Seniors
in a ready room
Randall Caselman
Date:6/16/97
Type: Sermon
Seniors In A Ready Room
Reading —Proverbs 3.1-12
I want to do two things this Memorial Sunday:
• One is to honor those who have sacrificed so much that we might enjoy the freedoms we have in our nation.
• Two, is to honor our graduating seniors with some challenges from the lips of Jesus.
Jesus trained His apostles intensively for three and a half years. Then came the time for them to make it on their own... Graduation time. At this point Jesus called a meeting. We know this session as the upper-room discourse. It began around the supper table in a house believed to belong to John Mark and his mother, and ended in a garden on the Mount of Olives... Gethsemane.
What I want to do is compare the upper-room discourse to a Military Ready Room. It makes no difference if you are:
• A pilot on a bombing mission,
• A company commander in charge of foot soldiers,
• Or a battery commander in the artillery,
The Ready Room briefing always contains the same three components.
The briefing officer always does three things
• First he gives you the mission, the target, the task at hand.
He tells you what you are expected to accomplish. He’ll show you pictures, maps, and give examples. He will present the mission in such a way that it is permanently fixed in your mind. By the time you leave the room, there is no doubt about what your job is, what’s expected of you.
• Secondly, he tells you what you need to know about the enemy.
Using reconnaissance information, the officer informs you of the enemies numbers, his weaponry, his strengths and weaknesses. No commander would send his men on a mission without this kind of information. It would be suicide.
• Thirdly, the officer reiterates your resources, your strengths and advantages.
He talks about your weaponry and the support you can expect. He will point out that your resources, your support, your training and expertise is superior to those of the enemy, and that because of this, you can be victorious.
You graduating seniors, and to a certain extent all of us, are standing in God’s ready room. The training is over, the time has come for us to meet the challenge. Can we do it?... Can we win the battle... Can we be victorious? Let’s pretend that this assembly is a ready room and Jesus is the briefing officer.
First, The officer gives us our mission.
What is our mission in life? I believe our mission is the same as that of Jesus. What did Jesus say His mission in life ways?
• I came to do the will of the Father.
• I came, not to be served, but to serve.
• I came to seek and save the lost.
• I came to call the unrighteous to repentance.
• I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.
The Pharisees ask Jesus, What is the greatest commandment. Remember His answer? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.'
Seniors, your mission, and our mission as a church, is the same as that of Jesus: Love and serve God with all your heart, mind, body and soul and to love and serve others.
God’s mission for mankind has never changed... Its always been the same.
• With the very first family what was their mission? Adam and Eve were to love their creator enough to obey His commandments in the garden of Eden. In Genesis 4.9, God came to Cain asking, Where is your brother? His reply was, Am I my brother’s keeper? The insinuation was and still is YES, WE ARE OUR BROTHERS KEEPER.
• From Mount Sinai came the Ten Commandments. When we break them down into their respective components, we find they contain two major commands: Our responsibility to God, and our responsibility to our fellow man... To others. God has commanded us to not only love Him, but to love others as ourselves. In the upper-room Jesus shows us some pictures, a map, an example of our mission.
• In John 14.23 He says, If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching... Keep My commandments.
• In 15.12 He said, My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
• John 13 opens with Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. When He finished He said, I have set you an example that your should do as I have done.
• He concludes in 13.35 by saying, the world will know you are my disciple, when you love one another.
In fact, this same John tells us that we tell just how much we love God by how we treat one another. Listen to these verses from 1 John 3, This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right (Anyone who does not keep His commandments) is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. This is the message you heard from (WHAT?) The beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
Now you must know this morning that, a life of loving and serving God, loving and serving others is expensive. The fact is, it will cost us everything... Everything we have and everything we are. Jesus said, I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly. The best life God has to offer in our world is one of love and service to Him and our fellow man.
Second, the officer always explains what we can expect from the enemy.
In the upper-room Jesus said:
The world will hate you because it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world, it would love you.
As it is, you do not belong to the world.
Because I have called you out of the world.
Scripture tells us that our enemy is Satan and that he is a roaring lion, going about, seeking whom he can devoir.
• Satan is as active today as he ever has been.
• His weapons are up-to-date as tomorrow’s newspaper.
• His technology is awesome.
Let me give you four of his best, most awesome modern weapons.
• First, there is behavioral psychology.
Satan uses the world, to tell us today, that we are what we are because of:
Our environment,
Our rearing,
Our genetics
Our body chemistry.
Behavioral psychology tells usÉ
• That sin is a disease.
• That our addictions, to drugs and alcohol are a result of body chemistry.
• That our sexual preference is caused by inborn genetics.
• That we malfunction morally and socially, because of the way we were brought up.
Behavioral psychology tells us that we are not responsible for our own behavior. This concept is anti-Biblical in every respect. James tells us, Sin is a result of our own lust, our own evil desires. James says, Sin is knowing to do right and not doing it. Sin is a conscience decision on our part to do what we want to do, rather than submit to the will of God The Bible teaches us that we are what we are because we decide to be. Yes it is true, our environment, the way we were raised, genetics and body chemistry can and do influence us and perhaps make us venerable to some specific sins. But these things never, never override our own will. We are created free moral agents and we are what we are because we choose to be.
Satan’s second weapon is moral relativism.
Satan would have us believe today:
• That there are no absolutes,
• No right and wrong,
• No such thing as absolute truth.
The world is telling us, you can have your truth and I can have my truth. Existentialism says, truth is whatever it needs to be, according to what the situation and circumstances dictate at the time. So, not only can you have your truth and I can have my truth, that truth changes... Its relative to the situation.
In the upper-room, Jesus said, You shall know the truth and the truth shall make your free... Sanctify them through they truth they word is truth. Seniors, church, Jesus tell us there is such a thing as truth. And then He defines TRUTH as that which is found in God’s word.
The third effective weapon of Satan today is pseudo-intellectualism.
Pseudo-intellectualism says, I’m OK- your OK, just are we are. This kind of thinking leaves:
• No room for character improvement — not in our individual lives nor in society .
• There is no room for growth.
• There is no for us to try to be more like Jesus.
• No upward movement toward becoming better than we already are.
You see, I’m OK, your OK does away with REPENTANCE and CONVERSION.
A few years back, The New Yorker Magazine ran a cartoon which pictured Jesus hanging on a cross and the caption said, If I am OK and your OK, why am I up here? The truth is, I’m not OK — Your not OK without Jesus:
• His sacrifice,
• His redemption,
• His atonement,
• His forgiveness.
In the upper-room Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, no man comes to the father except by me, through me. Know this, this morning, that Jesus, and those we honor this Memorial Day, didn’t give their lives so that we could remain as we are, but so that we could become a better people and person.
Weapon number four is materialism.
Most of us in the church:
• Recognized sin for what it is.
• We understand that there is such a thing as right and wrong, absolute truth.
• We realize that we are not OK without the blood of Christ
Only to then, fall into Satan’s trap of materialism.
Materialism is a trust in things, in this world’s goods and resources. Materialism places our faith in:
• The right street address,
• The clothes we wear,
• In the car we drive,
• In a career,
• A pay check,
• Or a bank account.
In the upper-room Jesus tells us where our faith ought to be, Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in me. 1 John 5.5 tells us that the victory that overcomes this NOT IN THINGS, but (WHAT?) FAITH in Jesus as the Son of God.
The third responsibility of the briefing offices is to assure us that we can be victorious, by pointing out that we are equipped to defeat the enemy.
Jesus does this so well in the upper-room. We talked about this last week, so we will just quickly review these resources.
First, He says, keep your eyes on the goal.
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
Remember My strength is your strength.
I am the Vine, you are the branches, God is the gardener. Then he tells us, if we will stay attached to the vine, remain in Him:
• We can bear much fruit.
• We can be victorious.
HOW? Because the strength that flows in the vine will flow in the branches. Apart from me you can do HOW MUCH? Nothing — zilch. Our challenge is to stay attached to the vine... Remain in Jesus. This is where we’ll find Divine strength for the mission.
Third, we have the privilege of prayer.
I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
We have the promise of God’s presence in you life.
In the upper-room, Jesus told his apostles He was going away,
• But I will not leave you orphans,
• I will send you the counselor, the comforter, the Holy Spirit, the paraclete, one who would run along beside you.If you obey my commands, My Father and I will come and make our abode, our home in your hearts. The Hebrew’s writer assures us that God will never leave us, He will never forsake us. Jesus promises, I will be with you always.
Then we have the promise of Divine peace.
Jesus closes this briefing by saying, My peace I give you, not the peace that the world gives, but Divine peace... Inter peace... MY PEACE!
Well,
• We have our mission.
• We are knowledgable about the enemy.
• We have Divine resources
Its easy to set in a Ready Room, like this with:
• Those we love and trust,
• Those who gave us life,
• With Elders who shepherd us
• Teachers who taught us,
• With Christians who support us,
And are ready to help you make the commitment. But its something else to fight the fight, finish the course and keep the faith.
As graduating seniors and as a church, ours is to live by the Marine motto... Simper Fidellis... ALWAYS Faithful... ALWAYS FAITHFUL. May God bless our faithfulness.
The invitation this morning is for us to accept this mission of doing the will of the Father. By becoming a child of God by:
• Faith.
• Repentance.
• And New Testament baptism.
And then to faithful in loving and serving Him and loving and serving others?
Randall Caselman