urning On the Lights! Friday June 14, 2024! More parables and some other stuff! Enjoy!
Good Friday Morning my Brothers and My Sisters and welcome once again to Turning On the Lights!
We get back into the parables of Jesus today – well, after we have a nice talk about how God is God and we are not. He is sovereign. He is Holy. He is “other.”
Then we get into the Kingdom of Heaven on earth – an interesting concept considering the fact that most often think of Heaven as a place that is NOT of this earth. Hhhhmmmmmm.
May God bless and keep you always – and in all ways. Keep looking up and, as we always say, WE WILL SEE YOU IN CHURCH!
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Friday, June 114 2024. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Friday, June 14, 2024. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Friday, June 14, 2024
Oh, good morning. Good morning. My brothers and my sisters. I know. Looky looky. Oh, I still haven’t gotten to it. If you’ve been following the saga of the light, I hate changing these light bulbs. This big old fluorescent ones but nonetheless, it will be changed eventually. Hey, you wanna go to Camp eligible? Just let us know. Look at this. June 29, Church Town Church of God 6 PM. Everyone welcome. Bring a friend. You got KC Armstrong and the Millers. That’s quite a lineup for little old Church Town. For little old Church Town. Kids for our king. That happened in June nine. It was wonderful. They planted a garden. I should show you the garden. It’s really cool. And look at this now. June 22. You don’t wanna miss that. Yard sale, soup sale, baked pie, cake, auction. I’m gonna be doing the auctioning around 10 AM. Look at that. Look at all that stuff we got going on. Whoo. It’s amazing what a little church on the hill can do. We are here this morning. Good morning, Mama D. You can hear it in my voice. I have been mowing for two days straight. Not all day long. Mowing and power washing and doing all of the things that you’ve gotta do this time of year to get ready for the long summer season. That’s what I’ve been doing. You can hear it in my voice. You can see it. I got a nice tan working. There’s the Church Town Church of God Sanctuary. For those of you who may be listening to the podcast, you can check out the video on at at Church Town Church on YouTube. Oh, get ready. Here’s your morning. There’s your morning highlight. Whoa. Whoa. Got my red San Juan Puerto Rico. San Juan Puerto Rico shirt on cuz you know what? I was just there. How about it? Nice little boutique in San Juan where we got some nice Harley gear. Good morning, Pastor Brian wishing you a happy Father’s Day with some. Thank you. Excuse me. I’m gonna have a happy Father’s Day and I will tell you all why after Father’s Day, but there it is going to be a very special Father’s Day for a very special reason and I’m excited for you all to know but we’re just not there yet. But after Father’s Day, I don’t see why not father father. You can hear it here. It comes folks father. Thank you for the opportunity to share your word this morning. We pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit, your word would inspire hearts and minds inspire individuals to turn repent turn to you Lord pray for their forgiveness. Believe in the completed work of the cross and become a child of God as we are meant to be all. It’s in Jesus name. We pray. Amen. So I lied to you on Tuesday. Let’s start off that way. I said, hey, parables, parables, parables. That’s the title of this turning on the lights and then on then we’re reading through job because we’re not doing chronological this year. We’re going front to back in in scripture and we’re in job. And read the last chapters of job, the last chapters of job are just amazing when God speaks into job’s life even after after everything after all of the rhetoric after all of the arguments after all of the discussion after all of the complaining after all of the praising after all of the everything God comes in and says I don’t need any of that. Here’s what you don’t understand. I am sovereign. I am holy. I am not you. You are my creation. The universe literally hinges on me as an autonomous moral decision maker. What I decide goes you can like it. You cannot like it. You can argue with it. You can praise it, but I am sovereign. You are not. I love that maybe it’s the man in me that seeks accountability. Maybe it’s just the way I am constructed and wired that I want to be held accountable. I’m okay with that so many people are not okay with that. Well, no, I’ve got to have some say in this don’t I well in your realm here in the physical and in cooperation with God’s Holy Spirit you do. But if God decides something for my life. Then it is decided according to his good and perfect will now you say well, we decide to give children cancer. Let’s not let’s not go there because here is where we go with our theological constructs again that it absolutely has to be one way or the other way. Well, God is omnipotent and in charge. Therefore he gives children cancer. He makes children around the world suffer and die of starvation. It’s his choice to do that. It actually is his choice not to relieve it. But it is the brokenness of man that this is the result of it is the result of sin in the world that these things are happening. Does that make sense? So it’s not one or the other God is involved and he may be involved only spiritually in the being of that individual who is suffering. He may choose to decide to bring that person out of suffering. He may choose not to and like I’m not okay with that. That’s a you problem, not a God problem. And when we look at the at the Christian church and how she has steered off course. Generally, it is because of those exact reasons. I’m not okay with that. I want to believe this not that I like I look at scripture and I say, Oh, here it is. I want to believe this. So this is what we will preach and teach. I want to believe that. So that is what we will preach and teach and it is not scriptural. It may be extra biblical. It may be non biblical. It may be ice of Jesus. I just put my own beliefs in scripture and came up with this. But the ego of human is very difficult when we are confronted with sovereign, holy, just God. Autonomous moral decision maker and he does not decide things the way we would ego human egotistical human has a very difficult time with that. I wouldn’t do it that way. We say so let’s see if I can have God and all of my own moral decision making as well. Sure I can. I’ll just create God in my own image. The way that I want him to be out take scripture and I’ll say, Well, you know, it probably means this. It might mean that. Obviously, Peter was thinking something else when he said this, I can do what I want with it and make it sound the way I want. It’s no nothing different than what happened in the Garden of Eden. When the opposer of God’s will said, did God really say that? The opposer of God’s will even under the umbrella of Christendom is still saying the same thing and twisting it all and guiding God’s image bearers off the narrow path and onto the path of destruction. And we’re not okay with God being a sovereign moral autonomous decision maker. Why did he do that to job? Because he chose to because the story would be written in for posterity for all human beings to see in the future. Why, you know, why did he allow it? Why did he do it at the end? We say, Well, nothing really changed. You say that it’s not transactional, but then job job got everything back like double at the end. So what do you mean? It’s not transactional job repented at the end. Job realized who God is at the end and he sat in sackcloth and ashes and repented and humbled himself before the Lord. He never asked for a thing other than forgiveness. The Lord in his decision making gifted job those things at the end of the story gifted them. They’re not a result of a transaction. There’s no transaction that occurs. Job never says, okay, then I will the Lord says all you have to what you need to do is repent and sit in ashes for a week and not eat or something like that. You do those things. Then I will give you those things doesn’t happen. We see a free moral act of job. Oh Lord. I’m sorry you are God and I am not and I am so wrong about so many things. I will simply repent and allow you to be you. And then we see God acting on his own as a result right of who he is and his being and he chooses to restore to job through these gifts. This is what people a lot of folks fail to realize in the story of job that it is discussed over and over about how God it’s all transactional. You do good. You get good. You do bad. You get bad, but that and God is showing us that that is not the case. The blessing that we receive from the Lord, the blessing. Here’s another area where human beings just take it and twist it and make it all about themselves. Everything’s a blessing, a blessing from the Lord, a blessing from the Lord. Okay. It can’t be a result of your good decision making and solid hard work. I think it can again. It’s not just one or the other God is in it all and he will do as he chooses in our lives as he guided me in my life. Absolutely have I felt the direct hand of God upon me like Brian turn that way please. Yes. Otherwise, I am seeking his wisdom through his will in my prayer life in my conversations in his word. So enough about job you can read the Church Town Weekly. If you’re listening today, you don’t get the Church Town Weekly. You can get the Church Town Weekly if I have your email address. So we looked at Matthew didn’t we look at oh we looked at Mark in the parable. Did we look at Mark or Matthew on Tuesday or Luke? Did we look at Luke? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Acts in the book of Romans. . What did I wanna do here? Do you know Matthew? We went and we and we discussed what a parable is. It’s a story. A simple story through this. It creates the lens through which we can uncover much more complicated concepts like the power of the word of God and its interaction with the world through human beings right the hard soil, the rocky soil, the good soil, the weeds, the four types of soil and we understand when God says the path is narrow. We see 25% is good soil, but that good soil reproduces five 10 100 times more than it’s planted. So we take heart good Christian. I hear this all the time. Why should I believe what you believe? Why should I even believe this? I enjoy but what there seems like nobody else in the world believes. Well, you may be of the 25% that is good soil. So go out and let it grow man. Scripture teaches us that it will be five 10 100 times more than what is planted in you. You wanna reach those folks that just seem to be completely out of control then go be salt and light. What I’m going to convert 5 billion people. I don’t know if two and a half billion professing Christians actually acted like two and a half professing Christians. Who knows what would happen? We don’t because we don’t. And Fuego not just because it’s hot outside. You know it’s hot outside when the air conditioners in here is set at like 7576. It’s 8 o’clock in the morning and I walk in and it feels cool. Oh man, it’s gonna be a hot day. That’s alright summertime. So we talk about what a parable is and excuse me. Jesus explains why he teaches in parables. It’s part of the prophecy that it’s going to be unlocked through the course of time, but then he takes the time to discuss not only what a parable is, but what this particular parable means to his disciples is group of disciples that are with him and in so doing he is sharing it with us. His disciples in 2024. You say, you know, he says that it’s going to be blind to those who are blind. We had to those who are blind. They’re going to read this story and go. That’s that’s junk. Their eyes are blind. The scriptures not lying. But he’s going to go on and he’s going to teach and in many different parables about the Kingdom of God about humanity about young people about Yahweh himself about the interaction of all of that about the church and I should say the gathered and those who will be disciples by Jesus Christ and their interaction with the world because the church is yet to come the Kirk of the church right the ecclesia. Now we got the wheat in the weeds. Let’s read this from Matthew Matthew 13 beginning with 24. Here is another story Jesus told the Kingdom of heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field, but that night as the workers slept his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat then slipped away when the crop began to grow and produce grain. The weeds also grew. You can see where we’re going with this. The farmers workers went to him and said, Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds. Where did they come from an enemy has done this? The farmer exclaimed. Should we pull out the weeds? They asked no, he replied. You’ll uproot the wheat. If you do let both grow together until the harvest, then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds tie them into bundles and burn them. And to put the wheat in the barn, so this is different from the parable of the sower right. The seed has been sown. The grain is growing. But there is this catch and it speaks directly to the church in the world, good and evil spiritual warfare that where we are planted right the wheat is growing a good crop is growing, but weeds have been planted as well seeds of discourse right discord discourse. That’s conversation seeds of discord right seeds of animosity seeds of opposition seeds of true hatred at the name of Christ. We as disciples of Christ if you’re going to follow the parable, we as the wheat that is growing in the good soil are growing right alongside the weeds that have been planted by the satan the opposer of God’s will. What do we do? We kill them all no. We stay faithful to God and we are actually called to be great awesome fantastic examples of that growing wheat. Maybe we are called because all things are possible through God to convert those weeds into wheat. They may respond. They may not respond. They may have ears to hear they may not have ears to hear their necks may turn or their necks may remain stiff. Their hearts may soften into hearts of flesh. Their hearts may remain stone. But we are called to be the best examples of wheat that we can be and in so doing by the power of God those weeds some of those weeds one of those weeds. Maybe none of those weeds will be converted to follow God will be converted to wheat. Does that make sense? So very clearly here right as opposed to for example, the Quran, what do we do with non-believers? What do we do with infidels kill them all the Quran says take over all of their nations until we can tell you know this or this religion. No, Jesus says I’ll take care of that. Thank you. We grow with them. We grow the Kingdom of God right alongside of the wheat or the weeds. We grow the Kingdom of God. We stay faithful to God. We do what God asked. We seek God’s will and part of that is the great commission of calling of converting those weeds into disciples of Christ. In the end, God will be the judge not us. And this is where we we talk about all the time. This is where the enemy takes this concept if you will and twists it right into fateful judgment harsh painful violent judgment. Well, we judge homosexuals and transsexuals and we judge sin. By our very example of not living in that sin people are convicted and receive that and feel that judgment. It’s not our judgment. It’s the righteousness of Christ that is pressing in on their brokenness and causing conviction and that and that can cause a reaction to cause an individual to turn toward the cross or very vehemently and sometimes violently turn away from the cross. So we live this way we live faithful to the world. No we don’t we live faithful to my to my dreams. Stay true to yourself. Nope stay true to your dreams. No stay faithful to the Holy One. His calling upon your life. Oh, you’ll go please say what about my dreams. Oh, what’s that old meme say hold on Karen. You think life in the Holy Spirit is boring bunch of rules. That’s what that’s what Satan tells us. It’s a bunch of rules and regulations. I gotta keep my hair this way. It’s no fun at all. Hold on Karen cuz the roller coaster’s coming and you’re gonna have a life and have it life and have it to the full baby. You’ll find out who you are and and what you are capable of in your calling right where you are say, but I’m not a pastor. I have no calling read your scriptures. You are called to be a living sacrifice unto the Lord not to be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the power of God into the man or the woman that you are meant to be that God sees and you are called to go and live live life to the full live it abundantly among the weeds. Seeking God’s will and all that you do if you are an accountant and attorney or a bricklayer or a pastor or a retail worker wherever you are planted parable. You are called to grow be wheat baby. He’s talking about the Kingdom of God talking about the Kingdom of God very quickly before we go here today, let’s read a very quick little terrible. Here’s another illustration. Jesus used the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth right this new thing that is begun with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This thing that is called the Kingdom of God on Earth. He is the first who will be raised. In the age to come, he is the example of the Holy One. He is the example of the glorified body. He is the example of that cornerstone of faith in which we believe. Here’s another illustration. Jesus used the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field. A lot of gardening images here. Where are we here gardening image in in scripture? It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants. It grows into a tree birds come and make nests in its branches. How weird not really. That individual somewhere along the line, one of the greatest evangelists in human history, Billy Graham had a mustard seed planted in him tiny little seed. And Billy preached to more human beings live than any other human being on the face of the planet in all of history. Somewhere along the line and we know his story is conversion story and you can look it up. He had the gospel preached to him and he believed and that calling that was upon his life. You talk about the example of the mustard seed. Now I’m telling you that you don’t have to be Billy Graham. I’m telling you that the mustard seed that is planted in you as a disciple of Jesus Christ will yield according to God’s will and your faith right because you can’t just say. Oh, okay. Good now I’m saved. I’m going to just wait to die so I can go to heaven, which doesn’t happen anyway. We know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, but heaven is the age to come. That’s another teaching another day. But we know as we walk with the Lord, we will yield all that he desires us to yield if we will play on words yield. You are your own Billy Graham. He has his own vision for all of the people’s lives that you are going to touch. Be faithful to that. He knows what he’s doing. He’s got this. I had a friend on Facebook who’s all kinds of crazy things and now I know her right. I know her husband and her and her husband’s a pastor all these different things, but all these crazy things were happening in her life and she was relating them all and then she said and then the very last line. It was so great and just grabbed me by the heart and it said, but I know that Jesus got this. so I’m just going to sit back and chill. I love that like she’s involved. She’s interacting. She’s making you know she’s and but she knows that ultimately it’ll be okay. Even for the human, but for the child of God, even if it’s not okay here, it’s okay man. It’s okay. Father, we know you got us. And that faith drives us forward every single day of our lives. Oh, we love you. We thank you. You have empowered us to live life and live it to the full Lord. Bring it. We are willing in Jesus name. We pray your kingdom will grow as a result of our faithfulness today. The mustard seed that has been planted in us will grow and grow and grow and we will continue to plant. According to your will not ours according to your will in Jesus name. Amen guys. It’s Friday. Sunday’s coming. It’s Father’s Day. It’s going to be a very special Father’s Day for this father and I can’t wait to share that all with you. Very excited if you couldn’t tell I know it’s hot, but it’s gorgeous might be a little rain shower this afternoon. Enjoy. Oh submit your life to Jesus and joy every moment of every day. It’s awesome. God bless you and everybody say it with me. Everybody should be typing this in. I want this in the comment section. We’ll see you in church be blessed and we will. Oh, okay. Yeah, absolutely. What is heaven? And I think that that is very much worthy of discussion because again we have a tendency to say silly things about people who are dying and going into heaven and God needing another angel in his choir and people becoming angels and things like that very important discussion for the Christian to know. How heaven relates to the age of age to come the return of Jesus Christ wonderful topic that we will definitely mark it down. We’ll get to in Jesus name. God bless you and we’ll see you in church.
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