08-28-22 “Life, like theater, is a battle between good and evil”

Scripture                                                Romans 7:14 – 8:4

Two natures dwell within my breast; The one is foul, the other blest.

The new I love; the old I hate. The one I feed will dominate.

Romans 7:14-25
          We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
          21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!
          So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
 
THE MESSAGE SAYS IT BETTER
Romans 7:14-25
          I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself — after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. 15 What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. 16 So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.
          17 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! 18 I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. 19 I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. 20 My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
          21 It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. 22 I truly delight in God's commands, 23 but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
          24 I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?
          25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
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          Why I love the theater = conflict between good and evil acted out as a reflection of the world in which we live and of the world which lives in us.

Going to Hamilton tonight.

Hamilton and Aaron Burr, Their impassioned conflict throughout the play hinges on choosing “how” critical changes should be made. Hamilton is a tireless revolutionary, constantly advocating for bold change based on his strict, unwavering principles. His adversary, Burr, is patient and methodical, advocating instead for incremental change with constant concern for public opinion.
Hamilton and Burr come into conflict with each other or other characters because of their opposing motivations. Burr wonders why his career is stalling while Hamilton rises;  it’s because Burr is missing the key ingredient–something to fight for beyond himself. In the end, Hamilton dies for his beliefs while Burr survives.

          Burr shoots Hamilton in a duel which ultimately causes his death. That was an obvious physical – external battle. The internal battle had to do with the conflicts between these two over many years and Burr’s disdain over some things Hamilton had said about him.
 
          It is interesting to note that this dual battleground – the external and internal shows itself in theater in another way.

          Classical (external) Acting vs Method (internal) Acting (HOW TO CRY)
 
          As I considered the fact that we are all involved in two wars simultaneously our entire lives – the wars that rage on in the world around us and the war that rages on within us, I grabbed the first Bible I marked up a lot when I was a new Christian and purposely chose to open to any page and read whatever was underlined. God chose the page I would turn to.
          John 16:8-11
 "And when he has come he will convince the world of its sin, and of the availability of God's goodness, and of deliverance from judgment. The world's sin is unbelief in me; there is righteousness available because I go to the Father and you shall see me no more; there is deliverance from judgment because the prince of this world has already been judged.
          John 16:31-33
"Do you finally believe this?" Jesus asked. "But the time is coming-in fact, it is here-when you will be scattered, each one returning to his own home, leaving me alone. Yet I will not be alone, for the Father is with me. I have told you all this so that you will have peace of heart and mind. Here on earth, you will have many trials and sorrows; but cheer up, for I have overcome the world."
          John 17:3-4
And this is the way to have eternal life-by knowing you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth!
 
          Let’s consider the very first battle we know something about. It was taking place externally as well as internally at the same time. It was a battle fought in a real place, in real-time, with real people while simultaneously, the battle raged on internally among those who were fighting.
          It took place in the garden of Eden under the shade of a fruit tree and the battle was between a serpent and the first two humans, Adam and Eve. The internal battle was being fought within Adam and Eve. In fact, a wonderful musical has dramatized the biblical story to show the conflict between parents and children (ie between God and Adam and Eve, then God and Noah and his children, hence between God and all humanity). It takes a twist on the biblical story when Eve keeps asking why she can’t eat from the apple tree until she finally does it and then tries getting Adam to eat of it by offering various dishes made from apples. He chooses not to eat because the Father told them not to.
          Eve is banished from the garden – life as they have known it where the Father has been with them since the beginning. Adam now has a battle within – he can stay in this paradise home or choose to eat the apple and also be banished but be able to live with the other love of his life – Eve – he chooses the latter.
          Act 2 ends with Noah’s children longing to get back home to paradise where they can be with the Father.
 
          And it is that same Holy Spirit that allows us to get up from our fallen state.
ILLUSTRATION
Growing up in New England I played ice hockey until I went off to college.  As a 12 year old, I played ice hockey for the first time with my father was my coach.  During one particular game I was skating up ice with the hockey puck when one of my opponents cracked his stick over the top of my head.  I was knocked down to the ice dazed and disoriented.  Some of my team mates gathered around me, while my father hurried over to where I was laying. It was his words at that moment that have stayed with me all these years. He did not ask me if I was alright. Instead, as my father knelt over me, he said, "They'll clap if you get up."  
APPLICATION
So remember, no matter what life throws at you, no matter how many times you stumble and fall, "they will clap if you get up."  Remember, there will be joy in Heaven every time you get back up from a fall. Heaven rejoices more over someone getting up than over those who never stumble.  What we need to remember is that we do not have to stay under the power of sin.  By the grace of God we can rise. And when we do, heaven is there cheering for us!
Luke 15:7     I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
 
          The Skin of our teeth is theater that shows the battle between good and evil more than any other.

 

Romans 8:1-4
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

08-21-22 “Jesus wants to see what’s ALL IN”

Scripture                                          1 Samuel 16:7

          God told Samuel to stop mourning the fact that Saul is King of Israel. “Go to Bethlehem and I will show you one of Jesse’s sons to anoint as king.” “No way, Saul will hear about it and kill me” So God came up with a clever rouse – “go there to offer sacrifice and invite Jesses to the sacrifice with you.” When Samuel saw Eliab, tall and handsome (Jesse’s oldest of 8 sons) he was ready to anoint him, but God said no, as he did with the next 6 sons. Samuel asked if he had any more sons – just the youngest – David who is in the field with his sheep. Samuel anointed David in front of his brothers and the spirit of God came upon him while it departed from Saul.
          King Saul became depressed and his attendants suggested some harp music to soothe his soul – they sent for a boy in Bethlehem who came and stayed and played whenever Saul grew depressed – that boy was David. The secretly anointed new king was assisting the current sad king. David would go home to tend his sheep and then go back. Jesse gave some food for David to take back with him to give to his brothers and the commander of their unit. While David had been gone, A 9’ tall giant came out every day to call for Israel to send their greatest fighter, and whichever fighter won, the other army would serve the people of the one who was victorious. Neither Saul nor a single soldier was willing to stand against Goliath.

          When David arrived and witnessed what was going on he couldn’t believe it and said “Who is the uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God.” David’s oldest brother was jealous that his brother was there and told him to go away because he had a wicked heart. The opposite was the truth. David was the only one there with a true heart after God and he trusted God so much that he volunteered to face off against the giant. Israel and Goliath thought he didn’t stand a chance and with no armor and almost no weapons but David’s heart response was, 1 Sam 17:45-47 "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands."
          Later when Samuel was telling Saul that he was not following the Lord he spoke of David coming to the throne when he said, 1 Sam 13:14 “the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people.”
          Did David ever sin? Yes! Did he mess up? Yes! But God used David, because God could see his heart and that he sought after God’s heart! 1 Sam 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
          As I was considering what this meant and what an example David set for how we are to be in relationship to God – I immediately turned to Psalm 51 and as I read it – the power of the words were not only greater than I had imagined but they say everything this message is meant to tell us. Psalm 51:1-8

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

          David in the OT and Jesus in the NT shows us what it means to be a person after God’s own heart.     Matthew 15:1-20
          Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"
          3 Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'  But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' he is not to 'honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'"
          (The only OT word on washing hands - Deut 8:10-11 - When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. When Jesus mentions their traditions – he is referring to their oral tradition which changed over time, unlike the firm law of the written Torah)
          10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.'" (Jesus never said it was bad to wash your hands before, or after a meal, he was making a point relating to what they could understand in that moment)
          12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?"
          13 He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
          15 Peter said, "Explain the parable to us."
          16 "Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them. "Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.'"
 

          How can we become a person after God’s own heart? Decide! Pray & read His word often! Then live by that word.
Hebrews 4:12
          For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Jesus wants to see what’s ALL IN  -  Jesus wants to be what’s ALL IN

 Acts 13:16-22
Standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said: "Men of Israel and you Gentiles who worship God, listen to me! 17 The God of the people of Israel chose our fathers; he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt, with mighty power he led them out of that country, 18 he endured their conduct for about forty years in the desert, 19 he overthrew seven nations in Canaan and gave their land to his people as their inheritance.   20 All this took about 450 years. "After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. 21 Then the people asked for a king, and he gave them Saul son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years. 22 After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: 'I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.'
Acts 13:22-24
He testified concerning him: 'I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.' "From this man's descendants, God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised.
 Acts 13:36-39
 "For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed. 37 But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay. "Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39 Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.

08-14-22 “What the world needs now…”

Scripture                                             1 Corinthians 13:13

Do you know the song by Hal David and Burt Bacharach?
WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW:
What the world needs now is love, sweet love / It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love / No not just for some, but for everyone
 
Lord, we don't need another mountain / There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb
There are oceans and rivers enough to cross / Enough to last 'til the end of time
 
What the world needs now is love, sweet love / It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love / No, not just for some, but for everyone
 
Lord, we don't need another meadow / There are cornfields and wheatfields enough to grow
There are sunbeams and moonbeams enough to shine / Oh listen, Lord, if you want to know
 
What the world needs now is love, sweet love / It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love / No, not just for some, oh, but just for every, every, everyone.
 
          How Hal David wrote the lyrics – it didn’t come together till he really thought about who he was talking to – GOD!
 
          Do you ever pray that way? Where you cry out to God to say “This is what we need!”
Telling God the world needs LOVE is telling God what the world needs is GOD who is love.

NIV  -  1 Corinthians 13:13     And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
KJV  -  1 Corinthians 13:13     And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
AMP  -  1 Corinthians 13:13    And so faith, hope, love abide [faith — conviction and belief respecting man's relation to God and divine things; hope — joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation; love — true affection for God and man, growing out of God's love for and in us], these three; but the greatest of these is love.
MSG  -  1 Corinthians 13:13    But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
 
Faith, Hope, Love (Nouns)
They are also Anarthrous
          Anarthrous refers to a word or group of words which appear without a definite article. Greek has no indefinite article, "a" or "an" in English. Sometimes it is best to translate an anarthrous word by supplying "a" or "an" before it. [a faith a hope a love] Anarthrous constructions are most often intended to point out the quality of something. In fact, due to reasons of English style or Greek idiom, the word "the" is even an appropriate translation in some cases.
[The faith The hope The love]
“What the world needs now is not just love – it needs THE LOVE. God’s love.
There are 7 words for love in the bible but 3 that are used most often. They are:
EROS – passionate, romantic love
PHILEO – brotherly, family love
AGAPE – God’s love – ultimate, complete love.

First 5 words of the Bible
          “In the beginning God CREATED!” Why? Love had to be expressed!
First 6 words of the gospel of John
          “In the beginning was the WORD!” Who? Why? Jesus because God is love!
John 3:16
          God so loved the WORLD (His creation) that he sent His (word) Son!

          1 John 4:7-12     Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. God’s love expressed through creation was not His complete love – it can only be completed when it is always expressed through us.
 
          1 Cor 13:13     And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
NOW – Not temporary! REMAIN – pres ind act. It is here & now and will be remaining and cannot be removed! = LOVE.
But the ‘greatest’ – largest, most super, highest, ultimate, maximum, supreme, complete LOVE.

          1 John 4:16-21     God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother & sister. Who is my brother and sister. The answer is the same as the answer to the question “who is my neighbor?” Anyone and Everyone.  SLIDE 13 Matthew 5:46-48  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
 
          God’s love was most greatly exhibited on the cross and the next greatest move of His love will be the marriage between Christ and his church when we join him in eternity.
 
          If God so loved us – we also MUST live by his new command – “Love one another!”

ILLUSTRATION
          A man is walking along the shoreline of an ocean when he comes up on a little boy standing in the midst of thousands of starfish that had washed up along the shore. The man watches the little boy as he picks up a starfish and one by one throws them back in the sea. The man watches for several minutes then walks up to the boy and asks, "What are you doing?" The little boy answers, "I'm saving these starfish so they won't die." The man says to the boy..."There are too many too save, it wont make any difference." The little boy reached down and picked up another starfish and said, "it will make a difference to this one" as he threw it into the ocean.  
          The price of not living in God’s love is eternal death. The price of not living (sharing) by God’s love is becoming like Sisyphus. WHO?

ILLUSTRATION
          Sisyphus, the mythological king who's lust for life (instead of loving others) caused him to try to trick the gods by cheating death. The gods responded to this treachery by sentencing him to Hades, condemning him to endlessly SLIDE 14 roll a huge bolder up a hill, only to have it roll down again.
          Students of ancient Greek mythology, philosophy and psychology have for centuries studied this tragic character, searching for insight into the human condition. The famed existentialist writer, Albert Camus, had this to say about Sisyphus' odd lot in life (or should we say "death"):
          "The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. … Sisyphus' scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which his whole being was exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth."
 
          We have a choice. If we claim to be ALL IN for Jesus, then receiving God’s love and expressing that same love – to everyone – is not an option. It is who God is! It is who you are! It is who we are in Christ Jesus!
 
 

08-07-22 “Jesus is All In for the Outcast”

Scripture               1 Corinthians 1:26-30

                         

          At the Ohio State Fair – everyone, from all walks of life are welcomed at the fair equally.
All are welcome and I even got in for free.
 
 Scripture           1 Corinthians 1:26-30
          Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God — that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

JOHN E. CLOUGH
Friend of the Outcastes
          On an Iowa farm in the 1860s a young man was standing on a four-horse reaper breaking off the heavy grain when one of the farmhands came across the field calling out, “Here’s a letter for you from Boston!” John Clough Clough Slide seated himself on the reaper, tied the reins around the seat, and tore open the letter. As he read, his eyes widened with surprise. Then a broad smile came upon his face. “What do you know!” he shouted. “They want me to go to India as a missionary! It’s a call from the Baptist Foreign Mission Board in Boston.”
          John Clough was more than a farmer. He was an educated man who had been head of a public school and had served as a leader in politics. More recently he had felt called to Christian service and had been distributing literature for the American Baptist Publication Society in the Midwest. It was at a Baptist Convention in Davenport, Iowa, that an address by a missionary to Thailand had stirred him to apply for appointment to the overseas mission field himself.
          Clough did not grow up as a Christian. In college he had been greatly annoyed with a roommate who insisted on reading the Bible and praying aloud. Clough had insisted on drawing a line down the center of the room with the understanding that all praying would be done on the other side of it, and he could do as he pleased on his side. One evening, however, the president of the university had persuaded him to attend a service at the Baptist church, and the experience had moved Clough deeply. Returning to his dormitory room, he stepped across the chalk line and knelt beside his praying roommate.
          Clough’s missionary assignment in India was to work among the Telugu people, a field which was known as the Lone Star Mission, because it had enjoyed so little success since its establishment a 25 years earlier. Three times the mission board had considered closing it. The final decision to keep it open had been made as a result of an appeal through poetry by the Reverend Samuel F. Smith, who was also the author of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” The final stanza of Smith’s poem about the Lone Star Mission won the Board to its support:
       Shine on, “Lone Star!” till earth redeemed - In dust shall bid its idols fall;
       And thousands, where thy radiance beamed, - Shall “crown the Saviour, Lord of all.”
So this, a decade later, was Clough’s challenge – to bring thousands to the Savior in a mission where scarcely any had responded in the past.
 
4 OUTCASTS

1)    Leper physical/relational
          Mark 1:40-45     A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!"  Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: "See that you don't tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them."  Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

2)    Demoniac              mental/financial
          Mark 5:1-20     They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.  When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won't torture me!" For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!" Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many." And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, "Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them." 13 He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man — and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you."  20 So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

3)    Woman at the well                 spiritual/social

          John 4:4-42     Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?"  (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" 13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back." "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he." Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?" Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?"  30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?" "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor." 39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
 

4)    Good Samaritan           religious/ethnicity
            (not only welcomed but encouraged to participate)
Luke 10:25-37     On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
 
 
CONCLUSION
          Outcasts are any people who don’t belong. What percentage of people within walking distance of the church, would think that they would not be welcome if they came to a service here? A high percentage to be sure. What must we do to let people know they are welcome and invited and encouraged to come?
 
          We are building a church that creatively and compassionately connects people to Jesus Christ!
          Our all church theme text is: Eph 2:19-22
          You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
 
          We want all people to Believe, Belong, and Become (Sometimes, belonging will come before believing.)
 
JOHN E. CLOUGH (continued)
Friend of the Outcastes
          On November 30, 1864, John Clough and his wife, Harriet, set sail from Boston on a little ship called the James Guthrie. Scarcely seaworthy, the Guthrie rolled and pitched unmercifully and narrowly missed drifting into the wreckage of old ships as it rounded the Cape of Good Hope.
          They did not arrive in India until almost the first of April. Then they journeyed by slow stages on a springless oxcart to the mission station at Nellore and on to Ongole, where they were to open a new station. There at a place known as Prayer Meeting Hill because of a service held there by another missionary ten years earlier, Clough began his work.     
          In the area around Ongole lived a great many people known as Madigas, who were outcastes in the complicated social system of India at that time. In that system there were many social classes, or castes, into which persons were born, and which everyone observed with the utmost strictness. The mixing of persons of differing castes was severely limited, and the outcastes, who were at the very bottom of the ladder, were scorned and despised by everybody else. These Madiga outcastes had been hearing about Christ and were interested in coming to the mission, but Clough knew that to accept them would cost him the friendship of the community’s “best people.”
          It was a difficult decision, and it took a brave man to make it. The people of the higher castes, who would be desirable additions to the church, let Clough know that they would not become Christians if they would have to associate with the outcastes, who (among other repulsive practices) were accustomed to eating carrion, or putrefied dead animals, especially cows, which no good Hindu would eat.
          “Must I forbid the outcaste people to come to Christ in order to receive into membership some of the higher caste people?” Clough asked himself. Then a strange thing happened. As Clough prayed for understanding, he opened his Bible at random, and the text of 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 was before his eyes. At almost the same time in another room Harriet Clough opened her Bible and her eyes fell on precisely the same text. In the King James Version, which was the only one available to most English-speaking people in those days, this is what they read:
                    “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.”
 
          Clough interpreted this double event as more than coincidence. He felt that the Lord had spoken to him. “The foolish . . .  the weak . . . the base . . . the things which are despised . . . .”  These terms described the outcastes exactly. There was only one course to take. Clough rejected the caste system, declaring that segregation had no place in the Baptist church of India. The outcastes were to be welcome to come to Christ, as were people of every caste, with the understanding that all are one in Christ Jesus. This historic decision brought converts by the hundreds, most of them outcastes. Clough felt sure that he had done the right thing.
          He insisted that the Madigas, as a test of their faith, should make three changes in their way of life. First, they must observe Sunday as a holy day. Second, they must stop eating carrion, and third, they must refrain from pagan ceremonies. All three of these demands created problems in the community: the first, because their employers wanted them to work on Sunday; the second, because there were now many dead cows lying around; and the third, because the outcastes could no longer be the village entertainers. Thus, the Madigas I Clough found themselves under great tension. Clough himself was placed under great pressure by the leading citizens, first because he had violated the caste system but now also because he had created conflict between the once servile outcastes and their “betters.”
          But Clough survived these problems and went on to deal with others. In the years of 1876-1878, India suffered from a great famine. With the compassion of the Christ who fed the five thousand, he threw all his energies into feeding the hungry with the help of money raised through his appeals in England and the United States. To help the people earn money to buy the scarce and expensive food that was available, he contracted with the British Government to build a four-mile irrigation canal, thus providing many jobs.
          During rest periods on the canal project, native preachers serving as overseers read the Bible to the workers and taught them the gospel. Many of the natives, moved by this preaching and convinced of Clough’s sincerity by his works of mercy, desired to become Christians. For fifteen months, Clough refused to baptize them, for he did not want “rice Christians” (that is, people who accepted Christ insincerely in order to get food). Not until he had examined each of them personally and become convinced of their sincerity did he accept them for baptism. Their response convinced him so completely that he could no longer hold them back.
          Accordingly, Clough one day stood under a grove of trees on the riverbank and supervised his ordained native preachers as they baptized great numbers of people. That was a day never to be forgotten. The baptizing started a 6 A.M, and by 5 P.M. the number of persons immersed had reached 2,222. They continued to baptize for the next two days until the total reached 3,536 Indian converts, more than were baptized on the day of Pentecost.
          The next year, Clough and his helpers toured among the villages and continued their baptizing. In 39 days they baptized a total of 8,691 persons. During this time Clough also ordained 24 Telugu preachers. So amazing was the revival movement that there were 20,865 Christians connected with the Ongole field by the year 1882, less than twenty years after Clough had begun his work. To this day Ongole remains an important Baptist center in South India, including a secondary school, a junior college, a hospital, a clinic, and a boarding home among its facilities – all because John Clough had the courage to begin by accepting the outcastes.
 
COMMUNION