Sunday Service - My Salvation Is Sure

SAVING AND MAINTAINING RELATIONSHIPS

by: Rev. Leon Aguilera   

Relationships are important. They are important to God and should be to us as well. In I Corinthians the apostle Paul had to deal with a sin issue that was not taken seriously by the church at Corinth. Thankfully, the church readjusted itself from complacency to becoming proactively involved with dealing with the sinning brother. By the time II Corinthians was written, the sinning man had repented of his sin. The new problem was that the church had not gotten out of their disciplinary mode. So Paul had to say, “…Ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow” (II Corinthians 2:7). The Greek word for the phrase “swallowed up” is also translated “devour” in I Peter 5:8, “…your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” This is pretty severe! I would hate for my attitude toward any repentant brother or sister in Christ be compared to the Devil’s attributes. There is only one time the word “schism” (Greek: “schisma”) appears in the Bible. It is found in I Corinthians 12:25 when the apostle declares, “That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.” This word means a rent or tear, a split or a gap division. God doesn’t want the church, families, or friendships that He has ordained be torn apart. How can we save and maintain relationships?

1. Remind yourselves you are not in competition.

It is not me against him or us against them. If you are married you are family. If you are members of the same church, you are on the same team. You may win the argument but lose the relationship. Hopefully, relationships, if lost, will be temporary. Don’t throw away that which God has given you. “For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise” (II Corinthians 10:12).”

2. Consider the fact that you may be wrong.

We need to lay claim to Psalm 139:23,24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” A man was once asked, “It must be a difficult life to know that you are always right.” In jest he answered, “I wouldn’t know because I am never wrong.” The reason that is funny is because we all know there is but One and One only who walked this earth without sin -- and that definitely wasn’t me and brace yourself - - it wasn’t you. This One and Only One Savior, when standing in the presence of a person who, according to the law, could have died for being wrong, said, “…He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7b). “…Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:11b).

3. Be sorry, really sorry for the wrong you have done.

This is where many of us fall short. We want to be humble enough to admit our errors, but prideful enough not to be transparent. Psalm 51:2 says, “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”

“Thoroughly” means “fully; entirely; completely.” According to the Webster’s 1828 dictionary the word “throughly” means basically the same thing, but the definition for “throughly” adds one other meaning: “without reserve and sincerely.” One student of our language commented, “What is the difference? Look again. You do not have to be sincere or engaged to do something thoroughly, but you do to do something throughly.”

To be sorry for our sins involves becoming personal. We are not only sorry we got caught in the wrong, we are sorry we did the wrong. The next point will explain more “throughly.”

4. Take accountability for any wrong you have done.

We are tempted to divert personal accountability for our wrong. This is apparent by expressions we use when we are discovered in the wrong, “I don’t know what got into me”; “I was just beside myself”; “I went to pieces.” This is my favorite, “I lost my head.” We are not dealing with our sin by distancing ourselves from the act or acts we committed. We can only be helped if we own the wrong, declare it wrong and determine not to go there again.

Listen to the words of Joshua 7:19, “And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the LORD God of Israel, and make confession unto him; and tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me.” No matter how much it hurts, confess. According to Joshua, it brings glory to God when we confess our wrong. In the Old Testament, mankind died under the law. In the New Testament, through the grace and truth in Jesus, we are healed. There is healing power in confession. James 5:16 says, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.”

We will continue this thought next tine saving and maintaining our relationships.  

Knowledge Puffs up but Love Builds Up

by: Rev. Leon Aguilera     

          “We often look at this life as priceless.  But “We can learn all there is to know about God but still not be one step closer to God!”

 Information “about a person” is the building blocks of a personal relationship.  However, just because we know about a person does not mean we know that person.  I have learned a great deal about the late, great president Abraham Lincoln, but I don’t have a personal relationship with him.  As a matter of fact, no matter how much I learn about him, I never grow any closer to him.  Since his death, all that is available to me is information.

Yet, there are some who consider the acquisition of information as proof of a developing personal relation.  But it is not!  The Bible tells us “Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.”

Paul is telling us that knowledge puffs up but love builds up!  There is a big difference.  One person knows all the rules about what we can touch, eat or enjoy but the other person has a relationship which manifests itself in the first of nine fruits—love.  Charity is the outward manifestation of love to needy people.  There are a lot of people who know about Love, but they fail to show Love.  Why is Love capitalized?  Because God IS Love!  But of course you already KNEW that information!

Knowledge in our mind often leads us to overlook sin in our heart.  When we have learned so much about God we become comfortable with our data.  We can talk a good talk, but that is all information improves.  Information about God can improve your talk but it is only the fuel that your walk is going to burn.  It does not produce a walk with God.  It is simply the motivation for a dynamic walk.  But many prefer to stock up on fuel (information) and talk about Him, rather than burn it up through a dynamic walk with Him.

In Isaiah 47:10, 11  we are warned of the danger of being well informed but poorly developed in our walk with God.  “thou hast said, None seeth me (sins of the heart). Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me.”  Oh, how much we know!  But it leads to a perversion of the heart.  We are subconscious of the fact that no one sees our heart, but we fail to recognize there is One who is conscious (not subconscious, but conscious) of our thoughts at all times!

The next verse tells this intelligent dummy “Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know.”  I have met many a learned Christian who has wondered “why, oh why is all this evil befalling me”  when they have so applied themselves to learning the faith.  Oh, my friend, there is a big difference between learning the faith and living by faith.  One must know more, the other must know Him!

Paul warned all information gathers to beware of stupidity.  “And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.”  Notice what Paul says to the “puffed up information gatherer”?  “If any man think he know anything”.  Paul understood that to think you know is the crowning position of information gatherers.  “To think you know” is to be puffed up.  It’s pride!  Pride is the number one problem for us when we trust in our information gained or gleaned.

Isaiah warned us this way “Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!”  God was so frustrated with the learned children of Israel that He allowed these “God loving but information gathering hypocrites” to be blinded until He had clearly manifested Himself to the Gentiles in a personal and intimate way.

In Romans 11:25 we read “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” Here was the Lord Jesus being presented to a heathen people group who knew NOTHING about Him, but they embraced Him none the less.  Why?  Because they got to KNOW Him.  Knowing about Him would come in time, but knowing Him was of far greater value.

Paul often warned us to beware of the pride that comes from having the supernatural ability to understand information about God.  In Romans 12:16 we see one such warning, “Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.”

May I explain that verse to you?  Even to those of you who KNOW what it means?  The word condescend means to “descend from your privileged position to do some act to an inferior”.  Men of low estate are “men who have a fixed position of being low.”  The word low literally means “down”.  It’s referring to the depressed.  HE is telling us to “descend from our high position to minister to those who are depressed with their low position”.

But wait!  That’s not the final admonition.  He tells us to “be not wise in [our] own conceits.”  The word conceit is a very important word to understand.  It means “to conceive in the mind”.  He is telling us to not allow our wisdom to come from that which we frame in our mind—acquired information.  The Bible tells us that in the age of grace “Christ is our Wisdom” and He imparts that Wisdom through the leading of His Spirit.

Thus, we should not be conceiving our opinions of whom we should help and how to help hurting people based on what we KNOW about them or about God.  Rather, we are to help people according to how we are led by God.  Leading is not a manifestation of one’s acquisition of information.  It is evidence of one’s development of a personal relation!

So we see that when we become learned about God, we can be in danger of becoming “high minded”, that’s pride.  Our pride will cause us to be condescending instead of actually condescending.  This condescending attitude does not instigate us to a condescending action.  Rather this puffed up attitude causes us to “look down” on hurting people rather than to “go down” to the hurting people.  These thoughts, which are conceived in the mind, come from all the knowledge we have gleaned over the years.

What does that mean?  It simply means we have put our learning in front of our loving.  God wants us to love.  It is from a position of love that we will truly learn.

Lovers are learners.  Learners are often the losers.

Jesus Christ: A Living Stone

by: Rev. Leon Aguilera

        I Peter 2:1-8 Therefore laying aside all malice and all guile, and hypocrisy and envy and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby, if so it be that ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Coming to Him as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture: “Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious; and he that believeth in Him shall not be confounded.” Unto you therefore who believe, He is precious; but unto those who are disobedient, “The stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,” and, “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense,” even to those who stumble at the Word, being disobedient, unto which also they were appointed.”

Jesus Christ is the Rock of Scripture, “a living stone” which cannot be overlooked. He is a tried and true Stone, “a sure foundation” which can never be moved. We see Christ from three differing perspectives in our text, each one related to His characterization as a stone.

First, we see Him from unbelieving man’s perspective as “a stone of stumbling” (v. 8).

Men stumble over Christ in this world because they love “darkness rather than light” (Jn. 3:19). He is the Stone which the builders have rejected (v. 7) and have substituted a stone of their own making, a stone which discards as old-fashioned the blood of Christ and substitutes in its place the supposed goodness of man. To modern man, the preaching of the Cross is “foolish” and offensive (v. 8), yet it is the “power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth” (Rom. 1:16).

Second, we see Him from God’s perspective as “a chief corner stone” (v. 6).

Christ was chosen by God to be the author and finisher of our salvation. The work of salvation has been accomplished and the foundation has already been laid. He is the cornerstone, upon Him rests the superstructure of His body, the church. He is precious to the Father and so are we because of our relationship to Christ as Savior and Lord.

Third, we see Him from the believer’s perspective as “a precious stone” (vv. 4,7).

We found Him to be precious the moment we received Him as our Savior and since that time He has proved Himself to be precious over and over and over again. To every believer Jesus Christ is the precious Son of God and only Savior. We have no reason to be ashamed of our testimony of Christ, but rather we have every reason in heaven and earth to render unto Him our continual praise. Praise Him for salvation; praise Him for His goodness and grace. In this way we will be encouraged to remember that “he is precious.”

As believers we are partakers of His grace, and have thereby received Jesus Christ the Living Stone. Because “He lives,” now we are “lively stones” (v. 5) and have a ministry as believer-priests, “…To offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” As a “spiritual house,” let us put off the deeds of the flesh, and let us put on Christ that we may “shew forth the praises of him who hath called…” [US] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (v. 9). May we not neglect so high a calling.

Ye Are the Salt of the Earth

by: Rev. Leon Aguilera

Matthew 5:13 “Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be trodden under foot of men.”

Jesus addressed a great multitude from the mountain in a sermon we commonly refer to as “The Sermon on the Mount.” In this discourse to the masses, Jesus described in detail the way of true blessedness, but his exhortation to his disciples was a bit different. He addressed them as “the Salt of the Earth.” Jesus told those who were closest to Him that they were “salty Christians.” These men had left their occupations to follow the Lord, demonstrating a level of commitment much higher than the large crowd who gathered there. A great sense of privilege and responsibility came with this title.

In the early Roman empire salt was hard to come by and was used as a payment for labor. The root “sal” is a Latin word from which we get the word “salary,” so this is clearly a compliment expressing their worth. In essence, Jesus was saying that they were “worth their salt.” God’s value of a home is not based on the price of the building, but in the saltiness of its inhabitants. God’s value of a business is not in the amount of revenue it generates, but in the saltiness of its employees. God’s value of a church is not determined by the size of the congregation, but by the saltiness of its members. God’s value of a nation is not decided by its wealth or power, but by the saltiness of its citizens. But what does it mean to be “salty?” Notice three common uses for salt that describe ways we should be useful, providing service to the lost world in which we live:

Salt is valuable as a preservative.  Animals naturally decay when they die, but salt can be used to preserve food for a length of time. The British attacked the U.S. salt supply during the War of 1812, knowing that this would affect their food supply, thereby threatening their survival. In a spiritually dead world, Christians ought to be the preservative from decay. It takes a much smaller amount of salt than of food to keep it from decay. It only takes a few salty Christians in number to make a difference in a corrupt and decaying society. We need to get away from the majority, leave the salt-shaker of our comfort zone, and be the salt of the earth!

Genesis 19 illustrates the value of salt in the death of Lot’s wife. God made her in her death what she should have been during her life: a pillar of salt! Because of her attachment to the stuff in her house, she looked back. As a result of her covetousness, she failed to make a positive difference in her world. Abraham understood the value of salt as he interceded on behalf of the city of Sodom, where Lot and his wife lived. God said that he would spare it if there were but fifty righteous living there. But there weren’t fifty to be found. There weren’t forty, and there weren’t even twenty-five. In fact, there weren’t even ten. If Lot and his wife would have made an impact on just one individual, their city would have been spared. God only found nine, and He destroyed it with fire and brimstone. Why? Salt preserves from decay, and salty Christians will preserve a society from moral decay. More salt always equals less spoilage and less decay. In society more salt always equals less crime and less sin. Does your life preserve the people you are in contact with regularly?

Salt provides a savor. Foods that are bland or plain are enhanced with a little salt. Even the bitterest foods are made delightful by simply adding salt. There is a type of chocolate that is unsweetened and has a very bitter taste. By adding salt to it, it becomes tasty and enjoyable to eat. Broccoli without salt is somewhat bitter, but with salt it is sweet. As Christians, we should create a desirable savor that takes off the bitter edge and makes our Christianity sweet. This sweetness should come out of our language according to Colossians 4:6. “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with SALT, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” Does the fountain of your words send forth sweet water or bitter? If you are a salty Christian, the answer is obvious. Bitter words do not provide a good flavor any more than bitter food without salt. People need to see Christians, families, and churches that edify one another with their words so they will be attracted to the Savior we represent. For that reason our misrepresented Savior admonished us to “have SALT in yourselves, and have peace one with another” (Mark 9:50).

Salt creates thirst. Salt is essential to the body. Salt balances the fluid in the body, keeps our muscles taunt and our heart beating. We all have salt in our bloodstream, but thirst is created when our salt level gets too high. This rise in saltiness can affect you mentally, physically, and emotionally. Lack of salt can make us weak and can be extremely deadly. Salty Christians are essential to the health of a society. These Christians were born again, but it was possible for them to lose their savor. Their example teaches us that it is much different to be a disciple than merely saved.

What was it about these disciples that made them salty?

They were industrious. Jesus did not call lazy men to this enormous task of getting the gospel to the world. He called diligent men with character and a strong work ethic. They were cooperative. They were in business with their own father when Jesus called them. By this Jesus knew that they could work well under authority. He wanted men who could work well on a team and take orders without being offended. They were multi-taskers. They kept fishing while they heard Jesus speaking to them. There is a great lesson here. We cannot separate the secular from the sacred. They didn’t completely stop their duties to hear from God. They learned how to work and communicate at the same time. They were thorough. They were mending their nets, which showed their thorough attention to detail.

If Jesus initiated a conversation with you today, would he begin by addressing you as the “Salt of the Earth?” Is your world a better place because of your saltiness? Is your family preserved from decay because of your testimony? Do your words and your conversation add a godly flavor to your Christianity? Are people thirsty for the water of life after being around you? Do they wonder what is different about you? Have you told them? We should pray for one another that we might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing” (Colossians 1:10). People should never have to wonder if we are “worth our salt” because our life leaves no room for question. Our Lord should never have to wonder if we were “worth his blood” being shed for us. He should be able to say to every one of us without exception: “Ye are the Salt of the Earth!”