Sermons

4 comments so far

1. Mar 9, 2010Stan De Leeuw   #

   I am a true Prodigal Son!!! Born and raised in the CRC, I have struggled with my Faith all my life…my struggles are not in the believing arena but in the implementation of my faith on a daily basis!!! I have left God many times but He has never left me!!! I have lived life on my own terms which included drug use, prison time, two failed marriages, etc, etc…I find it hard to pray since I only seem to pray when things get bad but fail to pray when times are good. But I have never completely abandoned my Faith nor have I ever quit reading and studying the Bible!! But I also have observed many things in the CRC that caused me to become somewhat turned off by the Church I grew up in!
   Now I find myself at a crossroads yet again…so I have begun to write…and post…some of my thoughts on various blogging sites to stimulate conversation about not only my experiences but also how to make our faith relevant in a world so desperate for answers…
   I want to try and stimulate conversation but have no “credentials” other than life itself! One of your contributing pastors suggested I come here to reacquaint my self with our faith so that is what I am doing….
   All I see here are very good explanations of what we believe and our history…the sermons ring forth with good reasoning and sound theological foundations but how to impplement it on a daily basis remains our Churches achille’ heel since we have long been busy defining ourselves while not very strong on how to practically implement it on a daily basis… so here is my take on Total Depravity and I hope to enter an ongoing conversation on other subjects as well…do you mhave a place for bloggers to join the conversation?

   WHAT ARE WE MISSING?

   IT happened on 9/11! IT happened the day of the Columbine massacres! IT happened the morning I heard the news of a police officer who killed his pregnant girlfriend in Canton, Ohio!!! IT happened when I heard that a child had been kidnapped in Missouri and, when found, was found with another child who had been held captive for years and subjected to acts too graphic to imagine!!! IT happened when so many innocent students lost their lives in Virginia at the campus of Virginia Tech!!! IT happened when I heard that a young woman in Reno, Nevada and another young woman at a Kansas City mall were randomly picked out and slaughtered!!! IT happened when students in Rosebud, South Dakota and Dekalb, Illinois were innocently gunned down while going about their everyday lives!! IT happened the day I heard of the Black man unceremoniously dragged to death behind a pickup truck!! IT happened last week when women doing nothing but shopping and working at a mall in Illinois suddenly no longer existed!!! IT happened as I watched the Anna Nicole Smith saga unfold!!! IT happens everytime I see a Brittany Spears news story!! IT happened when I heard of the bombings in Madrid or London or so many places that violence has suddenly ended so many innocent lives!!! IT happened when I heard of the inhumane actions of ethnic cleansing in Serbia or any of a host of such actions taking place worldwide on a daily basis!!! IT happens everytime I hear that someone has wired themselves with explosives and walks into other people’s existence only to end that existence in a heartbeat!!! And these are only the ones I choose to list because I could go on forever if I wanted too!!!

   There was a time when such atrocities were exceptions to our daily life. But now-a-days they scream at us from our newspapers and television screens with such regularity that our only escape is to turn the channel or ignore the world around us by seeking meaningless escapes so we do not have to ponder the “IT” that such actions bring to the surface of our minds…

   Just what is this “IT” that I am referring to you may ask?

   IT is this deep-down, gut-feeling that…no matter how many News Analysts try to tell us the reasons that such violence happens or how many “experts” are brought in to placate us with explanations that do nothing to stop this violence…we are missing a very important element of diagnosis because the diagnosis itself…in a politically-correct world and a humanistic matrix of philosophic thought…is not talked about openly nor discussed because we would then be forced to acknowledge that maybe MANKIND is not the “know-all; be all” that we so cling to in our existential world….

   The IT that I refer to has been discussed for years in both the secular world and in religious literature but it is not openly discussed today because to do so would acknowledge that another dimension is in play in our daily lives of which we have a limited knowledge or, even more disturbing to some, a limited control of our existence as a matter of fact…

   I believe it was Edmund Burke who said, “the only thing necessary for EVIL to succeed is for GOOD men to do nothing.”

   For some reason that line has stuck with me for years and today it would be picked apart as a politically-incorrect phrase muttered by a chauvanistic male rather than pondered for its face value!!!

   But what if EVIL really does exist!!! Add only a “D” to evil and we have the word DEVIL: subtract an “O” from the word GOOD and we have the word GOD…a highly inflammatory word because so many intrepretations of that word exist. But could it actually be that there is, and has been, an eternal war between GOOD and EVIL? Between a GOOD God and an EVIL Devil? Could there actually be a thing called “demon-possession” and could our exposure to this Evil be directly tied to how much we ask for a GOOD God’s protection instead of relying on politicians, laws, and humanistic explanations of the unexplainable to protect us from the worst of EVIL?

   I will leave that question to be answered by all who read this on their own terms!!! But of this I am sure: the farther away from God we have gotten, the more EVIL we have seen!! The question then becomes this: Is this Evil we see almost daily in our lives… in so many acts that defy reason and in so many different manifestations…simply a manifestation of our own stubborn godlessness? Is it a product of our reliance on ourselves instead of a “higher”power? Until each of us quit sticking our heads in the sand, and confront that question individually, we will… I am afraid…continue to read of more and more such events!!! I do not look forward to those events!!!

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2. Mar 10, 2010Rev. John Sawtelle   #

   Stan,
   Let me begin by saying that I am happy to hear that you have not “lost your faith” as you put it. It sounds like you have struggled with sin in a very profound way and have come to know by your experience what the “total depravity” is which you learned to confess as a member of the Reformed church. It is true that in a thousand examples —and more— some of which you list here in your post, we see TD at work, and it is also true that it is the internal cancer which is lingering within every person.

   The truth is, the terrible acts of violence you mentioned are a manifestation of the depravity of the heart and have characterized man’s actions since he fell in Adam. Cain killed his brother Abel, Lamech boasted in his military prowess, the inhabitants of the eath became so evil that God wiped them out in a massive flood, and the story of sin and brutality just goes on and on. As we place what we witness in the world today against the map of violence stretching across the terrain of human history, I cannot say that what we see today is really any worse in principle or act. I am not persuaded that man is growing exponentially worse, he is simply doing what he has been doing since the fall, and that is to rebel against God and seek to suppress the truth in unrighteousness, being a god unto himself.

   Given the fact of TD and the fact that even as Christians we are prone to wander, as well as the fact that we continue to have powerful opponents after we have been saved—the devil, the world, and the flesh, when we see these terrible acts of violence and as we see the horrible suffering caused by human sin, it ought to stand as a constant admonition to us as Christians to fight our sin, to deny our evil desires, and to call upon the Lord for grace to obey Him. Our calling is not to sit around condemning evil all around us with words, it’s to do what Paul commands which is to expose the shameful works of darkness BY OUR LIVES (Ephesians 5:7-13). As we live renewed lives by the grace of Christ which are characterized by a humble reliance upon God’s grace for living every moment of life, by showing compassion and love toward our neighbor, and by seeking to live according to God’s commands, we ought to seek to prayerfully wait for and to sieze opportunities to testify of the grace of Christ to those who do not confess Christ unto salvation.

   My friend, you are welcome to post and to interact with us, and of course with those who read and join the discussion. However, please do so mindful of the fact that all Christians are weak, sinful, imperfect, and have many “blindspots” in their understanding and application of the faith. If our discussions here are conducted in that vein, we trust that they will be helpful and edifying.

   Grace and peace to you.

   Pastor John

3. Mar 10, 2010Stan De Leeuw   #

   Rev. Sawtelle…
   Call me old-fashioned but I
   like the reverend more than the pastor moniker for reasons we will explore at some other point in time and in a different discussion…I am just glad that you responded…so many others only have opinions but there is no discussion!!!
   Rest assured that my intentions are not to bad mouth my church but I do see inconsistencies that have bothered me for a long while so, when appropriate, I will state my mind…but always know that opinions are many and diverse so the closed mind is to be avoided at all costs….
   I am thinking of writing a book about my Christian experience…warts and all…so that all might understand their own walks a little better…but I have no standing!!!
   Once…in my 40′s…I honestly felt called to the ministry! I even went so far as to go to Calvin and discuss it with someone I truly trusted and was told…bluntly…that even if I was able to get through Seminary that the liklihood of ever being “called by a church” were slim to none!! So I walked away from the church yet again…this time I have no intention of evading my calling…not as a pastor… but as someone God has given something to say….not all will be happy or enthused and I will surely be pressured to shut up but I cannot given the fact that God has so consistently protected me from my own worst inclinations time and time again
   Here are areas areas of concern that intrique me the most both within our denomination and the CHURCH as a whole:

   Have we sold our inheritance to politics?
   Who pastors the pastors?
   Have we become what we are by our own efforts or are we blessed despite our many petty feuds that have troubled the CHURCH since its inception?
   Have we idolatrized Calvin?
   And at the personal level, why do some seem to have a relatively unencumbered walk and daily are able to progress while others struggle mightily with their faith?

   Just a few of the things I like to discuss!!

   Stan

4. Mar 11, 2010Rev. John Sawtelle   #

   Stan
   I don’t think these questions you would like to dialogue about are to racey for the web page, so go ahead, and let’s start our dialogue by dealing with the first question, “have we sold our inheritance to politics?”. Let’s have a reasonable disussion and I think others may find it of interest and use. Why don’t you start by defining who the “we” is in your question—is it the Reformed church or are you speaking about Protestant evangelical Christianity in general, and then explain what you mean by “interitance” and “politics.” I look forward to your answers.

   Pastor John