| As Pastor, I invite you to visit our Church regularly, and recieve the message of the sunday sermon. Become a member of the church, its free, and it would bring great joy, to have "you" in our congregation to glorify God thru Jesus the Christ. As I end this sermon, Today, Please consider your salvation, to receive and accept Jesus into your heart, Just pray,from your heart, these words, Jesus I know I'm a sinner, I ask you to forgive me of my sins, and I accept You into my Heart, to be my Savior, To confess with my mouth, with my words, that You, are the Lord of my life, I believe on you Jesus, As the Christ, As the Messiah, As the One God raised from the dead on the third day, "As it is Written"*(Romans 10:9) I believe now, I'm am, and always will be , Saved, by Your Sacrifice on the Cross, in Your Holy Name, Jesus Christ, Thank You for my Salvation, and Eternal Life with You, "Amen" If you just Prayed this Prayer , and believe it with all your heart, You are now saved, Please visit the Church Salvation Page * "I Pray for God to Bless, And Keep You, In His Favor" (Senior Pastor; C.M. Eskridge ) * |
| Salvation is yours Now,Today (click banner for repeat) |
| Holy Father, we receive this message of Your Grace and Love, in our hearts, This Sunday ,, And ask for Your blessings and favor, to all who reads these words. Bless their familys and their loved ones, And that they will tell their loved ones of you Lord, We pray they will recieve you, in their hearts, Jesus, as Lord, We ask you Father God , for your blessings On our saints and clergy, the sick, and the hungry, around the Globe, We give you Thanks today, in faith and praise, in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, our Ressurrected Lord , (Everyone say) "Amen" |
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| (c)2012 West Virginia Church of Christ Family Help Ministry Intl. |
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| West Virginia Church Of Christ |
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| Sermon; Sunday, May 20, 2012 |
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| E-mail; (church@wv-family-help-ministry.org) |
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| LORD HAVE MERCY |
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| Traveling one day along the border between Galilee and Samaria, on His way to Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus approached a village where ten seriously ill men came out to meet Him. Ten lepers met Jesus, ten men afflicted by the worst disease imaginable in Jesus’ day. Leprosy was incurable, leprosy was disgusting, leprosy was revolting. Leprosy was considered proof that you were the vilest kind of sinner. God was really punishing you for something really bad. If you had leprosy, you actually watched your body rot away. Your fingers, your ears, your nose dropped off. You died a slow and painful death, cut off from society, cut off from family and the only friendships you had were others like you. Nine others in this case that kept reminding you as you looked at them how really bad you were. Ten lepers, ten dying, decaying, stinking wretches met Jesus and cried, "Jesus Master Have mercy on Us."
They must have known this was their only chance to escape the awful consequences of their disease. If Jesus did nothing for them, surely their lives would end in a slow painful death. "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us " Can you imagine that air was filled with tension as the ten lepers, as ten lives hung on the words or actions of the Man of Galilee. "Jesus, Master, Have Mercy on Us". He didn’t touch them. "Jesus Master, Have mercy on us". He didn’t wash them. "Jesus, Master have mercy on us." He didn’t even pray for them. Finally, finally after what seemed to be an eternity for these desperate men, Jesus spoke: "Go, show yourselves to the priests." In other words, Jesus was saying, go to the priests for certificates of cleansing. They weren’t healthy--but they were to go and get a health certificate to proclaim they were healed. Jesus said, "Go get a physical examination." Can you imagine their situation. They must have stood and looked at each other and then started to debate this command. They might have said, "But we have already been there and they couldn’t do anything for us. You have got to be kidding. Go show ourselves to the priests. They had surely expected something more, something else. Something of their desperation, and their growing, but doubting faith and confidence led these ten men to turn and start walking toward the priests. Something about this man of Galilee led them to obey, to go, to do what they had done before, but this time Jesus had told them to go. Then it happened. At some point, some instant--quite by surprise---those ten outcast lepers were changed. Every diseased cell in their bodies were changed. Every cell suddenly sprang into full health signaled by an unseen force. A force of events which began in a twinkle of an eye, in a flash of excitement as one of the ten noticed his body becoming healthy. Who was the first to notice? We don’t know, but with tremendous swiftness the reaction must have sped through the group. In amazement, they stopped, looked at their hands, their feet, at each others ears, they were whole, they had been changed, Jesus had done it again. His reputation was true. Ten suffering human beings had been touched by the Son of God. Ten suffering men had encountered the touch of a loving God. Ten suffering men had been touched by the creating hand of God that was still very much at work in his world. Can you picture them bounding down the road to the priest, now running, now leaping, now dancing, wondering how the priest would react... anticipating the glee, the excitement of their families as they would return home--healthy, alive, with a health certificate proclaiming to all what had happened. All ten men caught up in the joy, the excitement of the moment. But one of them halts in his tracks. He stops, he smiles, he turns, now walking, now running...back to the Master, back to this man of Galilee, back to this one who touched him with this mysterious force. He comes back, "shouting, laughing, proclaiming glory to God with a joyful and thankful heart." He runs back to Jesus, falls at his feet and gives the Son of God thanks for the great healing that had been done. Only one of the ten who were touched by the love of this man of Galilee had seen beyond the miracle of healing to the one who had dared to risk for him. He saw Jesus for who he was? One who cared, one who loved, one who wanted a relationship with everyone on the face of the earth. He saw the Son of God as a man of love, a builder of relationships, he saw the miracle as Jesus’ way of building a bridge between the fallen creation, the brokenness of disease and the loving hand of God who wants to reach into that brokenness with his creating and redeeming power, He saw Jesus. Then notice Jesus response. "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?" Only one in ten came back to give thanks. Only one in ten. Why, Jesus is asking, why only one in ten? By dwelling on the fact that only one in ten came back, Jesus is telling us very plainly he wanted the thanks. He wanted them to see beyond the miracle to the miracle worker. He wanted them to come into a relationship with him. What is the ratio for us today? Is it the same, one in ten. Let us try to examine in the next few moments why these nine cleansed men wandered in the valley of ingratitude when they should have been by the mountain of the one from who all blessings flow. Perhaps one reason they walked in the valley of ingratitude was they suffered from a lack of sensitivity and imagination. They never stopped and reflected on what happened. They didn’t think about who, or how this happened. They just took it for granted. They were healed. Their lives could go on, they had a lot of catching up to do, so they thought better be about it. They couldn’t see beyond the gift of the miracle of healing to the one who gave it to them. They never saw the giver. When God blesses us there is a double blessings. The one leper was doubly blessed. His body was made whole, but he saw beyond the healing to the healer and became for the church a symbol of the church’s outreach to the whole world. The healing of the ten lepers and the thankfulness of the one showed the world what the kingdom of God would be like. God would liberate us from as Luther says, "sin, death and the power of evil," and in that liberation we have a freedom to live, a sense of joy in our relationship with a loving God, and an adventuresome attitude about life that lets us dare to risk, that dares us to reach out because we know that God and I walking through life are a majority one. With God’s blessings, and our willingness to surrender our selfishness and pride to live in his grace with a peace of contentment, life can truly be exciting, fulfilling and a creative adventure for everyone. There is an old story about two grasshoppers who fell into a bowl of cream. One of them complained and groaned over his plight, and he sank to the bottom and drowned. The other kept singing and cheerfully kicked his feet until the cream turned to butter and he hopped away to freedom. Life can be that way. A Swedish proverb says: "Those who wish to sing can always find a song." May God and you walk through life kicking and singing. Amen Let us Pray |