Scriptures:
Text to read:
Hebrews 12: Discipline in a Long-Distance Race
1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
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John Wesley’s Notes-Commentary:Text to read:
Hebrews 12:1-3
Verse 1
[1] Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Wherefore, being encompassed with a cloud — A great multitude, tending upward with a holy swiftness.
Of witnesses — Of the power of faith.
Let us lay aside every weight — As all who run a race take care to do. Let us throw off whatever weighs us down, or damps the vigour of our Soul.
And the sin which easily besetteth us — As doth the sin of our constitution, the sin of our education, the sin of our profession.
Verse 2
[2] Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Looking — From all other things.
To Jesus — As the wounded Israelites to the brazen serpent. Our crucified Lord was prefigured by the lifting up of this; our guilt, by the stings of the fiery serpents; and our faith, by their looking up to the miraculous remedy.
The author and finisher of our faith — Who begins it in us, carries it on, and perfects it.
Who for the joy that was set before him — Patiently and willingly endured the cross, with all the pains annexed thereto.
And is set down — Where there is fulness of joy.
Verse 3
[3] For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
Consider — Draw the comparison and think. The Lord bore all this; and shall his servants bear nothing? Him that endured such contradiction from sinners - Such enmity and opposition of every kind Lest ye be weary - Dull and languid, and so actually faint in your course.
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Daily Devotions:
Monday, October 27, 2014
Sermon theme: The Faith Solution - Stewardship: Stewards of God's Legacy
How do you define a legacy?
Does the definition change from generation to generation?
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Sermon theme: The Faith Solution - Stewardship: Stewards of God's Legacy
Read this week's Bible text.
What does it say about legacy?
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Sermon theme: The Faith Solution - Stewardship: Stewards of God's Legacy
Do most people strive to create a legacy?
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Sermon theme: The Faith Solution - Stewardship: Stewards of God's Legacy
What role does faith have in your legacy?
Friday, October 31, 2014
Sermon theme: The Faith Solution - Stewardship: Stewards of God's Legacy
What kind of giving are you doing that will outlast your lifetime? (Think beyond money, too.)
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Sermon theme: The Faith Solution - Stewardship: Stewards of God's Legacy
What legacy should a church leave for the next generation?
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Sermon theme: The Faith Solution - Stewardship: Stewards of God's Legacy
Pray and give thanks for those whose legacy has touched your life.
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First United Methodist Church
2111 Camino del Rio South
San Diego, CA 92108
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Sermon Story "Saints Before Us" by Gary Lee Parker for Sunday, 2 November 2014
Text to read:
Hebrews 12: Discipline in a Long-Distance Race
1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
Too often, many people say that their mothers are saints, but there is a man who understands that his mother is a saint. First, we have to understand that saints are not always perfect or even sinless, but their whole life reflects a love for God and the love for all people no matter who they are. This man's mother was baptized, raised, and confirmed in a Methodist Church in New York State. She lost her father through death when she was sixteen. She graduated from high school and went to a local business college and became trained as a bookkeeper and secretary. When World War II came, she worked in a factory, but joined the WAVES of the United States Navy during the war. After Basic training, she was trained as a baker. Somehow, her temptation to have an encounter resulted in a son being born and she was discharged from the WAVES because she was pregnant. She met this young man's father and was married in Arizona and worked alongside her husband as a migrant farmworker. She gave birth in a daughter in California and a few years later she discovered she was going to have a third child, but her husband due to his own pattern of drinking alcohol whether it was from past personal or family or Navy War-time experience left her. She moved back to New York State to give birth to her third son and became a part of a Nazarene Church after her oldest son's experience in the Vacation Bible School. She fell in love with Jesus and the Nazarene church because it reminded her of her Methodist church childhood days. She taught nursery, kindergarten, cradle roll director, board member, and part-time janitor. She learned to love God and and all other people showing by words and actions to her children what it means to love God fully and to love all other people as they are. She contracted cancer when her third child was a junior in high school, but was healed through medicine and God. She lived and worked from the time her third child was in 5th Grade to the time she retired to take care of her own mom. She lived and enjoyed five grandchildren and three great grandchildren and left her earthly body to gain her Heavenly body with her rewards from Jesus as she raised three children as a single mother. Even though her husband left her, she never divorced him. She to the neighborhood in the town she lived in was a woman of integrity and a great work life being able to help older women with cleaning their houses and other chores. To this young man, his mother truly was a SAINT.
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