Memories of My Family and Easter

March 27, 2016

I am writing this today, on Easter Sunday. Yes, most of the Christian world celebrates this day in honor of  Jesus’ resurrection. Though there is something strangely ironic about Easter to me now, I remember when I was young, how I so looked forward to Easter. I looked forward to it because from a young boy’s perspective, my perspective, it seemed to me like the whole world was happy about Jesus. My world was very small compared to reality. Yet, in the city in which I grew up, Lynwood, California, it surely appeared true. With the coming of Easter came many good things in our local community and especially in our home.

Our home had two parents, Jack and Marge Read, and five children.  Laine was the only girl and the oldest, and the four boys were Steve, Dean, Jeff and Greg. Good thing that Laine was oldest. What’s a girl to do with four brothers to continually pester her? Fortunately, her age, height and her wit commanded a certain respect. Somehow, we all managed to get along most of the time. Most certainly our dad’s old fashioned theory of child education and his methods of discipline had a lot to do with that. Yet, in spite of his corporal punishment practices, he valued most an ability to reason with his children.

However, our family’s greatest asset lived just over a ways and across the street. My dad’s parents were Walt and Vera Read. Grandma (or Gram) and Grandpa is what we called them. Even my dad called them that. And they were his parents!

And you better believe that we all depended on them, and that was true especially for me. I cannot begin to tell you how many times or in how many different ways Gram or Grandpa helped sustain us and hold us together as a family. Our mom did not drive, and dad was a lineman, usually working far distances away, so he was not home during the day.

It was mostly left to Gram who willingly transported us to the many and various types of things five unique children might be involved in. Sports teams, music programs, boy scouts, school functions, etc. Surely, some of you know the blessings of grandparents nearby?

What does this have to do with Easter? Well, it was one of the few times when our home engaged in something religious together. You see, there was no practice of religion in the home of my parents. I did not learn about the love of Jesus from them. It was from my grandma where I first learned that Jesus loves me. Dad had no real use for religion or church. And though my mom was Roman Catholic, she kept her religion private and rarely went to church, except sometimes at Easter. And sometimes at Easter my sister and brothers went to church too. 

But as for me, I regularly attended church with my grandparents. It seemed to me to be the best part of the week, to spend Sunday’s  with Grandma and Grandpa and go to church and learn about Jesus. Yes, it was at the Methodist Church of my Grandparents where I learned that Jesus loves me. God gave me that gift when I was just a young boy.

So, imagine for yourself what it must have been like for me, growing up in my non-religious family to have all of us come together on Easter Sunday and celebrate a religious holiday in honor of Jesus. And after we got home from Church, we would venture over to Grandma’s house and eat together our Easter dinner. Yes, even my dad was there. And I was happy. Somehow, I imagined that even my dad who was so indifferent to Christianity loved Jesus.  

Today, I am blessed to be a Seventh-day Adventist Christian. Now I know even more so, that God is love. I have never lost that gift from Jesus. And now even more so, I celebrate the death and the resurrection of our LORD. Not just on Easter Sunday, but everyday. However, there are still special days of celebration to which I look forward as I once did to Easter Sunday. And those special days happen every week in the Seventh-day Sabbath.  

And there is more. For, Jesus gave us, His Church, a brand new religious ritual called Communion. Yesterday was a double blessing for me as we celebrated Communion in the Griffin Seventh-day Adventist Church on the Lord’s Sabbath Day. This coming Sabbath, April 2 will be another double blessing as we will celebrate Communion in the Thomaston First Seventh-day Adventist Church. Joy of joys for me!

During this religious season of Easter, how much more appropriate then it is to celebrate Communion on the Sabbath Day. We create new memories from the blessings of what God has done and is doing in our lives. I also take time to remember those who are sick, some suffering from cancer in both of these churches. Please remember them all in prayer. For we all are family now.

Even more than what good I had growing up in my biological earthly family, we, the saints are all His family. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. We share a common faith and a common hope. Even the Blessed hope that Jesus will come! Then all the saints, both dead and living will be caught up together with Jesus, the Father and all the holy angels. Soon, we will all eat together the greatest meal of all time, when we eat that Communion meal new with Jesus and the Father in heaven.

Even so, I pray, come Lord Jesus. Amen. 

Worthy Is the Lamb Who Was Slain

God is good! All the time!

He has revealed His mercy and His truth

Through Jesus Christ

And through His word.

He is Creator,

And He is Redeemer.

He is worthy to reveal the truth,

Because He was slain on the cross.

John the Revelator writes it well:

"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain."

He is worthy to redeem His people,

To redeem all who believe in Him

To redeem all who walk in His ways.

The book of Revelation calls His people to come out of Babylon...

To come out of confusion of religion

And disregard for His word and His Law.

Come out of Babylon

And come into His grace.

Through His grace,

You may keep His Law.

Not man's perversion of His law,

But His holy Ten Commandment Law,

And His two greatest commandments:

To Love the Lord your God

With all your heart and with all your soul,

With all your strength and with all your mind.

And to love your neighbor as yourself.

These two greatest are the foundation,

The bedrock of His Ten,

Which He spoke from Mt. Sinai,

And which He Himself wrote

With His own hand on Tables of Stone.

God is calling all who would believe in Him,

Calling them to come out of Babylon and religious confusion.

Calling them to come into His mercy and His truth.

Believe His word. It stands the test.

Jesus died on the cross to guarantee His word is true.

The Bible can be understood and believed.

Yes, Revelation too,

For it is His Testimony,

It is the Testimony of Jesus,

To a dying world.

Now is the time to turn to God,

And the only Savior, Jesus Christ.

He was slain to redeem you.

Is He not worthy for you to believe?

Is He not worthy for you to honor His law?

In these last days, those who are finally saved,

Will be those who honor Him.

The Revelation says of them:

"Here are those who keep

The commandments of God

And the faith of Jesus."

In the judgment they will stand

Clothed in white robes,

Waving palms of victory in their hands.

They are the redeemed from this earth.

What they say in heaven is not about them.

They speak and they sing praises about Him,

For they say and they sing:

"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain."

“We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty,

The One who is and who was and who is to come,

Because You have taken Your great power and reigned.

The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come,

And the time of the dead, that they should be judged,

And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints,

And those who fear Your name, small and great,

And should destroy those who destroy the earth.”

Hallelujah! "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"
For Worthy, Yes Worthy,
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ

Be with you who read this

And guide you into knowing His truth.

Amen.

My Last and My All--"Come to the Wedding"

I have preached my last sermon at the Brunswick and Camden Seventh-day Adventist churches. It is called, "Come to the Wedding" based on Mathew 22:1-14, the parable of the Wedding Feast.

For the past eight-and-a-half years I have been their pastor, the people of Brunswick and Camden. And I have given them my all. I can say like the Apostle Paul, "For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27).

Leaving is a bittersweet experience as Tracie and I have built some significant relationships with the people of these churches, and we will never forget them. Yet, I know for certain that God has called me to another church district, the Griffin and Thomaston Seventh-day Adventist Churches located right in the heart of Georgia.

I know for certain, because my faith has prevailed through patience to wait on the Lord. I have waited and watched as He has opened what initially appeared to be doubtful doors. So, we are moving from coastal Georgia to the heart of Georgia. And God is working that out for us. Yes, even before we knew how it would work out, many of the usual fears have now fallen. Fears like, would we be able to handle it financially? Could we find an affordable, yet comfortable home? And a few other uncertainties fading as well. Fading to our faith in our Lord who has called us to this life. The life of a pastor and his wife.

     "I remember Your name in the night, O LORD,
      And I keep Your law.
      This has become mine,
      Because I kept Your precepts." (Psalm 119:55-56)

Yes, I meditated on that passage called Zayin in Psalm 119. Because it helped me, God spoke to me about that. He spoke to me in my heart.  And I knew that I needed to preach about Zayin before I left. And so I did. On January 9, 2016 I preached from Zayin about how I, Dean Read study and meditate on God's word. Apparently the LORD thought, and so did I, that would be helpful to the churches.

But, on my last official day as their pastor, I preached "Come to the Wedding." It was my last sermon to them, given on January 16, 2016. Ironic isn't it? For this parable was one of the last sermons Jesus preached, for He spoke it to a skeptical crowd just a day or two before He was crucified.

I did not have time to write it. But God gave it to me in my mind and my heart. I mused over it for the past few weeks, just like I did with Zayin. I believe both these sermons will be a blessing to those who want to hear them, and even those from Brunswick and Camden who may want to hear them again. Therefore, I have shared them here to be downloaded and heard.

The links are above in the text and also below. Make sure you listen with your Bible open and your notepad close by. You will be blessed. Shalom!

Zayin preached at the Camden Church.

Come to the Wedding preached on my last Sabbath to both churches gathered together in Brunswick. This sermon also includes a special music rendition of "In the Garden" sung by Dell Alarcon with his wife Cherry accompanying him. The music, a new melody was written by Jim Moon, a young pastor in the Georgia-Cumberland Conference who shared it with us.

Moving Faith

It has been a while. I have written and preached several sermons, since I last wrote a post on this blog. It is not that I haven't been writing. It's just that I haven't been sharing my thoughts here. And now, I am in the process of moving. Wow! What a process. I have been called to pastor another church district. And this requires us to move to another part of the good ol' State of Georgia. So, in this processing I am also considering what to do with this blog.

What to do? Over eight years of sharing here on this site, mostly from my sermons. And the desire in me to share is strong.  That is from the LORD. Yet, I now have a backlog of sermons which have not been shared outside when I first preached them. I am confident the Lord will guide me, as He always does, and soon I will be writing publicly again.

In the meantime, my wife Tracie and I are trying our best to process through this moving thing. And that requires more faith, because some significant things have yet to be determined. Like, how to find a home that will meet our comfort needs without going broke in the process. No easy task, considering our current home lost much appraisal value since we first bought it in 2007, before the housing bubble burst.

But God is good! My faith is in His will. He will supply all our needs, including a job for Tracie.