“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:9
When I was in about the Fifth Grade, I began to ride the bus home every day from school. A good friend of mine by the name of Paul, one who would graduate High School with me, also rode the same bus. Both Paul and I lived off the Old Birmingham Highway just out of town and I would be let off the bus first on the daily run, and Paul would be let off a few miles down the road after me.
One day it was hot outside so the bus driver put the windows down so we could cool off a bit. Paul and I, along with a handful of other students who were left on board as we neared the end of the day’s run, were just talking and taking it easy. Paul was seated next to a friend when all of the sudden, I felt like playing a mean prank on him, so I stepped over and pulled off his cap and threw it out the window before he could grab it! Paul was so upset! He told me his father had given him the cap and that it was his favorite!
I began to feel bad for what I had done but had not said anything to Paul after the incident. A short time later, I was dropped off and went into the house. As the afternoon progressed, I felt worse. My parents were working and there was a lady who took care of my brother and me in the afternoons until my mom got home from work, but she was in the other room when there came a knock at the door later afternoon. I went to the door and opened it and there stood Paul with his father. His father was firm but at the same time caring when he told me that Paul had told him what I had done. Then he asked me if I thought what I had done was wrong, to which I said, “Yes, sir, I was wrong to do that.” And with that, Paul and his dad left and never was there a word said about it again. His father didn’t call my parents or say anything else! That day I was forgiven by the father and the son. There were however consequences in that I had hurt my friend and the fact that his cap was never found, but with time our relationship was healed and I can assure you that Paul and I are friends to this day.
Looking back, Paul’s dad was calling me both to honest accountability and open confession to my sin. The word John uses translated, forgive, in this verse, literally means to send away and the word translated confess comes from a compound Greek word meaning “to say the same as.” In other words, to agree with God by saying the same thing as God about our sin.
The wonder and beauty of this verse is that it was written by John to Christians encouraging them as to how God wants to send our sins away after we become Christians! The Bible says dealt with our root sin of rebellion at the cross once and for all, but as Christians we deal daily with sins and as we continually confess our sins to God as the Holy Spirit convicts our minds and hearts, the Bible says God is faithful through His Son to forgive us and cleanse us from sins we commit after salvation! Be free, be content, be at peace in the Lord! Confess!
Pastor Louie
Sand Mountain Sermonette 23
Luke 10:27; Matthew 22:37-40; Exodus 20:2-11; Exodus 20:12-17
Papaw Goes to the Movies!
When I was in High School in the early Seventies, I once asked my Papaw Mabrey, “Papaw, what was the last movie you remember seeing?” He thought a minute and then said, “What was the movie that starred Charlton Heston?” And I replied, “You mean The Ten Commandments?” To which Papaw said, “Yes, that’s the one.” “That’s the one your grandmother and I saw at the drive in.” Now, even with the Ten Commandments being released in theatres in 1956 (the year I was born!), that means, even then, my grandparents had not been to a movie in close to twenty years!
As I think back on that little conversation with my grandad, I am reminded that it opens the door to another question, this one of blockbuster proportion! What is the primary purpose of the Christian life? Have you ever thought about that question? Just as the purpose of an automobile is to transport a person from one place to another ot a movie projector is to project the move onto the big screen, so the Christian life does indeed have a primary purpose. That purpose is found in Luke 10:27, “You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’” In Matthew 22:37-40 we read, “And He (Jesus) said to him (a lawyer), ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. And a second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
The incredible thing about The Great Commandment of Luke 10:27 is that this one verse includes the Ten Commandments found in the book of Exodus in the Old Testament. The first four commandments found in Exodus 20:2-11 have to do with our relationship with God, therefore Jesus says we are to love God with our entire being (heart, soul, strength, and mind). And the last six of the original Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20:12-17 have to do with our relationship with one another, therefore Jesus says we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. What Jesus is doing is bringing it all down to our attitudes and our actions!
Christian, do you love God with your entire being? Do you want to spend time with Him and spend time alone with Him? Do you desire to read his love letter, the Bible, written to you? And do you want to spend time talking to Him in prayer? These are important questions to ask yourself as you feed upon Luke 10:27. To know and spend time with God is the primary purpose of the Christian life, just like it is so important that my wife Nancy and I love one another and spend time together in nurturing our relationship. Then, in obedience to the Great Commandment, you and I can love our neighbor as we love ourselves to the glory of God who loves us so, and first loved us with the love of the Son!
In Christ’s love, Pastor Louie
Sand Mountain Sermonette 24
John 13:34; Luke 10:27
Chemistry 103
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” John 13:34
In order to receive my undergraduate degree in Secondary Education, my course load had to include two freshman-level courses in chemistry. I took these courses: Chemistry 103 and 104, at Snead State Jr. College in Boaz, Alabama in the early Seventies. And it was in Chemistry 103 that met the original “Nutty Professor” as far as I was concerned, by the name of Dr. Johnson.
I will never forget my first class. There were about twenty-five students in their seats as Dr. Johnson walked in all dressed in his neatly pressed lab coat. As our professor began to lecture, a girl sitting to my left leaned over and called my attention to an unmarked silver gallon-sized paint can complete with lid snapped tightly shut, sitting on a table to our teacher’s left. And then she said, “Keep your eyes on that can because in a few minutes the lid will blow off the top of it high into the air.” Well, we both laughed but all the while I found myself attempting to look at my teacher while at the same time fixing my eyes on the can on the table!
Well, with only about ten minutes left in class and believing I had been played, the class heard a “BOOM!” accompanied by the lid on that can popping high into the air! Naturally, we were stunned! Then, Dr. Johnson who never once looked over to that can during his lecture asked us what we thought had happened to cause the reaction we had just observed, and after several students gave their answers, he proceeded to teach “chemistry” to us. He made learning fun, and there was always a “surprise” around every corner! (Oh! When asking the girl seated to my left how she knew the lid was going to blow off the can, she said she had had Dr. Johnson for class before).
Whether in a chemistry class in college or High School, most of us have probably heard of the acid test which is a proven way of identifying a substance. The acid test for the Christian life is John 13:34. Jesus had given us what He would call “The Great Commandment” found in Luke 10:27 which reads, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” But Jesus knew loving others as oneself was at its best at the level of the old commandment (See Leviticus 19:18). Jesus knew we needed a new and fresh expression of His Father’s unlimited, unconditional, unselfish, and unchangeable love that had always been around but now could be unleashed in us via the Holy Spirit in our day to day experiences. Therefore, on the eve of His crucifixion, He called His disciples to a new level of love that is the oxygen of the Kingdom, and the acid test for identifying what motivates the attitude and the actions of Jesus’ true disciples today. To love as Christ loves also blows the lid off stale Christianity becoming a mighty witness for Christ to the lost and dying world around us!
Pastor Louie
Sand Mountain Sermonette 25
Isaiah 53:4-6; 2 Corinthians 5:21
The One Who Took the Punishment for Our Sins
When I was a teenager, my mother told me something that caused me to stop and think carefully about what she said. She told me her father, my grandfather Grover Floyd, had a unique way to correct his children when they had gotten into trouble. She said he did not always apply this method, but he did more often than not. When my mother Jeanine for example, would do something she should not have done, her dad would make her go outside and pull a switch off the hickory tree and come inside and whip him. Did you catch that? She whipped him!
Mother said that every time her father would have her do that she would cry and cry because she not only wanted to whip her father, it made her feel so bad for what she had done. That is an interesting way to parent isn’t it? But for my mom and apparently for her other siblings it was effective for it brought the seriousness of the transgression against the father closer to home.
The prophet Isaiah, in foretelling of the Messiah, said, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging (stripes) we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him” Isaiah 53:4-6. And Paul said, “He made Him (Christ) who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” 2 Corinthians 5:21.
The Bible is clear. It calls you and me to account for our sins committed against a holy and loving God by repenting of our sin and turning to God. Jesus took the punishment you and I deserved in full, so that we could be forgiven and made right with the Father who created the heavens and the earth and who loves you and me with an undying love!
Would you trust Christ today to be your Savior and Lord? And Christian, would you spend some quiet time meditating on these Scriptures and any others the Holy Spirit may be leading you to, as you offer thanks to God for what He has done for you through His agonizing death and glorious resurrection. He received the lashes. He was nailed to the cross. And the Bible says that by His blood you are healed! Hallelujah!
Pastor Louie