Song-"Into the darkness You shine..Out of the ashes we rise...there's no one like You...none like You....Our God is healer...awesome in power...our God...our God....Water you turned into wine...opened the eyes of the blind...."
Turn the water of my life into wine.
Open my eyes where I'm blind.
Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed.
Save me and I shall be saved.
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(The following are some of Pastor Frank's words and some of mine as well.)
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This is something I've been thinking about all week, and Pastor Frank mentioned something of it today, so I am taking the opportunity to write a little of what I was thinking about.
Acts 6-The disciples were getting caught up in the nitty gritty of church life and they called together the multitude of disciples and told them that it was not right that they should leave the word of God and serve tables. "Seek seven men among you of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word."
This pleased everyone and among those picked were Stephen and Philip as well as others whom we hear little about. The apostles prayed over them and laid hands on them.
Verse 7 is significant. "Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith." How interesting. Were these the same priests who had earlier condemned Jesus to death?
Stephen was full of faith and power and did many great wonders and signs among the people. Those who wanted to argue with him could not resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke. I heard someone say the other day that too often, we would want to take Stephen out of his role and give him the name of pastor or teacher because he showed signs of giftedness. But God wanted to use him powerfully in the place He had called him without changing his title.
But what I really notice in this passage is how the word of God spread when the apostles were able to focus on prayer and to the ministry of the word. Pretty amazing and a relief to those whose calling gets mixed up with duty.
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In Isaiah 61, Jesus ministry is described. The ministry He had while He was here is described. The ministry He has now in the church is described. And the ministry He will fulfill upon His second coming is also described. That's what I think anyway.
Verse 3 talks about what He will do for Zion, which is the church.
"To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD,
that He may be glorified."
Pastor Frank said that ashes are a remnant of what was.
God is not moving to restore what was.
He is not into restoring my past.
The Spirit of the Lord takes what the enemy has taken from us.
He reaches into those ashes and exchanges, restores, and
embellishes that which the enemy robbed.
He takes those ashes and gives me Beauty in their place.
Beauty for ashes;
The theme of my life's story and
the song of the Redeemed.
Alleluia.
And God does all this-
comforts, consoles, gives beauty for ashes
and the oil of joy for mourning,
gives a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness-
in order that we may be called trees of righteousness
The planting of the LORD,
THAT HE MAY BE GLORIFIED.
He does all of this for us
for His own glory.
So we should let Him do it.
He loves the brokenhearted, the poor, the captive, the bound, the mourners,
those burned by life, and those who are heavy laden.
It is the sick He came to save.
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All during the service, (and all day and throughout Sunday night)
I kept picturing that beautiful painting
of the loving shepherd, leaning down over a cliff,
trying to rescue the sheep that was lost.
That sheep got too close to the edge.
He wasn't 'in' the flock.
He was on the peripheral and then he was gone.
And Jesus loved Him enough to rescue
Him from the disaster he put himself into.
He held him close to His heart
and did not reject Him.
(How quickly we let people go when they don't see things our way.
How quickly we freeze them out if they dare think for themselves.
How willing we are to push them off the cliff because they don't fit our mold.
Why did the lost sheep get lost?
Did he do this to himself or did we help him get lost?
These are the questions that search my heart.)
Jesus leaves the 99 who are safe in the fold
and goes to seek that one lost lamb,
because He is a shepherd,
and not a hireling.
The Good Shepherd lays His life down for His sheep.
(This was not really the sermon, but this is the sermon I was getting from that picture that kept coming to my mind.)
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Judges 17; 18:4-
There was a man named Micah who heard that his mother had put a curse on the person who had stolen 1,100 shekels of silver from her, and he got a little nervous and went to confess to his mother that he was the one who had stolen it. She was so proud of him for confessing his sin that she gave 200 shekels of silver to a silversmith and from that silver, he made a carved and a molded image which she promptly gave to Micah and he used them to set up a shrine in his house along with some other idols. He consecrated one of his own sons as a priest for his household.
"In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes."
Now a young Levite man was passing through and Micah employed him to be his priest. So he lived with the man and became like a son to him. Micah was sure that God would be good to him since he had a Levite as a priest.
In this story, we see what happens in a family when the head of the home calls evil good, and good evil. It started with the mother and continued with the son and eventually the Danites stole Micah's idols and his priest. Then they went to a nice group of people who were quiet and secure and burned down their city and killed its residents and set up for themselves Micah's carved images even though the house of God was in Shiloh. They were to go to Shiloh to worship God.
Instead they worshiped idols in their own home.
Because a mother did not discipline her son when he stole from her, but was willing to call this evil thing good, it affected not only her household, but the household of the Danites, and then in their false security of having their own priest, they destroyed another town. How far reaching does the evil or the good in one household extend? It can affect the church and then the community...the town...a city...the state....and a nation...and eventually, the world.
We are living in a nation that is doing what is right in its own eyes. We are redefining marriage. We are redefining truth. And it started in our homes.
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.
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Marks gospel relates the story of the wild storm at sea. The disciples were frightened because they were on a little boat out in the middle of the sea and Jesus was asleep with His head on a pillow in the middle of that storm in the middle of their boat! They decided to wake Him up. He rebuked the winds and the waves and they immediately calmed down. He rebuked the disciples a bit too. When they came to the other side of the sea, they were greeted by a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs and no one could subdue him. He saw Jesus from afar and came to worship Him. The demons recognized Him and implored Him not to torment them. Jesus said, "Come out of the man, unclean spirit! What is your name?!" The spirit answered, 'My name is legion; for we are many.' The spirit begged Jesus not to send them out of the country. They asked to be sent to the swine in order to enter them and that's where He sent them and the swine ran off the cliff right into the sea and drowned. So the towns people came out to see Jesus and the man who was no longer demon possessed and they were afraid. They asked Jesus to leave and He did. The man who was now free begged to go along with Him and Jesus told him to go back home and tell his friends what the Lord had done for him, and eventually, that man's witness reached more people than Jesus presence probably would have had He stayed in the pig farming region for a time. The man told his freedom story in the Decapolis which was a ten city wide region.
I love that it says that the man came running to worship Him. The demons spoke through the man and held him captive, but the man knew His deliverer and worshipped Him. The demons worshiped Him also.
The story of the delivered demoniac demonstrates the power of one changed life and how it positively affects one's family and community, and in this case, the world, for surely, much of the world has heard this man's story.
The story of Micah demonstrates the corruption of one life and how it can negatively influence the family, community, and nation.
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We may be a product of negative things in our life but we don't have to be a victim of those things. We don't have to keep passing on our pain and affect others negatively because of our experiences.
How so?
Because we have a God who is like no other, who has promised to give us Beauty for ashes, and we can trust Him because He is good.
And because you have set your love upon Him, therefore, He will deliver you.
He will set you on high, because you have known His name.
You will call upon Him and He will answer you.
He will be with you in trouble.
He will deliver you and honor you.
With long life shall He satisfy you
and show you His salvation.
Sounds like beauty for ashes to me.
I saw Him reach into my ashes today
and bring out beauty for someone else's ashes.
Together, He will make us oak trees of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord,
that He might be glorified.
From ashes to beauty.
From broke to an oak.
From captive to free.
From lost to found.
The work of God
is to take us from ~~~~
and bring us to~~~~~.
The work is endless
and yet it is complete.
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