Rev. David Holwick ZD Series: It's Up To Me
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
September 29, 2013
Ezekiel 18:23-32
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I. It is the fence's fault.
A. Plane stupid.
When Louis Kadlecek turned 21, he went on a bender, drinking
for four days straight.
He was familiar with the Brazoria County (Texas) Airport,
since that's where he performed community service after
"one of his previous arrests."
He went there, broke into several hangers and stole a plane.
Kadlecek, who had never flown a plane before, loaded it with
a case of stolen beer, threw the instruction manual on the
seat beside him, and took off.
Within a mile he hit twin 100,000-volt power lines.
The first one snapped and knocked out electricity to two
towns.
The second one caught his plane and sent it tail-first into
a muddy field.
Louis was pretty loose, and crawled out of the plane unharmed.
The airport's director said, "If stunt pilots tried 1,000
times to do the same thing, they would have been killed
999 times."
Kadlecek blamed poor airport security for his actions.
"If there had even been a tall chain link fence with barbed
wire on top of it, I would have just turned around and
went on home," he claimed.
The jury didn't buy it, and he got six years in prison.
Apparently he didn't believe it himself because when the
police came for him, he had his toothbrush in hand.
Many of us need fences.
The Ten Commandments provides this kind of boundary but it is
no guarantee you won't be stupid.
Even fences with barbed wire can be overcome.
#27383
B. God wants us to live according to his standards.
1) He has created a moral universe with plenty of fences.
a) Certain rules must be followed.
b) If those rules are broken, there are consequences.
2) We sometimes feel God just likes thumping on us.
a) However, he is not a super-nun with a mile-long ruler.
1> He wants us to succeed and be happy.
b) Any divine punishment has the goal of bringing us back
to a good life.
C. He has given us the ability to thwart his fences.
1) We can disobey God if we wish.
2) God allows it, but it does not make him happy, as the
prophet Ezekiel puts it.
3) God has created us to be responsible for ourselves.
a) Every person needs to know what God expects of them.
b) There are at least three areas of life you need to
get a handle on.
II. I am responsible for my moral choices.
A. Most of us are aware of the basic Ten Commandments.
1) Don't kill people, don't commit adultery, don't steal.
2) If you do these things, you might get away with it.
a) No lightning bolts will strike you dead.
b) Maybe no one will find out about it.
1> The Bible itself says sin can be lots of fun --
for a while.
2> But God knows. And God will bring you to judgment.
A> Sometimes wives find out, too.
B. It goes beyond simple prohibitions and right-and-wrong.
1) Choose to be just in dealing with people. 22:7
2) Choose to be honest in everything you do.
3) Choose to be compassionate, even to people who are mean.
III. I am responsible for my physical choices.
A. Much of our pain in life is self-inflicted.
1) There are things we have some control over:
a) Our diet.
b) Our exercise.
c) Our entertainment habits.
1> Being a couch potato doesn't extend your life.
2) We recognize we have our own special challenges.
a) Genetics and social background do have an impact on
the choices we face.
b) But they do not rule us - we can overcome them if we
are disciplined.
B. Your mind controls much of what happens in your body.
1) Choose to be balanced in the way you think.
2) Fill your mind with positive thoughts.
3) Be forgiving and loving.
IV. I am responsible for my spiritual choices.
A. There are many potential faiths and philosophies.
1) America especially has been a melting pot of ideas.
2) Other faiths can come right up to your door.
a) This week I saw two ladies get out of a car and amble
up to a house across the street.
b) I knew right away what they were - Jehovah's Witnesses.
3) With all these options, what will you choose?
B. We are a group of people who have chosen the way of Jesus.
1) You may have had been bent this way by your family.
a) Dragged to church and Sunday School.
b) Summer camp at Lebanon and Baptist Youth Fellowship.
2) A spiritual foundation from your family can be a good thing.
a) We all need to start some place.
b) But we are not prisoners of our families.
1> Perhaps your parents were a bunch of uptight
religious kooks.
A> Your salvation does not depend on them.
B> You make your own way.
2> We can think and investigate on our own.
c) God will hold you responsible for what you do with
Jesus. John 14:6 - "No one comes to the Father
except through me."
C. Don't stay ignorant.
1) Educate yourself in your faith.
a) We have plenty of Bible studies available throughout
the week.
b) Other churches do as well.
c) You can understand the Bible with a little effort.
2) Put your faith into practice.
a) At our annual conference yesterday, Rev. Spitzer
mentioned that 64% of people in New Jersey go to
church less than once a month, if at all.
b) Going to church is a good thing, but it is not enough.
c) Do something beyond Sunday worship attendance.
1> Get involved in a ministry like the youth group
or the homeless dinners.
2> Everyone can do something. Everyone must.
3> An appropriate poem:
One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there were seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore.
But then some stranger prints appeared,
And I asked the Lord, "What have we here?"
Those prints are large and round and neat,
"But Lord, they are too big for feet."
"My child," He said in somber tones,
"For miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait."
"You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know,
So I got tired, I got fed up,
And there I dropped you on your butt."
"Because in life, there comes a time,
When one must fight, and one must climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand."
#7344
V. Is it an unfair system?
A. The Jews thought so. 18:29
1) Several times in this chapter they call God's system unjust.
a) Ezekiel is preaching to Jews who are living in exile.
1> They wanted to blame their ancestors for the
calamity that had come upon them.
2> They saw themselves as victims of heredity.
3> Someone else was responsible, not them.
b) Many people today have the same attitude.
1> I am a victim. My parents or God are to blame.
2> Researcher Terry Shulman did a study of compulsive
shoplifters.
He found a common denominator among them is a sense
of victimization, of having been unfairly taken
from in their lives.
He interviewed thousands of them, and found they
felt that life was unfair and they were entitled
to something extra for their suffering.
The stores owed them.
#35231
2) The reality is that we are the ones violating the rules.
a) It is not your parents' or grandparents' fault.
b) We are personally responsible for our standing with God.
B. The system cuts both ways.
1) People can change in either direction.
a) Righteous people who turn to sin will be punished.
1> Past status won't help them.
b) People who repent get a clean slate and renewed life.
2) Current actions trump past status.
C. Salvation by works?
1) More specifically, it would be judgment by works.
2) This passage is not talking about earning salvation, but
the consequences of sin in everyday life.
a) Death here is primarily physical death resulting from
sins.
b) God doesn't want anyone to die this way. 18:23
1> He wants us to live, but we resist him.
VI. Invitation to live.
A. The call to repent.
1) Change is possible.
2) The modern world seems to dispute this.
a) Our habits are too ingrained.
b) We are prisoners of biology.
c) Jesus says otherwise.
1> We can be born again.
B. We can't do it on our own.
1) We need a new heart and a new spirit.
2) God makes this available to us.
3) He wants us to choose it!
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 7344 “Butt Prints in the Sand,” author unknown; Roddy Chestnut
Collection.
#27383 “Plane Stupid,” adapted from article in FoxNews.com, March 5, 2004.
<http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/03/05/drunken-pilot-is-plane-stupid/>.
Also see <http://forums.jetphotos.net/showthread.php?t=14259>.
#35231 “Shoplifters See Themselves As Victims,” Benoit Denizet Lewis,
The Week magazine, February 13, 2009, page 40.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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