May 6, 2012 "When The Change Comes" Rev. James Milton McCarroll

it is truly a blessing to be here with you today let me just share a brief word before we go on I want to encourage every we do at home to take the life that God has given you very seriously the LIF either God has given you he's given with intention with purpose and with the expectation of healthy stewardship the ill that legacy that God has given you there's a point place and time in which you must stop living for today and begin to understand that everything you do will affect the generations that will come after you secondly you must understand the power of your influence your words and your actions do leave an impression on the world around you and so it's not enough to think that people are only watching you when you think they're watching you but at all times realize that every time you walk this earth and walk into any given place in that moment in that place you leave an impression so it's necessary that we'd be very intentional at every moment of our breathing that we make sure that our living is in line with the Word of God thirdly you must be very intentional and serious about your faith our faith is not meant to be an addendum to our life it is meant to be the object of centripetal force in our lives our faith is meant to be at the core and the crooks of all that we are and all that we desire to be as God reminded Israel our job like the Israelites is to love the Lord our God with all our mind all our soul and with all our strength let me just put it this way it's not enough for you to tithe your time and energy because to suggest that you tithe your time and energy means that you leave the majority of yourself to someone other than God so we must be very careful as men of faith to make sure faith is the guiding factor and focus of each of our lives then the last thing we must be very careful with the way we elevate those around us both in priority as well as personal affirmation we must be very careful not to put anything above and before our God but secondly we must understand our roles as a valuable force of affirmation and validation in our community our young people our housing dreams their housing visions their housing hopes and it's up to us to give them the seed of encouragement to allow them to understand that they can be more than what they see on TV what they see in the news and what they read on the Internet is for us to let them know that our young men can be doctors that honor the Lord and lawyers that honor the Lord and even in DC politicians that honor the Lord that God is calling us and expecting us to be men of elevation it's our job to lift them can I give you something else for free that if you don't lift them someone else will and it is so as soon as up to us to be intentional about taking the life the legacy the influence our faith in our elevation that God is so entrusted to us seriously amen with that being said are y'all ready for the word let's go Luke chapter 17 while you're turning I want to thank this church for your hospitality for your love and your care for the preacher I felt like I was at home this morning with fried chicken for breakfast Oh bless His name Luke chapter 17 verse 11 says while traveling to Jerusalem he passed between Samaria and Galilee as he entered the village ten men with serious skin diseases or leprosy met him they stood at a distance and raised their voices saying Jesus master have mercy on us when he saw them he told them go show yourselves to the priests and while they were going they were healed but one of them seeing that he was healed returned and with a loud voice gave glory to God and he fell face down at his feet thanking him and he was a Samaritan then jesus said were not ten cleansed where are the nine didn't in it returned to give glory to God except this foreigner and he told him get up and go on your way your faith has made you well verse 14 says again when he saw them he told them go and show yourselves to the priests and while they were going they were healed I want to talk today from the front when the change comes when the change comes let's pray Heavenly Father we love you we bless you and we praise you for this opportunity to share the Word of God with the people of God I submit myself to you Holy Spirit come now quicken me for preaching prepare the hearts and minds of your people for the receiving of your word make it plain make it applicable make it relevant that we might not miss what the Spirit of God has to say to the church this day Lord we trust you to be a God that never ceases to speak to us and so now as we Bend our ears and hearts toward heaven ministered to us in a way that will call us and cause us to make changes in our lives to reflect the life and the love of Jesus Christ more today than any day after it move in this place to the praise of your glory to the honor of your name it is in Jesus's name that we ask at all and the people of God said together amen brothers and sisters I think that if there were one word to the graph to describe the worship experience that we encounter every week I think that one word would be change I think that ultimately God's desire and design for the worship moment these moments will we gather to encounter one another as well as the powerful and prolific presence of God is that we not walk out of here the same way that we were when we walked in after long weeks of works after work after various encounters that have various emotional physical and psychological effects on each of us it is necessary that we gather into the house of God and to the place where the Lord has chosen to put his name to seek his face and encounter him in such a way that he invokes change in each of us I think the greatest tragedy that could ever happen is that we'd be in the presence of God and walk out of this place the same way we were when we walked in with the same drama and the same issues and the same concerns and the same worries as a matter of fact it really doesn't even make sense to come into this house serving this God and walk out with the same stuff you wouldn't go to the beauty shop sit in the beauticians chair and when she hands you the mirror be content to have the same hairstyle you wouldn't be content to go to the barbershop sit for an hour in the barber's chair and walk out with the same hair on your head than you had when you walk in you would not be content going to the auto mechanic paying your money coming back for hours later to find out your car still has the same problem so how is it that we come into the house of an awesome mighty wonder-working miracle performing God in our content walk it out with the same stuff in our lives that we had when we first showed up somebody shot it doesn't make sense and if we are to be an effective people for God and followers of Jesus Christ it requires that we understand and engage of God that is the God that specializes in changing us I don't know about you but we're looking at the landscape of our culture I think some changes are needed when we look at the rising number of teenage pregnancies the rise in divorce rates when we see the rising number of teen suicide when we see the emotional trauma in every single sector of our community when we see that people are fighting more in church than they do on the street when we see that we have issues in the body of Christ and make the world say we'd rather stay out here I think some change may be needed and God calls us as his people to engage him in a way that when the world sees us after we met him Wow in comparison to how we were before we met him that it leaves the world with a testimony that there must be something about walking with Jesus that makes the difference in your life and I think if we're going to expend this time here we might as well figure out what to do to bring change so that as we're here we can testify that we saw God move and we know when the change comes in our text were introduced to ten men these ten men suffer from a disease called leprosy the first step to change is healthy introspection these men suffered from a degenerative disease that began as a small white spot on the top of their scalps and because of the small white spot they've got ostracized and over time unkempt and/or cared for the small white spot began to spread and spread and spread and I've learned that sometimes when sin shows up it doesn't show up in a big way it just starts as a small spot it starts as a glance it starts as a taste it starts as a laugh but if it's unkempt it will begin to spray and these men over the course of time song the disease begin to radically alter and transform their lives their bodies began to suffer everything connected to them began to become dysfunctional isn't that how sin is that when you first started you would come home and everybody was laughing at the dinner table but the more its unkept the later the arrival time gets and the more silent conversations get slowly began to deteriorate sores began to form partial sores began to grow on their bodies their ligaments began to get disfigured and they would watch one another every day to see who was worse can I go a little bit deeper that when you really start getting sunk under the reeling unforgiving tide of sin you start trying to find other folk with worse sins to make yourself feel better about the sin you have and these men slowly began to lose body parts pinky toll but fall off then a finger would fall off and before these men knew it they were suffering with the sickness that had more control over them than they had control over it and when you really see sin bear fruit you start to realize you're on its agenda more than it's on your agenda and the stuff that you used to count as a blessing starts to slowly get removed from your life but the good news is that in spite of their introspection one day they had a visitor and in the one place that Jews would dare go a Jew shows up and I've learned my brothers and sisters that Jesus will come to places that other folk refuse to visit when everyone has kicked you to the curb they don't want to deal with you don't want to walk around you I'm so glad that we serve a lord and a savior that regardless of who will take their hands off of you will still find a way to wrap his arms around you to let you know how much he loves you and the Bible says they had a visitor Jesus shows up now you move from introspection to understanding visitation that regardless of where you are Jesus can meet you right there and someone walked into this place today you say well I know they don't recognize my stuff because I have all the soot and I have on these nice high-heeled shoes and I'm wearing this nice Baptist hata I'm looking good today if I just keep my mouth closed and trying to keep my eyes as dry as possible they won't see what I'm going through but the good news is that God loves you so much that he can see your stuff and we'll still come where you are and in this house today whether or not you've realized that we're sitting in the presence of an awesome and life-changing gun somebody shall he showed up and these men when they realize who it is they say that's the man that's making deaf people here that's the man that's allowing blind people to see that's the man that's making the lame walk that's the man that's making them you talk that's the man that's straightening out withered hands that's the man that's straightening up bend over backs that's the man and I think that if he can do it for them then he must be able to do it for us tell your neighbor this is real quickly never say neighbor thank you for being blessed tell them every time I see what the Lord can do for you then I said indication that if he can do it for you that he can do it for me now I've learned that people that get jealous have bad theology because if you understand the Bible that God is not a respecter of persons and sometimes God blesses your neighbor just to let you know he's in the neighborhood is there a witness here today that'll shout instead of me hating on you turning my nose up at you looking at you're crazy I'm going to say Lord I thank you because if you're blessing the person disclose to me I've got to be next in line you may be seated and so these men move from visitation to agitation because they say to themselves there's no way in the world that he can do that much for them and we have them we stay the same place we are he's too close to us for us not to see a change in our lives and at some point you got to get tired of being sick and tired and you say I came all the way to Alexandria Cross with all of these folks to sit in this pew have experienced the presence and the power of God in the singing and the worship he's too close to me for me to walk out of here with the same issue I had at five o'clock this morning he's too close for me for my marriage that stay on the rocks he's too close to me for my children not to get better he's too close to me for me to walk into work the same way I walked out on Friday afternoon he's too close to me is there anyone here that's made up your mind to see a difference today because you're in the presence of an all-knowing all-seeing all miracle-working God somebody shalt get agitated they got so agitated as they said okay I know it's against the law but let's go talk to her and they had the courage to step out of the boundaries and do what made other folk uncomfortable I think the quiet is saying earlier about undignified praise now the only issue with undignified praise is that sometimes it has to happen in the context of dignified people and in order for there to be an undignified praised birth down inside of you you've got to understand that my god means more to me than the dignified look that are around as sometimes when I think of the goodness of the God of my salvation excuse me as we say down south s OS scoot over son with those printed pumps because God deserves the worst shove their honor the glory the praise that's through his name and if you get upset you're gonna have to biscuit bite your lift scoot your legs over because I've got to give him the glory due his name and the men step out and I'm almost done can I preach about ten minutes is that cool and they sneak up behind Jesus and your Bible says that they say Jesus Oh master have mercy on us Jesus master have mercy on us Jesus master how mercy on us your agitation should lead to supplication Jesus master have now if you watch their prayer requests they were theologically sound first thing they said was Jesus the name Jesus means Jehovah saves get this they were saying in essence if anybody can save as you can first thing they said was Jesus second thing they called him was master somehow to say master they pointed to the sovereignty of Christ they pointed to the fact that whatever we deal with whatever hits our lives is still smaller than the God that stands over our lives and so as crazy as it may be as hard as it may be for me to overturn it to God I serve and the Jesus that I follow is able to do exceeding abundantly above all I can ask or think according to the power that's a work within me they recognized that God was bigger than what they think and then they said have mercy somebody shout mercy now this word mercy is very interesting word I love the word mercy because the word mercy points to a very interesting character trait of God appoints to this it suggests that the compassion of God overrides the Justice of God to keep moving the love agenda of God let me say it again that the compassion of God overrides the Justice of God so that it can continue to move forward they love agenda of God in other words let me put it like we put it down south that he looks beyond your faults and still supplies your need and they said Jesus the only way we're going to get healed if you can look over what we know you're supposed to not do but if you can look over my situation and have more love than you have legality then I'll be able to be changed I don't know about you but when I look at my own life I realize I give God every reason not to bless me not to keep me not to provide for me because I'm seeing I all have sins come come short of the glory of God I'm messed up I make mistakes but every morning I wake up I'm reminded that there's more mercy then there is justice and when the devil says let them sleep God on get up is there anyone here doc you're in testify I'm a recipient of God's mercy I faked him for His grace but I'm so glad that he'll look over my stuff and still move in my life and the men said if we gonna be blessed it won't be anything short of an act of mercy somebody shot Mercer and when Jesus looks at them he said go show yourselves to the priests now Reverend it doesn't make sense to show yourself to a priest if you haven't been cleansed Jesus tells them show yourself that now now now the actual process was sickness cleansing and then showing yourself to the priest but these men were sick and Jesus says show yourself but Jesus they're not qualified to show themselves to the priest and what Jesus said to them in essence was this if you're going to talk like I can do it then you need to learn how to act like I can do it this is moving from supplication to manifestation that instead of me just praying about and going and sitting on my blessed assurance that I've learned how to pray about it and start trusting God like I can do that's why the Hebrew writer said faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things and not seeing get this translated it means basically that faith is what reserves the spot for God's promise to show up and you believe the promise is going to show up to the extent that your act like is already on the way is there anybody here there's got enough faith to say I've got prayer requests on the altar before God and before the answers show them i'ma go ahead and act like God's gonna do it how would you act if the scholarship came through how would you act if your home got healed how would you act if the doctors say we can't find it anymore how would you act if you look at the 401k and then level back out how would you act if your family got together if there are witness in the balcony today that can start giving God glory before the answer show them act like God can do it and the Bible saved that the man looked at each other give me four more men down here better halfway in shape they looked at each other and the Bible says now follow my lead brothers that they took off running now these men were lepers can y'all do that you're close and they began to run now it didn't look like much when they began running they were still housing the same sickness but they kept running somebody here said I've trusted you for three weeks but I don't see a change yet tell your neighbor keep running and the Bible says that as they kept running that they began to get healed all of the sickness began to leave their bodies and the Bible say ISM that when they looked again they were hyuna is there a witness in the house that'll shout I'm a run until it changes my family I'm going to run until he changes my mind and when they look they saw that they were healed and as they ran the first man looked at the second man second man looked at the third and fourth man they were all running certain the fourth man looked at the fifth sixth and seventh man the fifth six or seven men looked at the eighth and ninth man but when they look for the tenth man they didn't see him because while he was running he said when I met Jesus I had leprosy but now I bet I've met Cesar's I'm able to run on the whole when I met Jesus my money was funny but since I've met Jesus I'm alright huh when I met Jesus I couldn't sleep at night but since I've met Jesus I've got peace that passes all understanding and he said before I see a priest I've got to make one more stop cannot vision like a fit because the priests didn't him the pastor then he'll miss the figures in helmand but when I see Jesus and the first thing that came from his mouth before we go hold on one second till neighbors say neighbor if you don't like loud Church you may want to leave right now now give you a second the first thing that came out of his mouth what I have some cousins I need you to heal wasn't do you have anything else you can do for me the first word out of his mouth was thank you if not anybody here that got an uncultured gotta love Kermit down on the banks to tell the Lord thank you for your goodness for your mercy thank you for your friends so - ah thank you in there are witness me Donna say Laura thank you for yesterday thank you for giving me if you hadn't stepped in don't know where our piece but your turn if there are brother in the house that'll shop thank you I can hear you is there brother in the house yourself thank you if you're wondering why I thank him you should have seen me when he found me if you only knew how far the Lord has changed my life if you only knew the joy I feel and the way they have and the love I have you would understand why i tell him i dare you alpha street to take a moment and start counting your blessings and in your own time in your own street begin to tell the lord thank you there were 10 that were healed but jesus says one came back where is the one that will say lord after all that you've performed in my life after saving me changing me I got to say thank you and the Bible says that he moved from praise to worship and he fell on his knees which shows us that is not enough to thank him with your mouth you got to thank him with the life he's given you he didn't save you for a church t-shirt he saved you so that you could live for him and love for him and change a world for his cause and that one that came back he says your faith has made you whole he said they got healed but you got whole they thought it was good enough to take my stuff but you didn't want my stuff without me and to be whole means that now the Lord has been given full access like we talked about last night to your life and in every way that you live you live for Jesus Christ my brother my sister when does the change come when you have real introspection and that introspection helps you to see the visitation in such a way that you end up with an agitation that leads to supplication and that supplication gets worked out in your manifestation and ultimately you see transformation may the Lord bless your Alfre Street and may the Lord keep you as out you

Channel: Alfred Street Baptist Church

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Length: 36min 26sec (2186 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 21 2013