Touching Lives With Dr. James Merritt

Do you know what a day trader is? These are high-risk investors who jump in and out of the stock markets often many times a day and they try to capitalize on price changes in the market. They have no interest in the companies of the stocks they are buying. They are just simply trying to make a buck. There are a lot of people in the church today who are day traders. They don’t know very much about God. They claim to have made some sort of a decision about Jesus, but they have never really surrendered their life to Him. They jump into church when they feel like they need to and jump back out when they don’t. They just want a God who will give them dividends in the form of blessings and leave them alone. That is exactly the kind of faith that is as worthless as a Christmas gift you got twenty years ago that no longer fits. I don’t want that kind of faith. And I’m sure you don’t either. Instead, I want us to have a redeeming faith, a renewing faith, a reviving faith. And I want to show you today the marks of a re

As we wrap up this series on the family, I want to speak directly to the children. Whether you’re still living at home with your parents, or if you’ve moved out and started your own life but still have your parents around, this message is for you. If you are a child of God, then your goal should be to be a godly child. And while that is a responsibility you should take seriously, it’s also a responsibility your parents share with you to an extent. It takes godly parents to do their best to have godly children. Godly parents must provide leadership, and godly children should give followship. Again, if you are a child of God, your goal should be to be a godly child. So with that in mind, I’m going to give you three things you need to do to be a godly child.

So far in this series, we have talked to husbands, wives, and fathers. Today, we are going to talk to and about mothers. I know from both having one and being married to one that the dad may be the head of the home, but the mother is the heart of the home. I read one time where someone said, “A mother is she who can take the place of all others, but whose place no one else can take.” That being said, it’s a tough task to be a mom, but thankfully Scripture gives us a great picture of what it looks like to be a model mom. In this message, we’re going to look at this example and learn from this model mom how to navigate through the tough times of life in such a way that the peace of God will comfort you, the joy of God will bless you, and the power of God will strengthen you.

I love what President Franklin Roosevelt said: “We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.” In the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul gives fathers the best advice and wisdom on how to be the father your children need you to be. In a simple but sublime sentence, Paul shares with us four things we need to give our children to be the parents we ought to be.

Last week we talked about how husbands should give their wives leadership, love, and loyalty. We have already noted that Paul had a lot of strong things to say to the husband, even more so than he did to the wife. But now let’s now turn our attention to the wife. Paul lays out two principles for a godly wife to follow to be the wife that God wants her to be and to be the wife that her husband needs her to be.

I don’t believe there has ever been a marriage in the history of the world that did not end up happily ever after when the wife was the wife God wanted her to be and the husband was the husband that God wanted him to be. This week and next week, we are going to see what Scripture has to say about what it looks like exactly to be the kind of husband and the kind of wife God wants. In Ephesians 5, we begin with the husband. It is extremely important to note that Paul takes more time and gives more space to what he says to the husband than he does to the wife. In fact, he says three times as much to the husband as he does to the wife. So let’s look at what exactly a good, godly husband is to do for his wife.

Marriage is tough. Marriage is hard work. Dating reveals the best in you; marriage can reveal the worst of you. But that doesn’t mean marriage isn’t worth pursuing. Marriage was God’s ideal idea. It was His creation, and therefore it is meant for good. Does that mean it doesn’t come with challenges? Absolutely not. But it does mean that marriage can be an incredible tool of sanctification and a beautiful model of God’s relationship with us if we will lean into learning how God intended marriage to be. So with this in mind, let’s take a look at three principles of love and marriage we need to recapture in the present day.

As we wrap up this series, I’m going to share with you a one-on- one encounter that happened two thousand years ago that gives us the perfect example of how to engage people one-on-one with the gospel. God did not allow you to hear about what Jesus did for you, believe what Jesus did for you, and move you to accept what Jesus did for you just so you could just keep it to yourself. Salvation is not to be stored; it is to be shared. Not only is every Christian commanded to do evangelism, to share the Gospel, to tell other people about Christ, but God has also equipped every one of us to do it and given us the tools that we need. Let’s look at three steps we can take to share the gospel with others.

In today’s key passage of Scripture, Jesus is talking to two groups of people – sinners and Pharisees (people who were banned from going to church and people who never missed it.) One group was so bad they didn’t think God would ever accept them. The other group was so good that they thought God had already accepted them, but they were wrong, so He told this parable. Another misnomer is that the story is about either son. It really isn’t. The main character of the story is the father. The father is mentioned twelve times in twenty verses. He is the real hero of the story. The story is not so much about a sinning son or a bitter brother, but a forgiving father. Of course, the father represents God. The whole point of the parable is very simple. The Father’s door is always open and the Father’s message is always “Welcome.” The parable actually falls neatly into three different parts that tell us about the heart of our wonderful God. Let’s look at each of those parts now.

In probably the most famous parable Jesus ever told he shows us why if we have the heart of God, we will have a heart for one - for that one person who doesn’t know God, for that one person who needs to hear the gospel, for that one person who is lost and needs to be found. The problem was that the religious crowd only cared about the people who were in the temple while on the other hand, Jesus cared about the one that was outside the temple. The religious crowd built walls; Jesus built bridges. The religious crowd locked the doors to the church. Jesus took the doors out because Jesus was looking out for number one, except number one was not Himself. Number one was others. I want to challenge you today to begin looking out for number one like Jesus did, and we’ll learn from today’s key passage why we should, how we can, and what happens when we do.

Every day of your life is just like money – you spend it. You can’t save it and you can’t store it. You have to spend it and you either spend it wisely or foolishly and the way we spend the days of our life will determine the legacy that we leave. So how would you like to leave a legacy? You want to be able to look back on your life and say at the end of the day, you have no remorse, no regret, no retreat, right? You want to hear one day from the God that created you, “Well done good and faithful servant.” Well, for those things to happen, we must determine to do three things.

What did Jesus mean by “the abundant life” in today’s key verse? I know what He didn’t mean. It is not a life that is found in stuff, money, possessions, or financial security. When Jesus called the disciples to follow Him, every one of them left everything behind. Even though He promised them an abundant life, He never offered them financial security, physical comfort, a retirement plan, health insurance, and certainly no health and wealth gospel. He didn’t even promise them a long life because many of them died early. Here is what He meant. The abundant life (the only life worth living) is a life lived in, through, and for Jesus. In this message, we are going to learn from these disciples as we think about how to live the only life worth living.

The first question we are going to tackle in this series is, “What Lord am I going to love?” I freely admit that this question carries an assumption that I believe is true. We all worship and love something or someone above everything else. Whoever or wherever that is, is your lord. That lord may be your ego, your money, your family, your job, power, influence, pleasure, happiness, and even your own life. This first question I believe is the fundamental question that determines the answer to the other two questions. So let’s dive in.

Bitterness is harbored hurt hidden in the heart. Of all the emotions I will cover, I believe this one may be the most dangerous. I fear bitterness in my life more than anything else. Do you know why? Because bitterness is an acid that destroys its own container. In a New Testament book called Hebrews 12 there is some strong warning about the danger of bitterness, but also some great wisdom on how to deal with bitterness. If you are bitter now, you will be better later.

As we continue our series on feelings and emotions, today we are going to look at anxiety. I would define anxiety as a lethal combination of worry and fear that dominate your mind, saturate your heart, and devastate your soul. We are abiding in fear. It is that feeling that continues to linger long after the actual threat or fear has dissipated. It is a far greater intensity than just worried. People use worry and anxiety interchangeably. However, they are very different psychological states. According to Psychology Today, “Worry tends to be more focused on thoughts in our heads, while anxiety is more visceral, in that we feel it throughout our bodies.” The good news is a man with flesh and blood, sitting in a Roman prison, facing certain death, knowing he probably wouldn’t get out of that prison alive and not knowing what day he would die understood anxiety. In a book called Philippians, he gives us a four-step process on how to calm your nerves.

God’s word has a lot to say about our feelings and our emotions. One of the things I love about Scripture is that when God paints the portraits of his men and women, they are not photoshopped. You see warts and wrinkles. You see flaws and faults. Today, we are going to look at one of the most famous men in the Bible – a prophet named Elijah. If God had a Hall of Fame, Elijah would easily be elected on the first ballot. He had so much of the power and presence of God in his life. He is the first person in the Bible to raise a person from the dead. But Elijah also had some troubles in life. As we are about to see, he was so depressed that he was suicidal. But in today’s message, we are going to look at how Elijah managed to get out of that valley, and with God’s help so can you. Elijah found in God a bridge over the troubled waters of depression that is still available to us today.

Being thankful is so important to God that He actually commands us to be thankful. A man in the New Testament by the name of Paul went through a tremendous amount of suffering and heartache that would cause anybody to be bitter and ungrateful and maybe even mad at God. He wrote these words, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (I Thessalonians 5:18) You may not feel very thankful right now because of where you are in your life. Even though you may not feel thankful you can be thankful. This great man tells us how to be thankful and why to be thankful.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the greatest writers and poets in American history said, “Every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty-seconds of peace of mind.” Not only do I agree with that statement, but I will candidly admit I have given up a lot of time of peace of mind. I can get angry, and I know I am not the only one. Thankfully, God’s Word has a lot to say about anger. In the book of Ephesians, Paul gives a prescription for those of us who are temper challenged to practice divine anger management. For many of us, by the grace of God, it can be done, it should be done, and it will be done if we will take three steps.

Jesus came to give us joy, peace, satisfaction, and contentment. Paul understood that probably better than anyone, even as he was writing from a Roman prison, when he wasn’t going anywhere and was stuck where he was. He wasn’t going to have any more than what he had, and he certainly had no computer and no cellphone. He pens this letter by talking about how he had found the secret of satisfaction. If Paul had died with his last words he would have been totally satisfied. There are three things we can do to live a life of total satisfaction according to Paul, and my prayer is that we all learn to implement these things in our lives so we can be totally satisfied as well.

The question now before us in today’s message is this: How can you bear the fruit of joy that you have to handle, with all the problems that you have to solve, with all the people that you have to deal with? A man who is in prison, under the threat of death every day, not knowing whether he would live or die, from one day to the next, wrote the perfect prescription for how to get stress out when you are stressed out. Paul gives us four steps to follow if we want to experience stress relief, and I can guarantee that your life will be richer, better, and sweeter if you practice these steps on a daily basis.