Brown's Daily Word 4-12-13

Praise the Lord it is Friday, and Sunday is coming. Those who live in the area join us this evening for our Friday Evening Television outreach at 7 PM on Time Warner Cable channel 4. I have been reflecting on our Lord's faithfulness and tender mercies towards me in my walk with Him. I trusted Christ as a young boy at the age 4. I started preaching and teaching at the age 16. It is almost 49 years since then.

Everything must be embodied in the essence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and its implications for us. I've been thinking back through these 49 years of ministry, particularly the previous Easter sermons I've preached. The resurrection of Jesus Christ equips us to face the two biggest fears in the world: the fear of dying and the fear of living.

1 Corinthians 15:16-22 speaks to the place of death and life for believers in Jesus Christ.

One of the most important facts of the Christian faith is the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Bible says that Jesus took upon Himself our sins and the sins of the world. He died. He rose from the dead. Following the resurrection, during a six-week period of time, He appeared to more than 500 people. The very existence of the Christian church bears witness to the fact something happened to transform a broken, beaten group of losers into men and women who gave their lives for Jesus Christ, of whom they witnessed in His resurrection power. Every Sunday bears its own witness to the living Christ. That's why we no longer worship on the seventh day, the Sabbath. The first day is the day of resurrection. This is the Lord's Day. Jesus Himself said in His revelation to John: "‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades'" (Rev. 1:17-18).

More than all the factual data we could muster in our endeavor to prove the literal resurrection of Jesus Christ is the fact He, right now, is in the business of changing lives. He is equipping people to die. He is equipping people to live. His words are borne out so beautifully. He said: "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die" (John 11:25-26). Then Jesus added the penetrating question, "Do you believe this?"

The apostle Paul was overwhelmed with the significance of the resurrection. His position is that if it is only for this life we have hope in Jesus Christ, we are (of all people) most to be pitied. The Christian faith is not self-delusional nonsense. It is the rugged, tough stuff of being equipped to live in this life, to die, and to step into the presence of Jesus Christ, into a life that goes far beyond anything we know in this life. Our Christianity is not just a temporal, ethical system that helps us survive in this world. The fact is Jesus Christ is risen. It makes a tremendous difference! We are only equipped to live when we are prepared to die. The apostle Paul referred to Jesus as being "the first fruits of them that are dead." His resurrection stands as evidence that life does not end with death. Christ is Victor.

"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died" (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14). If we believe these words we know that the Christian need not be bogged down with sorrow as those who have no hope. The fact is that the Christian is one who is prepared to die and to live. The apostle Paul wrestled with this as he struggled with his own desire to die to be with Jesus, and on the other hand to remain here to serve his Lord. How does the resurrection of Jesus equip you and me to live?

Somebody aptly described his life before he came to Jesus Christ as one in which, "I was going around in circles, circles of emptiness, with me at the center!" I am convinced, however, that Jesus Christ is the missing piece in the puzzle called life. Without Him, we almost can get it back together, but then it shatters into the confusion of a million pieces. Jesus said, "‘I am come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.'"

Dr. N. T. Wright, the former Bishop of Durham, warns that in our preaching of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we should not focus simply on God's forgiveness in this life and heaven in the life to come. Salvation by grace not by works was the important theological truth that brought about the Protestant Reformation, but we live in danger of putting so much of a concentration on God's grace that we forget we are saved for a purpose. We are called to a joint enterprise with God in building His kingdom here on earth. Instead of clutching a one-way ticket to heaven, which is ours, we are privileged to be empowered by His Holy Spirit to change in positive ways the culture in which we live. The resurrected Christ could translate us straight to heaven after we repent and receive His grace. He doesn't. He makes us His emissaries, His ambassadors here on earth to do His work in the most creative ways possible.

We don't earn salvation by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or giving a glass of clean, cold water to a thirsty person. Visiting prisoners, taking care of the widowed and orphaned, or telling people Jesus loves them and inviting them to receive His salvation is the work of Kingdom people. This is our privilege. This is our opportunity. Each one of us needs a job, and He's given us the greatest job of all.

Bishop Wright reminds us that as we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we have a big job to do. In his book Surprised by Hope, he tells us that we have three specific tasks as we build the kingdom of God here on earth. We are to see beyond our own vested selfish interests. In the interest of others, we must engage ourselves in justice for all people, not just for ourselves. He describes the tremendous social reforms brought about by the 18th century Quaker John Woolman and the British Parliamentarian William Wilberforce. We need more stories of that nature and scope today. We must dedicate ourselves to evangelism, sharing the good news of what God has done for us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is not something to selfishly hold on to and not share.

He put it in these words: "The mission of the church must therefore reflect, and be shaped by, the future hope as the New Testament presents it. I believe that if we take these three areas—justice, beauty and evangelism—in terms of the anticipation of God's eventual setting to rights of the whole world, we will find that they dovetail together and in fact that they are all part of the same larger whole, which is the message of hope and new life that comes with the good news of Jesus' resurrection."

People whom I have admired the most are the ones who never expected to retire in the classical terms of retirement. Oh yes, there are stages to life, but one knows he or she was created to be a servant of Jesus, always participating in building the kingdom of God—in this life and the life to come. What a joy to know that because of His resurrection we can face the two biggest fears in the world: the fear of dying and the fear of living!

In Christ,

Brown

http://youtu.be/rZYPfYe77PA

Brown's Daily Word 4-11-13

Praise the Lord for this new day. The Lord blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday Evening gathering for fellowship, study, and prayer. I got an email from our daughter Sunita, who is in the Republic of Georgia. She shared how the Lord is blessing her time in that beautiful country. She writes that the people are very hospitable and very beautiful. Praise the Lord for Easter People around the corner and around the globe.

I read a piece this week about the Oklahoma City bombing, which happened three days after Easter, on April 19, 1995. The story chronicles what has happened in that city since then; walls between people and between churches have been taken down. At local restaurants, the subjects often talked about are spiritual ones. The article spoke about Nick Harris, Pastor of First United Methodist Church, which is located next to the bombing site. Harris was supposed to be taping a TV show in his sanctuary at that time. His producer was uncharacteristically late, which saved both their lives.

After the explosion Harris stepped into the sanctuary where he saw another miracle. Easter Sunday had been three days earlier, and the church still had several lilies along the altar and the choir loft railing. "Everything else had been blown down," Harris says. "The windows were out. The skylights were out. But the Easter lilies were still standing in place. Not a single one of them had been knocked over. To me, regardless of all the destruction and all the damage, those lilies told the story that life is more powerful than death and good is more powerful than evil and love will always reign over hate."

All my life our Risen Lord has been surprising me; He seldom acts the way I think He should, but He always acts in ways that are right. So often in life the things which cause me the greatest pain are the very things He uses for His purposes in my life. No matter how much darkness tries to seal us in, no matter how hard evil is at work around us, let us declare and affirm that our Lord loves surprises. On Friday Jesus wept and all creation wept with Him. The sun turned to darkness and the earth shook with great sobs. But on Easter Sunday Jesus laughed and all creation with Him. This time the earth shook with heavenly laughter. According the Mathew's account of the Easter Morning, the picture of the angel seated on the rock is testimony to Jesus's laughter, and His great love for surprises. I love to think that every angel in Heaven wanted that assignment, the best assignment any angel could ever have, to roll back the stone and sit upon it -- The Lord turns the tombstones into park benches.


The seal of death -- became the seat of life; the seal of despair -- became the seat of joy; the seal of darkness -- became the seat of light. The very stone which was used to seal Jesus in the tomb became the seat where the resurrection was first proclaimed. Our Lord specializes in surprising outcome. He is the Lord of the miraculous and the impossible. He loves to bring life from death, light from darkness, and good from evil.

In Christ the Risen Lord,

Brown

http://youtu.be/3x2fSxOeij4

Brown's Daily Word 4-10-13

Praise the Lord for this Easter Season. In our Church calendar it is called Eastertide. Yesterday we taped our TV program for this Friday. I shared once again about the Easter event. Doubters are welcome at the empty cross and the empty grave and, best of all, before the Risen Lord. Last night I attended a special presentation by "Basically Bach Ensemble". They presented Bach's Cantata BWV 249 and selected movements from Handel's Messiah. It was anointed and powerful.

We will meet this evening for our Wednesday Evening gathering with a special meal at 6 PM . We will be looking at the passages of the Scripture that are part of the Handel's Messiah.

I am still reflecting on the Easter event. We are all Easter Christians. We are believers in Christ because of Easter event. Every Sunday is an Easter Sunday.

And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb . . . . As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, . . . he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; . . . he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." (Mark 16:2-7)

It is written in Mark that on that first Easter, women went to the tomb to pay their last respects to dead Jesus. To their alarm, the body of Jesus was not there. A "young man, dressed in a white robe" told them, "You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified? He isn't here. He is raised. He is going ahead of you to Galilee." Sometimes we wonder, why Galilee? Galilee was a forlorn, out of the way sort of place. It's where Jesus came from, but that's about its only claim to fame. Jesus spent most of His ministry out in Galilee, the "outback" of Judea, getting ready to go up to Jerusalem. All of Jesus' disciples seem to have been from Galilee. Jesus spent most of His time in Galilee getting His disciples prepared to leave Galilee and go up to the capitol city with Him. There, in Jerusalem, He was crucified and there He rose, but almost the moment He rose from the dead He headed back to Galilee. Nobody special lived in Galilee - that is, nobody except the followers of Jesus, who were people like us.

The resurrected Christ went back to and appeared before the very same ragtag group of people who had so disappointed Him, misunderstood Him, forsook Him, and fled from Him into the darkness. He returned to His betrayers and He returns to us. The risen Christ has come back to us. Therefore we live not alone. This is, indeed, very Good News. When we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, time and again we look up and realize that we're not walking by ourselves. When we come to some dead end in life, we look over the brink, into the dark abyss and, to our surprise and delight, there He is, awaiting us. We give up, give in, and come to a place of despair, only to find Him near to us.

A student, once asked to summarize all the gospel in a few words, responded: In the Bible, it gets dark, then it gets very, very dark, then Jesus shows up. In life, in death, in life beyond death, this is our hope. The risen Christ came back to us.

He is Risen,

In Him,

Brown

http://youtu.be/CYTQ6gpcuYA

Brown's Daily Word 4-9-13

"I serve a risen Savior. He's in the world today." That is really the main point of the Easter message — and it is great good news. During one of the morning worship services last Sunday one of our members who loves the Lord and serves Him much joy and great devotion shared during the time of testimonies that a few days ago, during the night, she experienced acute pain, intense and unbearable. The pain continued through the late night and the early morning. She testified that she cried unto the Risen Lord for healing and deliverance. A miracle happened - the Risen Lord healed her that night. She testified, "I know, that I know it was my Lord and Savior who touched me and healed me". We all can join her declaring "Hallelujah, what a Savior" that we worship and serve. We all can testify that our Lord has met us along the life's narrow way. He is Risen and He is with us here and now.

It is interesting how Paul told the resurrection story to the Christians at Corinth. He first remembered the facts that Jesus had died for our sins and was buried and on the third day he was raised. He recalls the times when the risen Christ appeared to others. Then he recalled that the risen Christ had appeared to him and changed his life and made him a servant of the way he had once persecuted. Finally, he reminded the Corinthians that it was their faith in the resurrection that brought them to fullness of life. They were now representing the risen Christ because they were parts of the Church, the body of Christ.

There have been many other chapters to that resurrection story. Your life and mine can be part of that story. "He is in the world today."

In Him and in His power,

Brown

http://youtu.be/76RrdwElnTU

Brown's Daily Word 4-8-13

It was great to be in the House of the Lord on His Day with His people celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus. He blessed us with His very presence and His power. I preached at 8:30, 9:30, and 11:00 AM worship services. The Lord blessed me with his grace, His mercy, and His very presence. We worship and serve the Risen Savior, who is in the world today.

On my way from the church I took some time to look at one of the massive Crocus patches between the Church and the parsonage. This Crocus patch is in full bloom. It is brilliant. I paused and gazed at the patch. While I was standing there I heard hundreds of honey bees proclaiming the Resurrection of Lord and Savior as they were singing a sweet song of the Savior, who rose again victorious and triumphant. I said to myself that a thing of beauty and the sight of new life is a joy for ever.

Our daughter Sunita flew last night to the republic of Georgia, part of the former Soviet Union. She will be there for a week, seeing the work of the Gospel being carried out. 90% of the population belong to the Orthodox Christian church. As I was preparing for morning devotions I was reading about current events in the world news. In Egypt The Christian worshippers in a cathedral were surrounded by a Muslim mob, causing terror and fear. During my days of graduate School in Bangalore, India in the early 70's a Moslem Dictator came into power in Uganda, causing great turmoil and devastation in the land. Two young men from there came to India for Studies where I was a student. They loved Jesus. Sunita, during her stay in Africa, shared about the Church in Uganda and other parts of the African continent, vibrant and fermenting with the new life Jesus offers.

April 22, 1973 was Easter Sunday. In the African country of Uganda — a nation at the time under the absolute rule of Dictator Idi Amin — Kefa Sempangi was a pastor in that tortured land. Under the growing shadow of Amin, Uganda was becoming a land of terror. Still fresh in Sempangi's memory was a face burned beyond recognition, the sight of soldiers cruelly beating a man, and the horrible sound of boots crushing bones. Sempangi was exhausted and wondered what difference his sermon that morning could make. He prayed for wisdom and strength and then delivered his sermon to 7,000 people.

Afterward he made his way to the vestry, tired but joyful. Five men followed him into the small building and closed the door behind them. Sempangi turned around to find five rifles pointed at his face. He had never seen any of them before, but immediately recognized them as the secret police of the State Research Bureau — Idi Amin's assassins. Their faces were full of pure hate and rage. "We are going to kill you," said the leader. "If you have something to say, say it now."

Sempangi stood there feeling himself lose control. He thought of his wife and child and began to shake. Somehow he managed to speak. "I do not need to plead my own cause," he said. "I am a dead man already. My life is dead and hidden in Christ. So if I die, I'll be alive. It is your lives that are in danger; you are dead in your sins. I will pray to God that after you have killed me, He will spare you from eternal destruction."

The leader looked at him with curiosity. Then he lowered his gun and ordered the others to do the same. "Will you pray for us now?" the leader of the assassins asked. Though fearing it was a trick, Sempangi asked them all to bow their heads and close their eyes. "Father in heaven," he prayed, "You who have forgiven men in the past, forgive these men also. Do not let them perish in their sins but bring them unto yourself."

Sempangi lifted his head, waiting for the men to pull the triggers. But then he noticed their faces. Gone was the hate and rage, and when the leader spoke, it was without contempt. "You have helped us," he said, "and we will help you. We will speak to the rest of our company and they will leave you alone. Do not fear for your life. It is in our hands and you will be protected." Relief and joy flooded Sempangi's heart. God's love had given him the strength to say a simple prayer — one that changed the lives of those five men forever. Actually the lives of six men were changed that day, for Kefa Sempangi's life was changed forever and his church of 7,000 people was also changed forever.

I'm glad Jesus wasn't in the tomb on Easter Sunday 1973. I'm glad He went on to Galilee. I'm also glad Kefa Sempangi followed Him to that Galilee in Uganda and that lives were changed that day. Easter always grants us strength to change.

I'm so glad Jesus is still in Uganda and right here in America the Beautiful. He is all over the world. That's the Good News of Easter and it's news worth telling. The tomb? The grave? He's not there, but thank God He's here! Moreover, on this Easter Season He is all over the world.

In the drama, The Trial of Jesus, John Masefield has the centurion Longinus report to Pilate after the crucifixion of Jesus. Longinus had been the officer in charge of the execution, and after his official report, Procula, Pilate’s wife calls the centurion to come and tell her how the prisoner had died. This was important to her because she had dreamed about Jesus the night before his death and tried to warn Pilate to let him go. After the centurion gives her the account of Jesus’ death, she asks, “Do you think he is dead?” Longinus answers, “No, lady, I don’t.” “Then where is he?” asks Procula. Longinus replies, “Let loose in the world, lady, where neither Roman nor Jew can stop his truth.” Indeed, Jesus is let loose in the world. His truth continues to change hearts and lives. It is such a profound truth that we cannot let it be forgotten or misinterpreted. It is the One Truth that can set us free.

He is Risen.

Brown

http://youtu.be/3x2fSxOeij4