I was just looking online for some information about the YouVersion Bible app and I found this great resource on their website. It is called churchonlineplatform.com.
This great free resource allows churches or ministries to go live online and stream their church services. I just watched the introduction video and it looks really easy to set up and use.
Here is some information from their website…
“Through Church Online Platform, your church can reach right into living rooms, offices, communities, and hearts of people no matter where they are in the world … and no matter where they are with God.
Church Online Platform has the unique features you need to interact with attenders, build community, and help hurting people find Jesus. And they’re all included completely free of charge.
You’ll get the Platform, every feature, ongoing support, and upgrades for the life of the tool—because eternities are at stake.”
The title of my message today is “WDJDWI – What did Jesus do when interrupted”.
I am often asked why I always have a title for my sermon. I guess there are two reasons. One is to give you an idea of what I am talking about. Second it helps me to keep on track when writing.
A few years ago I heard a story that I was reminded about this week.
A Bible college submitted sermon to his preaching professor for grading, and when he met to speak with his professor about his sermon, the professor started out very positively. He said to the young man, “I like your exegesis. You have presented the meaning of the text in a helpful and clear fashion. Your three points make sense, they show balance and progression. Your introduction and your conclusion both show a great deal of thought. The illustrations you used seemed most appropriate. However, I am going to give you a D on the sermon.” The student was taken aback and said, “Why a D if it’s all that good?” The professor said, “Well, frankly, it’s because of your sermon title. It is one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Nobody will want to come to hear a sermon entitled: ‘The Pericopes of Jesus in Relationship to the Eschatology of the Apostle Paul.’ I tell you what I’ll do. You see if you can come up with a better sermon title and I’ll reconsider the grade. What you want is a title that will reach out and grab people by the heart, a title that will compel them to come and hear what you have to say. Imagine that title out on the sign in front of a church with such impact that if a bus stopped in front of the church and the people on the bus saw the sign, it would be so powerful it would motivate them to immediately get off the bus and run into the church.” The young man said he would give it his best shot. So he went home and he wrestled with this task all night long, sweating bullets. The next morning he showed up at his professor’s office and handed him his new sermon title, which read: “Your Bus Has a Bomb on It, the only safe place is in the church!”
I am not sure he understood or if the professor changed his grade. But it would get you attention!
Back to the sermon: All of us know what it is to be interrupted. We have all had time where we were ready to undertake a task and the phone rings. We are all set up to do something and there is a knock at the door. We are on our way out somewhere and someone pulls in the driveway behind you and they want to talk. We stop what we are doing and talk to the person. Sometimes this can be frustrating and annoying, but we do it anyway.
Today I want to look at two passages from the Bible where Jesus was interrupted and how He responded. What the need was, what He did and the result. We have all heard that saying WWJD – What would Jesus do? Today I want to WDJDWI – what did Jesus do when interrupted!
Interruption 1 – The lady who was bleeding
The first passage I want to look at is Mark 5:21-34.
In this passage Jesus has just arrived at the shore with the disciples. He had just healed the demon possessed man at the cemetery and they headed back across the lake. There were large crowds of people there and one man wanted Jesus to go with him. He was the leader of the synagogue and his daughter was dying. Jesus sets off with the man. I can’t imagine too many more distressing things for a father than a sick and dying child. So, this was very important to Jesus.
On the way we see a lady who had been sick for many years touched Jesus. The precise nature of the woman’s ailment is not stated. Bible scholars tell us that it is probably some sort of uterine disease caused the bleeding that had persisted for twelve years. Mark tells us that she had suffered much, had been treated by many doctors, and had spent all she had. But her condition had gotten worse.
The woman’s hearing about Jesus’ healings and her belief that he could help her led her to come to him. She reached out to Jesus in faith hoping a touch of Him would heal her. Bible scholars tell us that a woman who is bleeding from her monthly cycle is considered unclean and cannot take part in religious duties. If she touched someone she would have made them unclean for ceremonial purposes. This is why we think she did not approach Jesus directly and ask for healing, so she didn’t make Him unclean from a strict religious perspective.
Now in the story we see that Jesus stopped and turned to the crowd. He asked who touched Him. The disciples thought it was a silly question because the crowd was all around Him. But Jesus knew someone had touched Him in faith and power had left Him. In verse 33 it says, “Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of Him and told Him what she had done.” Remember she was unclean because of her condition and would have made Jesus unclean too. In verse 34 we see that rather than telling the lady off for touching Him, Jesus told her that faith had made her well. Jesus told her to go in peace.
We see WDJDWI in action. He stopped His vitally important mission of healing the sick daughter to engage to lady who touched Him. Because He did we have it recorded in the Bible today. If He just went on His way we would not have His example.
As we see from the remainder of the story, the sick daughter died. But Jesus still went to see her and raised her to life. It was a bigger miracle than just a healing, Jesus brought her back to life. By Jesus stopping and taking the time to speak with the lady, the miracle became bigger and God received more glory.
WDJDWI – He took time for the healed lady and raised the daughter to life.
Interruption 2 – Healing and feeding the crowds
The next passage I want to look at is Matthew 14:13-22
Immediately before this passage, Jesus had heard the news that His beloved cousin John had been killed at the whim of Herod’s step daughter and her mother. She wanted his head on a platter because John had called out their immoral lifestyle.
Jesus wanted to mourn the loss of John, so He and the disciples went away in the boat to a lonely place to find space. But as they often did, the crowds found Him. You could forgive Jesus for sending the crowds away to take time for Himself. But we see in verse 14, “Jesus saw the huge crowd as He stepped from the boat, and He had compassion on them and healed their sick.”
Not only did Jesus heal all their sick, later that evening He fed them all. This is the famous story we see that Jesus took the five loaves of bread and two fish and turned them in to a massive banquet for thousands of people with 12 baskets of leftovers!
We see in the last verse of the passage Jesus did eventually send the people away. But in the meantime, He allowed Himself to be interrupted.
WDJDWI – He healed the sick and fed the multitudes.
Reflections on these passages
When we go through the gospels, we see that Jesus never discarded any of the interruptions that came along His way. He always made the best use of those interruptions. In fact, some of the greatest miracles that Jesus had performed were through interruptions He had while doing something else!
Today we looked at two examples of Jesus being interrupted and how He responded. There are many more…
When speaking to a crowd in Luke 5:17-19, Jesus healed a lame man brought to Him in the middle of His message.
When asleep in the boat in Luke 8:22-24, a storm threatens, and He calms the storm and calms the terrified disciples.
When travelling to Jericho in Mark 10:46-52, Jesus healed a blind man who cried out to Him from the edge of the road.
When talking with his disciples in Luke 12:11-21, someone comes to ask about an inheritance and He tells the parable of the rich fool.
When praying in a solitary place in Mark 1:35-39, the disciples find Him.
When celebrating at the wedding in Cana in John 2:1-12, he was celebrating a wedding and He had to turn warn in to wine.
Never once is Jesus ‘thrown’ by these interruptions. He doesn’t even lose His temper. But He uses each occasion as a golden opportunity for some priceless teaching or wonderful miracle.
For us today as Christians, God sends certain interruptions into our lives to catch our attention. He knows that we have schedules to keep and work to do, but He wants us to look to Him. He wants our attention on things that are more important to Him at that present moment. Let’s pray and ask Him for the wisdom to discern what He may be trying to say through interruptions.
We never know how a listening ear, a helping hand, or a kind encouraging word can do in someone’s life. Maybe if we take the time to stop, God may perform and amazing miracle through us.
Closing thought
So WDJDWI – He showed compassion, helped and healed people. It didn’t matter if He had something pressing to do, if He was travelling, if He was mourning, if He was at a party, if He was resting. He allowed Himself to be interrupted.
When we are interrupted we should follow Jesus’ example and be there for people too.
If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?
This is another good question. After some consideration I would donate it to my local church. This might seem strange to some people, but let me explain why.
Local churches in small country towns like mine do not have much income. They generally have enough to get by, but not much to do many of the things they want to do.
Most cannot afford to pay a Pastor, so the church members do their best to lead, preach and serve. It works well, but many are tired and need to be ministered to at church.
I would love to give a million dollars to my local church so they can employ a full time teaching Pastor, a pastoral care worker and someone to do community outreach. They could also do some much needed maintenance on the church.
Doing this would allow the members to receive ministry for a time and the church would be able to reach out to the community more and hopefully reach more people for Christ.
My heart in doing this would help the church members to be equipped to do the works of service like it says in Ephesians 4…
Ephesians 4:11-12 NLT [11] Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. [12] Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.
So who would I give a million dollars to? My local country church.
The tile of my message today is, “Having the attitude of Christ”. I have taken the title directly from the heading in Philippians 2 in the NLT. It seemed to fit with our YouthCARE service we are having today at church.
My hope in sharing this text is that it contains a number of ideas that can encourage us to live right in God’s eyes and have the right attitude that pleases Him. As Christians, this should be our goal.
Today I want to share four quick points that the Lord impressed upon my heart as I prayerfully reflected on this passage.
1. Be unified in Christ
Paul urges the believers to be unified in Christ. He asks them to make him happy by “agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose” (v2).
Being unified is about loving and caring for each other, putting differences aside and working together in our joint Kingdom purpose. Our goal should be to love God, to love one another and to share God’s love with others. This is God’s Great Commandment from Mark 12:30-31 and Great Commission from Matthew 28:18-20.
In John 17 we see that Jesus prayed for His followers. He prayed that we might be one as He and the Father are one. He prayed for both His followers at the time and also His followers that would believe in the future. He prayed for us! Of all the things that Jesus could have prayed for just days before His crucifixion, He prayed for the unity of His followers. That is how important unity is to Him.
One of the things I love about working for YouthCARE is we were birthed in unity. In 1972 thirteen member church from right across the Christian landscape got together and created the Churches Commission on Education and Youth CARE. Because of this unity and vision, YouthCARE now has over 500 Chaplains in over 600 schools and we have countless more Christian Values Education volunteers in school each week.
I do not know about you, but I believe this is the type of unity Christ prayed for. I think He would be happy we are working together for a joint Kingdom purpose.
2. Be interested in others like Christ
Verses 3 says, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too”.
Life is not just about you and me as individuals. It is about all of us. I think this is a key thing that separates us from the world. This is part of my message to the kids at school. The more we help each other, the more we look out for each other, the better school is for all of us.
I know when I fall into selfish patterns I don’t look out for others. I can become concerned about my interests only. For me this is a red flag. It shows me my attitude is slipping and I need to repent.
Jesus lived in a constant mission of the Father. His goal was to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). We see throughout the Gospels He spent time with His Father in prayer and then did what His Father wanted. He went from place to place helping people. Preaching, teaching and healing (Matthew 4:23). Jesus is our perfect example that we should strive for.
As YouthCARE Chaplains, we do what we do, because we love people. We do what we do because we care, we are interested in others and we want to see them live their best lives. We journey with them through the good times and the bad times, and we we try to give them hope for a better future. Like the image on the screen, Jesus walks with us and we walk with others.
3. Be humble like Christ
Verses 6-8 says, “Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross”.
Christ left the glories of heaven to live in this world. He took a lowly place of a servant and even died a “criminals death” for our sin. His humility paved the way for our salvation. Mark 10:45 says, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
If Christ showed that humility, I need to show this humility too. I need to know my place before Him and serve Him with the right attitude. The truth is we all need to know our place before Him. As verse 3 of our text says, “Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.”
Years ago Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, was scheduled to speak at a Large Presbyterian church in Melbourne, Australia. The moderator of the service introduced the missionary in eloquent and glowing terms. He told the large congregation all that Taylor had accomplished in China, and then presented him as “our illustrious guest.” Taylor stood quietly for a moment, and then opened his message by saying, “Dear friends, I am the little servant of an illustrious Master.” (W. Wiersbe, Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching and Preachers, p. 243.)
This I believe is the attitude of Christ. I think Hudson Taylor understood humility. As Christians we need to remember that He is the vine, we are the branches, and apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:7)
4. Be assured in Christ
Verses 9-11 tell us, “Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honour and gave him the name above all other names, [10] that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, [11] and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Because of Christ’s humility and obedience, God has elevated Him to the highest place in the universe. There is no higher place than being seated at the right hand of the Father. Our readings tell us that everyone who has ever lived will bow before Jesus and declare Him as Lord. Some willingly, sadly some will realise after it is too late. No-one will be absent. No-one will miss out. Be assured God will bring all His plans to pass.
Jesus is the one true Lord and Saviour. He is the King of kings and the Lord of all lords. As Isaiah 25:21 says, “Let all the world look to me for salvation! For I am God; there is no other.” Jesus is the one we all need to look to. He is the way, the truth and the life (John14:6). There is no other name under heaven where we can find salvation (Acts 4:12). Be assured that if you trust Jesus for your salvation, He will save you. Jesus told us He was going to prepare a place for us. He will come back, so we will be with Him for forever. In the meantime we have to have H.O.P.E. – Hold Onto Promises Eternal.
Closing summary
Today we looked at two great passages from Philippians 2 and John 17. We got a glimpse of what it is to have the attitude of Christ. We saw four things we need to strive for…
I am currently reading through the practices of the early church. In my reading I came across a letter by Justin Martyr in 150AD. The section below is taken from his First Apology Chapter 67.
He was writing to explain what Christians did when they met together. In his letter to Roman Emperor Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius, he explains some of the weekly things Christians did.
It is interesting that they did many of the things we still do today. Things like meeting on Sunday, bless the Maker, prayer, reading the writings of the Apostles and Prophets, a teaching exhortation, celebrated Communion, and a collection and distribution to the widows and orphans.
Weekly Worship of the Christians.
And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday,76 all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability,77 and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given,78 and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.
Yesterday I shared about the Catechisms of the Catholic Church. Another useful document that you can use to understand the Christian faith is the Westminster Confession of Faith.
This document lists all key areas of faith including Creation, God, Man, the Bible, Sin, Saving Faith, the Church, the Sacraments, and Life After Death. In all it touches on 35 areas in 55 pages.
The thing I like about this document is the explanations and then it lists all the Bible verses as references. So you can look up the verses to see where the belief comes from. Unlike the Catholic Catechisms, the sole references are from the Bible.
