The Preacher

 The Preacher

The rubble crew starts its day at 7:30 in the morning.  Because base devotions is later we started having a short message and prayer time by the equipment before the day starts.  Travis introduced access to a number of messages prepared by SP that could be circulated around the crew.  Many are quite inspirational but seem to lose a little impact in translation.  As a result some of the ex-pats started implementing their own bible lessons for morning devotions.

Last Monday I was asked to do our morning devotional.  Since I was asked the prior Friday I had plenty of time over the weekend to think about something relevant for my Haitian friends.  I was reminded of the scripture where Jesus asked His disciples who they thought He was.  I decided to make that my text and focus of my message.

I opened with a little background on the text of Matthew 16.13.  Jesus had just fed the four thousand.  He and His disciples loaded a boat to travel across the Sea of Galilee and then head north to the town of Caesaria/Phillipi.  This town had recently been rebuilt by Herod’s son, Phillipi.  He named it after Caesar and himself.  I can imagine the city being a vacation village of upper class Romans, probably with nicer homes and shops.  As the little entourage is approaching the town, Jesus asks His disciples who these people think He (Jesus) is.  I can see the disciples huddling together for a response and then saying that some say you are John the Baptist, or maybe one of the Prophets of Old, resurrected to do good things.  I brought the thought to today and suggested that many call Jesus a ‘good man’, or a ‘good teacher’.  Some might say He was a Prophet, like Budda or Mohammed.  I expounded a little on each of those and then came up to Jesus’ next question, directed at Peter.  He asked, who do you say I am?  Peter responded, ‘You are the Son of the Living God.  Jesus replied that the Father in heaven has revealed that to you, Peter, not man.

I followed the thought to John 6.44 where Jesus states that, ‘no man comes unto the Father except the Spirit draw Him’.  When the Holy Spirit draws a man unto God, the Father, then his heart is ready to hear what God’s messenger has to say.  I also expounded on the scripture  (Heb. 8.7-10) that states that God’s first covenant with man, the law, was flawed because man could not keep the commandments.  But with the salvation experience God writes those laws on our hearts where we are moved by the Spirit and our inner man to want to obey those laws.  (2 Cor. 3.1-3).  Because the law is written on our hearts our change in lifestyle, how we speak, how we act, how we behave and think becomes our testimony before the world that we are different.

The point for the message was that when a man has a real experience with Jesus, after being drawn by the Spirit to God, then his/her life will demonstrate a significant change that will cause people to notice.  It shows up as a byproduct of who you’ve become.

It was important to show this difference to the work crew as many Haitians have the concept that if you do what the white man wants as far as his faith goes, then you will receive gifts in return.  The concept has nothing to do with a personal relationship with God, only how to act to get something in return.  I wanted the crew to know that salvation was a personal relationship, a real experience and that a by-product of that experience is an outward expression of change visible to all you come in contact with.

I received many thanks and appreciations for sharing my heart with them that morning.  I’m not sure anyone had taken the time to share such thoughts before.   Mono took me aside later that morning and said that he felt God had impressed on him many times to say something to others, but didn’t know what to say.  I sensed his sincerity in his question and said I would address that tomorrow.

But as for that Monday, everyone of the crew was happy that they heard the Word of God in the morning.