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<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Using Up the Ground</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Soil was at a
premium in Israel. It was not unusual for a vineyard owner to give a
little bit of his soil up for a fruit tree but the tree took up the best
soil, the deepest soil, and required the most water. A fig tree doesn't
grow fruit until three years after planting. The owner in this story,
had given the tree "due season" to bear fruit and yet the tree bore no
fruit. It took up valuable space and resources. The owner questioned why
the tree was allowed to "even use up ground."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>God had given the
Israelites the choicest ground. Their land possessed everything
necessary to make themselves a great nation, indeed, a light to all
nations. They were strategically positioned to send the fruit of God
north and south, east and west; but instead, in-fighting continued to
make them a worthless fruit tree.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Everyone one of us
and all of our churches will have to answer (from God's perspective)
this same question; "Why does it even use up the ground?"</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Jerry Goebel, Why Does HE Even Use up the Ground?</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>_______________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Becoming Christian</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Garrison Keillor
warns us, "You can become a Christian by going to church just as about
easily as you can become an automobile by sleeping in a garage." What
we're speaking of is the danger of presumed spiritual security. Our
parable says that we're not called just to be here. It is a clear
warning against a fruitless existence in the light of God's grace given
to us. <br>
</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Wiley Stephens, Missing Is Not Final</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>________________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Suffering and Repentance</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Trevor Beeson stood
at the high altar of Westminster Abbey to celebrate the marriage of his
daughter, Catharine, to Anthony, aged twenty-three. Nine months later
he stood before the same altar for Anthony's funeral, who was killed
when his car ran into a wall in East London. Four months later, Trevor
returned to the altar beside the coffin of his friend and hero Earl
Mountbatten, who died when his fishing boat was blown to pieces by Irish
terrorist. Reflecting on the experience, he said he could not blame God
for these senseless tragedies. He wrote:</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>I should find it
impossible to believe in, and worship, a God who arranged for the great
servants of the community to be blown up on their holidays and who
deliberately turned a young man's car into a brick wall...This is not
the God of love whose ways are revealed in the Bible and supremely in
the life of Jesus Christ.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Beeson found two
insights that helped him to cope with his tragedy and to look beyond it:
"The first is that, although God is not responsible for causing
tragedy, he is not a detached observer of our suffering. On the
contrary, he is immersed in it with us, sharing to the full our
particular grief and pain. This is the fundamental significance of the
cross."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Second, although we
naturally ask, "Why did it happen?" Beeson discovered that the more
important question is "What are we going to make of it?"; "Every tragedy
contains within it the seeds of resurrection." This is, after all, the
whole point of our pilgrimage through Lent, to Good Friday, and Easter
morning.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Are those who experience innocent suffering worse than anyone else? Of course not. It can happen to any of us.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>But is there a
connection between innocent suffering and human action? Of course there
is, and unless we change our way of living, we may all experience the
same suffering.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>What does Jesus
offer us when we experience this kind of suffering? The power of God to
hold us firm, to give us strength, and to see us through.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>John K. Bergland editor, Abingdon Preachers Annual 1992, Nashville: Abingdon, 1991, p. 108.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>__________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Not Nearly as Big a Man</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>It seems that the
University of Tennessee coach bought a bolt of cloth thinking he would
have a suit made out of it. He took the material to his tailor in
Knoxville where the tailor measured him, examined the bolt of cloth, did
some computations on a piece of paper, and said, "I'm sorry, coach,
there just isn't enough material in this bolt to make a suit for you."
The coach was disappointed, but he threw the bolt of cloth in the trunk
of his car, wondering what he was going to do with it.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>A couple of weeks
later he was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama -- the home of the Crimson Tide --
arch enemies of the Vols. He was on his way to the coast for a vacation.
Driving down the main street in Tuscaloosa, he noticed a tailor shop,
which reminded him that he had that bolt of cloth in the trunk. He
stopped, thinking he would give it a try. He told the tailor he had
bought this bolt of cloth and wondered if he could do anything with it.
The tailor measured him, measured the bolt of cloth, did some
computations. Finally he said, "Coach, I can make you a suit out of this
bolt. What's more, I can make you an extra pair of pants. And if you
really want it, I can give you a vest out of this, too." The coach was
dumbfounded. "I don't understand," he said. "My tailor in Knoxville told
me he couldn't even make one suit out of this bolt of cloth." The
tailor said, "Coach, here in Tuscaloosa, you are not nearly as big a man
as you are in Knoxville."<br>
<br>
I tell the story to make the point
that things are not always what they seem. Our Scripture lesson -- the
parable of the fig tree -- is clearly a parable of judgment. But at the
very heart of it is a marvelous word of grace.<br>
<br>
Maxie Dunnam, Collected Sermons, <a shape="rect"><span>www.Sermons.com</span></a> </span></div>
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_________________________________________<br>
</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>He Has One More Move</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>A story is told of
former world chess champion Bobby Fischer when he was a young boy. His
mother took him to a museum, and he happened upon a painting that caught
his eye. It depicted a bedraggled, exhausted older man slumped over a
chessboard. Few of his pieces were left on the board, and he was
conceding the game. On the other side of the board was his fresh and
snappy opponent, Satan. The painting was entitled Checkmate. Already a
chess prodigy, young Bobby Fischer stood looking at the painting for a
long time. His mother soon tired of it and moved around the remainder of
the gallery, finally returning to find Bobby still entranced by that
painting. "Come now, Bobby, we have to go." Bobby Fischer did not stop
staring, thinking...</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px">The rest of this illustration and <span>many additional illustrations and sermons for this week, Lent and Easter, can be accessed at <a shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001gNy_wd3kaaAkYE2qXE0xlhakA1g5Dz-bJac3fI9dWRI8-i3BuT_Rnd47B23D23M0eGJZrYAocqjuOx4jV6hOEV8bG7KMIAjnN1lkV6H6Hw4=">www.Sermons.com</a>. <br>
</span></div>
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