We love to talk. There are talk shows everywhere on TV. Everybody seems to have something to say. I read recently where the average American has 30 conversations a day and you'll spend 1/5 of your life talking. In one year your conversations will fill 66 books of 800 pages per book. If you're a guy in high school, you speak an average of 7,000 words a day. And if you're a girl in high school, get this...you probaWly speak somewhere around 20,000 words a day.
A couple of weeks ago Derek started this mini-series on the power of those words, and he talked about the sheer power of words. So, guys, 7000 words a day! Girls- 20,000 words a day! Wow – I bet you’d think that somewhere in all those words there are gonna be a couple that are pretty powerful – that will have a huge impact on whoever is listening to you. So tonight, I want to talk a little about how the words we use everyday have the ability to show others around us if we love them or simply don’t love them or don’t care about them.
Last year we did a series on Love, and we talked about 1 Corinthians 13…about how Love is patient, about how love is kind, about how love does not envy, about how it does not boast, it is not proud, isn’t rude. The Cliffnotes or Sparknites version of 1 Corinthians 13 is basically about loving God, and loving others.
I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that the word “love” has no meaning anymore. I mean, in most popular books and magazines and television shows and movies and music, the term “lust” would be more fitting than the word “love.” I mean, today we rarely see the kind of love that Paul describes here – a love that is patient, kind, not jealous, not boastful, not proud, not rude, not demanding, not irritable, always hopeful, always enduring, even under the worst circumstances. Surely, if we all loved the way Paul describes in the bible, it would revolutionize neighborhoods, churches, marriages, relationships, and families. This kind of love is God’s kind of love. Friends, this is the kind of love God wants you to show to everyone around you.
You see, love has very little to do with how we feel. For example, I can say I love chocolate chip ice cream, or I love the newest album from Flyleaf, or I love the smell of a new car. But if I am in a relationship with any of you, do you want me to love you like I love the smell of a car. I hope not. I hope you expect more than that. I know that God expects more than that. So love has less to do with our feelings- it has more to do with the decisions and choices we make everyday, and especially…especially the choices we make with the words we use.
In fact, the words we use may not only destroy the people around us...think about this...the words we use often destroy what each of us have.
Imagine a beautiful forest - tall beautiful trees everywhere. Now, imagine that in one minute, that beautiful forest, with those magnificent trees that seem to keep climbing into the sky that you can't even see their tops, the soft soil of the forest's ground, the wonder of the animals and birds and bugs that live in that beautiful forest - up in smoke, completely destroyed instantly with a little tiny match. It only takes a spark to get a fire going.
In 1983 in Australia, one fire overnight destroyed 600 miles of land, villages, and livestock. All from a single match. The bible in James says that your tongue can destroy like that. You can lose it all. A careless camper can destroy an entire national forest overnight. But, but - a careless word can destroy a life overnight. Thousands of lives. Gossip is like fire. It spreads quickly and it wrecks havoc. I wonder how many people in here tonight, because of a careless word have destroyed their relationships with what they thought were best friends, or girl friends, or boyfriends, sisters, brothers, parents – all because of a single word or sentence. Maybe destroyed their own reputation, or the reputation of another, or of their church. The tongue not only has the power to direct where you go, but it also has the power to destroy what you have if you don't learn to control it. Your tongue can be like that single, innocent match that destroyed 600 miles of land, villages, and livestock.
Have you ever met a verbal arsonist? We all know what an arsonist is- the people who set fires on purpose as a crime. But how about a verbal arsonist- the kind of person who uses words that are always inflammatory. How many of you know someone like that? I sure do. In the bible James says that words, like a fire, can burn people because you can burn people with what you say. We all know the saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." You guys are in high school, so you probably think that that saying is just for babies. But, it does hurt. Fire and words under control can give tremendous warmth and light, but fire and words out of control can be devastating. It can destroy miles and miles of homes and lands and the lives of people around us.
Think of all the people you interact with each day- friends at school, boyfriends, girlfriends, teachers, school bus drivers, bosses, the people that work in the caf at school, people at RISE708. How can you show love to them? Can you be less irritable, more hopeful, willing to persist through the tough times, more patient, less jealous, more kind? It doesn’t come easy, but true love isn’t easy either.
A couple of weeks ago Derek talked about how powerful words can be. And tonight, I want to talk to you about how to be kind with your words. What does that mean? President Bush wanted a "kinder, gentler nation." But what does it mean to be kind? Kindness is love in action. Love looks for a way of improving somebody else's life. Love through kindness builds people up. So tonight, let’s talk about how to be a People Builder.
Romans 15:2 says "We should consider the good of our neighbor and build up his character." So the question is, How do I build up the people in my life?
This message tonight is for everybody. It doesn’t matter if your 16 or 60, a student or retired, live in a palace, or live on the streets. It’s for all of us – teachers, parents, wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, if you work with other people at a job, and especially, especially, if you go to high school. Because the fact is that all of us have people around us we'd like to build up, that we'd like to bring out the best in. That sounds great doesn’t it? Who here would not like eat lunch on Monday at school with someone who didn’t make you feel good to be around? But many times we just kinda shrug our shoulders because we just don’t know how to do it. So tonight we're going to look at four things you can give people that will build up the best in them. You build people up by kindness, not by criticism. Kindness is giving people what they need, not what they deserve. Jesus gave people four things, the same four things you need to learn to give if you're going to be a people builder, if you're going to bring out the best in their life. And the one thing all four of these have in common is words - the words we use to communicate with each other, the words we use to express our love to others, and sadly, the words people around us use to destroy us.
1. GIVE THEM A PERSONAL CHALLENGE
In Ephesians 4:1, Paul says "here's what I want you to do. While I'm locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don't want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don't want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences."
In that scripture, Paul is urging people to make their life count. He's challenging them. He's saying don't waste your life. Be all that God made you to be. Make your life count. Why? Because we all need a cause, a project, a dream that calls forth the best in our lives. It strengthens us. If Paul was with us here tonight, he would tell you this- brothers and sisters, don’t sit around and waste your life text messaging each other, or using up your cell phone minutes, or sitting around playing video games, or making ungodly comments on facebook or myspace! No, do something that makes your life count, and glorifies God.
This weekend is a big weekend for the New England Patriots. They need to win to have a chance to make the playoffs this year. Now I realize that not everyone in here is a Patriots fan, or even a football fan. But the point is not about football. For many of you in here, you have been kind of spoiled the past few years with Boston’s sports teams. But if you follow the Red Sox, you know they have been in the playoffs 6 of the last 8 years, and have won the world series twice in the past 5 years. If you follow the Celtics, you know that they are the defending NBA champions. And if you follow hockey, you also know that finally, finally, the Bruins have turned it around and are one of the top teams in the NHL. And if you follow the Patriots, you know that they are one of the greatest football team in NFL history- they have won the Superbowl three times since 2001, they have been to the AFC championship game 6 times since 2001, and have won their division 7 times in the past 8 years. But it wasn’t always like that for the Patriots. From 1989 through 1993, the Patriots were the laughing stock of the NFL, and considered one of the worst run teams in all of professional sports.
They were so bad that they couldn’t sell enough tickets to their games at the old Sullivan stadium, which meant that their games were not even on television. That’s a pretty big change from today, when the Pats are on prime time much of the time. So for those five years the Patriots won only 24% of their games. By 1990 they were 1 – 15, kinda like the Detroit Lions this year. Terrible team. Then in 1993 along came a guy named Bill Parcells. He was tough, but he was a people builder. During his brief stay he completely turned the organization around, and in 1994 he was named Coach of the year and the Patriots made the playoffs for the first time since 1986. And two years later, the Patriots went to the super bowl. He turned a loser into a winner, a dynasty. Parcells was a people builder. Not many people know that, because they see him as some sort of football missionary that hops from team to team. But that’s why he continues to be hired- he knows how to bring out the best in people by issuing personal challenges to the players.
We all know that there is more to life than just living for yourself. There must be a cause, a reason, a purpose that I'm here. All of us need somebody in our lives who can inspire us to be what we could be. There are people in your life that God wants to use you to be a people builder for, to bring out their best, to inspire them to be what God knows they could be. Think about this for a minute- does anyone come to mind that is your personal people-builder. Someone that builds you up, no matter how bad things get? It may be a boyfriend or girlfriend, a regular friend, maybe a teacher, maybe a coach, maybe someone on the RISE708 youth team, maybe someone in this sanctuary tonight, and hopefully your parents.
You need people builders. I need people builders. Derek, everyone on the youth team need people builders in our lives. So rather than criticizing the worst in others, we need to start concentrating on how to bring out the best- and this is the best way to love with kindness.
2. GIVE THEM COMPLETE CONFIDENCE
Romans 15:2 says “We should help others do what is right and build them up in the Lord.
We all need confidence. When somebody believes in you, doesn’t that feel good? Why? Because it brings out the best in you. It gives you the courage. "I know you can do it!" Jesus did this with Peter. Peter's name "Petros" meant pebble. Jesus said, "Pebble, you're going to be a rock. But I'm giving you a new name." When Jesus said that to Peter he was anything but a rock. He was Mr. Impulsive, Mr. Foot-in-Mouth. But Jesus said you're going to be a rock. Jesus didn't tell him what he was; He told him what he COULD be -- that's potential, that's building confidence. Whenever you label somebody you reinforce what they are. Folks, the world is full of people that will tell you, your friends and family what they are. You’re Lazy. You’re fat. You’re ugly. You’re dumb. You’re a disappointment. You’re a weirdo. You’re a failure. How about this one- you don’t apply yourself. Argggghhhhhhh!
But, I have great news for each and every one of you here tonight. The best news you could ever imagine. Starting tonight, each and every one of you have a second chance, a chance to break that chain around your neck, break that cycle- Don't tell people what they are, tell them what they could be. Build them up. Instead of catching people doing something wrong, catch someone doing something right, and tell them. Encourage each other. Build each other up- because if we can’t encourage and build each other up here at RISE708, who will. And you can do it with just six simple words- “I know you can do it.”
The fact is we all need encouragement. For the past year or so I have kept an Encouragement file. Every time anybody writes me a note, a card, a letter, an email, or a text message that’s encouraging, I keep it. Even if it's only mildly encouraging, like "Better luck next time!" or "You tried on that sermon, but you spoke way too long and I have no clue what you were getting at, but good try." Anything that's mildly encouraging, I keep it. And on those days when I'm discouraged or down on myself, I get out that Encouragement file and I read through all the letters and notes and emails and text messages over and over. You know why? Because it's encouraging to me to know that at some time in my life, my wife, my son, or Derek or someone on the youth team, or maybe one of you, thought I had some kind of value! We all need encouragement.
There’s this story of a kid who grew up in the projects in Boston. He had nothing. His family had nothing. Winter nights were cold, and there was little food on the table. Days and nights were consumed with thoughts of how to stay out of the cross fire of bullets from rival gangs, or being able to walk to school without being attacked. This kid had no one at home to encourage him. His father had left the home when he was 12. His mother worked two jobs just to be able to pay the rent and try to feed him and his two younger sisters. So it was nothing short of a miracle when he walked on the stage at his college graduation as the class valedictorian. He had performed spectacularly in college, and he gave all the credit to one of his teachers in high school. As he stood before the graduation day crown of over 5000 people, he recalled the the endless days and nights of despair in the housing projects of Boston. The future looked bleak, and he was ready to end it all. He tried to commit suicide several times. But that graduation day, he’s the top student at his college, with a job offer. Why? Because some teacher kept reinforcing his confidence. His voice cracked as he related the story, he said "All those years, I wanted to quit and didn't think I had a future, but someone believed in me more than I did in myself. She wanted me to succeed even more than I did."
Who can you say that about? That you believe in them more than they believe in themselves? That you want them to succeed more than they do? That you love them more than they love themselves? If you want to be a people builder you've got to give people a challenge and then you've got to say, "I know you can do it!" Whether you're working with other students on a class assignment, or you’re trying to support one of your friends going through a tough time, or even trying to encourage your mom or dad, those six words out of your mouth can do more than anything you could imagine - "I know you can do it."
Like I said, the world is addicted to pointing out the negative rather than glorifying the positive. Just watch the news at night. So, it’s not easy to give encouragement. It might feel weird, or embarrassing to do it. So here are some suggestions on giving encouragement:
1. When you encourage people it needs to be real, from the heart and not some kind of phony manipulation.
2. It needs to be regular. Don't be stingy with encouragement. Give it out all the time. Encourage everybody -- the waitress at Friendly’s or Dave’s Diner in Middleboro, your school bus driver, your teachers, your parents, your friends here at RISE708 or at school, maybe even us on the youth team. We stand here, but we need encouragement as much as anyone. I know it’s not easy. The world outside those front doors tells you it’s OK to be rude to others. The world out there tells you its OK to be indifferent, or uncaring. Who cares what that waitress thinks?! Who cares how that person behind the register at Walmart, or next door at Amaro’s feels. So ask yourself this...why can't I break that cycle tonight. The answer is so easy…you can, tonight.
When you look at Jesus, really understand what He was doing, you realize what a radical he was for his time. He was a complete revolutionary. And I know many of us like to think ourselves as being radical. But if you want to be a real radical- a real revolutionary tonight...then let me ask you this - when was the last time you wrote a love note or thank you note to your parents? You may not think too highly of one or both of your parents. But just think how you would make them feel if you wrote them a simple note- “Mom, Dad- I may not always show it, but I appreciate all you do for me.” That’s it. That simple note could be a life-changing experience for them. Teachers always hear about when they're doing a bad job. When was the last time you wrote a note of encouragement to a teacher that's doing a good job? I know you have teachers you feel that way about, a teacher that has encouraged you, or built you up. When was the last time you wrote a note to encourage a friend who's had a major impact in your life? I encourage you to write it down. A note says you took the time to care.
3. BE HONEST WITH OTHERS
We all need honest feedback. Since none of us is perfect, we need people in our lives that say, “get back in line!" We all need people who will lay it out for us, and be honest with us.
Proverbs 27 says: "People learn from one another, just as iron sharpens iron." We bring out the best in each other. "An honest answer is the sign of a true friendship." A real friend will tell you when you're making a mistake. A real friend will level with you. A real friend who loves you tells you that you are wrong when you are wrong. They care enough to confront you, to correct you. They'll lay it on the line. Even when it's painful, they'll tell you the truth. "I think you're off base here. You're wasting your life." They just don't let people waste their life in silence. Prov. 27:6 says "A friend means well even when he hurts you." He's doing it for your benefit.
4. LASTLY, GIVE OTHERS FULL CREDIT
If you want to be a people builder -- bring out the best in the people in your life -- give them full credit. Praise the growth and the changes you see in their lives. The Bible says "Let us have real, warm affection for each other and a willingness to let others have the credit." I have a sign in my office that says , "God can do great things through the person who doesn't care who gets the credit."
How do you guys do on that? How quickly do you share the credit? Usually we like to share the blame but keep the credit. God says the mark of maturity is to accept the blame and share the credit. The exact opposite. Just ask Tim Conrad about the work that goes in to making worship happen for four services every Saturday or Sunday. It takes about 20 different people, all with different responsibilities, to make it all happen. There’s sound, media, performers, worship leaders, child care, greeters, ushers, parking lot attendants, and of course a Pastor with a message. And when you get that many people involved going in so many different directions, negatives are bound to pop up. But if we can’t share the credit and take the blame in CCC’s worship ministry, where can we do it?
When you look at these four things on how to be a People Builder: Give Them a Personal Challenge, Give Them Complete Confidence, Give Them Honest Opinions, and Give them Full Credit – you’re probably saying- ya know Bob, that’s sounds just great, but man, that also sounds like a lot of work. And the answer is, yep, it sure is, and you won't always feel like doing it. Kindness always costs. There's a price tag for being a people builder. It requires time, it requires effort, it requires energy, it may require money, maybe a lack of privacy. It always costs to be kind. Most of all it costs unselfishness. It takes unselfishness to be a people builder. Usually we're so caught up in our own thing we don't have time to build anybody else up. We focus on me, myself, I. I don't care about anybody else; I'm focusing on me. It takes unselfishness. It costs to be kind. The question tonight is- are you willing the pay the price. I am – are you?
But your concern may not be how much work it takes to love with kindness- your question may simply be “Why should I do it?” No one does it for me! Hey, doesn’t the bible talk about treating others as you would like to be treated? If that’s true, why don’t people in my life treat me with kindness, or love?
I don’t know what specific circumstance each of you has with girlfriends, boyfriends, regular friends, or with your parents or guardians at home. But if you are here tonight it tells me that you are willing to be a little different, and break the cycle of hatred and indifference. The bible says "In response to all God has done for us, let us outdo each other in being helpful and kind to each other." God's been kind to you, so you owe it to others! The Romans, back when the first Christians were forming after Jesus Christ came to earth, used to confuse the word "cristos" with "crestos". Cristos means Christ. Crestos, in Latin, means kindness. But what a great confusion! If anything ought to be synonymous it ought to be kindness and a Christian. Christians ought to be the most kind and loving people in the work force. Christians ought to be the most kind and loving people at school. Christians ought to be the most kind and loving people at the mall. Christians ought to be the most kind and loving people on the internet. And Christians ought to be the most kind and loving people to – other Christians. Let’s take a look:
=> VIDEO
So how do you rate as a people builder? How many people do you know would say that you do this to them? How many of you feel like the person in that video? Then I give you a challenge. I want to give you a new objective for life. Whether you live another year, five years, ten years or a hundred years - I want to challenge you to make as your primary objective of life to be a people builder, not a people-trasher. Someone who encourages, and doesn’t hurt others. Someone who picks up others, instead of beating them when they are already down.
I want everyone here to hear me on this…all of us here, no matter how old we are, how smart we are, how gifted we are, how successful we may think we are- all of us here are broken. Very few of us have had anybody ever build us up like we can start doing as soon as I finish up. But all of us crave to have somebody to help evaluate our life, say this is the direction you ought to go. That's what it means to be kind. You can be a home builder, bodybuilder, a money builder- but none of those things are going to last. But there is something that's going to last for eternity. There is no more worthwhile endeavor in life than to be a people builder.
Let’s pray together:
I don’t pretend to know what’s in your heart tonight. Maybe you have already made the commitment to accept Jesus in your life and know the unconditional love He has for you. Maybe you heard something tonight that’s pulling at your heart, and you’re thinking, yeah, that’s how I want my life to be- a life filled with love with patience, love with kindness.
Will you commit to bringing out the best in people that God has placed in your life and He will place in your life in the days or years ahead? Would you say in your heart, "God, I do want to become a people builder." God has placed people around you that He wants you to build up. Who do you need to write a note to, a note of encouragement?
Who do you need to give more credit to? The kindest thing you can do for somebody is to introduce them to Jesus Christ. Who could you invite to RISE708, which could start them on the road to becoming all they're meant to be. Some of you need to begin your own personal development process. We want to help you to become what God has shaped you to be. Some of you need to say, "Jesus Christ, come into my heart and help me to become what You made me to be." If you've never done that, do that now. Make that your starting decision. "Christ, come into my life and help me to discover what You made me for. I want to know You and follow You." If that’s your decision tonight, I urge you to grab Derek or someone from the youth team to talk about your decision. Do it today. We have no idea what tomorrow will bring.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The Flaw of Contemporary "Christian Accountability"
I currently have and always have had a problem with how today's "evangelical" church focuses on "accountability." In the contemporary church setting, we most often hear the word "accountability" associated with having some fellow church member as a partner that we stay "accountable" to on a regular basis, and humbly confess all of our sinful nature to. To make this process more palatable to us, we then water it down to a "meeting for a cup of coffee every week at the local Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts to talk about our week."
Here comes the "but." But, I think this misses the point of what we today refer to as "Christian Accountability." We all tend to think like we are still in primary school when the teachers would consistently say something to the effect of "Well Johnny, if you insist on mis-behaving, it may go on your permanent record, and then you will have trouble getting into college or getting a job." What nonsense.
Today I was talking to a friend of mine that I ride the train with whose opinion I trust and respect immensely. So, at the risk of losing the point she was making, I thought I just mind as well just quote what she said to me:
"Well, the irony is that with God there is no permanent record. Yet, we humans keep a checklist all the time of one another's actions and faults. We say we want to be Christlike. We say we forgive. Then we say, wait a minute, now I remember. I think the 11th commandment should be "thou shalt not keep account." My whole Christian education and church rearing was riddled with the word accountability. It creates a mind set that I think is detrimental to being a Christian within a community of believers. People go around keeping track of everything everyone else does. It is unhealthy. I have eradicated the word from my Christian dictionary. If you break the word down, it means having the ability to account. That is one ability I do not want to have. I have replaced it with a more constructive word - availability....having the ability to avail. The questions that come from that word are great."
Nuf said.
Here comes the "but." But, I think this misses the point of what we today refer to as "Christian Accountability." We all tend to think like we are still in primary school when the teachers would consistently say something to the effect of "Well Johnny, if you insist on mis-behaving, it may go on your permanent record, and then you will have trouble getting into college or getting a job." What nonsense.
Today I was talking to a friend of mine that I ride the train with whose opinion I trust and respect immensely. So, at the risk of losing the point she was making, I thought I just mind as well just quote what she said to me:
"Well, the irony is that with God there is no permanent record. Yet, we humans keep a checklist all the time of one another's actions and faults. We say we want to be Christlike. We say we forgive. Then we say, wait a minute, now I remember. I think the 11th commandment should be "thou shalt not keep account." My whole Christian education and church rearing was riddled with the word accountability. It creates a mind set that I think is detrimental to being a Christian within a community of believers. People go around keeping track of everything everyone else does. It is unhealthy. I have eradicated the word from my Christian dictionary. If you break the word down, it means having the ability to account. That is one ability I do not want to have. I have replaced it with a more constructive word - availability....having the ability to avail. The questions that come from that word are great."
Nuf said.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
If God is such a Good and Loving God, then why...
You know, we are now in November and feels like the school year just started a couple of weeks ago. But since it’s November, everyone on the youth team has been discussing ways in which we can make Friday nights more meaningful to you. And I really think that last Friday was an awesome night- who was here last Friday night? Who thought it was like the best RISE708 in the past year? Who thought the youth band rocked the house? There is one thing you should all know- not a Friday night goes by when anyone on the youth team does not pray that it will be the best night of your life. And the one thing I pray is that when I have the honor of giving the message on a Friday night, is that I give you some stuff that you can use tonight, as soon as I’m done. And for those who know me, I hope by now that you realize that I like to talk about stuff that normally would be considered “untouchable” - untouchable within your family, and certainly untouchable at your school. But if you guys are thinking about it, I want to talk about it.
A couple of weeks ago I talked about death. No one likes talking about death. It’s depressing. It’s raw. It’s sensitive for a lot of people. But I knew that a good number of you were thinking about it that week. So we talked about it.
Tonight there is another untouchable - an untouchable that I know some of you have thought about, so I’m gonna talk about it. You may no think of it by name, but we all experience it, every day- we all experience and think about evil. Because maybe
the most often-asked question is this:
If God is such a good and loving God, why is there evil? Why do bad things happens? Why to bad things happen to good people? Every day is just filled with terrible news. So you might ask, If God is such a good and loving God, why do I get lousy grades even after I study. If God is such a good and loving God, how come my mom, or dad, or brother or sister is sick with cancer? If God is such a good and loving God, why do my friends turn their back on me? If God is such a good and loving God, why do my parents argue all the time? Why did my parents get divorce
Earlier today I was driving around just trying to get a couple of things done, and I tune on this AM News radio station. And I’m listening to this news station, and there motto is something like “You give us 22 minutes, we give you the world.” In that time after about three minutes in the car, I turned it off because I was just tired of hearing about murder, about rap about little kids being abducted, about lying and cheating and stealing. We live in a world where there is a lot of evil. What’s the deal? Where is God with all this?
So I have two big question- 1) Why is there so much suffering and evil in a world created by God; and 2) If God created the world and is so powerful, why doesn’t he just stop all the evil?
1. Why is there so much suffering and evil in the world? Why didn’t God create it perfect?
The answer is that He did. God created a perfect world. I talked about this a month or so ago when I talked about Adam & Eve and the Garden of Eden. The Bible tells us all about creation, what it was like in the beginning, that it was perfect. There was no smog, no bad drivers, no gossiping, no pain, no tragedy, no crowds, no suffering, no sadness, no evil. Just Adam and Eve in a perfect setting. But one of them told God basically to shove off. You might even ask, is God responsible for evil because He created us with a free will? God made us to love Him, but the only way it could be truly love, genuine love, is that if God gave us a choice. If I’m God and I created all these people to love me but I didn’t give them free choice, then it’s not love. All they would be would be robots.
A lot of you may think, and a lot of you may have friends that think God is up there in the sky somewhere, moving us. I’m just moving how God makes me move, like I am some sort of puppet, and it’s God’s fault. No, God says I’m going to give you free choice. Many of us have been turning our back on God for our whole lives. God says for love to be real, there has to be free choice.
I didn’t really understand this when I first became a Christian about five years ago. When I was preparing this message I came on to a story of a guy who became a Christian when he was in 10th grade. His name was Jeremy, and during the summer between his 9th and 10th grade, the people across the street from where he lived, the Chandlers, went on vacation. The Chandlers were the only people in Jeremy’s neighborhood that had a pool table. When they were on vacation, they asked me Jeremy to take care of their dog, a big German shepherd by the name of Max. To me, Max is just the perfect name for a German shepherd. Max lived in the house and in the back yard, and the Chandlers had one of those big doggie doors where Max can go back and forth between the house and back yard. As a ninth-grader, Jeremy weighed about 105 pounds and could fit through that big doggie door. But Jeremy was only supposed to take care of Max the dog when Max was in the back yard. But Jeremy got into their house because they had a pool table. And one day that summer Jeremy got into the Chandler’s house and was playing pool. It was a great summer day – he was in the Chandler’s house. And Jeremy was playing like his third game of pool. And Jeremy goes to break, and as he did, he hit the cue ball and then lifted his hand in the air. And right over the pool table was this huge Budweiser lamp. Like a stained glass window lamp. And when Jeremy lifted his hand in the air his pool cue hit that lamp, and it shattered all over the table.
Big trouble! Jeremy runs out the big doggie door and Max is chasing him barking, and Jeremy finally makes it home. And doesn’t tell anyone what happened.
You know when you’ve done something wrong and feel incredibly guilty? Every time somebody looks at you, you look down. Well, the more Jeremy lived with it, the more he thought, The Chandlers are going to come home next week. They’re going to know it was me. They’re not going to think their German Shepherd Max was playing pool even though The Chandlers had one of those velvet paintings of dogs playing pool. So Jeremy confessed, and got in a lot of trouble. One of the consequences was that Jeremy had to go to the church and visit the youth pastor.
So Jeremy’s youth pastor asked him, “How do you feel about this?” Jeremy said, “I feel bad. I broke the Budweiser lamp.” Jeremy’s youth pastor talked to him about his spiritual life. “Are you a Christian?” asked the youth pastor. “I am,” said Jeremy. “I became a Christian this year. Then Jeremy says to the youth pastor, “If God loves me so much, why did He let that happen to me? All you guys at church always talk about God’s love, then why did He let me break the Budweiser lamp? It’s kind of God’s fault, isn’t it?”
Jeremy learned there for the first time how much God really loves him. Because his youth pastor explained, in very simple terms that in God’s ultimate love for us, God says, “Jeremy, or Emily, or Abe, or Kyle Buchanan, or Mollie, or Jordan…I love you so much I’m going to give you a choice. You can either love Me, or you can turn your back on Me.”&;nbsp; Because if God forced Jeremy from our story, or Emily, or Abe or Kyle or Mollie or Jordan or Shari to love Him, it wouldn’t be ultimate love.
So why is there evil in the world? Because God created a perfect world, and in that perfect world, He gave us choice. And with that choice, bad things happen. Bad things happen to good people.
Last week, there were three deaths of people who went to the church I used to go to. A motorcycle accident, a grandparent, and a 22-year-old who grew up in that church’s youth ministry, who sat in a chair every Friday at youth group like the ones you’re sitting in, who overdosed on drugs. Bad things happen. Evil is in this world. Is it God’s fault? No, God created a perfect world, and in that perfect world, He gave us choice.
There is evil within us, lurking, and it’s just ready to come out at any time. God created a world where evil can exist and we sometimes choose evil over good. But God didn’t cause the evil. So the answer to that question is, No. God didn’t cause the evil.
For love to be real, there must be choice- a choice to love or not to love. And for that choice to be real, there must be a consequence, a result if you choose not to love. If you can understand that and get your arms around that, you’ll better understand this whole idea of evil.
But the big question is not really why is there so much evil in the world, and didn’t God create a perfect world. No. The big question I hear over and over and over again and the question I struggle with everyday is this…Why doesn’t God put a final stop to it? Why don’t you, God, just stop it? Stop causing abuse. Stop causing tornados and hurricanes. Stop murder and stop rape and stop the lying and the cheating and the stealing. Stop cancer and abortions. God, please stop death!
But, the Bible says that God restrains evil all the time. There’s no telling how many times in your life, in unseen ways, that God has kept you from the evil of others.
Now you might be saying that’s great, but why doesn’t He put a stop to it finally? The comment I hear over and over again from people who don’t believe in God is this- if God is so powerful, so mighty, so loving, why doesn’t he just stop the evil right now, at this moment. Here’s the answer- The Bible says that He will. And just because He hasn’t yet doesn’t mean He won’t soon.
Proverbs 11:21 says, “Evil people will surely be punished, but the children of the godly will go free..”
Proverbs 24 says “The evil have no future, and their light will be snuffed out.”
But still the question, why doesn’t God put a final stop to evil? Here’s a reality check for you…Some of us in here tonight just may be the reason He doesn’t. Could it be that God hasn’t put a stop to evil because He’s waiting. He’s waiting for you to turn from the world’s way and have a relationship with Him. Could it be that He’s waiting for you to quit playing games and just stop going to church because it’s part of your religion or just because everybody goes to Christ Community Church or Muellin Hill or First Baptist. I thing God is waiting for you to say, “The world doesn’t offer life. Jesus offers me life.” I think the reason He doesn’t put a final screeching halt to all the hurt and evil is because He wants for some of you to change. Look around you. Have you changed? Does your life honor God, or honor yourself. Do you dig God, or just dig yourself. Are you keeping God big in your life, and trying to make a deal with him that sounds something like this…I know I have all these issues and problems in my life God…but if you could just take care of about 30% of it, I can aboslutely take care of the remainign 70%.&;nbsp; Sorry folk, God just ain’t interested in making any deals with you.
That’s not Bob’s opinion. That’s not Derek’s opinion. Or Tim’s or Matt’s or Amy’s or Jess’s or anybody else on the youth team. That’s what the Bible says. 2 Peter 3:9 says “The Lord isn’t slow about keeping his promises, as some people think he is. In fact, God is patient, because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost.” God, in His patience, in His mercy and in His love, wants to give some of you in here, now, in this room, a little more time. I think that’s why God doesn’t put a final stop to evil. He will. It’s just not right now.
Those are two questions most asked about evil…1) Why is there so much suffering in the world, and 2) Why doesn’t God just put an end to the suffering. That leads us to two huge Big Time principles regarding evil.
Number one -People are inconsistent in their HATRED OVER EVIL.
This is important for us to understand. You and I, many of us in here, are inconsistent when it comes to evil. We might say, “God, would you just stop all the murderers? Put an end to all the murders,” but where we’re inconsistent is we don’t want to stop gossiping, which murders relationships. Or we say, “God, would you put an end to drunk drivers? Drunk drivers kill people. Put an end to all that evil.” But where we’re inconsistent is we don’t want Him to stop drunkenness because that’s kind of a cool thing to do on Friday or Saturday night. We’re inconsistent. We say, “God, would you put an end to this terrorism thing? Would you get rid of all the evil that is out there with terrorism?” But where we’re inconsistent is we don’t want Him to put an end to the prejudice against other people at our school or our hatred of other types of groups or skin colors or ethnic backgrounds. We’re inconsistent. Many times, we are the hypocrites we accuse others, like our parents, of being in our lives.
Here’s the bottom line: We all cheat and accept a little bit of evil here and little bit of evil over there. A matter of fact, some of us really like a little bit of evil. That’s where the inconsistency comes in. But a little bit of evil can affect a big part of your life, can affect your relationships, can affect the world.
You see the inconsistency. We are so open to a just a little bit of evil in our lives. I think that’s a big thing for us to understand tonight. A lot of us are inconsistent. When we are hurt or suffering or there’s evil, we do this with God, “Why me?” But we don’t do that when good things happen in our life. When you win a championship game in soccer or football or basketball or volleyball, or you get date with the person you wanted for a long time or someone gives you some money, you don’t say, “God, why me? Why did I have to win that game?” We don’t do that. I think that’s important for us to think about as we hate the evil in the world or in others, but we don’t hate it in ourselves.
The second principle I want you to see is this - It’s okay to have questions ABOUT GOD .
It’s all right. It’s okay for Kyle Whitty to say, “God, I don’t understand. Why do some people live a long life and my sister didn’t?” Ashleigh Whitty suffered for so much of her life. She was in and out of hospitals all the time. We, as friends of Kyle or Ashleigh may say we have questions about God. That’s okay. It’s okay to say, “Why do some people get miracles in their life, and Ashleigh didn’t?” “Why is it that bad things happen?” It’s okay to have questions. There’s a lot we don’t understand.
I want to challenge you in this way – and I challenge you because I and everyone on the youth team cares deeply about each of you and care about your spiritual journey – just because you don’t understand God, don’t dismiss Him. That’s inconsistent too. The reality is there are a lot of elements of life that we don’t understand, but we don’t dismiss it.
Think about a steak, a good, juicy, great steak. Most of us in here will eat that steak, but we don’t fully understand where it came from. It came from a cow, but you don’t know all that the cow ate. You don’t know what the cow was injected with. You don’t know where the cow lived. You don’t know the process that cow went through to get that steak. But what do you do? You don’t dismiss the steak because you don’t understand the process.
I want to encourage you. Just because you don’t fully understand God, don’t dismiss Him. If we could possibly understand everything about being God, He would be a very small God.
It would be like explaining Albert Einstein to a first-grader. They’re not going to get it. It would be like even explaining square roots. A first-grader just ain’t gonna get it. But it doesn’t mean there’s not an answer and that the answer isn’t true. That first grader might be able to tell me how many Chicklets she could cram in her nose, but she couldn’t tell me the square root of six. But there’s still an answer, and that answer is true.
God said this in Isaiah 55- God said this- “’My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.’”
Friends, I’ve said this a million times - our mind is a finite mind, and God is an infinite God. I don’t want to worship a God that I can fully understand, that’s small enough to fit in my pocket. I’m not saying God is mysterious and, because He can’t be fully understood, don’t even try. That would be wrong. That’s a cop out. And that’s what most people outside those doors do. I’m saying that on this side of heaven, we’re probably not going to have a full understanding of everything. Including evil.
But I do want to say this to you…the suffering and the evil that you’re either experiencing or that you and I are around is not going to last forever. As a matter of fact, it’s a really short term in the big scheme of life.
Imagine it’s January 2nd, the first day of school, you had a terrible day. It was an incredibly bad day. You were walking to school, and somebody came by and drove in the gutter, and the water and all that dirty slush splashed on you. You had your favorite clothes on, and you’ve got to go to school anyway. You go to school ,and somebody trips you. You skin your knees and rip your pants. Then you walk into your first period class, and somebody opens the door, and it bashes your face, and you break your nose. They take you to the hospital, and instead of operating on your nose, they pull your wisdom teeth out. You’re drugged out on Novocain anyway, so you don’t know what’s going on. You’re driving home, and you get in an accident. Your mom was driving your car, so now your car is totalled. You walk in your house, and your cat’s dead. It was playing on the piano, and the lid fell on it. It’s dead. Then you go upstairs to your room, and your little brother has taken all of your CDs and played Frisbee with them. They’re all scratched and ruined. A friend calls you on the phone and says, “I’m dating your boyfriend/girlfriend.” You just have a terrible, terrible day. Nobody would like that day.
But then imagine the next day. You get a phone call. You have just been nominated Teenager of the Year by Time magazine and you’ve been given a ten million dollar grant to spend any way you want. You walk outside, and there’s a new car in the driveway for you. Every day, something like that happens. You’re allowed to play golf with Tiger Woods, and you beat him. Life is going well. You walk through the hallways of your high school and people stop and applaud when you walk by. That happens for every day for the rest of 2009, like 363 days or so.
Now fast forward to January 2, 2010- thei first school day of 2010. And somebody at school stops you in the hallway and says, “How was last year?” What do you think you’re going to focus on? That one day when your cat died? Of course not! You’re going to say, “It was great! Incredible! I’m a millionaire, I got a new car, people applaud me when I walk down the halls of my school. And to top it al off, I am indeed a stud or studdette.” You’re not going to talk about that one day you tripped and you skinned your knees and your wisdom teeth are gone. You’re going to focus on all the great stuff.
A few years ago I was at an office Christmas party and met one of my co-worker’s relatives who’s 102 years old. She was incredible to talk to. The woman looked pretty healthy. And we’re talking about her life. And I said, “Let me ask you a question. One hundred and two. Has it gone by fast?” She said, “It really has. I really can’t believe I’ve lived over a hundred years.”
That helped me understand. What if you lived to be a hundred years? It’s going to seem like a very short time.
That’s the point I’m trying to make. Worst case scenario: let’s say you lived to be as old as that woman. You’re 102 years old, and every day of your life has been a bad day. Every day of your life has been filled with pain or suffering or confrontation with evil. But then, because you place your trust in Christ and you go to heaven, let’s imagine fifteen million years later, and after having experienced fifteen million years of God’s love and joy and grace and peace and forgiveness of sin and peace of mind, never a tear, never a time when you’re crying or suffering or in pain. Fifteen million years of pure joy and happiness, and somebody comes up to you in heaven and asks, “How has it all been?” You’d say it’s been great. But the other person would press you and ask, “didn’t you have 102 years pretty bad? 102 years full of problems, full of conflict, full of disease, full of disappointments, full of heartaches and depression, 102 years full of evil” But, if you place your trust in Christ, you would say this, “Yeah, I gotta admit that there were alot of tough times during those 102 years on earth, but fifteen million years in heaven compared to 102 on earth? There’s no comparison. Over all, taking it all into account it’s been great because of what God’s done in my life.”
So, where does all this bring us. Like I said when I began, I always want to try and give you guys something you can use tonight. I may not always be successful, but I want to try tonight. So here goes- there are three big decisions that I want to challenge each of you to make tonight.
Decision No. 1 - You must decide to deal with the evil WITHIN YOU.
We all have evil in us. I have evil in me. You have evil in you. We might as well just admit it. We don’t admit it freely to other people out loud. But haven’t you had some awfully dark thoughts and wondered, Where did that come from? I get in traffic; I want to hit my horn. I want to give the universal sign of displeasure. Just ask Stephen. That goes through my mind. Where does that come from? That energy to do something that I know is wrong? It’s the evil within me. There’s evil within me, and it’s within you.
Have you ever been tempted to cheat at school? You know you shouldn’t cheat, but you want to look. Where does that come from?
I want it my way. I want what’s best for me. I’m not thinking about anything else. That selfish, sinister side. It’s in you. And it’s in me.
The Bible tells us about it. In Romans 7 it says,
“I need something more, for if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help. I realize I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it. I decide not to do bad, and then I do it anyway. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. I’ve tried everything, and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Thank God, Jesus Christ can and does.”
The problem with evil within you and the problem with evil within me, the reason it’s a problem, is you’re not strong enough and I’m not strong enough – we are not strong enough to take care of it by ourselves. We need God’s help.
That’s why Jesus died on a cross for you. When Jesus died on the cross, He faced all the pain, all the evil, all the suffering of the world. He took it on Himself, and He died. He took the hurt you fell when your girlfriend or boyfriend breaks up with you. He took the hurt you feel when your parents fight and they blame you. He took the hurt when you worked so hard on that school project, and you got a lousy grade. He took the hurt when your friend or family member died or got sick. But the Bible says He didn’t stay dead. Three days later He came back to life, proving that He’s God’s Son. That means He has the power to help with evil. He overcame it. He proved that, and if you ask Him to help you with the evil within you, help you live the life you were created to live, He says He’ll help you do that. But you’ve got to make that decision. It’s your call. A friend can’t do it for you. Your parents can’t do it for you. Derek can’t do it for you. None of us in the youth team can do it for you. You have to decide. “I want God’s help in my life through His Son Jesus.”
There’s a second decision that you need to make. You must choose to Defeat evil WHERE YOU CAN.
Pretty much anybody could donate blood or help Mario next week prepare Thanksgiving dinners for the homeless. But as Christians, we can go and we can begin telling people that there’s help for the evil in their life. There’s help for the evil in this world. It’s through God’s Son Jesus Christ. We can operate not just on the physical realm like what are you going to do to help the homeless or where you can give your mooney to help put missionaries in some far-away place in the world that you never have to see or touch. That’s important. But we can help people in the spiritual part of who they are. We can help them deal with their own issues and their dark side. We can help them because Jesus helped us. We can start bringing to those evil situations a lot of hope and a lot of good, and good will overcome evil.
The Bible says in 1 Peter 3, “Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you. No exceptions, no retaliation, no sharp-tongued criticism. Instead bless. That’s your job, to bless. Here’s what you do. Say nothing evil or hurtful. Snub evil and cultivate good. Run after peace for all you’re worth. God looks on all this with approval, but He turns His back on those who do evil things.”
We’re being challenged to overcome evil wherever we find it. Because each of you carry a very important message. You may not have ever thought about it, but every person sitting here right now, this very moment in this room carries a very important message to the world outside those front doors- That God loves this world and He proved it through His Son Jesus. In the places where’s there’s pain and suffering and evil, we can bring some good into that situation. That’s why the whole youth team, challenges you, as students, to be available to your friends and to be available to your family members when they suffer, when they’re dealing with their own evil, or when evil has impacted them in a painful way. Because you can carry the hope of God and the power of God and the love of God into what would have been just a totally bad situation.
There’s one more decision you have to make; you must decide to Depend on God even WHEN IT HURTS.
Paul was a guy in the Bible who wrote several books of the Bible. He really had a hard life. He wrote, “We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized. We’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do. We’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side. We’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken.”
Folks, we have to decide to trust God even when life hurts. There was a guy in the Bible whose name was Job. Job suffered in ways that most of us never will. The Bible says that all Job’s children were killed in a single day. His whole family killed in a day. He had a lot of kids. Imagine that. The Bible says that his source of income, his farming businesses, were all wiped out in a day. Totally taken away. Then the Bible says his health started to deteriorate in very painful ways. He started getting open boils and sores all over his body. This guy was suffering. His children had died. His money was gone. His health was gone. He asked God –&;nbsp;what is happening? At his lowest point, Job went after God pretty hard. “Explain Yourself to me.” he told God.
God could have done several things at that point. God could have just smacked Job and said, “How dare you ask me that question!” but that’s not what God did. Or, God could have just stayed silent: “I’m not giving you any explanation!” But that’s not what God did.
God didn’t explain to Job why it was all happening. But He spent several chapters in the Bible reminding Job how powerful He was as God. God said, “Job, I want to remind you, I created the world. Job, I want to remind you how strong and powerful I really am.” Why didn’t God just explain the suffering to Job? Why did God spend that much time telling about His own power?
I’ll tell you why. Job didn’t need answers to his questions. That’s not what really would have helped him. Because even if God had answered the questions Job had, Job would still have been in suffering. What Job needed at that point was to know that there was a God strong enough that he could depend on. What Job needed at that point was the ability to believe that God had not left the throne, that God was still king of this whole universe, that God was still powerful enough to trust. Here’s the one thing God wanted from Job. He wanted Job to trust Him even when Job was hurting.
Can we do that? Can we trust God even when there doesn’t seem to be light at the end of the tunnel? Can we trust God even when we’re going through a hard day, a hard month, a hard year? Bad family situation? Bad school situation? Bad girlfirend or boyfriend situation? Can you trust God even then?
Yes. We can. But we have to decide to do that. God will prove Himself dependable.
Let’s pray together.
I’m going to say a prayer that kind of sums up how I feel about this, and as I say these words, you might discover, “You’re saying how I feel.” This could become your prayer to God as well. You don’t have to say it out loud, but you could just say to God, “Yes, that says what I want, too, God.”
Here’s my prayer:
God, I’ll admit it. I don’t understand it all. I don’t believe I can understand it all because I’m not God. That’s why I need You in my life. I need your help to deal with the evil within me. I need forgiveness for evil in my life. I want to live the life that You created me to live. I know there’s going to be stuff I don’t understand. I know I’m going to suffer in life. Everybody does. But I’m deciding today to trust You. I’m deciding today as much as I know how to put my life and to put my future in your hands. Amen.
A couple of weeks ago I talked about death. No one likes talking about death. It’s depressing. It’s raw. It’s sensitive for a lot of people. But I knew that a good number of you were thinking about it that week. So we talked about it.
Tonight there is another untouchable - an untouchable that I know some of you have thought about, so I’m gonna talk about it. You may no think of it by name, but we all experience it, every day- we all experience and think about evil. Because maybe
the most often-asked question is this:
If God is such a good and loving God, why is there evil? Why do bad things happens? Why to bad things happen to good people? Every day is just filled with terrible news. So you might ask, If God is such a good and loving God, why do I get lousy grades even after I study. If God is such a good and loving God, how come my mom, or dad, or brother or sister is sick with cancer? If God is such a good and loving God, why do my friends turn their back on me? If God is such a good and loving God, why do my parents argue all the time? Why did my parents get divorce
Earlier today I was driving around just trying to get a couple of things done, and I tune on this AM News radio station. And I’m listening to this news station, and there motto is something like “You give us 22 minutes, we give you the world.” In that time after about three minutes in the car, I turned it off because I was just tired of hearing about murder, about rap about little kids being abducted, about lying and cheating and stealing. We live in a world where there is a lot of evil. What’s the deal? Where is God with all this?
So I have two big question- 1) Why is there so much suffering and evil in a world created by God; and 2) If God created the world and is so powerful, why doesn’t he just stop all the evil?
1. Why is there so much suffering and evil in the world? Why didn’t God create it perfect?
The answer is that He did. God created a perfect world. I talked about this a month or so ago when I talked about Adam & Eve and the Garden of Eden. The Bible tells us all about creation, what it was like in the beginning, that it was perfect. There was no smog, no bad drivers, no gossiping, no pain, no tragedy, no crowds, no suffering, no sadness, no evil. Just Adam and Eve in a perfect setting. But one of them told God basically to shove off. You might even ask, is God responsible for evil because He created us with a free will? God made us to love Him, but the only way it could be truly love, genuine love, is that if God gave us a choice. If I’m God and I created all these people to love me but I didn’t give them free choice, then it’s not love. All they would be would be robots.
A lot of you may think, and a lot of you may have friends that think God is up there in the sky somewhere, moving us. I’m just moving how God makes me move, like I am some sort of puppet, and it’s God’s fault. No, God says I’m going to give you free choice. Many of us have been turning our back on God for our whole lives. God says for love to be real, there has to be free choice.
I didn’t really understand this when I first became a Christian about five years ago. When I was preparing this message I came on to a story of a guy who became a Christian when he was in 10th grade. His name was Jeremy, and during the summer between his 9th and 10th grade, the people across the street from where he lived, the Chandlers, went on vacation. The Chandlers were the only people in Jeremy’s neighborhood that had a pool table. When they were on vacation, they asked me Jeremy to take care of their dog, a big German shepherd by the name of Max. To me, Max is just the perfect name for a German shepherd. Max lived in the house and in the back yard, and the Chandlers had one of those big doggie doors where Max can go back and forth between the house and back yard. As a ninth-grader, Jeremy weighed about 105 pounds and could fit through that big doggie door. But Jeremy was only supposed to take care of Max the dog when Max was in the back yard. But Jeremy got into their house because they had a pool table. And one day that summer Jeremy got into the Chandler’s house and was playing pool. It was a great summer day – he was in the Chandler’s house. And Jeremy was playing like his third game of pool. And Jeremy goes to break, and as he did, he hit the cue ball and then lifted his hand in the air. And right over the pool table was this huge Budweiser lamp. Like a stained glass window lamp. And when Jeremy lifted his hand in the air his pool cue hit that lamp, and it shattered all over the table.
Big trouble! Jeremy runs out the big doggie door and Max is chasing him barking, and Jeremy finally makes it home. And doesn’t tell anyone what happened.
You know when you’ve done something wrong and feel incredibly guilty? Every time somebody looks at you, you look down. Well, the more Jeremy lived with it, the more he thought, The Chandlers are going to come home next week. They’re going to know it was me. They’re not going to think their German Shepherd Max was playing pool even though The Chandlers had one of those velvet paintings of dogs playing pool. So Jeremy confessed, and got in a lot of trouble. One of the consequences was that Jeremy had to go to the church and visit the youth pastor.
So Jeremy’s youth pastor asked him, “How do you feel about this?” Jeremy said, “I feel bad. I broke the Budweiser lamp.” Jeremy’s youth pastor talked to him about his spiritual life. “Are you a Christian?” asked the youth pastor. “I am,” said Jeremy. “I became a Christian this year. Then Jeremy says to the youth pastor, “If God loves me so much, why did He let that happen to me? All you guys at church always talk about God’s love, then why did He let me break the Budweiser lamp? It’s kind of God’s fault, isn’t it?”
Jeremy learned there for the first time how much God really loves him. Because his youth pastor explained, in very simple terms that in God’s ultimate love for us, God says, “Jeremy, or Emily, or Abe, or Kyle Buchanan, or Mollie, or Jordan…I love you so much I’m going to give you a choice. You can either love Me, or you can turn your back on Me.”&;nbsp; Because if God forced Jeremy from our story, or Emily, or Abe or Kyle or Mollie or Jordan or Shari to love Him, it wouldn’t be ultimate love.
So why is there evil in the world? Because God created a perfect world, and in that perfect world, He gave us choice. And with that choice, bad things happen. Bad things happen to good people.
Last week, there were three deaths of people who went to the church I used to go to. A motorcycle accident, a grandparent, and a 22-year-old who grew up in that church’s youth ministry, who sat in a chair every Friday at youth group like the ones you’re sitting in, who overdosed on drugs. Bad things happen. Evil is in this world. Is it God’s fault? No, God created a perfect world, and in that perfect world, He gave us choice.
There is evil within us, lurking, and it’s just ready to come out at any time. God created a world where evil can exist and we sometimes choose evil over good. But God didn’t cause the evil. So the answer to that question is, No. God didn’t cause the evil.
For love to be real, there must be choice- a choice to love or not to love. And for that choice to be real, there must be a consequence, a result if you choose not to love. If you can understand that and get your arms around that, you’ll better understand this whole idea of evil.
But the big question is not really why is there so much evil in the world, and didn’t God create a perfect world. No. The big question I hear over and over and over again and the question I struggle with everyday is this…Why doesn’t God put a final stop to it? Why don’t you, God, just stop it? Stop causing abuse. Stop causing tornados and hurricanes. Stop murder and stop rape and stop the lying and the cheating and the stealing. Stop cancer and abortions. God, please stop death!
But, the Bible says that God restrains evil all the time. There’s no telling how many times in your life, in unseen ways, that God has kept you from the evil of others.
Now you might be saying that’s great, but why doesn’t He put a stop to it finally? The comment I hear over and over again from people who don’t believe in God is this- if God is so powerful, so mighty, so loving, why doesn’t he just stop the evil right now, at this moment. Here’s the answer- The Bible says that He will. And just because He hasn’t yet doesn’t mean He won’t soon.
Proverbs 11:21 says, “Evil people will surely be punished, but the children of the godly will go free..”
Proverbs 24 says “The evil have no future, and their light will be snuffed out.”
But still the question, why doesn’t God put a final stop to evil? Here’s a reality check for you…Some of us in here tonight just may be the reason He doesn’t. Could it be that God hasn’t put a stop to evil because He’s waiting. He’s waiting for you to turn from the world’s way and have a relationship with Him. Could it be that He’s waiting for you to quit playing games and just stop going to church because it’s part of your religion or just because everybody goes to Christ Community Church or Muellin Hill or First Baptist. I thing God is waiting for you to say, “The world doesn’t offer life. Jesus offers me life.” I think the reason He doesn’t put a final screeching halt to all the hurt and evil is because He wants for some of you to change. Look around you. Have you changed? Does your life honor God, or honor yourself. Do you dig God, or just dig yourself. Are you keeping God big in your life, and trying to make a deal with him that sounds something like this…I know I have all these issues and problems in my life God…but if you could just take care of about 30% of it, I can aboslutely take care of the remainign 70%.&;nbsp; Sorry folk, God just ain’t interested in making any deals with you.
That’s not Bob’s opinion. That’s not Derek’s opinion. Or Tim’s or Matt’s or Amy’s or Jess’s or anybody else on the youth team. That’s what the Bible says. 2 Peter 3:9 says “The Lord isn’t slow about keeping his promises, as some people think he is. In fact, God is patient, because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost.” God, in His patience, in His mercy and in His love, wants to give some of you in here, now, in this room, a little more time. I think that’s why God doesn’t put a final stop to evil. He will. It’s just not right now.
Those are two questions most asked about evil…1) Why is there so much suffering in the world, and 2) Why doesn’t God just put an end to the suffering. That leads us to two huge Big Time principles regarding evil.
Number one -People are inconsistent in their HATRED OVER EVIL.
This is important for us to understand. You and I, many of us in here, are inconsistent when it comes to evil. We might say, “God, would you just stop all the murderers? Put an end to all the murders,” but where we’re inconsistent is we don’t want to stop gossiping, which murders relationships. Or we say, “God, would you put an end to drunk drivers? Drunk drivers kill people. Put an end to all that evil.” But where we’re inconsistent is we don’t want Him to stop drunkenness because that’s kind of a cool thing to do on Friday or Saturday night. We’re inconsistent. We say, “God, would you put an end to this terrorism thing? Would you get rid of all the evil that is out there with terrorism?” But where we’re inconsistent is we don’t want Him to put an end to the prejudice against other people at our school or our hatred of other types of groups or skin colors or ethnic backgrounds. We’re inconsistent. Many times, we are the hypocrites we accuse others, like our parents, of being in our lives.
Here’s the bottom line: We all cheat and accept a little bit of evil here and little bit of evil over there. A matter of fact, some of us really like a little bit of evil. That’s where the inconsistency comes in. But a little bit of evil can affect a big part of your life, can affect your relationships, can affect the world.
You see the inconsistency. We are so open to a just a little bit of evil in our lives. I think that’s a big thing for us to understand tonight. A lot of us are inconsistent. When we are hurt or suffering or there’s evil, we do this with God, “Why me?” But we don’t do that when good things happen in our life. When you win a championship game in soccer or football or basketball or volleyball, or you get date with the person you wanted for a long time or someone gives you some money, you don’t say, “God, why me? Why did I have to win that game?” We don’t do that. I think that’s important for us to think about as we hate the evil in the world or in others, but we don’t hate it in ourselves.
The second principle I want you to see is this - It’s okay to have questions ABOUT GOD .
It’s all right. It’s okay for Kyle Whitty to say, “God, I don’t understand. Why do some people live a long life and my sister didn’t?” Ashleigh Whitty suffered for so much of her life. She was in and out of hospitals all the time. We, as friends of Kyle or Ashleigh may say we have questions about God. That’s okay. It’s okay to say, “Why do some people get miracles in their life, and Ashleigh didn’t?” “Why is it that bad things happen?” It’s okay to have questions. There’s a lot we don’t understand.
I want to challenge you in this way – and I challenge you because I and everyone on the youth team cares deeply about each of you and care about your spiritual journey – just because you don’t understand God, don’t dismiss Him. That’s inconsistent too. The reality is there are a lot of elements of life that we don’t understand, but we don’t dismiss it.
Think about a steak, a good, juicy, great steak. Most of us in here will eat that steak, but we don’t fully understand where it came from. It came from a cow, but you don’t know all that the cow ate. You don’t know what the cow was injected with. You don’t know where the cow lived. You don’t know the process that cow went through to get that steak. But what do you do? You don’t dismiss the steak because you don’t understand the process.
I want to encourage you. Just because you don’t fully understand God, don’t dismiss Him. If we could possibly understand everything about being God, He would be a very small God.
It would be like explaining Albert Einstein to a first-grader. They’re not going to get it. It would be like even explaining square roots. A first-grader just ain’t gonna get it. But it doesn’t mean there’s not an answer and that the answer isn’t true. That first grader might be able to tell me how many Chicklets she could cram in her nose, but she couldn’t tell me the square root of six. But there’s still an answer, and that answer is true.
God said this in Isaiah 55- God said this- “’My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.’”
Friends, I’ve said this a million times - our mind is a finite mind, and God is an infinite God. I don’t want to worship a God that I can fully understand, that’s small enough to fit in my pocket. I’m not saying God is mysterious and, because He can’t be fully understood, don’t even try. That would be wrong. That’s a cop out. And that’s what most people outside those doors do. I’m saying that on this side of heaven, we’re probably not going to have a full understanding of everything. Including evil.
But I do want to say this to you…the suffering and the evil that you’re either experiencing or that you and I are around is not going to last forever. As a matter of fact, it’s a really short term in the big scheme of life.
Imagine it’s January 2nd, the first day of school, you had a terrible day. It was an incredibly bad day. You were walking to school, and somebody came by and drove in the gutter, and the water and all that dirty slush splashed on you. You had your favorite clothes on, and you’ve got to go to school anyway. You go to school ,and somebody trips you. You skin your knees and rip your pants. Then you walk into your first period class, and somebody opens the door, and it bashes your face, and you break your nose. They take you to the hospital, and instead of operating on your nose, they pull your wisdom teeth out. You’re drugged out on Novocain anyway, so you don’t know what’s going on. You’re driving home, and you get in an accident. Your mom was driving your car, so now your car is totalled. You walk in your house, and your cat’s dead. It was playing on the piano, and the lid fell on it. It’s dead. Then you go upstairs to your room, and your little brother has taken all of your CDs and played Frisbee with them. They’re all scratched and ruined. A friend calls you on the phone and says, “I’m dating your boyfriend/girlfriend.” You just have a terrible, terrible day. Nobody would like that day.
But then imagine the next day. You get a phone call. You have just been nominated Teenager of the Year by Time magazine and you’ve been given a ten million dollar grant to spend any way you want. You walk outside, and there’s a new car in the driveway for you. Every day, something like that happens. You’re allowed to play golf with Tiger Woods, and you beat him. Life is going well. You walk through the hallways of your high school and people stop and applaud when you walk by. That happens for every day for the rest of 2009, like 363 days or so.
Now fast forward to January 2, 2010- thei first school day of 2010. And somebody at school stops you in the hallway and says, “How was last year?” What do you think you’re going to focus on? That one day when your cat died? Of course not! You’re going to say, “It was great! Incredible! I’m a millionaire, I got a new car, people applaud me when I walk down the halls of my school. And to top it al off, I am indeed a stud or studdette.” You’re not going to talk about that one day you tripped and you skinned your knees and your wisdom teeth are gone. You’re going to focus on all the great stuff.
A few years ago I was at an office Christmas party and met one of my co-worker’s relatives who’s 102 years old. She was incredible to talk to. The woman looked pretty healthy. And we’re talking about her life. And I said, “Let me ask you a question. One hundred and two. Has it gone by fast?” She said, “It really has. I really can’t believe I’ve lived over a hundred years.”
That helped me understand. What if you lived to be a hundred years? It’s going to seem like a very short time.
That’s the point I’m trying to make. Worst case scenario: let’s say you lived to be as old as that woman. You’re 102 years old, and every day of your life has been a bad day. Every day of your life has been filled with pain or suffering or confrontation with evil. But then, because you place your trust in Christ and you go to heaven, let’s imagine fifteen million years later, and after having experienced fifteen million years of God’s love and joy and grace and peace and forgiveness of sin and peace of mind, never a tear, never a time when you’re crying or suffering or in pain. Fifteen million years of pure joy and happiness, and somebody comes up to you in heaven and asks, “How has it all been?” You’d say it’s been great. But the other person would press you and ask, “didn’t you have 102 years pretty bad? 102 years full of problems, full of conflict, full of disease, full of disappointments, full of heartaches and depression, 102 years full of evil” But, if you place your trust in Christ, you would say this, “Yeah, I gotta admit that there were alot of tough times during those 102 years on earth, but fifteen million years in heaven compared to 102 on earth? There’s no comparison. Over all, taking it all into account it’s been great because of what God’s done in my life.”
So, where does all this bring us. Like I said when I began, I always want to try and give you guys something you can use tonight. I may not always be successful, but I want to try tonight. So here goes- there are three big decisions that I want to challenge each of you to make tonight.
Decision No. 1 - You must decide to deal with the evil WITHIN YOU.
We all have evil in us. I have evil in me. You have evil in you. We might as well just admit it. We don’t admit it freely to other people out loud. But haven’t you had some awfully dark thoughts and wondered, Where did that come from? I get in traffic; I want to hit my horn. I want to give the universal sign of displeasure. Just ask Stephen. That goes through my mind. Where does that come from? That energy to do something that I know is wrong? It’s the evil within me. There’s evil within me, and it’s within you.
Have you ever been tempted to cheat at school? You know you shouldn’t cheat, but you want to look. Where does that come from?
I want it my way. I want what’s best for me. I’m not thinking about anything else. That selfish, sinister side. It’s in you. And it’s in me.
The Bible tells us about it. In Romans 7 it says,
“I need something more, for if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help. I realize I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it. I decide not to do bad, and then I do it anyway. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. I’ve tried everything, and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Thank God, Jesus Christ can and does.”
The problem with evil within you and the problem with evil within me, the reason it’s a problem, is you’re not strong enough and I’m not strong enough – we are not strong enough to take care of it by ourselves. We need God’s help.
That’s why Jesus died on a cross for you. When Jesus died on the cross, He faced all the pain, all the evil, all the suffering of the world. He took it on Himself, and He died. He took the hurt you fell when your girlfriend or boyfriend breaks up with you. He took the hurt you feel when your parents fight and they blame you. He took the hurt when you worked so hard on that school project, and you got a lousy grade. He took the hurt when your friend or family member died or got sick. But the Bible says He didn’t stay dead. Three days later He came back to life, proving that He’s God’s Son. That means He has the power to help with evil. He overcame it. He proved that, and if you ask Him to help you with the evil within you, help you live the life you were created to live, He says He’ll help you do that. But you’ve got to make that decision. It’s your call. A friend can’t do it for you. Your parents can’t do it for you. Derek can’t do it for you. None of us in the youth team can do it for you. You have to decide. “I want God’s help in my life through His Son Jesus.”
There’s a second decision that you need to make. You must choose to Defeat evil WHERE YOU CAN.
Pretty much anybody could donate blood or help Mario next week prepare Thanksgiving dinners for the homeless. But as Christians, we can go and we can begin telling people that there’s help for the evil in their life. There’s help for the evil in this world. It’s through God’s Son Jesus Christ. We can operate not just on the physical realm like what are you going to do to help the homeless or where you can give your mooney to help put missionaries in some far-away place in the world that you never have to see or touch. That’s important. But we can help people in the spiritual part of who they are. We can help them deal with their own issues and their dark side. We can help them because Jesus helped us. We can start bringing to those evil situations a lot of hope and a lot of good, and good will overcome evil.
The Bible says in 1 Peter 3, “Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you. No exceptions, no retaliation, no sharp-tongued criticism. Instead bless. That’s your job, to bless. Here’s what you do. Say nothing evil or hurtful. Snub evil and cultivate good. Run after peace for all you’re worth. God looks on all this with approval, but He turns His back on those who do evil things.”
We’re being challenged to overcome evil wherever we find it. Because each of you carry a very important message. You may not have ever thought about it, but every person sitting here right now, this very moment in this room carries a very important message to the world outside those front doors- That God loves this world and He proved it through His Son Jesus. In the places where’s there’s pain and suffering and evil, we can bring some good into that situation. That’s why the whole youth team, challenges you, as students, to be available to your friends and to be available to your family members when they suffer, when they’re dealing with their own evil, or when evil has impacted them in a painful way. Because you can carry the hope of God and the power of God and the love of God into what would have been just a totally bad situation.
There’s one more decision you have to make; you must decide to Depend on God even WHEN IT HURTS.
Paul was a guy in the Bible who wrote several books of the Bible. He really had a hard life. He wrote, “We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized. We’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do. We’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side. We’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken.”
Folks, we have to decide to trust God even when life hurts. There was a guy in the Bible whose name was Job. Job suffered in ways that most of us never will. The Bible says that all Job’s children were killed in a single day. His whole family killed in a day. He had a lot of kids. Imagine that. The Bible says that his source of income, his farming businesses, were all wiped out in a day. Totally taken away. Then the Bible says his health started to deteriorate in very painful ways. He started getting open boils and sores all over his body. This guy was suffering. His children had died. His money was gone. His health was gone. He asked God –&;nbsp;what is happening? At his lowest point, Job went after God pretty hard. “Explain Yourself to me.” he told God.
God could have done several things at that point. God could have just smacked Job and said, “How dare you ask me that question!” but that’s not what God did. Or, God could have just stayed silent: “I’m not giving you any explanation!” But that’s not what God did.
God didn’t explain to Job why it was all happening. But He spent several chapters in the Bible reminding Job how powerful He was as God. God said, “Job, I want to remind you, I created the world. Job, I want to remind you how strong and powerful I really am.” Why didn’t God just explain the suffering to Job? Why did God spend that much time telling about His own power?
I’ll tell you why. Job didn’t need answers to his questions. That’s not what really would have helped him. Because even if God had answered the questions Job had, Job would still have been in suffering. What Job needed at that point was to know that there was a God strong enough that he could depend on. What Job needed at that point was the ability to believe that God had not left the throne, that God was still king of this whole universe, that God was still powerful enough to trust. Here’s the one thing God wanted from Job. He wanted Job to trust Him even when Job was hurting.
Can we do that? Can we trust God even when there doesn’t seem to be light at the end of the tunnel? Can we trust God even when we’re going through a hard day, a hard month, a hard year? Bad family situation? Bad school situation? Bad girlfirend or boyfriend situation? Can you trust God even then?
Yes. We can. But we have to decide to do that. God will prove Himself dependable.
Let’s pray together.
I’m going to say a prayer that kind of sums up how I feel about this, and as I say these words, you might discover, “You’re saying how I feel.” This could become your prayer to God as well. You don’t have to say it out loud, but you could just say to God, “Yes, that says what I want, too, God.”
Here’s my prayer:
God, I’ll admit it. I don’t understand it all. I don’t believe I can understand it all because I’m not God. That’s why I need You in my life. I need your help to deal with the evil within me. I need forgiveness for evil in my life. I want to live the life that You created me to live. I know there’s going to be stuff I don’t understand. I know I’m going to suffer in life. Everybody does. But I’m deciding today to trust You. I’m deciding today as much as I know how to put my life and to put my future in your hands. Amen.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Chasing Butterflies in Fields of Gold
There are a lot of things in life that I think we all think about, but we don't talk about a lot. Stuff that our culture says that maybe we have to accept, or ignore, and should not be spoken about, especially in public. And usually, these are about things that are pretty controversial, like prejudice, like homosexuality, like politics, and our own faith in Christ. Tonight I want to talk with you guys about another one of the subjects I bet we all think about at least once a week. Tonight I want to talk about death.
This has not been my favorite week to prepare a message. It's been an emotional roller-coaster for a lot of us...Lauren Olson leaving us last week, and the passing of Ashleigh Whitty, Kyle's older sister. But the weird thing is that God uses these sad circumstances to bring us closer to each other, and to Him. And, the even weirder part is that I was preparing a message on death before I even knew that Ashleigh was in the hospital.
After Ashleigh passed away last Friday night, I thought, you know, maybe I shouldn't do a message on death. It might be too soon. It might be too sensitive. The wounds may be too raw. But then I thought, if I don't do the message on death, I would be a bigger hypocrite than I already know I am. Because I have said to you guys many times that God isn't interested in coming into our lives only when it's convenient for us to invite Him in. He's not interested coming into our lives only when it’s comfortable for us. He's not interested into coming into our lives only for things we need for Him. No. God wants all of us... all the time. And God wants to wrap us in his arms more than ever when things in our lives get tough. And He wraps his arms around us even tighter when lives around us are taken.
While it’s weird to talk about death, I’m not all that uncomfortable with it. We see death all around us all the time. The internet, the news, popular TV shows, music videos, and popular music are all drunk with images or stories of death. So much so that a lot of times we see death around us so matter of factly that we become so saturated with it that we become insensitive to it. Someone died in a car accident on Route 44 last night? There are car accidents on that road every night. Somebody was killed in a drug deal gone bad in downtown Taunton last weekend. Oh well, it was probably bound to happen, and maybe they deserved it. Ashleigh Whitty died last Friday night at 8pm while we were all singing and worshiping God. Oh well, I didn't know her, so what's the big deal?
Well, it is a big deal. Not because of same unnamed driver who dies in a car accident, not because of some drug dealer we didn't know. And not because the older sister of Kyle Whitty is no longer here with us. It's a big deal for us as Christians because it shows, again, that we worship a big God, a God that loves us, a God who often does things in his infinite nature that our finite minds cannot begin to understand, a God that has arms so big and mighty that He can wrap all of us in them when someone we know has died.
Even if I, or Derek, or Pastor John, or any of the youth leaders had all the answers about life and death, there would be nothing as soothing as having that person who had died be back alive. Until we’re in the presence of God Himself, many of us in here, we’re going to be left with more questions that we have answers for. But I am confident of one answer. Although I did not know Ashleigh much more than to say hello and goodbye to at Wal-Mart, I know this much- she loved Jesus. And this much I also know- Jesus loved and loves her now. So much, that there can be no doubt that Jesus took her home, allowed her to rise out of that wheelchair, and my guess is that right now she is running like the wind, chasing butterflies in fields of gold, and Jesus is cheering her on...run Ashleigh, run.
I really believe that there are some things that you and I can learn together tonight...I’ve already learned a lot this week in thinking about it and praying about it and searching the scriptures.
The Bible says a lot about death. During the week I must have gone through hundreds of verses that I pulled out of the Bible that have to do with death and dying. As I read every single one of these and thought about how I use just one of these in speaking tonight to all of you guys...people I care about and who I love and I want to live their life to the fullest. There are some things that I really believe that you and I can learn about life and love and the future.
Psalm 89:48 says, “No one can live forever; all will die. No one can escape the power of the grave.”
Everyone is going to die. Death is 100%. It hits everyone. I heard a story about a preacher who was trying to tell people about the difference between heaven and hell and he said, “How many of you want to go to heaven? Raise your hand.” All of the people raised their hand except a little boy in the front row. He wasn’t raising his hand. The preacher thought that’s kind of weird. He asked again. “How many of you want to go to heaven? Raise your hand.” Again, everybody raised their hand except the little boy. This confused the preacher. So the preacher stops his message and says to the little boy, “You don’t want to go to heaven when you die?” The kid goes, “Oh! When I die! I thought you were trying to get a bunch of us to volunteer to go right now!”
We love living and we fear dying. But the truth is no one can escape the power of the grave.
Ecclesiastes 7:4 “A wise person thinks about death, but a fool thinks only about having a good time.”
If I was to ask you, one on one, just you and me, “Do you want to be wise or do you want to be a fool?” Chances are you would say if you’re outside the company of your friends you would say, “I want to be wise.” The Bible says if you want to be wise then think about death. If you want to be a fool pretend it doesn’t exist. Just go looking for the next party.
But I believe you got out of bed today and came here tonight and not to a party or the mall or a movie because you want to be wise, you want to be different. So let’s be wise. Let’s take a look at some things we might be able to do as we think about death and what it can teach us about love, life and the future.
1. Recognize the UNCERTAINTY of life
None of us in here is guaranteed tomorrow. Isn’t that kind of a weird thought, that nobody in here is guaranteed that they will be alive tomorrow? I bet if you asked some of your teachers in school who have been teaching for a long time that there were students who were sitting at their desks on Friday afternoon, and then were missing on Monday morning because they had died. Maybe killed by a drunk driver or something like that. You don’t think about that at times but life is uncertain. You’re not guaranteed tomorrow. As a matter of fact, you’re not guaranteed – nor am I guaranteed – the rest of tonight.
The Bible pictures life’s uncertainty. James 4 says, “You do not know what will happen tomorrow! Your life is like a mist. You can see it for a short time, but then it goes away.”
The interesting thing about being a teenager today just like it was for me is that for most of you, you might say, “I’ve got so much life left to live.” You never really think about death. You think death happens to old people. Death is just something that happens to other people, out there somewhere.
But then I think of that high school football player that died a few weeks ago. There he is, playing football, probably one of the passions of his life…he is healthy, running, and then, BOOM. Life is cut short. Friends, hear me on this - life is uncertain. There are NO guarantees. You want to be wise. You need to think about death- not dwell on it and let it consume your life- but think about it as a reality check for all us.
In John 14:2, Jesus says it so simply and completely-
“In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”
But I love the next verse-
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
Folks, I believe every word in the Bible. Every story. Every conflict. Every tragedy. Every battle. Every loss. And because of that, I believe that Jesus prepared a room for Ashleigh. A room with no wheelchair. A room with no special medicine or medical equipment to keep her going or living what we so arrogantly think is a “normal life.” And I believe that Jesus prepared a room for Ashleigh, where when she looked at the ceiling, the saw butterflies in a golden field.
Some of you may have been at CCC’s regular worship last Sunday where Pastor John said that one of the most incredible things anyone has ever said to him was when Kyle Whitty, less than 48 hours after losing his older sister, said to Pastor John, “I know that Ashleigh is running to Jesus.” Wow. But my pray is this- that she caught Jesus, they embraced, and Ashleigh is now one of his angels, chasing butterflies in a field of gold.
Friends, I’m not telling this to you to depress you. But most of us in here are a little freaked out and afraid to talk about death. The average life span of an American is about 75 years. So for most of us we think we’ve got at least that long to go. But the truth is nobody’s promised tomorrow. Life is uncertain.
It’s not just out there on the Internet where we hear about people dying. It’s in our neighborhoods. It’s in our schools. It’s on our block. For some it’s in our home. Life is uncertain. You want to be wise, you want to be aware of death and understand death. The church is in a series called “Got Life?” We should also add, “Death happens.”
I haven't been to many funerals in my life, but the one thing I hear at every one of them is people saying this - If only I had known. If only I had known that my mom or dad wouldn't be coming home from work that night. If I only had known that my boyfriend was going to be drinking and driving with his friends. If only I had known that Jim Whittemore wouldn’t be coming back from that road-side job. If only I had known that Ashleigh wouldn't be coming home from the hospital last Friday.
They live with deep regret. If only I had known he was going to die I would have said this. I would have done this. If only I we had known she was going to die I would have been a better friend. I wouldn't have gossiped about them. I wouldn't have let them down. I wouldn't have been such a jerk to them at school, or here at RISE708. I would have said this. I would have done that. Take note. Life is uncertain.
The Bible says in Psalm 39:
“My life is no longer than my hand! My whole lifetime is but a moment to You oh God...And so, Lord, my only hope is in You.”
Because of that I say to you. Enjoy times with your family. Enjoy Friday nights at RISE708 with Derek, and the leaders, and every student that has the guts to walk through those front doors at 7pm. Don’t go to bed all ticked off. Reconcile with your friends and the people you’re around. Life is too short not to live life to its fullest.
I love Psalm 146, and I would bet the house that Ashleigh was thinking something like this last Friday night at the same moment Tim began to sing:
“I will praise the LORD as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God even with my dying breath.”
The second thing we should do is this -
2. Don’t RUN from death
Death is weird. It’s strange. It’s difficult for everybody. It doesn’t make you feel comfortable. I’ve been to enough funerals that I realize that some people after the funeral will spend more time talking about how good the cheese dip was at the party after the funeral rather than talking about their feelings or their thoughts or what they felt about the person or what was said or what they experienced. Don’t run from death.
Some of your friends when they come back to school after a death experience with family or relatives or somebody like that they need to be around you. They need to talk to you, they need your support.
But our first reaction is to run. We want to say, “They don’t need to be bothered now. Don’t worry about them. I’m just going to give them some time to be by themselves.”
I used to think that way as well. Until last Sunday. When I saw the courage of Kyle Whitty to come to church, just like any other Sunday. But this time Kyle KNEW he would facing his friends who would all want to know the same thing- how you doing, man? And when I saw him last Sunday, I changed my thinking on giving others “space”.
When people lose someone they love, they need to be around you. They need to share stories about the friend and the family member that they lost. They need to process their pain. They need a shoulder to cry on. You don’t have to worry about what you have to say. They don’t want your little mini lectures on theology. They don’t need the diverse opinions about life and death. They need silence. They need tears. They need love. They need your presence.
How many people in here went to Ashleigh’s wake earlier this week. I was talking to Derek about the sheer size of the crowd that waited in line for hours just to say goodbye. Derek tells me that about 2000 people went to that wake, and it didn’t end until after 11pm. Wow. But it was crushing for me to finally make it into the funeral home hallway, and get my first glimpse of Ashleigh’s Mom and Dad and Kyle, all standing through shell-shocked and shaking hands and hugging person after person. And as I saw this I prayed, “Oh God, give me something beautiful to say, something that will make things all better.” Wow. How arrogant of me. And when my turn finally came, I hugged Ashleigh’s Mom, and said nothing. And I shook hands and higged Ashleigh’s Dad. And said nothing. And I hugged Kyle. And said nothing.
How many people in here have had to put down a pet? I have. Twice. I love big dogs, and that’s why I always tell Derek that I am the big dog. But seriously, since we love big dogs, we also know that their life span is much shorter than those of a small dog. That’s just the way God created them. But the first time I had to make that painful decision that it was time, I wasn’t a Christian. But I sought out the advise of a friend who would eventually help lead me to Christ. His simple answer was this…you will know. And both times, I did know. And, at least in my life, there is nothing worse than that drive to the vet’s office with your long-time pal in the back seat, hurting, looking at you through the rear-view mirror with those big brown eyes saying, Bob, why are you home from work today. Why am I getting a ride in the car with you and Margie. That never happens. What’s up?
You know what’s an even longer, lonlier ride? The ride on the train to work after you have left the vet’s office with your pal. And by the time you get the train, rush hour is pretty much over and you are like the only person on the train. Lonely. In grief. With no one to listen to you grieving. No shoulder to cry on.
So here’s what I tell people when they say, I don’t know what to do. Here’s my advice – be there. Just be there. For Kyle, I knew Cam Bartlett would just be…Cam Bartlett. I knew that Brad would just be…Brad. I knew Jake Zakarian would just be…Jake Zakarian. No more. No less.
For those of you who have been around death before and you have grieved the death of somebody you love, you are even much more important to be there because you know how to comfort. You know what you needed.
2 Corinthians 1 says:
“God is the Father who is full of mercy and all comfort. He comforts us every time we have trouble, so when others have trouble, we can comfort them with the same comfort God gives us.”
Please guys, don’t run from death. I realize it sounds weird. Everybody thinks it’s weird not to run from death. But don’t run from it. We’re not running from it here at RISE708. That’s why we’re talking about it. That’s why we’re teaching on it. As a matter of fact, we’re not running from it and I would like to share a story about two teenagers- brothers and sisters, who go to a youth group just like ours in California:
There names are Casey and Lindsey- Casey was a freshman at the local high school and Lindsey was his older sister who was a junior that year. Their mother was diagnosed with lung cancer 1997. Fortunately, the doctor caught it in an early stage and their Mother immediately went into surgery. They were able to take out all of the cancer along with one third of her lung. For two years her health was good. She didn’t have to go through radiation, chemo or any other treatments. But then in 1999 the doctors found that she had cancer in her hipbone. This time they couldn’t do surgery to get it out. She had to start going through radiation and then through chemo. Her health started getting worse. She had to go from using a cane to a walker and finally a wheelchair. Of course Casey and Lindsey were freaked out that their mom had cancer and during this time their faith in God was really tested. In fact, Casey knew that God would heal her and never thought that God would disappoint him.
The news of their mother’s bone cancer was obviously a disappointment to Lindsey and Casey. But instead of getting depressed about it, both Casey & Lindsey had an extremely positive outlook on the situation and used this time to grow in their faith and develop a closer relationship with God. Though their mother’s health had gotten worse, none of it hindered their faith that she would be healed. Their family was constantly surrounded by people who lifted them up and who were constantly praying for healing.
Like Casey, Lindsey absolutely believed that God would heal their mother there was no reason to believe that anything bad would happen. And slowly but surely their mother’s health started to get better. And every day is was a day closer to her remission.
However in September of 2001, their mother started to constantly get headaches. Soon after this their parents called Lindsey and Casey into their room where they revealed to them that the doctors found that their mom had a brain tumor. Lindsey said that although she was obviously disheartened, all she could remember thinking was, She’ll only have a better testimony to share when God heals her.
During this time, Casey still looked at the bright side. He told his mother that whatever happened it’d be ok. If she died she’d be in heaven with her own mom and if she didn’t die then she’d stay here with us. Through the next several weeks after discovering the brain tumor, their mom had to go through intense radiation and chemotherapy. She soon had hospice care, which is where a hospital bed was placed in her room along with some of the necessary equipment. And nurses came into their house to take care of her. But is was to no avail. Their mom’s health dropped at an incredible rate.
But even as Casey & Lindsey watched their loving, energetic mom lie there helpless, bedridden in an almost comatose state, their family’s faith endured.
The next month, in October 2001, their mom had to be admitted into the hospital for what they thought was a slight case of pneumonia which is a huge threat when someone is in the state their mother was in.
The next day Lindsey was sitting in class when the teacher told her to grab her things and go to the office. Lindsey immediately knew what had happened. But she also knew something else as she made that long walk through the quite halls of her high school, past all those lockers, all those closed classroom doors with students behind them that weren’t going through what she was going through. Lindsey knew she couldn’t suddenly abandon her faith in her mother’s healing. In fact, Lindsey made herself believe that she had gotten an early dismissal because the day had come when the doctors finally announced her mom’s complete recovery from cancer.
Lindsey finally made her way to the school office. And when she got up to the office she saw her Dad there waiting for her, sitting on a bench outside the office, his head buried in his hands. And her mom wasn’t there alongside him, perfectly healthy, back to her normal happy state with her hair grown back and all the signs of cancer gone. Instead my dad looked up to me, his eyes swollen from tears, and he gently broke the news to Lindsey- “Your mom finally went home to heaven today.”
Lindsey was in disbelief. She had never let myself believe that death was in the near future for her mom. Though she immediately broke down in tears, she also felt an indescribably peace knowing that she also had the hope of seeing her mom again in heaven. Their family was also reassured by the fact that their mom indeed was in complete remission – in heaven – and never again would she had to experience the pains of this earth because she was now made perfect.
Lindsey did not come out with her story just because she knew that her mom was now in heaven and because God has stayed alongside her through this whole time that she wasn’t sad about what happened. Of course, she didn’t understand why she would no longer have a mom to have girl talk with or a mom to go shopping with or why now she was stuck living with two boys or why most girls are going to have their mom helping them get ready on their wedding days and Lindsey wouldn’t. But, Lindsey did know one this- that God has a reason for everything He does and she was never mad at God for one second for taking her mom away from her. Lindsey and Casey knew that without the amazing grace of God there is no way they could have ever gone through this situation.
Lindsay told her youth group that none of us really ever see death coming although we all know it’s inevitable. Death is a hard thing to understand and she doubted if any of us will fully understand it. But Lindsey did know that as Christians, we have an amazing hope and a great comforter. God’s words are true where He says in Proverbs 14:
“In times of trouble the wicked are destroyed, but even at death the innocent have faith”.
Lindsey and Casey believe that this is true and also believe that one day they will be reunited with our mom again.
Why were Lindsey and Casey able to share such a personal and tragic story that stirred up all of their emotions again? I mean, that was big. It’s because they’re not running from death. Don’t run from it. Face it. It is inevitable. Embrace it. Help other people through it. Allow God to do something big in your life. Don’t run from it.
One more thing we can learn tonight, and then we’re done…
3. Consider how ETERNITY gives you hope for TODAY
Did you hear the words that Lindsay said? Peace. Hope. How was she able to say those words? How can these guys talk about their mom whom they loved so much who they just lost and they feel this sense of peace? Because they understand eternity. They understand that death is not depressing. Death is depressing if you believe that life ends at the grave. But the Bible speaks with such confidence that there is a life beyond death. And eternal life takes the sting out of death.
2 Corinthians 4:17 says:
“We have small troubles for a while now, but they are helping us gain an eternal glory that is much greater than the troubles. We set our eyes not only on what we see but on what we cannot see. What we see will last only a short time, but what we cannot see will last forever.” FOREVER.
John 3:16 – Most of you have this memorized. If you don’t I encourage you to memorize it. “God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him may not be lost, but have eternal life.” ETERNAL.
John 11:25, Jesus speaking, “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me will have life even if they die.’” LIFE.
Look at the three words I just emphasized- Forever, eternal, life. That’s what the Bible teaches that if you have a relationship with God you will have forever eternal life. If you embrace God’s plan for all of humanity – here’s His plan in a nutshell: God created you, He wants a relationship with you, that when you die you’re going to be either with Him for eternity or separated from Him for eternity.
Forever eternal life. When you have a relationship here’s what He does:
• He forgives you of your past, every thing you’ve ever done.
• He gives you a plan for living today.
• And He gives you hope for a future.
That’s how eternity can give you hope for today. What does the future look like? I don’t know. What does heaven look like? I have no idea. But I do know what the Bible says. There’s going to be no pain. There’s going to be no tears.
A lot of us in here we think, “Heaven’s for sissies! It’s just a bunch of fairies running around on clouds playing harps. That type of thing.”
But listen to me on this - the same God that made earth also made heaven. Just look around earth. You see colors and shapes and tastes and smells and varieties. You see an ocean and the beauty of a sunset and rainbows and mountains. All those things that give us pleasure. The same God that made those on earth, heaven is going to be even greater than that. I tell people, you dream about your greatest day you’ve ever had on earth and heaven is going to be better than that every single day.
I was speaking with someone last night online who had some of the same questions about heaven that I think all of us do. Regardless of the mystery, let me tell you some of the things the Bible says about heaven. It says it’s a place where God dwells. A place of righteousness where you can worship God there. There’s no hunger, no thirst, no tears, no death, no pain, no hard labor, and no sadness.
God has reserved that place in eternity for His children. Everybody is a creation of God but only those who say yes to Him and develop a relationship to Him the Bible teaches are children of God.
You just ask Him to come into your life. You invite Him in to be the Lord and Savior of your life. He promises forgiveness for your past, a plan for today, and hope for the future. It’s a gift. It’s a gift you can’t earn. It’s a gift you don’t deserve. It’s a gift that will never go out of style. It’s a gift that doesn’t need batteries. It’s a gift that won’t shrink. It’s a gift that doesn’t get rusty. It’s a free gift.
If you’re here today and you’ve never received that free gift you can do so very simply with a prayer. Just ask Him.
If you’re a Christian, today is a good day. Good news. Celebrate. Eternal life forever. Celebrate with Casey and Lindsay and their dad that their mom is in a much better place - in the presence of God. Celebrate with Kyle Whitty that Ashleigh is chasing butterflies in golden fields in heaven.
But if you haven’t started that relationship, if you’re living out on your own, my encouragement to you is to settle that account. Prepare yourself for eternity.
That’s a lot to think about. Tonight’s kind of a heavy night. But thanks for listening. Thanks for caring about your life. Thanks for being wise and thinking about death because your life will be better because of it.
Let’s Pray:
As you bow your heads, I want to read you this last verse. Jesus is speaking. Just close your eyes and imagine Him saying this to you. “Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in Me. There are many rooms in My Father's house; I would not tell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a place for you. After I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me so that you may be where I am.”
If you want to be where God is when your life comes to an end I encourage you to prepare for that now. Be wise. I’m going to say a little prayer. You can just repeat it after me in the silence of your heart if you’ve never done that:
“There have been many wrong things that I’ve done in my life that have kept me from having a relationship with You, God. I realize I can’t live on my own. Instead I need You to come into my life and forgive me of my sins and control my life. Because of that, I invite You to do that right now. Come in and cleanse me. And, God, please don’t stop there. I need Your help today and tomorrow and for the rest of my days. Thank You for coming into my life. Thank You for teaching me about life through death.”
God, thanks for hearing our prayers. Thanks for loving us. May we be different people because we’re been here tonight. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
This has not been my favorite week to prepare a message. It's been an emotional roller-coaster for a lot of us...Lauren Olson leaving us last week, and the passing of Ashleigh Whitty, Kyle's older sister. But the weird thing is that God uses these sad circumstances to bring us closer to each other, and to Him. And, the even weirder part is that I was preparing a message on death before I even knew that Ashleigh was in the hospital.
After Ashleigh passed away last Friday night, I thought, you know, maybe I shouldn't do a message on death. It might be too soon. It might be too sensitive. The wounds may be too raw. But then I thought, if I don't do the message on death, I would be a bigger hypocrite than I already know I am. Because I have said to you guys many times that God isn't interested in coming into our lives only when it's convenient for us to invite Him in. He's not interested coming into our lives only when it’s comfortable for us. He's not interested into coming into our lives only for things we need for Him. No. God wants all of us... all the time. And God wants to wrap us in his arms more than ever when things in our lives get tough. And He wraps his arms around us even tighter when lives around us are taken.
While it’s weird to talk about death, I’m not all that uncomfortable with it. We see death all around us all the time. The internet, the news, popular TV shows, music videos, and popular music are all drunk with images or stories of death. So much so that a lot of times we see death around us so matter of factly that we become so saturated with it that we become insensitive to it. Someone died in a car accident on Route 44 last night? There are car accidents on that road every night. Somebody was killed in a drug deal gone bad in downtown Taunton last weekend. Oh well, it was probably bound to happen, and maybe they deserved it. Ashleigh Whitty died last Friday night at 8pm while we were all singing and worshiping God. Oh well, I didn't know her, so what's the big deal?
Well, it is a big deal. Not because of same unnamed driver who dies in a car accident, not because of some drug dealer we didn't know. And not because the older sister of Kyle Whitty is no longer here with us. It's a big deal for us as Christians because it shows, again, that we worship a big God, a God that loves us, a God who often does things in his infinite nature that our finite minds cannot begin to understand, a God that has arms so big and mighty that He can wrap all of us in them when someone we know has died.
Even if I, or Derek, or Pastor John, or any of the youth leaders had all the answers about life and death, there would be nothing as soothing as having that person who had died be back alive. Until we’re in the presence of God Himself, many of us in here, we’re going to be left with more questions that we have answers for. But I am confident of one answer. Although I did not know Ashleigh much more than to say hello and goodbye to at Wal-Mart, I know this much- she loved Jesus. And this much I also know- Jesus loved and loves her now. So much, that there can be no doubt that Jesus took her home, allowed her to rise out of that wheelchair, and my guess is that right now she is running like the wind, chasing butterflies in fields of gold, and Jesus is cheering her on...run Ashleigh, run.
I really believe that there are some things that you and I can learn together tonight...I’ve already learned a lot this week in thinking about it and praying about it and searching the scriptures.
The Bible says a lot about death. During the week I must have gone through hundreds of verses that I pulled out of the Bible that have to do with death and dying. As I read every single one of these and thought about how I use just one of these in speaking tonight to all of you guys...people I care about and who I love and I want to live their life to the fullest. There are some things that I really believe that you and I can learn about life and love and the future.
Psalm 89:48 says, “No one can live forever; all will die. No one can escape the power of the grave.”
Everyone is going to die. Death is 100%. It hits everyone. I heard a story about a preacher who was trying to tell people about the difference between heaven and hell and he said, “How many of you want to go to heaven? Raise your hand.” All of the people raised their hand except a little boy in the front row. He wasn’t raising his hand. The preacher thought that’s kind of weird. He asked again. “How many of you want to go to heaven? Raise your hand.” Again, everybody raised their hand except the little boy. This confused the preacher. So the preacher stops his message and says to the little boy, “You don’t want to go to heaven when you die?” The kid goes, “Oh! When I die! I thought you were trying to get a bunch of us to volunteer to go right now!”
We love living and we fear dying. But the truth is no one can escape the power of the grave.
Ecclesiastes 7:4 “A wise person thinks about death, but a fool thinks only about having a good time.”
If I was to ask you, one on one, just you and me, “Do you want to be wise or do you want to be a fool?” Chances are you would say if you’re outside the company of your friends you would say, “I want to be wise.” The Bible says if you want to be wise then think about death. If you want to be a fool pretend it doesn’t exist. Just go looking for the next party.
But I believe you got out of bed today and came here tonight and not to a party or the mall or a movie because you want to be wise, you want to be different. So let’s be wise. Let’s take a look at some things we might be able to do as we think about death and what it can teach us about love, life and the future.
1. Recognize the UNCERTAINTY of life
None of us in here is guaranteed tomorrow. Isn’t that kind of a weird thought, that nobody in here is guaranteed that they will be alive tomorrow? I bet if you asked some of your teachers in school who have been teaching for a long time that there were students who were sitting at their desks on Friday afternoon, and then were missing on Monday morning because they had died. Maybe killed by a drunk driver or something like that. You don’t think about that at times but life is uncertain. You’re not guaranteed tomorrow. As a matter of fact, you’re not guaranteed – nor am I guaranteed – the rest of tonight.
The Bible pictures life’s uncertainty. James 4 says, “You do not know what will happen tomorrow! Your life is like a mist. You can see it for a short time, but then it goes away.”
The interesting thing about being a teenager today just like it was for me is that for most of you, you might say, “I’ve got so much life left to live.” You never really think about death. You think death happens to old people. Death is just something that happens to other people, out there somewhere.
But then I think of that high school football player that died a few weeks ago. There he is, playing football, probably one of the passions of his life…he is healthy, running, and then, BOOM. Life is cut short. Friends, hear me on this - life is uncertain. There are NO guarantees. You want to be wise. You need to think about death- not dwell on it and let it consume your life- but think about it as a reality check for all us.
In John 14:2, Jesus says it so simply and completely-
“In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”
But I love the next verse-
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
Folks, I believe every word in the Bible. Every story. Every conflict. Every tragedy. Every battle. Every loss. And because of that, I believe that Jesus prepared a room for Ashleigh. A room with no wheelchair. A room with no special medicine or medical equipment to keep her going or living what we so arrogantly think is a “normal life.” And I believe that Jesus prepared a room for Ashleigh, where when she looked at the ceiling, the saw butterflies in a golden field.
Some of you may have been at CCC’s regular worship last Sunday where Pastor John said that one of the most incredible things anyone has ever said to him was when Kyle Whitty, less than 48 hours after losing his older sister, said to Pastor John, “I know that Ashleigh is running to Jesus.” Wow. But my pray is this- that she caught Jesus, they embraced, and Ashleigh is now one of his angels, chasing butterflies in a field of gold.
Friends, I’m not telling this to you to depress you. But most of us in here are a little freaked out and afraid to talk about death. The average life span of an American is about 75 years. So for most of us we think we’ve got at least that long to go. But the truth is nobody’s promised tomorrow. Life is uncertain.
It’s not just out there on the Internet where we hear about people dying. It’s in our neighborhoods. It’s in our schools. It’s on our block. For some it’s in our home. Life is uncertain. You want to be wise, you want to be aware of death and understand death. The church is in a series called “Got Life?” We should also add, “Death happens.”
I haven't been to many funerals in my life, but the one thing I hear at every one of them is people saying this - If only I had known. If only I had known that my mom or dad wouldn't be coming home from work that night. If I only had known that my boyfriend was going to be drinking and driving with his friends. If only I had known that Jim Whittemore wouldn’t be coming back from that road-side job. If only I had known that Ashleigh wouldn't be coming home from the hospital last Friday.
They live with deep regret. If only I had known he was going to die I would have said this. I would have done this. If only I we had known she was going to die I would have been a better friend. I wouldn't have gossiped about them. I wouldn't have let them down. I wouldn't have been such a jerk to them at school, or here at RISE708. I would have said this. I would have done that. Take note. Life is uncertain.
The Bible says in Psalm 39:
“My life is no longer than my hand! My whole lifetime is but a moment to You oh God...And so, Lord, my only hope is in You.”
Because of that I say to you. Enjoy times with your family. Enjoy Friday nights at RISE708 with Derek, and the leaders, and every student that has the guts to walk through those front doors at 7pm. Don’t go to bed all ticked off. Reconcile with your friends and the people you’re around. Life is too short not to live life to its fullest.
I love Psalm 146, and I would bet the house that Ashleigh was thinking something like this last Friday night at the same moment Tim began to sing:
“I will praise the LORD as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God even with my dying breath.”
The second thing we should do is this -
2. Don’t RUN from death
Death is weird. It’s strange. It’s difficult for everybody. It doesn’t make you feel comfortable. I’ve been to enough funerals that I realize that some people after the funeral will spend more time talking about how good the cheese dip was at the party after the funeral rather than talking about their feelings or their thoughts or what they felt about the person or what was said or what they experienced. Don’t run from death.
Some of your friends when they come back to school after a death experience with family or relatives or somebody like that they need to be around you. They need to talk to you, they need your support.
But our first reaction is to run. We want to say, “They don’t need to be bothered now. Don’t worry about them. I’m just going to give them some time to be by themselves.”
I used to think that way as well. Until last Sunday. When I saw the courage of Kyle Whitty to come to church, just like any other Sunday. But this time Kyle KNEW he would facing his friends who would all want to know the same thing- how you doing, man? And when I saw him last Sunday, I changed my thinking on giving others “space”.
When people lose someone they love, they need to be around you. They need to share stories about the friend and the family member that they lost. They need to process their pain. They need a shoulder to cry on. You don’t have to worry about what you have to say. They don’t want your little mini lectures on theology. They don’t need the diverse opinions about life and death. They need silence. They need tears. They need love. They need your presence.
How many people in here went to Ashleigh’s wake earlier this week. I was talking to Derek about the sheer size of the crowd that waited in line for hours just to say goodbye. Derek tells me that about 2000 people went to that wake, and it didn’t end until after 11pm. Wow. But it was crushing for me to finally make it into the funeral home hallway, and get my first glimpse of Ashleigh’s Mom and Dad and Kyle, all standing through shell-shocked and shaking hands and hugging person after person. And as I saw this I prayed, “Oh God, give me something beautiful to say, something that will make things all better.” Wow. How arrogant of me. And when my turn finally came, I hugged Ashleigh’s Mom, and said nothing. And I shook hands and higged Ashleigh’s Dad. And said nothing. And I hugged Kyle. And said nothing.
How many people in here have had to put down a pet? I have. Twice. I love big dogs, and that’s why I always tell Derek that I am the big dog. But seriously, since we love big dogs, we also know that their life span is much shorter than those of a small dog. That’s just the way God created them. But the first time I had to make that painful decision that it was time, I wasn’t a Christian. But I sought out the advise of a friend who would eventually help lead me to Christ. His simple answer was this…you will know. And both times, I did know. And, at least in my life, there is nothing worse than that drive to the vet’s office with your long-time pal in the back seat, hurting, looking at you through the rear-view mirror with those big brown eyes saying, Bob, why are you home from work today. Why am I getting a ride in the car with you and Margie. That never happens. What’s up?
You know what’s an even longer, lonlier ride? The ride on the train to work after you have left the vet’s office with your pal. And by the time you get the train, rush hour is pretty much over and you are like the only person on the train. Lonely. In grief. With no one to listen to you grieving. No shoulder to cry on.
So here’s what I tell people when they say, I don’t know what to do. Here’s my advice – be there. Just be there. For Kyle, I knew Cam Bartlett would just be…Cam Bartlett. I knew that Brad would just be…Brad. I knew Jake Zakarian would just be…Jake Zakarian. No more. No less.
For those of you who have been around death before and you have grieved the death of somebody you love, you are even much more important to be there because you know how to comfort. You know what you needed.
2 Corinthians 1 says:
“God is the Father who is full of mercy and all comfort. He comforts us every time we have trouble, so when others have trouble, we can comfort them with the same comfort God gives us.”
Please guys, don’t run from death. I realize it sounds weird. Everybody thinks it’s weird not to run from death. But don’t run from it. We’re not running from it here at RISE708. That’s why we’re talking about it. That’s why we’re teaching on it. As a matter of fact, we’re not running from it and I would like to share a story about two teenagers- brothers and sisters, who go to a youth group just like ours in California:
There names are Casey and Lindsey- Casey was a freshman at the local high school and Lindsey was his older sister who was a junior that year. Their mother was diagnosed with lung cancer 1997. Fortunately, the doctor caught it in an early stage and their Mother immediately went into surgery. They were able to take out all of the cancer along with one third of her lung. For two years her health was good. She didn’t have to go through radiation, chemo or any other treatments. But then in 1999 the doctors found that she had cancer in her hipbone. This time they couldn’t do surgery to get it out. She had to start going through radiation and then through chemo. Her health started getting worse. She had to go from using a cane to a walker and finally a wheelchair. Of course Casey and Lindsey were freaked out that their mom had cancer and during this time their faith in God was really tested. In fact, Casey knew that God would heal her and never thought that God would disappoint him.
The news of their mother’s bone cancer was obviously a disappointment to Lindsey and Casey. But instead of getting depressed about it, both Casey & Lindsey had an extremely positive outlook on the situation and used this time to grow in their faith and develop a closer relationship with God. Though their mother’s health had gotten worse, none of it hindered their faith that she would be healed. Their family was constantly surrounded by people who lifted them up and who were constantly praying for healing.
Like Casey, Lindsey absolutely believed that God would heal their mother there was no reason to believe that anything bad would happen. And slowly but surely their mother’s health started to get better. And every day is was a day closer to her remission.
However in September of 2001, their mother started to constantly get headaches. Soon after this their parents called Lindsey and Casey into their room where they revealed to them that the doctors found that their mom had a brain tumor. Lindsey said that although she was obviously disheartened, all she could remember thinking was, She’ll only have a better testimony to share when God heals her.
During this time, Casey still looked at the bright side. He told his mother that whatever happened it’d be ok. If she died she’d be in heaven with her own mom and if she didn’t die then she’d stay here with us. Through the next several weeks after discovering the brain tumor, their mom had to go through intense radiation and chemotherapy. She soon had hospice care, which is where a hospital bed was placed in her room along with some of the necessary equipment. And nurses came into their house to take care of her. But is was to no avail. Their mom’s health dropped at an incredible rate.
But even as Casey & Lindsey watched their loving, energetic mom lie there helpless, bedridden in an almost comatose state, their family’s faith endured.
The next month, in October 2001, their mom had to be admitted into the hospital for what they thought was a slight case of pneumonia which is a huge threat when someone is in the state their mother was in.
The next day Lindsey was sitting in class when the teacher told her to grab her things and go to the office. Lindsey immediately knew what had happened. But she also knew something else as she made that long walk through the quite halls of her high school, past all those lockers, all those closed classroom doors with students behind them that weren’t going through what she was going through. Lindsey knew she couldn’t suddenly abandon her faith in her mother’s healing. In fact, Lindsey made herself believe that she had gotten an early dismissal because the day had come when the doctors finally announced her mom’s complete recovery from cancer.
Lindsey finally made her way to the school office. And when she got up to the office she saw her Dad there waiting for her, sitting on a bench outside the office, his head buried in his hands. And her mom wasn’t there alongside him, perfectly healthy, back to her normal happy state with her hair grown back and all the signs of cancer gone. Instead my dad looked up to me, his eyes swollen from tears, and he gently broke the news to Lindsey- “Your mom finally went home to heaven today.”
Lindsey was in disbelief. She had never let myself believe that death was in the near future for her mom. Though she immediately broke down in tears, she also felt an indescribably peace knowing that she also had the hope of seeing her mom again in heaven. Their family was also reassured by the fact that their mom indeed was in complete remission – in heaven – and never again would she had to experience the pains of this earth because she was now made perfect.
Lindsey did not come out with her story just because she knew that her mom was now in heaven and because God has stayed alongside her through this whole time that she wasn’t sad about what happened. Of course, she didn’t understand why she would no longer have a mom to have girl talk with or a mom to go shopping with or why now she was stuck living with two boys or why most girls are going to have their mom helping them get ready on their wedding days and Lindsey wouldn’t. But, Lindsey did know one this- that God has a reason for everything He does and she was never mad at God for one second for taking her mom away from her. Lindsey and Casey knew that without the amazing grace of God there is no way they could have ever gone through this situation.
Lindsay told her youth group that none of us really ever see death coming although we all know it’s inevitable. Death is a hard thing to understand and she doubted if any of us will fully understand it. But Lindsey did know that as Christians, we have an amazing hope and a great comforter. God’s words are true where He says in Proverbs 14:
“In times of trouble the wicked are destroyed, but even at death the innocent have faith”.
Lindsey and Casey believe that this is true and also believe that one day they will be reunited with our mom again.
Why were Lindsey and Casey able to share such a personal and tragic story that stirred up all of their emotions again? I mean, that was big. It’s because they’re not running from death. Don’t run from it. Face it. It is inevitable. Embrace it. Help other people through it. Allow God to do something big in your life. Don’t run from it.
One more thing we can learn tonight, and then we’re done…
3. Consider how ETERNITY gives you hope for TODAY
Did you hear the words that Lindsay said? Peace. Hope. How was she able to say those words? How can these guys talk about their mom whom they loved so much who they just lost and they feel this sense of peace? Because they understand eternity. They understand that death is not depressing. Death is depressing if you believe that life ends at the grave. But the Bible speaks with such confidence that there is a life beyond death. And eternal life takes the sting out of death.
2 Corinthians 4:17 says:
“We have small troubles for a while now, but they are helping us gain an eternal glory that is much greater than the troubles. We set our eyes not only on what we see but on what we cannot see. What we see will last only a short time, but what we cannot see will last forever.” FOREVER.
John 3:16 – Most of you have this memorized. If you don’t I encourage you to memorize it. “God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him may not be lost, but have eternal life.” ETERNAL.
John 11:25, Jesus speaking, “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me will have life even if they die.’” LIFE.
Look at the three words I just emphasized- Forever, eternal, life. That’s what the Bible teaches that if you have a relationship with God you will have forever eternal life. If you embrace God’s plan for all of humanity – here’s His plan in a nutshell: God created you, He wants a relationship with you, that when you die you’re going to be either with Him for eternity or separated from Him for eternity.
Forever eternal life. When you have a relationship here’s what He does:
• He forgives you of your past, every thing you’ve ever done.
• He gives you a plan for living today.
• And He gives you hope for a future.
That’s how eternity can give you hope for today. What does the future look like? I don’t know. What does heaven look like? I have no idea. But I do know what the Bible says. There’s going to be no pain. There’s going to be no tears.
A lot of us in here we think, “Heaven’s for sissies! It’s just a bunch of fairies running around on clouds playing harps. That type of thing.”
But listen to me on this - the same God that made earth also made heaven. Just look around earth. You see colors and shapes and tastes and smells and varieties. You see an ocean and the beauty of a sunset and rainbows and mountains. All those things that give us pleasure. The same God that made those on earth, heaven is going to be even greater than that. I tell people, you dream about your greatest day you’ve ever had on earth and heaven is going to be better than that every single day.
I was speaking with someone last night online who had some of the same questions about heaven that I think all of us do. Regardless of the mystery, let me tell you some of the things the Bible says about heaven. It says it’s a place where God dwells. A place of righteousness where you can worship God there. There’s no hunger, no thirst, no tears, no death, no pain, no hard labor, and no sadness.
God has reserved that place in eternity for His children. Everybody is a creation of God but only those who say yes to Him and develop a relationship to Him the Bible teaches are children of God.
You just ask Him to come into your life. You invite Him in to be the Lord and Savior of your life. He promises forgiveness for your past, a plan for today, and hope for the future. It’s a gift. It’s a gift you can’t earn. It’s a gift you don’t deserve. It’s a gift that will never go out of style. It’s a gift that doesn’t need batteries. It’s a gift that won’t shrink. It’s a gift that doesn’t get rusty. It’s a free gift.
If you’re here today and you’ve never received that free gift you can do so very simply with a prayer. Just ask Him.
If you’re a Christian, today is a good day. Good news. Celebrate. Eternal life forever. Celebrate with Casey and Lindsay and their dad that their mom is in a much better place - in the presence of God. Celebrate with Kyle Whitty that Ashleigh is chasing butterflies in golden fields in heaven.
But if you haven’t started that relationship, if you’re living out on your own, my encouragement to you is to settle that account. Prepare yourself for eternity.
That’s a lot to think about. Tonight’s kind of a heavy night. But thanks for listening. Thanks for caring about your life. Thanks for being wise and thinking about death because your life will be better because of it.
Let’s Pray:
As you bow your heads, I want to read you this last verse. Jesus is speaking. Just close your eyes and imagine Him saying this to you. “Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in Me. There are many rooms in My Father's house; I would not tell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a place for you. After I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me so that you may be where I am.”
If you want to be where God is when your life comes to an end I encourage you to prepare for that now. Be wise. I’m going to say a little prayer. You can just repeat it after me in the silence of your heart if you’ve never done that:
“There have been many wrong things that I’ve done in my life that have kept me from having a relationship with You, God. I realize I can’t live on my own. Instead I need You to come into my life and forgive me of my sins and control my life. Because of that, I invite You to do that right now. Come in and cleanse me. And, God, please don’t stop there. I need Your help today and tomorrow and for the rest of my days. Thank You for coming into my life. Thank You for teaching me about life through death.”
God, thanks for hearing our prayers. Thanks for loving us. May we be different people because we’re been here tonight. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Temptation - Putting on God's Garments of Grace
Hello everyone!
My name is Bob.
And I am a sinner.
How do I know that? Because the Bible tells me I am. But more importantly, the Bible tell me why. It tells me what got me caught up in it. And thank God it also tells me the way out. And Genesis 3 is an incredible chapter of scripture. Genesis 3 gives us a lot of news, and tonight, I hope to give you some news that you can use.
I don't know about you, but I want news I can use. I’ve watched the news but there’s not a whole lot in there that I can use. There’s a lot of negative stuff that I can’t use. There’s a lot of stuff about poodles and porpoises that I can’t use. And there is a lot of the tragedies at the beginning of the news, and that’s not useful. It’s depressing.
But what I am going to speak about tonight is news that you can use immediately, tonight.
Genesis 3 is an incredible chapter. I know it is in the Old Testament, and a lot of people just yawn when they here the words "Old Testament" - But Genesis 3 has a lot to say about what happened back then, thousands of years ago, and how it relates to my life and your life today. This is important, because it has been said that Genesis 3 in many ways is the most important piece of information ever conveyed to man. Because if you ignore the teaching of this chapter in history, the story of humanity becomes impossible to understand. And if you miss Genesis 3, you really cannot fully understand what Derek talked about last week with Noah and the flood. Because the most important thing about this Genesis 3 is that we find ourselves in this chapter.
Genesis 3 is about Adam & Eve, our original biological mother and father. You don’t have to be a Christian to have heard about Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. Adam & Eve and the Garden have been perverted by our society into almost everything that is not biblical- from silly cartoon characters to the brand name of a Cranberry Juice. And as we take a look at Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3, I’ve heard people say, “If only somehow we could get back to the Garden of Eden. If only somehow we could return to the beauty of that Garden, the water that was in that Garden. There’s something about that Garden that would make things perfect.”
Well, the Garden of Eden isn’t there any more. But hear me on this - Our need is not to find the Garden of Eden. Our need is to learn from what happened in the Garden of Eden so we can find the God who was there in the Garden of Eden. That’s what we want to find. Because Genesis 3 is the story of how sin first came into the human family.
Now the snake was the most clever of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day the snake said to the woman, "Did God really say that you must not eat fruit from any tree in the garden?"
The woman answered the snake, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. But God told us, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch it, or you will die.' "
But the snake said to the woman, "You will not die. God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, you will learn about good and evil and you will be like God!"
The woman saw that the tree was beautiful, that its fruit was good to eat, and that it would make her wise. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of the fruit to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
Then, it was as if their eyes were opened. They realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made something to cover themselves.
You can think of any tragedy that you want. Maybe a tragedy in your own life. Some of you in here tonight have lost a friend or family member to disease, or an accident. Some of you in here knew Jim Whittemore, a high school sports star that was killed in July 2007. Some of you knew, or have friends that knew that football player that died in a football game a couple of weeks ago. And there are dozens of stories in here tonight of people with friends and family and family of friends who are battling cancer. And it rips our hearts apart. And then there are the tragedies we watch on TV and the internet all day everyday- people losing everything to hurricanes and tornadoes, families losing everything they have because companies are shutting down.
But Genesis 3 talks about the greatest tragedy in human history. We all know that. We all know it not just because we read it in a book. We all know it because of what we’ve seen in our lives. You and I can look at this tragedy and learn from it. It shows us very clearly what leads to sin. It hasn’t changed. Satan doesn’t need any new tricks because the same old tricks keep working again and again with every new generation. Your generation is no different from Derek’s generation, which is no different from my generation, which is no different from the generation before me. It's the same pattern that has been repeating itself in all of our lives since Adam & Eve were in the Garden of Eden. It’s the pattern of the “Big D” -
The first part of the pattern is
1. Doubt
Satan starts with doubt. He comes to Eve and says, “Did God really say…?” And you might be thinking, a serpent? A snake? “How in the world could Eve be tempted by a snake?”
I don’t know how Satan did it. I don’t know if he appeared in the form of an animal, if he took over an animal. We don’t know the answer to that. But somehow he came appearing as a part of God’s creation and he planted a seed of doubt in her head. “Did God really say…” She began to battle with him. She began to talk with him.
But she didn’t realize what we need to learn tonight- We need to realize that on our own, we’re no match for Satan. There is not one of us in this room tonight that’s a match for Satan. Some of you guys in here who think you’re tough might think so. You may think, well Bob, I work out, I’m a star athlete in school, I can handle some snake. Others of you in here tonight may be thinking- Bob, c’mon- I’m smart…I get good grades, I understand things pretty quickly- I can handle this devil stuff. Or maybe you’re in here tonight and have a different kind of smart- you think you are street smart, cool, can handle it all. But my bet is that if you are in any of those categories, and there was a match between you and Satan, you would lose. Because there is only person who ever did beat Satan, and who can continue to beat him everytime. And his name is Jesus Christ.
Because of His victory, Jesus’ victory over satan, you and I can have victory over Satan. But none of us should try to battle him on our own. Martin Luther, the guy we saw in that movie a month ago, said of Satan, “No man is able to outwit the devil.” He’s been at this for thousands of years. He knows all the tricks. He knows all our thoughts. Don’t try to outwit him on your own. We look at God’s word. We ask for Christ’s help. That’s where the power is. That’s where the ability to do it is.
I'm not trying to depress you and say it’s impossible to win. I'm trying to encourage you and say we can’t win on our own, but we have someone who can win for us.
So satan comes and he plants this doubt. Did God really say? Did God really say not to eat from any tree? And satan plants the same seeds of doubt in each of us here tonight. Do you really think you can play on a varsity sport? Are you sure you can pass that test in English? Are you sure your friends are being loyal to you? Are you certain that your parents love you? Satan – planting seeds of doubt. There’s a huge question here, an important question. Why did God let this happen? Here’s the Garden of Eden. Everything’s perfect. Why did God let there be a tree in the middle of the Garden that if Adam or Eve ate of it, they’d die? Why did God do that? Why did He let satan in to tempt them to eat of that tree? Why did God let Satan in?
The answer to that awaits in heaven – most of it. But as you read the Bible – here in Genesis, Isaiah, Revelation – you get this indication that there was a great spiritual battle, one that we don't know all the details to. A battle between good and evil...between God and satan.
But the real key is not what Satan said but what we did. We made a choice to take the fruit of the tree and eat it. Why did God put that tree in the middle of the Garden? Why didn’t He just leave it out of the Garden so we could just live forever and everything would be perfect?
It's simply this- it's because of the kind of relationship God wanted to have with us. God did not want to have a relationship with us like He had with everything else He created...God created us in His image. How many times have you heard that statement or read it in Genesis. He created us to be in His image. What does that mean?
Being “in His image” means you and I have a choice and the tree in the middle of the garden provided the choice. It’s very important to understand what that choice was. We call it the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The choice wasn’t between good and evil. That’s not really the choice that Adam and Eve were making when they took of that fruit and ate it. The temptation was to become like God. The temptation was to say, “Maybe I have limits as a human being but maybe there’s a way I can overcome those limits and I can become God myself. Yeah- I like the sound of that...I'll be God!
Adam and Eve were a lot smarter than we think they were. A lot of times we think since they were innocent and ran around with fig leaves on and just listened to satan that they were dumb. But they had perfect brains. We use maybe 5% of our brain – maybe. I probably use a lot less than that. But Adam & Eve had 100% going for them. They were super intelligent. They knew the issues. The issue was, “Am I going to be satisfied to be God’s creation and worship Him and depend on Him, or am I going to step outside of that circle and try to do it on my own?” That has always been the issue when it comes to sin. That’s why we talk about it so much here at RISE708- do I do things God’s way, or my way? Do I want God big in my life, or do I want to be God?
Satan begins with a question. “Did God really say…?” Do you know what he’s trying to do? It’s what he tries to do in my life and your life everyday. He’s messin’ with your head. He’s was trying to change how Eve thought of God. He’s trying to make God appear to be something that He isn’t in her mind. Satan is trying to make God look like a miser. Someone who’s keeping something good from them. Has Satan ever sent that kind of temptation into your mind? Of course he has. How many times have you been tempted to do something you know is against God’s will, but satan keeps telling you its Ok…it’s OK to do drugs…it’s OK to drink alcohol…it’s OK to have sex before you are married…it’s OK to be addicted to porn…see how good all that stuff makes you feel. So satan tries to trick us – trick us into believing that God is trying to take things away from us that would make us feel good. Satan is trying to make you doubt.
So Eve began to doubt. That led to the next D-
2. Deception
So now satan has Eve reeling a little bit – she’s doubting. Then Satan comes and tells a bold faced lie. Satan is the father of lies. He doesn’t care about lying. It doesn’t hurt him to lie. It doesn’t hurt him to lie to hurt us, to lie to your boyfriends or girlfriends, to lie to your teachers, your parents, the leaders here at RISE7078, anybody. He lies. He says, go ahead and eat from the tree - “You will not die.”
That was a lie. Because they would die spiritually. They would die physically. They’d watch one of their sons be murdered. All because of this sin that came into their lives.
I know that God has brought some of you here tonight because you’re struggling with some temptations right now. That’s why you thought you’d come tonight. You may not realize it right this moment. You may not realize it until next week, or next year, or when you are 60 years old. But there is a reason you are here tonight. You may be feeling cheated or deprived or limited right now. You’re feeling like, “God’s holding out on me!” or “I'm being cheated of something that life really owes me.” That’s the same feelings that Satan was trying to bring up in Eve’s heart and life. We all have them sometimes. If you’re feeling that way, you’re here tonight to read this chapter and to know whose voice it is that’s saying that. It’s the same tempter, saying the same things thousands of years later. He’s the one who wants to make us feel like we’re not getting out of life what life owes us when God has poured His grace upon us. He deceives her. That deception leads straight into the D of…
3. DESIRE
Eve saw three things. She looked and she saw this fruit that was on the tree and said, “It’s good for food! It’s pleasing to the eye. It’s desirable for gaining wisdom.” All those three sins are right here at the very beginning. The desire for pleasure, the desire for possession, the desire for power – God’s kind of power. So the desire grew into our 4th D-
4. DECISION
You know what it’s like to be tempted. You know what it’s like to get to the point of temptation where you’ve allowed the desire to grow to the point where it seems you just can’t say no. To a place where you make a thousand excuses of why its OK to do this bad thing- it’s only once, I promise, then I’ll never do it again. And besides, who am I hurting? No one will know. Sound familiar? If I smoke that joint, if I drink that beer, if I go on that porno web site, if I sleep with that guy or girl- just this one time. Eve was at that point. She had allowed the desire to grow so strongly that she felt like she couldn’t say no.
When I read this story there’s a difficult confession I have to make and I hope you can make. That is, if I were there in the Garden of Eden I would have done the same thing. I’d like to say that’s not true. I’d like to say that I would have loved God enough to say no to Satan. But Adam and Eve were there as representatives of us all. They were showing us what any of us would have done in any situation. So we can’t blame them for our sin. We can see in them the cause of our sin. And it led to the always ultimate result of sin…our final D-
5. DEATH
Satan says, “You won’t die!” and they take a bite. I don’t know about you, but if I was there that day in the Garden, I would have thought “If I take that bite am I going to fall over dead? What’s going to happen here?” But they didn’t just fall over dead. The died. Spiritually they died. All of a sudden a separation came between them and God. And they were going to face physical death like they wouldn’t have before. So immediately death came.
Romans 5:12 says:
Sin came into the world because of what one man did, and with sin came death. This is why everyone must die—because everyone sinned.
Not only would they die but all their children and their children’s children and their children’s children’s children would die. I look at this story and I see with some humility here that I would have done the same thing. But I also want to learn from this story. How could they have said no? How can you and I say no to the temptations that come into our lives? Because I am here to tell each and every one of you, without a shadow of a doubt, that without the power of Christ, it’s impossible to say no- but because you and I have the power of Christ we can learn from this story about how to say no.
How can we say no to temptation? It’s more than willpower. Kind of like me looking at that piece of chocolate cake and trying to use MY willpower to say no. The way that I respond to doubt and deception determines whether or not I will create a desire that provokes a decision that leads to death. That’s the process. The question is when do you handle temptation? You don’t try to handle it at the point of desire. If there are two kids parked in a car in the middle of nowhere, and then they decide to pray “Lead us not into temptation.” That may not be the right time to pray. It’s probably too late.
If you’re anything like me, you are probably sick and tired of desire coming into your life as a believer that you feel like you can’t say no to. You think, “How can I stop it? How can I have enough will power to say no?”
The teaching of God’s word is to start early. Start at the point of doubt. Start at the point of deception. Don’t go to those places where you know you’re going to be tempted. Don’t go to that party where people will be drinking and doing drugs. Don’t go on that date that may result in you making a bad decision. Don’t go in that car where the driver has been drinking. Don’t allow those thoughts to spin out of control in your mind. Talk to somebody about it. Talk to a trusted friend. Talk to any leader here tonight.
That’s not the end of the story. In Genesis 3:7-13 we see that sin leads to something. They do three things right away:
1. They sew fig leaves
2. They hide in the bushes when they hear God coming
3. They start pointing fingers at other people.
Same kind of things we do today, everyday. We sew fig leaves – we cover up. We hide in the bushes – we hide out. We point fingers at one another – we put down. That’s how we handle sin, how we deal with sin.
We sew fig leaves, cover up. That’s shame. That’s one of the human responses to sin. Shame.
We hide in the bushes, we hide out because of our fear. Fear is the second human response to sin.
We point fingers, we put others down. That is blame.
Shame, fear and blame. That’s what happens when we sin in our lives. Shame – nakedness. They noticed that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves for themselves and they covered themselves up. They were ashamed of their own nakedness. For the first time in their lives they were self-conscious. For the first time in their lives they were worried about what God thought of them. Shame had come into their lives.
They had fear. First they made fear by their sin and then fear began to make them. It began to make them act in certain ways and respond in certain ways and move in certain directions. It became their master.
Then came blame. This famous story of Adam and Eve and Eve and the serpent. God comes and says, “Adam, what happened?” and Adam says, “God, I'm going to be real honest with You. She made me do it!” It goes right down the line, “Eve, what happened?” “God, it was the serpent who made me do it. It was his fault.”
It’s so easy to blame someone else for my sin. Isn’t that true for you? It’s so easy to blame somebody else. It’s my boyfriend’s fault. It’s my girlfriend’s fault. It’s my teacher’s fault. It’s my parent’s fault. It’s my sister’s fault. It’s my brother’s fault. It’s Derek’s fault. It’s Bob’s fault. It’s Matt’s fault. It’s Pastor John’s fault. It’s Barak Obama’s fault. It’s President Bush’s fault. And somebody else may have contributed someway to the sin that’s in your life but it’s there because you chose it. No matter who invited you to do it, no matter who hurt you and made you do it, the truth is you and I just have to face up to it – “I chose to do it.” Even though I live in this terrible world, it was my choice. We need to get past the blame.
And, in the end, God’s relationship with Adam and Eve changes. God comes into the garden in the midst of this shame and blame and fear that’s going on and God calls out to the man.
“The man and his wife heard the sound of God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. The Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?"
It’s the first question of our faith. Most other religions besides Christianity – which isn’t a religion by the way- it’s a relationship – begin with the questions, “How can I find God?” but Christianity begins with God coming and looking for us. That’s our faith - that God came to this earth to look for us and He started in the Garden of Eden. He calls out “Where are you?” and their relationship immediately begins to change.
Then God did an amazing thing…
“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and He clothed them.”
At first you might be thinking, well, of course God made them garments Bob- they only had fig leaves for goodness sakes. But I don’t think that’s why he made them garments. I think God made them garments because they were ashamed. Ashamed because they had sinned. So God comes and He makes them garments to cover them up and the only reason they needed those garments was because they’d sinned.
Jesus Christ came and died on the cross to forgive my sins. That’s grace. That’s Jesus making garments of grace for me. I don’t deserve it but He makes them for me everyday, anyway.
To some of you, God is ready to come to you, right now, with those garments of grace and say, “Here. I know you’re embarrassed. I know you’re ashamed. I know you gave in to temptation. But’s OK. I love you. Take these garments, and cover yourselves up. I made them for you because I love you and I don't want you to fell ashamed.”
But you’re saying, “God, it was my fault. It was my fault that I did it. You don’t have to do anything for me. Just keep the garments. I’ll work this out by myself.” Even some of you who are believers. Maybe you’ve been believers for a long time but you’re rejecting God’s garments of grace because you feel too ashamed to take them, that you’re not worthy. Of course you’re not worthy and neither am I. But grace is all about being able to let God love you despite the fact that you’re a sinner.
Tonight some of you just need to hear this. Take the grace that God wants to show to you. Put those garments on and live the rest of your life with a sense of God’s love and a gratefulness for His grace that could only come because He has given something to you that you could have never earned by yourself.
Two things I would ask that you do next week and then we're done-
1. I encourage you each day this week to pray, “Lord, lead me not into temptation.” Many times we wait until we get into temptation and then we pray, “Lord, lead me out of temptations.” But Jesus taught us to pray in a different way – “Lead me not into temptation.” You’re never going to outgrow temptation as a believer. Jesus was tempted and He was perfect. We will never outgrow temptation. It’s impossible. But we can begin to have daily victories over temptation. Start each day of this week praying, “Lord, lead me not into temptation.”
2. Put on God’s garments of grace. Stop holding yourself accountable for something Jesus forgave you for when He died on the cross. Stop playing God. The garments that He sewed for Adam and Eve from the very beginning was to show grace to us in our sin. The cross is the clearest symbol, the most powerful symbol that God could have ever given. When God forgave you of your sin, He took that sin and put it as far away as east is from west. The Bible tells us that he threw it in the deepest part of the ocean and it sank. It’s to be remembered no more. God has forgotten it. And although you may remember it, I encourage you each time you remember it, put on God’s garments of grace again. The way you do that as a believer today is picture the cross and you recognize that Jesus died for this sin. You may have to picture the cross 1000 times tomorrow if there is a sin you’ve been struggling with for a long time in your life. It maybe 900 times the next day, then 700, 500, then once a week, once a year. That’s the way you begin to put on God’s garments of grace.
Prayer:
Some of you right now just take a deep breath and say, “Jesus, I don’t deserve it but I accept it. I am forgiven. I can never make up for my sin. That’s why You went to the cross. Lord, tonight, I'm deciding to stop being God and to receive Your forgiveness. Thank You for Your grace.”
Then together, Lord, every one of us wants to pray this prayer. We look to You in our hearts and say, “Jesus, as You taught us to pray lead us not into temptation.” Thank You for Your grace God. In Your name we pray. Amen
My name is Bob.
And I am a sinner.
How do I know that? Because the Bible tells me I am. But more importantly, the Bible tell me why. It tells me what got me caught up in it. And thank God it also tells me the way out. And Genesis 3 is an incredible chapter of scripture. Genesis 3 gives us a lot of news, and tonight, I hope to give you some news that you can use.
I don't know about you, but I want news I can use. I’ve watched the news but there’s not a whole lot in there that I can use. There’s a lot of negative stuff that I can’t use. There’s a lot of stuff about poodles and porpoises that I can’t use. And there is a lot of the tragedies at the beginning of the news, and that’s not useful. It’s depressing.
But what I am going to speak about tonight is news that you can use immediately, tonight.
Genesis 3 is an incredible chapter. I know it is in the Old Testament, and a lot of people just yawn when they here the words "Old Testament" - But Genesis 3 has a lot to say about what happened back then, thousands of years ago, and how it relates to my life and your life today. This is important, because it has been said that Genesis 3 in many ways is the most important piece of information ever conveyed to man. Because if you ignore the teaching of this chapter in history, the story of humanity becomes impossible to understand. And if you miss Genesis 3, you really cannot fully understand what Derek talked about last week with Noah and the flood. Because the most important thing about this Genesis 3 is that we find ourselves in this chapter.
Genesis 3 is about Adam & Eve, our original biological mother and father. You don’t have to be a Christian to have heard about Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. Adam & Eve and the Garden have been perverted by our society into almost everything that is not biblical- from silly cartoon characters to the brand name of a Cranberry Juice. And as we take a look at Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3, I’ve heard people say, “If only somehow we could get back to the Garden of Eden. If only somehow we could return to the beauty of that Garden, the water that was in that Garden. There’s something about that Garden that would make things perfect.”
Well, the Garden of Eden isn’t there any more. But hear me on this - Our need is not to find the Garden of Eden. Our need is to learn from what happened in the Garden of Eden so we can find the God who was there in the Garden of Eden. That’s what we want to find. Because Genesis 3 is the story of how sin first came into the human family.
Now the snake was the most clever of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day the snake said to the woman, "Did God really say that you must not eat fruit from any tree in the garden?"
The woman answered the snake, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. But God told us, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch it, or you will die.' "
But the snake said to the woman, "You will not die. God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, you will learn about good and evil and you will be like God!"
The woman saw that the tree was beautiful, that its fruit was good to eat, and that it would make her wise. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of the fruit to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
Then, it was as if their eyes were opened. They realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made something to cover themselves.
You can think of any tragedy that you want. Maybe a tragedy in your own life. Some of you in here tonight have lost a friend or family member to disease, or an accident. Some of you in here knew Jim Whittemore, a high school sports star that was killed in July 2007. Some of you knew, or have friends that knew that football player that died in a football game a couple of weeks ago. And there are dozens of stories in here tonight of people with friends and family and family of friends who are battling cancer. And it rips our hearts apart. And then there are the tragedies we watch on TV and the internet all day everyday- people losing everything to hurricanes and tornadoes, families losing everything they have because companies are shutting down.
But Genesis 3 talks about the greatest tragedy in human history. We all know that. We all know it not just because we read it in a book. We all know it because of what we’ve seen in our lives. You and I can look at this tragedy and learn from it. It shows us very clearly what leads to sin. It hasn’t changed. Satan doesn’t need any new tricks because the same old tricks keep working again and again with every new generation. Your generation is no different from Derek’s generation, which is no different from my generation, which is no different from the generation before me. It's the same pattern that has been repeating itself in all of our lives since Adam & Eve were in the Garden of Eden. It’s the pattern of the “Big D” -
The first part of the pattern is
1. Doubt
Satan starts with doubt. He comes to Eve and says, “Did God really say…?” And you might be thinking, a serpent? A snake? “How in the world could Eve be tempted by a snake?”
I don’t know how Satan did it. I don’t know if he appeared in the form of an animal, if he took over an animal. We don’t know the answer to that. But somehow he came appearing as a part of God’s creation and he planted a seed of doubt in her head. “Did God really say…” She began to battle with him. She began to talk with him.
But she didn’t realize what we need to learn tonight- We need to realize that on our own, we’re no match for Satan. There is not one of us in this room tonight that’s a match for Satan. Some of you guys in here who think you’re tough might think so. You may think, well Bob, I work out, I’m a star athlete in school, I can handle some snake. Others of you in here tonight may be thinking- Bob, c’mon- I’m smart…I get good grades, I understand things pretty quickly- I can handle this devil stuff. Or maybe you’re in here tonight and have a different kind of smart- you think you are street smart, cool, can handle it all. But my bet is that if you are in any of those categories, and there was a match between you and Satan, you would lose. Because there is only person who ever did beat Satan, and who can continue to beat him everytime. And his name is Jesus Christ.
Because of His victory, Jesus’ victory over satan, you and I can have victory over Satan. But none of us should try to battle him on our own. Martin Luther, the guy we saw in that movie a month ago, said of Satan, “No man is able to outwit the devil.” He’s been at this for thousands of years. He knows all the tricks. He knows all our thoughts. Don’t try to outwit him on your own. We look at God’s word. We ask for Christ’s help. That’s where the power is. That’s where the ability to do it is.
I'm not trying to depress you and say it’s impossible to win. I'm trying to encourage you and say we can’t win on our own, but we have someone who can win for us.
So satan comes and he plants this doubt. Did God really say? Did God really say not to eat from any tree? And satan plants the same seeds of doubt in each of us here tonight. Do you really think you can play on a varsity sport? Are you sure you can pass that test in English? Are you sure your friends are being loyal to you? Are you certain that your parents love you? Satan – planting seeds of doubt. There’s a huge question here, an important question. Why did God let this happen? Here’s the Garden of Eden. Everything’s perfect. Why did God let there be a tree in the middle of the Garden that if Adam or Eve ate of it, they’d die? Why did God do that? Why did He let satan in to tempt them to eat of that tree? Why did God let Satan in?
The answer to that awaits in heaven – most of it. But as you read the Bible – here in Genesis, Isaiah, Revelation – you get this indication that there was a great spiritual battle, one that we don't know all the details to. A battle between good and evil...between God and satan.
But the real key is not what Satan said but what we did. We made a choice to take the fruit of the tree and eat it. Why did God put that tree in the middle of the Garden? Why didn’t He just leave it out of the Garden so we could just live forever and everything would be perfect?
It's simply this- it's because of the kind of relationship God wanted to have with us. God did not want to have a relationship with us like He had with everything else He created...God created us in His image. How many times have you heard that statement or read it in Genesis. He created us to be in His image. What does that mean?
Being “in His image” means you and I have a choice and the tree in the middle of the garden provided the choice. It’s very important to understand what that choice was. We call it the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The choice wasn’t between good and evil. That’s not really the choice that Adam and Eve were making when they took of that fruit and ate it. The temptation was to become like God. The temptation was to say, “Maybe I have limits as a human being but maybe there’s a way I can overcome those limits and I can become God myself. Yeah- I like the sound of that...I'll be God!
Adam and Eve were a lot smarter than we think they were. A lot of times we think since they were innocent and ran around with fig leaves on and just listened to satan that they were dumb. But they had perfect brains. We use maybe 5% of our brain – maybe. I probably use a lot less than that. But Adam & Eve had 100% going for them. They were super intelligent. They knew the issues. The issue was, “Am I going to be satisfied to be God’s creation and worship Him and depend on Him, or am I going to step outside of that circle and try to do it on my own?” That has always been the issue when it comes to sin. That’s why we talk about it so much here at RISE708- do I do things God’s way, or my way? Do I want God big in my life, or do I want to be God?
Satan begins with a question. “Did God really say…?” Do you know what he’s trying to do? It’s what he tries to do in my life and your life everyday. He’s messin’ with your head. He’s was trying to change how Eve thought of God. He’s trying to make God appear to be something that He isn’t in her mind. Satan is trying to make God look like a miser. Someone who’s keeping something good from them. Has Satan ever sent that kind of temptation into your mind? Of course he has. How many times have you been tempted to do something you know is against God’s will, but satan keeps telling you its Ok…it’s OK to do drugs…it’s OK to drink alcohol…it’s OK to have sex before you are married…it’s OK to be addicted to porn…see how good all that stuff makes you feel. So satan tries to trick us – trick us into believing that God is trying to take things away from us that would make us feel good. Satan is trying to make you doubt.
So Eve began to doubt. That led to the next D-
2. Deception
So now satan has Eve reeling a little bit – she’s doubting. Then Satan comes and tells a bold faced lie. Satan is the father of lies. He doesn’t care about lying. It doesn’t hurt him to lie. It doesn’t hurt him to lie to hurt us, to lie to your boyfriends or girlfriends, to lie to your teachers, your parents, the leaders here at RISE7078, anybody. He lies. He says, go ahead and eat from the tree - “You will not die.”
That was a lie. Because they would die spiritually. They would die physically. They’d watch one of their sons be murdered. All because of this sin that came into their lives.
I know that God has brought some of you here tonight because you’re struggling with some temptations right now. That’s why you thought you’d come tonight. You may not realize it right this moment. You may not realize it until next week, or next year, or when you are 60 years old. But there is a reason you are here tonight. You may be feeling cheated or deprived or limited right now. You’re feeling like, “God’s holding out on me!” or “I'm being cheated of something that life really owes me.” That’s the same feelings that Satan was trying to bring up in Eve’s heart and life. We all have them sometimes. If you’re feeling that way, you’re here tonight to read this chapter and to know whose voice it is that’s saying that. It’s the same tempter, saying the same things thousands of years later. He’s the one who wants to make us feel like we’re not getting out of life what life owes us when God has poured His grace upon us. He deceives her. That deception leads straight into the D of…
3. DESIRE
Eve saw three things. She looked and she saw this fruit that was on the tree and said, “It’s good for food! It’s pleasing to the eye. It’s desirable for gaining wisdom.” All those three sins are right here at the very beginning. The desire for pleasure, the desire for possession, the desire for power – God’s kind of power. So the desire grew into our 4th D-
4. DECISION
You know what it’s like to be tempted. You know what it’s like to get to the point of temptation where you’ve allowed the desire to grow to the point where it seems you just can’t say no. To a place where you make a thousand excuses of why its OK to do this bad thing- it’s only once, I promise, then I’ll never do it again. And besides, who am I hurting? No one will know. Sound familiar? If I smoke that joint, if I drink that beer, if I go on that porno web site, if I sleep with that guy or girl- just this one time. Eve was at that point. She had allowed the desire to grow so strongly that she felt like she couldn’t say no.
When I read this story there’s a difficult confession I have to make and I hope you can make. That is, if I were there in the Garden of Eden I would have done the same thing. I’d like to say that’s not true. I’d like to say that I would have loved God enough to say no to Satan. But Adam and Eve were there as representatives of us all. They were showing us what any of us would have done in any situation. So we can’t blame them for our sin. We can see in them the cause of our sin. And it led to the always ultimate result of sin…our final D-
5. DEATH
Satan says, “You won’t die!” and they take a bite. I don’t know about you, but if I was there that day in the Garden, I would have thought “If I take that bite am I going to fall over dead? What’s going to happen here?” But they didn’t just fall over dead. The died. Spiritually they died. All of a sudden a separation came between them and God. And they were going to face physical death like they wouldn’t have before. So immediately death came.
Romans 5:12 says:
Sin came into the world because of what one man did, and with sin came death. This is why everyone must die—because everyone sinned.
Not only would they die but all their children and their children’s children and their children’s children’s children would die. I look at this story and I see with some humility here that I would have done the same thing. But I also want to learn from this story. How could they have said no? How can you and I say no to the temptations that come into our lives? Because I am here to tell each and every one of you, without a shadow of a doubt, that without the power of Christ, it’s impossible to say no- but because you and I have the power of Christ we can learn from this story about how to say no.
How can we say no to temptation? It’s more than willpower. Kind of like me looking at that piece of chocolate cake and trying to use MY willpower to say no. The way that I respond to doubt and deception determines whether or not I will create a desire that provokes a decision that leads to death. That’s the process. The question is when do you handle temptation? You don’t try to handle it at the point of desire. If there are two kids parked in a car in the middle of nowhere, and then they decide to pray “Lead us not into temptation.” That may not be the right time to pray. It’s probably too late.
If you’re anything like me, you are probably sick and tired of desire coming into your life as a believer that you feel like you can’t say no to. You think, “How can I stop it? How can I have enough will power to say no?”
The teaching of God’s word is to start early. Start at the point of doubt. Start at the point of deception. Don’t go to those places where you know you’re going to be tempted. Don’t go to that party where people will be drinking and doing drugs. Don’t go on that date that may result in you making a bad decision. Don’t go in that car where the driver has been drinking. Don’t allow those thoughts to spin out of control in your mind. Talk to somebody about it. Talk to a trusted friend. Talk to any leader here tonight.
That’s not the end of the story. In Genesis 3:7-13 we see that sin leads to something. They do three things right away:
1. They sew fig leaves
2. They hide in the bushes when they hear God coming
3. They start pointing fingers at other people.
Same kind of things we do today, everyday. We sew fig leaves – we cover up. We hide in the bushes – we hide out. We point fingers at one another – we put down. That’s how we handle sin, how we deal with sin.
We sew fig leaves, cover up. That’s shame. That’s one of the human responses to sin. Shame.
We hide in the bushes, we hide out because of our fear. Fear is the second human response to sin.
We point fingers, we put others down. That is blame.
Shame, fear and blame. That’s what happens when we sin in our lives. Shame – nakedness. They noticed that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves for themselves and they covered themselves up. They were ashamed of their own nakedness. For the first time in their lives they were self-conscious. For the first time in their lives they were worried about what God thought of them. Shame had come into their lives.
They had fear. First they made fear by their sin and then fear began to make them. It began to make them act in certain ways and respond in certain ways and move in certain directions. It became their master.
Then came blame. This famous story of Adam and Eve and Eve and the serpent. God comes and says, “Adam, what happened?” and Adam says, “God, I'm going to be real honest with You. She made me do it!” It goes right down the line, “Eve, what happened?” “God, it was the serpent who made me do it. It was his fault.”
It’s so easy to blame someone else for my sin. Isn’t that true for you? It’s so easy to blame somebody else. It’s my boyfriend’s fault. It’s my girlfriend’s fault. It’s my teacher’s fault. It’s my parent’s fault. It’s my sister’s fault. It’s my brother’s fault. It’s Derek’s fault. It’s Bob’s fault. It’s Matt’s fault. It’s Pastor John’s fault. It’s Barak Obama’s fault. It’s President Bush’s fault. And somebody else may have contributed someway to the sin that’s in your life but it’s there because you chose it. No matter who invited you to do it, no matter who hurt you and made you do it, the truth is you and I just have to face up to it – “I chose to do it.” Even though I live in this terrible world, it was my choice. We need to get past the blame.
And, in the end, God’s relationship with Adam and Eve changes. God comes into the garden in the midst of this shame and blame and fear that’s going on and God calls out to the man.
“The man and his wife heard the sound of God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. The Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?"
It’s the first question of our faith. Most other religions besides Christianity – which isn’t a religion by the way- it’s a relationship – begin with the questions, “How can I find God?” but Christianity begins with God coming and looking for us. That’s our faith - that God came to this earth to look for us and He started in the Garden of Eden. He calls out “Where are you?” and their relationship immediately begins to change.
Then God did an amazing thing…
“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and He clothed them.”
At first you might be thinking, well, of course God made them garments Bob- they only had fig leaves for goodness sakes. But I don’t think that’s why he made them garments. I think God made them garments because they were ashamed. Ashamed because they had sinned. So God comes and He makes them garments to cover them up and the only reason they needed those garments was because they’d sinned.
Jesus Christ came and died on the cross to forgive my sins. That’s grace. That’s Jesus making garments of grace for me. I don’t deserve it but He makes them for me everyday, anyway.
To some of you, God is ready to come to you, right now, with those garments of grace and say, “Here. I know you’re embarrassed. I know you’re ashamed. I know you gave in to temptation. But’s OK. I love you. Take these garments, and cover yourselves up. I made them for you because I love you and I don't want you to fell ashamed.”
But you’re saying, “God, it was my fault. It was my fault that I did it. You don’t have to do anything for me. Just keep the garments. I’ll work this out by myself.” Even some of you who are believers. Maybe you’ve been believers for a long time but you’re rejecting God’s garments of grace because you feel too ashamed to take them, that you’re not worthy. Of course you’re not worthy and neither am I. But grace is all about being able to let God love you despite the fact that you’re a sinner.
Tonight some of you just need to hear this. Take the grace that God wants to show to you. Put those garments on and live the rest of your life with a sense of God’s love and a gratefulness for His grace that could only come because He has given something to you that you could have never earned by yourself.
Two things I would ask that you do next week and then we're done-
1. I encourage you each day this week to pray, “Lord, lead me not into temptation.” Many times we wait until we get into temptation and then we pray, “Lord, lead me out of temptations.” But Jesus taught us to pray in a different way – “Lead me not into temptation.” You’re never going to outgrow temptation as a believer. Jesus was tempted and He was perfect. We will never outgrow temptation. It’s impossible. But we can begin to have daily victories over temptation. Start each day of this week praying, “Lord, lead me not into temptation.”
2. Put on God’s garments of grace. Stop holding yourself accountable for something Jesus forgave you for when He died on the cross. Stop playing God. The garments that He sewed for Adam and Eve from the very beginning was to show grace to us in our sin. The cross is the clearest symbol, the most powerful symbol that God could have ever given. When God forgave you of your sin, He took that sin and put it as far away as east is from west. The Bible tells us that he threw it in the deepest part of the ocean and it sank. It’s to be remembered no more. God has forgotten it. And although you may remember it, I encourage you each time you remember it, put on God’s garments of grace again. The way you do that as a believer today is picture the cross and you recognize that Jesus died for this sin. You may have to picture the cross 1000 times tomorrow if there is a sin you’ve been struggling with for a long time in your life. It maybe 900 times the next day, then 700, 500, then once a week, once a year. That’s the way you begin to put on God’s garments of grace.
Prayer:
Some of you right now just take a deep breath and say, “Jesus, I don’t deserve it but I accept it. I am forgiven. I can never make up for my sin. That’s why You went to the cross. Lord, tonight, I'm deciding to stop being God and to receive Your forgiveness. Thank You for Your grace.”
Then together, Lord, every one of us wants to pray this prayer. We look to You in our hearts and say, “Jesus, as You taught us to pray lead us not into temptation.” Thank You for Your grace God. In Your name we pray. Amen
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