Message “Stairway to Heaven” by Pastor Fred

     

      This time of year, brings us new challenges, but if we listen to God,

we hear the congratulatory whispers of our own successes.

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      A while ago I introduced this congregation to the Old Testament’s story of a ladder from earth to heaven.  Remember our Old Testament reading this morning, the story of Jacob, where Jacob left Beersheba and was on his way to Haran.  That night Jacob took a stone and used it as a pillow.  Jacob dreamed of a ladder or stairway reaching up into the heavens.  On this ladder Jacob saw angels ascending to heaven and descending from heaven to earth using this ladder as a means to transport them to the earth.  I would like to think of this ladder as a stairway.

 

Not long ago I made a little joke I asked

“Why do we have a stairway to heaven, but a road to hell?”  

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I think I even joked and said, “Let us not make the road into a superhighway.” 

A stairway to Heaven or a superhighway to misfortune.

Which path would the unchurched people choose?

Some people have an easier time when they help themselves more than helping people in need.  Remember that when we help others, we are truly helping ourselves.  

What do we get out of helping people in need?  So many times, we get nothing tangible.  When we help someone, hopefully, they are thankful.  Even if they are thankful there is nothing tangible, nothing you can hold in your hand.

Remember when we are helping others, we are doing God’s work.  We are helping ourselves.  

We do not need to say look at what I did! 

God knows, God sees, and most of all God understands.  I so often talk about how being Christian is hard because you cannot just do something.  Your deeds have to come from your heart.  You have to truly want to help your brothers and sisters of the world.

      Jacob’s ladder, which I’m going to call the Stairway to Heaven is a symbol.  A symbol of a way to guide us to meet our Father.  Like the proverb, of the longest journey starts with the first step.  Our assent to the Father needs to start with the first step.  Each person we help puts us a step up onto that Stairway to Heaven.  Every day we make the choice to step up or not.  I want you to think about your choices today, are you walking forward, staying where you are, or maybe taking a little step backward? 

Let us all climb this stairway to meet our Father.

Last week I said, “We as Christians know we have to follow a higher path.  Even when our choices hurt.”
“In reality, life is difficult.  Then we add the discipline that we need to be a Christian.”  We are taking another step up on that stairway.  Perhaps even starting to run.

      I said last week, “Faith is our rock, our foundation, and our ultimate armor.” Without faith, we are without purpose.  I often wonder and worry about people that just live for today.  

I often think, where are they going?  
Do they have a goal?  
Perhaps they don’t need to be anywhere, to go anywhere, however, the sad part is we all are either on the stairway to heaven or the road to misfortune. 

If they are not traveling on a stairway, then they are traveling on the road.  

So once again life depends on our choice to make a difference.  Do we step up onto the stairway or travel the road?  Life is all about our choice.

      In the past weeks, I spoke about prayer.  When we pray we are stepping up our personal connection to God on this stairway to heaven.  When we pray we are talking to our Father.

Prayer is the way that we communicate with God.  When we pray to God, we tell him that we need him.

Remember, God made man in his own image.

God has blessed us with more things than we are aware of.

What do we do,
when one of the children leaves us and we fear that they will not return. 

When our children leave us, we are sad and sometimes devastated.

How many of us would do almost anything for children?

Good or bad, we still would do almost anything for them.

God knows what’s good and bad for all of us and he never does anything against us.

Prayer can be like a telephone call to God. 

How many of us long for the call from our children saying, “Hey daddy, hey mommy how are you today?” NOW “I’m doing just wonderful.”

We need and want these calls from our children.

      We are in God’s image, is there any wonder that God waits for our call,
is there any wonder that God waits for our prayer no matter what the prayer is about?

Each time we pray we take another step up our personal Stairway to Heaven.

As parents,
we want to know that our children love us.

As parents there’s very little we wouldn’t do for our children.  Are we wise enough to know what’s good for them?

We must remember that God is forgiving.  When we forgive as God forgives, we will take another step up on our personal stairway to heaven.

 

      I have told you in the past that, I think all of us would like to believe that we are wise.  We learn from our experiences, what works best and what works the least.  

We need to be humble and we need to realize that we are wise not just because we have experienced life.  

We are wise because we have learned from life.  We are wise when we humble ourselves to God.

We are wise when we understand that all wisdom comes from God.

Despite the mistakes that we make we can always rely upon God to always put us back on the right path.”

We are wise when we learn from life.

We understand that all wisdom comes from God and despite our mistakes, God will always love us.

  God always gives us the choice to travel up to the next step of our own personal stairway to heaven.

      Today, we need to thank God that most of us if not all of us will never have to worry about where our next meal will come from.  There has to be more to life than our culinary choices!  We cannot live by just material substance alone.  

 

John 6:27 “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.  For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”

35 Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

 

Trust in the Lord, and the rewards will feed and quench your thirst.

When we hunger for a life with our Lord and Savior, we bolt up another step on our personal stairway toward Heaven.

When we follow the ways of God, we help and support our fellow man, and love our neighbor.  We are traveling that stairway to heaven.

We will reap what we sow.

Not only happiness but eternal life.

 

      The best way to climb our own personal stairway to heaven is to worship and follow Jesus’s the great commandment. 

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Matthew 22: 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
“To love thy neighbor as I loved you.”

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      We have covered a way to follow God.  The symbol of the stairway to heaven can be used as a way to worship God.  For when we follow his teachings we are truly worshiping Him.    

      We use the symbol of the stairway leading up to heaven, leading up to goodness, leading up to our father.  

This symbol can be used in our daily life as easily as asking ourselves if we want to step up, step down, or stay the same? Let us pray. Amen.

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