UMC bulletin 9/21/14

Brown's Daily Word 9/19/14

Praise the Lord  for this Friday.  It is going to be one of the ten best days.  The awesome autumn season begins this coming Monday.  We can see the Lord is beginning to display His brilliant colors all around us.  I talked to Sunita, who is in Cypress.  She said the Lord is blessing their time in that part of the beautiful world the Lord has  made.  She met a couple from England last Sunday in church. The couple shared  with Sunita that one of their family members served as a missionary in Orissa, India many years ago.  It so happened that I had known this missionary from England serving the Lord in Orissa,  India. 

    Our church has begun its preparations for the Annual Apple Festival to be held  Saturday, September 20, on historic Washington Avenue in Endicott.  Our church has a booth with all kinds of gifts and apple baked products.  Those of you live in the area please stop by.  I will be participating in a Jewish Wedding tomorrow (this weekend).  It is all exciting.

    We have been studying the Book of Hosea in our Wednesday Evening Study. We read in Hosea, "The Lord said to me, 'Go, show your love to your wife again, though she's loved by another.  She's an adulteress.  But love her as the Lord loves the Israelites.'  It is written again 'You are to live with me many days. You must not be a prostitute or intimate with any other man.  And so I will live with you.'"  Hosea was saying, in other words, "Look, I've redeemed you.  I brought you to myself.  Now I ask you to live with me and for me in faithfulness."  In the story of the prophet and his unfaithful wife the Lord demonstratesHis unmerited love to us in Jesus Christ our Lord.  This is the gist of the Gospel.  The Lord does not love us because of what we do.  He always loves us in spite of what we do.  He does not love us because of what we are.  He always loves us in spite of what we are.  When we understand how much He loves us, we are to respond to him with love and praise and sacrifice and service.  Once we receive by faith and through His grace the gift in the person of Jesus Christ we are loved and cared for, for eternity.

    Our Lord God in Jesus Christ, does not love us because of what we are.  He does not love us because of what we do.  He always loves us in spite of what we are, in spite of what we do.  This is all about prevenient grace.  It is all about amazing grace.

    Clovis Chappell was a noted preacher of the last century, and he told of a young man who lived in Chicago who went down to the bluegrass regions of Kentucky where he met, wooed, and won a young woman whom ultimately he brought back to Chicago as his bride.  They enjoyed three lovely years of marriage, and then one day in the midst of a sickness in a seizure of pain the young woman lost her mind, so even when she was at her best she was a bit demented.  At her worst she would scream and neighbors complained because the screams cut the air and it was hard to live with.  For this reason the young businessman left his home in the middle of Chicago and went out to one of the western suburbs where he built a house, determined that there he would try to nurse his wife back to health and sanity again.  One day the family physician suggested that perhaps if he were to take his wife back to her Kentucky home that something in those familiar surroundings would help her restore her sanity, and so they went back to the old homestead.  Hand in hand they walked through the old house where memories hung on every corner.  They went down to the garden and walked down by the riverside where the first cowslips and violets were in bloom.  Even with the surroundings of home, after several days, nothing seemed to happen.

    Defeated and discouraged, the young man put his wife back in the car, and they headed back toward Chicago.  When they got close to the house he looked over and discovered that his wife was asleep.  It was the first deep, restful, sleep she had had in many weeks.  When he got to the house he lifted her from the car, took her inside, placed her on the bed and realized she wanted to sleep some more.  He placed a cover over her and then sat by her side and watched her through the midnight hour, watched her until the first rays of the sun reached through the curtain and touched her face.  The young woman awoke, and she saw her husband seated by her side.  She said, "I seem to have been on a long journey. Where have you been?"  Then that man, speaking out of days and weeks and months of patient waiting and watching said, "My sweetheart, I've been right here waiting for you all this time."

    Our Lord, the Emmanuel, is with us, waiting for us to cast ourselves with a reckless abandon upon the grace of God.

 In Jesus our Lord,

 Brown 

http://youtu.be/JEJ8C77yy70

Brown's Daily Word and Birthday!!

    Praise the Lord  for this glorious and brilliant day.  We will meet for our Wednesday Gathering for fellowship and study at 6 PM.  Today is my birthday.  Thank you all for your birthday wishes and love.  I have heard from all over the world... I am so blessed and so loved.  It was on this day I was born in a small village in Orissa India surrounded by majestic mountains, scenic beauty, and, best of all, surrounded by a very loving affectionate family.  I was the oldest of 7 children.  All of us were born at home... we were all home grown.  My mother is for the first time is not on earth on my birthday.  She is in heaven with Jesus preparing celebrate her First Christmas in heaven.  My mother had told me that my grandma and my aunt served as the mid-wives during my birth.  My mother never once saw a doctor during her pregnancy.   I had a long conversation with Bishop Mohanty of Cuttack, India, my mentor and a very dear friend of 50 years.  We ere sharing our lives in Jesus and because of Jesus.  We both were blessed to have committed Christian moms.  I praise the Lord for all His blessings through these years.  You are part of that blessing.  Blessed be His Name.  We know that WE change as we get older.  I remember the days when it seemed that Christmas or a birthday would NEVER get here; and now I think, "Is it here again ALREADY?".  LOTS of things change with age.

    Not long ago, someone noted some of the more obvious adjustments.  It was entitled, "YOU'RE NOT A KID ANYMORE WHEN...:"

    * Your back goes out more than you do.

    * You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.

    * Your arms are almost too short to read the newspaper.

    * You sing along with the elevator music.

    * You are proud of your lawn mower.

    * People call at 9 p.m. and ask "Did I wake you?"

    * You dream about prunes.

    * You enjoy hearing about other people's operations.

    * Your best friend is dating someone half his age and isn't breaking any laws.

    * You answer a question with, "Because I said so!"

    I am reading Psalm 90 , the only Psalm written by Moses that has been included in the Book of Psalms.  The Psalm is focused on the passing of the years, familiar to us because it is so often heard at funerals.  It talks about  "all generations... everlasting to everlasting... a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night [three hours]."  There is the reminder of the transitory nature of human life: "[humanity is] like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers...our days pass away...our years come to an end like a sigh."  Then those famous words in the sweeping poetry of the King James Version in which so many of us were nurtured, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."

    This is a hymn for grown-ups in  that it takes seriously the passing of the years as any mature person does.  It takes seriously the fleeting nature of human life.  The older we get, the more likely we are to read the obituaries every day.  We may not be able to add more years to our life, but we surely can add more life to our years...IF we go about the process with some intelligence and wisdom.  The Psalmist's prayer is, "So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart."  Wisdom, Lord.  Give us wisdom, so that we might make the most of these fleeting years!

    Lord, "So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart."

 In Jesus our Lord and our Life.

   Brown

http://youtu.be/mCueI9YLcG8

Brown's Daily Word 9/16/14

 

    Praise the Lord for harvest season around the corner and around the world.  It is the harvest time here in New York the Empire State.  We have some pear trees that are loaded with beautiful fruit.  New York apples are some of the best in the world.  We are getting ready for the Apple Fest, coming soon to Endicott.  One young friend brought to us some of the local honey that he raises along with maple syrup from his trees.  It is reported that the USA is going to harvest a record amount of  corn and soybeans this year.  The USA has become the number one producer of crude oil and natural gas.  The Lord blessed us with an abundant tomato crop from our garden, along with plenty of winter squash and hot pepper galore.  Blessed be His name.  Indeed it is a wonderful world.  We can say and sing, "How great Thou Art" and joyfully proclaim, "This is my Father's world".   

    In the world filled with both beauty and bounty we face terror and fear.  We face the attacks and the assaults of the enemy.  We resolve to live with confidence because the Lord is the victor.. He is our mighty warrior, strong in battle.  The battle belongs to the Lord.  May He make us as fearless and bold as Daniel and Peter, and Jim Elliott and others who have gone before us.  Think of Daniel.  Reflect upon his life and witness.  Daniel was taken to Babylon as a youth where,  it is written, Daniel chose a simple diet, chose an honorable way to be obedient to his new authority and to honor God.  The Bible says that God will honor those who honor Him.  The testimony of Daniel was firmly established.  We read  how God used this young man to speak to a heathen nation, to show God's sovereignty over all things, to prophesy concerning Jesus Christ, and to establish the lordship of Christ in human history.  It started with a small act of obedience.

    When we live in active obedience to God, we become living testimonies for God. In the very hard places of life where we are led, the mysterious places where we don't understand why the innocent suffer or why we suffer, it is in those places where small decisions are made to trust Christ regardless.  It is in those very places that we become living testimonies for others.  Daniel had to be a testimony for those other three young men.  Every Sunday school child knows that Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego were going to have a challenge, but they never forgot the strength and constancy of Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar would know the strength of Daniel.  They would all know the power of God at work in one teen-age boy who overflowed with the love of God in his heart.

    We see that this evil place, this place of paganism, became, for one tried and true young man, a place where other disciples were made.  Daniel was a great evangelist yet he was in a foreign land.  Daniel was a great theologian who taught others about God, yet he was a slave.  Daniel was a leader, yet Daniel was just a lad.  In Babylon Daniel stirred up the faith of his friends who would later need strong faith themselves, and he witnessed to a pagan king.

    This reminds me of Paul in prison in Rome.  He wrote to the Philippians to encourage them about his situation, "I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ" (Philippians 1:12-13).

    Often, through faith in Christ, the hard places of life become sacred places.  One might not believe that cancer is a sacred place.  The mere mention of the word makes us stop, but as awful as such a place is, I have witnessed sacred places in such times.  I was visiting a beautiful and very sweet servant of Jesus who is battling some dreadful health concerns.  I sensed the very presence of the Lord in her hospital room.  Jesus sustains in those difficult places of life that I call "Babylon".  We don't want to go to Babylon and we don't pray for anyone to go to Babylon, but Babylon happens in this life.  Jesus is with us in our Babylon.  Jesus came from heaven to  Babylon—the manger, the cross, and the tomb were Babylon to Him.  Jesus Christ identified with us in the hardest places of life, in places we will never go.  He took upon Himself shame and the condemnation of the cross that He might identify with us, that we may know that He is with us in Babylon.

    The Good News we proclaim is that our  God knows no boundaries.  He is the God named Jesus who comes to our Babylon and turns a place of exile into a sanctuary.  Jesus comes to our Babylon in a manger, on a cross, through an empty tomb, through the Holy Spirit, and He lives in our hearts wherever we are.

In Christ,

 Brown

http://youtu.be/PVCrpGRSlow

Brown's Daily Word 9/15/14

Praise the Lord for the way he sets the solitary in families.  On Saturday, our lovely daughter Janice spent her birthday "unplugged", as she went camping with Jeremy, Micah, Simeon, and Ada.  They had an invigorating wilderness weekend that included swimming in New England's chilly waters (and, I'm sure, some slack lining and a lot of delicious camp food).  Many years ago, on a brilliant and hot September 13 in Corpus Christi, Texas, she came into our lives to bless us.  Thank you, Jesus.  It was a Monday when she was born.  I worked at Memorial Medical Center, a teaching hospital in beautiful Corpus Christi.  Alice was working in an Insurance agency.  We were welcomed by an amazing Christian congregation, Morgan Avenue Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist Church.  The ladies of Morgan had given a gigantic baby shower just a week before Janice was born.  Alice even went to work that momentous day.  She came home at noon and we went to the hospital.  I drove, though I had only my learner's permit.  Since I worked in the hospital I knew the doctor who delivered Janice.  I knew Janice's nurse and almost all the staff.  Janice was born in the Lone Star State, Texas.  We still maintain friendship with some whom we knew while in Corpus Christi, most notably Fred and Bea Wenger, who had moved to Corpus Christi for the chaplaincy program.  They were dear friends who loved us and helped us out from time to time and who loved Janice.  Their daughter was her first babysitter. 

    The Lord blessed us with wonderful weekend.  He blessed us in His House yesterday with His people joining those who love Jesus around the corner and around the globe.  I preached at Union Center and Alice preached at Wesley UMC. 

    One of the readings for yesterday was taken from Exodus 15.  This is known as the song of Moses.  We have in record in the Word of God three songs and prayers Moses composed.  They are found in Exodus 15, Deuteronomy 31 and Psalm 90.  The song recorded in Exodus is the first song recorded in the Bible.  This is song of victory, sung after it was clear that Israel had been given the victory.  Victory is the very key note of the song, which begins with these words, verse 1: “Sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.”  Victory implies war.  The song also speaks of war.  In verse 3 we read, “The Lord is a man of war.”  How we need to be reminded of this!  War characterizes God.  He is not merely one who will go to war, if provoked, who will defend His cause.  Rather, God is a Warrior who will certainly go on the offensive for His cause and on behalf of His people.  The Lord is a warring God.  His entire Being is one of valor and courage and strength.

    The song then refers to the war just fought, from the perspective of the enemy, Egypt, in verse 9.  “The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.”  Egypt willingly warred against God.  She gave herself over to that war with all the power she had in her, and with a heart that was absolutely intent on destroying Jehovah’s people, and Jehovah Himself.  In that war she became boastful.  Remember again, the song contains revelation.   By inspiration, Moses wrote what Egypt said.  Then they said, as they went into the Red Sea, “We will overcome Israel.  We are stronger.  We are better!”  Jehovah gives over to such blind folly all those who oppose Him.  He hardens their heart, makes them self-confident, and makes them boast in their pride – only to show them that, when they fight against Jehovah, they cannot stand a moment. 

    The song continues to speak of how easily Jehovah destroyed His enemies, verse 10:  “Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters.”  Jehovah’s destruction of Egypt was a wonder.  In sending the waters back over the Egyptians and drowning them, Jehovah displayed His power.  This verse indicates that, although it took power to overthrow the wicked, it was not at all difficult for God to do so.  He easily drowned in the Red Sea those who opposed Him.  “Thou didst blow with thy wind” as though a breath of His mouth destroyed them.  Remember that when Christ comes again, He will destroy Satan, “with the breath of his mouth.”   Martin Luther said in his hymn, “One single word shall fell him.”  

    The song of Moses declares, “The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name.  I will sing unto the Lord for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.”  That note of victory ought to characterize the songs we sing today.  That is the note that the church in heaven sings.  Revelation 15:1-4:  “And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.  And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.  And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, 'Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.  Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name?  for thou only art holy; for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgements are made manifest.'”  That same Jehovah God is the victor; He is the occasion and the subject of the song.  God has the victory over the beast, and the beast’s image, and the beast’s mark, and over the number of the beast’s name.  Over that proud, boastful spirit Jesus Christ has the victory. 

In Christ,

 Brown

http://youtu.be/SnnWP7lvzQQ