COLS Mrs. Minnie Mae Payne

David said in Psalm 116:15, Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His godly ones {saints}. The NIRV reads, “The LORD pays special attention when His faithful ones die.” Of course Mrs. Minnie Mae is not dead, it appears that she is but that is an illusion. Jesus told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life, anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Matter of fact, Jesus said, Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. There is no death in His presence. He is the resurrection and the life. The only death in eternity is the second death which is a result of rejecting Jesus. It is an eternal separation from God, otherwise, there is no death in eternity. Jesus told the Sadduccees, 

37 “But now, as to whether the dead will be raised—even Moses proved this when he wrote about the burning bush. Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, he referred to the Lord as ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’

38 So he is the God of the living, not the dead, for they are all alive to him.”

So, we are not mourning Mrs. Payne’s death, we are celebrating her life. Her life on earth has passed as will ours but she is more alive today than ever. I love John Newton the author of AMAZING GRACE. His last words were: I am in the world of the dying but I am going to the world of the living.” We have funeral homes here on earth but there are none in heaven, it is the land of the living.

When I think about Mrs. Minnie Mae’s life here with us, the one word that comes to my mind is LOVE. In honor of her, I want to read a portion of I Corinthians 13 from the New International Readers Version:

1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.

3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud

5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Mrs. Minne Mae epitomized this love that Paul so eloquently describes. With the one exception of Jesus, there is nothing in this world like a mother’s love. I’m going to have to be honest today. There are a lot of things that I don’t remember. I do remember Daddy Bob. I remember his kindness, his gentleness. I remember that he was always at Melonie and Jamie’s ball games. He never missed. I remember that he was like a father to Judy. I also remember that he loved to fish. BUT…

I do not remember his COLS. I do not remember what I said at that service. I do not remember writting a poem about Daddy Bob but the girls remembered and perhaps Mrs. Payne did also. I don’t know. For some strange reason that I do not understand, Mrs. Payne loved me much more than I realized. As a matter of fact, I had no idea that this woman loved me unconditionally until Bro. Steve started picking at me in front of others which he should not have done. He said, “We have a lady in our church who loves Bro. Jack. She tells me that he is her favorite preacher.” He said that in front of a group of men but he would not tell me who he was talking about. It was probably a year later, on a Wednesday night that Jan and I figured it out.

Children, I can’t tell you how much I appreciated your mother’s love. You would have to be a preacher to understand. Preachers don’t have a lot of friends, not when it comes to defending your integrity or honor. Jan gave me the deiciding clue when she said, “No one had better critizise you around my mother.”Do you know what most Baptist do when their pastor is critizise, they pile on. CHILDREN remember, your mother was special to me and I can say that, I am retired. She was special simply because she loved me unconditioally just like she loved you. I FILL BLESSED. 

Before I sit down: I want to wash Bro. Steve’s feet although he did me wrong by keeping me in suspense and bringing this up in front of a group of men. Bro. Steve is a great pastor as his people know. He went above and beyond with Mrs. Minnie Mae. He used his vacation time to look up one of her all friends and then he brought back pictures for Mrs. Payne. He made her day. Mrs. Minnie Mae loved him too, she seemed to have an infinite supply of love, just like her SAVIOR

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Doubting God’s Love

Scripture Text: Malachi 1:1-5

1 This is the message that the Lord gave to Israel through the prophet Malachi. ² “I have always loved you,” says the Lord. But you retort, “Really? How have you loved us?” And the Lord replies, “This is how I showed my love for you: I loved your ancestor Jacob, ³ but I rejected his brother, Esau, and devastated his hill country. I turned Esau’s inheritance into a desert for jackals.”

⁴ Esau’s descendants in Edom may say, “We have been shattered, but we will rebuild the ruins.” But the Lord of Heaven’s Armies replies, “They may try to rebuild, but I will demolish them again. Their country will be known as ‘The Land of Wickedness,’ and their people will be called ‘The People with Whom the Lord Is Forever Angry.’ ⁵ When you see the destruction for yourselves, you will say, ‘Truly, the Lord’s greatness reaches far beyond Israel’s borders!’”

INTRODUCTION

If we have a firm conviction that God loves us, we can bear any burden and endure any storm but if we begin to doubt God’s love, our faith begins to falter. Remember, a strong or healthy faith must be maintained. In a way, faith is like a muscle, it must be nurtured and exercised or it atrophies.

Growing up I was a bit of a rebellious child. Not mean but a kind of a dare devil and very hardheaded. My mother was very strict, daddy not so much. I got whipped more than my seven sibling combined. A got a beating on a weekly basis. As a kid, I had doubts about my parents love. I seriously doubted Mother’s because of the beatings. In today’s culture, my mother would be arrested for child abuse.

I had a special place I would go after a whipping. I would sit on the ground with my face on my knees and cry. There were times when I prayed, “LORD, why don’t my mother love me?” Then I grew up. By the time I was 17, I had decided not to give my mother anymore grief. I began being nice to her and showing her respect. I discovered something shocking: My mother was very fond of me. She did love me and became my best friend. When I left home at age 22, I knew my mother loved me. Through the years I have battled some storms, some of my own making, but I never doubted [during those bad times] that my mother loved me.

As we will see tonight, the Jews had a childish faith. There were going through some difficult times and they were doubting God’s love.  If you are doubting God’s love, I want to give you some tips on how to overcome that doubt.

I. FOCUS ON THE PERSON OF GOD

Sometimes we focus too much on Gods activity but our first focus should be on WHO HE IS

GOD is first and foremost Holy. Everything else about God is predicated on His holiness. God is also a God of love. I John 4:8…But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. I John 4:16…God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. John 3:16…For God so loved the world…Romans 5:8…But God showed {demonstrated, synistēmi, to stand side by side, along side, with} his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

1. God loves us with an eternal love, He has always loved us.
2. God loves us with a sovereign love...it is His choice, prerogative.
3. God loves us with a super natural love…The N.T. writers created a word to distinguish God’s love from all human loves. The word is Agape. 

Peter loved Jesus but not completely, not perfectly. Peter declared, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.” [Jesus reply] “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.” “No!” Peter insisted. “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!” And all the other disciples vowed the same.

Who loved who the most? Did Peter love Jesus more than Jesus loved Peter? Of course not!

We are talking about two different brands of love–one is human and the other divine. Jesus does not love us the way we love HIM. His love is perfect, complete and totally unconditional. His love can never be earned or deserved.

II. FOCUS ON THE WORD OF GOD

In the book of Malachi, the LORD speaks more than Malachi; we see God speaking twice in verse 2. Reading, studying, ingesting and obeying God’s word is paramount to our faith. Our faith grows when we feast on God’s word.

Every believer is tempted to doubt. The Jewish Religious leaders knew that they knew they were saved. One huge problem, they rejected Jesus. Even Jesus was tempted with doubt but we cannot allow doubt to become a stronghold; the devil will use it to cripple our faith. I read the word of God daily. My goal is to spend more time in the word than in any other single activity. I read the bible much more than I do books and I rarely read a news paper or fiction. Most news papers are fiction. I am not guilty of wasting time watch fake news. I love to read and study God’s word. This passion did not happen over night. You might not believe it but 25 years ago, I only read the bible to preach and teach. Today, I study the bible for pure enjoyment.

Let me remind you that Eve’s first temptation was to doubt the goodness and benevolence of God, to doubt that He loved her. Remember this passage in Genesis chapter three:

¹The serpent was more clever than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. The serpent said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat fruit from any tree in the garden?”

² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. ³ But God did say, ‘You must not eat the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden. Do not even touch it. If you do, you will die.’ ”

⁴ “You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “God knows that when you eat fruit from that tree, you will know things you have never known before. Like God, you will be able to tell the difference between good and evil.”

Notice what the devil is doing: he is impugning the integrity of God’s word. It was a calculated and malicious attack on the God’s spoken word. In so doing, he cast doubt not only on God’s word but upon His essential goodness. Eve made a tradgic mistake, she put more stock in the devil’s word than she did God’s.

Remember, Satan tempted Jesus with doubt and how did Jesus respond? With the word of God.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. ² For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry.

³ During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.”

⁴ But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone,
    but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

So if you are having doubts about God’s love for you, get into the word.

III. FOCUS ON WHAT GOD HAS DONE

The Jews were focused on their circumstances which were not good. They had been back in the homeland for 70 years and things were no better than when they first returned. Taxes were high, the economy was bad, they had to mortgage their farms and some had to sell their children into slavery just to survive. They were surrounded by folks that despised them and they were being oppressed by wealthy Jews within the community. It was not suppose to be this way. Their disappointment in the circumstances had changed to cynicism and apathy. They continued to go through the motions of worship but they were not focused on God, they were focused on themselves. Actually, they were being intellectually dishonest with themselves.

1. They had not put God first as was indicated by the offering they were bringing. The offering lame, blind and even stolen animals. They were offering things that cost them nothing.
2. They were singing but they had no real enthusiasm, they giving lip service. Their hearts were far from God.
3. They were not being obedient to Scripture and the priest were setting a horrible example.
4. They were not living by faith as was indicated by their refusal to tithe.

To top it all off: they are angry with God for not blessing them with prosperity and power. There attitude toward God was very selfish…“What have you done for us lately?”

For just a few moments; I want us all to focus on what GOD HAS ALREADY DONE. Let’s stop thinking about what He has not done and focus on what He has already done. For the Jews of Malachi’s day the list would look something like this…

1. God had miraculously preserved the Jews in bondage. He saved the Hebrew children from the fire, Daniel from the Lions den and the entire population from Haman who planned to exterminate the Jewish population.
2. God moved the heart of a pagan king to release them from bondage and give them back the articles that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple and to fund the rebuilding of the temple.Wow!
3. God gave them a safe trip home. A 900 mile journey through dangerous territory.
4. God gave them leaders to rebuild the Temple.
5. God sent Nehemiah to rebuild the wall.
6. God sent Malachi to confront them with their sins.

When God miraculously delivered the Israelites from Pharaoh and they crossed the Red Sea with God parting the waters for their safe passage, they sang praises on the North bank when they saw the Egyptian army floating in the water but three days later they are angry with God and Moses because they have no water. They had a three day faith.

All they had to do was stop and think about what God had already done for them but they were too immature and could not look back and give thanks.

CONCLUSION

Right now, I want you to bow your head and close your eyes. I want you to think about who God is and what He has already done for you. Primarily, I want you to go back 2,000 years to the cross. I want you to think about what God did for you in Christ.

1. He paid for your sins, all of them.
2. He broke the power of sin in your life.
3. He conquered death and the gave in your behalf.
4. He gave you peace.
5. He gave you hope.

Because of what Jesus did for you: [1] you can’t die [2] you cannot go to hell [3] and you will never be alone or forsaken. Stop focusing on all the things that are going wrong and focus on Christ and His great love for you.