Pm sermon for 6/10/07

The text this Sunday evening comes from Nehemiah 13:11. Nehemiah asks “Why is the house of God abandoned (or neglected)? He comes from the king a second time after the wall is built and dedicated only to find the high priest, Eliashib, making room in the temple for the foreigner Tobiah. Nehemiah also discovers that the Levites haven’t received their portions and have gone back to their fields. The question of Nehemiah begs for a sermon but I want to make sure that I put the text in its proper context before making what some might think are obvious applications to the church.

PM sermon for 5/20/07

This Sunday evening I’m going to do something I rarely do – preach someone else’s outline and thinking. It will not be a word for word copy since I don’t have a manuscript but the outline clearly comes from someone else. I heard this lesson at the Holy Land Experience in Orlando. I cannot remember the man’s name but I do know that he is the chief Bible teacher at the Holy Land Experience. Although the lesson had some elements of allegory in it, it wasn’t allegorical nor was it one of those “imitate this guy” type of lessons. It really focused on God’s faithfulness in the man’s life and how God will be faithful in ours. The text is 1Chronicles 11:22-25. I haven’t decided on a title. The text is about Benaiah, one of David’s valiant men. He wasn’t one of the “three” but he certainly gained a name. The lesson will focus on the last part of v.22 where Benaiah goes down into a pit and kills a lion. I’m looking forward to studying this text and then seeing if my study leads me in the same direction as the speaker I heard. I hope to have more during the week.

Insight for Joshua 1:1-18

This has been a hectic week here in Mt. Dora. I’ve been spending time working on our campaign (one week from this Saturday) plus I’ve done chapel for elementary school. Eddie and I are going to a robotics competition Friday. One of our members (a teacher at the Bible school) is entered. We are going to encourage him.

In reading through Joshua 1-2 I noticed that God says “be strong and courageous” several times. Joshua has been given the task of leading the Israelites into the promised land. But they don’t just waltz in and start living there. They must first conquer the land in order to enjoy the benefits of the land. The inhabitants are being punished by God due to their sin (Gen.15:16). I’ve noticed what I see as 3 reasons for Joshua to be strong and courageous.
1. God promised that the land would be theirs (God is always faithful to keep his promises)
2. God promised to be with Joshua and with Israel (even when the circumstances suggest otherwise)
3. Blessings await them in the promised land after the battle (it is a land flowing with milk and honey)

Application will be that we are headed for a promised land as well. Only we don’t have to conquer the land. Along the way we must fight in order to enter that land. I plan on using 2Corinthians 10:1-6 to show that our battle is spiritual and that in that battle our booty is someone’s soul. Our battle is what we call evangelism.

Then I will remind them that in less than a week we can all engage in that battle with our spring break campaign with the Heritage Christian University students who will be coming to door knock with us in the community. Everyone can have a role to play regardless of their gifts. What they need to do is trust God and “be strong and courageous” for the battle.