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Legacy
of Flowers, Legacy of Faith |
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A Pocket Paper Robert J.
Morgan Next week we begin a New Year of Sunday worship services and a new series of Sunday morning messages. I’d like to preach in January and February about the “everyday” aspect of Christianity. Someone said to me once, “Christianity is just so every-day!” Well, the Bible has six wonderful day-by-day passages that I’d like to share with you, and it’s a good time to invite your friends to church. Some people want to start the New Year off by getting back into church; so do what you can to invite them. Today we’re coming to the
end of our December messages on the traditions and the truths of
Christmas. So far, I’ve
shared with you several Christmas traditions and customs whose origins hail
from The Aztecs were probably the first to notice a great and beautiful tree-like shrub that grew about eight feet tall. It turns red in October with a color very much like that of blood; and the Aztecs all but worshipped it because of its striking appearance. It was considered so sacred that the common people were not allowed to touch it, and the Aztecs set it apart from all other plants. When the Spanish conquistadors rumbled through the land looking for treasures and destroying the indigenous civilizations, they cared little for the people and had no use for the striking red trees that beautified the area. But later came Catholic priests, many of whom genuinely loved the Aztec people. The Franciscan friars taught people the story of the birth of Christ, and they used simple nativity sets to do so. These nativity scenes came to be decorated with this red Christmas shrub. One Christmas, according to a
legend that arose among the Mexican Catholics, when a nativity scene was set was
in the center of some village, a little girl named Pepita came to look at the
baby Jesus; but she broke into tears.
She explained she had no gift for the Christchild. Someone bent over to comfort her and
told her reassuringly that any gift, if given in sincerity and love, would be
accepted by Him. She left the
mission grounds and walked into the country looking for a gift. By and by she saw some beautiful green
weeds alongside the road, and she carefully picked them and brought the back
to the manger. As she offered
them to baby Jesus, suddenly a change fell over them. According to this legend, the weeds
turned to brilliant red, and those attending the services that night believed
they had seen a miracle. This
story was soon carried across Well, that part is legend, but
this part is true. In the 1800s
there was a preacher’s kid in When He was recalled to But there is one thing he did
that has had lasting influence.
On Christmas Eve of 1824, he attended services at a small Catholic
church and watched the Franciscans adorn the nativity scene with rich red
flowers. He was captivated by the
color and beauty of these plants.
After the service he inquired about the plant and the priests shared
the legend of the Christmas plant and gave him some seeds, which he shipped
back to his home in He went on to have a distinguished career in government and was elected to the United States House of Representatives, he served in the cabinet of President Martin Van Buren, and he helped found the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, which later became the Smithsonian Institution. But today he is best known for the flower that today bears his name—the Poinsettia. And that brings us to our lesson on this final day of the year. We may do a lot of things and win a lot of awards and achieve a lot of success. But what do we really want our legacy to reveal? How do you and I want to be remembered when we’re gone? What kind of impact do we want to make and what kind of heritage do we want to leave behind? I’d like to ask you to turn with me to the book of 1 John, and to a paragraph that I memorized in childhood. It answers those questions -- 1 John 2:15-17: Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of
the Father is not in him. For all
that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and
the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the
lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. I’m going to give you the outline I’m going to use for this paragraph so that we can see how John unfolds his argument. In these three verses, we have: Ø One Commandment to Follow Ø Three Traps to Avoid Ø Two Warnings to Remember Ø One Way to Live One Commandment to Follow First, there’s one
commandment to follow, and this commandment should be inscribed on the walls
of our hearts. It’s a
five-word injunction: Do not love the world. In researching this message, I was surprised to discover how many times John used the term world in his writings. He wrote the Gospel of John, and almost every chapter has some reference to the world. But he doesn’t always use his words in exactly the same way. For example, in John 3:16, he used this same word when he wrote, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” In that passage, John tells us that God loves the world; but in this passage He tells us not to love the world. But the term world is used differently here. In John 3, it’s referring to the whosoevers of this world—to people. But in 1 John 2, it’s referring to the character of this world, to this world’s philosophy and values. He actually goes on to define his usage of this word, and that leads us to the three traps to avoid. Three Traps to Avoid For all that is in the world -- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life…. The first danger is the lust of
the flesh, and that’s a pretty literal translation. In the original, John uses a three-word
phrase: ἐπιθυμία
τάs σαρκός. The first word, ἐπιθυμία, means a strong impulse or desire; it has to
do with hunger and appetites. The
middle word is a definite article meaning of
the, and the last word σαρκός or σάρξ. Literally the desires or appetites or cravings or drives of the flesh. John is warning us about any physical desire that becomes a dominant or
driving force in our lives, so that our actions are dictated by our appetites
rather than by the Lord. The second danger to the soul is the lust of the eyes. These are temptations that come to us
through the gateway of our eyesight.
It includes everything from pornography to materialism. The third is the pride of life, the boasting of who we are or what we can accomplish. Over the holidays a polling firm took a survey of British schoolchildren, asking them to name the best things in the world. The very first item on the top of the list was being a celebrity. The second was good looks. The third was being rich. The one-word answer of God was down in tenth place. This is the pride of life and it has seeped into our world so as to saturate even our children. Recently a reporter for the Tennessean asked me how I keep up with the popular culture, and I said that I scan the covers of the magazines and tabloids at the checkout counter of the grocery store, and if I’m in line for very long I thumb through some of the issues. Everything in them is about pleasure and possessions and sex and money and fame and good looks and celebrities. Those are the controlling aspects of our society today, and we’ve internalized these values. The devil is constantly trying to lure us out of God’s will, using these three things as bait. I received a letter from a woman this week who asked me to pray for her daughter, and this is what she said: “As a teenager, Penney seemed to be headed in the right direction and down the path God had for her. But around her senior year in high school, she began to change. She made some bad decisions when picking friends. Penney has never had a lot of confidence and even though she is a beautiful girl with a great personality, she somehow still has low self-esteem. She became involved with friends who were not raised as she was and who didn’t know the Lord. She moved out on her own, she had her heart broken by a boyfriend. And at the same time our church went through a terrible split and somewhere along the way, Penney just stopped attending church.” She fell into alcohol abuse and unholy habits and other things that came close to ruining her life. These are the traps the devil sets for us. This is what happens to us. Now in this passage, the Lord issues two warnings. Two Warnings To Remember First, these traps are not from
God. Look at these verses
again: Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of
the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world…is not of the
Father, but is of the world. Our world is a system of values and goals that excludes the God who created us, who loves us, who knows what is best for us, and who wants to give us the true joys of abundant living. The second warning is that
these allurements are temporary.
Verse 17 says: And the world is passing away. This week, James Brown, the
godfather of soul music, passed away.
One of his most famous songs is entitled “I Feel Good,”
and he sings I feel good, I knew that I
would…. I feel nice, like sugar and spice…. Well, its great to feel good and to feel nice,
but this week James Brown felt sick, went to the hospital, and it slowly
dawned on him he was dying. His
last words were, “I’m going away tonight!” Then he took three long breaths and
tumbled into eternity. And in one instant, all his fame, all his
achievements, all his money, all his music didn’t mean a thing as he
stood in the presence of God to give an account of his life. The Bible says that the world is
passing away and the lusts thereof. Do not love the world or the things in the
world. If anyone loves the world,
the love of the father is not in him.
For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the
lust of it. One
Way to Live But this passage ends by giving us one way
to live: …but he who does the
will of God abides forever. You ask, “How do I do
that?” And I’d like
to close today’s sermon—and another year’s worth of
sermons—by suggesting a simple four-fold strategy for doing the will of
God in your life. First,
take a stand. Determine once and for all that
you’re going to follow Jesus Christ. Several years ago we had a man came to
our church for awhile before moving out of town. One day I asked him how he came to
Christ, and he told me, as best as I can remember, that it happened one night
when he was driving in snowy conditions somewhere in one of the northern
states. He was on an isolated
stretch of road, and it was bitterly cold. His car skidded out of control on the
ice, slid off the road, and turned upside down. There he was, injured, hanging by his
seatbelt, unable to free himself.
His engine stalled, and there was no heat coming out of the
ventilator. The prospects of
anyone finding him were remote, and he thought he was going to die. And then and there he cried out to God
and confessed his sins, accepting Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord. I don’t remember exactly how he
got out of that jam, but someone came by who rescued him. But that night, he became a follower
of Christ. Even though he was
suspended upside down, he took a stand. Now, you don’t have to wait for the
Lord to turn your life upside down.
Just resolve to follow Him now.
The key to all the other good decisions in life is to make this one,
because it is the most foundational decision we’ll ever face. Second,
build a fence. Once you take a stand for Christ, you have
to begin living as this passage tells us to, and that means you have to build
some fences in your life to separate yourself from the world and its
temptation. The Bible says,
“Come out from among them and be ye separate.” So we have to erect boundaries between
ourselves and the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life; and I’m speaking in very practical terms. I’ll give you a simple illustration
that happened to me recently.
Several months ago, a woman showed up here to see me without an
appointment. I agreed to meet her
in the conference room. I had
never seen her before, but she was well-dressed and seemed a woman of some
wealth and sophistication. She
was pleasant, but troubled. She
looked at me, and the glanced at the open door of the conference room, and
she said, “Would you mind if we closed the door?” It was an innocent question. As it turned out, her husband was
president of a corporation in another state and they had come to “Actually,” I said, “I
need for us to leave it open.
It’s just a policy I have.
But we can talk quietly and no one will be listening” She looked perplexed a moment, then she
smiled and nodded, and said, “Well, that’s actually what I came
to talk with you about. I’m
very troubled, because I’ve just found out that my own husband
didn’t have such a policy.” We have to build fences in various areas of
our behavior. It might involve
where we go for entertainment, what kind of movies we watch, what sort of people
we’re with, or what we allow and don’t allow on our computer or
iPod screens. These are issues of
personal purity that we have to think through for ourselves. Teenagers need to do this before they
go on their first date. We have
to be stand-takers and fence-builders. Third,
close a door. In Matthew 6, Jesus told us to go into a
quiet room and close the door behind us so that we could nourish ourselves in
God’s presence through prayer and Bible study. If you’re going to remain pure in
an unholy world, you have to perform the spiritual maintenance on your
soul. Recently I read an article
by a newspaper columnist named Rosemary Smith who wrote that when she needs
cheering up, she reads her paper towels.
Her favorite brand of paper towels comes imprinted with sayings,
jokes, and proverbs. Well, we all
need inspiration for life, but we need a better source than paper
towels. We need to shut ourselves
in a room every day with some peace and quiet and a little time for personal
renewal and replenishment.
We’ve got to feed our faith. The old song says, “Take time to
be holy, the world rushes on.” Finally,
start a fire. When we take a stand for Christ, build
fences in our lives, and learn to spend time with Christ, the outcropping is
this: We go into the
fire-starting business. We become
sanctified fire-starters. If we
went around dropping matches everywhere and starting fires in a literal
sense, we’d be arrested for arson and sent to prison. But in a spiritual since, that’s
exactly what we’re supposed to do.
Recently I’ve thought of myself, not as a match-maker, but as a
match-dropper. I just light
matches and drop them along the way, hoping some of them will kindle a
fire. We do this by sharing
Christ through our simple deeds, our words, and our attitudes. Speaking once at
When the project was nearly completed, the missionary told his friend, “You have been of great help to me. I could never have gotten along without you. Now I want to ask you a question. As we have gone together through the New Testament, hasn’t the beauty of Christianity touched you? Wouldn’t you like to become a Christian?”
The Confucianist replied, “Yes, it does appeal to me. I think that it presents the most wonderful system of ethics that I have ever known. I believe that if I ever saw a Christian, I might become more interested in becoming one myself.”
“But,” exclaimed the missionary, “I am a Christian!”
“You?” the scholar replied. “You, a Christian? I hope you will not take offence, but I must tell you that I have observed you and listened to you from the beginning. If I understand the New Testament, a Christian is one who follows Jesus, and Jesus said, ‘By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.’
“You cannot be a Christian, for I have listened to you as you have talked about others in an unkind way. I have observed, too, that whereas your New Testament says that God will supply all your needs, you do not trust Him. You worry about this and about that, and if your check is a day late you become dreadfully concerned. No, you cannot be a Christian. But I think that if I ever see one, I should like to be one.”
The missionary was so rebuked he broke down completely, sobbing out a confession asking God’s forgiveness, and he asked for the scholar’s forgiveness, too. He was so broken that the Confucianist later remarked, “Well, perhaps I have seen a Christian after all.” When people see you and me do they say,
“Perhaps I have seen a Christian after all”? Are you a fire-starter for
Christ? This coming year, I want us all to go around this
city and around the world dropping matches here and there to see if any of them
will catch. Let’s do it by
our words, by our deeds, by our literature, by our invitations, by our
sermons, by our services, by our ministries, by our very lives and attitudes. In this coming New Year, take a stand, build
a fence, close a door, and strike a match. We may never have a flower like a
Poinsettia named in our honor; but after all, Jesus said that the flowers
fade and the grass withers. He
intends for us to leave a lasting legacy for Him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the
world. And the world is passing
away, and the lust of it; but he who dos the will of God abides forever. Copyright StatementWe grant permission for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied for use in a local congregation or classroom, provided no more than 1,000 copies are made, the material is distributed free, and the copies include the notice: "Copyright (year) The Donelson Fellowship."For any other use, advance permission must be obtained from The Donelson Fellowship church office. |
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