Wednesday Night December 6

Courage to Follow

Gingerbread House Contest

Make a manger out of supplies given this year.

Animal crackers, gummy bears, gummy dinos, etc… are at the front on plates. Come grab those as needed.

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Thoughts for lesson:

Read Romans 10:13 “13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.””

Intro:

When I was really young, I remember my dad went out of town on a business trip.

Now, I was young but typically this meant 2 things in my family.

Dad might bring back a little trinket or something for my brothers and I.

Something terrible was about to happen.

Always, if dad went out of town, someone would get sick…

Something would get broken...

Or in the case of my story today, Some ONE would get broken.

On this particular day, I remember my brothers and I were playing basketball outside.

Now, my brothers were about 9 or 10 at the time.

My uncle had parked his truck near our basketball goal.

My brothers climbed up into the bed of the truck, then up onto the top of the cab.

So they are standing on the roof of his truck.

From there, they were taking a basketball and jumping to the basketball goal and dunking.

Now this is way before youtube and tik tok, otherwise, I would have been the camera guy for sure.

But I remember so badly wanting to do what they were doing, I was just too small.

However, nobody expected what happened next.

My brother Josh jumped from the truck, grabbed the rim, but he jumped a little too hard.

His feet swung out and he lost the strength to hold on to the rim.

10 feet down, my brother fell and landed on his arm snapping his arm in half.

Now, in that moment, little boys natural reactions are to hide and cover up the crime right?

In most cases yes, but not this time…

Immediately, my brother looked at me and said Go get mom. Get help!

Go get help…

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There are some situations in life where immediately, it doesn’t matter what stress you are under.

It doesn’t matter what task you have in front of you.

It doesn’t matter about your to-do list.

Getting help becomes the number one priority.

It seems daily we live in a world where we are redefining good and evil.

I know Allison reads me updates regularly about the war in Israel and man it’s devastating.

It makes me angry, sad, and leaves me feeling helpless all at the same time.

There’s a cry for help there.

Our friends in school who don’t know right from wrong…

Our friends who are confused about what they love or who they love.

In that place too… there’s a cry for help.

For the many people who are depressed, on many different medications, and who are overly stressed and emotionally wrecked…

There’s a cry for help.

For the bullies in school who have a loud voice but inwardly they feel like a broken kid.

For those on social media who seem to live the perfect lives, but really they are in insurmountable debt and depressed…

We could list hundreds, thousands of examples tonight but all of them point back to one thing…

Most people in our world guys are crying for help.

Alot of them don’t know Romans 10:13 “13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.””

They need Jesus.

Will you be the one to show them Jesus?

I need two volunteers to read tonight.

Luke 2:17–18 “17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.”

Romans 10:14–15 “14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!””

I have a simple Christmas reminder tonight:

We are the ones who provide help.

To a world that’s crying out for help, they need what we have.

So many around us every single day are broken and hurting.

They are crying for help.

DO we realize they need us to show them where to find help?

One of the cries for help is our over-commitments.

We are overly stressed, over-planned, over-calendared.

We are distracting ourselves and entertaining ourselves to death.

For us as believers, that can cause us to not see the cries for help around us.

Are you listening?

Or am I too busy to hear the cries for help?

Am I too distracted myself to hear my own body crying out for help?

Am I just suppressing all of those feelings inside me and trudging through live just surviving the next day

That’s not the way God intended it to be.

I was reading a sermon this week from the prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon.

The entire sermon was about living at the cross.

Living in thankfulness that Jesus has paid it all.

Then he concluded his sermon with this story

"A good man, when dying, was asked what he was doing, and he said, 'I am throwing all my good works overboard, and am trusting wholly in Jesus; I am throwing my good works away, and lashing myself to the plank of free grace; for I hope to swim to glory on it."

"Nothing in my hands I bring; Simply to thy cross I cling."

- A visit to Calvary: Charles Spurgeon

Allison and I were talking about it later that evening

Part of our conversation turned to how I think people really just overthink things or read into things when it’s really simple.

At a bare minimum I loved that short story because it’s such a good reminder.

It’s a clear, vivid picture for us all that at the end of our lives.

We will examine ourselves.

If we are privileged enough to build a family, have grandkids, to live into our 70s and then turn and look back and think about our lives.

What will we conclude about the life we lived?

For me, I pray its that.

Above all else.

The cross of Jesus is like a floating board in the water.

I’m holding on to that with everything in me.

I got nothing that I bring to Jesus to show him how good I am.

All i bring is the cross.

But isn’t that also how we are to live now?

Like the Shepherds, they told people what they had seen.

And when people heard, they were amazed, they were changed!

Like the lost who need Jesus in Romans 10, .

Are we bringing the good news to those around us?

Are we allowing ourselves to be interrupted in our busy schedules to share the gospel with somebody?

I think what we all need is courage.

In our culture, we have too much of what we don’t need and we have far less of what we need most.

What we need most is to cling to Jesus.

What we don’t need that we have too much of is all of the things that distract us from clinging to Jesus.

Maybe you’re playing 10 sports this school year, and guys, you don’t have to do that.

I promise, those who care about you most will love you if you’re playing all the sports and those who care about you the most will love you if you don’t play a single one.

We need courage to say no.

We need courage to say yes to Christ.

Here’s a question to ask yourself.

Am I being the feet of Jesus bringing the good news to those crying out for help around me?

Or

Is the way I’m living my life keeping me far from the cross of Jesus?

We need courage to cling to Jesus this Christmas.

We need courage to take him to those around us crying out for help.

We need courage to say no to what we don’t need so that we can have what we need most… Jesus.

Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling.

Let’s pray.