Bethesda Shalom Bethesda Shalom

Hebrews 12:1-2
 I’ve watched a number of races in my time from 100m to 10,000m. I’ve seen runners fall unexpectedly and get back up to win gold!  I’ve seen runners have their dreams shattered by an injury mid-way through the race — I’ve seen them get back up and hobble the final lap to cross the finish line.  For sure, I’ve seen disappointments and setbacks on the track, but there’s one thing that I’ve never yet witnessed and that is a runner running back to the starting line!!  Yet what is considered an absurdity in the natural is sadly a common reality in the spiritual.  I see Christian athletes turning back all the time.  Running in the wrong direction!! 
This sermon is a call to self-denial, to pick the cross and to follow Christ!

2 Timothy 2:3-4
No amount of preparation or training can fully prepare a soldier for war.  He’ll see and experience things on that battlefield that no college classroom or training expedition can ever replicate!  In the classroom, he’ll learn about tactical strategies and the theory of war; on the training expeditions, he’ll be given the necessary tools and skills to equip him for combat. But when the first shot is fired in a real life battle scenario, there’s no training or simulation that can adequately foresee how someone will react.  It’s one thing being in a mock exercise, your fellow soldiers are not trying to kill you!  On the battlefield, there’s an enemy that’s shooting to kill!! 
This sermon is a call to battle!  A call to stand firm as a soldier of Jesus Christ.  May you be mightily encouraged!!

1 Samuel 16:1-7
Of all the many things that God can do that we humans cannot, the one that I have been pondering this week in preparing for this sermon is the omniscience of God!  Man is limited in his knowledge, he has present knowledge and past knowledge based on what he can and has observed and experienced around Him.  Much of this knowledge I dare say, he’s gleaned from other men.  God on the other hand has limitless knowledge — He knows all things past, present and future.  No one has ever had to teach God anything, He has all knowledge! He doesn’t have to take a stab in the dark based on mathematical probabilities as to what may be, He has absolute foreknowledge of every single thing that will ever happen under the sun. 
As one ponders the omniscience of Almighty God, it ought to both sober us and to encourage us. May this sermon be a means of both to your dear soul. 

Hebrews 5:12
The clear command and expectation for us as believers, is that having been saved, we ought to grow up unto a place of Christian maturity!  What does Christian maturity look like?  In part, it looks like maturity in our understanding of doctrine!  This is no small matter.  Paul rebuked the Hebrew believers because he had truths to impart to them concerning the person of Christ that they were not able to receive due to their immaturity!!  One cannot blame a child for not being able to understand adult concepts, it’s not their fault, they’re a child.  However, this is not Paul’s complaint.  Paul’s complaint is this; “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat” (Heb. 5:12).   

1 Peter 5:7
In Peter’s first epistle, he writes; “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you”.  One might ask the question, how do I throw my care upon the Lord?  Of course, the language here is metaphorical!  Peter doesn’t mean that we are to physically do this, that would be an impossibility.  His language is figurative.  We are to cast our care/burdens upon Him by committing them into His care by faith.  We are to TRUST Him with our fears and anxieties, and when we do that, we don’t have to be anxious anymore because Father has got them.  He cares for me!!!  Oh, we’re awfully good at casting “some” of our cares upon Him, but that is not what the text says.  It says for us to cast ALL our care upon Him — IT’S ALL OR NOTHING!!!!  We are to cast all our care upon Him and to LEAVE them upon Him!!!  

Psalm 94:17-18
Hear the Word of God to your heart and take comfort O ye saints of His!  Maybe you’ve never been to rock bottom avenue, but when you get there and every crutch of support has been taken away such that you’re left with only one option, to cast yourself upon the mercy of God and to make Him your support; then, you’ll be able to say as the Psalmist said; “Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence. When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up" (Ps. 94:17-18).