B u i l t t o F a l l A p a r t

Irondale Church News January 2018

INGREDIENTS FOR THE CHURCH

Special points
In 1878, Fidelia Ford baked a Fruitcake. She died before cutting it, and no Ford family
of interest: member since could bear to cut it either. Consequently for the past 139 years the
family has kept the Fruitcake. During a 2012 video for the Detroit Free Press, 92 year
• Briefly highlight old Morgan Ford took a spoon and thumped the cake's blistered surface. Over the
your point of inter-
years, it had crystallized into a rock-hard mass. So what make Fruitcake last so long?
est here.
Here’s a list of ingredients in a store bought fruitcake:
• Briefly highlight
your point of inter- Ingredients: Raisins, Wheat Flour, Cherries, And Mixed Fruit (A Blend Of
est here. Orange Peel, Citron Peel, Cherries And Pineapple, Processed With Liquid
Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Citric Acid, (Ph Adjusting Agent), Sodium Benzoate
• Briefly highlight
(Preservative), Color,(Contains FD&C Yellow #5, Yellow #6, Red #40 And
your point of inter-
est here.
Blue #1 Certified Colors), Pecans, Sugar, Whole Eggs, Pineapple, Butter
(Milk), Oleomargarine (Partially Hydrogenated And Fully Refined Soybean
• Briefly highlight Oil, Water, Salt, Mono And Diglycerides, And Soy Lecithin, Sodium Benzoate Added (Preservative)
your point of inter- Artificially Flavored, Artificially Colored With Beta-Carotene, Vitamin A Palmitate Added) Dates, Bur-
est here. gundy Wine, Corn Syrup, English Walnuts, Orange And Lemon Peel, Honey, Water, Kentucky Bour-
bon, Salt, Pure Flavorings, And Spices, Sodium Propionate Added As A Preservative.

In 1976, Roger Bennatti, a chemistry teacher at George Stevens Academy, a private

high school in Blue Hill, Maine, unwrapped a pack of Twinkies. He ate one, and dis-
played the other in his classroom so his students could time its decomposition. Today
the Twinkie sits in the office of Libby Rosemeier, the school's dean of students and
one of the students in Bennatti's chemistry class that day. "The most remarkable
thing to me is that this is a piece of food that is 40 years old and the shape is basically
unchanged," Rosemeier said. "Preservatives work, I guess, to some extent. I think it is
dusty more than anything." Why do Twinkies last so long? Here’s a list of what is in
them:
Ingredients: Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Flour, Reduced Iron, "B" Vitamins (Niacin, Thiamine
Mononitrate (B1), Riboflavin (B2), Folic Acid)), Water, Sugar, Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup,
Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable And/Or Animal Shortening (Soybean, Cottonseed And/Or Canola
Oil, Beef Fat), Whole Eggs, Dextrose, Contains 2% Or Less Of: Soy Leci-
thin, Leavenings (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Baking Soda, Corn-
starch, And Monocalcium Phosphate), Whey, Modified Corn Starch,
Glucose, Soy Flour, Salt, Mono And Diglycerides, Cellulose Gum, Corn-
starch, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Natural And Artificial Flavor, Sorbic
Acid (To Retain Freshness), Polysorbate 60, Soy Protein Isolate, Calci-
um And Sodium Caseinate, Yellow 5, Red 40

Continued, p.2
 Built to Fall Apart
Page 2

When Eduard Neetz and Casey Dean were 13 and 14 years old they went to McDonald's in Adelaide Austral-
ia to grab some food after a party. The boys picked up an extra Quarter Pounder with cheese for their friend
Jono, who never showed. Jono told the boys to hold on to his meal until next time he came to visit as a
joke. He hasn't been back yet. That was 1995, 22 years ago. It shows no mold or other visual decay. But
they say the burger is rock hard and solid as a brick. What makes a burger last that long? Here’s a list of in-
gredients in a Quarter Pounder:

Ingredients: 100% Pure USDA Inspected Beef; No Fillers, No Extenders, Salt, Black
Pepper, Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamine
Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Sugar, Yeast, Soybean Oil, Contains 2%
or Less: Salt, Wheat Gluten, Sesame Seeds, Potato Flour, May Contain One or More
Dough Conditioners (DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Mono and Diglycerides, Enzymes),
Calcium Propionate (Preservative). Milk, Cream, Water, Sodium Citrate, Cheese
Cultures, Salt, Color Added, Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Citric Acid, Lactic Acid, Ace-
tic Acid, Enzymes, Soy Lecithin. Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes,
Distilled Vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Water, Salt, Natural Fla-
vors. Cucumbers, Water, Distilled Vinegar, Salt, Calcium Chloride, Alum, Potassium
Sorbate (Preservative), Natural Flavors, Polysorbate 80, Extractives of Turmeric
(Color). Onions. Distilled Vinegar, Water, Mustard Seed, Salt, Turmeric, Paprika, Spice Extractive.

When we read about foods like this, we wonder if they are foods at all! But how do we decide what we
should eat without becoming a linguist or a dietitian?
To answer that most of us do something like this: You are in the grocery store, you grab something off the
shelf, turn the package over and you read the ingredients. Then you toss it in the cart while rolling your
eyes and saying, “They’re just Fig Newtons!”

Ingredients: Unbleached Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mo-
nonitrate {Vitamin B1}, Riboflavin {Vitamin B2}, Folic Acid), Figs, Sugar, High Fructose Corn
Syrup, Corn Syrup, Glycerin, Whey (From Milk), Salt, Soy Lecithin, Leavening (Baking Soda,
Calcium Phosphate), Calcium Lactate, Sodium Benzoate And Sulfur Dioxide (Sulfites) Add-
ed To Preserve Freshness, Malic Acid, Artificial Flavor.

But all this caused me to start thinking what if we looked at churches like this?
What if we considered the ingredients in a church? Born
Born
On
We know that just because something is called a church doesn’t mean it’s Date
On
good. We also know that just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s
Date
good (after all The KKK is older than Mrs. Ford’s Fruitcake) and most of the
“Old” churches in America are museums rather than places of worship.

But beer has a “Born on date” stamped right on the can, so maybe churches
should paint that on the wall as well.And what if we had a list of “ingredients 15 Oct 1948
on the wall of a church like we see on a food package? Would that clarify
what a church is and what it believes?
Continued p.3
 Page 3

INGREDIENTS FOR THE CHURCH, continued

How about a label something like this:

Ingredients: Historic, Evangelistic, born again, Bible-believing, plenary, inerrant, infallible, unaffiliated, autonomous, Christ for
salvation, Holy Spirit for enabling, Scriptures for guidance, water baptism (total immersion), Lord's Supper, Great Commission,
imminent return, pretribulational, premillennial, rapture, 1000 Messianic Kingdom, bodily resurrection, Heaven and Hell.

Perhaps we should not stop there, but we could go a little farther. There are products that list things not in
them. For example Licorice is “Fat Free.” Some products are “Sugar Free” others are “Salt Free” or “Non
GMO Verified.” So maybe churches should list what they don’t have on the side of their building. For exam-
ple,

“This church is free of any Interdenominationalism, Neo Evangelicalism, Neo Char-

ismatic, Pentecostals, Catholics, Muslims, Progressive Liberals, dancing, movie
watching, apostasy, sinful pleasures, homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, bes-
tiality, incest, fornication, adultery, pornography and fat people.

So if we had this list of what we do and don’t believe posted on every church in every community then we
could tell the good churches from the bad and maybe, more importantly, we could identify people by which
church they attend. Sound like a good idea? No of course not. People are not as cut and dried as food prod-
ucts. People are complex and in process.

Several years ago, I preached a sermon on Isaiah 53:10, “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath
put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin ….” After the service one lady came up to
me and said, “I don’t believe that God got any satisfaction when Christ was crucified.” I responded, “As you
continue to grow in faith and knowledge, you will learn that it did in fact please God to bruise Him.” I don’t
know if she ever understood, but I do know that telling her she had to believe whatever I say denies a person
their right to grow in faith and understanding.

So as 2018 unfolds, I want to challenge you to write an ingredient list for yourself. What do you believe?
Will what you believe stand the test of time or will it mold and rot over time? And if you write a list of ingre-
dients on the wall of our Church, I hope it reads like this:

Ingredients: Loves The Lord Our God With All

Our Heart, All Our Soul And All Our Mind.
And We Love Our Neighbors As Ourselves.

Happy 2018,
Pastor David
 Built to Fall Apart
Page 4

It would seem that our design is flawed; we are built to fall apart. How much sense does that make??? From
the time we are born till we are placed in the grave our bodies follow a progressive path till we meet at Jesus’
feet if we know Him as Lord and Savior.

I was born a twin; I am the youngest by 8.5 minutes so I have always enjoyed telling my sister she is much
older than I. Therefore as life’s challenges have come along to me she has had the opportunity to say to me,
"You may be younger but you’re sure decrepit.” Lately she has been telling me, “She thought she was the
older one.” I should have seized the moment and said, “You are the oldest.” Mostly she just says: “I sure
hope I don’t get…” whatever the current thing is. Being twins, we have had a lot of similar experiences. At
least we can coach each other through them.

When our mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's I was surprised to hear others ask, “How was she doing
with Old Timer’s,” not sure if they were just uncomfortable with the name or they truly didn’t know. I still
struggle to spell it correctly myself…

Each of us will face that time in our lives when we stand before our Lord and God and He will look at our lives
through the redemptive blood of Jesus if we have asked Him into our hearts and asked for the forgiveness of
our sins. His perfect blood cleanses from all unrighteousness and we will then enter into our rest, our eternal
home in heaven with Him.

Along the way we will have most likely had the opportunity to choose to do good or evil with our lives. Hope-
fully to do well, so that our good works will point to God and these good works will point to His goodness,
not a reflection of our own selves. By living our lives to please God, and serve Him, others will be drawn to
his goodness reflected in us and ask, “What is it about you that makes you different?” I can say to them it is
“Jesus.” You see I know me. NLT Romans 3:20, “ For no one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing
what his law commands. For the more we know God’s law, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying
it.” I am just not that sweet and kind, I get tired, cranky frustrated. It’s what the Lord has done in my life. I
don’t always reflect Him so well and this makes me sad. I know that the good that I have done will never be
my salvation that I simply cannot exchange any acts of righteousness on my part, for the sin in my life. NLT
Romans 3:27, “Can we boast then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No because our
acquittal is not based on our good deeds. It’s based on our faith.”

The Master Engineer, Designer of the Universe, is wise enough to have created us to eventually have a plan
to leave our earthly bodies behind. These bodies are daily wearing out and they should so that we don’t take
the corruptness of them into God’s holy presence. Heaven wouldn’t be heaven if we arrived there with, our
diseases still clinging to us. Heaven would no longer be holy. Maybe an over simplification of the facts but
we have to die to let go of the bodies we now inhabit.

Yes, the Lord God could have just beamed us up as they do on Star Trek. But, that was not His plan for most
of us. If you will notice, Star Trek characters arrive at their destinations with themselves intact.

There are those who pass from earth to heaven without ever having breathed in the corrupted air of earth,
unborn infants. Even they must die before they too can leave their earthly bodies behind. They carry with
them, just as we all do, the imputed sin of Adam that they need to leave behind. Sin we inherit from the time
 Page 5

Built to Fall Apart, continued

of Adam’s sin in the garden, He being the grandfather of all whose lineage we are, being conceived here on
earth. They have added no personal sin themselves and have no need to ask forgiveness.
We do not have the righteousness of Christ as our heritage until we ask Him to cleanse us from all unright-
eousness. Then the Lord God forgives us, adopts us and makes us holy, we have recognized His only be-
gotten Son Jesus as our Savior and asking the forgiveness He gives freely, with His precious life given up on
the cross for all who will recognize their personal need of His cleansing power to free us from our
sins...Immediately we have eternal salvation. He walks out our days here on earth with us. It is not some-
thing we are even able in ourselves to struggle for. It’s His alone to give and He never refuses His for-
giveness to anyone who truly believes and asks for forgiveness. NLT Romans 3:30, “there is only on God
and there is only one way of being accepted by Him. He makes people right with himself only by faith
whether they are Jews or gentiles.”
We fight and struggle to not let go of this life here on earth. We try often with all we are to fight against
leaving earth before our time. Sometimes we don’t have this option and simply have to accept the hand of
God as He mandates the number of our days. Serious debilitating illnesses, car accidents, strokes, heart
attacks whatever the cause we simply have no opportunity to fight against these things and trust God’s de-
sign for us.
Being prepared and recognizing His perfect plan that He designed each of us to fall apart. With all His heart
and literally His life, He has chosen to restore us to perfection, in our heart mind body and soul. He carries
those who believe in Him, into His holy presence for all eternity. We then can have confidence when our
time has come, to let Him take us into His arms and leave our earthly body behind.
A flawed design I do not believe is the case, a perfect design with all eternity in mind is. Our finite minds
refuse most often to let go of those we love even though we know where they are headed. We love them
enjoy their presence and long to have them here with us. My Mom was given 97 years. It still hurt to see
her move on to heaven. I am sure right now she wouldn’t change her life here on earth for even one mo-
ment there in her Lord’s presence.
Being able to accept that we were built to fall apart, and through the infinite love of God designed to be re–

Happy New Year