Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton,
the official podcast of Cross -Christian Fellowship,
Route 66, in the heart of Albuquerque, New Mexico,
where Burton is the lead pastor. We're glad you're
here. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the
sanctuary. Forgive me, I'm a little off my A
-game today. Yesterday was a little bit of a
rough day. So I'm going to ask everybody, you
know, your prayer time, your prayer list, keep
the families of Travis Harris. And I need to
line them in prayer. Travis, I served with in
the Marine Corps many moons ago. I just found
out yesterday morning that he passed away a couple
of weeks ago. His family is traveling from, well,
they traveled from Texas to Oklahoma for his
service. And then they traveled back to, well,
I shouldn't say for his graveside service because
he's interned there in the National Cemetery.
And then. I traveled back home to Texas where
they're having his celebration of life. So there's
a lot to pray for there. And then Natale Lynam,
a friend of mine from high school, I've known
a long, long time. He passed away yesterday afternoon
as well. So yesterday was a little bit of a rough
day. I'm a little off my A game. I apologize
for that. If I seem a little snappy, that's why.
I'm trying not to be, but that's just the process,
right? which is okay because that's going to
take us into today's message because it is officially
November. And as Tess mentioned with our potluck,
we are just streamlining right into Thanksgiving.
Turkey Day is coming quick. I love Turkey Day.
I love turkey. If I could replace chicken with
turkey, I would happily do so. My wife won't
let me. She says it's too expensive. She's probably
right, but I love turkey that much. Matter of
fact, I'll take turkey over a cheeseburger, believe
it or not. Maybe not over pizza, but, you know,
it's pretty close. It's right up there, you know.
But, you know, this is a holiday, you know, because
I digress. It's that month where we start to
settle in as we're going. That's what we call
the holiday season, of course. And this month
especially is where we step back and we start
taking account of the things that we're grateful
for, right? And, you know, one of the places
that we fail, we'll be looking at here over the
course of the next couple weeks, is we don't
always give thanks for those times of hardship
in our lives either, do we? Those painful times,
those hard times. But those are important as
well. So, you know, we need to be thankful for
it all. And that is biblical. So as we get started
here, I'd like to... to share a writing of Charles
Spurgeon. He once wrote about a rose that had
been taken. I'd like to read through this and
have everybody just kind of stick it in the back
of your mind and have it there as something to
think about for today as we go into our message.
And Spurgeon writes, A gardener had been careful
in tending to one particular rose, which was
very fair to look at. But when he went out one
morning, To his favorite rosebush, he found that
the flower of which he had taken such great care
was gone. He was very upset, for he thought that
some bad boy had come into the yard and stolen
his best flower. He was complaining very bitterly
about his loss when someone said, Hey, the master
had been down to the garden this morning, and
he has been admiring this rosebush, and he has
taken away that fine bud of which you are so
proud. Then the gardener was delighted that he
had been able to grow a flower that had attracted
his master's notice. Instead of mourning any
longer, he began to rejoice. So it should be
with anything on which we have set our hearts.
Let each of us say to our master, Lord, if it
pleases you to take it, it pleases me to lose
it. Why should I complain? Because you have taken
from me What is really your own? Isn't that the
truth? It applies to so many things. You know,
it's funny because I'd already looked at that
before I'd even gotten the news. It's like, oh.
So it rings true. It does. You know, the Lord
giveth, the Lord taketh away, right? But it's
all His, and it's all for His glory. You know,
keeping in mind, keeping this in mind, let's
open our Bibles up to Psalm 103. So Psalm 103.
And this is where we're going to start looking
at our thankfulness over the next couple weeks.
This psalm is believed to have been written by
David well into his old age. Summary, it's a
summary of God's dealings with him. And it's
a demonstration of God's love for us and tells
us of his character. So Psalm 103. There it goes.
All right. And the word says, Bless the Lord,
O my soul. and all that is within me. Bless his
holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget
not all his benefits, who forgives all your inequities,
who heals all your diseases, who redeems your
life from destruction, who crowns you with loving
kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your
mouth with good things so that your youth is
renewed, Like the eagles. This is a very, very
basic way to start the psalm, isn't it? And it's
good because today, as we're going into this,
we really should be taking back and looking at
the basics. The basics are important. The basics
are what we start building off of, right? No
building that lasts is built off of just the
ground alone. They're all built from a foundation,
right? Our understanding of things, are all built
from the foundation, even math, right? We start
with our basic one, two, threes before we start
getting into multiplication or division, well
before we start jumping into algebra or any of
the other crazy stuff. Even just saying that
sends shivers down my spine. I hate math. Not
my wife. She's over there shaking her head because
she loves math. She loves it. That's her thing.
But I digress. The basics are important. You
know, sometimes, well, you know, really, we look
at everything that's going on in the world today.
Sometimes our shadows really overcast it, don't
they? It's really easy to get tied up in things,
to lose sight. David himself had been through
a lot of hardships as well. A lot of coming and
going with the Lord, right? As with us all. However,
through it all, he always remembered to come
back to the basics. He always started with the
basics as we should. It's a great example for
all of us as followers. We should all come back
and we'd all do well to learn from this and from
him. It's the basics in how we do things. Like
I said, it's how we build. It's also where we
start with our attitudes, our attitudes towards
God, our attitudes in our relationship with Jesus,
right? Because we build our attitudes. It's the
way we start our foundation. Are we going into
things with a good attitude or a bad attitude?
Why do we have that? Do we need to change something?
Right? We should all, especially as we go into
the holiday season, and not only that, but as
we get up every day, we should be starting the
day with a grateful attitude. You know, yesterday
I woke up. I didn't know what was going on. I
was very anxious already. We all have those days.
We wake up, something's just not right. Right?
Just a little off. We're not in a very people
-y person. Or not a people -y person mood, I
should say. You know? Slightest thing, we're
just kind of... Happens. Happens. That's why
we start the day with the Lord, though. We should
be able to come to the Lord in prayer. Even if
it's something as simple as starting in the Lord's
Prayer, right? Our Father who art in heaven,
right? Something as simple as that could be all
that's needed to change your mindset, change
your day and start moving forward. And a big
part of it with our attitude today is because
we are so saturated with stuff of the world,
we need to break away from the things of the
world. We need to find ways to spend a little
bit less time in it. Right? Whether it's the
TV, the radio, or social media, or whatever.
You know, reading the newspaper. Because all
that stuff, what's it all built off of? The world
and the drama and sucking you away and taking
your eyes off of Jesus. Right? So we'd all benefit
greatly. Spend a little bit more time with the
Lord. So we're going to break down this psalm
here a little bit. We'll start with the first
couple of verses. Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me. Bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all
his benefits. Examine it, because the Lord has
blessed us with so much, we should be looking
to him. And not only should we be looking to
him, but we should be looking to try to bless
him in return. You ever thought of that? How
do you bless the Lord? Well, there's three things
that we can and we should do. I'm going to list
them out here. First, praise the Lord. Praise
Him. That's pretty simple, right? Praise the
Lord. Keep looking towards Him. Delight in Him.
Take joy in the fact that we have such an awesome
God who does so much for us, who loves us so
much. That's pretty basic, right? Second, esteem
Him. Ooh, there's a fancy word right there, esteem.
What is this word? Well, as much as I'd like
to say it's church knees, it's not. It's just
one of those little kind of pompous words, just
hot steam. We hold him in such great esteem.
Well, really what it means is respect and admiration.
Hold the Lord with great respect and admiration.
Above all, above anyone, we should be looking
to Jesus with our utmost respect. Respect and
admiration. That's esteem. We give him all the
credits. All of it. Because it's all his. He
knew us before we were in the womb. He knew us
before he knitted us in the womb. He knew us
before he created us. He didn't have to create
us, but he saw fit to do it anyways. So everything
leading up to our birth, for all those thousands
of years, and everything since, and everything
going past it because of what he's prepared for
us. That's a lot. It's a lot that we should be
giving him credit for because it's not of us,
right? Where it says that no man could boast.
It's not about us. It's about him. So we should
be giving him the credit for everything, everything
in front of us and everything behind the scenes
for all of time. And we have to remember he's
always working, always working. And thirdly,
the third thing that we can do is thank him.
Thank him for all of this. Thank him for all
that he's done, all that he's doing, all that
he's going to do. Thank him just for the simple
fact that he chose for you to even exist. Thank
him for the life lessons, the good, the bad,
the ugly, the easy, the hard. Thank Him. Thank
Him for the storm. The storm that surrounds us
in our life so that we can know just how great,
how good, and how loving He truly is. Those three
things right there. Praise Him, esteem Him, and
thank Him. That's something good to meditate
on, isn't it? I don't know. I list things out
like that. I kind of feel like John Maxwell.
I don't know if you all ever listen to him. He's
really big on numbers. Number one. Number two.
If you ever look at the notes for any of the
stuff that he talks on, or if you've ever read
any of his books, it's exactly the same as the
way he talks, too. Exactly the same. It's kind
of fun. Let's go into verse three, though, shall
we? Psalm 103, verse 3. In verse 3, we see how
we benefit from the Lord who offers us forgiveness
for all of our sin. All of it, not part of it,
all of it. And he heals us. He heals us. Now,
yeah, we look at how he heals us and we look
at physical ailments, right? Because we all have
little things that bother us and we're always
looking for healing. But how about the biggest
disease? Who knows what the biggest disease is
that he heals us of? Nobody? What's the biggest
disease that the Lord heals us from? No? Close.
There you go. Sin. Yes. Sin. That is the biggest
calamity and each and every single one of us
has been infected with it. Right? No man is without
sin. It's a disease. That only has one cure.
And that cure is Jesus. Because there is nothing,
nothing that we can do that will ever cure sin.
Nothing we can do will ever get rid of sin. That
is God and God alone. He, our great physician,
has offered us a cure. He's offered us that cure
through Jesus. Through the blood sacrifice of
Jesus. And we are cleansed of our sin and we
are forgiven. Because of that, we're seen blameless
in the eyes of the Father. Blameless. We're no
longer facing death. We're no longer facing separation
from the Father. We have a place at the table
with Him. We have a place in heaven with work.
A place in heaven to praise and worship him for
all the rest of eternity. Greater than any treasure
that he'd have stored up for us is that. That
we are reunited and able to go and unite with
him for eternity in heaven. As adopted sons and
daughters. Adopted back into the family. It's
a pretty precious gift, isn't it? Definitely
one that we shouldn't gamble with. And it's definitely
something that we should share with others so
that they can find the same gift as well. Because
it's offered to us all. Going through this a
little faster than I thought I would today. Let's
look at verse 4, shall we? Psalm 103, verse 4.
Who redeems your life from destruction? Who crowns
you with loving kindness and tender mercies?
I've already started alluding to this one, haven't
I? We've been taken out of that bondage to sin
and death. We're free by the blood of Christ.
We were bought at the highest price imaginable.
The highest price imaginable. Right? I kind of
talked about this a little bit a couple weeks
ago. You had the king called for the servant.
There's no way he could ever come close to repaying
the gift, but he forgave him anyway. Right? It's
the same thing as Jesus forgiving us. The King
of Kings, Lord of Lords, has forgiven us. And
it's at a price that we can never repay. No matter
how hard we tried, no matter how much we worked,
our works could never get there. And not only
that, but when we were bought, we were restored
to the place that we were always intended to
be. We were restored to the Father. We have a
place with him, the greatest rescue mission ever
conducted. We love that, right? Rescue missions,
we see them on TV, we see them in movies, you
know, maybe hear them in some of the old audio
stuff. You ever listen to like the old Drag Nats
or stuff like that, right? Green Hornet, good
times. I know I'm kind of a sucker for some of
the old radio programs, right? I love them. But
everybody likes a good rescue story. Good old
-fashioned rescue mission. Ah, the good guys
are going to go in there against the bad guys.
It's good and evil. And they're going to get
the innocent victim. Well, the truth is, none
of us is really innocent. But Jesus undertook
that mission for us just the same. Sacrificed
it all so that we could live. I'd like to kind
of pause here for a second. Because we always
talk about the blood of Christ an awful lot.
You know, churches love throwing that out there.
But this is a place that is a little bit of church
in ease. We don't talk a whole lot about what
that means, especially for new believers. So
if there's somebody new out there watching or
somebody listening even, hey, this one's for
you. Maybe if there's somebody in here who isn't
quite sure where this stems from, this is a good
place. See, we're always talking about being
covered by the blood of Christ. I'm going to
break it down as simply as I can. Marine Corps,
it's what we say, break it down Barney style.
So I apologize if I get a little oversimplified.
Those of you who are a little better versed,
don't crucify me, please. But we could actually
learn about this if we go all the way back to
Exodus 12. I'm not going to go through the whole
thing. Exodus 12 is a good place for you to go
back and read through so you can learn a little
bit more about it. And we do. We see exactly
what it is. See, God, he was punishing. Egypt.
He's punishing Pharaoh and all the Egyptians.
This goes all the way back to the first Passover.
To punish them is one of the plagues. He was
taking all the firstborn. And when I say all
the firstborn, I'm not just talking about their
firstborn children of Egypt. We're talking the
firstborn animals, the firstborn of everything.
Gone. How horrible is that? Just thinking about
that. That's pretty horrid, isn't it? But God
also knew, hey, I need to protect my people.
My people need to be protected from this plague.
I don't want them impacted by it. I love them.
I want them to come out safely on the other side.
So he told them how they could do it. They're
going to go out and they're going to get a lamb.
Symbolic of Jesus, right? Jesus the lamb. They
were going to take this lamb, they were going
to slaughter it. They were going to have their
meal and all that, right? But after they slaughtered
it, they were to take the blood of the lamb and
put it on the doorpost, the doorframe, basically,
right? Both sides. So when this plague came through,
depending on your translation, it's referred
to as the destroyer. So we can imagine it's probably
an angel, an archangel that came through, right?
The destroyer came through. He was not concerned
about who was in the building. He came through.
He saw the blood of the lamb, symbolic of the
blood of Christ. And he knew everybody in there
belonged to God. And it just moved along. Covered
by the blood of Christ, right? Covered by the
blood of the lamb. This is where it starts. This
is where it comes from. This is what we're talking
about when we talk about being covered by the
blood of Jesus. And just like those doors, the
doors, or the door frames, I should say, were
covered in the sacrificial blood of the Lamb,
our sins are also covered in the sacrificial
blood of Jesus when he took the cross for us,
when he took on the sin of all mankind. Everyone
who lived, everyone who was living, and everyone
who was going to live, right? No greater love
than that of the one who died so that we could
live. You see, for the Christian, there's two
acts being carried out here. We refer to them
as mercy and grace. Mercy and grace. Grace being
something we don't deserve, but we get anyway.
Mercy is not receiving something that we absolutely
do deserve. 100%. And we deserve every bit of
punishment for our sin. Every bit. But we've
gotten a reprieve. Because despite how many times
we blaspheme, how many times we talk trash, how
many times we harden our heart, turn around,
walk away, Jesus in his infinite love still made
that sacrifice for us. And all he's asked in
return is chump change. Chump change. He asks
that we repent of our sin. Ooh, there's a little
bit more church in these, isn't it? Basically,
in other words, he's saying, stop breaking my
laws. Stop breaking the laws of God, right? That's
what he's saying there. And then, of course,
that we profess him as our Lord and our Savior,
right? They'll come every time we'll profess
and every knee will bend. Better do it now before
it's too late. Do it now when you come into a
relationship with him. And when we profess him
as our Lord and Savior, what we're doing is we're
proclaiming our love for him, our allegiance
to him, that we recognize that our life is not
our own but his, and that we are to serve him.
Now we give our lives over to serve him. We proclaim
his word for all the world to hear. So everybody
has a chance to do the same. So that nobody runs
the risk of being separated from the Father for
all of eternity. And I had another, I had a PowerPoint,
another slide in there, but I skipped it. Sorry
about that. So we'll go into the final verse
here. Psalm 103, verse five. Psalm 103, verse
five. The psalmist writes, who satisfies your
mouth with good things so that your youth is
renewed like the eagles. We need to be thankful
for the very fact that he's seen fit to renew
us. Now we get a little bit hyper -focused on
what's going on with our bodies, don't we? We
have to remember that our bodies here on earth
are temporary. These are temporary vessels for
us carrying it through. They were never meant
to be eternal. Things are going to slow down.
Things are going to stop working the way they're
supposed to. We're going to start getting wrinkles.
We're going to start getting gray hairs. Maybe
we're going to get hairs in places that we didn't
think we would and lose hairs in places that
we thought we'd keep. Who knows? Right? Sometimes
the vision goes, the memory goes, that hand -eye
coordination, or just the coordination in general.
Sometimes things give out completely. Right?
You look at people dealing with certain things
like MS. That's a big one. He's trying to pick
up a cup of water. You look at Michael J. Fox,
he's a prime example, right? Parkinson's. That's
another rough one. All the motor skills. Not
just trying to function, to get up, to put on
clothes, to feed yourself, but even to communicate
with your loved ones. That's a tough one. You
know, we all kind of laugh when we see it in
movies sometimes. You all remember that movie,
The Great Outdoors, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd?
And they're at the bar, and the guy got struck
by lightning. He comes up and says, how many
times have you been struck now? Na -na -na -na
-na -na -na -na -na -na -na -na -na -na -na -na
-na -na -na - For entertainment value, yeah,
it's funny. We get a laugh out of it. It was
intended to be that way. But when we're not looking
at entertainment, we need to be a little bit
more cognizant, a little bit more loving. Instead
of rushing through, like, what's wrong with this
guy? He tripped out one time too many. Should
have put down the LSD, right? Those are the kind
of thoughts that we have. Instead of rushing
those thoughts, it's like, oh, maybe I should
pray for this guy. Something's not firing right.
He needs the Holy Spirit. He needs Jesus. So
we get hyper -focused on these things. We get
older. You know? Those aches and pains start
creeping in. If you have hardware, maybe a little
bit more of those aches and pains happens. It
says sometimes even the memory being a struggle.
But the other side of that is that we are being
renewed daily. We're being renewed spiritually.
Every day when you stop and you go to the Lord
and you get fed spiritually, that spiritual manna,
right, in your life, you're being renewed. You're
getting stronger in spirit. You're getting stronger
in your soul. You're getting stronger in your
relationship and your walk with Jesus, that eternal
walk. Right? You're no longer crawling, but walking.
And before long, you're running. Spiritually.
And the more you do that daily, the more you're
prepared for the day when you go to eternity
with Jesus. This is our learning ground right
now, right? This is our proving ground. We do
it all here before we go there. God's hard at
work trying to get us ready so that when we come
to him that we have that relationship and he's
seeing that our spiritual needs are met. And
the stronger our relationship is with him, the
less certain other things matter. Think of it
this way when we're young. We want all this stuff.
All this stuff. We want the clothes. We want
the jewelry. We want the cars. We want the houses.
We want the prestige that comes with certain
positions, right? The high -paying jobs, right?
We want to be looked up to. Right? As you get
older, it's a little less important. You start
to mature. Some of that stuff's a little less
important. You know, I feel bad for these guys.
They're 60 years old and they're still reliving
the glory days like Al Bundy. I scored three
touchdowns in a single game. Like, okay, dude,
you can't even play Madden now. Chill out. Come
to Jesus. Right? But you think about it. That's
also why as we get older, sometimes we get those
little spurts of energy and we're like, you know
what? I had this stuff. and today's the day I'm
going to go, I'm going to take a shower, or I'm
going to change my clothes, whatever, pull back
my hair, and this stuff is going to go. It's
gone, right? We get in that little cleaning frenzy,
and it goes out the door. Matter of fact, that
happened over at my mom's house just the other
day. And when all that stuff goes out the door,
it feels pretty good, doesn't it? Like, ooh,
I got some space. That stuff is gone. That's
awesome. Cool. Why? Because it doesn't matter
anymore. It served its purpose. Now it could
go on to a new home. It could bless somebody
else or it could go to the garbage monster. Who
knows? The fact is, is it's gone. We don't need
it anymore. And we all had things like that in
our lives, right? When I became a man, I put
childish things away. Ladies, it goes for you
too. When you became a woman, you put girly things
away. I hope. It's no different. It's the same
thing. And that happens when we mature in our
walk with Christ especially. The more that we
mature in our relationship with him, the more
that we walk with him, the less the ways of the
world matter. The less we're caught up or concerned
about whether or not somebody likes me versus
whether or not we're going to proclaim the word
of God or if we're going to do the right thing,
right? And it's because what matters to us as
we churn this is we're more concerned with our
relationship with God. We're more concerned with
reflecting the will of God. We're more concerned
with making sure that what we're doing, what
we want, is reflection of Him and His will for
us. And not only that, we don't look to death
with such trepidation. I guess would be the word.
Or a word anyway. Because, yeah, well, nobody
looks forward to necessarily dying here on earth
and going through whatever that death might be.
When you're a believer, when you're a Christian,
when you follow Christ, you look forward to being
reunited in heaven with the Father, don't you?
That ultimate reward, that ultimate place. Back
with the family. No more pain. No more tears.
No more sin. No more dealing with things that
are meaningless. Just the things that are godly
and the things that are eternal. So as we close
today, I'd like for everyone to think back to
that rose that we talked about when we started
today. And so we're quick to thank God for the
roses in our lives. What about the thorns? What
about the thorns? Usually not, right? We'd rather
clip them and get them out of the way, huh? Nobody
wants to deal with the thorns. But the reality
is those thorns are blessings that serve a purpose
as well. Well, the thorns on the rose, they serve
a purpose. They're not there by accident. And
when we look at a rose, we should recognize them
for what they are. That's our trials and tribulations
in life. They mold our character. They shape
it. They help us to learn and to grow, to be
more Christ -like. And when we see this, we need
to remember that much like David, we have to
get back to the basics. We have to get back to
the basics, no matter how hard it gets, no matter
how painful it gets, no matter how good it is.
Scottish preacher, George Matheson, he had the
same issue. It's a human issue. When things were
good, he'd praise the Lord. When things weren't
so good, well, he wasn't so quick to praise the
Lord then. He was quick to prayer. Lord, help
me. But not so quick to praise. It wasn't until
his eyesight started to go. He dealt with this
for quite some time. Can you imagine that? And
your eyesight just goes. You can't rely on your
eyes anymore. You can't trust your eyes anymore.
That would be scary. And for most people, when
it happens, it happens like this. Like right
now, it's like you can see this, right? But slowly,
but surely, it starts just like a tunnel. Until
it's all gone or it's just barely a pinpoint
and you struggle. That's what he was facing,
losing his vision. But finally, he came to the
Lord and his vision changed. Not his physical
vision. His physical vision was still shot. When
I say his vision changed, it's the vision of
his outlook on life. He got to a point where
he was struggling and that struggle went away
when he was able to say this prayer. My God,
I have never thanked you for my thorn. I have
never thanked you a thousand times, or excuse
me, I have thanked you a thousand times for my
roses, but not once for my thorn. I've been looking
forward to a world where I shall get compensated
for my cross, but I have never thought of my
cross as itself. a present glory. Teach me the
value of my thorn. My friends, they didn't place
roses upon the heads of Christ. It was a crown
of thorns that they placed upon his head. We
need to get back to basics. We need to thank
him for the good, but we really need to thank
him for the bad. And on that note, let's pray.
Lord, we come to you in this season of thankfulness.
We have thanks beyond measure. We're thankful
for so many things that you've blessed us with.
Some of those things we're just learning of.
Some of those things we're just now learning
that we need to be thankful for. Other things
we still need to learn about. But just the same,
we thank you for all that we know of. And we
especially thank you for those that we don't.
Sometimes it's those things that we don't even
need to know of. You exemplify your love for
us even though we fail to do the same for you.
And you continue to forgive us for our failures
and help us all to do better, to become better
people. So we ask that you continue to do so
and help us to become more thankful and help
us all to have a prayer of gratitude. For who
you are and all that you do. And especially,
not just for the roses in our lives, but for
the thorns. And all his people said, amen and
amen. Remember, as you leave here today, you
are loved and you are blessed, so go and be the
church. Thank you for joining us at Healing Scars
with Pastor Burton. Until next time, take care
and God bless.