Touching Lives With Dr. James Merritt

When God created the universe, there were no leftovers. There are no excess stars or planets. There is not too much water in the oceans and not too much land on the earth. Everything fits perfectly. Just as God doesn’t waste anything, He doesn’t want us to waste any experience we have in life, whether it is a good one or a bad one. He wants us to use it for the good of others and for His glory. The question is, “How do you do that?” A man by the name of Paul had a Ph.D. in sorrow, suffering, trials, and tribulations. Paul was an expert on what it meant to be comforted, and he had plenty of experience in needing to be. He experienced everything from emotional suffering, to physical sickness, to spiritual sorrow. Out of it, God taught him one of the most valuable lessons we can ever learn. God wants to use your misery for ministry. So if you currently find yourself in a place full of hurt and heartache, here is what you need to do.

In today’s key passage of Scripture, we read about a boy named Daniel and the predicament he found himself in as he shared a meal with the Babylonian king. He was offered food and wine from the king, but something deep in his soul told him not to accept the offerings. Why would he draw a line at eating the king’s food and drinking the king’s wine? There have been all kinds of speculation and reasons given, but we are not specifically told. One thing we do know is that in Middle Eastern culture, when you sat down to eat a meal, particularly with a ruler or a king, you were pledging loyalty to the king, but there was only one King and that was God. It appears as if Daniel is out of options. Yet here we learn a lesson about lines we find in the dirt of our own lives. As you go through life, you will find God-drawn lines that the world will tempt you to cross. When you stay on the God side, you will stay on the good side. If that’s the side you want to stay on, then pay close attention and follow where Daniel put

Do your thoughts of God glorify Him or grieve Him? Do your prayers to God bless Him or insult Him? Does your giving show you trust God enough to give Him your tithe and believe He will meet all your needs? A. W. Tozer said: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” How would you answer that question? If you need help or a starting point in coming up with your answer, a king named David wrote a song that gives us the most exhaustive description of the greatness of God found in the Bible. As we study this passage of Scripture today, we are going to learn why the greatest knowledge we can ever have is the knowledge of just how great God is. And as we do, we’re going to be able to get a little closer to answering the question, “How great is our God?”

Big things come in little packages. For instance, even though today’s key passage is only one verse, in three sentences it answers the big question of how God wants us to live in the meantime. In order to properly understand this verse, we need to remember something as believers. A follower of Jesus is someone who has responded to the gospel. The gospel is that Jesus died for our sin and was physically raised from the dead. If we repent of our sins and place our faith in him, we will be saved, forgiven, receive eternal life, and have a relationship with God. What a lot of Christians fail to understand is that is where the gospel starts, not where the gospel ends. The gospel not only tells us how we are to relate to God; it then tells us how we are to relate to others. In other words, there is a vertical appropriation of the gospel that is to be followed by a horizontal application of the gospel. Jesus set a great example of what this looks like during His time on earth. He literally came to seek and to save t

You may be living with guilt today, but you don’t have to live with guilt tomorrow. Let me say upfront there is no human cure for the problem of guilt, because the cause of all guilt is sin and only God can deal with sin. Sin is the wound. Guilt is the infection. There is only one cure for guilt and the best doctors, surgeons, psychiatrists, counselors, psychologists and advisors and medicines in the entire world cannot cure this illness. There is only one cure for guilt and that is forgiveness. There is only one source of true forgiveness and that is God. We are going to learn more about that truth as we study Psalm 51 in this message and learn how we can say goodbye to guilt and have a clean slate.

The crisis of loneliness is as grave a threat to public health as obesity or substance abuse. Research tells us that lonely people are more likely to become ill, experience cognitive decline, and died early. Feeling lonely results in a sixty-percent increased risk of functional decline and a forty-five percent greater risk of death. If you battle loneliness, you are in company with the man who wrote these words in a book in the Bible called “Psalms.” Imagine you are a counselor, and you hear him say this, “I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof” (Psalm 102:6-7). What is his problem? Loneliness. He felt like an isolated owl wondering out loud, “Who gives a hoot?” Hearing those words, you might be saying, “That is exactly how I feel.” If it is, I have good news. There is a way up, and there is a way out of your loneliness. Let’s find it together.

It is very, very difficult to stand up straight against the blast of jealousy. We all have read how the Pharisees made sure Jesus was crucified, but do you know what the primary motive was? Matthew 27:18 says, “For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.” That word there for “envy” is the word that literally means “jealousy.” What drove the nails through the body of Jesus was the hammer of jealousy. Jealousy does kill. It kills marriages, friendships, and families. It is said that jealousy is the ace up Satan’s sleeve. This green-eyed monster is a giant, but God specializes in slaying giants. So let’s take a look at how we can slay this green-eyed monster.

Stress is the gap between what we face and what we think we can face. It is the difference in what we believe we must do versus what we believe we can do. You can call it the “stress factor.” It is the canyon between the “ought to” and the belief we “can’t do.” Basically, a medical doctor put it simply, “A person’s stress level has to do with what a person believes.” There is ancient advice that was given almost three millennia ago by a prophet named Isaiah who was facing along with his nation an unbelievable time of stress. Isaiah gives us a divine prescription for stress that comes from the heart of God. So when life becomes unbearable, the storm gets too strong, your rope of hope has been cut in half and you feel like throwing in the towel, here is how to have stress success.

If I asked you, “What are you worried about right now?” you could tell me something very quickly. We’re all worried about something. Worry never seems to go away. Fortunately, Jesus had a lot to say about worry. A big portion of the greatest sermon ever preached in the history of the world was geared toward worry. So as we look at that sermon, Jesus is going to tell us how to conquer our worries by making sure we take care of just three days in our lives – yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Forty percent of the people who make New Year’s resolutions break them by the end of January. Seventy-five percent will have broken them by Valentine’s Day. That is why I want to propose that what we need is not a New Year’s resolution, but a New Year’s revolution - real change that can mean a happy new you for this happy New Year. A man by the name of Paul sitting in a Roman prison of all places gives us a perfect way to do that. In Philippians chapter 3, he gives us three simple things that if we do them on a daily basis every day can bring a happy new you. They are doable, all achievable and all possible. What is really great is if you will do these things, they will not necessarily take you where you think you need to go, but they will take you farther than that. They will take you where God wants you to go.

If you are like me, you have had moments in your life when you can’t help but ask, “God, where are you?” Even worse, is when you find yourself asking, “God, what good are you?” or “God, are you really good?” After all, we think “If you are a good God and I’m trying to be a good person, why do these bad things happen to me?” Then to make things worse, a pastor like me steps up to a platform and looks at people like you and says, “Don’t worry. Things that are breaking bad will eventually be breaking good.” My late dad used to say to me all the time, “Son, I’ve learned it all works out for the good in the end.” Honestly, that sounds cold, calloused, and even somewhat condescending when it is actually meant to be comforting. But what if it is true? What if things that are breaking bad will ultimately break good? That’s what we’re going to look at in today’s message as dive into Romans 8:28-29.

In the first chapter of his gospel, John makes it plain that this baby that was born was none other than God in the flesh. That is the “So what?” of Christmas. We answered that “So What?” question in the first two messages. Today, we deal with the “Now What?” and the answer to the first question gives us the answer to the second question. Jesus was born into a human family so that we might be born into heaven’s family. Jesus was born as the Son of God so that we might be born again as children of God. Our birthright is going to tell us because of who Jesus is, what we are to do if we have or if we would like to receive that birth right.

Christmas is not just a day that we celebrate. It is not even just a date that we commemorate; Christmas is about a deity that we coronate. Unless the Gospel writers were liars, unless the disciples who spent three years with him and ran from him before he died but died for him after he came back from the grave, were either all on drugs or hallucinating, then as someone well said, “If Jesus was not God, he certainly deserved an Academy Award, for he put on the best act in history.” Those eyewitnesses in one majestic sentence tell us how to truly respond to this baby born in Bethlehem years ago.

There is no question that Covid-19 has had a tremendous effect on our nation financially, economically, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. From the very beginning when we were asked to isolate, stay at home, and put ourselves under quarantine for the foreseeable future, sociologists, mental health experts, and others predicted that we would see a tremendous strain in the home, particularly within marriages and the family as a whole. I’m sure you and I can agree that these experts were right. We’re all dealing with plenty of tension, conflict, and uneasiness with those closest to us, particularly our children. But how can we view this season as a chance to influence and impact our kids, rather than grow impatient with them? How can we leverage this time with them for the Kingdom of God? That’s exactly what we’re going to look at in this message.

The book of Colossians focuses like a laser beam on the one who created the universe and the one who controls the universe – Jesus Christ. Paul has been laying out the Jesus that Christians believe in and the Jesus that Christians belong to. Now, Paul is going to show us how Christians are to behave like the Jesus they believe in and the Jesus they belong to. In Colossians chapter 4 he shares with us in five verses how we should behave toward others so that others might believe in Jesus. We have a responsibility once we give our lives to Jesus Christ. Once the guardian of the galaxy becomes the God of our hearts, we are to behave toward others like a magnet draws iron so that we will draw people to Jesus.

In the third chapter of the Book of Colossians, in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul lays out the house rules for the church as we come together corporately as a body, but then as we leave the church individually as members of that body. When I was growing up my mom and dad had certain house rules for how we were to conduct ourselves in our home, but some of those same rules applied for when we left the home because when we left the home we were actually taking the home with us. The way we lived our lives outside the house reflected the kind of house that we lived in. The same goes for how we live our lives as believers. As we begin this week’s study, I want you to take to heart this thought. The best argument for Christianity and the best argument against Christianity is the life of a Christian. Not only are we to be his witnesses, but we ought to be a part of the evidence. This is the way we are to do it.

One of the most popular presidents in history, Theodore Roosevelt, said this, “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.” I find that hard to argue with because at the end of the day, every single part of your life and mine is all about relationships. Just think about it. Your spiritual life is determined by your relationship with God. Your vocational life is determined by your relationship with your employees, your boss, and your fellow workers. Your social life is determined by your relationship with your friends. Your marital life is determined by your relationship with your spouse and on and on it goes... At the end of the day, what life is all about is making those relationships work. In the third chapter of Colossians, Paul shares with us three things we must do daily, continuously, and personally to get along with each other and have great relationships.

Every life should have a target, a bullseye, a goal, an aim and any healthy individual I think would want the following for his life: You want to live the best life you can. Be the best person you can be. Have the best influence you can have. Leave the best legacy you can. In order to do that, you’ve got to aim high. I am convinced the reason most people will live a life of little consequence, little influence, and little impact is because they aimed too low. We should all aim high with the life that God has given us. Where should our aim be and how high should it go? What your heart loves the most and what your mind thinks about the most will determine the life that you live. So, every day where should we be aiming? You aim at what you look at, so how can we know that we are looking at the right target and we are looking at the right altitude?

No other book in the Bible focuses more on Jesus, who he was, what he did, and why it is so important than the book of Colossians. In Colossians chapter 2, we are going to see exactly why Jesus was nailed to the cross that day because it was more than just the body of a man and everything that needed to be nailed along with Him. In fact, what was nailed that day took care of my past, my present, and my future, and the same is true for you. So let’s look specifically at what was nailed to the cross with Jesus so that we can understand all that had to die so that we could have a relationship with God and be reconciled to Him.

The Bible elevates Jesus more, exalts Jesus more, and extols Jesus more than anything ever created. The walk of a lifetime should be centered around Him. A Christian is someone who has walked to Jesus and now walks with Jesus and always walks for Jesus. Therein lies a big problem that we as Christians and as a church face greatly today. Too many people who call themselves Christians have either never truly walked to Jesus or they have quit walking with Jesus and for Jesus, and now they are walking in the wrong direction. Thankfully we have the words of Paul in the book of Colossians to help make sure we keep walking with and for Jesus, even when we’re tempted to stray off the path. Paul reminds us of what a true Christian looks like and what a Christian does with their lives. They take the walk of a lifetime, and this walk always involves three steps.