Bay Apostolic Church
Bay Apostolic Church
3715 Foothill Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94601
ph: 510-534-1405
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Choose Life (An Attitude)
(Sermon preached by Pastor A. Oceguera - Bay Apostolic Church, June 12, 2010)
My sugar level was high last Friday morning. I felt defeated and depressed because of my diabetes but in prayer I said to the Lord, “I choose life.” This meant that I would begin, again, to exercise and eat better and not eat late at night. This I did that day and by the afternoon, my sugar had dropped to normal. That evening, I felt content with life and with myself.
John Maxwell wrote: “Attitude is an inward feeling expressed by behavior. That is why an attitude can be seen without a word being said. Haven’t we all noticed ‘the pout’ of the sulker, or ‘the jutted jaw’ of the determined? Of all the things we wear, our expression is the most important. Since an attitude often is expressed by our body language and by the looks on our faces, it can be contagious. Have you noticed what happens to a group of people when one person, by his expression, reveals a negative attitude? Or have you noticed the lift you receive when a friend’s facial expression show love and acceptance?”
I read an article recently about depression and it had an interesting picture to go with it. A butterfly was trying to pull a heavy anchor out of the water. This is depression: A sense of hopelessness. The article stated, “Placebos offer hope. And one of the chief features of depression is a sense of hopelessness, the belief that you’re not going to get better. Anything that instills a sense of hope will at least temporarily help treat depression.” You may feel that the situation you are in now is hopeless but I offer you hope in Jesus Christ. Look up and choose life.
Choose life—the Serpent in the Wilderness.
In Numbers 21, the Israelite people were murmuring about their wilderness experience. They complained that the manna from heaven wasn’t any good. Imagine angel food was considered bad. Sometimes we complain about our Christian living and the path we are taking instead of being grateful for what God has done for us. He died so that we might live in salvation and to be filled with his Spirit. He gave us hope when we had none.
God punished the Israelites by sending venomous serpents that bit and killed many of them. The people cried out to Moses to help them and he in turn, cried out to God, interceding for the people. God told Moses to make a serpent of bronze and put it on a staff. In Numbers 21:8-9, God said whenever an Israelite was bitten, if he looked up to the bronze serpent, he would be healed and live. God was telling them to “Lift up your heads and see the pole.” If you’ve been bitten by sin, a good attitude says, “I will not be defeated any longer. I will choose to live in health and happiness. I will not do the things that make me sick and can kill me. I will not sin any longer.”
Choose life—Jesus on the Cross.
In John 3:3-5, we find a man visiting Jesus late at night. Nicodemus was a ruler amongst the Jews and a Bible scholar but he came to Jesus to ask him questions. Before Nicodemus could say much, Jesus told him that a man must be born again or he would not enter the kingdom of God. Confused, Nicodemus asked how a man could return to his mother’s womb. Jesus repeated the salvation doctrine that a person must be born again of the water and of the Spirit. This meant, in order to be saved, you needed to be baptized in Jesus’ Name and to be filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). The evidence of this baptism would be speaking in other tongues (Acts 2:4).
In John 3:14-15, Jesus made reference to the Serpent in the Wilderness and compared it to his coming crucifixion. When there is doubt about the doctrine of salvation because you don’t see the results you expected as a Christian, look up to the Cross. We have the purest doctrine in Christendom and we must believe in its truth. There is only one God, not three God’s, each equal but separate. That’s polytheism and the Bible is completely monotheistic. We believe in the Father, and we believe in the Son, and we believe in the Holy Spirit but these three are the one and same God manifested in three different ways. Believe that Christ died for you and repent of your sins and you will be forgiven.
All my life my father was my hero and in the face of death, he chose life eternal. Just before he died, he was in the intense care unit of the hospital after an operation where they removed his foot. He already had many serious health problems and was very weak after the operation. My mother tells me that he asked her to recite Psalms 23 because he could tell she was very upset and afraid for him. She tried to remember the Psalm but couldn’t get past, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” He told her, “No Carmela. This is how it goes.” He began to recite perfectly the Psalm but as he was speaking, my mother says that alarms began to go off and doctors and nurses rushed into his room and began to help my father. They took her out of the room and shortly after my father died. In his last moments of life, he chose life eternal, looking up to his savior Jesus Christ.
When things look bad for you, when ill health has death “stalking you,” choose life. Look up to heaven for your hope is in Christ, your Savior and healer.
An attitude of faith in the face of defeat, depression and obstacles in life is what Christ wants from you. Choose life. If you have to start again, do it. If you’ve fallen off from the path of righteousness, return to it.
If your health is failing, start again to exercise and diet but choose life—an attitude of faith, hope and happiness. You will find contentment with life and with yourself.
Mercy of God that forgives
(Sermon preached by Pastor Ocegueraon July 26, 2009)
Psalm 51:1, 16-17
On the weekend of July 4, on three different occasions a train ran over three persons killing them, here in the East bay. Brother Manuel Mejia, from the Spanish Church, witnessed one of those incidents. He said that he stopped to let the coming train pass at 29th Avenue and International Blvd. when he heard three men arguing. They looked like homeless men and they were saying all of them would throw themselves in front of the train. As the train got closer two backed down and were trying to persuade the third one to not throw himself in front of the train. When the train came by, the third person walked in front of the train and it killed him. His life had reached desperation, without hope. It had become too unbearable to live. What he needed was the mercy of God that is greater than all our sins and desperation.
Psalm 51 is a psalm of King David after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband murdered. The prophet Nathan came to David and accuses him (2 Samuel 12:7). David needed the mercy of God that is greater than all his sins and desperation. David’s humility, repentance and faith in God’s mercy will encourage anyone who has fallen into sin.
In the Old Testament, there were two common types of sacrifices, one for sins and the other for thanksgiving. But there wasn’t a sacrifice that would forgive adultery and murder. Sacrifices for sin were for sins done in ignorance or error but not for the voluntary transgression of the law. Civil law demanded that the adulterers or murderers be taken out to the edge of the town and be stoned to death. The blood sacrifices were not made to interfere with civil law. Therefore, David knew that his only hope was in God’s mercy.
In order for David to be able to throw himself on the mercy of God, he had to have had and intimate relationship with him. Verse one reveals this understanding of God’s loving mercy that forgives beyond the law and David flings himself on this one hope in God. In verse four, David says that in a court of law the Lord would be right in sentencing David to death for his sins. And in verse 16, he says that God doesn’t want burnt offerings because David knows that there isn’t a burnt offering that would absolve him of his sins.
Verse 17 says, “The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.” This implies a complete surrender to God. It was not just that God will forgive and make one free of the burden of sin, but for God to “create a new heart and renew a right spirit within me.” (Verse 10) Paul wrote in Romans that for God to make us totally his, we needed to present our bodies “a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.” (Romans 12:1)
You must believe in the mercy of God that forgives. This faith isn’t just in repentance for sin but faith in the mercy and promise of God’s grace. What the law couldn’t do, God’s grace would do. This incident of David’s great sins and great forgiveness was a shadow of what was to come with Jesus on the Cross. In Romans, chapter three, the Bible says God justifies all who believe in him (Romans 3:23-26).
This was a beautiful new doctrine that the apostles proclaimed, that the sins that the Law of Moses did not provide sacrifices were forgiven in Christ, “and everyone who believes in Him is justified from everything, which you could not be justified from through the law of Moses.” (Acts 13:39) And in I John 1:7 it says, “But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
This doesn’t mean you can live anyway you want and expect to be forgiven without a genuine repentance. But it makes up for our imperfections, our mistakes and sins.
The greatest fear David had was to loose God’s Spirit. To loose his Spirit is to be without hope, desperate, wanting to die and not go on. But when you have an intimate relationship with Christ, you have peace of mind and hope. Then you can say, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me,” because he loves you and he will never leave you.
What you need is something that is greater than your sins and despair. You need God’s mercy that forgives. You must believe that he will forgive you and restore you. Though David only had the Law of Moses, he also had deep understanding of God’s mercy and loving compassion. This was what he threw himself upon, not an oncoming train but loving mercy. David’s heart was broken because of what he had done and this was what he offered to God. He offered faith; repentance and total surrender and God forgave him.
Christ is offering the same to you today. If you’ve come with guilt, hang-ups from the past, rejection and you find yourself losing hope; trust in the mercy of God that forgives.The Parable of the Lost Coin
(Sermon preached by Pastor Oceguera on May 17, 2009)
Luke 15:8-10
Do you like stories with happy endings? This parable is a happy ending story like the lost sheep parable of last week. Both illustrate God’s surprising mercy for the lost and outcast. Here the ruined soul is represented as a lost coin.
It seems Jesus was using the Jewish custom of a marriage dowry in telling this story. In Bible times, a gift or payment was made to the bride’s father from the groom but the father would also give his daughter a gift. In New Testament times, the gift given the bride by her father often took the form of coins. Holes were drilled in the coins and they were strung together. The bride would wear them around her neck like a necklace or around her head as a headband. These coins were her wealth and she kept them during her marriage. If her marriage failed and she divorced, her coins represented her value. Thus, they were very important to her.
A lost soul is very important to God. Here, the ruined soul is represented as a lost coin. This parable teaches that God positively misses each lost soul. He longs for its restoration to its place with him and the work for which it was created.
The lost soul is something lost for God. But why was it lost? Did the string that held them together brake? Sin breaks the relationship with God. We “roll away” feeling guilty or to blame because of sin. We may not be able to put our feelings of guilt or blame in words because we may not understand that guilt is the source of our discomfort. We express ourselves in anger, violence, depression and many other ways. But if Christ “reaches out to pick up the lost coin,” and you are the “lost coin,” then he is reaching out to absolve you of guilt and blame.
God rejoices in all his works, but particularly in the works of grace. He rejoices to do good to a sinner who has repented of his or her sins. When Peter finished preaching to the crowd on the day of Pentecost the Bible says that the people were, “pierced to the heart” (Acts 2:37 HCSB). This means they felt as if a sharp needle or instrument had cut them to their hearts. It implies the idea of sudden sharp and severe grief because of their sins. Their question to Peter was, “Brothers, what must we do?” Peter’s answer was, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus the Messiah for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38 HCSB)
“When she finds it, she calls her women friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found the silver coin I lost!’” (Luke 15:9) Again, as in the parable of the lost sheep, the woman wants others to rejoice with her. The comparison is God’s desire for us to rejoice with him when lost souls are found. This type of rejoicing is the revival that all churches want.
The humble rejoicing of the woman celebrating with her neighbors shows us God himself. God is rejoicing with his Church and his angels over the salvation of a single sinner. “I tell you, in the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:10) The lost soul is of great value to God and all of heaven as it was to the woman of the parable.
This parable has a happy ending with great rejoicing at the end. Do you want your life to have a happy ending? Is your life filled with guilt and blame? Know that Christ died for you that you might not be lost. Your life’s end shouldn’t be filled with shame and despair. A happy ending story will always be yours when Jesus Christ finds you.The Lost Sheep
(Sermon preached by Pastor Oceguera to Bay Apostolic Church on May 10, 2009)
Luke 15:1-7
Question: What’s makes God anxious? God being Almighty and the creator of all things doesn’t get anxious. But speaking figuratively, in the parable of the lost sheep, we find that God is anxious when one of his sheep is lost.
A parable is a story or a saying that is intended to communicate spiritual truth by comparison. Lost sheep were images the Jewish community understood because there was much shepherding being done throughout Israel. Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep because the Pharisee and scribes criticized him because he welcomed sinners and ate with them.
In verse four the lost sheep represents one who is not considered respectable by the Jews. It is a lost soul and though only one is mentioned, in truth there are many lost souls. In the eyes of God, it indicates the value of a person’s immortal soul and how anxious God is for it to be found.
It is very important that sheep should not be allowed to stray away from the flock because when by themselves they are utterly helpless. If they stray away they must be brought back. The Psalmist prayed in Psalm 119:176, “I wander like a lost sheep; seek your servant” (HCSB). Isaiah compared man’s waywardness to that of sheep: “We all went astray like sheep” (Isaiah 53:6, HCSB). David sang of his divine Shepherd, “He restores my soul” (Psalm 23:3, NIV).
God not only cares for the lost, but he has sympathy and compassion for the lost soul. Sympathy is not merely sentiment or courtesy. True sympathy is working to help a person in distress. Likewise, compassion isn’t simply pity for a person. Compassion requires a relationship and pity does not. The shepherd went to look for the lost sheep and when he finds it, he puts it on his shoulder and returns home rejoicing.
In verses four and five the straying sheep is restored. It is a principle of human nature that the recovery of an object in danger of being lost brings much more intense joy than having many that are safe. For example, we rejoice most in our health when we recover from a dangerous disease. We rejoice over a child rescued from danger or disease more than over many who may be in health or safety. We rejoice that the property is save from fire or storm, more than over much more that has not been in danger. Thus, the shepherd rejoices in finding the lost sheep. God has found the lost soul and is bringing him back to safety.
Christ told his audience that the shepherd rejoiced and craved for the sympathy of his friends. He would have others share in his joy in finding the perishing, suffering sheep. (Verse six). Church, true revival is bringing the lost to Christ. But Jesus says that even if men don’t approve of God’s compassion and sympathy, the celestial beings do. “I tell you, in the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.” (Verse seven, HCSB) There is approval in heaven, which is far more important than man’s because this is eternal approval. It means eternal rewards.
The shepherd brings the lost sheep, not to the sheepfold, but to his own home—a place of honor and blessings. Those of you who have turned from sin, Jesus can use you for his greater purpose and fill you with blessings. Church, we must bring those who have strayed furthest from the paths of righteousness to repentance.
Friend, do you want to participate in God’s approval and in his blessings? Let Christ’s compassion heal your inner wounds with love and forgiveness. Brother, your evangelistic work is greatly approved in heaven. Don’t get discouraged in well doing because God is anxious for the lost
Tithing - God's formula for faith
Pastor - Omar Brito
First, God is seeking your benefit. This means that the things God asks of you will bless you. Second, it is His grace alone that allows us to participate in His plan. Most people are automatically turned off when the Church starts talking about money. However, because of the previous two statements we know God requires tithing from His people for your benefit; not His.
A number of years ago, Pastor Brian Kluth (www.givewithjoy.org) was teaching a seminar on what the Bible teaches about finances to Christians in Eastern Europe. After the seminar, one of the people came and told him how much the teaching helped everyone. He said during the 70 years that communism was in their country, people were told the Communist government owned everything and the government would provide for everyone. He went on to say that communism fell, and people came from America and said that capitalism was the way to go--where people own everything and they have to provide for themselves.
He then said, today I learned the best news of all. God is the owner of everything and He is our provider. He learned people must be faithful and generous with whatever God gives them. The earth is the LORD's, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein (Psalm 24:1) NKJV
In case you’re new to tithing; a tithe is ten percent of your income. And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD's. It is holy to the LORD. (Leviticus 27:30) NKJV. Tithing was a biblical requirement established in Old Testament times. Some argue poorly that the lack of the appearance of the actual word “tithe” in the New Testament indicates a freedom from that responsibility.
Actually, the reason for the lack of the use of the word “tithe” was because all of the New Testament writers were Jewish and knew explicitly what was required financially. Jesus himself said, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. (Matthew 5:17) NKJV. Since we have now learned the command to tithe is correct and biblical this leads us to another question. What is God’s motive for requiring this from us? Jesus said, "No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and money." (Luke 16:13)NLT. If you do the research you’ll find Jesus taught about money more than he taught about prayer. God’s motive for our tithe is a spiritual exercise of our faith. God’s desire is for us to love Him more than financial gain. Every time we give in faith (i.e. cheerfully) we are sowing spiritual seeds of blessing and exercising our faith . The Apostle Paul declares, “But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.(2 Corinthians 9:6) NKJV.
Our giving is the thermometer for our faith and love towards God. Lastly is the need for accountability. Obey your spiritual leaders and submit to them [continually recognizing their authority over you], for they are constantly keeping watch over your souls and guarding your spiritual welfare, as men who will have to render an account [of their trust]. [Do your part to] let them do this with gladness and not with sighing and groaning, for that would not be profitable to you [either]. (Hebrews 13:17)
At Bay Apostolic Church accountability for tithing is simple. We use envelopes on which you write your name, the date, and amount. Your faithfulness to God’s requirement of tithing is recorded. Best of all you are exercising your faith and sowing seeds that won’t go unnoticed by Christ. Acts 10:1-4 says, “There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment, a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, "Cornelius!" And when he observed him, he was afraid, and said, "What is it, lord?" So he said to him, "Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God.” (NKJV)
Bay Apostolic Church
3715 Foothill Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94601
ph: 510-534-1405
contact
