Pastors Brian and Jacque Lother
Jacque: Thank you, Lord. I just had Deb and Dave Thompson on my mind through this whole service. So many of the songs that we sang, and Deb and Dave, we are standing with you in prayer. Deb is fighting out infection in her blood and there is cancer in her blood. We are just praying that in this new year, like Sean said, healing. Those cancer cells go and your body can create fresh, healthy, blood. We are praying for that miracle and we are standing with you.
Pastor Brian: Amen. God is well able, God is well able. We've just come through the Christmas season. I don't say that in a negative way, you know, like we've just come through the Christmas season, although it can sometimes feel that way to some people I suppose. Christmas has a real powerful impact on both adults and of course children and probably more so at Christmas than at any time of the year. We are probably more intentional about goodwill. That's a good thing. It's a good thing to be that way. The last few years I've been touching on a topic that I think impacts all of our lives. And that topic is the distorted images that we as people have of God. There are so many people today who are angry with God and their anger is rooted in what they perceive to be what God has done to them.
There are people who have had various images of God throughout history and many people take those images, and they project them onto God. They project them in their own hearts as to this image that they have of God. How many know that your perception of something is your reality? Your perception of something is your reality. It may not be real, but it's your reality.
At this time of the year, I think there have been people-- this time of the year has reminded me that there are people who have projected onto God what I call a Santa Claus image. I want to talk a little bit about that today. Most of us when we think of this jolly old Saint Nicholas, this Rolly Polly, red cheeked rather inaudible 56:17 fella, we actually don't think of him as being real legalistic and judgmental, do we? But in reality, everything we say about him is legalistic and judgmental. He is keeping a list, isn't he? And he is not only has a list; he is checking it twice. And of course, we know that as he looks over his list, he is going to find out what
Jacque: Naughty or nice.
Pastor Brian: Yeah, who's naughty or nice. Not only is to keep this list that he checks twice that finds out who's naughty or nice. He is watching you when you are sleeping. He knows when you are awake. And so you can't hide your hypocrisy because he knows if you've been bad or good. So what? Be good for goodness sake, right? And so the question, believe it or not, that starts to form in children's minds at Christmas time is have I been good enough?
Jacque: Because if you are not, you get coal.
Pastor Brian: That's right. You get a lump of coal. Have I been good enough to warrant this gift that I want? And most of us haven't really thought about this very deeply, but the whole concept of how we treat Santa Claus is entirely anti-grace. See, grace is unmerited favor. In other words, you get God's favor, not because you were good enough and he checked the list and you were on the good side of the ledger, but you get his favor because he is just good all the time.
Jacque: I like the word undeserved.
Pastor Brian: Undeserved, unmerited, undeserved, yes. When we have the Santa Claus image of God, those who behave good in a good way, they can anticipate rewards when we pray. And those who have misbehaved and are bad, they should obviously fear exclusion from the joy to come. We even have songs about that. I'm getting nothing for Christmas because I've been nothing but bad. But isn't this image, this Santa Claus image, doesn't it sound a little bit familiar to what kind of picture has been painted about God in our father in heaven?
It's no small wonder that children kind of infused their understanding of Jesus with this Santa legend that has been around for the last few hundred years. Of course, the flip side of all of that is that Santa is no longer this judgmental guy, but he is like a dotting grandparent for whom we can ask anything we want. We can mail a list of requests to the North Pole, or we might need to endure standing in a long line so we can sit on his lap and whisper in his ear. Kind of like having to endure a church service to get what we want. It's kind of falls into the category of ask anything you want in my name, and I will do it.
I want to read this portion of scripture in John chapter 14, verse 12 to 21. The problem at times with the scriptures is that we only read just a few portions of it. And so we don't then get the context and the full picture. How many know that the news media today has developed an art form of taking one sentence out of a five-minute conversation that somebody has and post a headline on it completely out of context, putting things together in a context that's not really true. They want to ask questions that have one-word answers. It's like, have you quit beating your wife yet? Well, if you say yes, that means you were a wife beater. Well, if you say, well, no, well now you are still beating your wife. The questions at times that are asked are not even fair and honest questions. We have to look at the totality of scripture when we are reading the scriptures.
I do want to read this portion here. It's just a few verses. It would really help us if we read the first chapters before this and a couple chapters after because this is one kind of long dissertation that Jesus gave, but he talks about the power of belief. But belief has always been in the context of relationship with God, not just an isolated, if I believe this is going to happen. It's always in the context of a relationship with the Lord. Let's read this from John chapter 14, verses 12 to 21.
Jacque: I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done.
Pastor Brian: Let me stop you there. How many of you would raise your hand and say, I'm doing all the works that Jesus has done? None of us would raise our hands, would we? There are those who would say, well it's because you don't believe because Jesus said, anyone who believes in me will do the same works. So see how much condemnation can start to come into our walk with God when we don't really understand the totality of what he is trying to say here. Let's go on.
Jacque: And even greater works because I'm going to be with the father.
Pastor Brian: I haven't even done the works of Christ now He is telling me I have to do greater works,
Jacque: You can ask for anything in my name and I will do it so that the son can bring glory to the father. Yes, ask me for anything in my name and I will do it.
Pastor Brian: We have to understand that this is in the context of something else Jesus said. And that other thing that Jesus said was this: I don't do anything unless what?
Jacque: The Father tells me.
Pastor Brian: The Father tells me to do it. Did you ever think about the paralytic who actually was healed that was at the temple? And James and John, after the resurrection, went there and walked by him and he was begging, asking for money and their response was, well, we are Christians; we are poor. Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I the in the name of Jesus; stand up and walk. And he stood up. How many times do you think Jesus walked by that paralytic? Did you ever think about that? Because the scripture says, as was his custom, he was there and Jesus went to the temple often. Jesus didn't heal everybody that needed healing, that he saw. He waited for God the Father, to instruct him to do that. That's hard for us in our charismatic circles who believe in healing to accept that. But we have to understand that God has a bigger plan than just all of our separate individual lives and our own conveniences. And sometimes he asks us to wait while we are in the process of receiving this suddenly from God. We've waited 20 plus years for some of the things that are going to happen in 2023 for Hope Community Church.
I always get amused when I see the word suddenly in the scriptures because Abraham's suddenly with Isaac took how long? Over 20 years. God promises you something and we are waiting to go home to see if the answer is in our mailbox and it's not coming for 20 years. When it doesn't come for 20 years, what happens to us? We begin to doubt. We begin to question. We begin to think, am I on the bad side of the list or am I on the good side of the list? Don't we? Jesus is saying to us here, he wants us to keep believing. I think that we should ask largely of God all the time, but let us not forget that he is God and we are his people, not we are God and he is my servant. Let's not forget that. Let's go on.
Jacque: If you love me, obey my commandments.
Pastor Brian: Well, there is a lot in there, isn't there? If you love me, obey my commandments. Love is just not kind of this warm fuzzy feeling. I'm glad for warm fuzzy feelings. But sometimes there is just hard right choices to make when you love somebody. We did a wedding on Thursday. Part of their vows was, "I will be faithful to you in sickness and in health." Most of us, when we are young and we fall in love and we get married, we don't sign up for taking care of people when they are sick. That's not what's in our vision, is it? We are thinking of we are going to go on vacations together. We are going to have this passionate love for each other. We are never going to have to say goodnight. We never think that there are going to be days where maybe someone is going through cancer treatments or a kidney transplant, right? Sometimes love is just one hard right choice after another.
In our culture today, when the choices get too hard, we want to walk away. But that's why we as the church, need to model covenant with each other more so than what we have so that we can truly be an example of what it truly means to love how God loves. Let's go on.
Jacque: If you love me, obey my commandments, and I will ask the father and he will give you another advocate who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him because it isn't looking for him and doesn't recognize him. But you know him because he lives with you now and later will be in you.
Pastor Brian: So here's this interesting moment in time where the world and the church, but the world is actually just about the transition from what I would call an Old Testament relationship with God to a New Testament relationship with God. I don't really care to kind of define it in theological terms. But what was about to happen was in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon people. Holy Spirit was present in the Old Testament, and he would come upon people like he did with King Saul. King Saul was trying to kill David and go after David, and yet when the spirit of God would come on him, he could prophesy all day long. Kind of a strange conundrum, isn't it? This guy with murder in his heart has the spirit of God come upon him and he starts to prophesy?
Well, that was the basic way to describe an Old Testament relationship with God. The spirit of God would come and move. But Jesus is now saying something different here. He says that Holy Spirit is here, but in a very short period of time, which was going to happen at the Pentecost Holy Spirit was now going to be in us, that we were now going to be the temple where God's spirit dwelt. It was no longer going to be, we have to go to a building over there, whether it's in Jerusalem or whatever. In the Old Testament case, God's spirit didn't inhabit all the synagogues. His spirit came into the holy of Holies. That was the Old Testament way.
Actually, only the high priest once a year could actually go into that area. There were a whole lot more, shall we say, restrictions or limitations maybe is a better word in a person's relationship with God in the Old Testament than what we have here. But now this is a whole new era where Holy Spirit is now going to live within us. Let's go on.
Jacque: No, I will not abandon you as orphans. I will come to you. Soon, the world will no longer see me, but you'll see me since I live. You also will live. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my father and you are in me and I am in you. Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my father will love them and I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.
Pastor Brian: Let's get back to Santa for a second. In some people's minds, Santa never disappoints until of course they are missing presents. Where's my pony? And what's with the argyle socks? Can you tell I got argyle socks one year from my mother-in-law. But don't forget to say thank you even if you don't like the present because Santa's already watching for next year. And then of course there is the supernatural part of the story, isn't there? How Santa can fly in a sleigh around the whole world in one night. How he can make it down a chimney that a squirrel would get stuck in.
And the fact that he can get to every home in one night. I mean, that's miraculous, isn't it? If this Santa picture is our image of God, then I think we are very close to a Christianity that we ask God for any desire that pops into our hearts, hoping that our faith measures up and our behavior has measured up. I would dare say that most of us have prayed for any number of things that have not ever happened in the course of our life, and maybe even particularly in the area of healing. And we confuse faith in God's loving care with almost contriving a belief in God that is rooted in what I would call magic, not relationship.
I think in this projection and when we project this Santa image onto God, we set ourselves up for disillusionment. We set ourselves up for disillusionment. I believe in miracles. I believe in praying for the sick. There have been dear friends of mine in this church through the years that have died from diseases. The moment they died, I was faced with the question, are you still going to pray for the sick? My answer was to the Lord, yes. In spite of my lack of knowledge, lack of understanding why, in spite of all the faith and all the prayers of all the saints, because nobody could ever tell me that all of the prayers from all the saints through the history of this church, none of those prayers were prayed in faith. I don't believe that. I believe they were. I believe they were prayed in great faith.
But I have to not have a Santa image that I project upon God. I have to also be willing to say, Brian, you know, you think you are a pretty smart guy, but you are still finite and he is infinite and there is going to be a side to God that you will always be learning about and never fully understand completely even when I'm in heaven, even when I'm in heaven. I have to be able to say, bless the Lord, oh my soul and all that is within me praises, holy name even when I don't get the answers to the things that I prayed for and even when I don't understand and even when there is a mystery side to God that doesn't make any sense to me, do I still believe that He is not abandoned me, not forsaken me, not left me?
This whole Santa thing has a lot of fallacies in it. When we try and compare Santa to God, there is another thing that I really need to mention, and that is this; Santa lives very, very far away and he only visits once a year. He just comes once a year. He does it when you are sleeping and he eats all your cookies. Now, isn't that image substantially different from the Jesus who said, "I am with you always"?
Isn't it substantially different who says to us, 'I will never leave you or forsake you"? And yet I remember as a child, I embrace the belief that God was in heaven, which is further away than the North Pole, and that he was going to come again someday. And then as a child, I was hoping it was going to be after Christmas.
But wouldn't you agree that the best way to purge ourselves of all these damaging distortions of God is to have our hearts continually immersed in the beauty of Jesus? Let's immerse our hearts continually in his beauty as he is portrayed in the gospels, particularly. The stories of Jesus are the most potent description for the spiritual poisons that we've ingested. We've all ingested spiritual poisons, wrong beliefs, wrong ideas of God, and they need to be purged out of us. Our thinking needs to be changed. Sometimes, I wish I just had a zipper on my head that I could zip it and then scrub all that stuff out of my brain and then zip it close again.
There are so many things that at times because of our culture, because of experiences, because of, uh, how we were nurtured as children, et cetera, et cetera, what, what our fathers were like and what kind of image that created in us. The stories of Jesus are the most potent prescription to cure all of those poisons that we've ingested regarding the image that we have of God. When we think of Jesus, we need to look at the fact that it was Jesus who sat by a well and restored a Samaritan woman to her community and to a relationship with God.
He didn't get the list out and say, Ooh, look where you've failed. Because her failures were pretty blatant in the community she lived in, weren't they? It was Jesus who restored the integrity of a very short man who was a tax collector, who we know to be his named Zaccheus, Jewish man, collecting taxes for the Romans, getting wealthy off of the sacrifices of the people. What that did to estrange him from his own community, and yet, it was Jesus who restored him. It was Jesus who restored the woman caught in adultery. He restored her to a place of grace and health morality. By the way, he would've done the same to the man if he would have had courage to show up that day too.
He restored the paralytic who was let through the roof. He restored blind Bartimaeus who was screaming by the side of the roadside, "Son of David, have mercy on me." He restored the outcast who were harassed by the demonic realm, whether it was the demoniac of the Gadarenes or this young boy who kept being thrown into the fire, and his dad said, "We have no control over it." Jesus asked him, "Well, you believe?' And he said, "I do believe, but help me with my unbelief." Because there are times where our belief actually has a companion of unbelief with it, which sounds so strange, but there is a part of us that knows that God can do anything at any time. And then there is another part of us that feels that God will never do it for me. And this is when we have to start to understand that God's love is universal. It's for us all. It was Jesus who restored the outcast, who were lepers, leper, who said, "If you aren't willing, you can make me clean." And the first thing out of Jesus' mouth was, "I am willing. I am willing."
There were people who sanity was gone and he restored their sanity. We can pray for people with brain issues and Jesus can restore them. When we see Jesus in action, what we are really seeing is the heart of God. That's what we are really seeing because he is the restorer of lives. If there is one thing that becomes more and more evident at Christmas time, it's how many lives are in shambles? How many lives are being affected by the fullness of this world? And just even at times, poor choices that they themselves have made or they were trained in their homes to function a certain way and that function is very dysfunctional. With every aspect of dysfunction comes consequences to that, which we begin to get brokenhearted over or angry over as people who are victims of all of that. And then it's like, where do we go from here?
But the incarnation, the arrival of God to earth in human form was the inception or the beginning of God with us. He didn't come to visit, my friends. He didn't come to eat our cookies one night while we were sleeping. He did not come to visit us. He came to stay. Jesus was the culmination of centuries of planning and preparation on God's part to reveal one thing. That was the heart of God. He came to reveal the heart of God to change our distorted image of Him. Yes. Let's read Matthew 1:23 and 21.
Jacque: Look, the virgin will conceive a child. She will give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us.
Pastor Brian: Yes, not God will be with us. God is with us. Not God is coming to visit, but God is with us. What image comes to your mind when you hear that God sees everything that he sees all your thoughts. What image comes to your mind when that happens? I'll tell you the image that God wants you to have. He wants you to go back to First Corinthians chapter 13, and he wants you to understand that First Corinthians 13, albeit more often than not, Pastor Jeff and I were talking about this last night, we often read First Corinthians 13 and read it in the context of, "boy, I'm not measuring up there, am I? I'm not measuring up there. That's how God wants me to be." But First Corinthians 13, more than anything else, is a description of how God is for God is what love and love is-- And we read it. I want to read just two verses here, verses four and five from first Corinthians 13. And it says this:
Jacque: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud.
Pastor Brian: It kind of is a picture Jesus, isn't it?
Jacque: It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs.
Pastor Brian: It keeps no record of wrongs. Let's read that again in the NLT.
Jacque: Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.
Pastor Brian: Yeah. Have you ever been disappointed in God? Have you ever been angry with God? I have been. I'm thankful that I could go back to this verse where I was reminded that God keeps no record of being wronged. Have I wronged God in my life? Many times. Many times. What is your most dominant image of God in your mind? Do you hear the words, "You don't deserve forgiveness"? Well, I would say that is true. None of us deserve forgiveness. So what does that tell us about the forgiver? If none of us deserve forgiveness and forgiveness has been there for us all, what does that tell us about the forgiver?
Jacque: He is so gracious.
He is so gracious. He keeps no record of wrong. I find myself praying, father, would you please free me from every slanderous misrepresentation of you? Because some of my misunderstandings and misrepresentations of God have been actually slanderous to him and his nature and his character helped free me from these things that I believed and heal my heart in places that make me afraid of you, God,. Help heal my heart in those places that cause me to be afraid of you or want to distance myself from you because I feel like I've just not measured up enough best the Lord to please heal me of my sick notions that prompt me to run away from him when I failed, rather than run to him when I have failed.
What I would ask all of us to do in 2023 is to welcome whatever rehabilitation we all need in our hearts and our minds that has created these distorted images of God, whatever they might be, that God would heal me, God would take my heart and help it to be more willing to trust than I ever have before. Because he has forgiven us all. He has kept no record of wrongs against you. He doesn't have a list of whether you've been naughty or nice. You have been the reason he came. While we were yet sinners, Christ came and gave himself to us. He entered our world. We just celebrated his birth and how he came into our world. He entered our world in such a way to show us exactly what the heart of God is like, his heart for you, his heart for me.
As we embrace not just this child born in a manger, but embrace the very essence of God is with us because he wants to be with us. When we embrace that, it changes everything, my friends.
Jacque: God is for us.
Pastor Brian: He is for us, not against us.
Jacque: He is for us, yes.
Pastor Brian: Pastor Jeff, would you please come?
Pastor Jeff: Wow. Did you receive something good today? I've got to say Pastor Brian, you set the bar really high for the rest of this year's Massachusetts. I don't know if we are going to be able to keep up with him, Pastor Robert.
Pastor Brian: Thank you.
Pastor Jeff: To me it's really significant that we are here this Sunday morning on the 1st of January, 2023. We get to establish some practices. We get to decide on certain ways that we are going to follow today for the rest of the year. This message was one of them. Thank you.
Pastor Brian: You are welcome.
Pastor Jeff: Pastor Brian shared how when friends of his have died that he has been praying for, how the first question he would be asked by the father was, are you going to stop praying for people? Just right before Christmas here, we lost a good friend, Butch. We didn't really lose him, but our prayer wasn't answered the way we wanted it to be. Jacque, we want you to know if you are watching by livestream, that we are praying for you every day for the comfort of Jesus to be with you and for the grace of God to help you enter into the new normal that you've been forced into, but he'll be there for you. The question is, are we going to stop praying?
What we are going to do right now is we are going to pray for people who need healing. We are going to ask the father largely because miracles, as Sean said, miracles, we are going to trust him for that. It seems like the older we get, there is more we have to trust him for, but that's okay. That's all good. We just want to pray. If you need healing, if you need a miracle in your life, then I want you to just raise your hand before the Lord. And we are going to pray for him to provide that whatever it is that we need.
For those of you who are online, some of some of the people, the people that we really love aren't here with us right now and they are sick, I just wanted to say, Lori, when God begins something which he did in you, he finishes it. He doesn't start something and then just leave it. The work of healing that God begin in your back and in your body is not done yet. We are agreeing with the Father in everything that Jesus did. And when he said it was finished, it was finished. And for Deb, we are still praying for you every day. You know what, on Wednesday morning I was praying for you, and I had the most profound experience with the Holy Spirit.
As Pastor Brian was even sharing this morning, part of our relationship with the father. And part of our prayer life is a, is a relationship of thanksgiving and a prayer life of thanksgiving and worship. And but many times when we pray-- I pray all the time, thank you Father for healing, Deb. But many times the thank you Father for healing, Deb is actually a request. You know what I mean? We are thanking God to get what we want. I'm not saying it's even wrong. It's just how it works.
But on Wednesday morning, I was praying for you, Deb, and I begin to thank the Lord. It wasn't a request. It was real. It was real. There was Thanksgiving that bubbled up in my heart. Brian and Donette, if you guys are watching, we are still praying for you. And we are believing God for you as well. Others who are sitting right here who have things we gotta trust God for, we are not going to stop going to Jesus for the things that we need. Sometimes we gotta wait a while. Sometimes we don't get it the way we think we should. But the one thing we know is that we can trust him. And so we choose to believe.
If you are looking for something good for God to do that you need in your life is put your hands up to the Lord, I'll put my hand up. Father, we pray for our friends and we pray for each one of us as we stand before you, and we just declare with all of our hearts that we love you and that you are good. We know that you like that we intend to keep on coming to you, trusting you, and asking of you for the needs that are present in our life. Whatever they are, physical needs, emotional, healing, relational healing, these are the things that you came to do for us: to restore our lives to wholeness. This is who you are.
We've experienced your redemption over many years, some of us. We've experienced your goodness over many years, and we don't stop thanking you, not just for what you have done, but for what is ahead. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you Jesus. And we just agree together for a precious friend that they will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. They'll declare your goodness to others because they will experience it here.
The other thing that we want to establish on the 1st of January, and Brian talked about this Pastor Brian this morning as well. Jesus is the total game changer. All it takes is a simple, heartfelt belief to change your life forever. For anybody who is hearing this message now or sometime in the future, we want you to know that all you have to do to experience God's redemption in your life, all you have to do is just say three simple words, four: Jesus, I believe you. If you need to do that now, just say it with me. Jesus, I believe you. The moment that we confess that from our hearts, we become new people and we start a new life. Thank you, Jesus. And the good news is, if you've said it before and you need a fresh start, you can say it again. You'll start again. Lots of do overs. Pastor Brian.
Pastor Brian: Let's raise our hands together. Thank you for your presence, Lord. We thank you for you. I will call upon the name of the Lord. I thank you for the promise that all who call upon your name can be saved, can come into the fullness of your love and grace, your provision. You've been faithful. When my eyes have looked in other directions, I've become, in my mind, I've embraced a distorted image of you. It's like going into a house of mirrors. Everything is all not as it really is. So help me come back when my image is distorted. Help me to come back every time to Jesus. Jesus, we want to lift you up. We want to raise you up. We want it to be your name that's lifted high above every other. It is you that we place our trust in. We believe, Lord, that it was you who created all things and all things were made by you. And we believe that you hold all things together by the word of your power. We believe that our lives are in your hands and that it's in you that we live and move and have our very existence and being. And so may 2023 be a year that we press more deeply into you, Jesus, and that our hearts will be fully yours. And that we will hear what the father wants us to do just as you did and we will do it.
And now, may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. And may you sense his smile over your lives. May you be drawn into the very heart of the one who has forgiven us for everything. This we pray the name of the Father, son, and Holy Spirit, amen. Amen. God bless you. Have a wonderful day today. Happy New Year to you all, and we'll hopefully see you next week. We'll have lunch together after our service. God bless you, all of you who are watching by livestream. We are so thankful that you are part of our faith community. Happy New Year to you as well. God bless you. Bye-bye.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 1-1-23. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.