Well, it’s
the last day of 2017. Are you glad it’s
gone or was it pretty good for you? How
many of you would say that 2017 was a great year overall? In John 10:10, Jesus said He came to give
us abundant lives; full lives. How many
of you lived full and abundant lives in 2017?
How many of you are pleased with yourself in
2017? You lived a pure and holy life.
You weren’t sinless, necessarily, but you feel like you are closer to God
today than you were last year? How many of you saw God answer your prayers this
year like never before?
Maybe you
feel like Satan took more away from you than God gave you. Maybe you feel like you got hammered by the
devil this year and you hope 2018 will be better. I know a lot of you probably
feel that way. The question is, how bad
do you want it?
The new year
is a big time for making resolutions.
People resolve to lose weight, save money, be better people in some way
and most of the time it lasts a few months and then we say, “Well, maybe next year.” I’ve tried real
hard for a long time to eat better. I’ve
tried to stop eating when I feel satisfied, not wait until I’m full and
miserable. I’ve also tried to stop
snacking between meals and to eat more vegetables.
I seriously
have and I think I’ve lost 5-10 pounds this year but do you know how bad I want
to be slim? This bad (hands on fat
belly). This is how bad I really want it.
I can dress in vertical stripes and wear dark colors and suck my stomach
in all I want but at the end of the day and at the end of the year, this proves
how bad I want it.
That’s a
shame because I know being overweight is not healthy and will ultimately take
years off of my life but do you know what is worse than being out of shape
physically? Being out of shape spiritually is way worse because the
consequences are eternal and don’t just affect you but everyone around you.
Paul told Timothy in Timothy 4, “For physical training is of some value, but
godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life
and the life to come.”
So, the
question is, how bad do you want to be in good spiritual shape? Are you in
better shape spiritually than you were last year? Are you closer to God? Have
you seen your prayers answered? Have you memorized helpful scripture verses?
Have you brought anybody else to Christ this year? Would you call yourself a
disciple – one who learns from Jesus and then tells others what you have
learned?
Lord
willing, I am going to ask you those same questions in January 2019 and if you stick with us through this year, you will
be able to answer, “Oh, yes! I have a
much more abundant life. I am closer to God than ever before and let me tell
you what God has shown me and done for me and how He has used me!” You will
be able to see victory over that old liar Satan because we are about to go to
battle this next year and so today we are going to prepare to prepare for it.
Yes, you
heard me right. We are preparing to prepare for battle today and I would ask
you to turn to Joshua chapter 3 as
we prepare to prepare. Joshua is the sixth book in the Old Testament or as the
politically correct would say, the Older Testament. It’s not old. I don’t want it to get its feelings hurt.
Starting
next Sunday, we are going to prepare for battle by first going to boot
camp. I would encourage you to wear your
best Sunday-go-to-meeting camouflage.
For some, that might not be any different than any other Sunday and
that’s good. Next Sunday we will not have Christmas decorations up any longer,
but it will look way different. Trust
me. But today, we are going to prepare to prepare for battle and by that, I
mean we are going to prepare our hearts and minds to prepare ourselves for the
tests ahead.
If you were
going to Marine boot camp next week, you would hopefully understand that they
are probably going to dramatically transform you physically. Your exercise regimen and your diet are about
to change and you will too and so probably, the week before that, you would
prepare yourself mentally for what you are about to go through. You would
prepare to prepare for battle. Now, I have not been in the military but I am so
grateful and appreciative for those who have served and are serving. You have
my undying gratitude and I don’t take it lightly. I have seen YouTube videos of
boot camp and it looks horrible. I watched some while Trey Pittman was in boot
camp to see what he was going through and I wrote him and told him to tell his
drill instructor that I said he needed to be sweet and not scream so much. So,
I’m sure that helped.
Well, when
we get to boot camp next week I promise not to scream as much as they do. I also promise not to give you any “win one
for the Gipper” motivational speeches, nor will I think any less of you if you
fail. But I will stand here with scripture in hand to tell you, not what
I think you should do or what is best for you, but what God commands and the
first thing we must do to prepare to prepare for battle, according to the Word
of God, is to consecrate ourselves.
Look at Joshua chapter 3, please. There we see
the nation of Israel about to go into the Promised Land but they are going to
have to fight for it every step of the way and they are still fighting to stay
there even today. Their first official battle was in Jericho on the other side
of the Jordan River but they first had to cross the Jordan. So they had to
prepare to prepare to go to battle. Your
bulletin says Joshua chapters 3 and 4
but I’m only going to read a few verses.
But you need to read all of chapters 3 and 4 and you need to do it every
day this week. That’s your
homework. That’s part of preparing to
prepare. Every day, read Joshua 3 and 4
until you really understand and have allowed it to sink in what was really
going on, okay?
For today, I
only want to read one verse. Joshua 3:5 says, “Joshua told the
people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing
things among you." Does
that verse sound familiar to anybody? It should if you have been here for a
while. Five years ago, we read this and,
more importantly, did this. We
consecrated ourselves in preparation for what God would do. Then, just a few
weeks ago, we celebrated our 5th anniversary as Christ Fellowship by
just telling stories about this journey and how God really has done amazing
things among us.
That was so
much fun, wasn’t it? I laughed for days thinking about some of those stories
and to tell you the truth, it would be real easy to just coast from now on,
telling about what God has done in the past; how he brought us “angels unaware”
in old vans, protected us from crazy women with cell phones and got us over the
flooded Jordan River - which for us was Hwy 380 - twice (and we have the pebbles on the pulpit
to remember it by).
It would be
easy, in five more years, to tell those same stories and laugh at them and
praise God for them and we will but I want new stories; not just so we can sit
around and talk about them and laugh but, if you think about it, every one of
those stories is testimony to how God provided for us and protected us from the
evil one and I don’t know how you feel but I am sick and tired of this church
being hammered by Satan and watching person after person being picked off and
I’m not going to sit idly by and just allow it! We are in a battle - every one
of us, whether you want to be or not – and it is time we put on our armor, faced
the enemy, and allowed God to fight the battle through us but to do so means we
MUST consecrate ourselves.
No, Joshua
was not talking to us when he gave his command to the Israelites to consecrate
themselves, but scripture is full of similar commands that we can and should
take. My concordance tells me the word is used 172 times in the Bible about
things or people that should be set apart for God’s work. The word “holy” and “consecrated”
are used almost interchangeably all through scripture and we know that “holy”
means to be set apart, different, sanctified, purified or hallowed.
But as I
studied the word “consecrate” a little further I found that it differed from
“holy” in that it also means to be full or filled up and running over. Look at Joshua
3:15. It says the Jordan was at flood stage during the harvest. The original
word used for flood stage is the word “qadash” (kaw-dash). Qadash is the word from
which we get “consecrate”. Same word.
That’s fascinating to me. I hear people sometimes complain about how bad their
lives are. Sometimes they are good Christian people and they are not
exaggerating about how bad they have it.
Maybe they struggle physically or financially or spiritually or any
other way. Sometimes they struggle with
how God would allow them to go through such difficulties and I don’t know the
answer to that most of the time. We know
that the rain falls on the just and the unjust as it says in Matthew 5.
But
sometimes, because we are not completely sold out to God and His plan and His
will for our lives we allow ourselves to go unprotected. In Isaiah 59:2 it says, “But your iniquities (your sins) have
separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that
he will not hear.” Our sin, even the small and so-called insignificant sins
put a barrier between us and God and allow Satan to attack us.
We studied Ephesians 6 in depth this year and we
know what armor we have available to us to protect us from the devil but he is
way stronger than we are and without God’s mighty right hand to protect us, we
don’t stand a chance. We have to put on that armor and stand behind God – completely abiding in Him
and behind Him, filled with Him until He starts to overflow in our lives.
Ninety
percent of Him isn’t going to cut out. If we give 90% of ourselves to God, we
can expect to have unnecessary problems. Don’t expect God to bless your life if
you are not completely sold out to Him. I’m always surprised at how merciful
God is to us when we are not living completely for Him. We can’t expect the
storehouses of Heaven to open up onto our lives when there are places in our
lives where Jesus is not Lord.
To
consecrate ourselves, we have to get every aspect of our lives right with Him.
We have to be right with God in our prayer life, our Bible study, our finances,
our sex lives, the music we listen to, the shows we watch on TV and the web
sites we click on. Where we go, what we read, what we put in our mouths and
what comes out of our mouths all needs to be radically different than the world
and filled up and overflowing with the things of God.
Now, I know
that sounds like a bunch of rules and a bunch of “don’t do this” and “don’t do
that” and don’t have any fun and act like good old Baptist fogies who don’t
approve of smiling and only enjoy a few rounds of the “Quiet Game” or Bible
trivia for entertainment. Because that’s what we do at this church, right?
That’s funny!
We say all
the time that we don’t have any rules around here and do you know why? Do you
know that Jesus didn’t have a lot of rules? He was a rule-breaker! Do you know
what Jesus’ rules were? Love God and love your neighbor. That’s pretty much it. That’s what He said in Matthew 22. When you truly love God and truly love your neighbor,
your fellow-man, you will consecrate yourself.
You will want more and more God and less and less of this world until
pretty soon, you are overflowing with God’s love.
But, do you
know what? You don’t have to do all of
this. You don’t really have to
consecrate yourself or love your neighbor or any of that. You really don’t. You don’t have to fight in
the battle against the evil one. You
don’t have to go to boot camp or study or pray or any of that.
You just
keep doing what you are doing but you will continue to get the responses you
have gotten. You will continue to lose out on God’s protection but don’t worry,
He’s very gracious and merciful and you probably won’t die tomorrow. The
problem is, you will continue to live without living a full and abundant
life. You will continue to live with the
heartaches and unnecessary pains that God’s mighty right hand could save you
from. And you’ll still be in the battle. You just don’t stand a chance at
winning.
Let’s pray
right now as the music plays. I usually
invite you to come to the front if you want but for a few minutes, I just want
you to ask God what areas of your life you need to turn over to Him today. Ask Him, as David did, to search you and try
you and to reveal any wicked way in you. Then, if you want to, you can come
down and I would love to pray with you.
Maybe you need to rededicate your life to Him. Maybe you want to join this church.
Maybe you
don’t have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus today. All you have to do is believe that Jesus died
for your sins, ask Him to forgive your sins and then allow God to change you
and start to consecrate you and make you more like Him as He fills you up with
Himself.
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