Morning Message Text: Romans 8: 14-17
14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.
15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
Morning Message:
Sometimes I wonder if what I write and preach really makes any difference in this world. I start to think, who am I to stand up here and try to focus you on what God wants for us as a church. I give in, at times, to the natural depression that comes with being a Pastor. Sometimes I feel like a royal jester whose job was to make the people laugh. Only my task is to give the people faith, make them think, deliver something meaningful that will make a difference. I know that I am not responsible to achieve all of that. I know that it’s God who must move you and teach you and cause you to care, but there are times when the weight of that responsibility can be very heavy. I sit in front of my computer sometimes and I just stare at it. My mind sometimes feels like mush and I long for those times when the words just seemed to jump off my keyboard and onto the pages. Sometimes, for what seems like a very long time, it seems as if God has left me, and I have nothing but a blank screen in front of me. Have you ever wondered where God is? Have you ever heard my “Where is God story?”
That question, and the answer to it, is at the root of what is wrong in this world and in this nation. God seems to be inspiring me to not let you forget the godlessness that is taking place all around us. We look to the Ukraine and this terrible war. We see innocent men, women, and children massacred, cities leveled, and lives altered forever. The world, the press, and sometimes even the church ask, “Where is God in all of this? How could he let this happen?” Do you know where he is? He is right there, heartbroken, grieving still over the sin that mankind brought into his perfect creation.
We wonder where God is when we hear that a boy travels for miles and goes into a grocery store and just guns down innocent people who are only trying to get their groceries. A man goes into a church and just opens fire on people who are worshiping. A boy shoots his grandmother and then drives to a school, goes inside, looks right into the eyes of 8, 9, and 10-year-old children, tells them they are all going to die, and then begins to shoot them one by one. The news media and the politicians cry out with a hundred different reasons for these terrible crimes. It’s the guns’ fault, it’s the open door’s fault, it’s the police’s fault, it’s a lack of security. Some might say that it’s just terrible luck that circumstances allowed this to happen. Nobody wants to know the truth. The truth is that only pure evil can do such things in this world, and we have allowed that evil to prosper and grow right before our eyes. People dare to ask, “Where is God in all of this?” God goes where you take him and where he is welcomed. This is not an original idea, someone once said, “We took God out of the schools and now we wonder why he’s not there.”
I want to talk about the feeling of remorse. Remorse is deep and painful regret for wrongdoing. Do you ever feel remorse? Our scripture in Romans starts by saying; “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.” Following the Holy Spirit’s leadership is proof that people are children of God. For believers, conviction of sin and a pattern of repentance are assurance of their own salvation. Hebrews 12, verse 6 says: “Because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” At the beginning of this sermon, I told you about the responsibility that I feel and what I sometimes go through with God. I feel conviction when I am not on top of things. I feel the weight of needing to speak the truth of God’s word and feeling like I have fallen short. That is the way that I am supposed to feel at times. I feel the weight of conviction and know that I need to repent. Do you feel that way?
In our reading from Psalms today we hear this in verses 29-30. “When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.” As we celebrate Pentecost today let us remember the power of the Holy Spirit that God has placed within us. This is the power of God, the one who creates and renews. We don’t have to always read about the tongues of fire and people speaking in unknown foreign languages to see the power of God’s Holy Spirit. This is the same Spirit that hovered over the earth during creation and brought everything to life. God’s Spirit has life giving power and it can renew everything that it touches, including us. We ask ourselves, “Why is there so much death and destruction all around us and we know that the answer is sin.” But God has placed inside of his people, the power to overcome evil. When we, as God’s people, choose to ignore what is wrong in the sight of God, then we allow evil to win. God has placed the church in this world to be a deterrent to evil and given us all of the power that we need to defeat it. Then what is the problem? We do not allow ourselves to be led and renewed by the Spirit. We are only weak in the face of evil because we have allowed ourselves to be weakened. How should we respond? Not by looking for excuses or reasons for what is happening, but we should start to respond like this. Listen to this and commit it to memory if you want to make a difference. 2 Chronicles 7: 14; “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sins and will heal their land.” When you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior you become God’s people and you are called by his name. When will we, the church, say enough? When will we be led and renewed by the Spirit?
In Christ’s Love and Peace
Pastor Bob
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