Sermon August 2011 Youth Sunday

I CAN'T RISK IT, So Turn To The Expert.

A man, his wife, and his mother-in-law went on vacation to the Holy Land. While they were there, the mother-in-law passed away. The undertaker told them, "You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here in the Holy Land for $150.00." The man thought about it and told him he would just have her shipped home. The undertaker asked, "Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your mother-in-law home, when it would be wonderful to have her buried here and spend only $150.00?" The man replied, "A man died here 2,000 years ago, was buried here, and three days later he rose from the dead. I just can't take that chance." Sometimes, even though it would save us a lot of money, time, hardship, etc, we just sometimes wont take the risk. It is the same exact way in our Christian walk. We know without a shadow of a doubt that when we face hardships if we just turn to God he will find a way out, (1 Corinthians 10:13-No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.) But what do we do? We run and we put ourselves into situations with drugs with alcohol, with these barriers we all know what our barrier is but most importantly we put ourselves in the ways of men and away from God and when that happens we become the most venerable for the adversary. Heres something about temptation that I found that someone wrote: Temptation is common to all men; but unique to each. We all face temptation; but the temptations we face fit our individual natures. For some, we are drawn into the traps into which we have a habit of falling. Satan is no fool; he will continue to use methods that work until they work no longer. Once we successfully resist; he will move on to something else. He went on to say Temptation is not something we can escape; in fact, it is essential to the well-rounded life of a person. Beware of thinking that you are tempted as no one elsewhat you go through is the common inheritance of the human race, not something that no one has ever before endured. God does not save us from temptationsHe sustains us in the midst of them and He ended with this very powerful statement: Depend on our own power and fall, Resist with His and be blessed.

It was almost the end of the school year and my radio and TV teacher was rambling on about the huge budget cuts that were going on and it wasnt even relevant to anything so what do I do? Without even thinking I pick up a pen cap and stick it in my ear well I didnt really think too much of it until a buddy of mine said whoa you have something in your ear. So I start freaking out and start hitting my head praying it will come out, so I go down to nurses office because I know there is no way I can get this out, she says oh, let me take a look as she does she giggles and said oh sweetie there is no way that is coming out youre going to have to go to the ER it probably punctured your ear dumb. So I run down to Highlander Point and sit down and wait for the doctor and he said as he looks down at his clipboard ok Mr. Glotzbach lets take a look at youre ear. You know I just got done doing this to a 3 year old? Ok so here come the insults for life so he trys to take tweezers and grab them but nope too far in but he tries regardless and I can tell you I am pretty good with pain worst pain I have ever felt hands down. So has the pen cap is scrapping against my Ear Drum he said no way its coming out lets try to flush it out. So he gets a syringe fills it with alcohol water and goes to town at it about 20 times when all of a sudden he gives up, youre going to have to go down to the Advanced ENT and Allergy center. So as I got into the room it wasnt long at before Dr. Sonne walked into the room with the same exact statement the doctor prior to him you know I just got done doing this to a 3 year old? So as I was talking to him he took a look in my ear and said did you come straight here and I told him about the doctor who attempted to get it out and he said He just makes things worse by trying to do that and the next thing I know he had pulled the pen cap out of my ear painless and timeless unlike his pre successor. Tom Dennison told me that I needed to come up with a sermon with this story and the more and more I thought over it the more clear it became, you see this is how it is in our Christian walk, and that pen cap was the sin, you see we dont have to think before we get stuck with this sin, so we run just as I ran to my buddy who started hitting the right side of my head, which hurt a lot, and when I ran to my school nurse and she laughed at me, and then went to the ER doctor but he just gave me a bill for a lot of pain and got that sin even more stuck, but you see when I ran to the expert he looked at me with compassion and took that sin that pen cap that I never thought I could get out and got it out painlessly and in no time I was on my way. You see its so simple when we get stuck with sin its our human instinct to ask our buddy to help us but what does he do just makes it worse and we go though a lot of pain we turn to others and they laugh, we go to the experts and we get an ear full of garbage no pun intended and we just get deeper and deeper wrapped in this sin but when we turn to Jesus he washes us clean no questions asked and were new. There are a lot of examples of this in the bible, but I would like to take a look at 3 different scenarios. When ever temptation comes our way which it will there is always something that will come out of it either good or bad. We all know that temptation has been going on forever from Genesis to right now

In Genesis 3 is when the first temptation occurred and because of it we live where we are now and Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden for ever this is just one of the temptations that the adversary uses: the pride of life deep down Eve known that she was not supposed to eat of the tree but she did so because it is our nature as humans. (Genesis 3:6) You see this is where we know that even though it brings God much pain he is going to always going to give a choice to pick the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. Next is the lust of flesh this isnt depicted in the bible better then in 2 Samuel 11 when David Slept with Bathsheba. Not only did he do that but he sent for her husband to be sent to the front line. So David committed Adultery and Murder you see when we sin it puts us in a hole and for us to escape we keep building up other lies to try to get out. The beautiful thing about our God is that he doesnt care where youve been or what youve done. We look at David and we judge him and say oh what an awful man how could he do these things, but yet God forgave him in fact David is better know as the man after Gods own heart isnt that so reassuring no matter how hard we try were going to sin were going to stumble but yet God still loves us. Lastly what Satan uses is everyones favorite the lust of money. Achan was so devoted to money that he almost caused Israelites to fall, because of his lust with money God struck him down, Joshua 7:21, "When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath." Later, Achan was stoned for his sin. You see there are a lot of consciences for our sin; we have looked at three different people that messed up but lets look at some people who were able to resist temptation. Great people like Shadrach Meshach and Abednego they persevered and flipped a town upside down, Abraham, almost took his sons life, but because he didnt God blessed him, but none other was greater than Jesus. In Luke 4 he was tempted just like you and me but he resisted because he put God first (1 Corinthians 10:13-No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.) Its important that we serve a God that was tempted because he knows what were going though Hebrews 2:18 says, "Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted." We are all going to go though trials its a part of life but you have to always remember to put God first and resist the temptation. Depend on our own power and fall, Resist with His and be blessed. You know Ill end with this maybe one of the worst trades of all time in the NFL was when the Falcons trade Brett Favre to Packers for a first round pick. Of course, the Falcons had no need for Favre, what with Chris Miller dominating the NFL at the time. With the first round pick they received as compensation, Atlanta selected RB Tony Smith, who didn't do much at all Playing 3 seasons starting 6 games playing 33 in his career scoring only 2 touchdown while Favre love him or hate him became the Packers' starting quarterback in the fourth game of the 1992 season, and started every game through the 2007 season scoring 508 Touchdowns. Meanwhile who'd have thought 15 years later that Favre would still arguably be worth a first-round draft pick in a trade.

You see the Falcons got ripped of and the Packers got a steal for pretty much eternity. You see we look at that kind of thing and say what was he thinking but lets put it into perspective of our Christian walk what about the trade God made his one and only son for all of us in the world it wasnt fair we got the better end of the deal wouldnt you say? Eternal life, Id say so, but the thing about this trade, is are you going to accept this trade?