love that's defined by the Bible, the kind of love Jesus demonstrated as the core of God’s character.  In this message series over the next few weeks, I want to study the elements of the true, biblical love God has for us and that we are called to have for God and each other. 

True love, the kind of love God offers and that the world needs now, is clearly defined in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.  You may be familiar with this famous passage.  It is often read at weddings to teach newlyweds how to love one another.  However, this passage was not originally intended for weddings.  The Apostle Paul wrote this passage to reprimand the Corinthian church for all their bickering, division, and strife and to teach them how to treat one another. 

When I think of how divided our world is today, how we argue with one another over politics and vaccinations and wearing or not wearing masks, I think these are words about love we need more than ever.  What the world needs now, is love, sweet love.  It’s the only thing, that there’s just too little of.  But the kind of love we need, is written in God’s Word in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. 

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful,
and endures through every circumstance.

Love is Patient
Today, I want to focus on only the first part of the first sentence of verse 4 – Love is patient. 

Patience is the ability to tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.  True patience means having a good, loving attitude even in the midst delay, trouble, suffering.  It is a weak, feeble patience that is constantly complaining and crying “woe is me!” the whole time they endure trouble.  A person with real patience has a good, positive attitude while they endure. 

Patience is an essential element of real Christian love.  It is the patience Jesus demonstrated on the cross as he endured the suffering and shame of crucifixion.  As the angry crowd mocked him and spat upon him, Jesus prayed for His enemies, “Father, please forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)  Jesus was able to be patient because Jesus is God and God is love and love is patient.  Jesus told a parable about God's patient, unconditional love.

Luke 15:11-12
11 To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them
this story: “A man had two sons. 12 The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.

God is Patient
The father of the story is incredibly patient.  He agrees to his son's request even though the son basically said, "I wish you were already dead so I could have my inheritance now."  You see, this callous son doesn't really see his father as a human being worthy of love and respect, with whom he wants a relationship. To the son, the father is just a means to an end--something to use up and then leave.  

Many people see God like that.  God is merely there to serve our needs--to give us what we want or what we need or help us out of trouble.  We don't see God as someone worthy of our respect and love and adoration.  How rude we are with God! 

God is extremely patient with us.  Right now, I feel like people simply are not focused on God. Going to church is not a priority for people in our world. While Christians in Afghanistan risk there lives just to believe in Christ and worship Him, Christians in America can hardly bother going to church.  Even among “Christians”, people are not really interested in God.  God is not the first priority in people’s lives. He’s not even the second or third priority. He’s much farther down the list.  People say:

"Maybe I’ll go to church if I don’t have a trip planned."

"Maybe I'll go if my son doesn’t have a baseball game."

"Maybe I'll go if I'm not too tired (because I stayed out too late on Saturday night to make it to a church service that doesn't start until 11 AM)."

And so out of four Sundays in a month, a typical family may only attend church one or two times. (And this is a Christian family that claims they follow Jesus as their Lord and that God is the top priority in their life!)

This doesn't even touch on the subjects of attending Sunday school or Bible study (where you really dive deep in your faith) or serving or your prayer life or tithing (which is giving 10% of your income as the minimum financial contribution to the work of God’s Kingdom), or actually living out Chritian values in a secular world even if it puts you at odds with the culture around you.

Of course, some will say, “Preacher, you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian. And just because you aren’t sitting in a pew every Sunday, doesn’t mean you aren’t focusing on your relationship with God.”  OK, that is theoretically true.  So what are you doing? If you are not attending church, how much time are you focusing on your walk with Christ?

For the average person in America who claims to be a Christian, but doesn’t attend church because “they can be a Christian and not attend church”, how are you staying focused? Who is holding you accountable to Jesus? What are you doing on a daily and weekly basis to worship, serve, fellowship with other believers?  How are you diving deeper and deeper into the most important relationship in your existence, the one for which you were literally created? 

For you who are "Christian" but not regularly attending church, where is the road you are traveling leading? Where is it leading the next generation?  Do you think you children and grandchildren are going to continue to be focused on God and the Christian values you say you believe in (things like love and forgiveness and patience) if you can’t even bother to go to God’s house regularly on Sunday mornings?

What is going to become of the institutional church?  What will the world be like without it?  

Usually, it isn’t until people experience some crisis or tragedy that they regain some of their focus on God and His Church. Nothing gets people praying and seeking God’s help like a diagnosis of cancer or a financial disaster.  However, when life’s good and our belly’s are full, we don’t want to celebrate and worship the Lord. We wanna go have some fun doing whatever we want to do so we forget about God.

God is extremely patient with us. He gives us our blessings and puts up with us while we ignore Him. He patiently waits for us to come to our senses—either because of some disaster or epiphany where we finally wake up from our sinful, selfish attitude.

Luke 15:13-16
13 “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. 14 About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. 15 He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. 16 The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.

17 “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, 19 and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’

 
20 “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. 21 His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’

22 “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. 23 And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, 24 for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.

The True Meaning of the Parable
In case you didn’t know, this story is about God and us.  The Father in this story is God.  The son who ran away and then returned home represents a lot of the people in this world who turn their back on God.  The Father in the story (God) is able to welcome His wayward son home because of His patience.  You see, the Father wasn’t bad-mouthing His wayward son the whole time He was gone.  He continued to love His son, even though His son didn’t deserve it.

If the father wasn’t patient, He would be much be much more apt to be angry when His son retuned.  He would be much more prone to say “I told you so! I told you this was gonna happen!”  But we see none of that in this story.  The Father sees His son coming while he is still a long way off and He runs out to greet His son and welcome him home.  There’s no hint of anger or smug vindication in His attitude.  The Father loves the son and is genuinely and completely glad His wayward son has come home.

That’s the kind of patience we are called to have as we love one another. You see, that is truly what the world needs now—love, sweet love. Love that is patient when people don’t do the right thing.  Not an attitude of “See!  I told you so! I was right!  You were wrong!”

That’s the arrogant, mean spirited attitude the other brother has in the story--the older brother, the so-called “good” brother.

Luke 15:25-30
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, 26 and he asked one of the servants what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’

28 “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, 29 but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. 30 Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’

No Patience
The older brother is not like his Father.  He has no patience for his younger brother’s foolishness.  He is angry—not just at his brother, but also at his Father.  There is no love in his heart.  He hates his brother.  What does he want?  Would he have preferred his brother had starved to death in that foreign land and never returned?  That's how it seems.

When you think of the people with which you’ve lost patience for one reason or another, what do you want for them?  Do you really want them to get what they deserve?  Would you like to be a able to stand over them with smug indignation saying, “I told you so!”  If someone doesn't get vaccinated and get's very sick or dies from COVID, do you want to be able to wag your finger at them and scream, "I told you so!"  If someone does get vaccinated and then has complications, do you want to be able to stare at them indignantly and say "See!  I was right and you were wrong!"  And what of the billions of people who do not follow Christ, who think he is just a myth and you are an idiot for believing in Jesus?  Do you want to see them burning in Hell just so you can laugh at them and feel good about yourself because you did “the right thing” and you were a “good person” and they are getting what they deserve?

That's not patience.  That's not love.

Luke 15:31-32
31 “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. 32 We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”

Still Waiting
When Jesus told this story, he wisely didn’t tell us how it ends.  Does the older brother finally get it?  Does he also “come to his senses” and realize he’s being unloving and is just as much at fault as his rash younger brother?  Jesus doesn’t tell us the end of the story because you and I will be the ones who finish it.  We finish it by the way we choose to live. 

Closing

And God patiently waits.
How will you respond today?·
Do you need to come to your senses and start truly putting God first in your life?
Do you need to come to your senses and repent of your own smugness, realizing you are no better than anyone else?
Do you need to learn to truly love people by being more patient?

The Names of God - Alpha and Omega

Introduction
We have covered quite a few names for God.  In this series, we have studied 12 and today we will look at one more.  If we were to look at every name or title for God, we could go on for years.  One website I found list 950 names for God from the Bible.[i]

There is only One God, in three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  But because God is so important and His character is infinite and people have experienced Him in so many ways, we know God by many, many names.  Don’t ever forget, though, that every name refers to the One True and Living God revealed in Scripture from the very first verse of Genesis at the beginning of the Bible to the last verse of Revelation at the end.  All of Scripture is the story of the One God who created us and saved us, whom we will worship for all eternity.

Let us read together a passage that reveals one more important name for God.

Revelation 1:7-8
⁷ Look! He comes with the clouds of heaven.
    And everyone will see him—
    even those who pierced him.
And all the nations of the world
    will mourn for him.
Yes! Amen!

⁸ “I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,” says the Lord God. “I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.”

Alpha and Omega
There are 24 letters in the Greek alphabet.  The very first letter is Alpha.  The word alphabet we use to describe our own ABCs, actually comes from the first letter of the Greek alphabet—Alpha—and the second letter—Beta.  These two words or letters are combined to give us Alpha-Bet to designate our 26 letters—A-Z.  The Greek alphabet only has 24 letters, the first is Alpha and the last is Omega.

You may realize doctors and scientists are using the Greek alphabet to name variants of the COVID-19 virus.  The variant all over the news right now is the Delta variant.  Delta is the 4^th letter of the Greek alphabet, which indicates it is the 4^th variant of this virus.  There was the original COVID-19 out of Wuhan, China.  Then there was Alpha (the first variant) out of the UK.  Beta came from South Africa.  Then Gama was first identified in Brazil. 

The Delta Variant is a far more infectious and faster growing variant than the others.  That is why it Delta is causing more sickness and spreading more rapidly.  But if Delta is the 4^th letter in the Greek alphabet, are there more variants coming? 

According to Alvin Powel of the Harvard Gazette, a publication of Harvard Medical School, “Variants have continued to develop and spread since the emergence of delta. The World Health Organization has designated variants Eta, Iota, Kappa, and Lambda “variants of interest” and is tracking 13 additional variants that originated in the U.S., Brazil, the Philippines, Indonesia, Colombia, and other nations.”[ii] 

It would seem, we are going to be living with COVID-19 for a while.  The verdict is still out on how well we will live with COVID.  Will future variations of this virus be less lethal?  Will the human immune system evolve to be better equipped to handle this illness?  Or will a future version of COVID be more deadly than anything we have seen so far? 

I wish we knew the answers to these questions, but human understanding is limited.  All we know is what we know and all we can do is do our best.  Thankfully, we have some treatments that help people heal and we have vaccines that—after over 350 million vaccinations in America—has proven itself to be safe and effective.  Nothing is perfect, but you are more likely to be struck by lightning than have a life-threatening reaction to the COVID vaccination.  And the vaccines are over 80% effective in warding off COVID or greatly reducing the severity of the illness.  I think the hope is that if enough people are vaccinated, we can slowdown the spread and mutation of the virus so that future variants won’t have a chance to take hold and get out of control.  If we can do that, then maybe the virus will become something like a common cold.

But I’m not here to talk about COVID.  My purpose is to talk about God.  And in Revelation 1:8 the Lord God says He is the “Alpha and Omega—the beginning and the end”.  God is the first and last and everything in between.  While we forget what happened yesterday and we don’t know what might happen tomorrow, God knows it all perfectly.  We have no control over what tomorrow brings, but God is in control of it all.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the one who is and always was and is still yet to come.

God Always Was…
Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

God existed before the world was created.  Before there was a thing called earth or heaven, before there was light or darkness, before there was time, God was.  And though He needed nothing, out of love God created a beautiful planet with mountains and oceans and plants and animals and people.  And God saw that it was very good. 

Unfortunately, people didn’t love God the way He loves us.  We rebelled and tried to make life all about us and what we wanted.  Even though a loving relationship with God is all we needed to be truly happy and fulfilled, we turned our backs on God and chased our own selfish dreams.  But God didn’t turn His back on us.  From the very beginning, God has been working to save us from ourselves.  And throughout the pages of the Bible, we can clearly see God working to bring us back to Him.

• God called Noah and his family to enter the ark and leave behind a world that had become overwhelmed by evil and to make a fresh start in a new world.[iii] 
• God called Abraham to leave his country and go to a new land where God would make Abraham the father of a great nation and a blessing to all the families of the earth.[iv]
• God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery into the Promised Land to be a holy nation, dedicated to God.[v]
• And the greatest example of all is Jesus Christ.  Jesus called people to accept the relationship God offers them. 

Before the world began, God already knew you and knew you would be sitting here in this sanctuary right now, with all your personal concerns swirling around in your head—fears, anxieties, hopes, dreams, disappointments.  God already knew about all the things that would be overwhelming us today.  We might feel overwhelmed, but He is not.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.  God always was and…

God Is…
“Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.” (Romans 8:34)

I don’t know what you were thinking when you decided to come to church today.  I don’t know what you are thinking right now, but I know what Jesus is doing right now.  This Scripture tells me Jesus, the one who was with God in the beginning and who is God, the one who healed the sick, brought sight to the blind, the one who made the deaf to hear and the lame to walk, the one who never sinned, but was crucified to atone for our sins, Jesus is pleading to God on your behalf right this very moment.

God is.  God is right this moment, extending His grace and forgiveness to you.  Right this very moment, God is ready to welcome all who sincerely repent and trust Jesus as Lord.  Right now, God is ready to grant you the gift of eternal life with Him where there will be no more sickness or sorrow or death, where every tear shall be wiped away and every hurt will be healed.  God is here, right now.  Won’t you turn to Him while there is still time?  I sincerely hope you will, because…

God is Still to Come…
“Yes, I am coming soon!” (Revelation 22:20)
Jesus promised us He would come again

After Jesus rose from the tomb, he spent 40 days with his disciples and then he ascended to Heaven where he sits at the right hand of God in the place of highest honor, pleading for you.  When Jesus ascended into Heaven, He promised he would return.  (See John 14:3)  Two white robed, angelic figures confirmed Jesus promised return to the Disciples in Acts 1:11. “Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!”

Some critics and skeptics scoff that Jesus hasn’t “returned in the clouds” in nearly 2,000 years.  I can assure you of this, you will meet Jesus face to face in your lifetime.  Either Jesus will come in the clouds for the whole world all at once or Jesus will come for you personally when you take your last breath.

Revelation 1:7 tells us, “Look! He comes with the clouds of heaven. And everyone will see him—even those who pierced him. And all the nations of the world will mourn for him.”

Everyone will face Jesus one day.  Will you rejoice to see Jesus, or will you mourn?  Will you be overwhelmed by love or fear and dread?  Will you spend eternity in paradise, rejoicing with your loved ones and celebrating with a feast or will you spend eternity suffering the tortuous separation from God, the Source of Life, in what the Bible variously describes as “the outer darkness”, the lake of fire, the second death, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teethe?  It is the place most commonly known as Hell.

 

God is still to come and whether that is an incredible good thing or and incredibly bad thing depends upon the choice you make today.

 

For God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come.

Choose to Follow Jesus as Lord Today

I hope you will choose today, right now, to follow Jesus as Lord.  Then you won't have to dread the day Jesus comes in the clouds.  He will be your Lord and you will be forgiven and welcome into God's perfect presence where you will live in paradise for eternity.  

If you would like to make that choice today, pray this prayer and believe it in your heart.

Pray...

"Lord, come in and take control of my life.  I surrender to You.  I recognize that You are the true Lord of all and You deserve my full allegiance.  I want to give my allegiance to you from this day forward.  Lord, please forgive me for my sins.  Wash me clean and give me a fresh start so that I can live for You from this day forward, with the help of Your Holy Spirit.  I know that Jesus is Your precious Son who died on the cross for my sins.  I trust Him to forgive me.  Thank you for giving me eternal Christ, for His names sake.  Now, let me live all my days as Your precious child. Amen."

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[i] https://christiananswers.net/dictionary/namesofgod.html#a

[ii] https://hms.harvard.edu/news/present-future-covid-variants

[iii] Genesis 6:5-13

[iv] Genesis 12:3

[v] Exodus 3:10

The Names of God - Advocate

Introduction
So far, we’ve covered quite a few names for God in the Bible.  I hope this series has helped you know God better—not just know about Him, but actually know Him.  It is never enough to know about Him.  God wants you to know Him, personally.  It is one thing for you to know about a person; we know about many people.  But when you know a person, it’s like you have dinner with them and sit around the living room talking about their life until late in the night.  You tell them all about your life and they tell you about there’s.  Even more than that, you really get to know a person when they come rescue you when your car breaks down, or when you are sick in the hospital and they take your children to school for you while you’re having surgery.  When you live life with someone—when they are at your wedding and the birth of your child and in the good times and the bad times and everything in between, then you really know them.  And this is the kind of relationship God wants with us all.  He knows us and He wants us to know Him.  And the names for God, which He reveals in Scripture, show us different ways He is there with us and who He is to us.  And I hope this series has helped you see some of the ways God is there.

Our name for God today is Advocate.

John 14:15-17a
¹⁵ “If you love me, obey my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. ¹⁷ He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.

1 John 2:1
¹ My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous.  ² He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.

Paraclete
Who would you call to help you if you were in really big trouble?  Imagine something terrible happens.  I mean, suppose you are driving through the Kroger parking lot and a 4-year-old kid dashes out in front of your car before you even have a chance to react.  And you hear that awful sound—kadunk…  You immediately stop and get out of the car and see the horrible sight of a mangled child.  It wasn’t your fault.  You had no chance to stop.  There was nothing you could do, but none of that matters to the crowd gathering around.  You mind is swirling and the mother is screaming.  The crowd is angy.  All they see is broken child, a devastated mother, and you and your car.  Someone yells “He was probably texting and driving!”  You weren’t. Your phone was in your pocket, but it doesn’t matter.  The mob wants someone to blame for this senseless tragedy.  They blame you.  The police arrive.  They take you to jail…  Who would you call?  Who would be on your side and fight for you no matter what?

I hope you never get in a situation like that.  But if you do, you will need friends who love you unconditionally.  You will need a good lawyer who will fight for you.

I say all this because it steers our thinking towards one of God’s most beautiful names—Advocate.  In John 14:16, Jesus said, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.”  The Greek word for Advocate is Paraclete.  It literally means, “Called to one’s side.” 

In the ancient world, a paraclete (advocate) was the person you would call to defend you before a judge. They would plead your case and fight for you with every means possible.  In our day, you would hire the best lawyer you can afford.  We have seen in our time the difference between having a high paid lawyer as opposed to a public defender (that the court appoints for those who can’t afford a lawyer). 

Public defenders are notorious for providing bad defense.  It’s not necessarily that they are bad lawyers.  It’s just they are overworked, underpaid, and understaffed.  You are just another name on a long list of clients they have to defend.  On the other hand, we have seen how a really rich person might hire a brilliant lawyer who’s only job is to defend their one high-paying client, and they do it so well their client might even get away with murder.  Having the right advocate can make all the difference.

And Jesus says, “I will ask my Father (God) and He will give you an Advocate.”  The God of the Universe gives us an Advocate.  The Advocate is the Third Person of the Trinity—God the Holy Spirit.
When we decide to follow Jesus as our Lord, the Holy Spirit comes to live in our hearts.  He is there fighting for you, encouraging you, defending you, advising you, guiding you every step of the way.  Isn't it good to know that even if the whole world is against you, God the Holy Spirit is on your side?

Prevenient Grace
The Holy Spirit was there fighting for you before you even know He was there.  We celebrate the prevenient grace of God whenever we baptize and infant.  Sometimes people think the practice of infant baptism is peculiar.  They wonder why we would baptize a person before they can consciously understand what Jesus has done for them.  One reason we do infant baptism is specifically because represents how the Holy Spirit is working on our behalf before we even know or understand.  Parents present their child to God for baptism and ask the Holy Spirit to pour grace into the child and the parents and the church to help raise the child until they are old enough to accept Christ for themself and complete the baptism at confirmation.  Then they will recognize all that God has done for them through so many people and in so many ways.

All of my children were baptized as infants.  They will never know all the people who prayed for them, helped them, babysat them, and blessed them through the years.  All these people were instruments of the Holy Spirit to help them and give them every possible chance to grow up know CHrist and His love so that they were able to accept Jesus for themselves when they were old enough to understand what it means to be a Christian.

But suppose you were an orphan and didn't have a family or a church showing you the Holy Spirit's grace all through your childhood.  I want you to know that when no one else is there for you, God is the for you personally.  Deuteronomy 10:18 says, "[God] ensures that orphans and widows receive justice. He shows love to the foreigners living among you and gives them food and clothing."  Psalm 10:14 says, "The helpless put their trust in [God]. You defend the orphans."

When you are helpless and you have no one fighting for you, God is fighting for you personally as the Holy Spirit--opening doors, providing for needs, bringing people into your life to help.  God makes this happen, because God has a deep compassionate heart for the least, the last, the forgotten, and the lost. Read the stories of the Scripture and you will see Him there time and time again for the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, the leper, the lame, and the social outcast.

The Holy Spirit is there fighting for us to bring us to know God—even before we are thinking of God.

Justifying Grace
And then one day, we realize all that God has done for us, even though we haven’t been living for Him.  We see how Jesus died on the cross to save us from our own selfishness and when we cry out, “Lord, forgive me!  I want to start following You know. Come, take control of my life!”  

In the moment, the Devil is there prosecuting you before God.  The Devil lays out all the charges against you about all the ways you’ve sinned and hurt people and turned your back on God.  Thankfully, the Holy Spirit steps in on your behalf and defends/justifies you.  This is called the justifying grace of God.  The Holy Spirit says, “All these sins have been paid for by the blood of Christ shed on the cross.”

However, the Devil is relentless.  He doesn't give up.  The Devil says, “Yes! But she’s not going to be true.  She’s a sinful human!  She will say she’s gonna follow you today, but tomorrow or the next day or the day after that, she will sin again!”

So, the Holy Spirit says, “ALL of her sins are paid in full—her sins from the past; her sins today; and every sin she might do in the future.  ALL her sins are swallowed up by Christ’s death on the cross.  They are atoned.  They are forgiven.  They are washed away by the blood fo Christ, forever!”

Then God will look at you and pronounce: “You is innocent.  I see no sin in you.  I see only Christ in you.  You are completely justified, forever!"

Sanctifying Grace
It doesn't stop there.  Now, the new Christian has to rebuild their life as a new creation patterned after Jesus their Lord.  God has proclaimed them innocent, but now they have to live a new way—for the old has passed and the new has begin.  How will a person know how to live as a Christian?  Howe will they actually do it if they know how?  Jesus was there showing his 12 disciples and helping them every day.  Who is walking with us today showing us how to live?

Jesus told His disciples how this would work.  In John 14:26, He said, “When the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.” 

So this is another function of the Holy Spirit, our Advocate.  The Holy Spirit shows us how to live for God and the Holy Spirit empowers us to live holy lives.  If we listen with sensitive spiritual ears, the Holy Spirit is there to guide us and show us what to do, how to live, which way to go.  Our Advocate not only helps us understand what the Bible says, He also empowers us to live it out in every day life, in every situation.  The Advocate is Wisdom that knows the right thing to do, in the right way, at the right time, for the right reasons.  If you will respond to the Holy Spirit's guidance, you will live the way God wants you to and you will be more like Christ and you will bring glory to God thorugh the power of the Holy Spirit.

It’s Time to Follow Jesus
And so today, I offer you a chance to make a choice to become a follower of Christ—a true Christian.  I want you to realize the God was there with you—in the Holy Spirit—the whole time. Even if you couldn’t see Him.  Even if there was no one to tell you about Him or show Him to you, He was there opening doors, guiding your steps, using your decisions and the people in your life and every  circumstance (both good and bad) to lead you to know Him and His love.  Now, it is time to trust Him, to proclaim Jesus the Lord of your life.  It is time to choose to follow Christ.

If you would like to become a Christian today, I invite you to pray this prayer:

"Lord, come in and take control of my life.  I surrender to You.  I recognize that You are the true Lord of all and You deserve my full allegiance.  I want to give my allegiance to you from this day forward.  Lord, please forgive me for my sins.  Wash me clean and give me a fresh start so that I can live for You from this day forward, with the help of Your Holy Spirit.  I know that Jesus is Your precious Son who died on the cross for my sins.  I trust Him to forgive me.  Thank you for giving me eternal Christ, for His names sake.  Now, let me live all my days as Your precious child. Amen."