ROM-101-150510 - length: 69:59 - taught on May, 10 2015
Class Outline:
Welcome To
BARAH MINISTRIES
a Christian Church
Rory Clark
Pastor-Teacher
Good Morning!
Welcome to Barah Ministries…a worldwide Christian Church based in Mesa, AZ…my name is Pastor Rory Clark.
Ephesians, Chapter 6, Verses 1 to 3 say…
Children, obey your parents (which is pleasing) in the Lord’(s sight), for this is right (the proper course of action to follow).
Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise for children)…
…so that it may be well with you, and so that you may live a long life on the earth.
Today, in the United States of America, we honor the Mothers of the world, and we say, “Happy Mother’s Day!” For me, other than the name Jesus, the word “Mama” is the sweetest sound in the English language. I had a great mother whom I loved dearly, and there isn’t a day that goes by where something she taught me isn’t put to use. She is still very much alive in my heart, and it’s hard to believe that she’s been at home with the Lord for seventeen years. There is a song about mothers that goes like this…
M-O-T-H-E-R
“M” is for the million things she gave me…
“O” means only that she’s growing old…
“T” is for the tears she shed to save me
“H” is for her heart of purest gold
“E” is for her eyes with love-light shining
“R” means right, and right she’ll always be
Put them all together they spell M-O-T-H-E-R…a word that means the world to me.
I’d like to read you a story about the meanest mother in the world as part of our tribute to mothers today…
THE MEANEST MOTHER IN THE WORLD
I had the meanest mother in the whole world. While other kids ate candy for breakfast, I had to have cereal, eggs, or toast. When others had soda and candy for lunch, I had to eat a sandwich. As you can guess, my supper was different than the other kid’s supper also. But at least I wasn’t alone in my sufferings. My sister and two brothers had the same mean mother I did.
My mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You’d think we were on a chain gang. She had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing at all times. She insisted that if we said we’d be gone an hour, that we be gone one hour or less, not one hour and one minute.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but she actually struck us! Not once, but each time we had a mind of our own and each time we tried to do as we please instead of what she told us to do. Her poor belt was used more on our seats than it was to hold up her clothes. Can you imagine someone actually hitting a child just because he disobeyed? Now you can see how mean she really was.
We had to wear clean clothes and we had to take baths. The other kids always wore their clothes for days. We even reached the height of all insults because she made our clothes herself, just to save money. Why did we get the mother who made us feel different from our friends?
The worst is yet to come. We had to be in bed by 9 o’clock each night and up by 8 o’clock the next morning. We couldn't sleep until noon like our friends. So while they slept, my mother actually had the nerve to break the child labor law. She made us work. We had to wash dishes, make beds, learn to cook, and all sorts of cruel things. I believe she lay awake at night thinking up mean things to do us.
She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth even if it killed us. It nearly did.
By the time we were teenagers, she was much wiser, and our lives became even more unbearable. When our friends picked us up, there was no
“tooting the horn” for us to come running out to their car. She embarrassed us to no end by making our dates and our friends come to the door to get us. If I spent the night with a friend, can you imagine she checked to see if I was really there? I never had a chance to elope to Mexico. That is, if I’d had anyone to elope with. I forgot to mention that while my friends were dating at the mature ages of 12 and 13, my old-fashioned mother refused to let me date until the ages of 15 or 16, and only to go to school functions, which occurred maybe twice a year.
As the years rolled by, first one and then the other of us siblings was held up to the shame of graduation from high school. There was mother, right behind us… talking, hitting, and demanding respect. None of us was allowed the pleasure of being a dropout.
My mother was a complete failure as a Mother. Out of four children, a couple of us attained some higher education. None of us has ever been arrested, divorced, or beaten a spouse. Each of my brothers served his time in the service of his country.
And whom do we have the blame for the terrible way we turned out? You’re right…my mean mother! Look at all the things we missed. We never got to march in a protest parade, take part in a riot, burn draft cards, or the million other things our friends did. She forced us to grow up into God respecting, educated, honest adults.
Using this as a background, I am trying to raise my children. I stand a little taller and I am so filled with pride when my children call me “mean.”
Because you see, I thank God, because He gave me the meanest mother in the world.
Thanks to Joan Adcock for sharing this with me so I could share it with you.
Welcome to our celebration of Mothers and our celebration of the inerrant Word of God, our guiding light.
MUSIC AND REFLECTION
Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ
Enjoy the Singing of His Praises
A Song for Mama
The opening song, in tribute to Mothers is…A SONG FOR MAMA.
OPENING PRAYER
Let us pray...
We’re grateful to you, Heavenly Father, for the privilege of studying Your absolute truth...the Word of God…
Thank you for always providing deliverance from the challenges of our lives…thanks for always giving us the victory…thank you for helping us to overwhelmingly conquer through Him in whom we have much to do…
Teach us, Father, how to translate what we learn from you into our daily practices…mostly by helping us realize that it is best to have You handle the challenges of our lives…
We ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit...in Christ’s
name...Amen.
TODAY’S STUDY
What Can You Handle?
How many times have you said, or have you heard it said, “God never gives us anything we can’t handle?” Have you heard it said hundreds of times? Have you heard it said thousands of times? Have you said it yourself even more times than that? Undoubtedly. But is it true? Decidedly not! Like so many Satanic deceptions, it is not at all true. God gives us many things that we can’t handle. God allows many things to be brought into our lives that we just can’t handle.
What can you handle? How about the flesh? Can you handle the flesh? How about sin? Can you handle sin? How about the law? Can you handle the law? Can you keep yourself from breaking the law? How about cleaning up your act? Can you handle cleaning up your act? How about salvation? Can you handle saving yourself? How about cancer? Can you handle cancer? How about relationships with other people? Can you handle relationships with other people? This is a short list, but I think you can find some things in the list that are clearly outside of your ability to handle. Yet God allows these things to be part of your life.
What can you handle?
I want to give credit where credit is due…my good friend Pastor John Farley brought this up in a lesson recently, and I wanted to pass the thought on to you. It’s a marvelous thought. God gives us a lot of things we can’t handle. We must continue to debunk the mythology circulating in our heads from the kingdom of death. We must be ever aware of the subtle ways the kingdom of death seeks to control our minds…Romans, Chapter 12, Verse 2 reminds us…
…do not be conformed to this world, but keep on being transformed by God in the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove (by testing and by experience) what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and in perfect alignment with His will.
Through the apostle Paul, the Lord is telling you that you have two choices in this life...
THE TWO CHOICES
Listen to Satan and the World Listen to God and the Bible
“keep on being conformed” “keep on being transformed”
Where does “being conformed” and “being transformed” take place? In the mind! The mind is the attack center for Satan and for God. Your mind houses your thoughts. Your thoughts are the engine of your life. You think it. You say it. You do it. Both Satan and God seek to influence your
thoughts. Who wins? Who are you listening to? Where is your soul tuned? Is it tuned to KCOS, the cosmic system of thought…the radio station that conforms you to the world’s ways of thinking? Or is your soul tuned to WGOD…the Lord Jesus Christ’s system of thought which transforms you through the renewing of your mind?
How does what I am saying manifest itself in your life? Here’s what I see Christians do.
Christians have habitual patterns of conduct. I have a friend who was entangled in a series of toxic relationships. I invited him to start listening to Barah Ministries on line. He took the advice and after a few months, I could see a pattern of calm emerging in his life. His head was clear. He had discarded a lot of the destructive thoughts that he was being “conformed” to…he was discarding those thoughts which translated into way s of being…instead, he was adopting the transformative thoughts provided through the study of the Word of God. He was at a clearing in his life. Life was good. What do you do when life is good?
What I saw him do when life was good is to shift his focus back to the old way of doing things. Instead of realizing that God was really working on his life, he took over the reins of his life himself. In essence, he was saying, “I can handle my life!” So what do you think he did next? He got entangled in another toxic relationship and took his life right back into the toilet.
I see this in Barah Ministries. I’ve seen people come here…I’ve seen them begin a pattern of coming…I’ve seen them really start learning and growing…and then the world comes in and conforms them. They stop showing up regularly…the let work creep into their Sunday schedule…and by the way, realize that I may not be talking to you…there are a lot of people in Barah Ministries so don’t think this is directed at you specifically…if the shoe fits wear it, but I’m just a sharing what I see a lot…and I am not immune to this, by the way…as soon as life gets good, Christians take over the reins of their lives and sabotage everything meaningful in their lives.
Look…let’s get one thing straight…you NEED to be here. You need to be transformed. You don’t have it all together and you’re not going to have it all together. You can’t handle your life. God gives you things you can’t handle. Why? So He can handle them for you. Why? Because He knows you can’t handle it. And He knows He can. But we never seem to learn the lesson…we never seem to stop trying to handle it.
How does what I am saying manifest itself in your life?
Everything is right with the world when we are in here. Everything is good when we are listening to bible lessons. But let’s face it. That’s three hours a week out of the 168 hours you are alive. One hundred and sixty five hours a week you are being conformed to the world’s way of thinking.
What can you handle?
There is a big difference between being here and being in the world, and I just wonder how well what you are learning in here translates to what you think and what you do in your day to day life. Take a five-minute break.
BREAK
M-O-T-H-E-R
The Mellomen
TODAY’S STUDY
What Can You Handle?
Welcome back! What can you handle?
As a career teacher I have passed along many lessons. There is nothing more devastating to a teacher than to equip his student in the classroom and then to see his student not translate the learning to his operation in the world.
I have seen this in the world of sports. I see players set up practice routines that are easy. Let’s take basketball…a sport I am familiar with. I see players practicing free throws, and when I look at them, they are breathing easy. Well how many times in a game are you going to be shooting free throws while you are breathing easy? NEVER! What they ought to do is create a practice routine that translates easily to the game. What they ought to do is run at a full sprint for ninety seconds, then go shoot free throws. In practice, they ought to simulate game conditions.
Let’s take golf…another sport I am familiar with. I see players go to the driving range, and their first practice is drives. Fourteen of your possible seventy-two shots in a golf match will be putts. Now if you are Tommy Chin, one of my favorite non-resident congregation members, fourteen of your one hundred shots will be drives. Hello?! But HALF of your shots in a golf match are putts. Why not practice putting first?
The truth is, we don’t make the transition from the classroom to the real world. In the classroom, what God wants us to get is that He is in charge of the universe and He considers our problems to be His responsibility. What we need to stop doing when we get into the world is saying, “Okay thanks God…I got this.” That’s what my friend did…and it didn’t work for him. It won’t work for you either. Romans, Chapter 4, Verses 19 to 21…are you like Abraham?
Without becoming weak in faith Abraham contemplated his own body, now as good as sexually dead since he was about a hundred years old, and he contemplated the deadness of Sarah’s womb…
…yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God…
…and being fully assured that what God had promised, God was able also to perform.
Is that your experience when you go back out into “the world?” When the Lord tells you that you are dead to sin, and dead to the law, do you go back out into the world, and in faith contemplate your new circumstance and leave your contemplation that in the matter of SIN and in the matter of the law, God is fully able to DO what He promises He did as an established and
irrevocable fact? Or do you go back out into the world thinking you can handle the forces of sin and handle the forces of the law on your own?
What can you handle, I ask? God answers in John, Chapter 15, Verse 5…
I (the Lord Jesus Christ) am the vine, you (believers in Christ) are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
What can you handle? Apart from God you can do nothing…so no you don’t got this brohams and sistahs! Great English huh?
It’s perfect that this subject should come up as we transition into the next passage of Romans Chapter 7. God the Holy Spirit continues His work in us through Paul’s letter to the Romans, by zooming us in to the essence of the Christian Way of Life. Let’s remember where we were…Romans, Chapter 7, Verse 1…
Or do you not know (are you ignorant?), (Jewish) brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the principles of law…the Jewish believers, not the Gentiles), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?
Death is the only way to get around the law in human terms.
For (example) … the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living (until death do us part); but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband.
Death is the only thing that breaks the legal bond. It frees you from one marriage relationship, and opens the possibility for you to enter a new relationship.
So then, if while her husband is living she is joined (married) to another man, she shall be called (publically) an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.
Can you handle it when you are publically castigated?
Therefore, my (Jewish) brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him (the Lord Jesus Christ) who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
For while we (Jewish believers) were in the flesh (unbelievers…which we no longer are because we are in the Spirit as believers), the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter (of the law).
The Jewish believers were in a struggle between law and grace, and this passage was stunning to them. Paul was telling them that they were released from the Mosaic Law that had bound them for over 1500 years. They were also released from the principle of law…it was established that they were law breakers who could not keep the law. Remember that powerful transition verse from Romans, Chapter 3, Verse 21…
But now apart from the Law the righteousness from God has been manifested…
What can you handle? God makes it clear…walk by means of the Spirit…use God the Holy Spirit’s power…walk by faith and not by striving…rightly use your freedom…realize your relationship to sin is ended…it’s dead…stop revisiting it…realize your relationship to law ended…stop trying to get better…realize your relationship with the world ended…stop being conformed by it. What can you handle? Not much. Get
comfortable with it!
The Promises of the Lord Jesus Christ
are Guarantees!
…in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you (who are in union with) Christ Jesus.
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.
…through Christ’s glory and goodness He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become sharers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption of death that is in the world by lust.
CLOSING SONG
Jesus Loves Me
Chris Tomlin
CLOSING PRAYER
Let us pray...
THANKS- INTERCESSION- PETITION
And we pray that You continue to shape the messages from this pulpit that are an accurate reflection of Your unconditional love, Your glorious Person, Your lucid thinking, Your impeccable work, and Your magnificent essence...we ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit, in Christ’s name, Amen.
Thanks for coming!
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for listening!
www.barahministries.com
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