Good morning,
Praise the Lord for another brand new week. The Lord blessed us with a very blessed weekend of worship and witness. Our friend Dave Hettinger preached during Saturday Evening worship at the First UMC, he also preached during the 8:30 worship. My wife preached at the Wesley UMC on Sunday, and I preached during 11:00 worship. We believe in the priesthood of all believers. We are so blessed that so many among us us are called to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We are so saddened by the senseless tragedy that occurred in Arizona. May Jesus heal us and heal the nations. Let there be peace on earth.
Often I am saddened by the way our culture seduces us for entertainment. We all fall for the temptation. We want to be entertained 24 /7. Jesus came not to entertain us; He came to make us Holy and righteous. It is Satan who creates the craving in to be entrained. Our Lord was tempted to be entertained indeed. Jesus refused to be entertained for temporary pleasers. He came to make holy. The problem is that we have capitulated to the entertainment culture. Neil Postman summed up the entertainment culture in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death:
"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."
I suggest that for the Church in N. America the danger is not that we will cease to exist due to persecution. The Church is in danger of entertaining itself out of existence.
How, then, are we to practically counter the temptations that we face on a daily basis? Jesus our Lord, dealt with each of these temptations by reorienting his life through God’s Word. Temptation focuses us on the immediate moment and not the ultimate consequences. He majors in the here and now. Temptation is Satan’s way of blinding us to God’s goal by blotting out everything except the NOW. How will this give me pleasure NOW? How will this satisfy me NOW? God’s Word refocuses us on our ultimate purpose and goal.
Soren Kirkegaard said: "I have learned to define my life backwards and live it forwards." That means that he defined his life by the goal and then moved towards it. Jesus, the conqueror of temptation, lives so that we now have the power of the Holy Spirit in us resisting the temptation so that we may live a life of victory and holiness.
What way to live?
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMCOyY0Rlus
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church. Endicott
53 McKinley Avenue , Endicott.
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday 15, 2011
6 PM Gathering: Pizza,Chicken Wings and Coffee.
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music by a local worship Team, and Dave Berry
Speakers: Rev. Bill Turner,
Rev. Brown Naik,
and Dr. Elizabeth Droz, PhD, Dean of Students at Binghamton University
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