"You've Got a Friend" - Doug Rehberg

Remember, “Remember the Titans”? I have a friend whose son was playing junior high football back when that movie was released. He and his friends went to see the movie together and when they emerged they announced that their greatest desire was to be just like the Titans. They wanted to be that tightly knit. They wanted to be that successful on the gridiron. But what they didn’t count on was all the effort that was required to get there.

Think of all the pain and struggle those Virginia high schoolers had to endure to meld those disparate players into a single-minded team. There were coaching changes. There were racial divisions. There were social pressures inside and outside the team. There was even the paralysis of one of the most gifted players that had to be overcome. What’s more, all of that pain and struggle doesn’t even represent the two-a-days, the multiple mile runs, and the seemingly endless hours in the weight room and on the practice fields. To become like the Titans wasn’t the product of a wish, it was the result of diligent hard work. To become like the Titans required the surrender of scores of egos. It was a long, hard process of change.

The same is true of walking with Christ. While it’s often assumed that becoming a Christian is a moment in time, or an hour of decision, it’s much more than that and the Bible proves it. Think of the Apostle Paul. It’s often assumed that his experience on the Road to Damascus changed his life. And in one sense that’s true. There, on the road, the trajectory of his life was forever altered. He’s humbled. He’s blinded. He’s made to wait three days for healing. He’s received by brothers and sisters in Christ. He’s given the opportunity to preach Christ in the synagogues of Damascus and Jerusalem. But that’s not the whole story. There’s much more to Saul becoming Paul than all of this.

In Matthew 11 the Lord Jesus utters some seminal words that fully describe what the Christian life entails. He says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heaven laden, and I will give you rest.” That’s what we see Saul doing in Acts 9:1-19. He’s become a Christian by coming to Jesus; or to be completely accurate, when Jesus comes to him. But that’s not all that happens to transform Saul to Paul. And that’s not all Jesus says in Matthew 11. He continues, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Just like the Titans, for Saul to become Paul requires some extraordinary hard knocks and hard work. It didn’t happen overnight. There were some serious, core jarring life lessons that Saul needed to learn to become a useful tool in the hands of Jesus. Simply put, Saul had to assume the yoke; the same yoke Jesus requires us to wear.

This Communion and Father’s Day Sunday, we will be digging into the final portion of Acts 9 (Acts 9:19(b) – 31) that deals with Saul’s emerging walk with Jesus. There are at least four major lessons that each one of us can draw from Luke’s account of Saul’s early years of walking with Jesus. Not only does Saul come to Jesus, he becomes yoked to Him, just like you and I must be.

In preparation for Sunday’s message, you may wish to consider the following:

1. How does Saul epitomize the new Christian in verse 20?
2. Why would the reaction to his proclamation in the synagogue be amazement?
3. How does Saul increase in strength as indicated by his proclamation in verse 20 and his “proving” in verse 22?
4. How are the disciples in Damascus a means of grace for Saul?
5. Who is Barnabas and why does he take such a risk on Saul?
6. How does Saul’s Christian life demonstrate the critical importance of the Body of Christ?
7. What is the significance of Luke’s words in verse 31, “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up?” in Saul’s absence?
8. Why does Saul go back to Tarsus? How long is he there? Where does he next show up in the book of Acts?
9. How does Acts 9:1-31 describe what Jesus is saying in Matthew 11:28-30?
10. How are “coming to Jesus” and “taking His yoke” two separate actions?

See you Sunday!

"Walking in the Light" - Scott Parsons

In C.S Lewis’ book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy and the other Pevensie children have just made their way into Narnia and are having dinner with a pair of beavers.  As Mr. Beaver is explaining to the children about the great lion Aslan (who portrays Jesus in the Narnia series), young Lucy asks, “Is he safe?”  Mr. Beaver replies, “Who said anything about safe?  ‘Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.  He’s the King, I tell you.”

Many of us deeply desire to follow a safe Jesus. In our passage this Sunday (Acts 9:10-19), both Paul and Ananias discover that Jesus is anything but safe!  Last Sunday, Doug shared with us that Jesus blinded Paul for three days.  Can you imagine what was racing through the brilliant mind of Paul during those three days?  Every presupposition that Paul had concerning God, Jesus and salvation was torn down and rebuilt upon the truth of the living Jesus.  Think about it.  If Jesus was alive, that means that his resurrection claims were true.  If his resurrection claims were true, then his claim that he was God must be true as well.  If he is God then his claim to be the way, truth and life and the only way of salvation must also be true.  Every aspect of Paul’s life was forever changed in those three days.

These claims have huge implications on our lives as well.  Walking with Jesus is not a safe life.  He challenges and changes everything, confronts every sin and redirects our lives according to his purpose.  As our King he often calls us to suffer and to do the impossible…just as he does Paul and Ananias.  How do we respond to Jesus? 

As you read through this passage in preparation for Sunday, consider these three thoughts:

1)   If you are walking with Jesus, his claim on your life is absolute.

2)    If you are walking with Jesus, he has redeemed you for a purpose.

3)    If you are walking with Jesus, his purpose for your life involves other people.

"Blinded by the Light" - Doug Rehberg

This week I met with a couple who intend to be married soon. For him it’s his first marriage; for her it’s the second. So I asked him if he had any pause at marrying a woman who had been married before. I don’t remember his answer very well. I do remember that it was honest and detailed. But the words I most remember were hers. When he was finished, she said, “I was a hot mess when he met me.” And then she detailed some of the “hotness”.

Her account brought tears to my eyes, though I think she probably thought it was my cold or allergies flaring up. She talked about her childhood and her search for significance. She talked about many of the twists and turns of her life of which she was not proud. And when she finished, she smiled and said, “And without all of it, I would never have been prepared to meet him, and marry him, and walk together with Jesus.

Saul would understand that. This week we are in Acts 9 looking at what happens to him on the road to Damascus. The sermon is entitled, “Blinded by the Light”, and it’s not unlike Bruce Springsteen’s first single of the same title which chronicles Springsteen’s personal reflections on his journey through life. But unlike Springsteen’s experiences, Saul’s were life changing. 

Think of his journey from Jerusalem to Damascus. He’s just sanctioned the death of the only man in Scripture described as “full of grace”, other than Jesus. He’s had the stoning crowd pay homage to him by casting their cloaks at his feet. He has rejected his mentors’ advice in chapter 5 to cease persecuting Christians, and he has set out on a 6-day journey to the northern city of Damascus. And it’s here, late in the trip, that Jesus blinds him with His sovereign light.

Like that woman who recounts the many twists and turns of her life, so Luke recounts the web of circumstances that the Lord Jesus uses to intercept Saul and turn him in a different direction.

In preparation for Sunday, you may wish to consider the following:

1.)    Read Acts 5 and analyze what Gamaliel says regarding the treatment of Christians.

2.)    Why would Saul reject his advice?

3.)    What does Acts 6:7 tell us about Saul’s decision?

4.)    What does Acts 7:58 tell us about Saul’s reputation and authority?

5.)    What authority does Saul seek in Acts 9:2?

6.)    What’s the distance between Jerusalem and Damascus?

7.)    What details about his journey does Paul add in Acts 26?

8.)    What do we learn about Jesus when we compare Acts 7:56 and Acts 9:3-4?

9.)    Why doesn’t Jesus heal Saul on the spot?

10.) What benefits are there for him to be blind for 3 days?

See you Sunday!

"Sanctioning a Stoning" - Doug Rehberg

When I was sixteen I met Jim Bakker for the first time. He and his wife, Tammy, were doing a children’s television program on the Christian Broadcasting Network in Tidewater, Virginia. (It was a kind of Christianized Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.) Since that time Jim and Tammy have become famous for many things, including:

PTL Club

Heritage U.S.A. in Charlotte, N.C.

A cosmetics line

Timeshares

A theme park

Sexual misconduct

Mail & wire fraud & conspiracy to defraud the public

Prison

Divorce

Remarriage

Cancer, etc.

I have a friend who’s interviewed Jim several times since his release from prison. In one interview my friend said, “I’ll bet the hardest thing about the whole prison experience has been the feelings of embarrassment and shame.”  Jim smiled and said, “It was tough, but I’m glad it all happened. Now I can go anywhere and be with anybody in the whole world, and there aren’t raised eyebrows. I can go into any bar, any social circle of outcasts – and nobody tells me that I ought to be careful because ‘people will talk’ and that I might ‘hurt my reputation’. People have already talked. I don’t have any reputation to hurt. It doesn’t matter anymore, because I’m free.” The Apostle Paul would understand that in spades.

In Luke’s account of Paul’s life – Acts 8 through 28, he is quick to chronicle the beginning of Paul’s walk with Jesus as rocky and reputation-dissolving. There’s a six-word statement at the beginning of Acts 8 that says it all – “And Saul approved of his (Stephen’s) execution.” It’s something that the Apostle Paul never forgot; and yet, like Jim Bakker, it freed him from all pretense.

We are going to delve into all of this – Saul’s relationship to Stephen – this Baccalaureate Sunday. Indeed, it seems appropriate to be looking at Acts 6 and 7 this week, because without this experience, Saul would never have become Paul. He would never have walked with Jesus and would never have seen how overwhelming grace is!

In preparation for Sunday you may wish to consider the following:

1.      Is forgetting a necessary component of forgiving?

2.      What does it mean to be “seized with a great affection”?

3.      What is the meaning of Stephen’s name?

4.      Why does Luke devote 7% of this book to him?

5.      What is the meaning of Stephen’s profile in Acts 6:8, “full of grace and power”?

6.      Who are these “freed men” in verse 9?

7.      What role does Saul play in instigating the crowd against Stephen?

8.      What parallels do you see in Acts 6:8-12 and Acts 7:54-60 between Stephen and Jesus?

9.      How does God answer Stephen’s dying prayer in verse 60?

10.  How do we know that the stoning of Stephen freed Paul from pretense?

See you Sunday!

"Walk This Way" - Doug Rehberg

This Sunday we begin a new series entitled “Walk This Way”. It will be a relatively short series. It will roughly parallel the Children’s Ministry Orange curriculum used this summer for VBS and children’s small groups that profile the Apostle Paul’s walk with Jesus.

But this week we begin back in a familiar text – Micah 6:6-8.

“With what shall I come before the Lord,
    and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
    with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
    with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?”

It’s about walking humbly with the Lord that is our focus this Sunday.

In August 2006 Dave Chilcoat, a distant friend and mentor to many, died of Lou Gehrig’s disease – ALS. He was 58 years old when he died. He had been diagnosed just three years earlier. In the view of most he died a young man, but in terms of spiritual maturity he died an old, wise sage. He knew what God’s answer in Micah 6:8 was all about, because he lived it; especially in those final three years. He knew what it meant to humble himself before the Lord and walk with him. Near the end of my message on Sunday I will refer to the journal he wrote throughout his ALS years. His wife published it a few years after his death under the title – Nobody Tells a Dying Guy to Shut Up. In preparation for Sunday’s message, I would encourage you to Google: “Dave Chilcoat God’s Man” and listen to his own words. They were recorded in the final months of his life. They’re not long – only 8 minutes and 24 seconds. After you watch and listen you may wish to consider the following:

1. What is the nature of the scene in Micah 6?
2. What is God’s problem with His people Israel?
3. What does the Hebrew translation of verse 8 mean? “Humble yourselves and walk with your God?”
4. How are we to humble ourselves?
5. In what way does humbling yourself correspond to Jesus’ first “blessed” in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5)?
6. What does Paul mean in Romans 3:10-12? Who is he talking about?
7. What does the Lord mean in II Corinthians 12:9 when He answers Paul’s plea?
8. What does Paul mean in I Corinthians 8:2 when he speaks of our lack of understanding?
9. How well does what Jesus says to Peter in John 13:7 apply to what He says to you and me?
10. How is a humble walk an exciting walk?

See you Sunday around the table.

"Pentecostal Power" - Ken Wagoner

It was five years ago on Pentecost Sunday when I was invited to preach at Hebron on a Sunday morning. Please know I am not surprised or disappointed if you don’t remember anything I said that day.    

I remember as a young Christian thirsting to read the Bible for the first time in a serious manner, and reading about people speaking in tongues. I had no idea what this was talking about, and thought what’s the big deal! Everybody uses their tongue to speak. I also told you my first experience with someone who experienced God in different ways than I ever heard. That person was my barber, and while he was holding a pair of scissors at the back of my neck he began to tell me the blessing of receiving the Holy Spirit. He believed I should receive the gift of tongues at that moment. He locked the door to the shop, closed the blinds, and prayed in a mixture of English and some other language I did not know. After 10 minutes of nothing happening to me I thanked him for caring for me, but did not believe I was going to receive that gift on that particular day. That was also the last time I went to him as my barber. Fairly or unfairly, I have been influenced by this experience. For Christians who are more inclined to receive and experience the miraculous gifts of God, Pentecost Sunday is one of their high marks of the year. For Christians who hold a more reserved view, Pentecost Sunday is probably not too much different than most other Sundays.  

This past fall you had a series from the Old Testament titled, “Divine Exposure.” Remember these titles: “Awakening, Whirlwind, Voice, Wrestler, General, Torah, Laugh, Cry, Prayer, Altar, Son, Seed, Song, Sight.” You looked at different ways God revealed himself to his people, and each of these encounters pointed to someone even greater who was yet to come. We know this one was Jesus.

In Acts 2 we read of “a sound like a rushing wind, tongues of fire resting on each person, and people speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” I am guessing not many of us have had this type of experience in our past.  In what ways do these experiences point us to Jesus, the one who has come and continues to work in our hearts and lives? In other parts of the New Testament we read of a “dove appearing, buildings shaking, and earthquakes rumbling.” The scriptures are full of events where God acts in dramatic, uncustomary, fresh, and extraordinary outpourings of the Holy Spirit. I would also guess most of us at some time in our lives have wondered why we don’t experience things like this on a regular basis? Are we missing these today? And can we be so intense in looking for these extraordinary outpourings of the Holy Spirit, we may miss God’s miraculous work in our lives in other ways?

Here are some questions for you to look at in preparation for this Sunday:

1. Pentecost was one of the Jewish feast days, only they didn’t call it Pentecost. That’s the Greek name.  Jew called it the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of Weeks. It is mentioned in Exodus 23 and 24, Numbers 28, and Deuteronomy 16. Why do you think God decided to dramatically intervene on this day as recorded in Acts 2?
2. Can you think of times in church history when God poured out His Holy Spirit in extraordinary ways? What happened during these times, and what was accomplished?
3. In what ways do we see a fulfillment of Genesis 12:1-3 in the Acts 2:1-13 passage?
4. In John 16 - 18 Jesus gives a long teaching before He dies about our dependency on and relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. What in these chapters is extraordinary, uncustomary, dramatic, and fresh?

"From Mercenary to Mother" - Doug Rehberg

This week I read about a father and son who were out walking in the woods when they came across a stray dog. After checking for tags, the father said, “You know son, we’d better take this little guy home with us, because it doesn’t look like he’s got one.” So, carefully the little boy picked him up and carried him all the way home. Once inside the house the father said, “Well son, what do you think we should name him?” And before his son could answer, his wife chimed in, “Why don’t you name him ‘Mother’, because if he stays, I go.”

Now that’s a real threat. I mean dads are important, but moms are essential. I remember a number of years ago when a prison system in the south offered free Mother’s Day cards and free Father’s Day cards for any inmate who wanted to send them. Within two days, 10,000 Mother’s Day cards were requested and no Father’s Day cards.

As we have learned over the years God has numerous names in the Scripture from Elohim to Alpha and Omega. But there’s one name that is particularly rich and well-used and that’s the name El Shaddai. It’s used over two hundred times in the Old Testament and each time it’s translated, “God Almighty”.

Now on the face of it, it seems that this divine name implies strength and muscle. But when you examine the Hebrew word Shaddai, you find that it doesn’t mean muscle, it means breast. Shad in Hebrew means breast. Now think of it. When God shows up, it’s at the point of Abram’s greatest despair. And how does He come? As Elohim? No. He comes as El Shaddai, the God of rest and nourishment. And when you examine the other four places in the Book of Genesis where El Shaddai appears, you find the need of Isaac and Jacob is just as great as Abram’s. What they need is not might. What they need is nourishment. And that’s what God provides each of them.

You know who shows us the clearest view of the attributes of God? Jesus. We see Him doing that in John 21 in His encounter with Peter on the beach after his three-fold failure. We see Him doing the same with Mary at the tomb and Thomas behind closed doors in Jerusalem the night of the resurrection.

But perhaps more than any other New Testament figure we see the Shad of God being most transformative in the life of the Apostle Paul. This Sunday we are going to dig into the opening lines of his final epistle – II Timothy. It’s here that we find some of the clearest evidence of Paul’s radical change from a religious mercenary who’s hell-bent on stamping out Christianity to a man whose heart is as soft and sensitive as any on display in the New Testament. As we will see on Sunday in the span of thirty years from his Damascus Road experience Paul goes from a religious mercenary to a faithful, spiritual mother.

In preparation for Sunday you may wish to consider the following:

1. What would you say is Jesus’ view of women?
2. Would you consider His view of women to be in step or out of step with the culture of Orthodox Judaism of the time?
3. Can you site examples from the Gospels of how Jesus treated women in an uncommon manner?
4. On whose authority does Saul of Tarsus (Paul) head to Damascus to arrest followers of Christ? (see Acts 8 & 9)
5. How accurate is it to refer to Saul/Paul as a religious mercenary prior to his conversion?
6. How does Paul demonstrate a tremendous shift of heart in his final words to Timothy in II Timothy 1:1-7?
7. What does he mean when he says he serves God with a clear conscience, “as my ancestors did” in verse 3?
8. What does he mean in verse 4 when he says, “As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy”?
9. What role do Eunice and Lois have in Timothy’s faith?
10. How does Paul show Timothy and us Jesus in this text?

See you Sunday!