Category: Preaching & Teaching

Personal Accountability

1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.

Genesis 4:1-10

Introduction

The story of Cain and Abel is a powerful reminder of how fragile human relationships can be. Even when those relationships are within a family. The Story is also a sad one because it captures the first instance of one person taking the life of another.

Life is a precious gift. It is one that we do not always appreciate. But we become aware of its value when we lose a loved one or when we fear losing our own life. In many ways, this is what makes the story of Cain and able so tragic. Not only is a family broken, not only our brothers at out with each other but in the reversible act sets in motion severe consequences.

Personal accountability is something we learn to do as we mature. But it is something we must learn to do.

One of the challenges we all must encounter in life is understanding that every choice we make will have consequences. Some consequences are easier to see. But most consequences to the choices we make may go unnoticed. This is why we should do all we can to be wise and how we conduct ourselves.

The story of Cain and Abel and how God confronts Cain about his actions is a powerful reminder. Not only must we all give an account for our lives but we will give an account for how we treated others. We cannot control what other people do. What we can do is do all we can to live a life that is consistent with God’s character.

With this in mind let’s see what we can glean from the events that took place in the Scripture above.

I. Why did God ask Cain the question, “Where is your Brother?”

  1. I’ve always found God’s question became to be interesting. But when we consider the question in light of who God is and what he knows we can see that the purpose of the question was for the benefit of the reader.
  2. When God asked Cain where his brother was, was it because the God didn’t know? No.
    • Did God want to see if Cain knew where Able was? No, God already knew where Able was.
    • When God asked the question he is not seeking information. Usually when God asks a question it’s to test if we will acknowledge that he already knows. To see if we will lie or tell the truth.
  3. Was it because God wasn’t sure? No, God was not surprised by what Cain had done.
    • Often times we read the Bible we do so based on incorrect assumptions.
    • If when we read the Bible we assume that God is seeking information we will arrive at incorrect conclusions. As I said above when God asked the question he is clarifying something for the person he is questioning.
  4. God asks the question to reveal Cain’s, and ultimately our own inclination to lie about what we’ve done.
    • When we are confronted by what we have done we are not all that quick to admit it.

II. There is no place where we can go to hid from God.

  1. If there is one thing we should learn to accept as followers of Christ and believers of God is that there is no place where we can go that God is not already there.
    • And while this my cause anxiety for some and concern for others, it should really be reason to be thankful.
    • We should be thankful there is no reason to lie to God. Even when we end up doing it anyway.
  2. We shouldn’t even try to do it. But we do and this is where most of us make a critical mistake in our relationship with God.
    • The mistake we make is thinking that if we confess to God that God’s opinion of us will change. But if he already knows and he still desires to have a relationship with us, that our confidence in God’s grace and mercy should increase. Not decrease.
  3. David understood this. What he rights in Psalm 139 can be very scary because of what it implies for us.
  4. Read Psalm 139:1-12

O Lord, You have searched me and known me. 2 You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. 3 You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. 4 For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. 5 You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it.

7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me; 12 Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

NKJV
  1. David’s recognition that there is no place where we can go to hide from God’s presence should encourage us to accept that there is no place we need to go to hide from his presence.
    • To be in God’s presence is to be where we should long to be at all times.

III. Personal Accountability is about accepting that nothing is hidden and that truth and honesty are always the best way to respond to God.

  1. This is not always easy. As a matter of fact it is pretty hard to do. But that is the challenge.
  2. We may be accountable to many different people for different reasons (work, school, parents, boy/girlfriend).
  3. In the end we are accountable to God and what it is He wants from and for us in our lives.
  4. Cain’s response to God betrayed him because Cain knew that he was his brother’s keeper.
    • There was no hiding it. Anything other than acceptance of this fact was a lie, not so much to the world, but to himself.
  5. I think that Cain knew the moment he asked the question that he was wrong. Cain’s concerns that when others heard what he had done he would be in danger where real.

Conclusion

Personal accountability is something we learn to do as we mature. But it is something we must learn to do. When we don’t we will find ourselves responding to God the way that Cain did. We will know that we have done wrong but because of our guilt and shame, we will try to keep her from God.

Originally Delivered on Sunday, January 21, 2007. It has been edited and expanded.

Regaining Focus in an unclear World

Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?

John 21:20-23 KJV

Introduction

At the start of every year whether people follow through with it or not it has become accustomed to setting out resolutions what we will accomplish in the new year. One of the greater challenges of following through with these resolutions is that oftentimes we pick things that will require greater changes than we are really prepared to do. We have not really learned that smaller changes over a longer period of time can provide lasting changes for the rest of our lives.

One of the struggles that we will have as we strive to leave a mark in this year is to seek a renewed focus for our lives. If we are not deliberate in our actions we can run the risk of missing what God has in store for us. Today I want to talk with you about regaining focus in an unclear world.

There are so many mixed messages being sent by the world in which we live. We have to do a better job of figuring out how to live our lives in a Christ-like way in a world that doesn’t want to have any part in that. How do we regain focus? How do we get our lives back on a road that will bring us closer to God?

Obey what Jesus has said

The first commitment we should make is Christians in this new year is to obey what Jesus said. I will grant it is not always easy to do what Jesus says. It isn’t easy because doing what Jesus says requires that we acknowledge that He has spoken. We are all on a journey to find meaning and significance. We all are looking for ways of making our lives count. So we make friends and we start families. We get involved in the community and we look for careers that will be fulfilling. We tell ourselves that if we do these things we will find happiness.

But no matter what we do doubt will linger in our minds. “Is this enough?” It is so hard to see what we need to do most of the time, but God desires to be a part of that process. God is looking for you and me to turn to Him and say, “God, I want to have a life filled with meaning and purpose. But I need you if I’m going to get there.” And do you know what He did? He sent Jesus.

Jesus was and is God’s way of saying I want to be a part of your life if you will let me. I find myself rededicating my life to Christ on a regular basis. Why? I do it because I make mistakes. I let people down. I let myself down. I’m not perfect. And it is only when I turn my life over to Him that I know I will be all right? Do you need to give your life to him today? Do you need to recommit your life to Jesus today?

When I look at the story here at the end of John I am reminded that we have to obey what Jesus says. We can’t go and do what we think that Jesus has said. If we do what we think He said we will get hurt and we will hurt others in the process. Our good intentions go wrong when we don’t follow the instructions. Peter had not been restored to fellowship long before he was concerned about somebody else’s status with God. When we fail to obey what Jesus has said we go and do foolish things. This is not something new. It’s something that has been going on from the very first moment that God breathed life into Adam.

Don’t underestimate your own struggles

The second commitment we should make is that we should not underestimate our own struggles. If we want to regain focus we have to be willing to admit that we have struggles. I don’t like to admit it, but if I want to have a chance at enjoying my life I can’t go and stick my head in the sand. Life is hard. We have to account for other people, what they say, what they do, what they mean. I have to account for my actions and how I will react in those situations when I deal with other people.

We have mortgages to pay, jobs to deal with, bosses to please, families to maintain, cars to fix, recitals to go to, students to teach, children to rear, and churches to build. Life is complicated. Because of this, we can’t afford to underestimate our struggles, because any wrench could bring the whole thing to a halt.

I don’t know about you, but some days are a real struggle. Trying to make the right choices, trying to live a good life. I really don’t have the time to be focusing my energy and effort on making sure other people are doing what they are supposed to be doing. If I were to spend my time trying to do this I would go insane.

Not everyone sees things the way that I do. Not everyone is interested in what I am interested in. Not everyone that I come in contact with on a daily basis holds the same things dear that I do. This is all part of the struggle that I must deal with. And yet I find myself in the same situation as Peter. I start looking around wondering, “What about Him?” I have to seek to do the best that I can with what God has given me. And I should do this with the sincere prayer that God would use what I give for His glory.

The comparison game is such a dangerous way to live our lives. God does not compare us to anyone else except Jesus. And that the standard is difficult enough on its own.

Compare yourself to Christ, Not to “John”

The third commitment we should make is to compare ourselves to Jesus and not to “John”. One of the most harmful decisions you can make is to try and compare yourself to someone else. When we compare ourselves to those around us we make assumptions about the other person that may not be true. But the assumptions that could be the most troublesome are the ones that you make about yourself. It doesn’t matter whether the comparison is positive or negative. Whether we are making ourselves better or worse. Do you know what the biggest problem with comparing ourselves to “John” is? We are comparing ourselves to the wrong person.

We too often get caught up in what is going on in other people’s lives at the expense of what is happening in our own. Peter wanted to know what was going to happen to John because he did not want to get any less than what John was getting. We are not here to compete with one another. We are not here to best one another and try to see who can do more for the church than the person next to us.

I think that this boils down to the way that we are taught about success. We are taught and told that success is competition. We have to do better than the person next to us if we want to get that promotion. We have to work harder if we want to get ahead. And what ends up happening is that we all have to maintain where we are just so we don’t fall behind. If we try to keep up with those that are around we will lose sight of something much more important, keeping up with Jesus.

There is a chorus that helps me to put aside that tendency to want to look across the aisle to see how I’m doing against so and so. The chorus says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the life of His glory and grace.”

Commitment:

If you need to give your life to Jesus for the first time or if you need to give your life again do it today. You can pray something like this:

Jesus, I am not perfect. I need you to come into my life and help me to regain the right focus in my life. Help me to obey your word, help me to identify the areas of my life where I struggle, and let me look to you to see how I’m doing. In Jesus name I pray, AMEN.

Originally Delivered in 2004. It has been edited and expanded.

Sermon | “Spiritual Injuries and the Truth”

I preached this past Sunday at Ambassadors of Christ Fellowship. We are working our way through 1 Peter as a church, looking to see what we can learn about Spiritual Injuries along the way.

Pastor Victor Scott | Spiritual Injuries and The Truth

Download the sermon outline here.

Dear Pastor, Write Your Own Sermons!

I have been preaching for a long time. I do not preach every Sunday at my church. But, I do preach often enough to know that it is not easy. And, it is not something that should be taken lightly by those who bear the responsibility. It takes a great deal of effort and even time to prepare a sermon. Continue reading “Dear Pastor, Write Your Own Sermons!”

Sermon | “Spiritual Injuries and Our Hope on God’s Promises”

This sermon was preached in Spanish on September 4, 2016.

Introduction

  1. The unique vision of Ambassadors of Christ Ministries: Spiritual Health.
    • What is spiritual health?
    • Why do we need to be spiritually healthy?
  2. Definition of Spiritual Injuries
    • A spiritual injury is a contradiction between what I believe to be true and what actually is true.
  3. How are we healed from our spiritual injuries?

Sermon Sketch | “Talk Like Jesus”

This sermon looks at the way that Jesus talked. This is taken from the comments made by the people that heard Jesus preach the Sermon on the Mount. After hearing Jesus talk, the people were amazed. Continue reading “Sermon Sketch | “Talk Like Jesus””

Sermon Sketch | “Why Come?”

This sermon was originally preached some time in 2008. In it, we look to find a more consistently biblical understanding of the church, Christ’s body at work in the earth.

Why Come?

Have any of you ever heard someone say that they don’t need to go to church to be a Christian? Do you think that that is true? I wonder why so many people believe this.

The other night I was watching a replay of Oprah and there was a lady on there talking about the difference between spirituality and religion. I had one thought running through my mind, and it was this woman has no idea what she’s talking about. Continue reading “Sermon Sketch | “Why Come?””

Sermon Sketch | “Marks of Pure Worship”

I preached this sermon on a couple of occasions, but this particular version I preached at Merrywood Baptist Church in Statesboro, Georgia.

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Marks of Pure Worship

Luke 7:36-50

36 Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down to eat. 37 And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, 38 and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, “This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.”

Pure Worship is…

I. PRECIOUS: [the alabaster box] (of such great value that a suitable price is hard to estimate ); costly – the idea of costly.

a. Luke gives us that information that the price of the alabaster ointment was three hundred denarius.

b. In other places in scripture we find that a denarius was equal to about one days wage.

i. If she did not eat for a 300 days she would have the money to buy it – unlikely.

ii. If she saved half of what she made in a day, half of a denarius it would have taken 600 days – this is becoming very valuable perfume.

iii. She is described as a sinner by the Pharisee implying that she was a woman that made her living by less than honorable means. As a sore in the sight of society will she be paid in a normal way? I don’t think so.

c. Pure worship is precious. The alabaster box is a representation that what we bring to God should be something “of such great value” that its price is hard to estimate, it is priceless to us, but it can serve as an appropriate symbol of our love for God.

II. POWERFUL: [the forgiveness of sins] – it changes our lives

a. The woman’s worship created an opportunity for Jesus to demonstrate that faith is what brings forgiveness.

b. That woman had to believe that there was a possibility that Jesus could do something for her.

c. You don’t do something if you don’t believe it.

III. PECULIAR: [the woman’s presence] – some won’t understand what it is; why we do it

a. What an odd scene. Here is this woman walking through the crowd…she probably got access to the house because the Pharisee that had invited Jesus was trying to show off.

b. But there was something that probably caught the attention more than just her presence there in that gathering. Paul tells us about the glory of a woman

…but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. (1 Corinthians 11:15, ESV)

c. Allow me just a moment to touch on this. It was common practice for women of that time to cover their hair in public if they were married. They were only to show their hair to their husbands.

i. The fact that this woman exposed her hair reveals to us that she was indeed a sinner, but more to the heart of the matter this woman was taking that which was her glory, the symbol of her womanhood and using it to wash the filth off Jesus’ feet.

ii. The only thing that the Pharisee could see was the woman. Jesus, on the other hand, looked beyond the sin, beyond the cultural rule, beyond the decorum of the day and saw the sincerity of her worship.

d. It is only when I recognize the depth of my sin that the miracle of God’s grace comes to cover the sin of my life.

e. Pure worship is peculiar because when the moment comes we have to be ready to let our hair done.

IV. PENETRATING: [the weeping] – it moves us to the core

a. The weeping was like that of a rain storm. When we come into the presence of God are we moved to tears because of the wrong our sin had done to his holiness.

b. No one could deny that this woman knew who she was. She was honest enough with herself not to argue with the charge that she was a sinner.

i. There was not need to fight back. That was not why she had come. There was no longer a reason to hide.

ii. Any effort to hide would not conceal the truth of here condition from the world because the world already knew. We so often times hide from ourselves because we can face the truth.

V. PASSIONATE: [holding on for dear life] – we do it with all of our being

a. The touch…we do worship because is it something that we should do. Worship is done is such a way that when others look at us they would think that our lives depended on it if we didn’t.

b. The Pharisee lived by a strict set of rules that kept him separate from everyone and everything in his world. He would guard against touching something or being touched because he could afford to be contaminated.

c. This woman was passionate about what she was doing. The text does not do justice to what was happening. This woman was not just touching Jesus she was literally hanging on for dear life to his feet. She just couldn’t make herself let go. There was something different about this man.

VI. PERSONAL: [we are responsible] – we have to do it

a. This is the final point mark of pure worship. Only you can offer it to God.

Sermon Sketch | “Between Life and Living”

I wrote this outline on February 19, 2003. I am not sure if I ever shared it in a teaching/preaching setting. However, I wanted to record it for posterity. I have clarified some of the points so that it makes more sense!

Between Life and Living

  • Life is that which we have.
  • Living is that which we do.
  • This is one of the most distinctive characteristics of the Christian experience. Faith in Jesus moves us from just having life to living the life that God has given.

There are two types of life:

1. Physical Life
  • All have creatures that breath have this. There is no purpose. It is merely a fact.
2. Spiritual Life
  • This is better than mere physical life. The question is now that you are a live what will you do? This is where learning how to live comes in.

What is Necessary for living?

1. Purpose
  • Where is it found?

    • For the disciple of Jesus it is found in a relationship with him.

  • Why is it necessary?

    • Without a relationship with Jesus we cannot live up to God’s will and purpose for our lives.

2. Desire
  • How do you get it?

    • Desire comes from experiencing the Gospel’s transforming power. (Romans 1:16)

  • How do you keep it?

    • We keep our desire by reminding ourselves of the Gospel and holding onto the truth that it proclaims–that we are now new creations because of Jesus. (2 Cor. 5:17)

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