A key component to a successful military action is respect for authority. Before a leader can expect others to respect his authority, he must first demonstrate good leadership skills. He must set a good example for others to follow. He must project confidence in his ability to lead.
Ephesians 6, verses 1 thru 3 start off with a reminder of the Fifth Commandment to honor your father and mother.
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”
How many of you parents have read these verses to your children before? You probably read it in exasperation, right? But what about the verse that follows?
"Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord."
Verse 4 tells us fathers to not provoke our children in anger, but to instead bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Why do you think the Scripture addresses fathers specifically and not fathers and mothers? Because we are accountable for our families. We are the leaders.
Why do you think it says we are not to provoke anger in our children? Why not pride or coveting or adultery? Because anger is the most powerful emotion. Anger blinds us. Anger over-rides all other emotions. It is the most destructive emotion.
Now let's go back to verse 1. How many of you remember that this verse also applies to how we treat our own parents? Remember we lead by example. How do you treat your parents in front of your children? Do you bad mouth them? Do you complain about what a lousy job they did raising you? Maybe you had an alcoholic father like me?
It took me a long time to forgive my father for how he treated my mom. In fact, it wasn’t until after my salvation that I took this verse to heart and chose to forgive him.
As leaders in our home, we must always let our family see us respect our parents and those who hold positions of authority in our lives. How can we expect our children to learn to respect us if they see us disrespect our parents, our bosses and our leaders?
When we disrespect authority what are we doing? We’re practicing hypocrisy. Remember hypocrisy is the number-one reason that youth (and adults) drift away from the church.
Now that isn’t to say that when someone in an authority position sins or condones sin we have to ignore it and follow them into sin. We are not bound by Scripture to follow any leader into sin.
Let’s say that the President of the United States says something unbiblical like “it’s OK for gay people to get married.” We should not slander the character of the President or bad mouth him. We should explain to our family why his comment was bad or inappropriate. We point to Scripture to explain why his statement was incorrect. Rather than criticize the President, we should ask our family to pray for him that his heart might soften and see the error of his ways. We should seize this opportunity to remind our family that we are to hate the sin, not the sinner. Training our children in the ways of the Lord.
Now we come to my favorite part of the Book of Ephesians. Now it’s time to get battle ready. In my struggles as a man born to sin, these verses we are about to study are where I draw my strength to fight the daily battle we wage against sin. Here is where we put on the full armor of God and go toe to hoof with Satan and sin.
Chapter 6, verse 10 leads us into battle with the command to "be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might."
How do we become strong in the Lord?
We study Scripture. We study His Word. We not only study it, we bind it to our hearts. We not only learn it, we apply it to how we live our lives. We make the Holy Word of Scripture an inseparable part of us.
Scripture is our most valuable tool of defense, but we should not forget that Satan will also use Scripture as a weapon against us. After 40 days of fasting in the wilderness, a tired and hungry Jesus was tempted by Satan. Satan twisted and perverted Scripture in an attempt to lure Jesus into sin. But Jesus had a sound knowledge of Scripture. Jesus had Scripture bound to his heart and could not be fooled or led astray by Satan.
This is why we bind Scripture in our hearts. We memorize Scripture so that we can have it at the ready whenever we need it. Jesus didn't tell Satan, "Hang on a minute there Beelzebub, I gotta go look that up". No, he knew it in his heart. Scripture was a part of him.
We need to make it a part of us also. This is the battle ready state we must keep ourselves in 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
So then, how do we go into this daily battle? We suit up with the full armor of God. Verse 11 encourages us to "Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil."
Notice that the Apostle Paul says to put on the WHOLE armor of God. You don't go into battle with just a breastplate assuming you won't get hit in the head, right? You don't go into battle with a sword and leave your shield at home. You don't protect your head with a helmet and figure your moves are good enough to dodge any attacks to your body.
When you go into physical battle, you use every piece of gear you have. Why should spiritual battle be any different? God gives us armor for a purpose. Do not leave any part of your body or soul exposed because if you do, chances are great that sin will find its way in. If we put on the whole armor of God, Paul assures us that we "may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil."
In the Greek lexicon, the phrase "may be able" comes from the Greek root word dynamai. In English, the word dynamite is derived from this same root word which means to be connected with power. When we put on the whole armor of God, we are connected with the power of God to wage battle against the schemes of the devil. Isn't that amazing?
We're talking being connected with the Creator of the universe. The all knowing, all powerful God is connected with us in our fight against sin, right there by our side. Off to a good start, right?
Now let's take a look at our opponent in this battle. Verse 12 teaches us "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."
Who is Paul describing in this verse as the authority, the cosmic power over darkness? Satan commands the army of evil that promotes sin. He is a spiritual power greater than man. But take heart gentlemen. Our commander is greater. As powerful as the prince of darkness is in this world, he is inferior to our God.
That doesn't mean we can be complacent towards the power Satan holds on this earth. Unprotected, Satan and his army of sin will crush man. We will be overwhelmed by the schemes of the devil and spend our eternity in the misery of Hell.
That's why we need God. We need the armor that God provides for us. If we put on the whole armor of God we WILL stand against the schemes of the devil. We will prevail.
Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Sounds like we got this in the bag as long as we have this armor of God. But here's the catch. God does not put the armor on for us.
God may feed the sparrow, but he doesn't toss the food into the nest. It's still up to fallen man to take up the sword of faith and go into battle against the evil one. God isn't going to fight the battles for us. Therefore, we must secure each piece of armor as we prepare ourselves for battle.
What exactly is this armor Paul speaks of? Let's take a look at the following verses and examine the full purpose of each piece of armor:
Verse 14 instructs us to "Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth,"
To stand means to stand in the presence of others. It means to stand before judges. Specifically it was used to represent standing before judgment by the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin were the Jewish version of the supreme court and are also the group responsible for condemning Jesus to die on the cross.
To fasten on the belt of truth literally means that we are to equip ourselves with knowledge of the truth.
What is the truth? God's word is the truth. Where do we find the truth? We find the truth in Scripture.
Strongs Concordance defines truth in this verse as "the execution of God's principles through Christ, opposing the superstitions of the Gentiles, the inventions of the Jews, and the corrupt opinions and precepts of false teachers, even among Christians".
In the context of armor, the belt piece also included the cod-piece. What did the codpiece protect? The groin. Why protect our groin? I'm sure all of us men have taken a hit between the legs at some point in our lives. Aside from the pain aspect our groin is where our reproductive organs are. When we protect ourselves from spiritual attack, we are also protecting our children. We are waging battle as part of the legacy we should leave behind for our kids. So we must protect that legacy, right?
Verse 14 continues with "and having put on the breastplate of righteousness".
Our heart is protected by the breastplate of righteousness, and righteousness is defined as a right standing before the Lord. In terms of the Trinity, who guards our heart? The Holy Spirit guards our heart and clads us with righteousness.
Jeremiah 17:9 warns us that our hearts are "deceitful above all things". Unchecked, and without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, our hearts cannot be trusted. Our heart's desire does not always reflect God's desire.
We must guard and protect our hearts at all times. In Psalm 51, David prays "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." If our hearts are not clean, we will surely fall. It all starts and stops with the heart.
Does the Holy Spirit keep us from sinning?
The Holy Spirit is in our hearts to convict us when we sin, not to keep us from sinning. Remember that as believers, we have the ability to choose not to sin. We aren't reprogrammed with the sin gene removed. That software upgrade doesn't come until later, when we are safely at home with our Lord. For now, we still have to choose. For that reason, we must always remember to guard our hearts.
Verse 15 continues up with "and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace."
Readiness in this verse means to be prepared. To have confidence. The confidence we receive through the gospel of peace. Peace is defined by Strongs as "The tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot."
What do we do with this confidence we receive? We use our feet to fulfill the Great Commandment given in Matthew 28:19. We go forth to make disciples of all nations.
Every battle has casualties. Part of our duties as soldiers of the faith is to perform search and rescue. We use our feet to run to the aid to those who have fallen. To help free those who are prisoners of sin.
Verse 16 begins with "In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;"
For a definition of faith, we turn to Hebrews 11:1 "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
Strongs defines faith as "conviction of truth that God exists and is the Creator and ruler of all things, the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ."
Notice that Paul says that armed with the shield of faith, we can extinguish ALL of the flaming darts of the evil one. Not just some of them. ALL of them. No matter what Satan shoots at us, our shield of faith will deflect it. None of Satan's lies, none of his deceitful ways can pierce us. Christ took those flaming darts for us.
Remember, sin can enter our hearts only if we invite sin into our hearts. Does that mean we are untouchable? No. The shield is our tool, our weapon of defense. Our method of deflection. But the shield is only so big. If you're under attack, you've got to keep the shield moving to block all those flaming darts. Unless you've got moves like Jackie Chan, chances are some of those darts are going to get through.
When Roman soldiers went into battle, they gathered in small groups and formed what they called a "tortoise formation".
The men at the front protected them from frontal attack, the men at the sides placed their shields to the left or right to protect them from side attacks, and the men in the rear covered the rear. Then all the men in the middle balanced their shields on their heads to protect them from above. Working together as a team, they were able to become virtually invincible against attack.
As men of faith, we gain strength and protection from fellowship and accountability with other men. Don't just rely on your own shield for protection. Call on your brothers in Christ to help. Don't fight the battle alone. If you aren't already a member of a men's ministry, join one. If you don't already have an accountability partner, get one. There is power in numbers gentlemen.
We continue with verse 17, "and take the helmet of salvation..."
We all know the literal definition of a helmet. Helmets protect our heads. Specifically, our helmet of salvation should be in place to guard our senses. The helmet piece in a suit of armor protects the entire head, and that's good because we need to protect ourselves from more than brain injuries.
You've likely heard the story of the three monkeys, see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil?
Of the three senses, seeing / hearing / speaking, which one is most likely to lead us men into sin? Men are visual by nature. Our eyes can lead us into sin very quickly.
Sexual lust is the number one sin men commit with their eyes. 1 Corinthians 6:18 speaks of the uniqueness of sexual sin. "Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body."
When you are enticed visually to sin, you need to fight with your mind to say no to the image and then fill your mind with counter images that kill off the seductive image. It's not enough to pray for forgiveness and deliverance and then hope the desire will go away, or worse that God will take it away for you. That is too passive.
Matthew 5:29 tells us "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell."
We know that this is a metaphor to illustrate the severity of this sin, but we really do need to take a very aggressive approach to conquering visual enticement. This is a battle of the mind; an internal battle we wage from within. It is absolutely necessary to get the image and the impulse out of our mind. The best way to do this is to replace it with a counter image. This image must be so powerful that the other image cannot survive.
How many of you have seen the movie Passion of the Christ? Next time you are tempted to look at something inappropriate, visualize in your mind instead the scene where Christ is being scourged by the Roman guards. Christ is savagely beaten and whipped with metal hooks ripping the flesh from his body. Think about the agonizing pain He must have suffered. Then think about Him struggling under the weight of that wooden cross as he slowly made his way to Calvary.
Your lustful thoughts should be immediately replaced by repulsion. Your knees should buckle under the weight of what Christ did for you. Humbling? Yes. But more importantly it reprograms our thoughts.
It exposes our desire to indulge in sinful fantasy as the wicked and evil sin that it really is. If you practice this procedure, you begin to train your brain to pursue images of Christ crucified with the same creative energy that you use to pursue sexual fantasies, and you will succeed in killing those fantasies.
OK, back to the monkeys. What about hear no evil? Are you able to discern against false teaching? Are you able to walk away from gossip rather than get drawn into it?
Put on the helmet of salvation.
Speak no evil. Are you the one spreading gossip? Do you tear people down with your words? One of the most powerful weapons we have is our words. We can build people up and tear them down with just a few words. Whoever said "sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me" is a liar.
Words can hurt us. "The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone" (2 Timothy 2:24)
Put on the helmet of salvation.
In addition to putting on the helmet of salvation, verse 17 continues with "and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God".
So far our armor has been used as defensive weapons. Our sword is our offensive weapon. The Bible is our sword. Inside we find everything we need to prepare us for battle.
2 Timothy 3:16-17, "All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, reproofing, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be well equipped for every good work"
We use the sword of the Spirit to attack sin. We use our sword to rescue fallen and wounded brothers. We attack against false teaching and we defend against temptation. Our sword is the Word of God. There is nothing more powerful than God's Word. It is the truth that rises above all lies.
Keep your sword sharp at all times. Read the Word every day. Memorize verses. Share the Word daily.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)
God will lead us into battle, and he guarantees victory, just not always on our terms. Although we can draw upon the confidence of victory, God isn’t going to wage the battle for us. When God’s chosen people entered into the Promised Land after 40 years in the desert, God could have wiped all the opposition out in an instant. But God wanted man to fight the battles. God wanted man to demonstrate their faith in Him.
When we wage war against sin and attacks on our faith, we have to make an effort. I pray that the Book of Ephesians will bless you as it has me. I pray that you use the wisdom given to us in this chapter to successfully fight the battles against sin that you encounter in your life. I pray that you will always put on the whole armor of God so that you may stand against the schemes of the devil.
I'd like to close our time together by praying with you through 1 Timothy 6:11-16.
But as for you, O man of God ... Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Preparing For Battle ~ A Study In Ephesians (Part 3)
In Chapter 4 of Ephesians we learned that we must first perfect our walk. Then we must work towards unity in the body of Christ, constantly growing together to strengthen our faith. We learned that we must work together as a team, not as individuals.
Now let’s move on to Chapter 5. Verse one sets the tone by telling us to be “imitators of God, as beloved children”. Wait a minute. What's this about being beloved children? Didn’t we just learn in Chapter 5 to turn from our childish ways?
We did. In this passage, the example the Apostle Paul is giving us is one of a child who looks up to his father. Hopefully you had a loving father that you looked up to. Or maybe there was another adult male in your life that you looked upon as a surrogate dad. A kind of dad that you admired and wanted to be just like him. You snuck into his closet and put on his coat. Maybe walked in his shoes. This is the type of beloved relationship God wants us to have with Him. He wants us to adore Him. To imitate Him. To be just like Him.
In basic training we must build up the character of men. A good soldier is disciplined. He respects authority. Chapter 5 is where we receive instructions in Holy Living. We learn the importance of being imitators of God.
Verses 3 thru 5 list a series of traits you can not have as imitators of God.
“… sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
Scripture tells us that sexual immorality, impurity and covetousness must not even be named among us. Not only do we not practice these traits, but we should not associate with them in any way. You may not be a thief, but if you are seen in the company of thieves, you will be perceived as a thief.
A successful recovering alcoholic remains humble. He knows that if he does not maintain his sobriety, he can lapse back into alcoholism, no matter how much time has passed since his last drink. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Once a drug addict, always a drug addict. Once a sinner, always a sinner. Don’t ever delude yourself into thinking that you have beaten sin and can safely return that that old lifestyle.
Let there be no foolish talk or crude joking in your speech, but rather let your words be encouraging and humble. Speak of the things that bless you. If you see a brother in sin, admonish him in love, but do not tear him down with harsh words.
Bad character reflects weakness and lack of discipline. I work in the field of construction. Course speaking and crude joking are the accepted norm. It would be easy for me to slip into that character, to be viewed as "one of the guys". It might make me more friends, but it isn't doing a thing for my testimony or my walk as a Christian man.
We need to remember that as believers, we are chosen by God. We were bought with a price. As Christians, we are held to a higher standard than those who walk in the flesh. God expects more from us, and we must honor that at all times.
Verses 6 thru 11 advise us to “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not associate with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”
The wrath of God comes down on the sons of disobedience. The sons of disobedience refers to anyone that is against God. Remember when we sin we are at war with God. This passage tells us to not be deceived by empty words, and to try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Empty words are words without substance. They are words that are not breathed out by God.
In our current lives, false teachers try to deceive us with empty words. We are surrounded by false teachers in our society today. Some of these wolves are so cleverly disguised as sheep that they slip by even the most discerning among us.
At first glance false teachers give the appearance of Christians. They come disguised as angels of light teaching the word of God. They use Scripture as a tool to lure followers into Hell with promises of wealth and prosperity. They proclaim salvation via a life of works. They redirect your focus to the teacher rather than to God’s Word. Their teaching omits the true Gospel of salvation by faith alone.
Worldview issues concerning false teachings are so prevalent that we must have at least a cursory understanding of what the world is embracing as truth so that we can relate to those who have been drawn into those lies. A good military leader will know his enemy. But before you learn about the other guys, you have to have a firm and solid knowledge of Scripture. You have to know the truth before you can spot a lie.
Gaining that knowledge of His Word must be your top priority. When you board a commercial airliner, they tell you about the oxygen masks that will drop if cabin pressure is lost. They tell you that you must put the mask on yourself first before you place the mask on your children. You can not help victims of false teaching if you aren’t strong in the Word first.
Verses 15 and 16 tell us “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”
I recently heard a radio sermon by Pastor Chip Ingram. In the message he challenged us by asking if we were busy counting our days or were we busy making our days count? We don’t know how many days we have left. Are you being a good steward of your time? Are you a full time Christian or a part timer?
Have you fooled yourself into thinking that showing up on Sundays and maybe a home study group is adequate to “make a showing”? What do you do with your time on the other days?
Your family is watching. You need to be a Christian 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Seize every opportunity to share God’s Word with your family, friends, co-workers, with everyone you meet. Strengthen your knowledge of Scripture by being in the Word daily.
If you were training for the Olympics, you wouldn’t just go to the gym once or twice a week and then spend the rest of your time watching TV and eating pizza. You would be immersed in a mental and physical discipline every single day. Your focus would be clear and deliberate.
Do you share my belief that we are in end times? Are you feeling that sense of urgency? We are living in an age where if you are openly against sins such as abortion and homosexuality, YOU are the bad guy! It isn’t going to get any easier. Look at how much society has degraded in just the last 10 years. What do you think the next 10 years will bring? Be a good steward of your time. Make your days count.
Verses 22 through 33 speak to us about marriage. I would love to spend more time discussing marriage with you, but that's a whole different workshop. My wife and I lead small group studies in marriage. We both feel very strongly that marriage should be a continuing study. Aside from our love for God, marriage should be our top priority. Even above our kids. Remember the analogy I gave earlier about the oxygen masks dropping down from the overhead in the airplane? Our marriages come first. Your marriage is intended to reflect Christ's love for the church. How you treat your wife will lay the foundation for how your children view marriage.
The best book I have read on marriage is by John Piper. It’s titled This Momentary Marriage. That’s kind of a strange title for a marriage guide, right? Trust me, this is an amazing book. My wife and I have lead many couples through this book and everyone agrees it has changed how they look at marriage. If you are married, I consider this a must-read. If you are single and think that someday you might get married, this is a must-read.
For now, I am going to focus on how the passages apply to men as leaders.
Verse 23 tell us that “… the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church”.
John Piper defines headship as “the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like servant leadership, protection and provision in the home.”
Notice he points out that the husband is to take primary responsibility. The wife should share this duty, just as the husband should share the role of submission. But what Scripture points to is that men are primarily responsible for leadership in the family.
We are responsible for three things. Christ-like servant leadership, protection and provision. Servant leadership is a term coined by Robert Greenleaf in 1970 to describe his management philosophy.
A servant leader requires developing the following characteristics:
Listening: He listens and acts upon feedback from those he leads.
Empathy: He attempts to understand and empathize with others. He has a respect for those he leads and cares for their well being.
Healing: He takes initiative to resolve conflict.
Persuasion: He does not manipulate those he leads but leads by example using clear communication.
Foresight: He sees the big picture and anticipates future needs of those he is responsible for. He draws upon past experiences.
Stewardship: He manages his resources wisely. He manages his time and finances well.
Biblically speaking, we see servant leadership displayed by Jesus. In Luke 22:26 he says to the Disciples “…let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves.” In Mark 9:35 Jesus tells the Disciples “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
Probably the greatest display of servant leadership is when Jesus washes the feet of the Disciples. Did this act of submission make Jesus any less of a leader? Did it diminish his authority in any way? No.
In addition to Christ-like servant leadership, we are responsible for the protection and provision of our families. Not just the physical protection and provision, but the spiritual protection and provision as well.
Verse 25 teaches us “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
With leadership comes great responsibility. We must take the lead in all matters concerning our households. We must act decisively, not passively. Certain things we may choose to defer to our wives because their gifts are better suited, but ultimately we are responsible.
If our wife our children get into trouble with the law, and the police officer comes to knock on our door, he doesn't say can I speak to little Billy please? No, he asks for the man of the house. We are accountable for our families, we are the ones that will ultimately answer to authority for the actions of our families.
As husbands we are to take the initiative. When you and your wife have a disagreement, it is up to us as leaders to make the first move towards reconciliation.
If we lead our families in a Christ-like manner, they will find it natural to submit to us. They will trust us to make the important decisions because they will know we love them as Christ loves us. There is security and peace in knowing you are following a good and decisive leader.
Now let’s move on to Chapter 5. Verse one sets the tone by telling us to be “imitators of God, as beloved children”. Wait a minute. What's this about being beloved children? Didn’t we just learn in Chapter 5 to turn from our childish ways?
We did. In this passage, the example the Apostle Paul is giving us is one of a child who looks up to his father. Hopefully you had a loving father that you looked up to. Or maybe there was another adult male in your life that you looked upon as a surrogate dad. A kind of dad that you admired and wanted to be just like him. You snuck into his closet and put on his coat. Maybe walked in his shoes. This is the type of beloved relationship God wants us to have with Him. He wants us to adore Him. To imitate Him. To be just like Him.
In basic training we must build up the character of men. A good soldier is disciplined. He respects authority. Chapter 5 is where we receive instructions in Holy Living. We learn the importance of being imitators of God.
Verses 3 thru 5 list a series of traits you can not have as imitators of God.
“… sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
Scripture tells us that sexual immorality, impurity and covetousness must not even be named among us. Not only do we not practice these traits, but we should not associate with them in any way. You may not be a thief, but if you are seen in the company of thieves, you will be perceived as a thief.
A successful recovering alcoholic remains humble. He knows that if he does not maintain his sobriety, he can lapse back into alcoholism, no matter how much time has passed since his last drink. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Once a drug addict, always a drug addict. Once a sinner, always a sinner. Don’t ever delude yourself into thinking that you have beaten sin and can safely return that that old lifestyle.
Let there be no foolish talk or crude joking in your speech, but rather let your words be encouraging and humble. Speak of the things that bless you. If you see a brother in sin, admonish him in love, but do not tear him down with harsh words.
Bad character reflects weakness and lack of discipline. I work in the field of construction. Course speaking and crude joking are the accepted norm. It would be easy for me to slip into that character, to be viewed as "one of the guys". It might make me more friends, but it isn't doing a thing for my testimony or my walk as a Christian man.
We need to remember that as believers, we are chosen by God. We were bought with a price. As Christians, we are held to a higher standard than those who walk in the flesh. God expects more from us, and we must honor that at all times.
Verses 6 thru 11 advise us to “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not associate with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”
The wrath of God comes down on the sons of disobedience. The sons of disobedience refers to anyone that is against God. Remember when we sin we are at war with God. This passage tells us to not be deceived by empty words, and to try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Empty words are words without substance. They are words that are not breathed out by God.
In our current lives, false teachers try to deceive us with empty words. We are surrounded by false teachers in our society today. Some of these wolves are so cleverly disguised as sheep that they slip by even the most discerning among us.
At first glance false teachers give the appearance of Christians. They come disguised as angels of light teaching the word of God. They use Scripture as a tool to lure followers into Hell with promises of wealth and prosperity. They proclaim salvation via a life of works. They redirect your focus to the teacher rather than to God’s Word. Their teaching omits the true Gospel of salvation by faith alone.
Worldview issues concerning false teachings are so prevalent that we must have at least a cursory understanding of what the world is embracing as truth so that we can relate to those who have been drawn into those lies. A good military leader will know his enemy. But before you learn about the other guys, you have to have a firm and solid knowledge of Scripture. You have to know the truth before you can spot a lie.
Gaining that knowledge of His Word must be your top priority. When you board a commercial airliner, they tell you about the oxygen masks that will drop if cabin pressure is lost. They tell you that you must put the mask on yourself first before you place the mask on your children. You can not help victims of false teaching if you aren’t strong in the Word first.
Verses 15 and 16 tell us “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”
I recently heard a radio sermon by Pastor Chip Ingram. In the message he challenged us by asking if we were busy counting our days or were we busy making our days count? We don’t know how many days we have left. Are you being a good steward of your time? Are you a full time Christian or a part timer?
Have you fooled yourself into thinking that showing up on Sundays and maybe a home study group is adequate to “make a showing”? What do you do with your time on the other days?
Your family is watching. You need to be a Christian 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Seize every opportunity to share God’s Word with your family, friends, co-workers, with everyone you meet. Strengthen your knowledge of Scripture by being in the Word daily.
If you were training for the Olympics, you wouldn’t just go to the gym once or twice a week and then spend the rest of your time watching TV and eating pizza. You would be immersed in a mental and physical discipline every single day. Your focus would be clear and deliberate.
Do you share my belief that we are in end times? Are you feeling that sense of urgency? We are living in an age where if you are openly against sins such as abortion and homosexuality, YOU are the bad guy! It isn’t going to get any easier. Look at how much society has degraded in just the last 10 years. What do you think the next 10 years will bring? Be a good steward of your time. Make your days count.
Verses 22 through 33 speak to us about marriage. I would love to spend more time discussing marriage with you, but that's a whole different workshop. My wife and I lead small group studies in marriage. We both feel very strongly that marriage should be a continuing study. Aside from our love for God, marriage should be our top priority. Even above our kids. Remember the analogy I gave earlier about the oxygen masks dropping down from the overhead in the airplane? Our marriages come first. Your marriage is intended to reflect Christ's love for the church. How you treat your wife will lay the foundation for how your children view marriage.
The best book I have read on marriage is by John Piper. It’s titled This Momentary Marriage. That’s kind of a strange title for a marriage guide, right? Trust me, this is an amazing book. My wife and I have lead many couples through this book and everyone agrees it has changed how they look at marriage. If you are married, I consider this a must-read. If you are single and think that someday you might get married, this is a must-read.
For now, I am going to focus on how the passages apply to men as leaders.
Verse 23 tell us that “… the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church”.
John Piper defines headship as “the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like servant leadership, protection and provision in the home.”
Notice he points out that the husband is to take primary responsibility. The wife should share this duty, just as the husband should share the role of submission. But what Scripture points to is that men are primarily responsible for leadership in the family.
We are responsible for three things. Christ-like servant leadership, protection and provision. Servant leadership is a term coined by Robert Greenleaf in 1970 to describe his management philosophy.
A servant leader requires developing the following characteristics:
Listening: He listens and acts upon feedback from those he leads.
Empathy: He attempts to understand and empathize with others. He has a respect for those he leads and cares for their well being.
Healing: He takes initiative to resolve conflict.
Persuasion: He does not manipulate those he leads but leads by example using clear communication.
Foresight: He sees the big picture and anticipates future needs of those he is responsible for. He draws upon past experiences.
Stewardship: He manages his resources wisely. He manages his time and finances well.
Biblically speaking, we see servant leadership displayed by Jesus. In Luke 22:26 he says to the Disciples “…let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves.” In Mark 9:35 Jesus tells the Disciples “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
Probably the greatest display of servant leadership is when Jesus washes the feet of the Disciples. Did this act of submission make Jesus any less of a leader? Did it diminish his authority in any way? No.
In addition to Christ-like servant leadership, we are responsible for the protection and provision of our families. Not just the physical protection and provision, but the spiritual protection and provision as well.
Verse 25 teaches us “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
With leadership comes great responsibility. We must take the lead in all matters concerning our households. We must act decisively, not passively. Certain things we may choose to defer to our wives because their gifts are better suited, but ultimately we are responsible.
If our wife our children get into trouble with the law, and the police officer comes to knock on our door, he doesn't say can I speak to little Billy please? No, he asks for the man of the house. We are accountable for our families, we are the ones that will ultimately answer to authority for the actions of our families.
As husbands we are to take the initiative. When you and your wife have a disagreement, it is up to us as leaders to make the first move towards reconciliation.
If we lead our families in a Christ-like manner, they will find it natural to submit to us. They will trust us to make the important decisions because they will know we love them as Christ loves us. There is security and peace in knowing you are following a good and decisive leader.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Preparing For Battle ~ A Study in Ephesians (Part 2)
We begin our study in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 1 where the Apostle Paul writes: "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called."
In keeping with our wartime theme, here is where we are drafted into God’s army. We are called into service with the divine calling of God. We receive a call more powerful than the draft. You can dodge the draft, but you can’t refuse the call of God.
After the induction ceremony, our first command is to walk in a manner worthy of His calling. Wow. No pressure, right? Here’s where the changes begin. How many of you noticed immediate changes in your life when you answered His call?
Along with the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ, we took on a responsibility to honor God with our lives. As members of the church, we must always work towards perfecting our walk. We must always assume that someone is watching us, because in case you haven’t noticed, if you proclaim to be a Christian, you are being watched! And not just by your bothers and sisters in Christ.
Non believers will watch you even closer. They love it when they see a Christian fall. The greatest deterrent people cite for not going to church is hypocrisy they’ve witnessed. A Christian man that goes to church on Sunday should not be found at a strip bar on Friday.
One of my favorite quotes is “Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.” We send a greater message with our actions than our words could ever convey.
Let's move on to verses 2 and 3:
“with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
Now that we know how important our walk is, through the Apostle Paul, God is going to give us specific instruction on how to perfect our walk in verse 2. Humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness and love. These are all character traits that we receive vertically from God through His Son, Jesus. Our responsibility as believers is to bend these traits outward horizontally to our fellow man.
These may not be the first character traits you would expect to find in a strong soldier, but they are certainly foundational characteristics of a strong Christian man. To some this list might seem passive and anything but strong. But we know that Christ possessed these qualities, and I doubt any of us would say Christ was a weak man, right?
First on the list is humility. Biblically, the definition as used in this text is lowliness, or lowliness of mind. We are no greater than our brothers or sisters. We do not deserve the riches of God’s grace.
In basic combat training, they begin by breaking you down. Making you humble. You can’t be teachable if you already know everything.
Patience and forgiveness. Matthew 6:12 “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors”. God forgives our debts (our sins) unconditionally. We therefore must forgive those who sin against us unconditionally.
Before we can extend humility, gentleness, patience and forgiveness to others we must first fully understand and appreciate the magnitude of God’s grace. Once we fully understand the richness and fullness of His Grace to us, then and only then we can take that vertical application of love and grace and bend it outwards horizontally towards others.
Now on to verse 3 “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
Who has heard the saying “Together we stand, divided we fall”? This saying is based on verse 3:25 in the Gospel of Mark. “And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” A lone soldier is of little value in battle. Our strength comes in numbers. We are more effective when we operate as a team, united together with a common goal.
If we look up the Greek meaning for “bond” in this verse, we find it means “ligaments by which the members of the human body are united together”.
The members of the human body this verse refers to is the church and the bond that holds us together is the Holy Spirit.
We must all be united as one with the Holy Sprit within us leading the charge. Without ligaments, the human body will collapse. We are no longer united as one body, but rather we are operating as individuals without the Spirit to guide us.
When a wolf looks out over a flock of sheep, does he look to attack the flock gathered together under the protection of the shepherd? No, he looks for the one sheep that has wandered away from the flock. Alone and without support of others, the lone sheep is no match for the wolf. Once we stop thinking as a church united in Christ and begin thinking as an individual, we abandon our team and we become easy prey to be devoured by Satan.
We are "eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace". Did we establish the peace? No, God did. Our job then is to maintain the peace that God established.
Verses 4 thru 6: “There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
Who is the one body? The church.
Who is the one Spirit? God / Holy Spirit.
What is the one hope? Hope in eternal life through Christ.
What is the one faith? Faith alone in Christ as our Lord and savior.
Christians represent many different churches. Each church has a Pastor that leads his congregation. Each church has an Elder Board that governs the church and insures doctrines are upheld as well as administer church discipline when needed. But all of us ultimately answer to only one authority.
There is only one God. We only serve one master. All branches of the military answer to one final authority, the Commander in Chief. In our battle against Satan, our Commander in Chief is God. He commands us. There must be a clear and precise chain of command for soldiers to follow or else there is confusion. Confusion causes us to lose our way, and once we are lost, we are soon defeated.
Our Father in Heaven is a God of order. He does not waiver. He does not change His mind. He never makes mistakes. He will lead us into battle with confidence that we will ultimately prevail against the evil that attacks us.
Moving on to verses 11 thru 14: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”
God doesn’t expect us to enter into battle without proper training. He gives us pastors, elders and ministry leaders within our churches to teach and train us for ministry. He gives us the Holy Spirit to be our internal compass to insure we’re always pointing towards God.
The Spirit also blesses us with our own special gifts. Some of us have the gift of evangelism. Some of us are lead to teaching. Some of us are shepherds and ministry leaders. Some of us are gifted with the ability to exhort others to excellence. Our spiritual gifts are not for our personal enjoyment.
Matthew 5:14 - 16 explains it like this. "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."
God wants us to share our gifts with others. Don’t keep your lantern under the table. Don’t be selfish with your gifts. Share them and do your part. Building up the body of Christ is a team effort, and you’re part of the team.
So how long is our basic training period? How do we know when we’re fully equipped? Verse 13 tells us that we continue to build up the body of Christ “…until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ ...”
Who are some of the leading theologians of our time? John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, John Piper are a few of my favorites. Do you think any of them would say that they are fully equipped? That they have attained unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ?
We are constantly building up the body of Christ. We don’t stop building until He calls us home because there is no way we can ever measure up to the stature of the fullness of Christ. Notice the verse also says until we ALL attain to the unity. If our brother is not growing we reach down and lift him up. Just like a soldier never leaves a man behind, we too must look out for our weaker brothers, helping to build them up.
God doesn’t want us to remain children in our faith. Why? Verse 14 tells us why: “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”
Children are fed milk. In Hebrews 5:12 - 14 the author writes “…you need someone to teach you …the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
Do any of your kids have an Adventure Bible? My kids love the Adventure Bible. It breaks Scripture down into Bible stories that they can easily wrap their heads around and enjoy. Is it an adequate substitute for a Bible? No.
As a child they are learning the basic principles of the oracles (or divine revelations) of God. They’re getting the milk. They aren’t ready yet for the meat of Scripture. As children, they do not yet have the discernment needed to distinguish good from evil.
Ephesians 4:14 warns us not to be “… carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” What do you think Paul is describing here?
“Cunning” in this verse is translated from the Greek word which means “dice playing”. It is intended as a metaphor for deception and cheating. “Craftiness” is translated from the Greek word which means “false wisdom”.
We must mature in our faith and righteousness so that we can use discernment to identify false teaching. We’ll talk more about false teaching when we get to chapter 5.
In keeping with our wartime theme, here is where we are drafted into God’s army. We are called into service with the divine calling of God. We receive a call more powerful than the draft. You can dodge the draft, but you can’t refuse the call of God.
After the induction ceremony, our first command is to walk in a manner worthy of His calling. Wow. No pressure, right? Here’s where the changes begin. How many of you noticed immediate changes in your life when you answered His call?
Along with the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ, we took on a responsibility to honor God with our lives. As members of the church, we must always work towards perfecting our walk. We must always assume that someone is watching us, because in case you haven’t noticed, if you proclaim to be a Christian, you are being watched! And not just by your bothers and sisters in Christ.
Non believers will watch you even closer. They love it when they see a Christian fall. The greatest deterrent people cite for not going to church is hypocrisy they’ve witnessed. A Christian man that goes to church on Sunday should not be found at a strip bar on Friday.
One of my favorite quotes is “Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.” We send a greater message with our actions than our words could ever convey.
Let's move on to verses 2 and 3:
“with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
Now that we know how important our walk is, through the Apostle Paul, God is going to give us specific instruction on how to perfect our walk in verse 2. Humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness and love. These are all character traits that we receive vertically from God through His Son, Jesus. Our responsibility as believers is to bend these traits outward horizontally to our fellow man.
These may not be the first character traits you would expect to find in a strong soldier, but they are certainly foundational characteristics of a strong Christian man. To some this list might seem passive and anything but strong. But we know that Christ possessed these qualities, and I doubt any of us would say Christ was a weak man, right?
First on the list is humility. Biblically, the definition as used in this text is lowliness, or lowliness of mind. We are no greater than our brothers or sisters. We do not deserve the riches of God’s grace.
In basic combat training, they begin by breaking you down. Making you humble. You can’t be teachable if you already know everything.
Patience and forgiveness. Matthew 6:12 “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors”. God forgives our debts (our sins) unconditionally. We therefore must forgive those who sin against us unconditionally.
Before we can extend humility, gentleness, patience and forgiveness to others we must first fully understand and appreciate the magnitude of God’s grace. Once we fully understand the richness and fullness of His Grace to us, then and only then we can take that vertical application of love and grace and bend it outwards horizontally towards others.
Now on to verse 3 “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
Who has heard the saying “Together we stand, divided we fall”? This saying is based on verse 3:25 in the Gospel of Mark. “And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” A lone soldier is of little value in battle. Our strength comes in numbers. We are more effective when we operate as a team, united together with a common goal.
If we look up the Greek meaning for “bond” in this verse, we find it means “ligaments by which the members of the human body are united together”.
The members of the human body this verse refers to is the church and the bond that holds us together is the Holy Spirit.
We must all be united as one with the Holy Sprit within us leading the charge. Without ligaments, the human body will collapse. We are no longer united as one body, but rather we are operating as individuals without the Spirit to guide us.
When a wolf looks out over a flock of sheep, does he look to attack the flock gathered together under the protection of the shepherd? No, he looks for the one sheep that has wandered away from the flock. Alone and without support of others, the lone sheep is no match for the wolf. Once we stop thinking as a church united in Christ and begin thinking as an individual, we abandon our team and we become easy prey to be devoured by Satan.
We are "eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace". Did we establish the peace? No, God did. Our job then is to maintain the peace that God established.
Verses 4 thru 6: “There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
Who is the one body? The church.
Who is the one Spirit? God / Holy Spirit.
What is the one hope? Hope in eternal life through Christ.
What is the one faith? Faith alone in Christ as our Lord and savior.
Christians represent many different churches. Each church has a Pastor that leads his congregation. Each church has an Elder Board that governs the church and insures doctrines are upheld as well as administer church discipline when needed. But all of us ultimately answer to only one authority.
There is only one God. We only serve one master. All branches of the military answer to one final authority, the Commander in Chief. In our battle against Satan, our Commander in Chief is God. He commands us. There must be a clear and precise chain of command for soldiers to follow or else there is confusion. Confusion causes us to lose our way, and once we are lost, we are soon defeated.
Our Father in Heaven is a God of order. He does not waiver. He does not change His mind. He never makes mistakes. He will lead us into battle with confidence that we will ultimately prevail against the evil that attacks us.
Moving on to verses 11 thru 14: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”
God doesn’t expect us to enter into battle without proper training. He gives us pastors, elders and ministry leaders within our churches to teach and train us for ministry. He gives us the Holy Spirit to be our internal compass to insure we’re always pointing towards God.
The Spirit also blesses us with our own special gifts. Some of us have the gift of evangelism. Some of us are lead to teaching. Some of us are shepherds and ministry leaders. Some of us are gifted with the ability to exhort others to excellence. Our spiritual gifts are not for our personal enjoyment.
Matthew 5:14 - 16 explains it like this. "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."
God wants us to share our gifts with others. Don’t keep your lantern under the table. Don’t be selfish with your gifts. Share them and do your part. Building up the body of Christ is a team effort, and you’re part of the team.
So how long is our basic training period? How do we know when we’re fully equipped? Verse 13 tells us that we continue to build up the body of Christ “…until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ ...”
Who are some of the leading theologians of our time? John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, John Piper are a few of my favorites. Do you think any of them would say that they are fully equipped? That they have attained unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ?
We are constantly building up the body of Christ. We don’t stop building until He calls us home because there is no way we can ever measure up to the stature of the fullness of Christ. Notice the verse also says until we ALL attain to the unity. If our brother is not growing we reach down and lift him up. Just like a soldier never leaves a man behind, we too must look out for our weaker brothers, helping to build them up.
God doesn’t want us to remain children in our faith. Why? Verse 14 tells us why: “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”
Children are fed milk. In Hebrews 5:12 - 14 the author writes “…you need someone to teach you …the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
Do any of your kids have an Adventure Bible? My kids love the Adventure Bible. It breaks Scripture down into Bible stories that they can easily wrap their heads around and enjoy. Is it an adequate substitute for a Bible? No.
As a child they are learning the basic principles of the oracles (or divine revelations) of God. They’re getting the milk. They aren’t ready yet for the meat of Scripture. As children, they do not yet have the discernment needed to distinguish good from evil.
Ephesians 4:14 warns us not to be “… carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” What do you think Paul is describing here?
“Cunning” in this verse is translated from the Greek word which means “dice playing”. It is intended as a metaphor for deception and cheating. “Craftiness” is translated from the Greek word which means “false wisdom”.
We must mature in our faith and righteousness so that we can use discernment to identify false teaching. We’ll talk more about false teaching when we get to chapter 5.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Preparing For Battle ~ A Study in Ephesians (Part 1)
(Earlier this year I was invited to present a workshop at the Pine Valley Men’s Conference. The title of the conference was Faith Under Fire. My original study was in Ephesians Chapters 4, 5 and 6. Due to time constraints I limited the workshop to Chapter 6 only. Following is Part One of my complete study.)
When I think of the theme of this Men’s Conference, “Faith Under Fire”, it presents to me an image of warfare. I picture a battle between men of faith and the prince of darkness, Satan. The plan for my workshop is to present a means of response to faith under fire. Using the Book of Ephesians as our guide, I plan to present a battle plan that we might use to launch our counter attack, and a plan to fortify our faith to withstand attacks of sin in our lives.
How many of you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you first heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center?
As the news reports developed and we learned it was being revealed as a terrorist attack, what were you thinking? Were you considering the threat of further attacks closer to home?
San Diego is a major military port. We are a prime target for attack. What if San Diego did get attacked? What would be your response? What actions would you take?
Has sin ever threatened your family? Has sin ever invaded your home? Of course it has. Sin attacks all of us every day. We are born sinners and we live in a world of sinners. It's a part of our daily lives.
Sin enters our home in a variety of ways. We find sin on TV. We find it at the movies. The public school system teaches tolerance of sin to our children. You can't even go to a grocery store without sin displayed on the front pages of virtually every magazine at the register.
The purpose of this workshop is to call attention to the fact that we are at war right now. We have been at war from the day we were born, and the war isn’t going to stop until Christ calls us home. The war we wage every single day of our lives is a war against sin.
Where does sin live? Where does sin plant it's seeds of destruction? Sin lives in our hearts. In Genesis 6:5 we read "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
Sin is like an evil, wicked virus that infects our hearts. It's a hereditary birth defect that we all are born with. If we allow sin to grow, it spreads until it takes control of our bodies and spews out through our words and our actions. When we sin, we are at war with God. We break God's commandments. We invite His wrath.
Who is our greatest enemy in the war against sin?
Satan is the father of sin, and we direct our attack towards him. But, our greatest enemy isn't Satan. It's us. Satan can't enter our hearts unless we invite him in. Remember that as believers, Christ's death on the cross released us from the bondage of sin. We have the ability to choose not to sin. When we do sin, it isn't because we have no choice. We chose to sin. We lack self control. We lack discernment. We lack discipline.
We are our own worst enemy in the war against sin. Satan may lead the charge, but he uses fallen man as his soldiers.
Sin isn't what we do, it's who we are. If we commit murder, what are we called? A murderer. If we commit adultery, we become what? An adulterer. Sin goes beyond the actual act of sinning. It changes our hearts. It changes our character. It changes how we are seen by others. It defines us.
Then why is it that most of us are so cavalier towards sin?
Why do we kid ourselves that a little bit here and there is OK? Galatians 5:9 says “A little leaven leavens the whole lump”, or as my wife puts it more colorfully, “If there was a little bit of poop in the batter, would you eat the cake?”
And yet we consume sin daily in our lives like a big slice of birthday cake without giving it a second thought. Even worse, we serve a big slice of poop cake to our family as well.
Gentlemen, this is a life or death situation we have here. Romans 8:13 spells it out for us very simply. "For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."
We are drowning in sin. We must take the fight against sin in our lives more seriously. We need to consider sin as the evil and destructive entity that it truly is, and we need to take action.
We cannot be complacent with sin. Adam was complacent against sin and look where that got us. We must take action now. We must choose wisely. Amen?
As I was preparing for this study, the first verse that came to mind was one of my life verses, Ephesians 6:11 “Put on the whole armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.”
So I opened up my Bible, and decided that I wanted to read all of Ephesians chapter 6 to get a good feel of the verse in it’s context. Then I decided to read Chapter 5 to get a running start at Chapter 6. Before long I was reading and studying all six chapters of Ephesians. That’s when the Lord showed me that Ephesians presents a perfect foundation for this workshop.
If there were a Basic Combat Training program for spiritual warfare, Ephesians would be the handbook.
Basic Combat Training for the U.S. Army is where individuals learn about the fundamentals of being a soldier, from combat techniques to the proper way to address a superior. BCT is also where individuals undergo rigorous training to prepare their bodies and their minds for the eventual physical and mental strain of combat.
One of the most difficult and essential lessons learned in BCT is self-discipline or self control. BCT introduces prospective soldiers to a strict daily schedule that entails many duties and high expectations for which most civilians are not immediately ready.
In our time together I hope to share with you how the Book of Ephesians provides this same training for Men of Faith as we prepare ourselves for our battle against sin.
The Book of Ephesians teaches us fundamentals of being a Christian soldier. We learn combat techniques to fight sin in our lives. It provides rigorous training to prepare our bodies and minds for the physical and mental strain of life in a world filled with sin.
Ephesians teaches us self-discipline and self control. Thru the Book of Ephesians, we are introduced to a strict daily schedule that entails many duties and high expectations for which non-believers are not immediately ready.
Specifically we’ll be focusing on chapters 4, 5 and 6 in Ephesians. We’ll look at how Scripture in these verses can prepare us as leaders to stand united as brothers in Christ. To be imitators of God, fully equipped to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Although we are not spending time in chapters 1 through 3, by no means am I suggesting they are of no value to our discussion.
In chapter 1 we are reminded of the spiritual blessings our Father has given us. We learn that as believers we were predestined to receive His salvation before time began.
Chapter 2 teaches us that we were saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ.
In Chapter 3 the Apostle Paul presents the Gospel message to the Gentiles in Ephesus.
I am taking the liberty of assuming that we are all born again Christians, saved by faith alone in our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. If any of you are not saved and wish to learn more about the gift of salvation, please contact me and I’ll be happy to share with you how Christ has changed my life and how he can change yours too.
Gentlemen, the first thing we should do when we enter into battle is to arm ourselves. Today we’re arming ourselves with our Sword of Truth. If you have a Bible with you, please turn to the Book of Ephesians.
I would like to begin our study by praying through Chapter 3, verses 14 through 21. Let’s pray:
We bow our knees before you Father, from you whom every family in heaven and earth are named, that according to the riches of your glory that you grant us we might be strengthened with power through your Spirit in our inner being, so that you may dwell in our hearts through faith in your son Jesus. We pray that being rooted and grounded in love, we may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of your love and grace. Now to You who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to You be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
When I think of the theme of this Men’s Conference, “Faith Under Fire”, it presents to me an image of warfare. I picture a battle between men of faith and the prince of darkness, Satan. The plan for my workshop is to present a means of response to faith under fire. Using the Book of Ephesians as our guide, I plan to present a battle plan that we might use to launch our counter attack, and a plan to fortify our faith to withstand attacks of sin in our lives.
How many of you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you first heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center?
As the news reports developed and we learned it was being revealed as a terrorist attack, what were you thinking? Were you considering the threat of further attacks closer to home?
San Diego is a major military port. We are a prime target for attack. What if San Diego did get attacked? What would be your response? What actions would you take?
Has sin ever threatened your family? Has sin ever invaded your home? Of course it has. Sin attacks all of us every day. We are born sinners and we live in a world of sinners. It's a part of our daily lives.
Sin enters our home in a variety of ways. We find sin on TV. We find it at the movies. The public school system teaches tolerance of sin to our children. You can't even go to a grocery store without sin displayed on the front pages of virtually every magazine at the register.
The purpose of this workshop is to call attention to the fact that we are at war right now. We have been at war from the day we were born, and the war isn’t going to stop until Christ calls us home. The war we wage every single day of our lives is a war against sin.
Where does sin live? Where does sin plant it's seeds of destruction? Sin lives in our hearts. In Genesis 6:5 we read "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
Sin is like an evil, wicked virus that infects our hearts. It's a hereditary birth defect that we all are born with. If we allow sin to grow, it spreads until it takes control of our bodies and spews out through our words and our actions. When we sin, we are at war with God. We break God's commandments. We invite His wrath.
Who is our greatest enemy in the war against sin?
Satan is the father of sin, and we direct our attack towards him. But, our greatest enemy isn't Satan. It's us. Satan can't enter our hearts unless we invite him in. Remember that as believers, Christ's death on the cross released us from the bondage of sin. We have the ability to choose not to sin. When we do sin, it isn't because we have no choice. We chose to sin. We lack self control. We lack discernment. We lack discipline.
We are our own worst enemy in the war against sin. Satan may lead the charge, but he uses fallen man as his soldiers.
Sin isn't what we do, it's who we are. If we commit murder, what are we called? A murderer. If we commit adultery, we become what? An adulterer. Sin goes beyond the actual act of sinning. It changes our hearts. It changes our character. It changes how we are seen by others. It defines us.
Then why is it that most of us are so cavalier towards sin?
Why do we kid ourselves that a little bit here and there is OK? Galatians 5:9 says “A little leaven leavens the whole lump”, or as my wife puts it more colorfully, “If there was a little bit of poop in the batter, would you eat the cake?”
And yet we consume sin daily in our lives like a big slice of birthday cake without giving it a second thought. Even worse, we serve a big slice of poop cake to our family as well.
Gentlemen, this is a life or death situation we have here. Romans 8:13 spells it out for us very simply. "For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."
We are drowning in sin. We must take the fight against sin in our lives more seriously. We need to consider sin as the evil and destructive entity that it truly is, and we need to take action.
We cannot be complacent with sin. Adam was complacent against sin and look where that got us. We must take action now. We must choose wisely. Amen?
As I was preparing for this study, the first verse that came to mind was one of my life verses, Ephesians 6:11 “Put on the whole armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.”
So I opened up my Bible, and decided that I wanted to read all of Ephesians chapter 6 to get a good feel of the verse in it’s context. Then I decided to read Chapter 5 to get a running start at Chapter 6. Before long I was reading and studying all six chapters of Ephesians. That’s when the Lord showed me that Ephesians presents a perfect foundation for this workshop.
If there were a Basic Combat Training program for spiritual warfare, Ephesians would be the handbook.
Basic Combat Training for the U.S. Army is where individuals learn about the fundamentals of being a soldier, from combat techniques to the proper way to address a superior. BCT is also where individuals undergo rigorous training to prepare their bodies and their minds for the eventual physical and mental strain of combat.
One of the most difficult and essential lessons learned in BCT is self-discipline or self control. BCT introduces prospective soldiers to a strict daily schedule that entails many duties and high expectations for which most civilians are not immediately ready.
In our time together I hope to share with you how the Book of Ephesians provides this same training for Men of Faith as we prepare ourselves for our battle against sin.
The Book of Ephesians teaches us fundamentals of being a Christian soldier. We learn combat techniques to fight sin in our lives. It provides rigorous training to prepare our bodies and minds for the physical and mental strain of life in a world filled with sin.
Ephesians teaches us self-discipline and self control. Thru the Book of Ephesians, we are introduced to a strict daily schedule that entails many duties and high expectations for which non-believers are not immediately ready.
Specifically we’ll be focusing on chapters 4, 5 and 6 in Ephesians. We’ll look at how Scripture in these verses can prepare us as leaders to stand united as brothers in Christ. To be imitators of God, fully equipped to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Although we are not spending time in chapters 1 through 3, by no means am I suggesting they are of no value to our discussion.
In chapter 1 we are reminded of the spiritual blessings our Father has given us. We learn that as believers we were predestined to receive His salvation before time began.
Chapter 2 teaches us that we were saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ.
In Chapter 3 the Apostle Paul presents the Gospel message to the Gentiles in Ephesus.
I am taking the liberty of assuming that we are all born again Christians, saved by faith alone in our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. If any of you are not saved and wish to learn more about the gift of salvation, please contact me and I’ll be happy to share with you how Christ has changed my life and how he can change yours too.
Gentlemen, the first thing we should do when we enter into battle is to arm ourselves. Today we’re arming ourselves with our Sword of Truth. If you have a Bible with you, please turn to the Book of Ephesians.
I would like to begin our study by praying through Chapter 3, verses 14 through 21. Let’s pray:
We bow our knees before you Father, from you whom every family in heaven and earth are named, that according to the riches of your glory that you grant us we might be strengthened with power through your Spirit in our inner being, so that you may dwell in our hearts through faith in your son Jesus. We pray that being rooted and grounded in love, we may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of your love and grace. Now to You who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to You be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Are You Content?
I would like to share with you some thoughts about contentment. The passage I’ve chosen to lead us in this study is 1 Timothy 6, verses 6 thru 10.
The Apostle Paul’s letters to Timothy were letters of encouragement and instruction. As Timothy’s mentor, Paul was equipping Timothy with the tools he would need to lead the church in Paul’s absence.
In Chapter 6, Paul is teaching Timothy about the characteristics of false teachers.
Since I dislike taking verses out of context, I would like to share from verse 3 of 1st Timothy 6 and that will lead us into verses 6 thru 10.
“If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” (1 Timothy 6:3-10 ESV)
Paul is telling Timothy that one sign of a false teacher is that they use Godliness for personal gain. False teachers use Scripture to puff themselves up. Their messages point to themselves, not to God.
But, in verse 6 Paul says that there is great gain in Godliness with contentment. So what is contentment?
Websters defines contentment as being satisfied, pleased or happy. That steak dinner was amazing. I am so content right now.
If we look up the Greek word for contentment in this passage, we come up with a much richer definition. The Greek word autarkeia is defined as “Sufficiency of the necessities of life”. Having all we need in life. Having all the resources we need to provide physical and spiritual sustenance for our families. So where do we get this sufficiency of the necessities of life? How do we arrive at contentment?
First we need to know what we consider necessities before we know if we have enough of it to be content, right? The world would have us believe that contentment is gained by personal wealth. The one who dies with the most toys wins.
But wait a minute. Verse 7 tells us that we brought nothing into the world and we can’t take anything out of the world. Well then, what’s the point of gathering all this stuff? Exactly the point Paul is making. Verse 8 tells us that if we have food and clothing, we should be content.
Back before I was a believer in Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, “church people” would really make me mad!
I’d see the “church people” on Sundays in their nice clothes driving around with big smiles on their faces in some kind of trance and think they were mindless idiots.
Religion was a crutch for these people to lean on. They couldn’t get through life on their own power. They were brainwashed drones. They needed help. How could those people be smiling in this world we live in? Don’t they have bills to pay? Aren’t they worried about living from paycheck to paycheck? Aren’t they worried about losing their jobs? What about the threat of nuclear war? Do they even realize what’s going on in the middle east?
Not to mention that all those church people were going to Sunday lunch at the same time and I would have to wait in a long line to get my Happy Meal!
How can they all be so ignorant? And why are they SMILING?!!
You know what? I didn’t smile much back in those days. Those of you who know me today and see my bubbly outgoing personality might find that hard to believe, but it’s true. Maybe that’s why it bothered me that the “church people” smiled so much.
How could they be so happy and at the same time be so ignorant?
Turns out, they weren’t ignorant. They were content. They were not stressing over a life filled with selfish pursuits. They were happy with what the Lord blessed them with.
Are you content with what the Lord gave you?
Up until recently I was not. I was jealous and envious of the finer things others had that I didn’t. Even after I was saved, I was envious of nicer homes people had. I was envious of the nicer cars they drove. I was envious of their financial security.
And all the time I would think, why didn’t God bless me with those things? What did I do wrong? Where are my blessings?
Puritan author Thomas Manton wrote, “The shepherd and not the sheep chooses the pasture. Leave it to God to give what is suitable to your condition in life.”
Well that went right onto my Facebook page!
After that sunk into my punkin’ head I came to realize that my blessings were right under my nose! All my life I was buying into the worldly desire to live my “best life now”. I was storing my treasures here in our temporary world, not in my eternal heaven.
Worse than that, by questioning God’s will I was like a little boy throwing a temper tantrum in the Throne Room of our LORD.
The very same whining I correct my own kids for, I was doing to God!
Let’s turn back to 1 Timothy chapter 6 and read verses 8 and 9:
“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”
This is where the worldly definition of contentment clashes with Scripture. Here is where we find out where our heart is.
Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs had a net worth of about 8 billion dollars when he died earlier this year. 8 BILLION dollars. To put that in perspective, if you tried to count his money one dollar at a time, you’d die before you got even close. If you counted one dollar per second, 24 hours per day, it would take over 253 years to get to 8 billion.
I think we all agree that is a lot of money. Was Steve Jobs content with his fortune? I don’t think he was.
Even with death knocking on his door, he spent his last days promoting his company. He could not leave that game. He couldn’t let go of the reigns. He needed to be in control.
A self described atheist, he died a bitter and selfish man who didn’t share his wealth or give to charities. He turned his back on family. By most accounts he was not a nice man to be around. He certainly didn’t fit either definition of contentment we’ve looked at.
His 8 billion dollars was not enough.
(By the way, is it a coincidence that the logo of his company is also a representation of the original sin? Biting into an apple?)
Verse 10 tells us that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Notice it says the LOVE of money, not money. Money isn’t evil. Loving it is evil. Making it an idol is evil. Coveting it is evil.
We can never find contentment in the world. It just isn’t set up that way. We live in a world that encourages and enables us to live beyond our means, knowing that we will never stop reaching for that brass ring, even if we can’t afford it.
Here are some sobering statistics regarding credit card debt in the US.
The average credit card debt per household in the US is $15,956.00
The people of the US own 609.8 million credit cards. That works out to 3.5 cards per person. What’s in your wallet?
30% of credit card holders are delinquent in their payments.
America goes into debt because they are not content with what they have. They would rather spend now and pay later than budget now and buy later. Did Steve Jobs take any of that 8 billion with him? The one who dies with the most toys does not win. He just leaves behind more stuff.
We can never find contentment in the world. Our only contentment is that which we find in Christ. Godliness with contentment is great gain.
As for me, I have finally accepted that the Lord has me right where he wants me. If I’m stuck in traffic, I stop dreaming about a flying car that I can use to lift me up and fly me away from the bumper to bumper gridlock. (Wouldn’t that be cool?)
I give thanks for what He has blessed me with. It’s not the stuff I own. It’s the blessing of an amazing wife that I love and adore.
It’s the joy and honor of raising our children up in the Lord. It’s the fellowship we enjoy with our church family. It’s a nice, hot and gooey Cinnabun. (sorry, I must have been hungry when I wrote that part).
I accept the pasture my shepherd has selected for me and try very hard not to begrudge those who’s pasture appears to be greener.
Luke 12:15 tells us that our happiness does not lie in abundance, but in contentment.
Once we embrace that in our hearts, then and only then can we truly appreciate the blessings God has given us. Only then will we be happy. Only then will we be content.
Don’t be tempted to fall into the trap the world has set for us. Don’t be mislead by false teaching that we are owed something better and to live our best life now. Don’t define your worth by the stuff you own.
Don’t forget that we don’t own anything! We are just temporary custodians of God’s stuff until He calls us home. Our treasures lie in heaven. Our worth and value are in our hearts.
The finer things in life are already ours. It’s found in the contentment we gain by knowing the love of our Heavenly Father, and living our lives to His Glory.
The Apostle Paul’s letters to Timothy were letters of encouragement and instruction. As Timothy’s mentor, Paul was equipping Timothy with the tools he would need to lead the church in Paul’s absence.
In Chapter 6, Paul is teaching Timothy about the characteristics of false teachers.
Since I dislike taking verses out of context, I would like to share from verse 3 of 1st Timothy 6 and that will lead us into verses 6 thru 10.
“If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” (1 Timothy 6:3-10 ESV)
Paul is telling Timothy that one sign of a false teacher is that they use Godliness for personal gain. False teachers use Scripture to puff themselves up. Their messages point to themselves, not to God.
But, in verse 6 Paul says that there is great gain in Godliness with contentment. So what is contentment?
Websters defines contentment as being satisfied, pleased or happy. That steak dinner was amazing. I am so content right now.
If we look up the Greek word for contentment in this passage, we come up with a much richer definition. The Greek word autarkeia is defined as “Sufficiency of the necessities of life”. Having all we need in life. Having all the resources we need to provide physical and spiritual sustenance for our families. So where do we get this sufficiency of the necessities of life? How do we arrive at contentment?
First we need to know what we consider necessities before we know if we have enough of it to be content, right? The world would have us believe that contentment is gained by personal wealth. The one who dies with the most toys wins.
But wait a minute. Verse 7 tells us that we brought nothing into the world and we can’t take anything out of the world. Well then, what’s the point of gathering all this stuff? Exactly the point Paul is making. Verse 8 tells us that if we have food and clothing, we should be content.
Back before I was a believer in Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, “church people” would really make me mad!
I’d see the “church people” on Sundays in their nice clothes driving around with big smiles on their faces in some kind of trance and think they were mindless idiots.
Religion was a crutch for these people to lean on. They couldn’t get through life on their own power. They were brainwashed drones. They needed help. How could those people be smiling in this world we live in? Don’t they have bills to pay? Aren’t they worried about living from paycheck to paycheck? Aren’t they worried about losing their jobs? What about the threat of nuclear war? Do they even realize what’s going on in the middle east?
Not to mention that all those church people were going to Sunday lunch at the same time and I would have to wait in a long line to get my Happy Meal!
How can they all be so ignorant? And why are they SMILING?!!
You know what? I didn’t smile much back in those days. Those of you who know me today and see my bubbly outgoing personality might find that hard to believe, but it’s true. Maybe that’s why it bothered me that the “church people” smiled so much.
How could they be so happy and at the same time be so ignorant?
Turns out, they weren’t ignorant. They were content. They were not stressing over a life filled with selfish pursuits. They were happy with what the Lord blessed them with.
Are you content with what the Lord gave you?
Up until recently I was not. I was jealous and envious of the finer things others had that I didn’t. Even after I was saved, I was envious of nicer homes people had. I was envious of the nicer cars they drove. I was envious of their financial security.
And all the time I would think, why didn’t God bless me with those things? What did I do wrong? Where are my blessings?
Puritan author Thomas Manton wrote, “The shepherd and not the sheep chooses the pasture. Leave it to God to give what is suitable to your condition in life.”
Well that went right onto my Facebook page!
After that sunk into my punkin’ head I came to realize that my blessings were right under my nose! All my life I was buying into the worldly desire to live my “best life now”. I was storing my treasures here in our temporary world, not in my eternal heaven.
Worse than that, by questioning God’s will I was like a little boy throwing a temper tantrum in the Throne Room of our LORD.
The very same whining I correct my own kids for, I was doing to God!
Let’s turn back to 1 Timothy chapter 6 and read verses 8 and 9:
“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”
This is where the worldly definition of contentment clashes with Scripture. Here is where we find out where our heart is.
Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs had a net worth of about 8 billion dollars when he died earlier this year. 8 BILLION dollars. To put that in perspective, if you tried to count his money one dollar at a time, you’d die before you got even close. If you counted one dollar per second, 24 hours per day, it would take over 253 years to get to 8 billion.
I think we all agree that is a lot of money. Was Steve Jobs content with his fortune? I don’t think he was.
Even with death knocking on his door, he spent his last days promoting his company. He could not leave that game. He couldn’t let go of the reigns. He needed to be in control.
A self described atheist, he died a bitter and selfish man who didn’t share his wealth or give to charities. He turned his back on family. By most accounts he was not a nice man to be around. He certainly didn’t fit either definition of contentment we’ve looked at.
His 8 billion dollars was not enough.
(By the way, is it a coincidence that the logo of his company is also a representation of the original sin? Biting into an apple?)
Verse 10 tells us that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Notice it says the LOVE of money, not money. Money isn’t evil. Loving it is evil. Making it an idol is evil. Coveting it is evil.
We can never find contentment in the world. It just isn’t set up that way. We live in a world that encourages and enables us to live beyond our means, knowing that we will never stop reaching for that brass ring, even if we can’t afford it.
Here are some sobering statistics regarding credit card debt in the US.
The average credit card debt per household in the US is $15,956.00
The people of the US own 609.8 million credit cards. That works out to 3.5 cards per person. What’s in your wallet?
30% of credit card holders are delinquent in their payments.
America goes into debt because they are not content with what they have. They would rather spend now and pay later than budget now and buy later. Did Steve Jobs take any of that 8 billion with him? The one who dies with the most toys does not win. He just leaves behind more stuff.
We can never find contentment in the world. Our only contentment is that which we find in Christ. Godliness with contentment is great gain.
As for me, I have finally accepted that the Lord has me right where he wants me. If I’m stuck in traffic, I stop dreaming about a flying car that I can use to lift me up and fly me away from the bumper to bumper gridlock. (Wouldn’t that be cool?)
I give thanks for what He has blessed me with. It’s not the stuff I own. It’s the blessing of an amazing wife that I love and adore.
It’s the joy and honor of raising our children up in the Lord. It’s the fellowship we enjoy with our church family. It’s a nice, hot and gooey Cinnabun. (sorry, I must have been hungry when I wrote that part).
I accept the pasture my shepherd has selected for me and try very hard not to begrudge those who’s pasture appears to be greener.
Luke 12:15 tells us that our happiness does not lie in abundance, but in contentment.
Once we embrace that in our hearts, then and only then can we truly appreciate the blessings God has given us. Only then will we be happy. Only then will we be content.
Don’t be tempted to fall into the trap the world has set for us. Don’t be mislead by false teaching that we are owed something better and to live our best life now. Don’t define your worth by the stuff you own.
Don’t forget that we don’t own anything! We are just temporary custodians of God’s stuff until He calls us home. Our treasures lie in heaven. Our worth and value are in our hearts.
The finer things in life are already ours. It’s found in the contentment we gain by knowing the love of our Heavenly Father, and living our lives to His Glory.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Do You Trust Your Heart?
Do you trust your heart?
How many of you have ever based decisions on what your heart tells you to do? "I'm going to go with my heart on that one". Or maybe you said you had a "gut feeling" about it?
Let’s turn to Matthew 26:31-35
“Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”
Peter answered him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same.”
Do you think Peter was lying to Jesus when he said he would not deny him?
Peter truly thought that he would never deny Jesus. He probably felt it in his heart. But when the time actually came, Peter's strength and resolve disappeared. What happened?
Do any of us really want to sin? Do we wake up in the morning and say "today would be a good day to sin against God." I hope not.
We begin each day with good intentions, right? We know in our hearts that we do not want to sin. What happens?
Here's the problem. We're putting all our trust in our heart, but our heart is deceptively evil.
Jeremiah 17:9 teaches us "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick."
Let's go back to that night in the Book of Matthew. Jesus and the apostles Peter, John and James went up to Gethsemane so Jesus could pray. Jesus asked the three men to keep watch while he prayed. Do you think any of those three men desired to fall asleep? Do you think that in their hearts they believed they would obey Jesus? The three apostles were deceived by their hearts. They fell asleep. Not once, but twice!
I believe in my heart that all of us in this room have good intentions. But I know in my head that under the right circumstances, all of us will fall into sin. All of us will be betrayed by our hearts.
Does that mean we can never trust our hearts? Not at all. But what it does mean is that without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, our hearts are not reliable to lead us towards what will honor God. The Spirit will guide our hearts, but only if we listen.
We've all done something bad that we've regretted later. At that moment when we fell, we knew it was wrong. We knew we should not do it. That knowledge of good and evil is the Spirit within us guiding us. Unfortunately, our sinful nature can sometimes shout a lot louder and convince us to ignore what the Spirit is telling us.
The Spirit doesn't always speak to us in a loud voice. Most of the time it's a soft whisper. A little nudge. We give it a lot of names. Intuition. Gut feeling. Wisdom. But all of those names imply that it is our own doing. But it isn't. It isn't us, it's the Spirit within us.
We are born into sin. Unbelievers have no choice but to sin. The Spirit does not dwell in their hearts and they will be deceived into an eternal life in hell.
But when we are saved, that changes. When we are born again and receive the gift of eternal salvation by faith alone in Christ we now have the ability not to sin. We still have the ability to sin, but we have the Spirit within us guiding us towards the sinless life. If we listen.
So what can we do to make the Spirit's voice in our hearts louder than our sinner's voice? We feed it. We feed the Spirit and starve the flesh.
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16 ESV)
How do we feed the Spirit?
We pray. We attend church regularly. We attend home fellowships.
These are all good things, but it really isn't enough. To truly feed our Spirits we must study our Bibles every day. Not just read the Bible, but study it. Meditate on the verses. If you are doing a daily reading plan, read through the passage once, then read through it and find any parts that jump out at you and pray about those verses and how you might apply them to your life. Or maybe you found a verse that you don't understand. First write down what you think it means, and then check it against a good study Bible. (You MUST have a study bible! If you don't have one, you can always look up the verses on line, but unless you know which sites to trust, you can find yourself the victim of false teaching.)
Find out what the meaning is behind the verses so you can understand them. You can't apply Scripture to your life if you don't understand it.
Everything that lives on this earth must be fed to survive. Feed your spirit a healthy diet of God’s Word and watch it grow.
How many of you have ever based decisions on what your heart tells you to do? "I'm going to go with my heart on that one". Or maybe you said you had a "gut feeling" about it?
Let’s turn to Matthew 26:31-35
“Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”
Peter answered him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same.”
Do you think Peter was lying to Jesus when he said he would not deny him?
Peter truly thought that he would never deny Jesus. He probably felt it in his heart. But when the time actually came, Peter's strength and resolve disappeared. What happened?
Do any of us really want to sin? Do we wake up in the morning and say "today would be a good day to sin against God." I hope not.
We begin each day with good intentions, right? We know in our hearts that we do not want to sin. What happens?
Here's the problem. We're putting all our trust in our heart, but our heart is deceptively evil.
Jeremiah 17:9 teaches us "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick."
Let's go back to that night in the Book of Matthew. Jesus and the apostles Peter, John and James went up to Gethsemane so Jesus could pray. Jesus asked the three men to keep watch while he prayed. Do you think any of those three men desired to fall asleep? Do you think that in their hearts they believed they would obey Jesus? The three apostles were deceived by their hearts. They fell asleep. Not once, but twice!
I believe in my heart that all of us in this room have good intentions. But I know in my head that under the right circumstances, all of us will fall into sin. All of us will be betrayed by our hearts.
Does that mean we can never trust our hearts? Not at all. But what it does mean is that without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, our hearts are not reliable to lead us towards what will honor God. The Spirit will guide our hearts, but only if we listen.
We've all done something bad that we've regretted later. At that moment when we fell, we knew it was wrong. We knew we should not do it. That knowledge of good and evil is the Spirit within us guiding us. Unfortunately, our sinful nature can sometimes shout a lot louder and convince us to ignore what the Spirit is telling us.
The Spirit doesn't always speak to us in a loud voice. Most of the time it's a soft whisper. A little nudge. We give it a lot of names. Intuition. Gut feeling. Wisdom. But all of those names imply that it is our own doing. But it isn't. It isn't us, it's the Spirit within us.
We are born into sin. Unbelievers have no choice but to sin. The Spirit does not dwell in their hearts and they will be deceived into an eternal life in hell.
But when we are saved, that changes. When we are born again and receive the gift of eternal salvation by faith alone in Christ we now have the ability not to sin. We still have the ability to sin, but we have the Spirit within us guiding us towards the sinless life. If we listen.
So what can we do to make the Spirit's voice in our hearts louder than our sinner's voice? We feed it. We feed the Spirit and starve the flesh.
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16 ESV)
How do we feed the Spirit?
We pray. We attend church regularly. We attend home fellowships.
These are all good things, but it really isn't enough. To truly feed our Spirits we must study our Bibles every day. Not just read the Bible, but study it. Meditate on the verses. If you are doing a daily reading plan, read through the passage once, then read through it and find any parts that jump out at you and pray about those verses and how you might apply them to your life. Or maybe you found a verse that you don't understand. First write down what you think it means, and then check it against a good study Bible. (You MUST have a study bible! If you don't have one, you can always look up the verses on line, but unless you know which sites to trust, you can find yourself the victim of false teaching.)
Find out what the meaning is behind the verses so you can understand them. You can't apply Scripture to your life if you don't understand it.
Everything that lives on this earth must be fed to survive. Feed your spirit a healthy diet of God’s Word and watch it grow.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Faith and Obedience
Last time I spoke with you I shared how we were handling a cancer scare with Marissa. The main emotion we were dealing with at that time was anxiety and fear of the unknown. I shared with you how we turned to prayer and Scripture for reassurance during our times of trial.
I am happy to report that the cancer was benign and we did indeed rise up after that experience stronger in our faith and thankful for our blessings. The blessings have continued to flow, but so have the trials. Recently I got laid off from work. Again. Since we got married 3 ½ years ago, this is the 4th time I’ve gotten laid off. Note to any youth out there. Avoid careers in the construction industry.
Since I’ve had a little extra time on my hands, one of the blessings I’ve enjoyed is some quiet time early in the morning to study Scripture. Each morning I get up about 6:30, pour myself a nice hot cup of coffee, grab my study Bible and sit outside on our cozy little porch.
In the past I’ve spent most of my study time reading books of the New Testament. So I decided that this would be a good time to get familiar with Old Testament writings. Two Books in particular have provided some great insight into the trials we are currently experiencing, and I’d like to share them with you tonight.
In the Book of Genesis, I was studying the story of Noah and the Ark.
What if we were asked by God to build an ark? Can you imagine what it must have been like to be assigned that project? We’re talking a boat that is about the size of Qualcomm stadium. 1 ½ football fields long x half a football field wide and 4 stories tall.
I wonder what those next moments were like after Noah received the instructions from God and the logistics of the task began to set in. I can imagine what would have been going through my head.
Let’s look first at the materials. There weren’t any Home Depots back then, so we’re going to have to work from scratch. By my amateur estimates we’re looking at cutting down about 2,000 trees to produce about 30 to 40,000 pieces of milled lumber.
Now let’s look at the labor pool. We’ve got me and my three sons. Really God? Do you know how long this is going to take us? This is going to take like a hundred years!
OK, let’s assume we get this boat built. What about the animals you speak of LORD? How are we going to catch all of those animals? That crazy Australian guy got taken out by a fish. How are me and my three sons going to bring in lions and tigers and bears? (oh my!)
And then assuming we catch all those critters, how are we going to get them into the boat? I can’t get my dog to come when I call him without dangling a piece of bacon in front of him. I’m going to need a LOT of bacon LORD!
What about food? We’re going to be on that boat for a long time, we’re going to need a ton of food. And that’s just for my son Ham. He eats like a horse. What about all those animals? Some of them are meat eaters. How are we going to keep them from eating each other … or us???
And who’s going to clean up all that poop????
Clearly, the logistics of such an undertaking would overwhelm us before we even began. We’d be paralyzed by the how-to’s. When we’re faced with obstacles in our lives, it’s easy to get bogged down. Paralyzed. Defeated before we begin.
God gave Noah directions for building the ark. God didn’t burden him with all of the other details, so Noah didn’t waste time worrying about them. Noah didn’t get paralyzed. He didn’t get overwhelmed. He obeyed God.
Noah shouted out to his family “Japheth, Shem, Ham, grab an axe boys. We got some work to do!”
Noah had faith and trusted God to handle the details that were beyond his ability.
Faith and obedience.
I am unemployed. I could easily get caught up in what happens if my unemployment runs out before I find work? What happens if my truck breaks down? How am I going to take care of my family if we’re homeless? Will I ever eat Cinnabuns again? I can easily lapse into despair.
But just like all of the other trials we’ve encountered in our short time together, Marissa and I have faith that God will provide for us. Our needs will be met. We don’t need to worry about those things we can not control. That frees us up to focus on what we can control.
We strive to keep our faith and to be obedient to God. I try to not get overwhelmed with all the details. I try not to stress over those details I can’t control (like the economy). I try to be a good steward of the extra time with my family that God blessed me with. We rely on faith and obedience to keep our home a place where God is revered above all else. We strive for faith and obedience to make sure we are presenting a testimony to others that is pleasing to God.
The worse thing we can do is to take God out of the picture and try to move forward on our own power. To have faith without obedience is like a clanging gong. We’re just making noise. It doesn’t work. The minute we lose focus and drift off course, God wastes no time in letting us know.
Over the years, we’ve been frequently blessed by the kindness and charity of friends and family. This brings me to the other Book of the Old Testament I enjoyed reading. The book of Ruth.
Naomi and Ruth returned to Judah as two widows without any means of support for themselves. Without husbands to provide for them, they had to rely on the charity of others. Upon entering the land of Judah, Naomi sends Ruth out to glean from the fields owned by a relative named Boaz.
Gleaning was first mentioned in the Book of Leviticus chapter 19, verses 9 and 10:
“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner”
Gleaning was the earliest form of welfare. The farmers set aside a portion of their harvest for the sustenance of the poor. The big difference between gleaning and modern-day welfare was that with gleaning you gathered up the left-over harvest. The farmer didn’t deliver it to your door. You had to make the effort.
Naomi didn’t arrive in Judah and head straight for the Gleaning Department, fill out some forms and then wait on the groceries to be delivered. She sent out Ruth to gather the harvest. It was a humble and yet honorable way to receive charity. The poor were more than willing to labor in the field to gather the harvest.
I believe that God wants to see us make an effort. I’m not saying living a life of works to earn His blessings and his grace. Those are free gifts of God that we could never earn by our efforts. But I do believe it pleases him when we are obedient to His Word and demonstrate our faith to God in tangible ways. It’s all part of the sanctification process. It’s all part of having faith and being obedient.
When the Israelites crossed the river Jordan after 40 years in the desert, God spoke through Moses and told them that He was going to hand over all the land to them as just as He had promised Abraham. God led the Israelites into battles against armies larger and more powerful then they were, and yet the opposition fell. However, the Israelites had to fight the fight. God could have caused plagues over the lands and allowed the Israelites to just walk on in and take over. But he didn’t. He wanted to see their faith. He wanted to see their obedience. And I believe He still wants to see that from us today.
When I was in Jr. High I remember a girl was running for class president. Everyone who was running for office made posters asking people to vote for them and posted them all over the school grounds. This one girl did not put up any posters. Someone asked her why she wasn’t promoting herself. She said that if it was God’s will for her to be class president she would be elected. She didn’t make an effort. She didn’t get elected.
Even though it would be over 30 years from that day before I came to have a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I remember thinking way back then that she must be missing something. Her approach seemed to be lazy and apathetic. Today it makes perfect sense to me. She had faith but lacked obedience. She didn’t take her sword into battle, so why should she win the war?
Faith and obedience are not separate options. Obedience is an outward sign of our inward faith. When we have faith in God, obedience naturally grows to fulfill our heart-felt desire to please God.
Obedience without faith may make us a good citizen, but it does not save us. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us that “For by grace you have been saved by faith: and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.”
We can’t just pray for rain and sit waiting for it to happen. We must pray for rain and then prepare our fields to receive it, knowing that the rain will come. That’s faith and obedience.
So how do we apply this knowledge and practice of faith and obedience to trials we face?
Our human nature tempts us to withdraw from our circumstances when we face trials. To withdraw from our ministries. To cut back on our tithing. To put our needs before others. But that isn’t being obedient to the Lord. That isn’t having faith that He will provide for our needs. We over come our trials by practicing faith and obedience to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs on your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:29-31)
Our GOD is a loving God full of grace and wanting nothing but the best for us. We must have faith that our LORD will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death and obedience to make the journey if that’s where He wants us.
I am happy to report that the cancer was benign and we did indeed rise up after that experience stronger in our faith and thankful for our blessings. The blessings have continued to flow, but so have the trials. Recently I got laid off from work. Again. Since we got married 3 ½ years ago, this is the 4th time I’ve gotten laid off. Note to any youth out there. Avoid careers in the construction industry.
Since I’ve had a little extra time on my hands, one of the blessings I’ve enjoyed is some quiet time early in the morning to study Scripture. Each morning I get up about 6:30, pour myself a nice hot cup of coffee, grab my study Bible and sit outside on our cozy little porch.
In the past I’ve spent most of my study time reading books of the New Testament. So I decided that this would be a good time to get familiar with Old Testament writings. Two Books in particular have provided some great insight into the trials we are currently experiencing, and I’d like to share them with you tonight.
In the Book of Genesis, I was studying the story of Noah and the Ark.
What if we were asked by God to build an ark? Can you imagine what it must have been like to be assigned that project? We’re talking a boat that is about the size of Qualcomm stadium. 1 ½ football fields long x half a football field wide and 4 stories tall.
I wonder what those next moments were like after Noah received the instructions from God and the logistics of the task began to set in. I can imagine what would have been going through my head.
Let’s look first at the materials. There weren’t any Home Depots back then, so we’re going to have to work from scratch. By my amateur estimates we’re looking at cutting down about 2,000 trees to produce about 30 to 40,000 pieces of milled lumber.
Now let’s look at the labor pool. We’ve got me and my three sons. Really God? Do you know how long this is going to take us? This is going to take like a hundred years!
OK, let’s assume we get this boat built. What about the animals you speak of LORD? How are we going to catch all of those animals? That crazy Australian guy got taken out by a fish. How are me and my three sons going to bring in lions and tigers and bears? (oh my!)
And then assuming we catch all those critters, how are we going to get them into the boat? I can’t get my dog to come when I call him without dangling a piece of bacon in front of him. I’m going to need a LOT of bacon LORD!
What about food? We’re going to be on that boat for a long time, we’re going to need a ton of food. And that’s just for my son Ham. He eats like a horse. What about all those animals? Some of them are meat eaters. How are we going to keep them from eating each other … or us???
And who’s going to clean up all that poop????
Clearly, the logistics of such an undertaking would overwhelm us before we even began. We’d be paralyzed by the how-to’s. When we’re faced with obstacles in our lives, it’s easy to get bogged down. Paralyzed. Defeated before we begin.
God gave Noah directions for building the ark. God didn’t burden him with all of the other details, so Noah didn’t waste time worrying about them. Noah didn’t get paralyzed. He didn’t get overwhelmed. He obeyed God.
Noah shouted out to his family “Japheth, Shem, Ham, grab an axe boys. We got some work to do!”
Noah had faith and trusted God to handle the details that were beyond his ability.
Faith and obedience.
I am unemployed. I could easily get caught up in what happens if my unemployment runs out before I find work? What happens if my truck breaks down? How am I going to take care of my family if we’re homeless? Will I ever eat Cinnabuns again? I can easily lapse into despair.
But just like all of the other trials we’ve encountered in our short time together, Marissa and I have faith that God will provide for us. Our needs will be met. We don’t need to worry about those things we can not control. That frees us up to focus on what we can control.
We strive to keep our faith and to be obedient to God. I try to not get overwhelmed with all the details. I try not to stress over those details I can’t control (like the economy). I try to be a good steward of the extra time with my family that God blessed me with. We rely on faith and obedience to keep our home a place where God is revered above all else. We strive for faith and obedience to make sure we are presenting a testimony to others that is pleasing to God.
The worse thing we can do is to take God out of the picture and try to move forward on our own power. To have faith without obedience is like a clanging gong. We’re just making noise. It doesn’t work. The minute we lose focus and drift off course, God wastes no time in letting us know.
Over the years, we’ve been frequently blessed by the kindness and charity of friends and family. This brings me to the other Book of the Old Testament I enjoyed reading. The book of Ruth.
Naomi and Ruth returned to Judah as two widows without any means of support for themselves. Without husbands to provide for them, they had to rely on the charity of others. Upon entering the land of Judah, Naomi sends Ruth out to glean from the fields owned by a relative named Boaz.
Gleaning was first mentioned in the Book of Leviticus chapter 19, verses 9 and 10:
“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner”
Gleaning was the earliest form of welfare. The farmers set aside a portion of their harvest for the sustenance of the poor. The big difference between gleaning and modern-day welfare was that with gleaning you gathered up the left-over harvest. The farmer didn’t deliver it to your door. You had to make the effort.
Naomi didn’t arrive in Judah and head straight for the Gleaning Department, fill out some forms and then wait on the groceries to be delivered. She sent out Ruth to gather the harvest. It was a humble and yet honorable way to receive charity. The poor were more than willing to labor in the field to gather the harvest.
I believe that God wants to see us make an effort. I’m not saying living a life of works to earn His blessings and his grace. Those are free gifts of God that we could never earn by our efforts. But I do believe it pleases him when we are obedient to His Word and demonstrate our faith to God in tangible ways. It’s all part of the sanctification process. It’s all part of having faith and being obedient.
When the Israelites crossed the river Jordan after 40 years in the desert, God spoke through Moses and told them that He was going to hand over all the land to them as just as He had promised Abraham. God led the Israelites into battles against armies larger and more powerful then they were, and yet the opposition fell. However, the Israelites had to fight the fight. God could have caused plagues over the lands and allowed the Israelites to just walk on in and take over. But he didn’t. He wanted to see their faith. He wanted to see their obedience. And I believe He still wants to see that from us today.
When I was in Jr. High I remember a girl was running for class president. Everyone who was running for office made posters asking people to vote for them and posted them all over the school grounds. This one girl did not put up any posters. Someone asked her why she wasn’t promoting herself. She said that if it was God’s will for her to be class president she would be elected. She didn’t make an effort. She didn’t get elected.
Even though it would be over 30 years from that day before I came to have a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I remember thinking way back then that she must be missing something. Her approach seemed to be lazy and apathetic. Today it makes perfect sense to me. She had faith but lacked obedience. She didn’t take her sword into battle, so why should she win the war?
Faith and obedience are not separate options. Obedience is an outward sign of our inward faith. When we have faith in God, obedience naturally grows to fulfill our heart-felt desire to please God.
Obedience without faith may make us a good citizen, but it does not save us. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us that “For by grace you have been saved by faith: and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.”
We can’t just pray for rain and sit waiting for it to happen. We must pray for rain and then prepare our fields to receive it, knowing that the rain will come. That’s faith and obedience.
So how do we apply this knowledge and practice of faith and obedience to trials we face?
Our human nature tempts us to withdraw from our circumstances when we face trials. To withdraw from our ministries. To cut back on our tithing. To put our needs before others. But that isn’t being obedient to the Lord. That isn’t having faith that He will provide for our needs. We over come our trials by practicing faith and obedience to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs on your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:29-31)
Our GOD is a loving God full of grace and wanting nothing but the best for us. We must have faith that our LORD will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death and obedience to make the journey if that’s where He wants us.
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