To Be or Not To Be

That is the question...

A soliloquy written by the famous poet William Shakespeare in the early 1600’s. For those who aren’t familiar with what a soliloquy is; It’s a super monologue given by a character in a play alone on stage. The character deliver speeches containing some very key thoughts, feelings, and opinions to us as an audience.

How this applies to us is how we live… How we live before others… What we say around others… What we do around others… How we react around others… The very life you live speaks to others… It contains key thoughts and feelings about you to others; allowing others to form their own opinion about you; especially when we carry the title believer. Christian… Preacher…

We’re living in a time where people hope their title speak for them and not their life. The greater the title, the more volume or clout I should have.

I want you to know I am an apostle, but my life and the standard God called me to live by aren’t your key thoughts, feelings, and or opinions of me. Therefore, I have a tendency to neglect my Godly assignment and God is not able to send me many places because I’m ineffective.

I’m a prophet but what God gives me to say is so watered down due to my own issues and filters which prohibit me from giving you the full message God has for an individual or a people.

I’m an evangelist, but I can’t reach this generation nor compel the unchurched because what God has called me to deal with and the wisdom He’s given me on how to draw them, I find myself doing the same thing. So I’m careful what I say so conviction never reaches me.

I’m a pastor but I’d rather tag along to get along. Instead showing you pure love, I’d rather compromise the gospel in order to have members to preach to. I’d rather allow you to stray off rather than leave the 99 to look for you, bandage you up, then put you back with the others

I’m a believer but my life reflects my past… I much like Uzziah, standing in the way prohibiting you from getting to know Christ for yourself. Most of the time I’m powerless because I really don’t have a relationship with Christ, instead I just do enough to get by. I’m never hot nor am I cold… I like to stay at an easy temperature, better known as lukewarm because being hot for Christ requires to much of me… It requires me spend time in His face and or not just read but also study; applying to scripture to your life. It makes me my brother’s keeper. It makes me not forsake the assembling of myself because you realize you want to be in His presence and around God’s people. It makes you change your speech… the way you talk… the way you walk… the way you view certain things… It makes you feel out of the character of your past; old things have passed away and all things have become new. As a believer, you’re here when no one else is… Being a believer means you’re totally sold out to the things of God. As a believer you make and investment for you to stay steadfast unmovable, abounding in the works of the Lord.

, speaks of a man who found treasure in a large field. He went back and sold all he had in order to purchase the entire field… Such is the Kingdom of Heaven. He invested in the field which contained treasure..

The very known phrase, “To Be or Not to Be”, happens to be the question I’d like to put on the table this morning. To be or not to be; that is the question…

In this story, Hamlet was basically contemplating suicide on and off throughout his soliloquies. In this soliloquy, he compares death to a little sleep, which he thinks death wouldn’t be so bad.

To Be or Not to Be… That is the question…

To Exist or Not to… Could be the case…

To Be Alive or Not to Be… Is a better question

To Live or Not to Live… It’s not only a question but a choice...

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

The (familiar) sound of the Lord God walking in the garden

The (familiar) sound of the Lord God walking in the garden

He noticed their posture and or position had changed.

He noticed their posture and or position had changed.

Hiding behind what you’re bound by eventually becomes your filter for which you operate.

No where to be found

10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

Hiding behind what you’re bound by eventually becomes your filter for which you operate.

No where to be found

11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock

and all wild animals!

You will crawl on your belly

and you will eat dust

all the days of your life.

15 And I will put enmity

between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and hers;

he will crush your head,

and you will strike his heel.”

We’re called to do damage to the kingdom of the darkness, but because of one submission… One open door… One drink… One puff… One lay… Trying the fun things Once; always lead to a second, a third, a fourth because the enemy was instructed to strike the heel of the one crushing his head.

You rest assure that if you’re not crushing his head, he’s not striking your heel...

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

The name Lazarus in Greek is “Whom the Lord has helped” How many Lazarus do we come across in our day to day lives...

Sin in most cases is considered a sickness especially if committed habitually in the life of a believer and non-believer...

4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

If you allow God to help, this sickness won’t end in death; but used for God to get the Glory

When God has been glorified by the change we make in our lives, He in turn begin using you to draw others

38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said.

Jesus confronts the dead things in our life going to the very pit we’ve dug our self deeper in

He tells those standing by to remove the stone of that individual… How

Being upfront and honest with people’ ridding our self of any filters or issue that would prohibit us from effectively effecting others we’re connected to.

Refuse to compromise

Making the difference between clean and unclean… Holy and Unholy

Praying for them

Loving on them

“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”j

41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father,l thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

NLT

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.