Trinity Baptist Church

I told a staff member that I was going to preach a message from the book of Haggai, and he said it was not common to hear sermons from Haggai.  I told him that was because most preachers couldn’t find it!  But, I went to the table of contents and found it, and in that book, the people of God were not taking the things of God as being all that important.  As a result, God told them that He was not blessing them, as a matter of fact He was working against them, instead of for them.  Would God really work against His people?  If that is what it takes to get their attention, He will.  He loves us enough to practice tough love.

When God blesses what you do, it makes all the difference in the world.  He can bless a salesman to make many more sales, an inventor to come up with many more useful ideas, or a ditch digger to dig with much more efficiency.

There are many places in the Bible that tell us how to be blessed of God.  It really comes down to being surrendered to Him, with a surrender that results in obedience without hesitation.  This kind of surrender comes forth from a heart that desires to seek a closeness with God.  Philippians 2:13 says, it is God who causes us to want to do His will, and it is God who gives us the power to carry it out.  We do not have to beg Him to give us that will and power, if we are born again, we simply need to live in it by faith.  Second Peter 1:3 says that He has already given us everything that pertains to life and godliness.

What a year 2010 can be for the people of God, if they will but turn to Him with their whole heart, seeking His face, and turning from their wicked ways.  In Psalm 1 God says that if we will turn away from evil counsel and companions, delight in Him through His word, meditating in His word day and night, everything we do will prosper.  That’s a good deal.  I’m going for it.

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Everybody wants to have a happy new year, and most people have an idea as to how they will go about having it.  Happiness, whether in the new year or the old year, is often as illusive as a mirage in desert.  Resolutions are made, but they are quickly forgotten.  I heard about a website on which you can record your resolutions, and they will send you periodic email reminders of them, but most people don’t want to be reminded of them.

If there are areas of our life that need to be changed, we must go past the symptoms and deal with the root of the problem.  Everybody has heard that before, but think about it before you dismiss it.  An overweight person might eat to comfort themselves in stressful situations, although food is definitely not where we are suppose to find our comfort.  One of the most often made New Year’s resolutions is to lose some weight.  Many people join one of the many programs available, and it is not my purpose to criticize any of the advertised weight loss programs; but, most often the root of the problem is a lack of self-control.  If an individual doesn’t learn self-control, there is no weight loss program that will have lasting effect, because somewhere down the line, he is going to have to stop taking in more calories than he is burning.

Self control is listed in Galatians 5:21-22 as a spiritual fruit, but just because one is a Christian doesn’t mean that he is manifesting that particular spiritual fruit in his life.  True self control only happens under true God control.  It is God who works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure, Philippians 2:13.  He makes us want to do it, and He gives us the power to be able to do it.  As a matter of fact, He has already given us everything we need.  He has given us everything that pertains to life and godliness, 2 Peter 1:3.  The reason many people show no evidence of having been given these things, is that they have not received them by faith.  One must be fully convinced in His mind that he has what God says He has, in order to really live in the benefit of it.

Losing a few pounds, or a lot of pounds, is not without pain, and it requires patient endurance, which is also listed in the list of spiritual fruit.  Of the many benefits that come with maintaining a proper weight, is the satisfaction of knowing that you have accomplished something that will pay big dividends for you, both present and future.

Commit your way unto the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart, Psalm 37:4.

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Without waxing too political, I would like to say that I think America is going wrong.  We are going wrong, in my judgment, both politically and morally.

We seem to have evolved from treasuring our freedoms to wanting a guardian.  Do you remember the words to the song that commemorates the United States Marine Corps?  One line says, “First, we fight for rights and freedoms, and to keep our country clean; we are proud to claim the title of United States Marines.”  What rights and freedoms are we talking about?  I would think it would be the right to not have any health insurance, if we don’t want health insurance.  I would think it would be the right to refuse the flu shot, if we don’t want to take it.  I would think it would be the right and freedom to succeed, with the only limits being our own aptitude and ability.  We seem to be leaving that very quickly.

Morally, which is more in my line of expertise, we have come to think that  we can sin our way into prosperity.  We legalize all kinds of things, that our grandparents had no difficulty defining as sin, so we can get the tax off of it, thinking we are going to get a better way of life for ourselves.  The Old Testament book of Haggai speaks of people who didn’t think they needed the presence of God all that much, and God said, “You get it, and I blow it up!”  God will have the last word, and He owes America nothing.

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The other day, my wife and I were doing some decorating for Christmas.  It’s our first Christmas in the new to us house in which we live, so we were pretty excited to get things decorated.  She had been looking for a small nativity scene that had been misplaced, and when she finally discovered its whereabouts, she said, “The baby is missing!”  Sure enough, all the little figures were there except for baby Jesus.  A nativity scene without the baby just kind of loses something.

It seems like Jesus gets less prominent in the celebration of Christmas with every passing year; so much so, many have stopped calling it Christmas.

Few people realize what a new phenomenon this commercialized, Santa Claus Christmas is.  There was a Saint Nicholas in the fourth century, who was a preacher of the gospel and was known for his benevolence.  I wonder what he would have to say, if he could see what we have done to Christmas?  The Germans helped us get the Santa Claus idea, but it really didn’t gain a lot of ground until 1822, when the poem, “The Night Before Christmas,” was published.

There is a classic movie that has been remade into a modern version, entitled, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”  What the Grinch failed to do in that story, we have pretty much succeeded at doing by removing Christ from the celebration.

Maybe we ought to call it something else, because what most of the world is celebrating is not the birth of Christ.  Nevertheless, “Merry Christmas!”

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