Sermon 2-21-10

Heavenly Father, we gather here early on a Sunday morning and thank You for our church, for the warmth, and the comfort, and that we are surrounded by fellow believers. But most of all we thank You that You are here, Lord, and that You will speak to us now with Your wisdom through the words in the Bible. Help us to hear, help us to understand, and help the preaching of Your word this morning be one that clarifies who You are and how You work in our lives so that me may make some sense of this coming week and the world around us. And we pray this in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

The readings this morning center around the fact that God has chosen us. The first reading from Psalm chapter 30 emphasis just that, especially verse 12.

Old Testament – Psalm 33:8-12 Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. The LORD foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance.

Our second reading talks about that it is God who chooses us because, by nature, by who we are, we don’t want anything to do with God. That’s always an unbelievable thought and the Romans reading really brings it out.

Epistle – Romans 3:10-12 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

Our Gospel Lesson are the words of Jesus.

Gospel – John 6:44-47, 64-65 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”

Sermon –

Do you ever have those days where you feel like you’re losing it, that it’s all you can do to keep your head on straight? Well, then you have come to the right place because we are continuing with our Lenten series titled Making Sense Out Of Life and the principle we are looking at this week from Henry Blackaby’s Experiencing God, is:

Principle 2: GOD PURSUES A CONTINUING LOVE RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU THAT IS BOTH REAL and PERSONAL

Today we want to begin by talking about the love relationship we have with God. We use the word “love” differently than the Bible uses the word “love”. The word in the Greek language describing God’s love for us is agape. God’s agape love would rather suffer than make you suffer. God, who hates sin, who can’t stand sin, would rather become guilty of your sin and my sin than see you guilty of your sin. And, God, who is perfect and sinless, would rather punish Himself for that sin than punish you. God’s love is so hard to grasp and so hard to imagine; His love is a self-giving, self-sacrificing love. God’s love is such that, as Romans 5:8 says, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. Now with that type of love, you would think that people would just be flocking to God, wouldn’t you? Yet look at all the empty seats here this morning. And it’s the same in all the other churches in this country; people are not flocking to God.

So what’s going on? Why is this happening? To make sense out of this, let’s look at our readings for today. By nature, we don’t want anything to do with God, we turn away from Him and even though God offers such great things we, in our sinful nature, we don’t want anything to do with Him. In our sinful nature, we cannot approach God therefore God has to pursue us. And God does pursue a relationship with us; He goes after us and pursues us in a love relationship. And at that point, when we grasp those concepts, all of a sudden life starts making sense.

One afternoon several years ago, for some reason, I don’t know, maybe I was just frustrated, I had Barbie by the legs and I had her head in my other hand. I began pulling her legs in one direction and pulling her head in the other direction and I pulled and pulled and pulled and you know what finally happened? POP!!! Barbie’s head came right off! (Pastor showed the congregation his headless Barbie doll!)

And that’s what happens to us, we’re just like Barbie. The world and our nature pulls us in one direction, away from God. Our Romans reading says that we can’t go to God, that we want to run from God and that we pull ourselves away from Him. But God is continually pursuing a continuing love relationship with us, He is continually drawing us to Him and pulling in the opposite direction. And you know what’s going to happen? POP!!! That explains why some days it seems it feels like we’re losing it and it’s all we can do to keep our head on straight. When we understand that, life begins to make some sense.

Maybe you have experienced this yourself or maybe you have experienced it as you tried to bring Christ into other people’s lives. You talk to them about Christ, you invite them to church, you give them a Bible verse every now and then and all of a sudden one day POP!!! they lose their heads. They blow up at you and say, “Don’t talk me to Christ! You Bible Boppers are all the same. Just leave me alone! I’ll talk to you about anything else, but don’t talk to me about God!”

Now we know why that happens, now we can make some sense out of it because their nature and the world is drawing them in one direction and through you, God is pulling them in another direction and all of a sudden POP!!! they lose their head. When that happens don’t get discouraged because now you can make some sense out of what’s going on. They lose their head and get mad at you because God is pursuing a continuing love relationship with them that is both real and personal.

The Old Testament is full of examples about God using war to pursue people. What happened to King David in 2 Samuel 24 one day? POP!!! He lost his head and made a bad decision. The people were tempted to trust in their military strength and might; to trust in their weapons, the amount of fighting men they had, and their battle finery and one day David took a census of his fighting men. But God was trying to pull them in the other direction, telling them that they would be successful in battle because He was fighting for them, telling them to trust in Him, not their military strength. God was always decreasing the amount of fighting men and always decreasing the strength of Israel’s army. He wanted the people to trust in Him because God was pursuing a continuing love relationship with his people that was both real and personal.

And another example from the Old Testament. The Israelites were out in the desert after being delivered from slavery. Because there was no food or water, they were constantly tempted to store up supplies for themselves and place their trust in what they could provide. This was pulling in one direction but because God was pulling in another direction, He was always decreasing the food supply. And what happened? POP!!! They lost their heads and began to store up food. And what happened to their manna when they tried to store it? It rotted and stunk! They lost their heads and made bad decisions. God is always trying to get us to trust in Him.

And an example from the New Testament - Luke Chapter 18 tells the story of the rich young man who came to Jesus and said, “What must I do to have eternal life?” Jesus gave him a really strange answer. He said, “Sell all you have a give it to the poor.” Now that’s a strange answer because we all know that what you have to do to have eternal life is confess your sins and trust that Jesus died and paid for them on the Cross; we are saved by faith. But Jesus told the rich man to sell all he had and give it to the poor, then come follow Him.

This is a confusing story and if we’re going to make some sense out of it we have to remember that God is continually pursuing a relationship with us. What was Jesus doing? Riches and wealth were pulling that young man in one direction and Jesus, pursuing a continuing love relationship with him that was both real and personal, was trying to draw him in the other direction. Jesus was essentially saying, “Don’t trust in your money, trust in me. I will provide for all your needs.” But what happened? Riches pulled the man in one direction, Christ pulled him in another direction and POP!!! the guy lost his head and made a bad decision – he turned and walked away.

For us, things in this world – primarily money, because we have lots of needs and money can supply all those needs - are pulling us in one direction, and God, pursuing a continuing love relationship with us, is pulling us in another direction. And what happens to us sometimes? POP!!! we lose our heads and make bad decisions. What was God doing during the economic downturn? He was decreasing the money supply and getting us to trust in Him in money. The man that handles my retirement funds calls me every three months or so and for the past three phone calls he has said to me, “Please, Pastor, go back to your congregation and tell them to not trust in money.” He had clients who were trusting too much in their money and during the economic downturn their trust in money was pulling them in one direction. God was pulling them to trust in Christ and you know what happened? One day, POP!!! his clients lost their heads and made bad financial decisions and liquidated everything. And at that point an interesting thing happened, the financial markets started to turn around, they started going up and his clients never recovered what they lost. They lost hundreds and thousands of dollars all because they lost their heads and trusted in things, in money, as opposed to trusting in God.

And look in the bulletin, this week our deficit it at $58,000. What is that all about? God knows we have a constant tendency to trust in money, to feel secure when we have lots of money, to feel secure when the deficit is non-existent and all the bills are paid. So what is He trying to do? He is trying to get us to trust in Him! He’s pulling us in the other direction and we have to make sure that we don’t lose our heads. Each of you has to make sure that you remain current with your tithing and offerings and that you are not trusting in money but trusting in God. And His promise is that you will always have enough and your family will always have enough. Philippians 4:19 says, “He will provide for all your needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus.”

And it really does work. You heard it last Sunday in Bible Class and you heard a different scenario last Wednesday in during our Ash Wednesday service. Last week two people in this congregation lost their jobs; long-time, long-standing jobs. What is that all about? It’s an example for all of us about the pull that money has on us. We tend to feel secure when all our needs are met and we know exactly how they are going to be met - through our paychecks. But God says, “Don’t worry about that, trust in Me. I will supply all your needs according to my riches in Christ Jesus.” He is pulling us in the other direction. And we are thankful that God’s Spirit is here because the two people who lost their jobs have not lost their heads. In fact, I’ve seen their heads on straight, they have peace and a joy about them that I have never seen before. You know why? Because God has pursued them, God is reaching out to them, God is pulling them toward Himself and they are going along. They are trusting in Him, not losing their heads.

So that explains it. It all makes sense. If you were having trouble making sense out of what God is doing, this economy, your bills, why people blow up at you, why you sometimes blow up at people, why tension and stress sometimes get to you, why sometime you feel that you’re losing it and it’s all you can do to keep your head on straight, now you know, it all makes sense. God is pursuing and He’s pulling you toward Him. Just go with the flow. Just turn toward God - that’s called repentance! Just turn toward God and He will supply all your needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus. That’s His promise for you!

Prayer -

Heavenly Father, we thank You for making sense out of life. We have such a tendency to trust in the things of this world, yet You are pursuing us, You are reaching out to us so that we trust in You. May Your Spirit enable us to trust in You, to be drawn to You and have the peace of knowing that You will supply all our needs according to Your riches in Christ Jesus. Be with us this week as we consider that You, Lord, are pursuing us and thank You for doing that. And we pray these things in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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