4-22-2016

Good Morning All!! 

           Romans 1:16; “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”

    I have always been a fan of western movies, old or new it really doesn’t matter.  I even like the oddball, offbeat western.  I even liked the last remake of “The Lone Ranger” with Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer.  One of my favorite scenes has The Lone Ranger and Tonto face to face with three second rate bad guys.  Tonto has a knife and The Lone Ranger has his pistol drawn.  Tonto whispers, “I’ll take that one and you shoot the other two.”  The Lone Ranger whispers back that he hasn’t fired a gun in a number of years.  Tonto, with a wide eyed look of fear and surprise whispers back, “Might want to keep that to yourself, Kemosabe.”  Tonto thought it best that the bad guys didn’t know how bad a shot The Lone Ranger was; it would be embarrassing at best.

    Since watching that movie, there have been many times when I thought that and a couple of times when I said it.  A close friend told me about a time when she didn’t sleep well for a while.  One morning she found herself using toothpaste for skin moisturizer.  I giggled and told her, “Might want to keep that to yourself, Kemosabe.”  A short while ago, I was talking to a father/son farming team.  They told of how they drove 2½ hours to look at a corn planter, looked at it for over an hour before they realized the corn planter was a 12 row planter and not a 16 row planter.  I smiled but inside I thought, “Might want to keep that to yourself, Kemosabe.”

    Of course the truth is that we all have done something embarrassing.  We have all done something that leaves us red in the face when we think about it and others seem to find more humor in it than we had hoped.  It left us as the focus of friendly chiding and giggling.  We usually wish, in the end, that we had just never said anything or that no one had seen anything.  While there are many times we have been embarrassed, hopefully, your faith is one of them.

     Yet if we are honest, being ashamed of the Gospel has probably happened a time or two to us as well.  Maybe it was a group of people we didn’t know and we “didn’t want to make a fuss.”  Perhaps it was in front of someone we wanted to impress or was our boss and we “didn’t want to make any waves.”  There are lots of excuses but no true reason to be ashamed.  The Gospel of Jesus is what gives us hope and gives us comfort.  Because of the Gospel of Jesus we have peace in this world.  No matter how tossed about we get or how mixed up or twisted or vile or evil that the world gets; we have peace knowing that Jesus has overcome the world.  That is nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed by.  It is where we find our strength in this broken world.  

Gracious Father, give me strength that I may never be ashamed of you.  Give me strength that I may never be ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus.  Let my light shine.  Help me to be a beacon for my family and friends.  Help me to live a life of trust and hope in your Word that others will know that my peace comes from You.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret