Communion - The Lord fights for our salvation

By Hayley Boud

 

Exodus 14:14, “The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent”

 

Today I want us to remember as we take communion how much God fights for us.  He doesn’t only fight for us when we are sick, hurt, tempted or disappointed but He fights for our souls.

 

We were once sinners on the path to destruction and God the Father who loves us so much, He fought for our souls by sending His only son to die for our salvation.  Jesus loves us so much that chose to fight for our souls by leaving heaven and accepting to die on a cross for our salvation.  Jesus fought the battle and won.  Now we are free from death because Jesus fought for us, while we kept silent.

 

Jesus continues to save us, day after day.  He protects us from temptations and keeps us on the narrow path.  Jesus continues to fight for our soul and our salvation.

 

Exodus 14:13, “Fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord which He will work for you today.”  Moses told this to the people of Israel when they were standing in front of the Red Sea with the Egyptians on their back.  The Israelites were sure they would die that day, but Moses told them they would see the salvation of the Lord. 

 

Then in Exodus 15:1, we see the song that Moses and Israel sang once they were saved, “I will sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted…the Lord is my strength and my song…my salvation, this is my God and I will praise Him”.

 

Let’s thank God and praise Him this morning for all that He has done.  We were like the Israelites standing in front of a Red Sea and we could not save ourselves.  Jesus rescued us from Satan in the same way He rescued the Israelites from the Egyptians, while they kept silent.  We did nothing for our salvation, Jesus did it all.  In the same way that God opened the Red Sea and lead the Israelites to salvation, He opened up the path for our salvation.

 

Let’s praise God this morning for He is our salvation.

Communion

September 2016

 

By Hayley Boud

 

Exodus 14:14, “The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent”

 

Today I want us to remember as we take communion how much God fights for us.  He doesn’t only fight for us when we are sick, hurt, tempted or disappointed but He fights for our souls.

 

We were once sinners on the path to destruction and God the Father who loves us so much, He fought for our souls by sending His only son to die for our salvation.  Jesus loves us so much that chose to fight for our souls by leaving heaven and accepting to die on a cross for our salvation.  Jesus fought the battle and won.  Now we are free from death because Jesus fought for us, while we kept silent.

 

Jesus continues to save us, day after day.  He protects us from temptations and keeps us on the narrow path.  Jesus continues to fight for our soul and our salvation.

 

Exodus 14:13, “Fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord which He will work for you today.”  Moses told this to the people of Israel when they were standing in front of the Red Sea with the Egyptians on their back.  The Israelites were sure they would die that day, but Moses told them they would see the salvation of the Lord. 

 

Then in Exodus 15:1, we see the song that Moses and Israel sang once they were saved, “I will sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted…the Lord is my strength and my song…my salvation, this is my God and I will praise Him”.

 

Let’s thank God and praise Him this morning for all that He has done.  We were like the Israelites standing in front of a Red Sea and we could not save ourselves.  Jesus rescued us from Satan in the same way He rescued the Israelites from the Egyptians, while they kept silent.  We did nothing for our salvation, Jesus did it all.  In the same way that God opened the Red Sea and lead the Israelites to salvation, He opened up the path for our salvation.

 

Let’s praise God this morning for He is our salvation.

 

By Hayley Boud

 

Exodus 14:14, “The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent”

 

Today I want us to remember as we take communion how much God fights for us.  He doesn’t only fight for us when we are sick, hurt, tempted or disappointed but He fights for our souls.

 

We were once sinners on the path to destruction and God the Father who loves us so much, He fought for our souls by sending His only son to die for our salvation.  Jesus loves us so much that chose to fight for our souls by leaving heaven and accepting to die on a cross for our salvation.  Jesus fought the battle and won.  Now we are free from death because Jesus fought for us, while we kept silent.

 

Jesus continues to save us, day after day.  He protects us from temptations and keeps us on the narrow path.  Jesus continues to fight for our soul and our salvation.

 

Exodus 14:13, “Fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord which He will work for you today.”  Moses told this to the people of Israel when they were standing in front of the Red Sea with the Egyptians on their back.  The Israelites were sure they would die that day, but Moses told them they would see the salvation of the Lord. 

 

Then in Exodus 15:1, we see the song that Moses and Israel sang once they were saved, “I will sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted…the Lord is my strength and my song…my salvation, this is my God and I will praise Him”.

 

Let’s thank God and praise Him this morning for all that He has done.  We were like the Israelites standing in front of a Red Sea and we could not save ourselves.  Jesus rescued us from Satan in the same way He rescued the Israelites from the Egyptians, while they kept silent.  We did nothing for our salvation, Jesus did it all.  In the same way that God opened the Red Sea and lead the Israelites to salvation, He opened up the path for our salvation.

 

Let’s praise God this morning for He is our salvation.

Ninjas

By Odon Bulamba

Proverbs 4: 23, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life”.

The root of our message is from this verse.  The title for today’s message is “Ninja”.  We all know ninjas.  A ninja is a human being but is different from other human beings when it is time to operate.  They disguise themselves to make them to be called ninjas.  What does the ninja’s face look like?  They wrap cloth around their eyes.  They hide their entire body, you can’t see their skin.  The only place seen is their eyes.  Without the outfit, you will never know the person is a ninja.

 

The Bible says in Proverbs 4:23 to keep your heart with all vigilance because from it flows all life.  Another version says, be careful what you think about because your thoughts run your life. 

 

Ideas that we have run our lives.  That is one of the biggest tools that God has given to us to run our lives.  You go to your office in the morning and an idea pops up, I will do a, b, c today and you tell your boss who says good idea.  Your ideas will run your kitchen.  I’ll organise the kitchen with this over here and this over there.  Our ideas tell us what we want to wear today.  Our thoughts tell us this is what we want to eat from the restaurant.  Ideas will even govern a country.  This tool which is the ideas we have is so strong that when an idea comes in your mind it is like a ninja, quietly and disguises itself and is coming for action.

 

You can be sitting here but ideas can come into your head and push you to judge, minimise people, hate people and also push you to love people.  Ideas are like ninjas because when a ninja comes they wear black outfits and carry a sword on their back and you can be surprised that the ninja can pull the sword from back and attack.  Why don’t they put the sword in front or on their hip where you can see it but instead they put the sword on their back where you can’t see it.

 

When ninjas come in, they come in quietly and you won’t notice them.  When ideas come into your life, they start quietly and attack, e.g. “look at Ange, nice shoes but she must have stolen them from somewhere,” and the ideas grow big.  Ninjas have tactics they use.  They can come in through the window and destroy the inside and leave without leaving a mark that they were there.  This is like when ideas raise up in your mind and take you far away.  The sword is the Word of God and should be used for a good purpose.  Your words can be used sharply like a sword.

 

Imagine if you were given an opportunity to use your ideas every day.  How great will you be?  From someone’s idea, we have houses, microphones, we build new things that never existed but when it comes to the Word of God, people don’t want to use ideas.  People don’t’ want to do more research or be committed when it comes to reading the Word of God.

 

A ninja is a human being but the difference is that they are trained to kill, destroy or save.  Your ideas are trained by someone, me and you.  When an idea comes up, you can decide what to do with it.  You can accept it or reject it.  If you allow your idea to take control, that idea will lead you to something stupid.  Sometimes in groups you will see people’s ideas become acceptable, for example, a preacher can have a glass of bear while preaching instead of water and the congregation finds it normal.  I’ve seen a preacher take a puff on a cigarette while preaching.  The congregation finds it normal because they are familiar with the idea.

 

My ideas can hurt and harm others, especially if you don’t think carefully you can end up destroying many people. 

 

When you train your ideas they can jump in two places: (1) your head and (2) your hip. 

 

(1) The ideas go to your head and make a contract with you.  For example you have an idea to marry someone. and you give a ring to that person and your agreement backs your ideas.  You see people stand firm in their ideas no matter what people say and they defend the ideas even if the ideas are wrong, “This is what it is and it must be like this”. 

 

Sometimes your ideas may make you doubt and ask, does God really exist and you wonder where that idea comes from.  Sometimes your ideas can push you to think, I don’t look good, I should look like someone else.  Those ideas will create this big monster in your life and start to destroy your life (like a ninja).

 

Your ideas start to blame others.  Ideas will push you to suspect anything.  My child is not here, he must be there and you stick on that and your child may come back and you ask where they were and you may push them to lie because of fear. 

 

Ideas make a commitment with you. 

 

1 Corinthians 2:10, ideas are killing the church and destroying people.  Our thoughts are the centre of everything.  One time there was something strange in a country where many people were thinking about God.  To think about God, you need faith.  When ideas come they come in human wisdom very often.  Meaning that you have to act like a human being. 

 

For example, there was a man who loved a woman and they collected money, $2.4 million was collected and saved to plan a big wedding.  As they were planning, they went to a beach and decided this is where our guests will stay for two weeks so we can enjoy and share the wedding. Before the wedding, the husband and wife decided to surf and the wife fell into the water and people tried to save her and suddenly blood everywhere.  Those coming to save her turned back and shouted for help.  The man was taking photos and couldn’t do much.  Someone took the body out of the water and her legs were gone and she passed away.

 

The man and lady had a good idea to join people at a beach for the wedding and they worked hard for that but everything changed.  Most of the times, our ideas are not God’s plans.  Your ideas are nothing if God doesn’t put his hand on it.  Don’t tell people your ideas are the right one until you know God’s will in the situation. 

 

David was a good friend of Johnathon.  Their love was so strong and powerful.  Someone came running, Saul and his son Johnathon is killed.  This poor nurse looking after the son of Johnathon (Mephibosheth) who accidently dropped him trying to escape from those who might kill him.  The boy after falling became lame. 

 

In those days, if you are the king, your son becomes king.  Johnathon should become king but God prepared David instead.  Although Johnathon passed away, his son Mephibosheth was alive.  Why didn’t he become king?  That is the idea of the time.

 

Those ideas live in us and we believe this is how it should work but sometimes God changes them.  Whatever you are doing, whatever you are thinking, let God be a part of it.  Show me God the right way so I can do things correctly. Sometimes I can think negatively about someone, and I can stop and ask why and where is God’s glory in this.

 

I have a friend who grew up in a family where no one trusted him or accepted him.  Everybody will say he is wrong.  When he tried to read to his dad, his father will say, “go away, you know nothing”.  In him, he believed that everybody hates me and up to the age of 46, he believed that he was not loved until the day that God came close to him and said, I love you as your God.

 

The love of God for you is so big. 

 

(2) Your ideas will be like this bright belt that I wear around my hip and your body is like my black clothing.  E.g. “If I do this, I will get money.  If I use this strategy, I will get glory”.  Ephesians 6, the belt is the truth and ideas come like the truth and the ninja that is entering your mind is the only truth in your mind and those ideas won’t stop there and will start to send signals.  The ideas will go up to your neck and nothing works a part from this idea.  “This idea doesn’t want to leave me, I can’t forget about it”.  Your husband, wife, friend and neighbours will explain to you 600 x and you will continue to believe they are wrong and you are right.

 

You will put yourself in this big couch, I am reigning now, I’m controlling but where is the will of God in all of this.  You can see your brain become squares which are small ideas mixed with your faith and it becomes a struggle.  I have an idea, I’m 70, what will happen tomorrow, fear starts and you start a battle with yourself because your thoughts start to lead your life like a bowtie around your neck and when you have a bowtie around your neck, it stops your neck making a good contact with your body.

 

A leopard will jump on your neck because it is easy to kill from the neck.  When ideas sit down in your body as the truth, they send signals to your neck.  Ephesians 6 doesn’t talk about the protection needed for your neck.  How to protect ourselves when ideas want to harm you?  What to do when bad ideas destroy your peace. 

 

Ninja ideas will knock at your door and you open your mind and ideas will take you left and right.  Maybe your husband is sleeping next to you but those ideas don’t care, they start to play with your mind.  They will make you judge, laugh, and become sick because of ideas.

 

We have to be careful with our thoughts.  We have to be careful in the way we think because they can lead us to please God or make him unhappy.  How do you think?  How do you know that what you think is good or true ideas?  What do you do with your ideas?  How many ideas could you store since you were born?  God is teaching us today, we are free in Jesus but we should also be free from our thoughts.  Whenever thoughts come that don’t please God, call on Him and ask for his help so they don’t destroy your family, yourself, or your faith.

 

Ideas can push ourselves to compare ourselves to others and jealousy comes in.  The boy who became lame, David one day asked whether any of Johnathon’s family had survived.  The boy did nothing wrong to become lame but God wanted him to be that way. By a child falling down, it usually wouldn’t make him paralysed.  The boy’s life was completely changed.  The boy asked how David could call a man like him who is like a dog but because David loved Johnathon, he wanted him.

 

Think about the love you have for your family and friends, work, church, faith.  What are you going to give back when one of your gifts is in front of you with weaknesses?  Yesterday you used to sing, but today you don’t because you are lazy and now you can’t stand properly anymore, your legs are lame.  Will you pick up the gift and give it back life?  Will you help others with their weaknesses to fix the situation? That can only happen when the bad ideas are put aside.  Then you will see God’s glory.

 

What breaks your heart?  Ideas.  Depression, rejection, sickness are caused by ideas.  Ideas destroy your life.  The more you store the ideas, the more you feel sick.  Kingdom of God looks like children.  Children don’t care about ideas.  They express them and then forget but us adults keep them forever and create problems.  We hate others and judge others because of someone’s ideas.  Who supplies the food for your ideas and helps them to grow to the point that you are separated from God?

 

Let’s pray and ask God to change our way of thinking so we can live in unity and joy.

Selection

By Odon Bulamba

 

 

This morning I will share with you a simple message called choice or selection.  One thing that God has given to all human beings is the ability to choose.  Choosing is not an easy task.  You may choose something because it is attractive to you but after showing it to others, they may say it is a wrong choice.  Therefore the world will say, your choice is not my choice or what you like may not be what I like.  When God created human beings, He said for us to take care of everything but at the last day of your life, I will come back to you and you will give me a feedback of all you have done.  Imagine if someone asks you take care of everything here in this room and on the last day, you will write a report. 

 

Acts 1:23-26, “So they nominated two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs.” Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles”.

 

 

I will see Jesus leaving the earth and He is supposed to go (ascension) and He said I will never leave you alone, I will leave you the Holy Spirit who will teach you and lead you and show you how things are to be done.  Then Jesus left.

 

Imagine, He was the only teacher the disciples had and He was with them for a number of years, the only one who performed miracles and could feed them physically and spiritually with powerful ideas and suddenly He says, I will leave you?  If I were one of the disciples, I would get lost because the master is not there anymore. 

 

Jesus told the disciples to not leave Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit comes.  The disciples had no idea how long it would take.  They waited.  When you are waiting in a group, ideas will come, “why can’t we go out?” and from other’s ideas, you may change your mind.  This is the place where Mary the mother of Jesus appeared in His life for the last time as she was present. 

 

When Jesus was alive, He blew on the disciples, have the Holy Spirit.  Now as He was leaving, they were left behind like orphans.  Suddenly Peter said, look we lost one of ours, Judas, we need to replace him because in Psalms one who loses office, another will replace him.  There is nothing wrong with that idea but the challenge is the root of my message, why were they replacing Judas?  Because he is dead.  He killed himself because he chose to sell the Lord, to get some money believing that the Lord will defend himself. 

 

Although Jesus told them all that one of you will betray me, Judas made the choice for the Word of God to be fulfilled, for the Christ to be crucified.  He could decide not to, he was free and he had the time to think about the decision and all the power to not go to meet with those people and to cancel the deal and he had the ability to not to meet with them to collect the money but he decided to do it because that was his choice.

 

Peter collected the disciples together and told them his idea (around 100 or 200) in a room of prayer where the miracles would be done for the first time.  They decided to replace Judas.  The Bible doesn’t say he was inspired by God.  They put the criteria, like a job interview, you have to have these: (1) must be someone who has seen the baptism of John (2) one of those that have been following us with Jesus (3) must be someone who has seen the resurrection of Jesus and testify that he was resurrected.  Those three criteria brought them to a short list of two:

a.       Joseph

b.      Matthius (Mathew)

 

Then they bring the two to God and ask Him to choose from them.  We have done our selection, now God between the two, pick up one for us to replace Judas.  How hard it is to dictate God, this is my choice, I want to limit You, pick up one from the two. 

 

Normally our choices influence our lives.  eg. What I will study at uni, those papers will have an affect on my life.  A mother can choose for her daughter to become a singer or dancer and the child may grow up to be a dancer.  Even this morning you chose what clothes to wear and someone else might suggest something else.  Choices are decisions which are very powerful which may lead us to face God, we may present situations to God which may not be God’s ways or His thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).

 

Very often our choices are wrong and our choices make us forget the existence of God and we choose what we want, not what God wants.  E.g. I want to be rich and to have a lot of money.  To be rich is to make you become a slave and have more problems.  Sometimes I sit down and ask myself how crazy am I, I have a few pairs of shoes but on Sunday I will decide which one to put on and try different ones on and waste 5 or 10 minutes on shoes but if I only had one or two pairs, it would be easier.

 

Some people think that the more abundance you have, the happier you will be.  Sometimes you have money and you don’t know what to do with it.  You might use it for drinking or eating.  One of my friends won lotto and he asked those around him, what should I do with it?  He bought a house but he asked others, “was that choice right, advise me”.  When you ask others for advice they will tell you what they think and it may not be what you want to hear.  That is the problem with Christianity today.

 

 God has told them to stay and wait in Jerusalem but they came up with an idea.  Before you give ideas to others, do you ask God first before sharing the ideas because your words can influence others around you and your own life.  When you are influenced by your words, make sure you are ready to accept the consequences.

 

After praying, God didn’t answer.  “Lord you know your people, you know their heart”.  Then Peter said, let us cast lots.  This is similar to tossing a coin to see which was chosen by God.  In the old time God used to manifest himself through that way but God had told them to wait for the Holy Spirit to come down to lead them.  They decided not to wait and chose Matthius and said, God has chosen him.

 

How will you feel if you are Josephus?  Is this really God’s selection?  Why him and not me?  Why didn’t we just pray for God’s will?  That might even push you to quit your faith because these people didn’t like me and they elected who they wanted.  Have you have been left beside at a job interview while you are the better candidate and they choose someone useless.

 

One time I went to the interview and the interviewer said, I will prefer a black person rather than a Maori.  The business partner who said that was shocked.  I thought, if this person prefers a black person today, maybe he will prefer a yellow one tomorrow or a green one another day, so I decided not to take the job, my place is not here.  Our choices are not always good.  What did you pay to God to be born your colour, rich or poor?  Our role is just to make a good choice.

 

They started their journey with Matthius but we don’t hear anything in the Bible about him.  The Holy Spirit came down in Acts 2 and they could speak in tongues and perform miracles regardless of the mistake they made.  God still blessed them but God wanted to teach them that the choice of Matthius was not His choice.  God chose Saul instead who was killing people and doing all evil things, maybe like a ISIS killing Christians today. 

 

Suddenly the choice of God fell on that man Saul, go and be one of the apostles.  How can we have 12 already and God chooses someone else.  When Paul came to churches, people would run away because he was an evil guy.  God’s choice is different to ours.  Our choice relies on the appearance and behaviour before choosing them.

 

In New Zealand before election time, I don’t know John Key or Winston Peters but I have to vote.  How do I make the decision to choose the leader?  Some might love the political party NZ First so vote for their leader or some might choose because they are the same colour as the leader or choose because they take care of farmers.  Our criteria are not good.  We take zero time to ask God who is the right leader for our country.  I choose this one because he is thin or him because she is a good speaker. 

 

With those wrong choices, we will say tomorrow we made the wrong decision.  How often have you regretted the choices you have made.  We all make mistakes because of our choices.  We choose something today and believe it is the best one and you enjoy it and after 10 years, oh why did I do that?  Most of the time there is no chance to go back or reverse the situation but we can start again.

 

Someone might study art and after three years they have the degree and they don’t know what to do with the degree and realise they made a wrong choice and start again.  Unfortunately the church doesn’t like to start again but try to add to where we are up to.  Starting again doesn’t mean losing time but it’s about getting stronger.

 

The 17 year olds at Uni you don’t care about uni but the mature students are more focused and work hard because they know they only have a short time to complete it and must do it but young ones are very distracted and their choices are poor every time.  I’ve seen someone rejoice in getting a C.  Passing is good but what knowledge do you have?  You can have a degree without knowledge.  Adult students know that they need to learn.  Similarly with Christianity today, our choices are just about getting something and we forget about our knowledge.

 

God chose Paul who was a bad guy but now he is a pillar of the New Testament.  What was the last choice you made.  Maybe as you are sitting here, your choice is to think about your mum or food while you are in the church but God is there with you and you send your mind somewhere else.  God’s choice is for you to be here to hear the Word of God to gain from it.

 

When you make a choice, do you ask yourself why are you choosing this because at the end of the day you have to report back to your creator.  For example, God will ask you, I gave you five children, why didn’t you choose to take them to church, read the Word of God to them or lead them on the path to salvation.  When you have your husband and your role is to control your husband, God this is what I want to happen in my family and I want you to choose this.  We want to manipulate things and for God to respond to our needs. 

 

You will see God who is full of mercy will give us children like my sister here today who has two children.  She will have a choice, “I love one more than the other”.  God may ask you,” why didn’t you teach your child the right way, you were defending their sins”.  You have been given a  mission to make disciples and it’s not a matter of choosing who will fit among us.  To make disciples is to ask who God has chosen and to ask God to show me how to take to care of them. 

 

We might say, this is my children but they belong to God and he can choose to take them and we can’t stop it.  God might choose to bless them and there is nothing we can do to stop it.  We need to ask God what His choice is.  God’s ways are not our ways and they seem crazy and we believe our way is the best way.  If Paul was persecuting the church and then walk into the church, everyone would say, no this is not a good choice because God couldn’t choose an evil person like this.  We are quick to judge because of someone’s behaviour yesterday.

 

We think those that walk like nuns or priests are chosen by God but our appearance has nothing to do with it, God looks at the inside.  Everything you have has been your choice – clothes, furniture etc.  The number of choices you have made in you life is countless.  Why not allow God to make the choices for you.  When we are tired we shout for help, why can’t we shout for help to ask God to help us?  God’s choice is not our choice.  God is right and I’m wrong so why do I waste my time trying to fix things that I can’t fix.

 

Let’s pray and ask God how to choose in all our decisions we make.