CALL TO WORSHIP
Speaker 1: Almighty and Holy God, the people of this earth are in desperate need of Your help.
Speaker 2: So much has contributed to this need, including the pressure of respon--sibility, the blindess to social evil and the abuse of power.
Speaker 1: Help us today to look upon the hurts of people in our land through the compassionate eyes of Jesus, our Lord.
Speaker 2: And help us to do more than look. Help us to act.
Speakers 1 and 2: Amen!
OFFERING THOUGHT
Dear Father: The gifts we bring come from hearts filled to overflowing with love, hope, and compassion. We dedicate ourselves to you and for the service for others. Take our offerings as they are intended - in gratitude and thanksgiving. Amen.
BENEDICTION
God gives grace today ... take some and spread it around!
SERMON BRIEFS
You Are God's Masterpiece
Genesis 1:1-2:4
Alexander Pope is credited with saying that the proper study of mankind is man. As humans we are an interesting group, aren't we? The Psalmist looked around his scope of wonderment and saw God's creation like the sun, the moon, the stars, the moutains, the lakes and streams, and wondered out loud, "What is man compared to all of this? Why should God give time or thought to humankind when they are so small and all of this is so big?" (Psalm 8:3--4 Keefer paraphrase).
When reading the beginning of the beginning of human history, one is startled to realize that God the Creator made us in His very own image. It didn't take long for us to look so different from the model. We have become "a painted mask; a visor meant to deceive," as Joseph Parker once said. We look so imperfect, so limited in our abilities and motives, so ... sinful. We have become marred images of what we were meant to be in God's heart. But let's take a few moments and look at what God first made and what he intended we look like today.
I. The Human Person was to be holy and innocent.
A holy God made us to be holy and innocent. We were made without sin and depravity - there was no sin in us in deed or word or thought. God installed in our human fabric a freedom to choose and a will that was free. With that freedom came the choice of right or wrong and we foolishly chose wrong. The first Adam was sinless, but didn't stay that way very long. It wasn't until the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, the second Adam, that sinlessness was restored. It would take the sacrifice of the second Adam for Adam One's descendents to receive forgiveness and hope for the sin that now follows them.
God holds out that forgiveness to all of Adam's Race. There is a short story by Ernest Hemingway called "The Capitol of the World." In the story a father comes to Madrid, Spain, to find his son, Paco, who had left the farm after a misunderstanding. The name Paco is a very popular name in Spain, much like John is in America. The father, in order to meet his son, put an ad in the newspaper which read, "Paco meet me at noon, Tuesday, at the paper's office. All is forgiven. Signed, your Father." In Hemingway's story, there were 500 young men named Paco who came the next day and stood in line, waiting to see if it was their father who had granted them forgivness (King Duncan, Lively Illustrations for Preaching, Knoxville: Seven Worlds Publishing, 1987, p. 336).
God, through the Second Adam, Jesus, grants holiness and innocence back into the life of humans who ask for it!
II. The Human Person was to be happy.
Adam had every reason in the world to be happy. He had all the food he needed. Also, he did not have to worry about shelter or clothing. God gave him a wonderful companion named, Eve (Genesis 1:27; 2:22). The Creator God supplied it all for Adam's taking.
Adam not only had all the luxuries of the temporal world, but he had a great spiritual fellowship with God that nothing else in the universe had going. In the cool of the day God and Adam walked in the Garden of Eden. The sweetest fellowship in the world is with God. The closer we walk with Him, the sweeter fellowship is with Him.
Can doubt arise that there was holy happiness going on in Adam's heart? What happened?
III. The Human Person was free.
God gave him a mind with which to think and power to choose. Adam was never forced by God in life. He could exercise his freedom of choice. God set before Adam good and evil and said, "I give you free reign to choose."
How foolish it was of Adam to choose sin. He had it all. He chose glass instead of diamonds. He traded a beautiful setting for a shack. We are like our forefather - we choose sin instead of righteousness. We know what we ought to choose and then choose foolishly. God, seeing our predicament, sent His one and only Son for us to choose so that we can have forgiveness, righteousness, salvation, and eternal life. It all comes down to a choice! Will you choose to have Jesus come into your life? Or will you choose to ignore the gift of forgiveness? It is your choice.
IV. The Human Person is responsible.
Adam could do as he pleased, but he had to answer for what he did. Because of his wrong choice, he was driven out of the Garden of Eden in shame. He was responsible for his actions. God allows us to choose and if we make the wrong choice, if we choose sin instead of the Savior, we lose!
Despite sin, we are still God's Masterpiece. We still can come in our limited way and let God change us into a form of the first human. Dr. W. H. Griffith Thomas gave a beautiful interpretation of the word "responsibility" when he said it is "Response--ability" man's response to God's ability!
Are you responding to God's ability to change your life back into a Masterpiece?
Derl G. Keefer
How Excellent Is Our God!
Psalm 8
Mario Andretti the great race car driver, said, "Desire is the key to motivation, but it's the determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal ... a commitment to excellence ... that will enable you to attain the success you see" (Great Quotations, Lombard, Illinois, p. C4).
The benchmark of excellence is God. David understood that and penned the eighth Psalm in hymn form as a song of praise to the most Excellent God.
I. Excellence is the standard of the Lord. (vv. 1--3)
The whole universe is filled with the Lord. The whole earth is filled with His excellence. Who cannot praise this awesome and holy God of ours? Who would have the audacity to squeak out a few notes? We should all sing with robust voice praise to this universal God who becomes so personal to us.
No one has the right to defy him. Neither can anyone match the strength or wisdom of the Lord. Jehovah God has made the world out of nothingness. He has formed humans out of the dust of the earth, and yet we feel that we have the right to defy Him, curse His Holy Name, mock His creation through war, hatred, and murder, and run our own lives. How foolish we are to believe such a lie. God will not be mocked. The truth is the Lord will conquer His enemies and the enemies of our souls. He will quiet their voices and their actions. He will heal the hurts they produce.
This Universal God with His universal standards is so unfathomable ... yet, so personal.
I love the story that H. L. Gee tells. There was a young boy whose father was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the army. When the child heard the news, he was silent for a moment, and then asked, "Do you think he will mind if I still call him Daddy?"
Webster defines "standard" as "commonly used and accepted as an authority." Excellence is the authority that is God! Yet, this authority is "Daddy" to us.
II. Excellence is in the creation of the Lord. (vv. 4--7)
His fingers created the heavenly objects, the angels, all of the objects in the sky, the earth, the animals, and the human beings that dominate this world. He has made us humans a little lower than the angels, made us to receive glory and honor, and has given us dominion over the whole earth. Yet, we must realize that He is still the Creator and the One we worship.
Thomas Jefferson wrote, "When we take a view of the universe, in its parts, general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill and indefinite power in every atom of its composition" (Albert Wells, Jr., Inspiring Quotations, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Pub., 1988, p. 51).
III. Exellence is in the name of the Lord. (v. 8)
Each of us have an eternity to praise the Lord if we so choose to do so.
Chuck Swindoll writes about three men who were close friends. The oldest of the men had become a Christian, but had not been able to share the good news with his two companions. On a trip to northern India they sat around the campfire drinking coffee and laughing together. As they talked, one of the men suggested that they talk about the greatest adventure they ever had in life.
The first man talked about a tiger hunt he'd been on and how it took him more than two days to stalk and kill a large tiger.
The second hunter told of an experience in Alaska, north of the Aleutian Islands, involving an enormous bear. He said it all happend so fast that it wasn't until after the experience was over that he realized how close to death he had been. The bear was now a rug in his den.
The older man spoke last. He related that the most exciting experience he was to have had not yet occurred. He said it would happen only seconds after his death. He told his friends that he had become a Christian and they listened in rapt attention as he described the thrilling anticipation he never knew before. Death was no longer a fearful thing on the distant horizon ... but an entrance into the most awesome delight the mind can imagine. It was the beginning of eternity with God! (Charles Swindoll, Growing Deep in the Christian Life, Portland: Multnomah Press, 1986, p. 310).
Do you choose to praise the name of the Lord for eternity, friend?
Derl G. Keefer
