Good morning and happy Saturday.
Please continue to pray for Miss Jessie and her family. They have been dealing with Covid for the past week or so. On Thursday, she was admitted to the hospital. They did a CAT scan and, praise the Lord, there weren’t any blood clots in her lungs. She is on oxygen to help her breath and they are monitoring her heart and other things. Please take a moment now and lift her up in prayer.
It is now 8 months or so since we first heard of the coronavirus that is known as Covid-19. By now, we were hoping that it would be gone and life would be back to normal. Even though some are acting like it is not a problem anymore, it is still around. A while back, I heard a sad story about a 30 year old man that did not take the virus seriously. In fact, he went to a Covid party with a bunch of friends. Some people think it is a joke so they gather in large groups to mock the rules and restrictions. They aren’t interested in being told what to do. Others seek to catch the virus, which them equate with a common cold or flu, just to get it over with. Whatever the case, this young man went to the party. As you can guess, he ended up coming down with the virus. Unfortunately, it turned out to be far more serious than he had believed. He ended up in the hospital fighting for his life. Tragically, he lost that battle. It is reported that just before he died, he looked at the nurse and said, “I think I made a mistake. I thought it was a hoax, but it is not.” Isn’t that sad? He thought it was a joke, that is was not as serious as the health officials were saying, so he went along with his friends to a party.
Do you realize that is true of a lot of things? Drugs, alcohol, sex, driving fast, other reckless behavior, etc.? There are a lot of things we can be fooled into thinking that they aren’t really a big deal. We think that others are making them out to be more dangerous than they are just to ruin our fun. Or we think we are smart enough to handle anything that life throws at us. Many people have done that to only find out the hard way that they were wrong. Sometimes, dead wrong. Throughout the history of mankind, this has been the common opinion of sin. Even though the Bible clearly teaches the tragic affects of sin, we have a tendency to ignore the dire warnings. After all, a lot of people are sinning and it doesn’t seem to have immediate consequences, most of the time. If you think about it, this type of thinking goes clear back to the Garden of Eden. When Satan tempted Eve, he even told her the lie many have since believed. He said about sin, “You will not surely die.” And the thing is, Adam and Eve didn’t die immediately. At least not physically. Spiritually, their relationship with God was forever changed. From that point on, sin and death entered the human race and it gets passed on from generation to generation. And it all began with someone that was willing to take a risk and believe that it was not that big of a deal. Friends, it I could encourage you with just one thing today, please listen: sin is no laughing matter. There are consequences to sin. Jesus, the very Son of God, willingly climbed on the cross at Calvary and died a horrible death to make payment for your sin and mine. It is not a hoax. It is not funny. It is pathetically sad that we caused that. Even after becoming Christians, we should never forget the gravity of sin. Recognizing the incredible grace and mercy of God to forgive us our sins should provide some inspiration to avoid sin in the future.
As I though about all of this, I reflected on the account of the thieves on the cross. As most of you know, Jesus was crucified between to criminals. Initially, both of them joined with the crowd in mocking Jesus. But something happened to one of those criminals as he recognized that he would soon be dying for the way in which he had lived his life. Perhaps he reflected upon his life and realized he should have done things differently. Likely, it was the words of Jesus and the manner in which He was reflecting the love of God even in the midst of this horrific torture that inspired the man. He even began to rebuke the other criminal, reminding him that the two of them were getting what they deserved. He was also quick to point out that Jesus was innocent, that he had done nothing deserving this death on the cross. Now, I don’t know if they thief thought spiritual things were a hoax or not. We don’t know much about his background because Scripture doesn’t provide that information. However, I guess you could conclude that anytime someone sins they are saying with their actions that they don’t believe it is serious or that they are more important than God. What we do know is that this man realized the seriousness of it before it was too late. At the very end of his life, asked Jesus to remember him when He entered paradise.
There are billions of people in our world that think Jesus is not who He claims to be. Many think Christianity is a hoax. Countless numbers of people don’t take sin or its consequences seriously. However, the Bible is very clear on the matter when it says, “The wages of sin is death.” Now, maybe more than ever, those that know Christ need to be sharing the Good News that people can be saved through the Lord Jesus. We need to tell them that, “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The hard part just might be convincing them that sin is serious and that they are actually sinners in need of a Savior.
Be blessed. Continue to fight the good fight. It is a critical time for the advancement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Love God. Love others. Impact our community. Change the world.
Pastor Larry
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