7/29/07, P9C
“Living for Jesus” “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives for him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” TNIV
To this day, one of my prized possessions is an authentic “Hopalong Cassidy pocket knife. I was a Mickey Mantle fan and still pull for the New York Yankees if they are not playing our Atlanta Braves. All of us could confess that we have held onto politicians too long sometimes. I defended Nixon’s decision to declare victory in Vietnam and pull our troops out. Sometimes sports heroes and politicians lose their halo. Michael Vick has seen his most popular # 7 Atlanta Falcons football team jerseys pulled from the shelves on stores everywhere. But there is one hero whom we can model our lives after who will never disappoint us, and that person is Jesus Christ, the most popular person in the world. In today’s text we hear The Apostle Paul encouraging the relatively new Christian Believers to remember how they initially gave their allegiance to Christ and how they had a wonderful conversion. They received him as Lord through that experience. Now they must continue to live their lives for Christ. “…continue to live your lives for him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness...” v.7 Our first hymn during “Summer Worship” is an old standby Methodist Revival/Campmeeting worship song, written by a poet who was converted under the preaching of Henry Clay Morrison, President of Asbury College. The poem/hymn must have found its origin from Paul’s admonition: Living for Jesus a life that is true This poet Thomas O Chisholm (1866 1960) would be proud that believers are singing it all over the world. If we can remain “rooted” permanently to Christ we can grow more and more. If we can allow the Living Christ to strengthen our faith, we can begin to be strong enough in our faith to help others. It’s like a fine romance in a marriage that needs constant intentional effort to build up the love affair. Something like that just doesn’t happen. Most of those who begin their Christian walk in a somewhat flippant sort of way never intending to get serious about it until they come to a needy time when they face a crisis and with no other option they will throw themselves onto their tiny faith. Surprisingly it serves as a life raft and keeps them afloat, but once the crisis is passed, they get a much larger raft, and then a boat, and maybe a ship, An Ark of safety even. Many Methodist ministers started out that way. They now live for Jesus because they did yield their allegiance and this life has become a pathway of blessing, overflowing into great joy and promise. This was Paul’s pathway of blessing as it is with so many of you. a
sermon synopsis by C. Robert Allred, Th.D., Pastor |
ero worship is a real part of life. Kids want to be like their hero to the point of imagining that they are that other person.