LESSONS from the IRISH
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There are many celebrations and holidays that hit our calendar in a year, some new and some very old.
Many contain myths and fables and many actually are highly distorted from their original intent due to celebrations that have evolved away from their true meaning.
We see this with Christmas and St Nicolas, Valentines with St Valentine and the mostly sadly with Easter losing the complete focus on Christ and returning to pagan practices of the spring solstice.
This week, there is another one of these days - maybe not so intensely celebrated in Colorado as in Chicago, Boston or NYC, but Saint Patricks Day still has a shamrock, green everything, leprechaun kind of following!
I grew up where they painted Shamrocks on the ski slopes and dyed the beer green - and it was more of a drunken party than honoring the real Saint Patrick.
We must remember that in the earlier days of Christianity there was but one Christian faith — prior to the divide between Catholic and Protestantism.
The further back we go, the more genuine and untainted the church was with its Apostolic mission to bring the Gospel to the world and its focus on Jesus.
This morning I would like to have a little fun and learn a few lessons from the Irish!
1. A Missionary Who Listened to the Voice of God
1. A Missionary Who Listened to the Voice of God
Can we start out talking about Patrick for a few moments.
His name was really Maewyn Succat! He was born in Scotland to Roman parents.
Well, that brings a new image!
He was raised a Christian in his family, but really had no personal conviction of faith in Christ or desire to pursue the things of God.
“My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. I am looked down upon by many. My father was Calpornius. He was a deacon; his father was Potitus, a priest, who lived at Bannavem Taburniae. His home was near there, and that is where I was taken prisoner. I was about sixteen at the time.”
Interestingly Patrick said of himself I am a sinner, not a saint, and he technically was never canonized by the Catholic Church.
At age 16 he was taken captive by Irish pirates!
The Irish were a deeply ungodly people with pagan deities and very immoral lifestyles.
He tended sheep as a slave in Ireland for six years for a Druid priest - and it was here Patrick began to accept the truth of his upbringing and find faith in Christ. Patrick proclaimed himself that he prayed hundreds of times a day for protection and guidance.
He eventually fled 200 miles on land and boarded a boat for Britain and escaped his slavery.
After he arrived home he became a priest and it was then that he had a vision from the Lord to return to Ireland and bring the Gospel to them.
(Ireland had previous missionaries, but they were not effectual)
Patrick became a name given to him - like Father - as he was going to be a witness to the Irish, and because he had experienced their customs he had an advantage in his return.
Patrick would be persecuted by Irish Kings and yet win them to Jesus, and he would also convert the children of the wealthy who would become monks, nuns, and priests. His influence on the Isle turned it from so much immorality the tale said he rid it of snakes....
But Ireland did not have snakes - it was a referral to the moral change from sinfulness.
FIrst takeaway ---
13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14 But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?
How will the lost know of a saving Jesus if someone does not GO to them and TELL them?
We assume people have a Gospel witness in America, but they don’t.
We now have a second generation of people not raised being brought to church or hearing the Gospel and an older generation that rejected the Gospel.
People need to hear the truth!!!! Many want to hear the truth, but no one is going to them and telling them!
I like the fact that Patrick returned because he knew their ways...
Can I say today, that there are people that only you will be able to identify with...
There are so many sub cultures in our communities and people need someone who understands those cultures to share Jesus...
That could be an ethnic culture, a drug culture, a social or economical culture...
People need those who understand them to share with them!!!
AND HELP THEM TO GROW into MATURE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
Are we listening to the voice of God to be led???
Patrick had a dream that inspired him to study for the priesthood, a dream that he heard the voice of the current Bishop in Ireland calling to him to come.
This dream that led him back to Ireland - literally where he led thousands to salvation in Christ and planted churches all across Ireland tearing down the strongholds of demonic paganism in the land.
Patrick wrote that the Lord used him to raise the dead - 33 men some who had been dead for years, and once when praying for the hungry a heard of swine appeared miraculously -
This describes a LIFE empowered by the Holy Spirit
(Thus modern day celebrations are not befitting the man he was)
27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
Patrick, an enslaved shepherd, learned to hear the voice of His Shepherd, and sacrificed a life of comfort back in his homeland to return to a people who enslaved him to bring them the Gospel because he listened to the voice of the Shepherd.
2. Declaration of Fact not Fable
2. Declaration of Fact not Fable
Commonly associated with March 17th is the Shamrock.
Of course though the years the luck of a four leaf clover came into focus, but there is something about the standard SHAMROCK that was used by Patrick in teaching the Irish SPiritual TRUTH instead of Fables!
The Celts were known for their fascination with threes - seeing it as a mystical numbers, and attributing to deities of earth, wind and fire.
Their pagan deities came in the number three, but Patrick used the Shamrock and these fables of three to teach the truth of the REAL GOD and SAVIOR!
TRINITY
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
The Shamrock serving as an object lesson from our creator!
The enemy always wants to imitate the truth! There is a knowledge deep in the heart of every man of One True God but sin and spiritual darkness distort it.
Patrick returns the truth! Not as separate deities, but as ONE
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!
We see the picture of Trinity in Scripture
CREATION
26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”
BAPTISM OF CHRIST
16 After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him.
17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”
7 For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.
A. God the Father
Is the Divine will - who willed creation, and to send His Son to save the earth ---
The Father is the one who has planned and made a way for us all
B. God the Son
Is sent by the Father to became flesh and dwell with mankind, and all we see of God is found in Him. The Son gave HIs life for our sins and died to save us and rose from the dead.
C. God the Spirit
A gift from the Son to the church, but active though out all of human history. What we feel of God comes from His Spirit who dwells in us at salvation and over flows our lives when Baptized in the Spirit to empower us.
When the Lord works in our lives it is the Father who wills, the son who provides and the Spirit who engages to provide salvation.
Are you allowing the whole triune Lord work in your life today?
3. The Powerful Presence of Christ in Us
3. The Powerful Presence of Christ in Us
27 For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.
23 “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’ ”
Jesus is with us! Living in us!
13 For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.
Why are we strengthened - because Christ dwells in us
16 Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
JESUS is unlike the pagan deities of this world - HE CAME TO MAKE HIS DWELLING PLACE IN OUR LIVES - IN US - HIS SPIRIT IN US!
Patrick wrote this prayer....
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
Paul says - what can separate us from the love of Christ ---- NOTHING
Now wonder a people in darkness came running to the light of Jesus!
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
Transformed through prayer and called by the voice of the Shepherd
Patrick lived an extraordinary life filled by the power of the Spirit evangelizing the nation of Ireland
His message of the TRIUNE God who is ONE using the shamrock brought the reality of a God whose plan was to save those who would believe in His SON and way of salvation and be filled with the Spirit
The presence of Christ would live on in their lives no longer afraid, but saved - changing an immoral land into one following Christ.
OF course we can see the change in people through the centuries even as we see the change in America - as people revert to paganism and ungodliness
That is why we need a REVIVAL and RETURN to the Lord...
We hear of the reports of hearts stirring on campuses across our nation, but will we allow the Lord to stir us once again to hear HIS VOICE and follow HIS Call and take HIS MESSAGE???