Houston
Congregational Christian Church
Pastor James Manuel
4883 Russia-Houston Road
Houston, OH 45333
Phone: 937-295-3591
Email:
click here
Message Title: Altars In A Strange Land
Call to Worship: John 11:25-26
Scripture Reading: Judges 6:7-14
Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable unto You O Lord on this Your day.
May I say Gideon was the 5th of 12 Judges that ruled Israel over 1300 years before Christ. After Joshua died the Israelites strayed from God and worshipped foreign gods and idols. Again during Gideon’s time the Israelites hit rock bottom before turning back to God. Just like in our own lives we at times have to hit rock bottom before we turn back to God. Imagine how much suffering they and we could avoid if we had trusted God. And if I might say turning to God shouldn’t be a last resort, we should look to God for help each day. This doesn’t mean life will always be easy. There will be struggles but God will give us the strength to live through them. Don’t wait until you’re at the end of your rope. Call on God first in every situation. As Psalm 18:6 says, ‘In my distress I called to the Lord, I cried to my God for help. From His temple He heard my voice, my cry came before Him into His ears.’
You see God guides us on a journey through life toward the place that is prepared for us. A house not made with hands as 2 Cor. 5:1 tells us, ‘Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed we have a building from God, an eternal house in Heaven, not built by human hands.’ There is a place at the end of our journey that we can call home after we’ve finished our journey. And if I might say we set up altars as we journey to this home. Altars that show those around us who it is that has given us the promise.
God promised Abraham not only land but also that He would be the father of a great nation. Genesis 12:2 the Lord says to Abraham, ‘I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.’ So when Abraham came into Canaan the Canaanites must have been amused when this senior citizen, Abraham was 75 when God called him, appeared out of nowhere and erected an altar to his God. Abraham didn’t set up the altar to appease his God or to try to get a favor. He erected it because he had received a promise that he would inherit a land and a promise that he would be the father of a great nation. Now the people of Gideon’s time also had a promise of God. Just like we have a promise of God. Psalm 145:13 tells us that, ‘The Lord is faithful to all His promises.’ 2000 years ago Jesus traveled up and down the land God promised to Abraham. He was the Messiah, the One God had promised to free Abraham’s descendants from their captors.
The altar where Jesus made sacrifice was in a strange place, on a hill where the Romans executed criminals. His altar was not a pile of stones where someone might sacrifice a goat or lamb, but a Cross where He Himself was sacrificed. His altar was unlike any other before or since. It was not a place where human beings tried to reach up to God. It was a place where God reached down to human beings.
For you see the promise God gives through Jesus is that all who believe in Him will live forever. In John 11:25-26, ‘Jesus said, I Am the Resurrection and life. He who believe in Me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believe in Me will never did.’ God kept His promise to Abraham and God keeps the promise given to us.
God sends us on a journey through a land where altars are raised up to assist the gods of our culture. Sex is used not to entice a good harvest but to sell cars and clothes and cigarettes. Faith is something you have in a mutual fund with a good track record, not in a God you can’t see. We raise altars to God who sends us on a journey through this land. Ours are not altars of stone but altars of faith testimonies to the God who was true to Abraham and is true to us. We trust God to be faithful in the promise that God will bless us, protect us and lead us home.
But right beside the monuments to the gods of this land, the gods of consumerism and pride and self reliance, we set up our altar to the God of Abraham. In a world that values rugged individualism and a dislike for those who cannot make it on their own, we bear testimony to our God whenever we reach out to a person who can’t make it on his or her own. In a world that says look out for number one we erect an altar to our God whenever we give of ourselves to those in need. As Matt. 6:3 says, ‘But when you give to the needy do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.’
In a world that is so private that people blush if you talk about your faith we set up a monument to God every time we tell a friend what God means to us. Abraham erected altars as he journeyed in faith through a strange land. What altars have you erected to God in your journey home? We do not erect altars of stone or of sacrifice. But we erect altars of mercy, compassion, forgiveness and Love, all in the Name of Jesus.