Brown's Daily Word 5-26-11

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for another day in His Kingdom. The Lord blessed us with a beautiful Wednesday evening gathering for fellowship and study. There was a great time of deep sharing about the our Lord's extravagant love and grace in our lives in the lives of our families. We looked at the way the Lord lavishes His love to both the younger brother and the older brother as it is demonstrated in the Parable of the Prodigal son. According to Dr Tim Keller our God is the most Prodigal God, who demonstrates His love and mercy to the most undeserving as it is recorded even in the Old Testament pages.
One of the most familiar stories that comes from the pages of the Old Testament is the story of Jonah. We are all acquainted with the story of how he was sent by the Lord to Nineveh to call the people there to repentance, but Jonah did not want anything to do with these people. They were the enemies of Israel, terrorists of their day, fierce and cruel warriors. Jonah hated them and wanted them dead, and with good reason. Jonah was afraid of them, but he was also bothered that the Lord would ask him to go to them in order to call them to repent. Jonah thought that God should send fire from heaven to consume them. That seemed the better option for dealing with these pagans who neither loved God nor knew him. Jonah did not want to go to the people of Ninevah on the remote possibility that they might repent and the Lord would have mercy on them. Therefore Jonah ran in the opposite direction of Nineveh, and when he ran away from Ninevah he was running from the Lord as well. We all know the part of the story of him being swallowed by a great fish and being delivered on the shores of Israel by that leviathan of an ocean liner. It was not exactly the best of accommodations.
The surprising part of the story is that Jonah eventually walked through Nineveh, looking freakish after his ride in the fish’s digestive tract. He cried out, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” He did not even ask the people to repent. He gave them no hope and merely announced judgment. He was actually enjoying the thought of their coming destruction. But something amazing happened, and the people repented. They sat in sackcloth and ashes — even covering their animals in sackcloth. Their king took off his royal robes and repented as well. The Bible says, “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.”
As we read through the Bible we realize that repentance on this scale had never happened among the people of Israel, though and they were supposed to be the chosen people of God. Jonah had spawned a national revival, the likes of which have never been seen before or since. Jonah became the most successful prophet in the history of the world, but Jonah was not happy. He desired the Ninevites to die, not to live. The Bible says, “ But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live’” (Jonah 4:1-3). He was angry with God for being gracious and compassionate.
The whole story would have been shocking to Israel. They could not imagine God loving the people of Nineveh, their pagan enemies. It was totally out of line with their loyalty to their own nation that was tied so closely with their religion. It would have been like trying to tell Americans in the 70’s that God loved atheistic communists and the people of Russia and China. It is like telling people today that God loves Muslims and the people of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Like Jonah, we forget God’s love for all the people of his creation.
Modern day Christians tend to operate out of fear rather than faith. I have lived through times that we were afraid that the communists were going to overtake the world. Today we fear that radical Muslims are going to overtake the world. We are afraid that liberals are going to take over the church, or that atheists are going to take over our schools, and that homosexuals are going to take over the culture. We live out of fear rather than faith.
Despite world events and economic crises, Jesus is risen. Jesus has risen, ascended to be seated at the right hand of the Father and will return to claim the world as his own. There is nothing to fear. The most frequent command in the New Testament is, “Do not be afraid!” Jesus told his disciples about the persecution they would soon face. He told them of the coming persecution and said, “But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home” (John 16:32). It was the worst possible news they could imagine, but then he said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Do we really believe that Jesus has overcome the world? Are we living in that quiet confidence? If so, then we don’t have to get upset at everything that comes along This is good news. As we study history we see that Christianity has always thrived in times of persecution and in morally decadent cultures that were hostile to it. In those times Christians took their faith seriously and realized the importance of being witnesses by living a transformed life in a culture collapsing under the weight of its own sin. There has never been a time when it is more important to live out the life that Christ has laid out for us than it is today, and it is possible through Christ. We have been forgiven and brought into the kingdom of heaven. We have the Holy Spirit living around us and within us. We have each other. We have the hope of a returning Savior and the promise of eternal life. What could be better?
The Bible makes this promise, “For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4).
In Christ,
http://youtu.be/7DibkDQbzEo
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church
53 McKinley Avenu
Endicott
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott

Saturday, May 28, 2011

6 PM Coffee Fellowship( First UMC Enicott, )

6:30 PM Worship Service Worship Music: Ruth Gent and worship Team.
Speaker: Rev Earle Cowden