Brown's Daily Word 4-15-11

Praise the Lord fabulous Friday before Palm Sunday. Plan to be in the Lord's House this coming Sunday to celebrate the triumphal entry of Jesus our Lord into the city of Jerusalem. He came, He saw, and He conquered. Let us join His people redeemed by His grace and love from every race and every land in participating in His Passion and celebrating His victory. Sunita , Andy, and their good friend Kelly Johnson are attending a weeklong conference in Harrisburg, PA sponsored by "Global Awakening". Alice planning to go to Boston tomorrow to spend the week with Micah, Simeon and Ada. Today is going to be one of the brilliant days of April. Please pray for our weekly TV outreach this evening on Time Warner Cable channel 4 at 7 PM. One of our ministry teams is preparing and serving a meal for the needy at the First UMC Endicott tomorrow. The meal will be served at 12 noon. There will be A parish nurse attending to primary medical concerns of those come to these meal meetings. There will be others available to listen to people and to pray with them. We will gather for our Saturday Evening worship tomorrow at 6:30 PM. Our dear friend Rev. Earle Cowden will be preaching. Our daughter Laureen will be leading in worship. For Palm Sunday celebration we will meet for worship at 8:30 and at 11:00AM at the Union Center UMC. Our Choir will present special music during both worship services. We will have a gathering of children after second worship service. There will be an Easter Egg Hunt followed by a special meal for the children and their families. We will met for worship at 9:30AM at the Wesley UMC. I will be preaching from Revelation 7 on "The Triumphal Entry II". I read about a Jewish father who was concerned about his son. He realized that he had not truly raised his son to be grounded in the faith of Judaism, so, hoping to remedy this he sent him to Israel so the boy could experience his heritage. A year later the young man returned home. He said, "Father, thank you for sending me to the land of our Fathers. It was wonderful and enlightening. However, I must confess that while in Israel I converted to Christianity." "Oh (groan) what have I done?" the father thought. So, in the tradition of the patriarchs, he went to his best friend and sought his advice and solace. "It is amazing that you should come to me," stated his friend, "I too sent my son to Israel and he returned a Christian." So, in the traditions of the Patriarchs, they together went to the Rabbi. "It is amazing that you should come to me," stated the Rabbi, "I too sent my son to Israel and he returned a Christian. What is happening to our sons? “Brothers, we must take this to the Lord," said the Rabbi. They fell to their knees and began to wail and pour out their hearts to the Almighty. As they prayed, the clouds above opened and a mighty voice stated, "Amazing that you should come to Me. I, too, sent My Son to Israel..." The event that split time in two took place when God sent His Son to Israel. Gentiles, Jews, and all were transformed by His presence, His power, and His words. It seemed that whoever came into contact at the heart level with Him became His follower… May we meet Him today inspired, anointed, and empowered by the Holy Spirit that we might commit ourselves, our love, our time, our talents, and our treasures to Him that we might worship and witness for Him and serve Him faithfully, joyfully, and obediently to the end. Then we will see the new Heavens and the New Earth unfold. In Christ, Brown http://youtu.be/CZqrI5Q71do

Brown's Daily Word 4-14-11

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for the gift of another day to live, to love, and to enjoy His grace and mercy. The Lord blessed us with a beautiful gathering for our Wednesday Evening Fellowship and study. Each week I come home from these gatherings blessed and propelled to serve and honor the Lord.
I had a very winsome and humorous conversation with my granddaughter Micah yesterday afternoon. She is 5 and is home schooled. I asked her how her school was going. She said, "I am too busy grandpa. I do not have time for school".
The eighth chapter of Romans begins with one of the greatest promises in all the Bible. "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." There is something in those words that makes your heart flutter. The significance is in the fact that in spite of our sin, God doesn't condemn us; this is overwhelming in and of itself. When you read that verse in light of chapter 7, the personal application of its truth is even more invigorating.
Chapter 7 is one of the most powerful statements about struggling with sin in the history of all literature. What makes it so powerful is that Paul is providing us a glimpse into his own struggle. For me that is encouraging.
Often when I think of the apostle Paul, I think of somebody who is bigger than life. I see him standing up and defending his faith in front of the Roman governors and even the emperor. I remember him on his great missionary journies all over the Roman empire. We have all listened to him as he has instructed the churches to be faithful, and as he encouraged Timothy and Titus to remain true to their calling. Probably most of us have put Paul on quite a pedestal.
When we return to the 7th chapter of Romans, we get a peek behind eyes of the apostle, and he was a lot more human than we might have first thought. Paul was a fellow struggler. (Read 7:14-15, 18-19) Paul was honest enough to recognize within himself a tendency to get caught in to the stranglehold of sin. This is not, however, Paul talking about the way he used to be sinful before he became a Christian. This is Paul saying, "Just this morning, I gave in again". It happens to us all. Earlier in his letter he has proclaimed "No one is righteous, not even one." Later, he stated matter of factly, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." He went on to state it even more personally, "I struggle with sin, and sometimes I lose." Finally, the frustration of losing seems to break through to the surface as Paul proclaimed in 7:22-24, "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man; But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
How many times a week could we just kick ourselves for failing? A thousand times, in a thousand different ways, we have tried to live by the standards that we know are right, yet we have done the stupid thing; we have sinned against God despite our knowledge of what is right. This makes us feel stupid, filthy, and wretched, to use the language of Paul. Paul then continued in Romans 7:25-8:2, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."
Paul admitted to the struggle going on within every human being, and when we try to win on our own strength we often get pinned down. Yet, the greatness of the promise of God’s grace is that even when we fail again, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is security in our relationship with God. If we are in Christ, we do not need to wonder whether God is angry with us. "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." If we have a personal relationship with Jesus, we do not need to fear God’s wrath. When God looks at us, He doesn’t see a wretch; He sees a son or daughter.
A little while back I heard a story about a girl who was the daughter of one of the royal families of Europe. She had a big, round nose that destroyed her beauty in the eyes of others -- and especially in her own eyes. She grew up with this terrible image of herself as an ugly person. So her family hired a plastic surgeon to change the contour of her nose. He did his work, and there came the moment when they took the bandages off and the girl could see what happened.
When the doctor removed the bandages, he saw that the operation had been a total success. All the ugly contours were gone. Her nose was different. When the incisions healed and the redness disappeared, she would be a beautiful girl. He held a mirror up for the girl to see. But, so deeply embedded was this girl’s ugly image of herself that when she saw herself in the mirror, she couldn’t see any change. She broke into tears and cried out, "Oh, I knew it wouldn’t work!" The doctor labored with that girl for six months before she would finally accept the fact that she was indeed different. But the moment she accepted the fact that she really was different, her whole behavior began to change.
Paul recognized a very important truth, in the fact that we act according to what we know we are. A little later in Romans 8 Paul asked a very important question that at one time or another is on the mind of every Christian. ( 8:35-39) Still none of those things can separate us from Him. The problem is that when we are foolish and we fail, our tendency is to turn away in shame.
"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." There is never a time when we will turn toward Jesus our Lord, and not find his arms extended, waiting for our return.
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/rSnxM6hsTYA

Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church
53 McKinley Avenue
Endicott
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott

Brown's Daily Word 4-13-11

Good morning, Praise the Lord for this Wednesday. We will gather for mid-week service this evening at 6 PM for food, fellowship, and study, followed by choir practice. The Epistle Reading for last Sunday was taken from Romans 8. We don’t have to be a very astute observer to notice that we live in a world that struggles against hopelessness. If you talk to people at all, you are going to get in a conversation with someone who is going to tell you that they are discouraged. Listen to any of the radio talk shows or watch the news and you are going to hear people who are cynical about life. They think the world is going down the tubes. On a world scale, it seems that we go from crisis to crisis. In our personal lives there is pain. We have physical problems that afflict our bodies. We endure emotional turmoil and turbulence. As Paul talked about life, he did not want to "sugar coat" the pain and struggles that we go through. Instead, he wanted to put them into perspective. Romans 8:18 states, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Paul used language that helps us see life with an eternal perspective. We live here on earth for a little while, but we live forever when we leave this earth. Paul wanted to make sure that we don’t get so discouraged with the difficulties of this life that we lose sight of the bigger picture of eternity. He said, "Don’t forget, there will be a time when there won’t be any more struggles, pain, death or tears. For those who are in Christ, there will be only joy and happiness." Romans 8: 19-21 convinces us that right now we live in a world that is less than perfect. This world is subject to the second law of thermodynamics, which states that everything in this universe is decaying. What seems fresh and new one day will some day be old and broken down. Something that is growing and vibrant will some day shrivel up and die. To use Paul’s language, this world is in "bondage to decay." The second law of thermodynamics doesn’t offer any hope for anything on this earth. A philosopher of earlier renown was Bertrand Russell, an outspoken atheist. He even wrote a book entitled, "Why I Am Not A Christian". When Russell was 81 years old, he was interviewed on a BBC radio talk show. The interviewer asked him what he had to hang onto when death was obviously so close. Russell responded, "I have nothing to hang onto but grim, unyielding despair." What an honest yet hopeless response! When you live only for this life, when you invest your life in the flesh, when you think that this is all there is, you cannot help but live in despair. For those of us who are in Christ Jesus there is hope, because we anticipate a time when death and decay will no longer exist. In verse 19 Paul wrote, "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed." That phrase "eager expectation" is picturesque, meaning to stretch the neck in anticipation." Have you ever waited for someone to come home on a plane? As the people come off the ramp you stretch and strain to see them. According to Paul, creation is in that type of existence, longing to see what God is going to do. Paul continues in verses 22-23, "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." I have been around people who groan outwardly because of their physical pain. It is difficult to hear their moans and groans. But I have also been around more people who groan inwardly. Though it might not be an audible groan, but more of an internal groan, it demonstrates a sense longing for perfection. For Paul, the groan occurs when we recognize that there is a huge gap between what is and what ought to be. Every one of us has experienced the fallen-ness of this world and let out a groan. Paul indicated that groaning is a sign of our hope. We long for something better. If we are in Christ, we have the promise that there is something better. The Biblical world view points us to a hope that is greater than the world we live in. For the Christian, there is no such thing as a hopeless situation. Verses 24-25, "For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." Paul expounded on this idea a little more in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." In Christ, Brown http://youtu.be/CYTQ6gpcuYA Saturday evening worship service. Location: First United Methodist Church 53 McKinley Avenue Endicott Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott Saturday, April 16, 2011 6 PM Coffee Fellowship 6:30 PM Worship Service Worship Music:Laureen Naik Speaker: Rev Earle Cowden

Brown's Daily Word 4-12-11

Good morning, Praise the Lord for this new day a gift from the Lord. It was one of the warmest days of April yesterday. The crocuses in front of the parsonage are full bloom. The bees are back, hovering over the flowers with a sweet sound. The daffodils are popping open all around along with the trees, the leaves of which are about to burst forth in brilliant vivant colors. Our Lord makes all things beautiful in His time. As we get near to Palm Sunday and Holy Week, we continue to look at the cross. Our Lord God displayed His power and grace in and through the foolishness of the cross. I was reading sometime ago that a few hundred years ago, on the south coast of China, high on a hill overlooking the harbor of Macao, Portuguese settlers built an enormous cathedral. They believed it would weather time, so they placed a massive bronze cross as its centerpiece. Not too many years later, a typhoon came and God’s finger work swept away man’s handiwork, leaving only fragments of the front wall and the cross. Many years later a shipwreck stranded hundreds of men not far out in the same harbor. Some died; some lived. One man was hanging onto the wreckage of ship, disoriented and frightened, having lost sight of land. Yet, each time the ocean swells lifted him out of the waves, he spotted the cross, which eventually guided him to safety. To countless millions, that is what the cross means. It is a glowing symbol of rescue, leading stranded souls, shipwrecked on sin's jagged reefs, from the shadow of death’s darkness to the shining light of new life dawned. It is also a place of hope to countless Christians who come back to the cross, bringing the scattered debris of their lives. It is on the cross that we see the passion of Christ so vividly portrayed. "Passion" comes from the Latin word for suffering. Passion comes from same word as passive. He endured the cross passively for us. Hebrews 12:2 – "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." As we survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, may Jesus grant us a passion to live for Him in holiness and purity. May He grant us a passion to proclaim His passion to all the world. In Rembrandt’s famous painting, "The Three Crosses." we can look first at cross, then at the crowd around cross. At the edge of the painting, a figure stands, almost hidden in shadows. Art critics say it represents Rembrandt himself. We are there at the crowd. May we behold His Passion, His Glory, and, best of all, His victory beyond the Cross. In Christ, Brown http://youtu.be/0QtQlCzr4q8 Saturday evening worship service. Location: First United Methodist Church 53 McKinley Avenue Endicott Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott Saturday, April 16, 2011 6 PM Coffee Fellowship 6:30 PM Worship Service Worship Music:Laureen Naik Speaker: Rev Earle Cowden

Brown's Daily Word 4-11-11

Good morning, Thank Jesus for it is Monday. I trust that you had a blessed and a very beautiful weekend. We drove to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to the wedding of our niece Jovita. Jovita and her Grove City college friend Torr got married on the Cape, in a marriage ceremony held at Brewster Alliance Bible Church. Jessica was the matron of honor. Laureen, the bridesmaid, brought the music for the wedding. The reception was held in one of the Yacht clubs. The Lord blessed the wedding ceremony and the reception. Torr and Jovita after their honeymoon in Virgin Islands will be living in Cape Cod. Janice and Jeremy were the official photographers for the wedding. We rented a house in Cape Cod for the weekend, so that all of our family were together except Micah and Simeon. Jeremy, Janice, Ada, Laureen, Andrew, Sunita, Tom, Jessica, Alice and I were able to share the weekend together. Little Ada is a huge blessing and she is a charm. Micah and Simeon were cared for by their other Grandma for the weekend. We all traveled back to our respective homes safely yesterday. The Gospel Reading for yesterday was taken from John 11. This is the seventh and the last miracle by our Lord Jesus that is recorded in the Gospel according to John. Lazarus, whom Jesus loved, became sick and died. Jesus, though informed about Lazarus' sickness, delayed in coming to visit him. By the time Jesus our Lord came to Bethany, Lazarus was dead and buried. He had been in the tomb for 4 days. Ecclesiastes 3:2 reminds us that there is a Time to be born and a Time to die. As we continue with the story, we find the shortest verse in the entire Bible. Surrounded by family and friends, Jesus was deeply moved and asked where the body of Lazarus was. When he viewed Lazarus, he could have said something extremely profound. Instead, John 11:35 tells us what Jesus did -- “he wept.” Jesus of Nazareth, the world’s most complete, most perfect man, was attending the funeral of a friend and openly weeping, without embarrassment, without apology. In fact, those watching him said, “See how much he loved him!” Jesus said to Mary and Martha in verses 25-26: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies. Do you believe this?” Jesus didn’t merely say that there is a resurrection. He claimed to be the resurrection. The fact that He would rise from the dead was the guarantee that others would too. We often think that we are in the land of the living, and that when we die we go the land of the dead. The opposite is really true – this is the land of the dying, when our life here is over, we are transferred into the land of the living – either to a place of eternal joy or to a place of eternal torment. There are really only two possible destinations. There is only one requirement for entrance into resurrection life. It is not a matter of trying to be good, the only requirement is that we personally believe that Jesus exchanged his life for ours by absorbing our sins on a cross and that He rose again so that those who put their trust Christ shall also be raised up. James 4:14 says, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Life is unpredictable. We don’t even know what will happen tonight, much less next week or next year. The truth is that no one can predict the future. Life is brief. Our lives are like a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. The Greek word here is the word atmos, from which we get the word “atmosphere,” which is that invisible layer of water vapor that encircles our planet. Our lives are like a mist in the grand scheme of things. Life is too unpredictable and too brief to live it without God at the center. We count our lives in years but God tells us in Psalm 90:12 to number our days. In a sense, this instructs us to make each and every day count. The truth of the matter is that all of us are just one heartbeat away from eternity. In 1 Samuel 20:3, David said, “Yet as surely as the Lord lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death.” Praise the Lord, for He is the Resurrection and Life. In Christ, Brown http://youtu.be/CYTQ6gpcuYA Saturday evening worship service. Location: First United Methodist Church 53 McKinley Avenue Endicott Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott Saturday, April 16, 2011 6 PM Coffee Fellowship 6:30 PM Worship Service Worship Music:Laureen Naik Speaker: Rev Earle Cowden