2021.03.21 Don't Believe Everything You Hear

Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

Me

I’d like to start this morning with a couple of emails I received recently:

Dear Respected One, GREETINGS, Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you. I got your contact from the International web site directory. I prayed over it and selected your name among other names due to it's esteeming nature and the recommendations given to me as a reputable and trust worthy person I can do business with and by the recommendations I must not hesitate to confide in you for this simple and sincere business. I am Wumi Abdul; the only Daughter of late Mr and Mrs George Abdul. My father was a very wealthy cocoa merchant in Abidjan,the economic capital of Ivory Coast before he was poisoned to death by his business associates on one of their outing to discus on a business deal. When my mother died on the 21st October 1984, my father took me and my younger brother HASSAN special because we are motherless. Before the death of my father on 30th June 2002 in a private hospital here in Abidjan. He secretly called me on his bedside and told me that he has a sum of $12.500.000 (Twelve Million, five hundred thousand dollars) left in a suspense account in a local Bank here in Abidjan, that he used my name as his first Daughter for the next of kin in deposit of the fund. He also explained to me that it was because of this wealth and some huge amount of money his business associates supposed to balance his from the deal they had that he was poisoned by his business associates, that I should seek for a God fearing foreign partner in a country of my choice where I will transfer this money and use it for investment purpose, (such as real estate management). Sir, we are honourably seeking your assistance in the following ways. 1) To provide a Bank account where this money would be transferred to. 2) To serve as the guardian of this since I am a girl of 26 years. Moreover Sir, we are willing to offer you 15% of the sum as compensation for effort input after the successful transfer of this fund to your designate account overseas. please feel free to contact ,me via this email address [e-mail] Anticipating to hear from you soon. Thanks and God Bless. Best regards. Miss Wumi Abdul

I did the math … that’s an easy $1.875 Million! ------------------------------------------------------------------- Attn: Dear Sir/Ma, I write to inform you that your United Nations Compensation fund of US$10.7 Million Dollars which the UN Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon approved to be paid to all those who have lost some money as a result of scam on the internet of which your name is included, has been programmed into an ATM Card and is ready for delivery via FedEx Courier Services to your doorstep right now. You are entitled to withdraw the sum of US$150,000.00 dollars daily from this card but it will depend on the withdrawal limit of ATM cards in your country. Our ATM Visa card is inter switched meaning that you can use it on any ATM Machine anywhere in the world. Kindly forward your full names, telephone number and complete receiving home address where you will like to have the card dispatch it to you immediately you receive this notification. Please note that the first quarter payment for the year is almost ending and as such, we would like to make sure that you get your Card before the first week of March. Kindly treat this message as very urgent. Yours faithfully, Dr. Jamal Isah. UNITED NATIONS OFFICE ABUJA, NIGERIA, WEST AFRICA.

Why shouldn’t I believe these things? I have NEVER been burned by an email scam … so I should be able to trust email, right?

There are many sayings that come to mind, but I titled this sermon, “Don’t Believe Everything You Hear” … perhaps I should have added, regardless of who said it!

I remember my mom ALWAYS saying, “God helps those who help themselves.”

One day, on a lark, I looked it up in the Bible. Couldn’t find it. Looked for similar words … nope … I tried to find it with just the concept … not there!

This saying I’d heard my entire life from a most trustworthy source was suddenly lying in dust on the floor of my mind’s file room!

If you study the concept behind this trite little saying, you’ll discover that God helps those who CANNOT help themselves!

“God helps those who help themselves some people say … but are we helping out or getting in the way” [Steven Curtis Chapman “Consider It Done”]

We

Ever heard or passed along similar sayings about God or the Bible?

Cleanliness is next to godliness — not in the Bible! (Francis Bacon – 1605)

Give a man a fish, he eats for a day … Teach a man to fish … — not in the Bible! Anna Isabel Ritchie (Britain, 1885)

One group of Christian believers would tell you that God wants you to be rich. Another group of Christian believers would tell you that God wants you to be poor. So, which is it?

Today’s issue began with "one of those questions” about the saying, “God won’t put more on you than you can bear.” I’ve shared before that there is no more heinous lie from the pits of Hell that we regularly tell people within the church than this one. It is not only false in its statement, it is patently false in what it says about God’s relationship with His creation.

We use this saying (and many like it) in an attempt to bring comfort to people in grief or distress.

How comforting is it to say that God thinks you can bear your brother and sister-in-law dying in a terrible house fire?

How comforting is it to tell a young mom that God trusts you to bear up under the weight of serial infidelity and a bitter divorce?

How relieving is it to tell a Mom and Dad that God believes you can stand up under the pressure of losing your 20 year old son to a drunk driver?

Are we really providing relief when we tell a man that all of his health problems don’t matter because God knows you can bear it?

What relief is it to tell a woman that she and her entire family of women will all need radical mastectomies and reconstructive surgery but God thinks you can bear this?

What kind of compassion is that, and what does it say about our God if it’s true?

It says that these horrendous experiences were PUT ON US by a supposedly loving, compassionate God! My … how loving and compassionate of Him!

We don’t ever see God “putting” trials on people in the Bible.

He allows trials to come for certain purposes, but the one PUTTING those trials on us is Satan, not Yahweh!

We see people like Job, who lost nearly everything, and yes, God permitted it to happen. We see the entire nations of Israel and Judah conquered and exiled multiple times and God allowed it. We see Paul’s multiple arrests and imprisonments and God consented to them. But .. GOD DID NOT PUT THESE HARDSHIPS ON THE PEOPLE … HE ALLOWED IT!

That slight distinction, amounts to the high charge of heresy! (belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious doctrine - Oxford English Dictionary)

So where does this heresy come from?

God

1 Corinthians 10:12–15 NASB

12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. 14 Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. 15 I speak as to wise men; you judge what I say.

Go back to Vs 13

This passage says that God will protect us from a temptation that is beyond what we can resist. The temptation may be extreme … like Joseph when Potiphar’s wife stripped him naked trying to entice him. But God will provide a means of escape … Joseph ran out of the house naked to avoid falling to the temptation.

So, this passage doesn’t say anything about God “putting” anything on anyone. It speaks of God’s protection from the temptations that are put on us by life and by the enemy of our life!

In fact, I would say that the Bible demonstrates God’s willingness and even DESIRE to allow more than we can bear.

If I can bear this horrible experience on my own, I have no need for God. If God helps those who help themselves, then I have no need to call on Him.

God allows more than we can bear regularly … because it makes us desperate enough to turn to Him! He knows that otherwise, we wouldn’t turn to Him. We’d foolishly believe we can handle it all ourselves.

Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

So, how do we avoid falling into believing or continuing these false sayings?

You

Let’s look at what Paul would recommend:

Acts 17:10–12 NASB

10 The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. 12 Therefore many of them believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men.

Go back to Vs. 11

Paul considered the Berean Jews more honorable or noble-minded

eugenes - pert. to having the type of attitude ordinarily associated with well-bred persons, noble-minded

NRSV – “receptive” is a very bad translation! Receptive comes in the second half of the passage that says they received (dechomai) Paul’s teaching.

The Bereans were considered more high-class not because they received Paul’s teaching, but because they DIDN’T take Paul at his word … they TESTED what he said by checking it with the scriptures. They listened to Paul each day and then checked it against the scriptures!

Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

We

So what should we do?

First, stop trusting what other people say just because of who they are!

Whether it’s a news person, or a politician, or a friend, or your pastor … there are ways to verify information we pass along.

I’m human and I make mistakes. In my younger years, I was known to occasionally tell people things that weren’t true. As I’ve grown older, I don’t intentionally tell people things that aren’t true, but I’ve been known to be wrong.

Roger Dill story “not originally in the plan for Jesus to die”

PPR refused to confront him because they felt like they didn’t know the Bible well enough

So, they continued to listen to heretical preaching until the Conference finally moved him.

I’ve invited conversation about hard teachings in sermons before or about passages that are difficult to understand.

Do you know how many phone calls I get when I ask for them? zero

How many emails? None

How many texts? Nada

The last thing a respectable pastor wants is for his people to be confused. If you have troubles with one of my sermons, talk to me. I don’t discount that I could be wrong about something.

In my student appointment, I taught repeatedly that the Temple was destroyed in 60 AD. A very kind hearted lady approached me and gently asked me to look up that date, because she’d been taught it was 70 AD. Ten years may not seem like a big deal, but SHE WAS RIGHT! Everybody’s wrong sometimes!

Add in that the brief time allotted for a sermon is seldom enough time to really flesh out all of a topic. A lot of information ends up on the cutting room floor.

This all leaves room for confusion, so don’t hesitate to ask…and verify what I’ve said against the scriptures.

Verifying what’s been said with your neighbor or your friend may help, but they are NOT the last authority any more than I am! I am not the final authority on God’s Truth! And hemming and hawing amongst yourselves won’t bring you to the final authority. To find the Truth, we all MUST dig into the Scriptures.

You can’t rely on other people to do it for you any more than you can rely on someone else to take a bath for you! A major part of your job as a Christian is to learn and study the Scriptures for yourself. If you are uninformed, you will easily be fooled into believing all sorts of falsehoods and trite sayings like, “God won’t put more on you than you can bear.”

So, what you should do, what we all should do … is dig in and study the Scriptures for yourself.

I challenge you to take today’s sermon to the Bible. See if I’m telling you the truth. See if I’m preaching a half-truth. Learn what God’s character really is, through His self-revealing Word.

That’s the ONLY way you can really know the truth God has for you. Otherwise, you’re trusting a flawed human to deliver God’s word without flaw … and that won’t end well.

If Christianity is YOUR faith … it’s time you took ownership of it, and learned the Truth for yourself.

Don’t take my word for it … or anyone else’s.

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After Offering.....

This morning, we have two children to be presented for the Sacrament of Baptism. I’d like to ask Chris, Tessa, Arainna and Callen to come forward along with their Godparents.

As they come forward, I know many of you brought water, and I haven’t forgotten you! We’re going to begin with the Baptismal Covenant. In a minute, we’ll sing a song and I’ll have you bring your water forward.

slides from here [EVERYTHING IS ON-SCREEN]

Through the Sacrament of Baptism we are initiated into Christ's holy Church.

We are incorporated into God's mighty acts of salvation and given new birth through water and the Spirit. All this is God's gift, offered to us without price.

Through confirmation, and through the reaffirmation of our faith, we renew the covenant declared at our baptism, acknowledge what God is doing for us, and affirm our commitment to Christ's holy Church.

[to parents & godparents]

On behalf of the whole Church, I ask you: Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin? I DO.

Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves? I DO.

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races? I DO.

Will you nurture these children in Christ's holy Church, that by your teaching and example they may be guided to accept God's grace for themselves, to profess their faith openly, and to lead a Christian life? I WILL.

[to the congregation]

Do you, as Christ's body, the Church, reaffirm both your rejection of sin and your commitment to Christ? WE DO.

Will you nurture one another in the Christian faith and life and include all people in your care? WITH GOD'S HELP WE WILL PROCLAIM THE GOOD NEWS AND LIVE ACCORDING TO THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. WE WILL SURROUND ALL PERSONS WITH A COMMUNITY OF LOVE AND FORGIVENESS, THAT THEY MAY GROW IN THEIR TRUST OF GOD, AND BE FOUND FAITHFUL IN THEIR SERVICE TO OTHERS. WE WILL PRAY FOR THEM, THAT THEY MAY BE TRUE DISCIPLES WHO WALK IN THE WAY THAT LEADS TO LIFE.

[Ancient Words - Bring Water Forward]

Invite rest of family to stand in support.

The Lord be with you. AND ALSO WITH YOU.

Let us pray. Eternal Father: When nothing existed but chaos, you swept across the dark waters with your Holy Spirit and brought forth light. Pour out your Holy Spirit, to bless this gift of water and those who receive it, to wash away their sin and clothe them in righteousness throughout their lives, that, dying and being raised with Christ, they may share in his final victory. ALL PRAISE TO YOU, ETERNAL FATHER, THROUGH YOUR SON JESUS CHRIST, WHO WITH YOU AND THE HOLY SPIRIT LIVES AND REIGNS FOR EVER. AMEN.

PASTOR: I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

ALL: AMEN.

Now it is our joy to welcome our new brothers and sisters in Christ. THROUGH BAPTISM YOU ARE INCORPORATED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT INTO GOD'S NEW CREATION AND MADE TO SHARE IN CHRIST'S ROYAL PRIESTHOOD. WE ARE ALL ONE IN CHRIST JESUS. WITH JOY AND THANKSGIVING WE WELCOME YOU AS MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY OF CHRIST.

For all of us, who are remembering our baptism as we renew our commitments: Remember your baptism and be thankful. AMEN.