Monday, January 25, 2016

“How To Be The Person Satan Wants You To Be” – 1 Samuel 13:1-14


The year is circa 1984, Castleberry High School, early spring at a typical high school track meet.  I was a shot put and discus thrower; not very good but I tried.  I’m done with my events and now I’m just hanging out watching the others and the track coach comes over to me and tells me that the 440 race is about to start and there are only 5 people running. He said there were 5 medals that would be given out.  All I had to do was beat one person and I would get a medal.

They call it the 400 meters now, I think, but it’s just one lap around the track.  How hard could that be, right? So, I lined up, all ready to go in my Chuck Taylor high tops and knee-high socks with multi-color tops and short shorts and when the gun fired, I took off.  I wanted that medal and for the first half of the race, I was winning!  I was a jet.  My curly blond hair was flying in the breeze.  This is great!

But at about the half-way mark my lungs start to burn and one of the guys passes me.  No problem.  No shame in second place.  This is still good.  I’m giving it all I have.  Evidently though, the guy behind me has a little more and he passes me.  That’s ok.  *Huff huff* I’ll get third place…well, make that fourth place but we only have a few yards left and I am hurting. 

I don’t think I even saw the next guy pass me.  But I was not going to let the last guy pass.  No way.  I can hear him.  I can see his feet.  I can feel him right next to me and at the finish line I stick out my chest as far as I can and with every ounce of strength I have and the guy next to me does the same…but he is just a little bit farther ahead.  There’s no nice way of putting it.  I was last.  6th out of 6.  No medal for me.  Maybe someday I’ll have an illustration where I am the hero but…not today.

Have you ever had the chance to be a hero and failed?  Have you ever been in a situation where if you just do what you need to do, everything will work out fine but you don’t do it?  Maybe all you have to do is be patient and not do anything but you can’t wait and so you jump out there and everything falls apart because of it.  You feel like something has to be done and so you do something and it was the wrong thing to do.  No medal for you.

What keeps you from doing the right thing, whatever that is?  What is it that makes you fail to be the person God wants you to be?  Today we start a 3-part series on how to be the person Satan wants you to be.  Satan wants you to fail.  He wants you to suffer.  He wants you to be miserable and he especially likes it when you worry, when you are selfish and when you are jealous because he can really work with those characteristics.

1 Peter 5:8 says, Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  It is only by God’s grace and mercy and His righteous right hand that Satan has not already devoured you.  I say it all the time that Satan wants nothing more than to kill you dead but if God won’t allow that then he will settle for anything he can get and when he sees you worrying or selfish or jealous, his mouth starts to water because he knows that is the person he wants you to be.



You’re not the first one to be worrying, selfish or jealous, though.  Just a few thousand years ago, just a few thousand miles from here there was a man named Saul.  Saul was the perfect example of the need to be careful what you wish for.  Since the days of Moses, God had governed Israel through priests and judges but they decided they wanted to be like the other nations around them who had kings.  So God gave them a king.



Saul was a man of great courage and strength and ability.  He was a great warrior.  The problem was he relied on his own power and judgment instead of God’s and it led to disaster.  Let’s read about one such instance in 1 Samuel 13:1-14.  In most of the Bibles in the pews it is on page 198.



The setting is the battlefield.  Picture this.  It’s Israel versus the Philistines.  The Philistines have thousands and thousands of well-armed, well-trained troops carrying state of the art weapons (you know, swords and spears) but the Israelites had only 3000 men armed with sticks and rocks and harsh words.  The good news is that the prophet Samuel promised Saul he would be there in seven days and he would offer the appropriate sacrifice and God would be on their side and victory would be theirs.  That’s all Saul had to do.



Let’s read 1 Samuel (or as Trump says One Samuel) 13:1-14. 

Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty-two years.Saul chose three thousand men from Israel; two thousand were with him at Mikmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin. The rest of the men he sent back to their homes.Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Geba, and the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul had the trumpet blown throughout the land and said, “Let the Hebrews hear!” So all Israel heard the news: “Saul has attacked the Philistine outpost, and now Israel has become obnoxious to the Philistines.” And the people were summoned to join Saul at Gilgal.The Philistines assembled to fight Israel, with three thousand chariots, six thousand charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up and camped at Mikmash, east of Beth Aven. When the Israelites saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in pits and cisterns. Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter. So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.” And Saul offered up the burnt offering. 10 Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him.11 “What have you done?” asked Samuel. Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mikmash, 12 I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.”13 “You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. 14 But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.”

Now, don’t raise your hand but how many of you have ever felt like Saul?  How many of you have ever seen that trouble is coming and God doesn’t seem to be working so obviously you are going to have to do something?  Poor Saul was just doing what he thought was best.  He knew that a sacrifice had to be made and Samuel was a no show / no call and so he made the sacrifice.  What’s the problem?

Well, before we get to the points I want to make about worry, I would like for us to see Saul’s sin for what it really was.  Some people think that his sin was usurping the duty of the priest who was supposed to make sacrifices and maybe that was part of it but I believe the worst part was how he didn’t wait on God.  In Saul’s eyes God wanted a sacrifice so Saul gave Him a sacrifice.  You know, because what God needed was a dead cow, right?

What God really wanted was Saul’s obedience.  God didn’t want a barbecue.  What good is that to God?  God wanted Saul to have faith that when God said to wait, he would wait patiently knowing that God was in control and that God loved him and so what was there to worry about?

Today I think some people tithe with the same thought that Saul had.  They think, “Ok, God wants money so I’ll do Him a favor and give Him some.”  God doesn’t want your money.  He doesn’t need your money.  This church doesn’t need your money.  God owns the cattle on a thousand hills.  He owns everything!  He has the resources to make the sun rise and set and you’re gonna do Him a favor with your paper money?

He doesn’t want your sacrifice.  He wants your obedience.  In just a couple of chapters Samuel tells Saul, What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.” 1 Sam 15:22 NLT

So, if God tells you to do something (like tithing) then do it cheerfully (2 Cor. 9:7) and with an attitude of obedience rather than sacrifice.  That is being the person God wants you to be.  Satan, on the other hand, wants you to worry and he was very pleased with Saul that day because we see that worry leads to disobedience.  It leads to casting blame and it always has consequences.

Look at verses 7,8 and 9 again.  Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter. So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.”

Can’t you just picture Saul?  He’s pacing back and forth, checking his watch, checking his calendar, scanning the horizon looking for Samuel but all he sees are more and more Philistines and fewer and fewer of his own men.  He tells his men to get the sacrifices ready so that when Samuel does get there he can get right to it.  Some more time passes and finally – even though he knows what to do and what not to do – he makes the sacrifice.

Philippians 4:6 says, do not be anxious about anything.”  God tells us that worry is sinful.  Anything that displeases God is sin and worry is a sin and so often it leads to more sin just like it did in this case with Saul.  Worry led Saul to disobedience.  The rest of Philippians 4:6 says, “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Nothing is said in scripture here of Saul saying any kind of prayer.  Why do you think Saul didn’t pray?  Why don’t you pray when trouble comes your way?  Or maybe you do but not enough.  Why is prayer so hard to do?

I heard a guy one time say that prayer instead of worrying is like the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Harrison Ford’s character runs around the corner and finds himself face to face with this great Arab swordsman.  The swordsman makes a great show of flashing his sword back and forth and you expect that they are about to get into this big fight but Harrison Ford just pulls a pistol and shoots the guy, rolls his eyes and walks off.  Do you remember that scene?

The man said that prayer is like that.  Instead of worrying and fighting with Satan we should just pull out our gun of prayer and pull the trigger.  Problem solved, right?  There’s only one problem.  It’s not really like that, is it?  I wish it was but God doesn’t always work that way.  His ways are not our ways and just like God doesn’t just want your money, He also doesn’t just want you throwing up a prayer and walking off.

Do you know what God really wants?  God loves you passionately and shows it generously in so many ways and He wants you to be happy.  He really does.  But do you know what He wants more than your happiness?  He wants you to have a faith-based relationship with Him; a relationship where as soon as you find trouble you hit your knees and say, “God, I can’t solve this.  I can’t fix this but I know you can and so I am just going to trust you to do that in your own perfect timing and in your own perfect will and I am going to leave this problem at your feet.  And when it comes up again tomorrow or even later today I will do it again and again knowing you are in control and that you love me.”

I don’t know what I would have done if I were in Saul’s sandals but what he should have done was pray instead of worrying because worrying is sin and worrying leads to more sin.  It leads to casting blame for one thing.

Look at what Samuel says in verse 11.  “What have you done?”  Does that sound familiar?  Have you heard words like that somewhere before?  Do you remember in Genesis chapter 3 when Adam and Eve ate the fruit and God found them?  God said, “What is this you have done?” and what’s the first thing both of them did?  They blamed somebody else.

Adam blamed Eve and God in one sentence.  “The woman you put here with me gave it to me.”  Eve said, “The serpent deceived me.”  It’s never our fault, right?  When Samuel showed up Saul immediately blamed him for not being there on time when actually Samuel was on time just not when Saul was hoping.  Saul blamed his men.  He blamed the Philistines.  He blamed his feelings.  He blamed the weather.  He blamed unicorns.  It didn’t matter who.  Just don’t blame Saul!

In Discipleship Journal, Don McCullough wrote: "John Killinger tells about the manager of a minor league baseball team who was so disgusted with his center fielder's performance that he ordered him to the dugout and assumed the position himself. The first ball that came into center field took a bad hop and hit the manager in the mouth. The next one was a high fly ball, which he lost in the glare of the sun--until it bounced off his forehead. The third was a hard line drive that he charged with outstretched arms; unfortunately, it flew between is hands and smacked his eye. Furious, he ran back to the dugout, grabbed the center fielder by the uniform, and shouted. 'You idiot! You've got center field so messed up that even I can't do a thing with it!'

How would you describe that coach?  Foolish?  That’s just what Samuel said to Saul in verse 13.  When you see somebody blaming somebody else for their own sins, that’s what you should think.  Especially when it is the person in the mirror who’s casting blame.  You’re acting foolishly.  Sin is foolish.  Worry is foolish.  Not praying is foolish and casting blame on others…foolish.

But that’s what happens when you worry.  We have seen that worrying leads to disobedience.  It leads to casting blame and it always has consequences.  Look at verses 13 and 14. “You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. 14 But now your kingdom will not endure.”

Your kingdom will not endure.  That’s pretty harsh but sin always has consequences.  I’ve heard it said that sin will always TAKE YOU FARTHER THAN YOU WANTED TO GO, KEEP YOU LONGER THAN YOU WANTED TO STAY and COST YOU MORE THAN YOU INTENDED TO PAY.  That is true even for the sin of worrying.  I don’t think most of us really appreciate how bad worrying really is.  I don’t think we really understand the consequences.

Worrying is basically saying that God is either not strong enough or He doesn’t love enough to fix my problem.  How do you think God – who we just learned a few weeks ago IS love – feels when you worry; when you say to Him that He isn’t strong enough or love enough?

Do you think He laughs and shakes His head?  “That little worry wart child of mine!  Hahaha!”  No!  The sin of worrying is offensive to God and you can expect there to be consequences to that sin just like you would for any other sin.  Worry is a sin that put His Son Jesus on the cross and God will deal harshly sometimes with those who do it.

BOOCOD  There are benefits of obedience and consequences of disobedience.  How many thousand times have you heard that?  But it’s true even with worrying.  I’ve asked a couple people to briefly give testimony about that.  Brian and Lois

In verse 14 Samuel tells Saul that he will be replaced by somebody else.  This other person, Samuel says, is a man after God’s own heart.  You know who that is, right?  I am reminded of how David reacted instead of worrying.  He wrote it in one of the most beautiful psalms ever written.  I’d like for you to sit back and relax and take a deep breath or two because I know you have things that you are concerned about but just listen and picture yourself in Psalm 23 written by David.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
    he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the
Lord
    forever.

You too can have that kind of peace in the darkest valleys of your life.  Ask God to forgive you of worry and all other sins and repent of those sins.  If you never have, ask Jesus to be Lord of your life, by faith trusting that He is in control and He loves you very much. 

Monday, January 18, 2016

“God is Life” – 1 John 5:9-12


Compromise.  That can be such a difficult topic sometimes.  When do you compromise and when do you stand firm and not give an inch?  Parents fight that battle daily.  Do you let your kids do something when you know it is not in their best interest or do you have a big fight about it that benefits nobody?  Sometimes you have to compromise.

Anybody in the market for a car knows the compromise struggle.  You want a vehicle that’s really fast but you need good gas mileage.  You want a big truck because they’re handy but your wife wants a smooth ride and a trunk.  So you compromise and get a half ton truck with a bed cover. Right?

You know where I have to compromise every day and I hate it?  Breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I want to eat something that is healthy and cheap and I don’t want to have to do dishes afterward.  So, what do I do?  I have to compromise because that’s pretty much not possible.

Even in church you have to compromise sometimes, right?  I know that everybody wants to sit up front so they can see me really well but you all can’t sit up close.    I also know that sometimes somebody drinks all the Dr. Pepper in the Fellowship Hall and I have to drink something else.  Yes, the struggle is real, folks.  Or, more seriously, sometimes somebody wants something or wants to do something and somebody else doesn’t think we should.  What do we do?

Well, it depends, doesn’t it?  It depends on what we are talking about.  If the subject is Coke vs. Dr. Pepper then that’s one thing but if the subject is the Gospel then that’s another.  I once saw a clip of the Oprah Winfrey show where she said something to the effect that life is like a wagon wheel and God is at the center and every spoke is a different religion all going to the same place.

Do you know what the Bible says about heretics?  It says you don’t ever listen to them again.  I’m sorry to make Oprah’s ratings plummet like this but I can’t compromise when it comes to the Gospel.  I cannot compromise when it comes to truth.

I say all the time that deep down everybody wants to know the truth.  Some people try real hard to water it down or adjust it to where it is easier to swallow but nobody wants to blindly go in the wrong direction.  When it comes to truth, there is no compromise.  If an Atheist and a Christian have a debate, where do they compromise?  They don’t!  Neither will be happy with any kind of compromise.  Truth is truth and when it comes to the truth of how to get to Heaven, we at Christ Fellowship will never compromise.

The Bible is clear.  Ephesians 2:8 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith” and while that passage is in the New Testament that concept of being saved and going to Heaven by grace and through faith is all through the Bible even in the Old Testament.  Abraham, Moses and David were all saved by grace and through faith just as we are today.

Yet while God has made that plain in His Word, so many people try to make it something else.  They try to think of what makes more sense to them or what they would do if they were God.  The Bible even recognizes this and says a couple of times in Proverbs that there is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. 

When the Bible uses that word “death” it rarely means to die physically.  It nearly always means to die spiritually and for eternity.  So, assuming you want to avoid the way that leads to eternal death and assuming you want to live this life doing more than just going to work, watching TV and then going to sleep, let’s look at what the Bible says about life. 

Turn to 1 John chapter 5, verses 9-12.  In the Bible in the pew it is on page 864.  We will focus mainly on verses 11-12 as we conclude our series on seeing what God is like through the great little book of 1 John.  So far we have seen that God is light and that means He is all-knowledgeable, all holy and all happy.  That makes God very attractive to me.  I hope others see that as well.  We have also seen that God is love and while I can’t always understand why God does some things, I can know that I know that He is love and everything He does revolves around His love for us.  That makes Him very attractive to me.

Today we will see that God is life.  Turn to 1 John 5:9-12.

“We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

The first two verses are basically saying that God the Father says that His Son Jesus is the only way to eternal life and not to believe Him is basically saying that God is a liar.  You can imagine that God frowns on being called a liar.  You can imagine that there are great consequences in this life and the next for calling God a liar but that is exactly what people do who fail to believe God’s own testimony about His Son, Jesus.

Then in verse 11 God says that eternal life is only found “in Jesus.”  I want us to see this morning that in Jesus, we don’t have to wait for eternal life, we don’t have to work for eternal life and we sure don’t have to worry about eternal life.  Let’s read those last two verses again just so we can focus on them this morning.  Verses 11-12.

Now, in one sense, everybody is going to have eternal life.  Don’t stone me just yet.  I’m not saying, like the Pope has lately, that everybody is on track for getting to Heaven.  I mean the Bible is clear that you will either spend eternity in Heaven or in Hell.  In Matthew 25 Jesus is telling about the last judgment and tells how to some He will say, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

But in verse 11 John is talking about eternal life in Heaven and he says that God has given us eternal life.  We don’t have to wait for it.  We already have it from the moment we ask Jesus into our lives and to be Lord of our lives.  It doesn’t say that God is going to give us eternal life.  It says He already has.  We don’t have to wait til the concert is over to get our backstage pass.  We get it when we walk in the door.

On Wednesday nights at 7pm, Brian Amerman is leading us through a fascinating study of the parables of Jesus.  So often Jesus starts those parables by saying either “the Kingdom of Heaven is like…” or “the Kingdom of God is like…” and what He is talking about is our eternal life in Heaven that starts right here on earth when we are saved.

Now, if our eternity has already started then what does that mean for us?  Well, as children of the King of kings, we are treated differently and we should act differently.  Did you know that God looks at us with favor and treats us differently than non-believers?  Isaiah 66:2 says, “These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word.”  Repeat.  Humble and contrite.  Is that you?

As children of the King you might be tempted to not be humble or contrite but you need to remember that none of us deserve eternal life and none of us did anything to get it.  Remember?  By grace and through faith and nothing makes God less attractive than for His kids to act conceited.  It was John Riskin who said, "I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own power, or hesitation in speaking his opinion. But really great men have a ... feeling that the greatness is not in them but through them; that they could not do or be anything else than God made them."

When we are humble and contrite toward God and others, He treats us differently.  Therefore, we ought to also act differently.  We are children of the King.  When Satan comes up behind you and whispers in your ear, “Hey, you deserve it.  Let’s go do that thing we do.”  Excuse me, Satan, but you don’t know who you’re talking to.  I am a child of the one true King and while I used to do that, I don’t anymore because my Father has given me the gift of power to overcome that and I’m offended you would even ask.  Now, in the name of Jesus, be gone!

Repeat after me:  I’m a child of the King and I don’t do that anymore!  Say it again.  We don’t have to continue in that addiction.  We don’t have to continue in lust or anger or greed or any other sin because we know that God has given us the gift of eternal life and He has given us the gift of power to overcome the world and the prince of this world.

That makes God attractive when His children are humble and contrite before God and others but they also live like they have been given eternal life right here and right now.  We don’t have to wait for it.

That leads right in to the next point.  We don’t have to work for our eternal life.  It has been given to us as a gift.  I have a $1-dollar bill here.  If you want it, come and get it.  Now, first of all, when did this dollar become yours?  It became yours when you received it; when you took it and it is yours from now on.  Next, this dollar is a gift.  You did not work for it.  You had to get up and come get it but nothing else.  You did no work to earn this dollar.

That is what is meant in verse 11 where John says that God has given us eternal life.  The same guy said in one of the most famous verses in the Bible that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  That verse makes God very attractive because it is the essence of what God is like.  Because God is love He has given us eternal life through Jesus and we should use John 3:16 when we witness to people.



Use Romans 3:23 to tell the bad news that we are all sinners.  Then continue with Romans 6:23 that says that what we deserve for that sin – the wages of that sin – is eternal death but then give them the good news that the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Finish it off with John 3:16 and then drop the mic.  You don’t have to argue with them.  Truth is enough.  If they say no that is on them but you have done what you have been called to do as a child of the King who doesn’t have to wait for his eternal life and you don’t have to work for it.



We know that eternal life is a gift and because we don’t have to work for it, we also don’t have to worry about it.  Isn’t that a wonderful truth?  One of Satan’s favorite lies he tells to believers is that they are not a believer.  If he can’t have your soul, then he goes to work making you believe that you are not a child of the King and so you don’t need to act like it.



But I want to know where in the Bible it says that after God has given us this gift of eternal life that He then takes it back.  Where is that found?  It’s not!  In fact, all through the Bible it says we don’t have to worry about that gift because it is an eternal gift that starts the moment you receive it. 



John 10:27 says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.”  Romans 8:38 says, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”



I know it can be controversial to say that once we are saved that we are always saved but I have to say that because the Bible says it.  I know that the argument is always, “So if I am saved does that mean I can live any way I want to?” and my response is well, technically, yes.  The truth is though that once you are saved you will not want to live that old way because you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you and when you do sin it will bother you.  It will destroy your peace.



Do you know how else we don’t have to worry about eternal life?  We don’t have to worry about somebody else’s eternal life either.  I don’t mean we don’t have to witness.  What I mean by that is trying to judge whether somebody else is or isn’t a Christian.  That is a sin.  When you see somebody that claims to be a Christian but is sinning it is not your call to say they are not Christians.



Matthew 7:1 is one of the most mis-quoted verses of the Bible.  It says, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”  It is talking about judging somebody else’s eternity.  When it comes to sin, we can and should judge that something is a sin and we should call it sin.  1 Peter 4:17 says, “For it is time for judgment to begin with God's household.”



But for believers Romans 8:1 says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  We don’t have to worry about our salvation.  We don’t have to worry about our eternal life.  If we are truly believers; if we have sincerely believed that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6) and we have asked Him to be Lord of our lives; we have repented or turned away from our sins and asked forgiveness of those sins then we don’t have to worry about anything.



1 John 5 tells us that we don’t have to wait for our gift of eternal life.  It begins the moment we receive Jesus and we should act like it.  We don’t have to work for it.  It is a gift that we don’t deserve.  Nor do we have to worry about it.  If we didn’t do anything to earn it, there is nothing we can do to lose it.  The joy of this knowledge should make God attractive to non-believers when they see the changes it has made in our lives.



What is God like?  He is light.  He is love and He is life.  Now act like it.



Invitation



Questions tonight at 6 – bring your Bible



Next week we will see how to become the person Satan wants you to be.  From 1 Samuel.


Monday, January 11, 2016

“God is Love” – 1 John 4:7-12


Story:  I was attending a junior stock show when a grand-champion lamb, owned by a little girl, was being auctioned. As the bids reached five dollars per pound, the little girl, standing beside the lamb in the arena, began to cry. At ten dollars, the tears were streaming down her face and she clasped her arms tightly around the lamb's neck. The higher the bids rose, the more she cried. Finally, a local businessman bought the lamb for more than $1000, but then announced that he was donating it to the little girl. The crowd applauded and cheered. 

Months later, I was judging some statewide essays when I came across one from a girl who told about the time her grand-champion lamb had been auctioned. "The prices began to get so high during the bidding," she wrote, "that I started to cry from happiness." She continued with: "The man who bought the lamb for so much more than I ever dreamed I would get returned the lamb to me, and when I got home, Daddy barbecued the lamb--and it was really delicious.  I loved it."  Joe Wagner, in Reader's Digest.

Have you ever misjudged love?  Have you ever been wrong about who really loved who; who loved you or who loved what?  Sometimes we might think we are the lamb being loved by the little girl when really all she sees is money and lamb chops!  It’s hard to know sometimes who really loves us and even harder to know what love really is in the first place.

Those three little words, “I love you” are easy to say and sometimes it’s even easy to do…for a while…until it’s not.  Then what happens?  What happens when the one who is supposed to love you doesn’t anymore?  What happens when the one you love is hard to love?

Ernest Havemann wrote:  You can see them alongside the shuffleboard courts in Florida or on the porches of the old folks' homes up north: an old man with snow-white hair, a little hard of hearing, reading the newspaper through a magnifying glass; an old woman in a shapeless dress, her knuckles gnarled by arthritis, wearing sandals to ease her aching arches. They are holding hands, and in a little while they will totter off to take a nap, and then she will cook supper, not a very good supper and they will watch television, each knowing exactly what the other is thinking, until it is time for bed. They may even have a good, soul-stirring argument, just to prove that they still really care. And through the night they will snore unabashedly, each resting content because the other is there. They are in love, they have always been in love, although sometimes they would have denied it. And because they have been in love they have survived everything that life could throw at them, even their own failures.  Bits & Pieces, June 24, 1993, pp. 7-9., Bits & Pieces, June 24, 1993, pp. 7-9.

Now, isn’t that just precious?  That sounds like a pretty good place to be, right?  The problem is that it is so hard to get there.  I think I’ve told you before about going with my girlfriend at the time to her parents’ house for a Thanksgiving family reunion.  All of her family was there; uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews and there was her grandmother and grandfather as well, “Mamaw and Papaw” or whatever their names were.

Everybody was having a great time, laughing and eating and finally the conversation lagged for just a second and one of the young adult ladies asked Papaw a question.  “Papaw, if you could do it all over again, would you?” she asked with a smile on her face.

Papaw simply just said “No” which was kind of awkward.  The lady tried to clarify.  “I mean, you know, marrying Mamaw and having kids and grandkids and all.  Wouldn’t you do that all again?”

“No”, said Papaw.  “Too hard.”

Too hard.  What was hard about it?  Love is hard!  At least it’s hard to do for any length of time.  It’s hard to love in a real way.  Oh sure, you can love peanut butter and you can love puppy dogs and you can love riding motorcycles but try loving somebody who is hard to love (you know, like you) and do it for the rest of your life even if it means sacrificing everything you have.  That’s hard.  In fact, I would say, based on what scripture says, that it is impossible to do without God doing it through you.

Are you ready for me to back that statement up with scripture?  I hope so and I hope you have your copy of scripture and if you do please turn way to the back, nearly to Revelation to the great little book of 1 John.  If you are using a Bible in the pew, it is probably on page 863.  We are going to look at 1 John 4:7-12 as we continue our emphasis on knowing what God is like so we can make Him look attractive to people as we go making disciples.

The books of 1,2,3 John were written by the disciple John who had been with Jesus and who called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved so it is appropriate that John would help us understand what it means to be a disciple and what it means to love and be loved.  1 John is one of those books that is just chock full of those apples of gold in settings of silver, if you know what I mean.  (Proverbs 25:11)

1 John 4:7-12 says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

Now, to really understand this passage, it’s important that everybody knows Greek.  Is that gonna be a problem for anyone?  Yes?  Good, because I don’t know it either but I have books that tell me that there are several words in the Greek that mean love.  You can love your brother or your neighbor with one word.  You can love your spouse with another and you can love like God loves with the word that John uses here.  That word is agape

You could read the passage, “Dear friends, let us agape one another, for agape comes from God.”  Those other kinds of love don’t necessarily come from God like agape does.  Galatians 5:22 says that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, etc.  That love, agape, comes from God because God is agape.  When Galatians says it is a fruit of the Spirit, it means that it is what shows up when the Spirit shows up.  It is a characteristic of having the Holy Spirit in your life.

It’s not even really described as a gift.  When John says that God is love He means it is the chief characteristic of God; the characteristic that all His other characteristics revolve around.  When God shows up as the Father, Son or Holy Spirit love is going to be there.  It’s the same with His children.  When we as disciples and believers, who the Bible says have the Holy Spirit living in us, show up then love automatically shows up as well.  That’s why John says in verse 8 that “Whoever does not love does not know God.” 

I have 2 dogs, Bo and Sara.  I often refer to them as “my kids” since I don’t have human kids of my own and if you are wondering, I recommend dogs over kids any day but that’s another story.  But if you didn’t know me and I introduced myself and then introduced Sara to you as my daughter you might find that a little strange, right?  If I dressed her up all pretty in a little dress and let her sit at the table and gave her her own iPhone and expected the school to treat her as a human, you would think I was crazy.  I could even talk about how I remember when my wife gave birth to her that it was the best day of my life.  You would know that no matter how beautiful she was and that no matter what I said that she was not my real daughter.

It’s the same when somebody talks about being a Christian and dresses themselves up as one but does not have agape love.  That person is not of God; not a born-again child of God because where God is love is.  Agape love comes from God; it permeates everything He does, every command He gives, everything He gives and even everything He takes away.  Do you believe that?

Oh, I hear you.  I know what you’re thinking when I say that.  “Todd, you don’t know what has been taken away from me.  How can God be love when He took my (fill in the blank) away from me?”

I understand that line of thinking.  I really do and I could give you examples from my own life or examples of way too many people sitting around you of when God took something or someone away and then years later it all became clear why He did that.  It’s sort of like a mother who takes her baby to the doctor for a vaccination.  He gives the baby a shot and the baby screams and cries and looks at Mom in horror wondering why she would allow it.  But it was done out of love and for the benefit of the child.  We all know that.

But sometimes…sometimes it never makes sense.  Sometimes we never understand and we never will understand until we see Jesus face to face.  Until then we just have to trust Him because He has proven Himself trustworthy.  Until then all we can do is quote that little part at the end of verse 8.  Do you see it?  It says, “…because God is love.”  “…because God is love.”

That answers every “why” question you have so just memorize that.  Why did God take my loved one?  “…because God is love.”  Why don’t I have that job I need?  “…because God is love.”  Why do I struggle with all these things?  “…because God is love.”  I can’t understand it.  It’s not easy.  It hurts.  But the Bible says it and that’s enough because the Bible (God’s Word) has proven itself to be true and if it’s not true that God is love then none of it can be believed.  So, make the choice right now to believe.

See, that’s what agape love is all about.  It is about making the choice.  That’s what separates it from all other kinds of love.  I love peanut butter because it tastes good.  You love the Cowboys when they play well. We love some songs because they make us feel good.  With most things I love it is because of the way they make me feel.  That’s not agape love.

God showed us agape love even before we showed Him love.  It was not because we made Him feel good.  Romans 5:8 says, But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  That’s agape love.  That’s what it’s talking about in verse 10.  God made the choice to love us even before He would ever get anything good out of it.  Jesus made the choice to die for the sins of the very men who drove the nails into His hands.  Agape love doesn’t just feel.  Agape love is love in action performed by the will of the one showing it.

First Corinthians 13 is called the Love Chapter in the Bible.  You hear it read at almost every wedding, and you should because it is talking about agape love.  It says, Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

You can easily substitute the name of Jesus for the word love there.  Jesus is patient, kind, etc.  The question is:  can you insert your name?  I’ll tell you, nobody is naturally all those things.  You have to make the choice to be those things.  You make the choice to be patient.  You make the choice to be kind.  You make the choice and you continue to make the choice even when it costs you everything because agape love – while it comes from God and is shown by God - is only completed in us.

See that in verse 12?  This message is not to encourage you to try harder to love people unconditionally.  Nobody can do that on their own for any length of time but God is love and love will manifest itself in His children.  As believers we will make the choice to love people unconditionally and sacrificially.  As a church we will make the choice to sacrifice for others’ sakes so that God will be attractive to them through us and so that they will see who God really is and want to become disciples as well.

D.L. Moody used to tell the story about a little boy who attended a Sunday school at a local church. When his parents moved to another part of the city the little fellow still attended the same Sunday school, although it meant a long, tiresome walk each way. A friend asked him why he went so far, and told him that there were plenty of others just as good nearer his home.

"They may be as good for others, but not for me," was his reply.

"Why not?" she asked.  "Because they love a fellow over there," he replied.

They agape over there.  What good is it to the community of Lake Bridgeport if we know that love comes from God and is shown to us by God if that love is not completed in us?  If the people we have been called to minister to – the poor, addicted and incarcerated – can’t get sacrificial love from our church then where are they going to turn and who will show them how attractive God really is?

This is actually one of the reasons why I love this church and what separates us from other, usually much bigger churches.  This church has proven over and over again that we choose to love people even when we know we will never be repaid or maybe not even loved in return and I believe that is why God has called us to the poor, addicted and incarcerated and also why we are still such a small church – because agape love is hard to do.

It can only be done by having a life-changing relationship with God through His Son Jesus.  Notice I didn’t say that it can only be done through membership in this church.  There are lots of churches with more members but lots of those members are not continuing to make the choice to love others sacrificially and what that tells me is that those members either don’t know God or their relationship with Him is blocked by sin in their lives.

How about you?  Is agape love being continually shown in your life?  It comes from God and is shown by God and it will be completed in your life if you have asked God to be Lord of your life and to forgive you of your sins.  Do that today and know that whatever happens that God loves you because God is love.