23 Jan

9/9/18    “STARTING TODAY!”  HEBREWS 13:1-8,15-16

We live in a world of procrastination.  Many people put off doing things that are very beneficial to them.  We say we will start tomorrow and then we never do.  Probably the worst thing we do is that we rely on the government to do things that we should be doing ourselves.  If you study truly successful people, you will find that they don’t rely on the government for much of anything.  As a matter of fact, true success will only come if you rely on Jesus Christ for everything.  Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life.  No one will be in heaven that doesn’t come through Jesus and that’s a fact!  Today we will be looking at the last chapter of Hebrews.  Here the author is telling his audience farewell.  And he does it in a very unique and nice way.  Hopefully we can see how to leave a legacy and how this will, in fact, impact us here today as we quit procrastinating and get moving!

I ran across a wonderful story by Philip Harrelson that fits well into today’s lesson.  I had to shorten it some as it was quite long, but I hope that it doesn’t lose anything in my editing.  A woman’s daughter, Carolyn, wanted her mother to come to her place two hours away and see the daffodils.  The mother kept postponing it and time passed before she got there.  Sometimes we just don’t make time when we should.  When she did the weather was not nice as it was cold, foggy and rainy.  The mother said that it was too foggy to go to see the daffodils but Carolyn said she would drive as she was used to the fog.

Carolyn actually tricked her into going for a ride as the mother was adamant about not going out in that weather.  They finally got to a small church that had a sign that said, “Daffodil Garden.”  They came around the corner and saw the most beautiful sight the mother had ever seen.  There were flowers of every color flowing over the mountain, five acres of daffodils.  Carolyn said that one woman had done this and she lived in the house on the property.

They walked over to a sign with a poster on it saying, “Answers to questions I know you are asking.”  Number one said, “50,000 bulbs.”  The second answer was “One at a time by one woman, two hands, two feet and very little brains.”  The third answer was, “Began in 1958.”  This was the Daffodil Principle that was going to change the mother’s life.

This unknown woman had started planting flowers on this obscure mountain side 45 years ago.  She had planted a few more every year and now had a masterpiece daffodil garden.  The mother realized that many things in life are like that.  We start to do something just one step at a time until we have accomplished it or created something beautiful.  We can change the world.  She said to her daughter, “It makes me sad in a way, that I didn’t start to make a plan 45 years ago.  If I had I would have had something today.”  Carolyn gave the message of the day when she replied, “Start tomorrow.”  I want to change that to “Start Today.”  I know that many of our viewers are younger.  This message is for you.  Start something today or tomorrow and when you get to my age you will really have something.  I have worked out for the last 31 years.  If I hadn’t done this, I probably wouldn’t be here now because my heart attack would have come much sooner.  It’s not much but it’s who I am.  Who are you?  Start something now!

I think that the message “Start Today” is very evident in this morning’s Scripture reading.  This is the conclusion or the end of a letter to the Hebrews.  This ending is in harmony with letter endings of the day in that it leaves on a very upbeat theme.  If you remember that the readers of this letter were being persecuted by the Romans and also their own families were deserting them because of their new faith in Jesus Christ.

Their families were Jewish and they would have nothing to do with this new religion that embraced Jesus Christ.  If you remember from last week, the author of Hebrews showed the readers that Jesus was an extension of Judaism.   Jesus Christ was the Messiah that was often referred to in our Old Testament.  Jesus was the next piece in the plan that God had set forth so many years before.  Through Jesus Christ, all people and not just the Jews could be reconciled to God.

And we do this not just by faith but also by action.  I don’t know if you have ever noticed, but the Bible really insists that we cannot separate the two, faith and action.  There are many places where we are told that you cannot have faith without action.  And now the author tells us of some of the action.

We are to keep loving each other as brothers and sisters.  We have seen evidence of this whenever we see a tornado do damage in this part of the country.  The response is overwhelming and that is good.  They need the help.  Many times they have nothing left.  We have brothers and sisters living on Reservations today that struggle every day to feed their families.  It is not the fault of the children that they don’t have enough to eat or have clothing for the hard winter.  Can we get an out pouring for them?  There are many people that need help so let’s help them and start today!

And let us not forget to entertain the strangers in our midst for they might even be angels in disguise.  We see this in the Bible in the story of Abraham and the story of Lot and in other stories.  There are strangers passing through our communities all the time.  Don’t be afraid to help them out if they need a hand.  One of the things you can do is carry a gift certificate for McDonald’s or some other local fast food place and hand them out to people who look like they need them.  It is not hard to do, so don’t be afraid to help the stranger.

So far this stuff is pretty easy and for the most part I would guess that you do a pretty good job.  But now the author comes to some harder stuff.  Don’t forget the people in prison and those who are mistreated.  I think that there are many people in the country today that would just as soon lock up the criminals and throw away the key.  They get what they deserve.

Well, I’m not going to go into what is justice and what isn’t.  If I remember right, it is not ours to extract revenge.  God will take care of that.  It is our job to look after the prisoners and try to rehab them a bit so that when they get out of prison, maybe they can have productive lives.  One of the things that we so often forget is that most of these people will get out of prison eventually.  It only makes sense to try to help them be normal citizens instead of criminals.  I know a local retired pastor who goes at least twice a year and stays with the prisoners for a long weekend.  There he ministers to the needy.  I want you to think about volunteering for something like this.  They are always looking for more people and it is a great ministry.

Then we come to keeping our marriages pure.  I really don’t have to say much here.  We have talked of this before and you can read the statistics yourself.  The institution of marriage is in trouble.  You can see this on TV, in your area and in our area here.  I don’t even know where to begin to tell you about this problem.  But I do know that the end is in Jesus Christ.  He is the solution and He alone is the solution.  I don’t care how you work Him into your marriage, just work Him in.  And if you are in a situation that is not marriage, then get out of it!  The Bible defines marriage between a man and a woman and if you try to change that then you are in trouble.  You will find that He is the solution to all your problems and not just marriage.

Now we come to an even bigger problem, our love of money.  And to go along with this is the fact that we cannot be content with what we have.  We are a nation of consumeristic, materialistic gluttons.  We just talked a few weeks ago about how the grass is never greener on the other side of the hill.  I’ve been over there and it is the same there as it is here.  And we all have a big problem in this area.  Now don’t get me wrong.  We need money to buy food, shelter and clothing.  Money is not evil.  It is the love of money that can be evil.  The question should be, “Do you really need that boat or extra car or extra TV?”  Or does this pastor really need a motorcycle?  I don’t think that there is anyone who is exempt from this including me.  Now I don’t want to spend too much time here because this is a sort of summary and we want to get to the Good News.

And that Good News begins with the hope that we can all start our own field of daffodils today.  You have lots of places to begin.  And you will have all the help you need to do it because in verse 5 we read as God says, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”  I want you to notice that it doesn’t say I don’t think that I will leave you or maybe I won’t leave you.  It says never.  God will never leave us.  Never, ever!  That is a promise that you can go to the bank with.  So when the going gets tough, you should be gettin to prayin and callin on the Lord because He is there a waitin.  This part is so important and it is a part we forget so often.  Even I forget it sometimes.

It goes on to say that the Lord is my helper, not my neighbor, not my friend but my helper.  Therefore you are not to be afraid because what can anyone do to me when I am in the Lord.  This is such a strong belief that you need to grab a hold of and hang on.  The world out there doesn’t know this or if they do they don’t act like it.

They also don’t know that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.  He doesn’t change.  He cannot change.  If you are looking for the pillar to hang on to or the rock into which you can anchor, then look no farther than Jesus Christ.  He along with God and the Holy Spirit made this world so that we could come to Him in a warm loving relationship.  Our good relationship with God will pave the way for good relations to all others.  That is why I always say we are to love God first before we even love our spouses or families because then He will allow us to love them first.

These are concepts that are not out there in our country or world.  This is evident in the statistics that I have shared before.  Roughly 80% of the people of this country say they believe in God.  Of that 80%, 45% say they have been born again.  Of the 45%, less the 10% actually have a personal relationship with Jesus.  So if you only think you are going to heaven then you probably aren’t.  You have to know!  We have our work cut out for us.  This is not an easy job.  Working for Jesus Christ has never been easy as you are always called on to sacrifice.  But these sacrifices will seem small if you start today following the suggestions of the author.  For most of us, we can just be ourselves and do what is right and we will automatically be following Jesus.  However, if you have never invited Jesus into your life then confess your sins to Him and ask Him to be Lord and Savior of your life.  You will never regret this.  Start you daffodil garden now!

And another thing that will happen when you start today to do these things is that you will be ready to praise the Lord in the fashion that you know.  One of the most fun things that we do every week should be when we come to Sunday morning or at the time you designate for worship to praise the Lord.  If this isn’t happening for you, then talk to me and maybe we can change something.  Jesus doesn’t change and I praise the Lord for that, but we can change, I can change.

Some of us may want to rise up and shout to the Lord.  You may want to close your eyes and raise your hands.  You may want to dance to the Lord like David did.  Or you may want to sit more quietly in praise and bask in the Lord’s presence.  Anything you want to do is fine with me.  Just as a little hint, there is nothing that helps the Spirit to work in me more than when someone says ‘Amen’ or ‘Praise the Lord’ in the middle of what I am saying or in the middle of a sermon.  I know that I won’t hear or see you on line but do it anyway if the Spirit is moving you.

I sincerely hope that you are taking advantage of the music that is available to you on YouTube.  I mention this every week in the hope that you will find some of your favorites.  Music can be such an important part of worship that we don’t want to leave it out.  I hope that you will contact me if you have suggestions to improve your worship time that will help you to praise the Lord and know that He is always there and that He never changes.  But most of all, I pray that we can make all of our time together productive and fun.  Now you may think that fun isn’t part of the Scripture but the terms joy and rejoicing are used many, many times in the Bible.  Life is so full of events that aren’t joyful.  So let’s try to make our worship events as joyful as possible.

As you can see we are leaving the book of Hebrews for a while, but the author doesn’t want us to go with heavy hearts.  Yes, he has told us a lot of things that we need to bear in mind as we minister.  But he has also left us with this wonderful conclusion.  If you can just begin to do some of these things or one of these things starting today, then it won’t be long before you will have built something.  Soon you will have something even bigger as you keep at your ministries.  Then over the years you will find that you have a daffodil garden that covers a mountainside that is absolutely the prettiest daffodil garden in the world.  God is with you all the time and He will never leave you.  He will help you plant and grow this ministerial garden until it is huge.  He loves you and I praise the Lord for that.  Thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.