Good Morning, Good Morning my brothers and my sisters and welcome to the Churchtown church of God and our bi-weekly livestream, “Turning On the Lights!”
Today is a little bit of this and a little bit of that – and then we begin our dive into Jesus teaching through parables. We begin in Mark, chapter 4 and discuss not only the, “Parable of the Sower,” but the purpose of parables in general! I pray that this teaching both strengthens and Challenges you in your faith. May God bless you and keep you and, as always, Keep looking up!
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, June 11, 2024. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, June 11, 2024. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – June 11, 2024
Good morning, good morning, my brothers and my sisters. Welcome to the Church Town Church of God. You’re looking live at the choir loft. In which we mostly play music, you see all the music stands up there and you see the piano and the clavinova there in front and there’s a little tripod that I’ll get you guys set up on. I’m just sitting in the front view a little late this morning trying to figure out Facebook, trying to figure out some things, but here we are turning on the lights. This is the church. This is the sanctuary. Open the door and see all the people wait church and then up there is the steeple. If you open up the door on Sunday, you’ll see all the people. That’s the way the rhyme goes. Good morning, good morning, good morning, everybody. Church Town Church of God 351 Old Stonehouse Road South, Boiling Springs PA. How can it be the Church Town Church of God and be in Boiling Springs PA? Well, you all know that story. Church Town doesn’t really exist. We call it the village of Church Town, but the actual church town that is a town in Pennsylvania is in Lancaster. Can’t do anything about that. We call it the village of Church Town. That is its traditional name. You’ll see signs welcome to the village of Church Town, but we have Boiling Springs addresses right up there. We have the mechanics, Berg addresses right over there. You have Carlisle addresses. We have a Boiling Springs address, but we’re in Monroe Township, which is Cumberville Valley School District, Carlisle School District, Boiling Springs right up there, mechanics, Berg. Confused little town, a town that doesn’t really exist. It was Allen at one time because they wanted their own town. They wanted their own zip code. As a matter of fact, the remnants of the old post office are still here. So I don’t know exactly when, but sometime mid 20th century, they changed the name to Allen and they got their own zip code and all of that stuff, but nobody was really pleased with the name Allen. It wasn’t Allen. It was Church Town. I still have some memorabilia from the church where it talks about the Church Town, Church of God, Allen PA, which makes even less sense. Well maybe it makes about the same amount of sense. I have some plates up there. Church Town, Church of God, Allen PA. So the folks didn’t like that. They said, let’s just call ourselves Church Town and we’ll be whatever. And I’m, I’m all for that. That’s a little rebellious, you know, rebellious. You can’t call us Boiling Springs. You can’t call us mechanics, but you can’t call us Carlisle. We’re going to call ourselves Church Town. You do what you want. I like that. So the Church Town, Church of God is in Church Town PA, but not really in Church Town PA. Now that we’re thoroughly confused. Thought we would start off a little bit of summertime activity looking at the parables of Jesus. How about that for a transition? Pretty good transition, right? Probably not. We’ve got a council prayer this evening, but I actually, good morning, mom. I’m actually going on a motorcycle ride. Don’t tell anybody. I know probably could have picked a better day, but seven degrees in overcast, 70 degrees in overcast aren’t really bad riding conditions. If you’re riding at night when the sun is low in the sky and you’re heading west and you got that beaming in your eyeballs. So some of the boys and I, we’re going to take off tonight, head up McClure’s Gap Road and see what kind of trouble we can get into in the mountains. I’m looking forward to it. Lord Jesus, we pray that your word will be heard this morning. It is in your name that we pray for your wisdom, your purpose and your power according to your will in Jesus name. Amen. Feeling good this morning. Overall, the weather’s weird. Is it 70? A couple of days, it’s supposed to be 91. Next week is supposed to be 99, a hundred degrees. Will it be 70 again? We, I was just reading or listening to the conclusion of Job this morning and just as I am complaining about the weather, go and read the final chapters of Job when God lays the smack down on Job and Job repents and realizes he didn’t know what he was talking about. In those chapters that he was complaining and talking about challenging God and wanting to confront God and tell him how righteous he was and all of these different things. God says, puts him in his place and Job says, you’re right. I was wrong. I don’t know anything. You’re in charge. So times like this when I’m like complaining about the weather, I think, okay, keep on complaining. I’m going to get a smack down like Job got a smack down. I don’t need that. I know God is sovereign. I’m just an idiot like most human beings whining and complaining to God about things that he is sovereign over the good, the bad, all of it. We had a prayer request yesterday. You know, I pray that God’s hand is in this and it’s a court case regarding Title Nine and can transgender women receive all of the same benefits that women should receive under the collegiate Title Nine that says basically women have the same opportunities as men. Well, what about men who are pretending to be women? Well, that’s in the court case. Pray that God’s hand is in this. God’s hand is in it. God’s leadership is in it. The point that I made was that what we as Christians must be aware of is that he may be leading in the judgment of this nation because we have such godless leadership. We may be experienced in the judgment of God by allowing this godless wicked leadership, which most of it is, and this has nothing to do, right, to do what they do. And there’s your judgment. You look at Romans, you look at the judgment of God that is presented in the New Testament. We know that the judgment of God has to do with God leaving us to our own devices. And so here he goes, leaving America to her own devices under the guidance of wicked demonic leadership. So yeah, he has his hand in it. But good Christian take heart. We also read all throughout scripture that those who will remain faithful to the gospel, those who will not deny Christ in this world regardless, those who live as disciples of Christ and praise the name of Jesus Christ, those who persevere to the end will be saved. So again, God is sovereign. He is sovereign. He’s sovereign over everything that’s going on. And that’s people say, you don’t care about Paul. Oh yeah, I do. I believe that this nation was created under the precepts, biblical precepts of individual liberties and free will. I believe that it was created as close to a true representative republic as can possibly be created here on earth with limited government, viewing government as a necessary evil and limiting it, absolutely hamstringing it. First time in history, absolutely revolutionary. The great experiment, all of those things. But humans are humans and power corrupts and money and power always glom together and you need more and you want more and you need more and you want more and that’s been every government in the history of humankind. Ours is no different. We are at that tipping point and we know that. So yeah, care and I do my civic duty and I try to stay educated and I learned my history and I don’t want to repeat it. All of those things. I’ll teach and preach to anybody who wants to hear. Good morning, Josh, about our great republic and the great experiment that it was and a little bit still is, but it’s under a larger umbrella. My friends, it is a part of human history that God has his mighty right hand guiding. So I do all of the things as an American citizen and I, I educate, I want to learn, I want to know, I want to vote accordingly, do the very best I can make the very best choices that I can based on the information that I have in this state of the union as it is. But I know that God is sovereign and whether he is leading us into a redemption, shall we say, in a renewal of the republic or whether he is leading us into his judgment and the destruction of the republic, God is sovereign. He said, well, you don’t get all worked up. Well, I don’t get all worked up because I know that as we read in first John four last Sunday that our, the love of God is demonstrated in our salvation and that salvation is the cornerstone of our existence as children of God and it is the treasure. There are no treasures stored up here on earth. All of that is your one heartbeat away from being somebody else’s problems and believe you me, I know all about that. One heartbeat away from all of your stuff being somebody else’s junk. The treasure is our salvation. Well, that’s kind of a fatalist. No, it’s not. It’s not fatalist at all. It is the cornerstone of the power and the love of God that empowers me to live and enjoy my children. We have younger couples in the church that have been married and are having children, older couples that have been married forever and enjoying themselves and themselves and their marriage and their later years and demonstrating all. We have yes to all live life, live your life. Understand however, that regardless of whether for circumstance, great or not so great that you’re going through, the cornerstone of who you are is who you are in Christ. You want to leave a legacy, leave behind some disciples of Christ who you will see again. That’s a legacy. Oh, reaction. I don’t know. Since Facebook just gave me some wacko message. So I wanted to begin to take a look at parables. It’s already eight 40 and I went off on a little socio political commentary there, but I don’t want people to be afraid. I said so many folks have made politics their religion or have made all of this sectionalism, right? Sectionalism is a Marxist ideology that says to separate all of the society into various sections, various groups, and then set them against one another. All groups are supposed to hate one another or perhaps these groups glom together and hate these groups over, but it’s based on disunity and hatred. We know that that is straight from hell because God is the God of love. God is love and unity, father, son, Holy Spirit. So the exact opposite that we see, and then we are sucked into that. Are we not? We’re sucked into that. It’s very easy to be sucked into that. And I know a lot of people, Christian and otherwise for whom their religion is their politics or religion of the socio social condition and the social conditioning and all the things that are happening and are called that becomes their religion. And they, they, they, they’re obsessed with that. It is an idol with which they are obsessed. And perhaps if they’re Christian, they say, well then God says this about that. That’s no, God says this. I am creator. I am Redeemer. I am sustainer of the universe. And if you will have me of you as well, trust me. All that other junk being thrown in our face and God says, trust me, have some faith. Oh ye of little faith. And we’re like, Oh, Oh, Oh, okay. No it’s okay. You’ve got this. I know that I’m partnering with you by the power of your Holy Spirit, that your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, whatever that may mean. But I know you’ve got this and I trust you and I love you and I’m rolling with you. There are 12 main parables in scripture. How do you transition from one topic to another? The Bible study portion of today, I really wanted to look at parables all as we move through scripture in particularly the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Matthew, good morning, Mary. I hope you are feeling better. May the Lord be with you. May he instill his Holy Spirit within you to cure the illness with which you are suffering right now. I mean that you will recover quickly and be back with us sooner rather than later in Jesus name. And when Jesus tells parables and of course is the master parables, did I say parables? I have done that my entire ministerial career. Parabelles. I don’t know. It’s one of those mental things. And I said it during sermons and every in paper, like I’m defending papers in seminary parabelles parables, Jesus teaches in parables. He is the master parable teacher, teller creator, obviously. And the parables of Jesus are so rich and so layered and so deep. You could probably spend a month or more on each one of them just unpacking the various layers and what it meant then at that time, what it means now at this time, what it means spiritually in terms of faith and the Holy God, what it means spiritually in terms of spiritual warfare between the good and the evil of this world, what it means practically in terms of your behavior as a disciple of Christ, we could go on and on with the parables. We talk about that often when we talk about scripture, whenever we talk about prophecy, we talk about the many layers of prophecy and we look at the prophets and we read what is being said at the time. And of course, you know, Babylon may be invading and that is the current time, but there is so rich and so layered and there is so much relevance, of course, for then, right? As one of the prophets is running around saying, repent, right? The kingdom of God, God’s going to bring judgment. You must repent. If you don’t repent, then the Syrians are going to invade and destroy you. Repent. And they don’t repent. And this, and it happens and so on and so forth. We read the relevance for that time. We read the relevance for this time. We read the spiritual implications, the practical implications, not that parables or prophecy, but you see the parallels in the teachings. So much teaching compacted into a story. Let me tell you a story about a farmer who sows seed in his field. Simple story. But as we know the context of that story and we know who is telling it and we know all of the things surrounding it, we understand it to be much more than a story. We’re going to start with that story. It is in all three of the synoptic gospels, the parable of the sower, and we may just get to that part of it this morning before we pick it back up. I may pick up this theme in the church town weekly. Last week we were all over the church weren’t we? We talked about love and we talked about forgiveness and we talked about right and wrong and discernment. We talked all kinds of different things. We’ve been having a good time here, but I think I’m going to work on parables moving forward for the next several weeks. I’ve been fascinated now. I’ve been stuck. You ever get stuck like guided in your reading? I do a lot of different readings of scripture. I want to be soaked in scripture as they say, so I read and I think and I read and I think and then boom, like first john just grabbed me and the lord said, you’re preaching first john. I said, okay, I’ll preach in first john. And so we preached first john and we’re going to be finishing that up this week and I think parables is where we’re going next. I haven’t gotten to any. What time are you guys having fun? Just listening to me babylon babylon. Get it. Here comes babylon. We live in babylon. Are you kidding me? We live in babylon. That’s why this place right here is called a sanctuary. Sanctuary Why is it called a sanctuary? Because it’s smack dab in the middle of enemy territory. That’s why it’s smack dab in the middle of enemy territory. Why do you think the searches the church is such a target for evil? Because it is a sanctuary from evil. Of course the evil one would like to get in there to that little forward operating base and destroy it. The church is always wearing and bearing and using the full armor of God to prevent such things from invading. I am in rare form this I don’t know what’s going on might be the cool weather. I don’t know. Fire it up. Fire it up. Once again, this is Mark chapter four. Let’s start with Mark. Mark is considered to be the oldest of the Gospels marks account gospel account reads much like a newspaper account is very condensed. The words are very tight. The writing is very tight direct and to the point and you’ll pick up on that regardless of which translation you may be using. Well let’s just at least get the parable of the sower out from Mark this morning. Say a couple of words and then we’ll talk about it again in the church town weekly and we’ll talk about it again on Friday. It’s also in Matthew and it’s also in Luke. So you can do your own research. Once again, Jesus began teaching by the lake shore. A very large crowd soon gathered around him. So he got into a boat. Then he sat in the boat while all the people remained on the shore. He taught them by telling them many stories in the form of parables or Parabelles as Brian says, such as this one. Listen. Now first of all, we know I know I should stop. So this is said I was going to read it, but it’s, he teaches them in the form of telling them many stories and John tells us that if I wrote down everything that Jesus said and everything that Jesus taught, it would fill up volumes that they like the earth couldn’t contain, right? That is hyperbole, but you understand that the accounts that we have are what God’s Holy Spirit wants us to have. And this is one of the parables that he wants us to have. But Jesus taught with many more. A farmer went out to plant some seed as he scattered it across his field. Some of the seed fell on a footpath and the birds came and ate it. Other seed fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow, but the plant soon wilted under the hot sun. And since it didn’t have deep roots, it died. Other seed fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. So they produced no grain. Still other seeds fell on fertile soil and they sprouted, grew and produced a crop that was 30, 60 and even a hundred times as much as had been planted. Then he said, anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. Let’s address that first, anyone with ears to hear, will this parable mean anything to anybody who doesn’t understand the context, who doesn’t know anything or very little about Jesus Christ and his teaching, doesn’t understand anything or very little about being a Christian or a disciple or Christendom or scripture or parables. I can’t say the word, parables or what? No. Anyone with ears to hear, listen. And then he goes on to say this later when Jesus was alone with the 12 disciples and with the others who were gathered around, which they’re often forgotten that there was a, there was the 12 that was the inner circle. And within that inner circle was an inner circle of three, but there were true disciples that followed him many more than the 12 and the others that gathered around. They asked him what the parables meant. He replied, you are permitted to understand the secret of the kingdom of God, but I use parables for everything I say to outsiders so that the scripture might be fulfilled. This is from Isaiah. When they see what I do, they will learn nothing. When they hear what I say, they will not understand. Otherwise they will turn to me and be forgiven. Jesus said to them, if you can’t understand the meaning of this parable, how will you understand all of the other parables? And then he goes on to explain it. So he goes on to explain it to his inner circle and to his immediate disciples. And thus in explaining it to them as it is captured in the scriptures, it is explained to us. And so this is foundational to understanding parables, not only because it’s a wonderful parable that talks about the seed that is planted by the word of God. And we’ll get into that in a moment. We’ll probably just read it before we have to go today. But he tells us that this is a foundational parable. He tells us why he speaks in parables. And then he goes on to explain this parable so that individuals in the future will read, Oh, I see what he did there in telling the story. This is what it’s about. Now I know how parables work. And as he goes on and tells other parables, we will say, we will be looking for the spiritual and the natural and the discipleship and the what’s he saying to the church, what’s he saying to folks outside of the church, et cetera. What’s he saying about the word? Was he saying about the spirit? We know the context and how it’s going to work. So in all three of the synoptic gospels, the parable of the sower is this foundational piece that Jesus shares the parable speaks about how folks are not meant to fully understand parables and then goes on to explain it so that in the future folks can understand parables. Now again, once again, if you are a complete non-believer, antagonistic and anti-Christ, anti-Christian or absolutely ignorant of the scriptures and that sort of thing, if I just told you that parable, like he told it to the people on the shore, you would go, Oh, okay. Does that have to do with religion, church, something? I get it. I kind of get it, but your eyes aren’t opened. Your ears aren’t opened as we, as we delve into the word, as we understand the character of God, it was, we understand scripture. We get it. And if we don’t, Jesus, for those who are in the word is he’s going to explain it to us. And remember, he’s not just explaining it to us. He’s demonstrating how parables work so that as we continue to read, we will know how parables work and we will not, our eyes will not be blinded. Our ears will not be deaf, et cetera. So let’s read that. Jesus said to them, if you can’t understand the meaning of this parable, how will you understand all of the other parables? The farmer plants seed, excuse me, the farmer plants seed by taking God’s word to others. That’s the seed that we plant. The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message only have only to have Satan come at once and take it away. It’s just nothing there for them. It’s hard soil. They have been anti-Christ. They have been living a demonically possessed life, a demonically led life. Hear the word and they are antagonistic to the word. It’s gone. The heart is hard. The neck is stiff. All of the different imagery that’s used in scripture. The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word. This is perhaps the most common type of soil that I’ve experienced in my pastoral leadership, in my spiritual leadership. As the seed is planted, people become, as we say, on fire for Christ. And as I always teach, glowing red embers burn a lot longer and a lot hotter than does flame. So it’s good to be on fire for Christ, but we must grow those roots more deeply and we must nurture that into those glowing red hot coals that will last. Does that make sense? Because we see if you’re there and you’re like, “This seems to be the answer to all of my problems. Whoops, there comes another problem. I’m out of here. That didn’t work. That whole Jesus thing didn’t work. Let’s try something else. Let’s go to Oprah. Let’s try that. Let’s try Buddhism. I need something to fix my problems.” So oftentimes that is the case and there’s a shallow understanding of who God is and creation and redemption and all of those things. The seed that fell among the thorns represents others who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life, the lure of wealth and the desire for other things so no fruit is produced. You remain a Christian, but an unfaithful Christian, if you will, a Christian in name only, a Christian who is perhaps even in a leadership position using the name of Christ to make a living. You got nothing and you got no fruit because you got no spirit. I’m not talking about a college football game. I’m talking about the spirit of God. The seed that fell on good soil represents those who hear, accept and accept God’s word and produce a harvest of 30, 60 or even 100 times as much as has been planted. We spoke about that on Sunday. What does your life look like empowered by the love of God? What does your life look like empowered by God’s Holy Spirit? The fruit of the spirit, we also used that last week as a point of discernment. Remember when you’re trying to listen to a teacher of the word or you’re engaged in a relationship with an individual professing to be a Christian, one of the points of discernment is the fruit of the spirit. Read them for yourself. The fruit is growing for those in which the word is planted in good, rich, fertile soil. 30, 60, 100 times more than what was planted because that behavior, that fruit, if you will, is empowered by God’s Holy Spirit. So we covered a lot of ground this morning, sociopolitical ground, a little bit of citizenship, right? With the Civics 101, a little bit about not just theology, but parables in particular and how this pastor has problems saying parables all the time, parables. A lot of ground covered this morning and good Lord willing and the river don’t rise. We’ll cover more ground on Friday morning on turning on the lights, but get ready. I think I’m going to write and we’ll see maybe from a different gospel, one of the Matthew or Luke, the same parable for the Church Town Weekly and talk about this again. And then we’ll move forward on Friday and of course Sunday we’re finishing off 1st John. So I’ll stop babbling now and say thank you Lord for the opportunity to share your word with the world. We pray that everybody who hears this will share it. Share it on social media. Get rid of that garbage that’s out there and replace it with your word. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. And hey, don’t forget to subscribe and download the podcast for turning on the lights, the podcast for the Church Town Church of God sermons on Apple or Spotify, all those different things that more people that do that and subscribe and they rate and they review and they do all the things that social media requires has nothing to do with me. We will never ask for a dime or a subscription or anything. It has everything to do with building that algorithm. So somebody who is desperate says, “Got teaching about the gospel,” and turning on the lights comes up and they hear good teaching. That’s what we want. That’s what we’re after. God bless you guys. We’ll see you again. Have blessed days yourselves and we’ll see you Friday for turning on the light.
0 Comments