Wednesday, April 3,2013
The following is by the late Harry Ironside, from his commentary on John’s First Epistle, and it complements perfectly what we talked about in Sunday school this week.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
In the Old Testament men were to come to God with an offering and confess that they had sinned in that thing. This implies definiteness in confession. I am afraid many of us really never get to God in confession because we are so indefinite. Somebody prays and says, “If Thou hast seen any sin, anything amiss in me, forgive me.” Hold on a minute! Is there anything amiss; do you know of anything amiss?
The proper way to make confession is to come to God acknowledging the wrong I have done.
Oh, dear friends, if you want blessing, get into the presence of God and tell Him all about it, about that bad temper, about that scandalous tongue, about all the things that grieve His Holy Spirit.
Some of you say, “I Pray for my husband, I would like him to be converted.”
He is more likely to be converted if you will say, “O God, I confess that my bad temper is hindering my husband from being saved, it is alienating my children; I am not surprised that my friends are not converted.”
Then go to them, too, and make confession.
If you have been saying it was nervousness when it was really bad temper, confess that it is temper, and stop trying to excuse sin.
He will cleanse us by the washing of the Word, and give victory in our lives, and enable us to live here to His praise and glory.
-H. A. Ironside
FRIDAY WORKDAY – Men, if you are available, please come this Friday (probably about 9am – 11am) to help prepare an area for a new chair storage shed we’re building.
NEW PREACHING ONLINE – visit the sermons tab on TeensOfFaith.org to listen to 4 amazing new sermons added last week.
COMEDY NIGHT – We are tracking your Wednesday night attendance for CN practices in order to know how much you’ll earn from the CN proceeds. Come each week to be included in skits! We will practice weekly from about 7:55 – 8:15 (after BIBS. We will start class separared from now on.)
MORP – “Nerd Night” Coming Soon! – We haven’t done this activity since about 1997, before some of you were born. We’re doing a backwards p-r-o-m (morp), nerd style. J Since we’re against everything—dancing, bad music, bad influences, bad associations…—we’re giving you a guilt-free alternative that’s fun without regret… the 2013 MORP! Come dressed in your best nerdy costume and you could win the grand prize. We’ll stick very tightly to a dress code that we’ll hand out later. The MORP isn’t till May 3, but we wanted you to know early so you could be gathering your materials… glasses, crazy tux, crazy dress etc.
Pride/Humility
The following is from the announcement sheets from several weeks ago when we studied these texts in Sunday school:
The last few weeks we’ve been in Daniel 4, and the sermons have all been about pride vs. humility. The Rendezvous theme was essentially about pride vs. humility, and now today’s note will summarize some of the main points of application.
- Pride hinders a teachable spirit
- Pride results in embarrassment
- Pride blinds you to needed improvements.
- Pride hides your obvious flaws.
- Pride makes you think you’re bigger than you are.
- Pride is all-concerned about how you look to others.
- Pride is all about pleasing you.
- Pride ignores spiritual direction and makes its own decisions.
- Pride excuses problems. Humility owns and corrects them
- Pride has to be seen. Humility has nothing to prove
- Humility admits and confesses sin specifically
- Humility recognizes other powers
- Humility submits to God
- Humility knows where to turn for real answers
- Humility can accept the truth
- Humility looks upward
- Humility returns honor, it doesn’t remove it
- Humility deflects praise to God
- Sometimes humility comes through humiliation
- Often humility results in blessings from God
- Humility recognizes that true leadership is not self-serving but self-sacrificing and serving others
- Humility leads to true worship – a major difference between humans and animals