Where Is Your Treasure

Sermon August 11  2013 Where is Your Treasure

Old Testament – Isaiah 1:1,  10-20

The Word Isaiah means YHWH has saved or YHWH may save.

In reading this passage this week it made me do a lot of soul searching.  This message today is not against anyone or anybody but something to make us think a little more about where we are spiritually.  In our lives as a Christian sometimes we need something that will shake us to our very foundation. NOW, get ready for some SHOCK TREATMENT!

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom!  Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

Launch the words “Sodom and Gomorrah” at a group of people, and already your hearers are clear: Judgment is coming.

God said: I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.  Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates:  They have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them…..

One commentary I read from (Feasting on the Word) Basically said that God is saying he hates our worship. This is something I have been struggling with.  We come week after week endure an hour of singing and preaching and then go home and eat. Unchanged. The preaching of Gods Word does not seem to change anyone. Has Our tradition of worship  made Gods Word of None effect? We dream up new programs that don’t work.. What We need is a revival in our soul. Life is too good for us. Pain and suffering is too far removed from us.  We have allowed ourselves to become complacent and at ease.  We want preaching that will make us feel good. NOT point out our mistakes. This evil of complacency and apathy has crept into  churches world wide.The reason unbelievers want nothing to do with the church is because it appears powerless to them. They see the church as an institution….they see it as uninviting. They see us going in on Sunday but they just don’t know what we do.

I have served in ministry in over 22 churches since 1975 from Georgia to Montana. And it is the same in most of them. Lifeless.  Full of programs that are Lifeless. Think about this.  Where ever there are two Methodist churches on a charge they tolerate each other but otherwise want nothing to do with each other. What is that about???

The Church is now in the mode of  Re-Think Church…..Church Renewal.

The DVD that was sent to us from Conference is a DVD that I want everyone to see. The pastor shares many different ways to be the Church not just in our building. Not just in our programs. But seeing ourselves as the Church in the community. Perhaps something as simple as volunteering in the school system.  Recognizing our EMT’s, Firemen, Police.  Speaking to someone in the restaurant such as the waitress asking them if they would mind if we prayed for them. And then actually doing it.  Or paying it forward by paying for someones meal. An act of radical kindness to someone in the community….

Talk about a wake up call this morning…Perhaps through this message  God is trying to  get our attention. It has gotten mine I know...

The Scriptures do a good job such as pointing out in Hebrews 4:12: ¹² For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

And now for the conclusion of the Isaiah passage….You can breath now.

v.16-17-Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

IN SPECIFIC TERMs, doing good and seeking justice look like this: “Rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

v. 19-If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Here comes some soothing ointment to this blazing message…..

Psalm 80

The mighty one, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its settings.

God is seeking us. God wants to have a relationship with us on a daily basis. Not just see us in church once a week.

Epistle- Hebrews 11:1-3 and 8-16

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval.  By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

God said it is possible and we are  busy trying to tell God that it is not possible. Is it that we don’t believe it  or We just don’t want to believe it.  There was a song a few years ago titled “Excuses, Excuses

Think about this in Psalm 46: 10-11

Be still, and know that I am God:
I will be exalted among the heathen,
I will be exalted in the earth.
¹¹ The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

So what is the solution? Be Still, Hold your peace, remain at rest. Remember the Israelites when they got to the edge of the Red Sea? They panicked. Look at Exodus 14:10-12.

¹⁰ And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord. ¹¹ And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? ¹² Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.

And Then look at vv 13-14

¹³ And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you today: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more for ever. ¹⁴ The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.

Are you facing a red sea in your life?  Are troubles surrounding you?  Wondering how in the world you are going to make it?

Gospel -  Luke 12:32-40

Our Gospel reading opens with the words :

v. 32: Fear Not

v. 33 sell all you have and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that fails not, where no thief approaches, neither moth corrupts

v.34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

The passage continues on about watching for the Lord to return. Something that is not talked about much in churches anymore.

Jesus concludes with:  Be ye therefore ready also: for the SON OF MAN cometh at an hour when you think not.

Yes the world is in chaos. Everything seems to be upside down. BUT we must keep the Faith. We must share the Faith. If ever there has been a time that we should be doing our best for the Lord it is now. We are in the last days.

We cannot go to sleep.  We cannot be complacent. We cannot be unconcerned.

We should be living in expectation of Jesus coming. We have never been closer than we are today in 2013.

For where your treasure is there your heart will be also.

We  must be ready ---for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Where is Your Treasure?????