Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, March 25, 2025. Luke 17 and the least of these.
Good Morning, Good Morning my brothers and my sisters and welcome to Turning on the Lights! for Tuesday March 15, 2025.
Today we open Luke chapter 17 and discuss the reminder that Jesus provides us that He is God and we are not.
It is a message that prideful humanity is loathe to hear, but it is a necessary and oft repeated message from God to His creation.
Do you live in the knowledge that you are in desperate need of Jesus? You should, and I pray that you do.
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, March 25, 2025. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, March 25, 2025. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Good morning. Good morning. My brothers and my sisters. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to turning on the lights. We have turned on the lights here at the Church Town Church of God. 351 Old Stonehouse Road, Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania. Why is it a Boiling Springs address when it is the Church Town Church of God? Well, that’s an interesting story. I’m sure that you’ve heard it before. They always called this place Church Town for a variety of reasons. And then Church Town decided it wanted its own zip code. So way back when a couple generations ago, a few generations ago, they changed the name to Allen, PA. Well, they got their post office, they got their zip code. But they didn’t like the name Allen, PA because it was always Church Town and people still called it Church Town, although it was Allen and still sometimes you see stuff that is labeled Allen, PA and we have some memorabilia from Allen, PA. But they wanted Church Town. Now they is the nebulous people of the community wanted Church Town again. But see, there is a Church Town in Lancaster County that is incorporated, right? It has its own zip code. So they couldn’t call themselves Church Town. So Church Town is really a town that doesn’t exist. I’m a Boiling Springs address right here, right down the road. South of us is Carlisle address right to the north and the east of us is Mechanicsburg. We’re right in the middle of it all. So there’s the whole story. They’re working outside on the concrete today. They’re doing some final preparations before the big pour, which is really wonderful. I’ll get you guys all set up here looking down. Oh, my, my must have dropped my tripod here. Hold on a second. There you go. You’re also a little crooked. You all are crooked. Oh, hold on a second. There we go. Are you ready? There you go. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Turning on the Lights. I tell you what, it was an emotional weekend. It was a good weekend. Really good weekend. Kelly and I managed to get away, get out of the house for the first time since October. And that was just fantastic. We just spent a night away with our dogs. But that’s the first time that we’ve been out of the house since October. That was really wonderful. Saturday was a wonderful day. Sunday, man. Wow. I didn’t think you never know what is going to trigger thoughts and emotions. This week, it was a song that we sung a song that was sung years ago here in the church and by a group of men, several of whom are no longer with us. And bringing it back up really made me very, very emotional all throughout the service, really. And then especially when we I told the story about the song and then the main sermon, I was just, it wasn’t a bad feeling. It wasn’t a bad feeling at all. But it was just a deeply emotional feeling part of something that is bigger than yourself when you are even a small church pastor, part of the lives of so many individuals and so many families and it was just reflecting on what a gift it is, you know, what a gift it is to be to have that. It can be very difficult because you, you’re putting yourself out there, you’re putting your love out there, you’re putting your investment out there, and you’re always going to be disappointed at times or betrayed or whatever the case may be. That’s, that’s life. That’s life, you know, but more often than not, you just think about what a privilege it is to be ingrained in the lives of so many people in the stories. I said, the church is 190 years old. And you can only imagine the stories, right from the Civil War through people traveling west. Good morning Mama D. Good morning, everybody. We just started. I’m just I’m just talking about the weekend talking about the church talking about my frame of mind. It was truly, truly wonderful and emotional. And I said, you know, the church is 190 years old. There’s, you can imagine the stories and you can read them. We have all of the archives that were saved anyway, all the archives up in the office and we have them all digitalized as well. But this, you know, people going off to the Civil War people heading out west to Altoona, right, family, you know that the white family moved west, heading to over the mountain to Altoona like it’s not that’s nothing for us that we today, we will go play out to in a football game in a heartbeat. World War One World War Two, through the Great Depression, the attendance and the church at times was close to 200 people a weekend between the various Sunday schools that they had and then the church service and anyway, I and then I thought about the third, you know, just the 13 years that I’ve been here. Oh my goodness, the stories and Kelly keeps saying, let’s write them down. Let’s write them down. Most of them are written down somewhere. Right, I have files full of weddings that I’ve performed files full of funerals that I have performed every service that we’ve ever conducted is on file everything. So I guess in a way things are written down. But. So Father, we pray your word will go out today. Thank you for this group of people. May your word through this technology go wherever you would like to send it. In Jesus name we pray man ended up talking about john five probably as much as luke 15 because I was trying to tie in the significance of what Jesus did. For the sake of our salvation Good morning, Mary. And Happy Birthday Mary didn’t get to say that to you yesterday and I didn’t come over yesterday. It’s Mary’s birthday yesterday. Happy Birthday, my friend. And that that was probably part of the motion, you know, you we we read scripture, and we close the Bible, maybe we meditate and pray and that that’s all wonderful. I’m not saying oh, that’s what we do. It’s all wonderful, but we just do need to be reminded of what happened. What God did, and the only power in the universe that brings life is the power of God’s Holy Spirit made possible through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ of God, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. I think I surprised some people on Sunday when I said you know that is an image that I am fascinated with and I have to use modern terminology identified with right the Lion of the tribe of Judah and that whole concept that the lion becomes the Lamb of slaughter. The Lion of Judah becomes the Lamb of God as he sacrifices himself for the sake of humanity and that whole idea is something that is is I just live in that you know what I mean. So I talked about how on my right arm. I have the Lion of the tribe of Judah. I have the prophecy from Genesis 49 and on my left arm. I have the Lion of the tribe of Judah as the Lamb of God hanging on the cross. Those are the two pieces of artwork that I have that keep me reminded. You know, keep me reminded and I pray that they honor God. We’re moving on. We’re moving on like I said. Oh, you can hear them. I don’t know if they’re going to bother us or not. They’re bringing in rebar. They’re shaping and forming and digging and they don’t have any big machines, but there’s like a bunch of bugs running around the church today doing all kinds of things. This week is all about Luke 17 and Luke 17 is all about the least of these right. What you have done for the least of these people you have done to me and Luke 17 is really all about the least of these. We’re talking about widows and children and you know devout sinners and you know the people that shouldn’t matter. And if left to our own devices, they don’t matter. You can always tell an individual what an individual’s true priorities are. It is said that if you if you check their checking account, you can tell what a church’s true priorities are. If you check its checking account, you can tell what a nation’s true priorities are. If you check its checking account. Where you’re going to invest your money being that that is what drives economy and in large measure what symbolizes the significance of certain things. And the Lord knows this. It’s never a bad thing to look at your own check account and say, Oh my goodness. I frivolously spend on this that and the other thing. I have more than enough to do the work of the Lord in the kingdom of God and I don’t. And I bring that up because this Sunday is a fifth Sunday celebration. We have our charities picked out every penny that we take in plus some 10% of our bottom line on that day, which our treasurer is amazing. He has a bottom line every single day. 10% of our bottom line on that day will go to four charities will divide it up to four charities and that is taught to us in Scripture. The radical generosity that on which the kingdom of God thrives. It’s not necessarily even the money on which the kingdom of God thrives. It is the spirit of giving upon which the kingdom of God thrives and we’ve found that out as a small poor little church and the blessings the economy people come and people go givers come and givers go yet we want for nothing. I love the spirit of the congregation here that says we ask we oh my goodness Lord. Thank you for everything. Thank you and we want to pay it forward again. So we’ll talk about those things. The least of these we’re talking about. Like I said devout sinners right like tax collectors. We’re talking about a sick people got people with leprosy who are considered unclean and cast out to the margins of society widow who has nothing next to nothing. And then it brings it all together at the end of 17 when he talks about the coming of the kingdom and what it will look like and what it will be like and who will be included. And whether you have a lot or whether you have a little we everything always goes back to that first beatitude. Right blessed are those the best life right. That’s what that word means. And we translated as blessed the best condition that you can be in as an image bearer of God is in the understanding of your need of God. Blessed are those who are so poor in spirit. They know their need to be in relationship with Yahweh and that is the only way that happens is through Jesus Christ. And this is much the same because whether it’s going to describe a bunch of people that we are not in large measure. We don’t have a ton of money and also but we’re not hurting for anything and there certainly are wealthier people that but understanding your depravity as an image bearer of God your necessity for the sacrifice of Christ is what is always being spoken of. He uses rich people quite a bit because of their devotion to money instead of God. That’s one of the strongest strongholds that there is. I’ve told the story many times but when we gave up that stronghold here in church town after a couple of years of struggling and being in arrears being in the red trying to keep the lights on trying to pay the oil bill never having enough. We said look if this is what it is all about. We really don’t want any part of it. I know I didn’t if like this is what pastoring is. I’m not helping people. I’m trying to keep a church open. That’s not so we took money that we didn’t have and we started giving away half of everything we took in. We said you know Lord if you want this church open. It’ll be open. If you want it closed you’ll close it down. But we said we are part of the kingdom of God. Here you go take this. We’ve never looked back. When you talk about the economy of God. We’ve never looked back things began to multiply in ways that we could not explain the bottom line went from red to black in ways that we could not explain because it didn’t match with the numbers who were still coming attending. It was amazing. And it was one of the fundamental lessons that I learned this is his church. I still cringe when people say your church. How’s your church doing. I still cringe a little bit. I know that they don’t mean it like I’m some sort of you know tin pot dictator or cult leader. I understand that I understand the sentiment but I still cringe a little bit because I learned that lesson so well so early on that I am part of a stewardship of this body and it’s God’s body literally God’s bride God’s body and we live for him not for us. And if he wants the church open he’ll keep it open and if he wants to close to close it down. And like I said, you know, we we were like, well, we work very well on the spiritual foundation of the church. We really have to dig up this concrete get it done and get the basement dry so that we can work on the physical foundation of the church and that’s a $26,000 job. And so we paid for half of it up front. And then we received a $30,000 gift from an anonymous person. I was like, I guess the Lord wants the church to stay open. You tell me. One day Jesus said to his disciples, there will always be temptations to sin. But what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting? It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck and to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin. So watch yourselves. And this is right after the story of the rich man and Lazarus and now he’s moving on to the little ones. Now. It’s an interesting use of words here. If you recall, even at times he will call his disciples what roughly translates to a noun. Oh, you little faiths, you little faith people. And sometimes he will flat out say, why do you have such little faith? Why do you see what you see yet you still do not believe, etc, etc. And so he’s moving into if you were to tempt one of these little ones and that could be a child and innocent child, right? It doesn’t know any better or an individual of little faith. It would be worse for you if you guide an image bearer of God. If you guide that image bearer of God away from his or her source of life. God does not like that. That’s it. If another believer sins rebuke that person, then if there is repentance, forgive that person. It’s not rocket science. Rick is always pointing that out to me. Because you know, I love my theology. I love the you know, angels dancing on the heads of a pen, but it’s actually repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. And if you have a brother or a sister who has disavowed you, who has betrayed you who has done whatever, or maybe it’s not to you, but you see the sin that has happened. Talk to them about it. And if repentance occurs, honest repentance, I know what I’ve done. It’s been keeping me up day and night. I am sorry. Well, don’t tell me tell him. I am sorry, Lord. Please bring me back. Oh, right. So you forgive because he forgives. You don’t have the right to not forgive. Well, God will forgive you, but I won’t because I’m way more important and powerful than God. We’re commanded to forgive. Forgive as we have been forgiven. So the whole lot there just in those lines. Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day, and each time turns again and asks for forgiveness, you must forgive. You say, well, that’s crazy. And it’s a bit hyperbolic to be sure. But the point is, if that repentance if that person is so messed up, that they are waffling. Sometimes you actually see this in the Psalms and you wonder how many times can that person waffle back and forth? Praise you, God. Praise you, God. Oh, God, why do you hate me? Praise you, God. Why do you hate me? So the point is being made that it’s not a one off. It is maintenance. Any relationship is maintenance. Any relationship is intentionality. This includes, of course, our relationship with God through our friends and our relationships with one another. I have a friend, a friend, I have maybe, we won’t get into that. But I have a friend who says, friends are expensive. And he doesn’t mean that they’re expensive because you got to remember every birthday and you got to remember. Friends are expensive because it takes an investment of you to maintain a friendship and move it continue to grow and move forward. That’s the expense of friendship. And that’s why it hurts so bad, obviously, when that is severed and or something happens whatever, because there’s a huge investment. The apostle said to the Lord, show us how to increase our faith. So perhaps maybe you would not even give into the any of this temptation stuff that Jesus is talking about. Increase our faith that our faith will be enough, regardless of circumstance, man that’s preached in here all the time. The Lord answered if you had faith, even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, may you be uprooted and thrown into the sea and it would obey your word again, hyperbolic but compared to God and who he is. Our faith. Right, we are little faiths. And the Oh, when you you if you come to me, you must hate your mother or father, brother and sister. That the love of God and who he is, compared to our ability to love God and who he is compared to our quote unquote ability to have faith. We pray for faith, don’t we? Something necessarily my faith in God, it is the faith that he gives me by the power his power to open my eyes of script, open my eyes to Scripture, open my eyes to his presence in my life, the transforming nature of that presence and move forward in that way. God grant me the faith. Beautiful man. It’s beautiful. And we need that and say, well, okay, I will become a Christian at because I am such a strong human being, I can have so much faith. I know I can do it. Well the beginning of this chapter clearly shows that you can’t. And throughout Scripture, Jesus clearly shows that you can’t and when Jesus is crucified, and the 12 people who profess all of this faith in him, bail and completely disappear. Where’s your faith then? So good morning, Mark. So that’s what he’s talking about. He had faith of a mustard seed and my daughter has a beautiful necklace with a little mustard seed in it. I’m sure many of you do. Just a little reminder, kind of like my tattoos, just a little reminder. The faith comes from the Lord. When a servant comes in from plowing or taking, excuse me. When a servant comes in from plowing or taking care of sheep, does his master say, come in and eat with me? No, he says, prepare my meal, put on your apron and serve me while I eat. Then you can eat later. And does the master thank the servant for doing what he was told to do? Of course not. In the same way, when you obey me, you should say we are unworthy servants who have simply done our duty. I can’t tell you how often that concept of Scripture is not preached because it goes against our sense of self-worth and our pride. Humble yourself before a holy God. We can say that, but what God is teaching is that what John teaches, you are nothing without me. You are nothing. You won’t be the human being you were created to be you, your faith, your love is not on par with me. You humbly serve me again. And by doing so, you’re, you’re not doing me a wonderful service that I’m like, Oh, God’s up there going, Oh, thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. You’re doing what you’re called to do. You’re doing what you command are commanded to do. And that’s what makes all the difference in the world. Exactly. And that’s what we’ve been talking about quite a bit. Here’s somebody in the church. I don’t know if they’re coming in here or not. Maybe they’re just going to the bathroom, but it’s been a good morning nonetheless, no matter what happens. I guess, I don’t know. Anywho, I want to read that one last time because sometimes I think even as churches, we get so full of ourselves. Look at our church. Look at our worship, vibrant worship, electric sound. What an experience. Oh boy. God must love that. Well, we certainly want to honor God with all that we do. We certainly want to bless him. And by that, I mean doing his will as we worship in word and in song and in prayer and in fellowship. But again, we’re doing what we’re commanded to do because we are unworthy servants. Not because we’re like created to be so awesome that when we then say, Oh God, thank you so much. Let me give you this. Let me get in. God’s like, yeah, yes, yes, yes. That’s not that’s not a thing. And so we talk about church. We talk about coming to church, blowing off church, church is optional. What we talk a lot about that and how people feel about church. Well, seems to me it’s rather important because it is our duty. It is our duty to worship him in everything that we say everything that we do all day, every day. But it is our duty to come together in fellowship, Acts 242 and sing and pray and go deeply into his word and fellowship with one another and learn and grow and become it is our duty. Notice that word duty. It is our only Romans 12 legitimate act of faith. To sacrifice ourselves spiritually to the Lord. To do with what he wishes, not the other way around. Read this one more time. Let that sink in. Like I said, you’re not you’re not find preachers lining up to preach this. People don’t want to come to church and say, Whoa, gee whiz. I am like that tax collector. I am like that poor in spirit person who I really don’t want to recognize that the attitude number one, my desperate need for a safe here. I don’t want to recognize that about myself. I am successful. I am smart. I am. You are in desperate need of the Savior. And you are commanded to worship the God of creation, and the God of your salvation. And in so doing, you’re not doing him some sort of great service that he’s like, Oh, thank you. Thank you. In so doing, you’re doing your duty as his servant. I am not making it up. I always say when I read things in Scripture, like you want me to skip, I look out and say, Do you want me to skip over that? Anybody don’t want to hear that? Let me know. I mean, I can’t make stuff up and I can’t leave stuff out. That I get that question all the time, Rosie, and it’s a super valid question. My, my wife has an issue with the 11th hour. But Scripture clearly teaches rose if that confession, if that, if that repentance of the person’s heart is genuine, and only God knows that exactly God is I am I was actually headed there, Joan, don’t use the words of God to describe yourself. I am I am I am. All right. Good catch, Joan. Almost as if you’re taught very well. So anyway, but this is a real sticking point, Rosie, because people just can’t. This person has done such evil. And they can just repent and be with the Lord. Well, no, it’s not quite that easy. That repentance must be authentic, genuine, real. And I as a pastor can go to that person before they go to the electric chair or whatever the case may be. And I can deliver the Word of God and I can share with them. And if their heart is turned from stone to flesh, if their neck is turned around, and their eyes are on Jesus, and there is actual repentance for the forgiveness of their sin. Yes, the answer is yes, they will be with the Lord and they’re dying when they die after they die. But again, we can’t necessarily judge that Scripture teaches, and I just taught it last Sunday, you have a choice now, but when your heart beats its last beat, you no longer do. And that would imply, of course, that you have an opportunity right to the last heartbeat of your life. But again, here’s the caveat, Rosie, because it’s not that easy. It’s like, Oh, okay, well, I can go and murder a bunch of people or do a bunch of evil things. And then I’ll just say sorry, and everything’s okay. No, doesn’t work that way. But it does work according to Scripture, if the repentance is authentic. Exactly. Right? If thief on the cross, right? Surely this man does not deserve to die. Surely this man, and he says today, you speak the truth today, you will be with me in paradise. Last second. Guy never knew Jesus. He was a criminal his entire life. But he recognized Jesus at the last moment of his life. And he knew who he was. He professed who he was. And Jesus says, today, you will be with me in paradise. So that’s a great question. And that’s one that Christians struggle with Christians who have had horrible things happen to them. struggle with the struggle with that. And that is human struggle. It is real. But it’s human struggle. And again, the teaching of Scripture is straightforward, but it’s not just fire insurance. Rosie is not just Oh, I can do anything that I want. And then just say sorry, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. If you die, trying to fool God into believing that you actually are sorry, guess what, you’re going to hell. Doesn’t work that way. So there you go. When a servant comes in from plowing or taking care of sheep, does his master say, come in and eat with me? No, he says, prepare my meal. Put on your apron, serve me while I eat, then you can eat later. A servant is a servant and a master is a master. And that’s it. The servant, we’re not we’re not playing his role. And does the master thank the servant for doing what he was told to do? Of course not. In the same way when you obey me, you should say we are unworthy servants who have simply done our duty. Woo hoo, there’s your there’s your step stepping on toes for the day. We are no way sheep or form or shape or form to question God’s acceptance or non acceptance in anything. We’re knighted and entitled to understand his ways are not ours. He makes no apologies to us for not our not understanding heart. It is absolutely 100% true. Mamadi. His ways are not our ways. And he this is what we again using modern terminology. He is unapologetic, unapologetically God. He doesn’t compromise on who he is. Here. This is who he is. He’s as constant as the what is it the morning star or the northern star again, right? He’s same yesterday, today and will be tomorrow. He’s unapologetically Yahweh, creator, Redeemer, sustainer. We can either recognize who we are created in his image. Right or not. Interesting stuff today. Interesting questions, interesting statements, you can keep the conversation going. As long as you would like I’ll try to get to you and answer you later. This should be up on YouTube in a little while. Got a busy day ahead of me. And we got a lot of people buzzing around the church. So we’ll see what happens there. I pray for the church that it gets completed. And we can get rid of this giant mess that we have is hard to even keep the church clean. Because of the mud and the dirt and everything is just constantly tracked in. So theological study day is coming up this Saturday from nine until three. That’s I’m looking forward to that. And then of course we have a conference in session next Monday and Tuesday. I will not be with I’ll be with you Thursday, but I will not be with you next Tuesday. I am mandated to go to Eastern region conference in session. So that’s where I’ll be at least for a little while. And that’s the upcoming schedule. So God bless you, Lord. Thank you so much for the time we share together. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your hard truth. We need to know who you are. We need to know who you are and in so doing we can recognize who we are. And what is our role in this relationship? Thank you for making a relationship and thank you for reminding us that you are God and we are not in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you guys. Good Lord willing in the river. Don’t rise. We will see you Thursday morning for turning on the lights. Bring your questions.
0 Comments