Scripture:
Psalm 107: 1-9
Mark 6 : 1-13
I Thessalonians 2 : 9-13
Sunday November 1,2020
Scriptures Psalm 107:1-9 and Mark 6:1-13.
Message “GIGO” 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13
(9)Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.
(10)You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed.
(11)For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children,
(12)encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.
(13)And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who Believe.
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
It’s a tough time out there. It’s only a few days before the election of the century, and tensions are high all around.
Much of what’s at stake has to do with the way people are feeling right now during this equally historic pandemic.
COVID-19 has changed the way we live, the way we work, the way we look at life and relationships, the way we treat others, the way we look at what we most value. While many of us continue to at least adjust to minor changes, such as working from home, doing church in new ways, changing exercise routines, eating on porches, wearing masks, learning to enjoy the simpler things in life; for others, COVID has felt like a wicked curse.
Huge numbers of people are completely out of work and trying to make ends meet in any way they can. Children are struggling for food and with school online. Many have lost loved ones to the virus. In some cases, it has ravaged entire families. People live with a fear of contracting the potentially deadly virus, and that stress eats away at their peace and well-being on an everyday basis. People long for social interaction but fear the consequences. The choice between fear of death or hospitalization and loneliness or isolation seems an unfair predicament. Fear is rampant. We as a people are hungry for rest, change, and an end to all of this suffering and disruption to our lives. We just want it to stop!
We are sick of the truckload of garbage information that we hear on the news. They burden us with fear and guilt if we don’t except their mindset. We are threatened with persecution if we don’t succumb to the ever changing rules of how we are to live. We are like the people in Thessalonica, that Paul was writing to. They were looked on, by Rome as a threat to society and persecuted for their beliefs. They struggled with the fear and guilt in trying to figure out how they were going to deal with their situation.
Paul had left Thessalonica abruptly after a brief stay. Recent converts were left with little external support in the midst of persecution. Paul’s purpose in writing this letter was to encourage the new converts in their trials, to give instruction concerning godly living, to urge some not to neglect daily work and to give assurance concerning the future of believers who die before Christ returns.
In the book, How To Find Out Who You Are, Nelson Price reports that 15 prominent college professors took this challenge: “If all the books on the art of moving human beings into action were condensed into one brief statement, what would that statement be?” The result of their deliberations were four statements:
What the mind attends to, it considers;
What the mind does not attend it to, it dismisses.
What the mind attends to continually, it believes.
What the mind believes, it eventually does.
If you remember, Paul said something very similar in Philippians 4:8 “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Like many, in our world today, I have had to learn to adjust to the situation of our world today. In prayer and meditation on the Scriptures, I believe, God led me to writing and posting these messages on our web site. This was all new to me. I was never comfortable or had the knowledge of how to write a sermon and post it online. So, consequently I had to learn how to operate a computer.
In my learning process I kept running into acronyms, and I didn’t know what they meant. This week in my message preparation I ran into this one. “GIGO”
Not knowing what it meant, I looked it up, on the website I found called,” Computer Hope”. It has over 15,000 computer terms and definitions.
“ GIGO” No, this isn’t the latest diet or a new piece of hardware or even an app site. It means, Garbage In, Garbage Out. According to Computer Hope, It was originally a computer term that meant that if invalid data was entered into a system, the resulting output would also be invalid. That same argument holds true for all aspects of life from raising kids to dealing with worries to personal health.
Then I began to think, the opposite of that statement is true as well. All we have to do is replace the definition of the letter “G.” It could stand for Grace or Goodness or God. Grace In, Grace Out. Goodness In, Goodness Out. God In, God Out. And I think, at least in part any way, that’s what Paul meant when he wrote the passage for today. Paul talks about “God’s word, which is also at work in you believers.”(1 Thess. 2:13)
Our message today I’ve titled;
GIGO
God In, God Out.
So, how do we do that? Well, first we’ve got to Get God In and then Let God Out.
I. Getting God In
The first part is sometimes the hardest. We can’t put God in if we are not in the right frame of mind, spiritually, mentally and physically.
We would be like a woman arguing with a meat counter clerk who is trying to tell her that the store is out of chicken. After a heated exchange of words, the clerk calls the manager to come over and help. “Lady,” says the manager, “How do you spell the tom in tomato?”
”T-O-M,” she replies.
”Now, how do you spell the pot in potato?” he asks her. “P-O-T,” she answers. “Then how do you spell the stink in chicken?” he asks.” There is no stink in chicken,” the woman answers. The manager exclaims, “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you. We have no stinkin chicken!”
So the first thing we have to do is to be in the right frame of mind. Open to change, willing to see things in a different light and understanding that things don’t always go our way.
The second thing we need to do is, input God’s word. Inputting God’s word does take some personal daily and weekly discipline. The daily discipline is study and prayer. Now I’m not talking about 6 hours in the class room. But, I am talking about more than just reading the Upper Room, as much as I love the Upper Room Daily Devotional. It takes the discipline of spending time in the Word, reading the Bible. It involves sitting quietly in prayer and quietly listening to God.
The third step to getting “God In” is that it takes the weekly discipline of corporate Worship, the fellowship and energy of worshiping with others.
I am reminded of the time when one of our members, headed out the door after service one Sunday passed by me and I jokingly said, “Glad you decided to come this morning.” The member stopped and told me, “pastor, I didn’t decide to come this morning, I decided to come years ago.”
Bible study, prayer and worship aren’t something we decide to do on a spur of the moment. Or something we do when there is nothing else more exciting to do. Bible study, prayer and worship are the meat and potatoes of getting God in.
They are the “MDR”, minimum daily requirements for a healthy relationship with God. Are you getting God in?
II. Letting God Out
And then there’s letting God out. We do that through Witnessing, Encouraging and Comforting, as Paul reminded the Thessalonians .That’s the meat and potatoes of letting God out. Letting God live In you and work through you. Isn’t that also what the Psalmist wrote about in our first reading in (Psalm 107:1-9).
107:1 Begins with putting God in, having the right frame of mind; ”Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.
Then in verse 2 he wrote; ”Let the redeemed of the Lord say this”. In verses 3-7 he reminds us of how He provides. Then in verses 8 and 9 the psalmist reminds us to let God out. ”Let them give thanks to the Lord for his UNFAILING LOVE and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.”
His “UNFAILING LOVE” is something we can’t keep to ourselves. We must be in the mind set of GIGO! Otherwise we get in the way of the healing we need, as His people, as a nation.
So, in conclusion let me give you another
acronyms. ”SHELL”
Shell, according to my source is a software interface that’s often a command line interface that enables the user to interact with the computer. So if we were to change the meeting of the S from software to servant or saint it would mean that the servant, one of His saints is the one God uses to interact with others.
Let me give you one last example. A man was driving to work when a truck drove through a stop sign, hit his car broadside, and knocked him out. A passersby pulled him out of the wreck and revived him. But he began a terrific struggle and had to be tranquilized by the medics.
Later, when he was finally calm, they asked him why he struggled so much. He said, “I remember the impact, then nothing. I woke up on a concrete slab in front of a huge, flashing Shell sign. And somebody was standing in front of the S.”
There are a lot of people out there who can’t see the “S.” They have no idea that there is anything else. They can’t interact with God. We are to be like the disciples that Jesus sent out with authority as we have read in Mark 6:1-13.
It’s only by those who believe, His servants, His Saints, His Disciples, who Witness that others will know the peace they are longing for.
When you become a witness for God, When you encourage or comfort someone you allow GIGO to happen.
Put God in So God can come out. GIGO !!!
In His Service,
Pastor Joe
Listen To Audio: Sermon 20201101
Listen To Audio: Service 11012020
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Pastor Joe is available at the church every Thursday from 2 to 4p.m. If you wish to speak with him, his contact numbers are: 570-465-7303 or his cell 570-267-4570.
Loose Change Offering, (coins & bills), today goes to Local Mission.
Sunday School begins at 8:30 – please join us! Weekly notes about the upcoming lesson will appear on your email.
BILL’s Kids for Christmas Mission: Rev. Bill Townsend was the Director of Spiritual Life at the Children’s Home in Binghamton. Our congregation has been donating money for many years to help to make Christmas more merry for the residents; it will begin Sunday, November 1 and continue to the first Sunday in December.
Ladies will meet Thursday Nov. 12 at 11:00.
PLEASE NOTE: We ask that you wear a mask as you ENTER the church and as you EXIT. To EXIT, please use the Front, Side, EXIT DOOR. Thank you. Members of Session.
If you are in the parking lot, PLEASE TUNE YOUR RADIO TO 89.5 FM TO HEAR THE MORNING SERVICE
There is a “Blessing Box” in the Vestibule with items to take as you need or share if you can.
Please check your mailbox in the vestibule!
