Revelation 22:17, Quench Your Spiritual Thirst

Have you ever experienced dehydration? During a working trip in Mexico when the weather was consistently near 100 degrees, we worked every morning from 6am-12noon outside, pouring the foundations for buildings, with cement we mixed by hand, into holes we dug with pick axes and shovels. Cutting edge technology. During one of those hot summer days, we were near completing one of our six foot by six foot by six foot holes in the ground, and when everyone else took a coke break, I kept working. I thought I was helping the team, and that if anything, people would think I was really hard working for skipping the break. I was wrong. On the ride home, something terrible happened to me. Suddenly I had a burst of energy, and remember talking really, really fast, and then my legs went numb, and the numbness and tingling went through the rest of my body. I said I needed help, and we stopped the van and pulled off the road by a drink stand. One of our helpers was a nurse, and she realized I was dehydrated, and according to her I was on the verge of heat stroke. She and others hauled me out of the van, and over to the drinking stand, and I drank 5 12 ounce Joya drinks in a row before I started to feel better. It took the whole ride home and the rest of the day to recover, and a lot of fluid later, but I finally did. I was desperate, and dangerously thirsty, and by God’s grace I was satisfied.

Need: Whether or not we’ve been to Mexico, whether or not you’ve worked all day without a break, all of us are thirsty this morning. We are thirsty spiritually for something that will satisfy

Look with me in your Bibles at Revelation 22:17. If you’re looking for a place to satisfy that desperate thirst, here it is. You can be a Christian and still be thirsty, or someone who has never heard about Jesus Christ and be thirsty.
(READ IT)
This book of Revelation is just that—John’s vision from Jesus Christ Himself, as he was on an island as a form of imprisonment for his faith in Jesus. He is at the end of his vision and after everything he has seen, both the positives of the blessings of following Jesus that wait for us, and the judgment and suffering that waits for everyone who rejects Jesus, John says, “Come!”
Notice there are three parts to this verse: The Spirit and the Bride, the one who hears, and the one who is thirsty. All of them are different persons, but all of them are thirsty for the same thing—Jesus Christ.
Like a three leaved clover, they all have a life giving stem in common—the life giving Jesus Christ who died and is alive again so you can believe in Him and have that eternal life.
The first ones are the Holy Spirit and the Bride. The Holy Spirit was sent after Jesus went away, in Acts 2, to occupy every person who follows the teaching of Jesus Christ. He groans, in Romans 8, waiting for that time when Jesus will come back. The Holy Spirit’s ministry is to give you guilty feelings when you sin and to give you feelings of assurance when you are obedient to God, to open peoples’ eyes to Jesus Christ, to work through Jesus’ church until He comes! The Holy Spirit waits and desires for Jesus to come.
The Bride—which is the New Testament’s way of describing the Church (Eph 5). It says, “And the Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come!’” This is in response to Jesus’ words in verse 12 before, where he said, “Look, I am coming soon!” This is an informational statement, meaning “this is what the Holy Spirit and the Church do—they desire that Jesus Christ will come, and come soon!”
It means God the Holy Spirit and the history of Christians for 2,000 years have wanted this! Jesus is coming back in order to fix everything broken, heal, help, and to make “all things new.”
It means Jesus is coming back
A few days ago I was in charge of making my kids' lunch. I decided to have peanutbutter sandwiches and the first compliment I found was fudge. So I told my kids we were going to have peanutbutter and fudge sandwiches. You should have seen their faces! They were so excited because they were about to receive peanutbutter and fudge. Some of them tasted the fudge and were even more excited. That's expectation, and how we should feel about Jesus coming back!

The second group spoken of is “the one who hears,” and instead of John saying “people who hear say come,”
The word “say” here is a command. John commands the people who hear everything he has said to also desire Jesus Christ to come back. John wrote about the churches needing to be faithful, about how there will be evil to sway us away from following God, about how your faith will be tested, about how terrible judgment waits for people who decide not to follow Jesus, about how we who follow Jesus must endure to the end (the one who endures to the end will be saved) and then says, “let the one who hears say ‘Come!’”
In the Bible, Deuteronomy 6 is called “The Great Shema” among the Jewish people, and it says (quote), and when they said, “the one who hears” they meant “the one who hears and obeys.” Jesus said, “let him who has an ear, let him hear!” He meant “the one who hears and obeys.” John knew that all of you who are sitting here today would not understand or appreciate what he is saying. So he says, “let him who hears and obeys” say come!
Jesus said in John 7, “let the one who believes in me drink. Just as the Scripture says, ‘From within him will flow rivers of living water.’”
This is the picture of someone who has drank from the water of life Jesus has to offer and turns around, waving his hands, saying, Come! Come on! Trust me, it works!
A man was walking in the desert, and came to a jug of water by an old well pump. The jug had a sign on it that said, “you have to pour the full jug of water into the pump in order to get fresh, cool, clean water out.” The man hesitated, debating whether he should take what he knew was drinkable water (though it probably was old and had bacteria), or take a risk so he could get clean, pure water. He took the risk. He poured the water into the pump to prime it, and the jug was soon empty. He pulled the pump handle and worked it up and down, but nothing came out. Again he pumped it, and nothing. Again, nothing. Finally, he was thinking it was a hoax--a cruel trick, when he pumped one more time and water began dripping. He pumped again, and more water slowly trickled out. He pumped again and it became a steady flow, and the more he pumped the bigger it got until it ran all over the desert ground, and he filled up the jug and drank, and drank, and drank until he couldn't drink anymore. He filled up the jug one more time, put the cork on it, and took a pen (don't ask where he got a pen in the desert--just work with me) he wrote on the jug, “It works! Trust me!”

We who have tasted and know should say, "Hey! It works! Trust me!"
Desiring Jesus to come back is the natural outcome of a follower of Jesus.
The ones who follow Jesus, believing in His death and resurrection have had their thirst quenched, but haven’t drank enough! Because life has a way of making us thirsty for God! We try to find all kinds of things that satisfy, but only God satisfies.
Have you become satisfied with what little water you have received? Do you want Jesus to come back more than anything? Do you want His healing? His power? His new life?

3) The third group of people John appeals to are the people who thirst, and haven’t yet discovered that Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to relieve your thirst. This third part is for those who don’t yet have Jesus to quench their thirst, but they are thirsty.
What does God say in response to you when you need help? When you can’t make it? He says, “Come!”
In the Bible, God has always said, “Come” to those who are thirsty and needy.
The Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark with you and all your household.”
In Exodus 32:26, Moses said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me!”
In Isaiah 1:18, God says, “Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow.”
Jesus said to his disciples when he called them, “Come to me!”
Jesus said to go to the highways and byways and compel people to “Come in”
Now, Jesus says in Revelation, “Come! Come! Come! Come!” “I am the bread of life, so come! I am the water that you can drink from forever, so come! I am the comfort, the peace, the love, the awesome party you’ve been waiting for! Come! I am the father, who welcomes every rebellious son or daughter home and says, “Throw a party, he’s back! She’s home! Come!”
Like in Mexico, there was no doubt that something was wrong with me. I didn’t know what until the nurse started handing me drinks.
You, who don’t believe in Jesus Christ, you are desperately thirsty, and know that something is wrong with you! But you don’t know what. You don’t know it, but the thing that is wrong is there is a hole inside of you that is shaped like the 1st Century carpenter from Nazareth in Israel. It’s a thirst that water can’t quench, that only by giving up your life to Jesus Christ can you find this water of life!
At the end of Revelation, Jesus speaks again, and says, “Come! Come, all who are thirsty!” Do you hear his cry, see his hands with nail holes in them, see his feet and side, the head with deep thorn scars?
Are you looking for a high that will last longer than a bottle of brandy or roll of weed, or a weekend of sleeping around? Have you tried your best but keep coming up with emptiness? Are you lonely? You don’t know it, but you long for that water of life.
What did Jesus say, “And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wants it take the water of life free of charge.”
If you’ve never understood until now that you can have eternal life simply by believing in Jesus’ death and resurrection, and that He paid what you had to pay so you can have life with Him, and you want to believe in Him and have that life, then pray now and tell him.

Knowing God, Ruth

It was a cold day at Sunset Lodge in Michigan, and nearly 100 teens were gathered for our annual winter retreat. I was one of the teens listening to the speaker as he urged us to remain pure and godly, and he said something that shaped my entire dating life. He said to pray for your future wife, asking God to protect her, keep her pure, and make her more like Christ. From that point on I prayed that prayer every day. While I waited, I prayed, and allowed God to lead me to the woman I eventually married. After we were married, we had Trinity, and when Trinity was a little over a year, we wanted to have a second child. We again had to wait, because (for reasons we still don’t know) for a time we could not have anymore children. We came to the point of adoption, and began to discuss options with those who had already gone through a successful adoption process, and while we waited we prayed, and then God allowed us to have another child—Tommy.

You are waiting for something today. Either you are waiting on God for someone to marry, someone to call your child, the right job to open up, enough money for medical expenses, a cure for a sickness, someone who needs Jesus to come to Him, a friend or relative who is making bad decisions to make right ones, or world peace. Everyone is waiting for something to happen! While we wait—you must trust in God!

Today we’ll see 4 Lessons from Ruth as a model for what you can do while you wait for God

Ruth is someone who we should not even be talking about, an unlikely hero from an unlikely region—Moab, an unlikely gender—female. Our story opens with Ruth having married Mahlon, son of Elimelech and Naomi, from the 200 person town of Bethlehem. Mahlon and his parents, along with his brother Chilion, traveled from Bethlehem to Moab, going at least 50 miles around the Dead Sea to find food during a time of famine. Even though they were close geographically, it was possible because of the landscape for one area to have plenty while another had famine. In 1931, the same thing happened in that region, where Bethlehem had famine while the other side of the Dead Sea had plenty. In the land of Moab, Ruth and Mahlon remained married for 10 years until Mahlon, his father, and his brother all died. Ruth was a widow with only her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. So Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, heard that God had provided for His people (1:6) and so she said goodbye, and Ruth’s sister-in-law decided to stay behind. But we’re told with very strong Hebrew language that Ruth “clung to” Naomi, with a strong, unconditional love. Ruth made a strong statement of faith and dependence on God, despite her desperate situation, saying “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God,” (1:16).

The first Lesson we can learn from Ruth, is while you wait for God, love people.
1) Love people unconditionally
God shows His unconditional love to His people, who are supposed to show it to others
Ruth took a step of faith by clinging to Naomi, disowning everything and trusting in Naomi’s God, and helping Naomi. God showed His hesed for Naomi in 2:20 through Boaz providing for Ruth and Naomi. So the way God shows His unconditional love for people is many times through other people!
It means that when you are hurting, suffering, praying, begging God for help, continue to have others in mind and devote yourself to loving others. If we stop loving others because we feel bad, there will never be a time when we love each other.
It’s like your family, how you stick together, stand up for each other, defend each other, give of yourself to each other—God’s people should be like that to their family, church family, and even those who aren’t Christian.
Who has God put in your path who is also hurting? Love them.

The second lesson we learn from Ruth is not only to love others unconditionally, but to:
2) Lean on God
God has a redeemer for those who decide to trust in Him, so trust in Him!
Leaning on God does not mean sitting still. In fact, Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God,” but doesn’t mean being sedentary or lazy. It means stop trying to do things your way and do things God’s way! Ruth did what the law provided for them—she gleaned in the fields of grain, picking up the leftover grain that fell as the harvesters cut it down.
Boaz noticed her, and her work ethic, and offered her better grain, more grain, and protection. Ruth met Boaz, who was kind to her and also trusted in God
While she waited for God to provide, Ruth did not just sit still, seek free money or handouts, or give in to laziness. Ruth worked in the fields gleaning grain in order to do what she could.
Leaning on God means we do our best and after you’ve done everything you can do, leave the rest up to God! Leave room for God! It means when your money runs out, your sin overflows, and you’re lonely and discouraged, you should stretch out to God and lean on Him!
Remember the words from that song, “Lean on me, when you’re not strong, I’ll take your hand, I’ll help you carry on,” is not just for one another, but for God! Lean on God more than anyone or anything else!
A few weeks ago Trinity and I were playing with helicopter seeds from a maple tree. We decided to take a few seeds and plant them in a pot of dirt I mixed together, and then we watered the seeds in. A few days later, someone accidentally took most of the dirt out of the pot, and Trinity was sad that the seeds wouldn’t grow. Two days ago, we noticed a healthy 4 inch maple shoot sticking up out of that pot. That’s perseverance!
You can be exactly like that, as you trust in God, despite life’s problems, in spite of people taking things from you, in spite of bad decisions, in spite of obstacles, you can still grow if you lean on God! God can provide everything you need!
Lean on God by trusting Him while you wait and persevere. Don’t give up! God has a redeemer for you who trust in Him! Now is the time when people need to see your faith in God. Now is the time people need to see a Christian who endures suffering! Now is the time when the world full of violence, fighting, crime, sexual perversion, abuse, broken families, crumbling nations, weak economics—now is the time they need to see that Jesus Christ didn’t just die on the cross for your sin once upon a time, and rise from the dead once upon a time, but He is alive today and giving strength today, and you have hope today in Him, and you know that you know that you know that you know you have eternal life, and an abundant life now! That’s leaning on God!
Steven Curtis Chapman came out with an album on November last year, called "Beauty From Ashes." The secular music industry praised it more highly than a Christian Contemporary artist’s album has been praised in a long time. Why? Because it was about how he still believed in God even though he lost his five year old daughter. The entire album is the story of his grief, worry, pain, joy, and hope. Leaning on God

3) Leap in faith by asking the redeemer to save you
when people want God’s redemption, they must take a step of faith
Ruth took a leap of faith in order to find redemption, by going to the threshing floor at night and proposing to Boaz. Read what happens in chatper 3 (3:1-18, skim). Ruth had already taken refuge under God’s wings (2:12) and Boaz noticed it. Now she knew Boaz was a redeemer, and Naomi commanded her to pursue it, and she did!
When birds are in a nest, there comes a time when they need one day to take a leap of faith! Don’t’ stay in the nest forever, you eventually have to go out in faith.

4)Let God work and be redeemed
God redeems those who trust in Him for redemption
Boaz showed unconditional love towards Ruth and Redeemed Ruth. But beyond Boaz, God was the One who orchestrated this marriage. God worked so that Ruth had been married for 10 years and hadn’t had any children before her husband died, and that must have hurt. God had planned for Ruth—someone who wasn’t supposed to be accepted in God’s community—to marry Boaz (someone who did not have to redeem Ruth) in order to provide for Ruth and Naomi, in order to provide for the line of King David (Israel’s greatest king and leader to this day), and in order to provide a Messiah for the world! Ruth 4 tells us how Ruth’s lineage led to David, and Matthew 1:5 shows us David was an ancestor of Jesus Christ.
This means that when you let God work to save you from your problems, you get better results than when you come up with a solution that is ungodly. This means that after you worked
Ruth’s act of faith
You may not need to be redeemed for salvation, but someone today does! And they are waiting to see if you will Love, Lean, Leap, and Let God work and bless you.

Nichole Nordeman sang a song "Brave," where she said "I am small and I speak when I'm spoken to, but I'm willing to give it all for you . . . so long status quo, I think I just let go, You make me want to be brave."
While you wait for God, love people, lean on God, leap in faith into God’s hands, and let God work.

4 Changes for Knowing God in an Ungodly Culture, pt 2

In his prime, Mike was sought after by Six Flags Great America and Walt Disney for writing music group performances, like the show Glee. In the late 1980’s, if you went to Six Flags Great America, you could catch a show or musical written and sometimes performed by Mike and his group. He was called to the ministry, and God used his music talent and athleticism to reach hundreds of young people for Christ, and to lead God’s people in inspiring worship every Sunday. I worked with him in praise and worship, and with teen ministries for several years. When I went to Moody, he was one of the only ones who kept in touch with me and encouraged me to continue in my call to the ministry. Unfortunately, one day Mike revealed some sin that had crept in, and ended up resigning. We were shocked and devastated, and it was an ugly church-split situation. Mike had everything going for him with his talent and skill, and yet spiritually he had become weak and gave into stealing. I love him still very, very much, but it caught up to him.
If you remember, we’re studying Samson in Judges 16. So far, we have said:
1) Change your lifestyle, before God changes it for you
If you don’t live for God, sometimes God will cause problems so you will start to live for Him.
When God’s people accept an ungodly culture, sometimes God causes dissension between His people and unbelievers in order to free His people from them.

2) Confess your sin, while God is patient
When God doesn’t punish you for sin, and still uses you, it isn’t because He thinks your sin is okay. It’s because He’s giving you a chance to repent.
God’s patience is not the same as God’s forgiveness

Follow the downward spiral with me, and see that in Judges 16:1-3, Samson continued his life of immorality.
Keep going and he meets Delilah, who, after her fourth attempt to seduce him into telling his secret, finally gets it out of him. Delilah is a Philistines woman (idol worshipper), and Samson not only wants a woman without marriage, but an ungodly woman. The Bible says that the first two attempts to get Samson’s secret to his strength came from the rulers of the Philistines, who supplied Delilah with the thongs and rope to tie up Samson, and offered her 1,100 shekels (28 lbs) of silver per ruler if she could subdue him. Knowing there were 5 top leaders of the Philistines, that would be 5,500 shekels, which was 550 times the annual wage of the average Philistine. If the annual wage were $25,000, Delilah would have been offered $15 million to seduce and subdue Samson. She could not resist.
Delilah was the driver the last two attempts, using everything in her power to get Samson to tell his secret, and finally succeeding. On the day she lulled him into her lap and shaved his head. Judges 16:18-21 tells us (READ IT)

I want to say two more truths about Samson and then I’m done.
3) Consider godly character as more valuable than anything else

God doesn’t care about your physical abilities or appearance as much as He cares about your character and conduct. It’s the motives that will be judged one day!
It means that though Samson had unmatched physical strength, it wasn’t enough!
God cares about the inside. Samson was unmatched physically, the most feared Israelite by the Philistine superpower of his region. He was the war hero, the mvp, the Olympic gold medalist, the NBA superstar, the hockey mvp, all of it! Yet spiritually he was weaker than a pee wee toddler just learning to play ball.
It means you can be the most handsome, beautiful, strong, fast, most skilled, but if the inside is full of ungodliness, in God’s eyes you are not handsome, beautiful, strong, fast, or the most skilled. Remember what Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:8, “for bodily discipline is of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life, and also for the life to come.”
God cares more about the inside of you than He does about the outside of you. God cares more about WHO you are, than WHAT you do for a career, or HOW MUCH money you make, or HOW MANY hours a week you work, or WHERE you came from.
This is important! Because some of you Christians think your musical or athletic skill is enough to please God, and you don’t care about growing spiritually! That’s just like Samson!
IMAGE: Would you drink out of a cup at a restaurant that was shiny clean on the outside, but dirty on the inside? God wants people who are beautiful on the inside as well as on the outside!
Everything physical is doomed to end one day, but godliness is forever!
Isaiah 40:6, 8, says, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flower of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of God endures forever”
We need a group of Christians who will be the first to make spiritual strength their priority. It starts with disciplining yourself to act more like Jesus and follow His teachings.
Like in the military: Would the Army take someone who just came to a recruiting center and put a gun in their hands and send them to Afghanistan? Would the Milwaukee Brewers take just anyone who could swing a bat and throw a ball and put them on the pitcher’s mound and in the batting rotation (some would say yes). No! In the military, it would be bad for two reasons: 1) the army’s chance of success would drop dramatically without a trained soldier, and 2) your chance of survival would drop dramatically without training.
Spiritually, we are involved in a war far more deadly than anything physical, especially because you can’t see it! It’s a war inside of you, and all around you, where Satan our enemy disguises himself as an agent of light, and your sin nature (and mine) desire to follow the devil’s temptations. And without you spending time training, the mission of Jesus building His church will not benefit from your involvement, and 2) your chances of finishing this life committed to Jesus Christ will also drop drastically.
You need to become familiar with the spiritual disciplines. Here are some basic disciplines that all believers need to be aware of, as listed by Donald Whitney in his book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life: Bible reading/intake, prayer, worship, evangelism, serving, stewardship, fasting, silence and solitude, journaling what God is doing, and learning about the Christian life. Also, confession, accountability, humility, submission to authority, submission to each other, celebration, affirmation, and sacrifice are necessary. These take a lifetime to master, so you need to start now!
So today decide to search more for God and being like Him than any other goal you have! Young people graduating, if you want a happy life, make knowing Jesus Christ the most important thing in your life. If you get hooked on God, He will show you the good life.
Like Charles H. Spurgeon said
What the hand is to the lute, what the breath is to the flute, what is fragrance to the smell, what the spring is to the well, what the flower is to the bee, that is Jesus Christ to me;
What’s the mother to the child, what the guide in pathless wild, what is oil to troubled wave, what is ransom to the slave, what is water to the sea, that is Jesus Christ to me.

4) The last point I have is in Judges 17. Though Samson had been humiliated, and fell morally and physically, he had one more chance to be redeemed.
He was in the temple of Dagon, mocked and forced to perform for the crowd. With all the rulers in the temple, and 3,000 men and women on the roof (meaning it was full), Samson received God’s strength one more time in Judges 16:28-31. Samson sacrificed his life to glorify God!
4) Create a fresh sacrifice if you have fallen down.
If you have failed to
1) Change your lifestyle before God stirred you; and failed to 2) Confess your sin before God’s patience ran out, and failed to 3) Consider godly character above everything else in the world, then 4) Create a fresh sacrifice
God is slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness, and accepts people who humble themselves and repent.
It means you are never too bad to be used by God. It means God is the God of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 10th, 100th, 1,000th, infinite chances to change! It means God is not cruel towards people who repent! If Samson could be used again, so can you! God has a purpose even for you in 2010, even after you’ve blown it, so get up, dust yourself off, and cry out to God again.
Like a gentle mother who carefully corrects her children, so God will keep correcting you, and open His arms to use you again.
Don’t get satisfied if you’ve fallen down. Get back up. Create a fresh sacrifice.
Did you hear the key word, though? Sacrifice. What did Samson give up to glorify God? Everything! He is listed in Hebrews 11 as a man of faith who served God, but he didn’t serve God by his life, but by his death. Look at Judges 16:30. It says, “thus he killed many more when he died, than when he lived.”
You, Christian, who are living with everything physical and nothing spiritual, you need to take your life and sacrifice it to God!
I have a box full of musical awards. This box represents 7 years of practicing, performing, playing music for church, school, the Christian Youth Center, Daycamp, jazz band awards in Illinois and Tennessee and in between. I say with Paul in Philippians 3, that “I consider them “skubula” that I may gain Christ and be found in Him!” That I may know Him more!
These physical abilities, mental abilities, looks, talents, and skills, mean nothing if you have no spiritual life! That’s why Jesus is so important, because He is the ONLY one who can give you life!
The great news is, no matter where you have been, you can CREATE A FRESH SACRIFICE!
Samson brought down the temple of Dagon, and all the Philistine rulers. He killed the rule of sin in his culture and in himself by one man’s sacrifice! If you will take this bold step today and throw yourself down at the cross of Jesus Christ, you will not only start clean in your own life, but God will demolish the hold of sin in your life! Do you need to break free from the habit of drinking? Create a fresh sacrifice today! Do you need freedom from the habit of gossip? Slander? Your wild tongue? Hurting yourself or others through physical abuse? Hurting your marriage through verbal abuse? Are you hateful towards your brother? All of these are traps that you can be free from! Throw it all down before Jesus Christ today. First trusting in Him as your savior by believing in His death and resurrection, and 2nd by giving Him the driver’s seat.

1) Change your lifestyle before God stirred you; and failed to 2) Confess your sin before God’s patience ran out, and failed to 3) Consider godly character above everything else in the world, then 4) Create a fresh start
Remember Mike? All talent and skill, without spiritual discipline? He was restored to ministry. He went through the hard work of confession and repentance, and God began using him again.
What about you?

"4 Changes For Knowing God in an Ungodly Culture," pt 1

I once worked with a man who was being used by God on the outside to help with our youth group, but little did we know he was living a life of deep sinfulness and immorality at the same time. Fortunately, God protected us by not letting him get too close to our kids. Unfortunately, this man is in prison today because he did not change.
A friend of my friend, who was a pastor, and the best man at my friend’s wedding was being used by God to draw thousands of people to his church every weekend, and the church exploded with growth, but he too was taken away for sin he committed.
Another man, who was being used by God to lead God’s people in worship and lead hundreds of teenagers to Christ, suddenly had some skeletons that came out of the closet, and this man was asked to resign and his ministry ruined because of stealing.
Let me clarify: I know many pastors and ministry leaders between here, Chicago, and Dallas, and by far most I have met are Godly men and women, serving the Lord faithfully, and in their private lives they are passionate as well as in their public lives.
But some of you can identify with the 3 men I mentioned earlier, can’t you?
According to the May 2009 American Religious Identification Survey by Trinity College in Hartford, CT, “America is less Christian than it was 20 years ago, and Christianity is not losing out to other religions, but primarily to a rejection of religion altogether . . . 75% of the Americans surveyed called themselves Christians . . . in 1990, the figure was 86%. William Donahue, president of the Catholic League said he thinks a radical shift towards individualism over the last quarter-century has a lot to do it. ‘The three most dreaded words are thou shalt not,’ he told Lou Dobbs. "Notice they are not atheists -- they are saying I don't want to be told what to do with my life." At the same time there has been an increase in the number of people expressing no religious affiliation. President Obama and Mitt Romney have addressed “those of no faith,” as a religious group.

According to a gallop poll of 1,500 Americans 18 and older in the Pennsylvania region in 2010,the responses indicated

“I believe that the God of the Bible is one in essence, but distinct in person—Father, Son and Holy Spirit” 75%
“I am willing to risk everything that is important in my life for Jesus Christ” 52%
“I believe the Bible has decisive authority over everything I say and do” 49%
“I believe that nothing I have done or do can earn my salvation” 48%
Less than half believe in salvation by faith alone through God's grace alone!
“I take unpopular stands when my faith dictates” 42%
“I have inner contentment when things go wrong” 35%
“I regularly study the Bible to find direction for my life” 28%
A little more than 25% regularly study the Bible! If this sample reflects the rest of the culture, there is a lack of influence of the Bible in the culture.
“I control my tongue” 22%

Christians, we need to take God seriously and live a godly lifestyle. Even if God is using you, you must change any ungodly ways and confess sin, or you may share our hero's fate.

Today we see Samson, a man who God had a plan for and gave strength to, but who lived immorally, and God no longer used.
Today I want to tell you 4 C’s to change your ungodly lifestyle, a.k.a. “SIN”. These are important, and it might save your life to listen.

In Judges 13, the Angel of the Lord came to Samson’s parents, Manoah and his wife, and told them they would have a son, who was to be a Nazarite and would begin to deliver God’s people from the Philistines (Judges 13:5).
When Samson grew up, he wanted to marry a foreign wife. This was against God’s law, because Deuteronomy 7:1–3 says, “you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you.”
What does God say about this in Judges 14? In verse 4 we’re told (READ IT)

1) Change your lifestyle, before God changes it for you
If you don’t live for God, sometimes God will cause problems so you will start to live for Him.
When God’s people accept an ungodly culture, sometimes God causes dissension between His people and unbelievers in order to free His people from them.
Also, later in Notice the story of the donkey jawbone battle: Judges 15:11 (READ IT), where the Judahites came out against Samson with 3,000 men, but didn’t care about being oppressed by the Philistines. They were comfortable with the ungodly culture they were living in!
It means if you’re living an ungodly lifestyle, and know Christ, today you need to ask His forgiveness and change. If you won’t change, God might come to you like He did to Samson, and open up a hurtful situation so that you will have to change.
It means God is in the business of stirring things up! Why? Because Christians constantly drift towards a lifestyle of comfortable camouflage.
We’re like in the movie Avatar, where Jake Sully goes into the culture of the Na’vi people in order to find out what they’re like to exploit their weakness, and turns into one of them.
Do you know what Jesus said about people who claim to know Him and don’t? Listen to His own words in Matthew 10:
32 “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.
33 “But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 “For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW;
36 and A MAN’S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD.
37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
38 “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
39 “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.
A doctor or nurse must sometimes re break a bone in order to set it and help it mend, or slash the Achilles heels of a newborn baby who is born with clubbed feet. All of this is short term pain for long term gain.
We are in a culture going farther and farther from God.
Are you following God or the culture? Are you knowingly sinning? Are there more problems than normal? Change it! Pray and confess the sin, and ask God to help solve whatever needs fixing.
Continue with me as we watch Samson.

Along the way to the Timnite girl, Samson killed a lion, later took honey from the lion, and made up a riddle with it for the guests of his wedding feast to guess. It was against the Nazarite vow to touch a dead body, so Samson broke his vow. In addition to marrying an idol worshipper, Samson broke his Nazarite vow. God used Samson to defeat the Philistines by a) beating up 30 men and stealing their clothes when his riddle was solved; b) tying 300 foxes’ tails together in pairs, with a torch in each of the 150 pairs. Burning down shocks, standing gran, vineyards, and olive groves (huge financial loss); c) killing 1,000 Philistines with a donkey’s jawbone. But God wasn’t happy with Samson’s immorality.
2) Confess your sin, while God is patient
When God doesn’t punish you for sin, and still uses you, it isn’t because He thinks your sin is okay. It’s because He’s giving you a chance to repent.
God’s patience is not the same as God’s forgiveness
Later, Samson will get the consequences he has earned for choosing to disobey God. For now, while God uses him, Samson has opportunity to confess sin and change his lifestyle.
This means for us that God is patient with you, waiting for your confession and repentance of sin, sometimes even while He uses you.
Simile: It’s like a fisherman who arrives on the dock and gets his gear ready, and then realizes his pole is cracked and broken. He’ll use it one last time if he can, but unless it can be fixed, he throws it aside.
It’s like getting dressed in the morning, and half way through the day you realize you have a big hole in your pants. You have no time to go all the way back home and change, so you use those pants the rest of the day but never again unless they are fixed.
God will use you even if you stray into sin, but only for a time. Don’t think He’s silent or patient just because He doesn’t care. He is waiting for you to change, and unless you get fixed, He might throw you aside too!
Romans 2:4 says, “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?”
If all of you took this seriously, and set the rest of your week this week by this principle, God would be glorified in your marriage, fellowship with others, at work, at school, and people would see your change!
Just as a farmer plants and waits patiently for the crop to grow, so God lets you come today on Sunday morning, hear how you need to confess sin, and will give you a window of time to change. But eventually, the planter of the Word of God will come back, and gather his crops. Jesus talked about this in a parable, saying how he will wait until the harvest, but then its too late. The weeds and the wheat will be gathered together, and the weeds will be cast out and the wheat brought in.
God wants to use all of us, but He won’t use a broken tool for very long. Please get on your knees and bow to Him, and open your hands and offer to Him everything good and bad, and let Him change you.
This is the scariest prayer you could pray today, from Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Did God use Samson? Yes. Did Samson repent? No

After Samson beat up the 30 men and used the torched foxes to destroy the agricultural economy of southern Palestine, he defeated a group of Philistines, and then killed 1,000 men with a donkey jawbone.
The summary in Judges 15:20 that is given before the end of his life, is disturbing. Normally that summary would happen at the end of the Judge’s life, but with Samson, it tells us at this point his life is basically over.
Samson was no longer useful to God
(A) Don’t let it ever be said of you. Please make this your goal, that your obituary won’t come out until AFTER you die.
Proverbs 10:30, says “the righteous will never be shaken, but the wicked will not dwell in the land.”
Proverbs 11:8, says “the righteous is delivered from trouble, but the wicked takes his place.”
(A) Are you abusing God’s patience by living in sin? Lying? Cheating? Gossipping and slandering others? Confess it. John 8:32 says, “and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus, who said "I am the way, the truth, and the life," offers Himself posthumously yet more alive than ever before, to all who believe He died and rose again to pay for your sin. Will you trust Him?
Christian, will you change your ways that are ungodly? Will you confess the sin that God is being patient about?

Knowing God: Jephthah, "God Accepts Unwanted People"

If you look at my 7th grade year book, you will see that I had a crush on a girl named Jennifer. It was a big crush. I wanted her to be my girlfriend. Yet, no matter how much I tried, asking her, writing letters, and other ways to woo her, she rejected me. She never gave me the chance. Although I prayed to God for Him to show her the light, I was outcast, rejected, and it hurt.
I’ll come back to this story at the end of the sermon, because there’s more to it.
Today many people feel rejected.
Sharry Langburt wrote in AOL Personal articles, on how young people are feeling rejected because of their premarital flings.
This isn't supposed to happen to nice Christian girls, but pre-marital hook-ups are happening everywhere. According to a study conducted by Barna, half of Americans in their twenties and thirties find no fault with pre-marital sex, while two-third believe that unmarried cohabitation is morally acceptable.
But when it comes to sexual flings, it seems that women still suffer more regret than their male counterparts. A survey conducted by researchers at Durham University in the United Kingdom showed that 80 percent of men and only 54 percent of women reported feeling good after a hookup; men also feel more confident and sexually satisfied afterward, and are more likely to brag to friends about it. And how many times have you felt rejection, even if it wasn’t like this?

Has someone you loved more than a jr high crush shoved you away? Pushed you aside? Become apathetic towards you? Hurt you on purpose, and left you alone? Do you feel like trash, tied up and taken out and told “Good riddance!” If you feel like this, you are like Jephthah.
Jephthah was born of Gilead and a prostitute, as opposed to Gilead and his wife, and in Judges 11 we’re told that Jephthah was rejected (READ IT)
He probably felt like he would never amount to anything good, and he gathered a group of men around himself that thought the same.

Today I’ll show you four truths about how God feels about outcasts—2 Do’s, and 2 Don’ts.

Judges 10:6 is where the author of Judges takes his paintbrush to color the landscape for our story, telling us once again that Israel “did evil in the eyes of the Lord.” If you remember the cycle of the Judges, what usually happened was that they did evil like this, then God punished them by handing them over to another nation, then He raised up a Judge to deliver them, then they had peace until that Judge died. This time, though, when the Ammonites oppressed them, they cried out to God, and in verses 13-14, says, “No!” (READ IT)
He says, “Let the false gods you worship save you!”
They plead again with God, and in verse 16, God “could bear Israel’s misery no longer.”

It was in this environment of worshipping false gods, that Jephthah was
The first truth of how God deals with your rejection is that God accepts unwanted people. So Look for God.
Look at verses 6-11, (READ IT). While Jephthah thought his family, and God’s people, and possibly God Himself had thrown him out as garbage, God was waiting to use him. It means that if you have been rejected because your parents didn’t want you, your spouse abused you, your friends left you, your ethnicity, your height, your weight, or whatever—God accepts you when no one else does! You are important to God. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life!
So Look for it! Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest!”
Dumbo, an elephant born with gigantic ears, made fun of, laughed at, kicked out of the circus, homeless—and one day discovers he has a gift that his ears are wings and he can fly.
Clarification: God accepts you, but don’t confuse the acceptance of a Holy God with the cheap acceptance of relativism. God accepts you while also making you get your life right with Christ. To the alcoholic, God accepts you and at the same time will not use you until you stop getting drunk and repent of that behavior. To the person practicing homosexual behavior, God loves you, but will not use you until you repent and stop practicing that behavior. So what are you waiting for? Remove those obstacles and look for God.
Jephthah discovered one day that God had a plan for him, and gifts that God could use!

Which brings me to the Second truth—God not only accepts unwanted people, but He has a plan to use your unique gifts! At the proper time, God used Jephthah. What were his gifts? He was a valiant warrior (11:1), good at persuasion (convincing the Gileadites to make him leader with a vow at Mizpah, and his letter to the King of the Ammonites), and he was a strong leader. God needed him at this point in time, and God used him.
The letter was written to communicate 1) the land was justly conquered, 2) if the Ammonites had really wanted it, why did they wait 300 years to try and take it back, and 3) verse 27, “I have not wronged you, but you are doing me wrong by waging war against me. Let the Lord, the Judge, decide the dispute this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites.”
If you are rejected, then God accepts you, and wants to use you and the gifts and talents He has given you. God used Jephthah to free His people from the Ammonites, (READ 11:29, 32-33)
He not only pushed them away from Gilead, but devastated 20 of their towns. He was on fire! A valiant warrior!
Is it your time to shine?
April 20, 1999, Cassie Bernall, high school student in Columbine Colorado, had no idea the impact she would have on thousands of others by standing up for her faith. When looking down the barrel of a loaded gun, she was asked if she believed in God, and said, “Yes.” She had searched for acceptance, and found it in Jesus Christ, and her testimony of faith has been used by God so that, according to http://www.cassierenebernall.org/, since 1999, hundreds of thousands of people have heard her testimony through the speaking ministry of her parents, Brad and Misty.
What should you do? God has a plan for you! He wants to use you, and if you would give yourself 100% to Christ, surrendering and dying to yourself, and letting Jesus live through you, your best gifts will become better, the ugliness of your heart will fade, and you will be used by God!

There are 2 more truths. #3, is found in Jephthah’s very costly, rash mistake, where he makes a vow. (READ 11:30-31, 34-35)

#3, When God gives success, Don’t try to control it. Many times, God will grant you blessings, wealth, victory, broken relationship renewed, children when you had been infertile, and whatever you do, don’t tarnish God’s blessings with your fingerprints!
God will use you in great ways, and do not have the ego and pride to say afterwards, “I’ll make a deal, God. I scratched your back, so you scratch mine.”
Jephthah was at the edge of battle, having successfully convinced the Gileadites to have him as head, and having successfully provoked the King of Ammon to fight, and thought he could successfully wager with God. He wanted credit for the victory—in line with pagan, Canaanite practices.
The most tragic thing of it all, is that breaking a vow with a deity meant falling under the wrath of that deity for life, and he had made a vow to turn the first thing coming out of his door into a burnt offering! Jephthah had to fulfill his vow, even when his daughter was the first to come out of his house, greeting him as the women traditionally greeted the men coming home from battle. His one and only daughter!
IMAGE: It’s like taking a dirty rag from the garage and using it to wipe off gold flatware before you set the table—makes it worse!
like one of my child’s Bibles, and we bought this Bible and still read to the child from it, but the child has added pictures to the picture Bible. So Jesus is accompanied by a mouse on his shoulder, or Moses has rabbit ears. Don’t do that! Jephthah was like dancing with the stars, and his partner led him one way, and he suddenly decided he would lead the dance, and paid for it!
Isn’t it just like you and me? Before you’re so hard on Jephthah, think about how last week you tried to control a conversation so that you could look good, or how you performed well recently and bathed in the accompanying applause!
Because of evidence on both sides, the jury is still out as to whether or not Jephthah’s daughter was burned alive and cut to pieces as a burnt offering, or symbolically sacrificed and lived the rest of her life as a maiden. I believe, because God gave Jephthah victory over the Ephraimites later, that Jephthah did not murder his daughter and use her for a burnt offering to God. God would not have accepted that. Either way, Jepthah lost any hope of offspring.
Don’t try to control God’s success.

So look for God because He accepts the rejected; Look for how you can be used by God because God has a plan for the rejected, Don’t control it when God grants you success, and finally . . .

The Fourth truth about how God accepts the rejected starts with a Don’t:
Don’t be an Ephraimite. That’s right, an Ephraimite. Not a tick or microscopic parasite, but a tribe of Israel who became jealous to the point of causing civil war. What was their jealousy based on? 12:1 (READ IT)
Put this down for the fourth point as well: If you are the least of these, and want to be used for God, expect to be criticized by the Pharisees!
If Jesus was criticized, so will you be! If God can’t please everyone, there is no sense in trying to do what God can’t do!
Jephthah was confronted with this, and God nearly wiped out the Ephraimites!
If you are the kind of person who has thoughts of envy when someone else succeeds, you might be an Ephraimite!
After spending the summer in Mexico for my missions internship, I came back and was on a high. I was so happy that God had used our team to reach so many people, and we were praising God. Then I discovered it. The knife in my back. One of my teammates on that trip had been so nice to me in person, but written a terrible report about me in one of the areas of leadership, and it hurt. I went to that person right away and asked them about it (with emotion), and it changed our relationship. That person should have said something to me, but never did. That person, in fact, hadn’t fulfilled the requirements of the missions intern, but I gave them a glowing report, and while we were working and doing extra evangelism, they flirted with someone they had a romantic interest in. I had been attacked by an Ephraimite! We have since made up and are friends, and a couple times have talked about it.
If you can’t bring yourself to compliment someone else, you might be an Ephraimite.
If you are mad because God used that person, and you don’t feel good about yourself, so you demonize them behind their back, you might be an Ephraimite.
If you like to sit off to the side and wait to burst peoples’ bubbles, you might be an Ephraimite.
If you have to have a problem to fix, or have to make things better, or are always criticizing others, you might be an Ephraimite.
If you can’t explain why you’re mad at someone, and admit that God is using that person, then, you might be an Ephraimite.
If you frequently talk badly about someone, or have an enemy in the church, you might be an Ephraimite.
Every pastor, youth pastor, staff person, leader in the church has faced the spirit of Ephraim and it is Satanic! If you are being used to discourage God’s people who He is using, you need to stop. Today! Or you will end up like an Ephraimite, and I won’t be able to help you.

After all I said, are you still feeling rejected? Unusable? God has a plan for you, and gifts in your hands, if you will say to Him today, “I’m Yours, Lord. Use Me.”

The story with Jennifer in 7th grade was not the end. Though I was rejected by her, and for a while didn’t understand it, and was hurt, it was because a few years later God had Emily for me. God had a plan for me while I was rejected, and He has the same thing for you. What are you going to do about it?

What does Revival look like?

I'm taking a different approach to this entry, and instead of writing a manuscript of a sermon, I wanted to update the few faithful who read this on what God is doing in Darlington.

Three months ago the pastors of the community of churches in Darlington began meeting once a week to pray. Our focus, that lost people come to know Jesus Christ and turn their lives around. We had a clergy meeting, as we have every month, and in January at our meeting we all expressed how nothing was changing, and we wanted to reach our community. We decided to start praying together, and began to see things happen. At our church, an elderly man and a teen came forward two weeks apart and prayed to trust in Christ. Then at another church, the week after Easter, ten people came forward to trust in Christ. Then at our after school program, eight kids prayed to receive Christ, and we're still following up with them to verify the commitment, but at least three of those kids are for sure.

It hasn't been all good. At the same time we have been praying each week together, and everyday on our own, we have seen the enemy work to discourage, cause division, and defend a claim to the souls of those who are blinded to the good news of Jesus. People with addiction problems and physical or mental chronic illnesses have seen those problems flaring up, but then we pray. God has also been faithful to deal redemptively with each of those problems as they surface, and without going into detail, there is a noticable difference in the amount of problems as well as salvations, for now.

More people are coming to faith in Christ, and our efforts to disciple need reinforcing. We are still meeting to pray, and hopeful to see more and more come to Jesus and follow Him.

Because of this, I was attending a conference by RHMA, and the sessions on revival, studying four historical revivals in America, Wales, England (if there is a difference between England and Wales--maybe that shows cultural unawareness of a Midwest American) and India. The common themes--they all started with lay people getting together to pray for God to forgive and cause salvation.

So we have asked people to pray, and you, would you pray for God to be glorified through unchurched, unbelieving people coming to know Him? If you read this, I don't have the answers to How a revival should start, nor do I think we've seen the peak of what God plans on doing in SW Wisconsin. I would imagine there are other places where God is doing similar things (it would be great to know where). I believe you can trust that God wants revival in America more than anyone and if His people humble themselves and pray, and call on His Name, and confess our sin, and turn away from idols (power, money, and ourselves, most of all), and ask Him to change hearts, the unbelievers will come to Him and never stray. He will forgive.

One other thing--these ecumenical prayer meetings each week are unheard of in terms of unity and acceptance without compromise, and none of us boasts of a large congregation, or of being famous authors, or having TV or radio ministries. If numbers are a pastor or a church's goal, those may be for the Kingdom of God, or they may be idols (pray about it). Whether you are large or small, reviving hearts of the nation for God can happen if we pray, and it is far more important than numbers of people who are unwilling to follow Jesus with more than their mouths. (No, I'm not just a pouting rural pastor who wishes he had more numbers. I've had the numbers, and you have to make them count before you count them.)

Or, if you don't want revival, then don't pray. Market, gimmick, sell, organize committees for each problem, and you can have the church that (fill in your name)______ built, and when you die, it will too.

In closing, I learned at the conference I mentioned above that most churches in America are growing by transfer growth--swapping members like sports teams. Then Sunday attendance is flouted as a sign of growth, while the community around the church has not changed eternal status, and wonders "is that what Jesus called you to do?" People see caterpillars entering the cocoon each Sunday--lots of them sometimes, but never see butterflies coming out. Make the goal to glorify God, and ask Him to redeem more who will worship Him in spirit and in truth, and make it a goal to make disciples, not just to attract a crowd.

These are the days of revival, and it is just in the very beginning. What will you do? Will you pray? Pray daily for God to be glorified through people receiving His grace, believing in faith that Jesus died on the cross and rose again, and that by placing their faith in Him they have eternal life. Jesus said in John 17:3, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom You have sent." Jesus said HE would build HIS church. Let's ask Him to do it.

Knowing God: Abraham, pt 2

This story we read earlier, in Genesis 22, coincides with what we read while praying in Luke 14, that there is a cost in following God, and it involves giving up your possessions.
(we placed a marker board up on the platform).
When I think of possessions, I remember playing football in high school. We were practicing with all the upper classmen. We were short jerseys. A guy a lot bigger than me needed the jersey to play in this practice. He didn't have to take my jersey, but he needed one. There were plenty of other people wearing jerseys, but he decided to take mine. The important thing to remember, was that everyone needed a jersey to play. So I didn't want to give mine up. Unfortunately, after the scuffle, this bigger, older guy had successfully taken my jersey off of my body.
I remember fighting tooth and nail for that jersey, and how small I felt after that. What God was asking Abraham to do was similar, and it is what God is asking us to do today, is to come with our possessions and lay down them down.
If you think you don't have any possessions to lay down, then go through the list of things you have, what you look like, your identity, the impression you try to make on others, and go through your profile, your career, your tangible and intangible possessions.
As we come closer to knowing God, this is part 2 of Abraham's story. Abraham had to come to this point where he was no longer clinging to his son, Isaac.
In Genesis 22, Abraham was tested by God. God said, "Abraham," and Abraham said, "Here I am." God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." If you stop there, you see that what Abraham did was he listened to God.
A lot of us would say, "I don't think so." We'd say, "That's enough. What God? You're breaking up!" As tough was it was, Abraham listened to God.
The idea of human sacrifice was not foreign to Abraham, coming from Ur. You learn, though, as you read the rest of Scripture, that it was something God did not permit. No human sacrifices for Him. But He did want everyone to give up everything, without there being competition for Him. God still wants that.
Abraham had been 75 years old when God first told him he would have a son. Later, in Genesis 15, Abraham was told again he would have a son. Then Abraham took matters into his own hands with Hagar, Sarah's servant, because God was taking too long. God said that wasn't the way God promised, and Isaac was still on the way. 25 years after the promise in Genesis 12, and Abraham laughing in Genesis 17, and Sarah laughing in Genesis 18, Isaac was born.
When we arrive at Genesis 21, Isaac was born, and Ishmael, the other child, was sent away. God comes to Abraham, describing Isaac as the one Abraham loved. God told Abraham to sacrifice him as a burnt offering.
When you made a burnt offering, you would kill the animal, cut it up, and set it on fire so that only the ashes remained. It was a symbolic fire, representing the offerer being given up completely to God. God's asking Abraham to do that with Isaac.
Abraham had some faith! He listened to God! He didn't tune God out. Have you ever tuned God out?
God wants us, in a culture of materialism, to give Him first place in our heart. He will work on you and me until we come to this point, where God is first.
God may be speaking to someone today about something you own. It doesn't have to be a son or daughter, but could be a house, career, car, clothes, education, relationship with someone, and God wants it. He wants to be Lord, and Lord means ruler over everything, and everything means everything.
God may be speaking to you about your possessions, just like He did with Abraham.
It could be an emotion, like bitterness. This doesn't mean you can't be rich or that you can't be successful, but that you can be a wealthy person without possessing any of it.
Once I had a friend who understood it that way, and took all his money out of a savings account, went to a subdivision, and threw it in someone's front yard. I asked, "Why didn't you throw it in my front yard?" He said, "Aha!" But he was wrong. This is a true story.
Think of people God uses greatly, and how He gives them difficult messages sometimes. Like Hosea, where God tells Hosea to go marry an unfaithful woman. Really, God? I was thinking, beautiful, funny, Godly. No, God said to marry an unfaithful woman.
God told Jeremiah to tell words to the people of Judah, and for over fifty years Jeremiah suffered abuse, seeing hardly any fruit from his ministry. But God used him.
Isaiah was called, and went forward, and God told him he would speak a message the people did not want to hear, and that they would rebel.
God may be speaking to you and telling you a difficult message today. Listen to God. Abraham listened.
God wants us to lay things down (I wrote an "L" on the marker board)

The second thing Abraham did in verse 3 was that he rose up early and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance, and he said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey, while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, and placed it on his son, Isaac, and he himself carried the fire with the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up to his father, Abraham, 'Father.' 'Yes, my son,' Abraham replied. 'The fire, and the wood are here,' Isaac said. 'But where is the lamb for the burnt offering?' Abraham answered, 'God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.' The two of them went on together. When they had reached the place God had told them about, Abraham built an altar there, and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife, to slay his son." I'm stopping in verse 10.
Abraham acted in faithful obedience. He didn't just listen, but when God said something hard, he acted in faithful obedience. Honestly, if I was Abraham, I don't know what I would do. I pray I would have the strength. If God said, "I want you to take your son, or daughter, and put a knife to their throat, and offer them up as a burnt offering," I don't know if I'd have the strength to do that. But this man did. He acted in faith and obedience.
Before you think that Abraham was just going to kill his son, remember that Abraham wrestled. There is a lot that happened between this two day period of verses 2 and 3, where God comes to him and early the next morning he obeys. The book of Hebrews sheds some light on this. Hebrews 11:17 is a divine commentary on this passage, where God tells us about another part of Scripture. "By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, 'It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.' But Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from the dead."
See that? Abraham wrestled and wrestled, and you picture this older man having a shouting match with God, questioning everything! He probably shouted, "God, You're not fair! You promised! How could You ask me to do this!"
25 years of waiting for this? Then all these years of raising Isaac and investing in his life?
Finally Abraham went through with this because he believed in God's promise.
Abraham acted in faithful obedience.
It's not enough for us to mentally assent to what God says. We are people of the mind, and we know what the Bible says. It's good to know what the Bible says, but what God wants is for us to do what the Bible says. When we read the words of Jesus, maybe someone had that passage memorized, and if so, then great! But to do it, is what counts!
God wants us to do what He tells us to do, especially with our possessions. God wants us to lay them all down. God has plans for the things He owns that you manage. Act in faithful obedience.
When I think of faith, I remember that story of the tightrope walker in Niagara Falls. He stretched out his line across the falls, and walked back and forth. Then he rode a unicycle back and forth. Then he pushed a wheelbarrow back and forth. He had gathered a large crowd, and he asked them, "How many of you believe I can push this wheelbarrow across the tightrope with a person inside it?" Everyone raised their hands. He asked, "Which one of you wants to come into the wheelbarrow?" No one raised their hands. Faith in God is getting into the wheelbarrow.
You rarely see God testing someone, but here God tested Abraham. I believe God never intended to kill Isaac, and that Scripture shows us that here. But He did intend to test Abraham and rid him of his attachment to his son. Why? God wants to be your only possession.
I urge you to commit yourself to follow Him today; commit your wife, husband, kids, family, friends, clothes, food, money, bills, debt-all to God. Give them up to God.
Remember the commercial where the athletes are running around the track and their sweat is green, and then the Gatorade label comes onto the screen with the words, "Is it in you?" God wants to know today, "Is it in you?" Do you have what it takes? God is asking, "Am I in first place in your life?"
In Communist Russia, the believers met in house churches, in small groups as an underground church. They would trade Scripture with each other, because not many people had the whole Bible. Each week they would go home with a new page of Scripture, and memorize it, then bring it back, and gradually memorize a lot of Scripture. They were in one of their meetings, when two KGB burst into the doors, armed with guns. The first of the two soldiers said, "Everyone line up against the wall. If you wish to renounce your commitment to Jesus Christ, leave now." Two or three quickly left, then another. After a few more seconds, two more left. The second soldier shouted, "This is your last chance. Either turn against your faith in Christ, or stay and suffer the consequences." Another left. Finally two more in embarrassed silence slipped into the night, and no one else moved. Parents with their trembling kids beside them looked down reassuringly. They fully expected to be gunned down, or at best to be in prison. After a few moments of complete silence, the other soldier closed the door, and said, "Keep your hands up, but this time in praise to our Lord, Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters. Because we too are Christians, and we were sent to another house church several weeks ago to arrest a group of believers," and the other soldier interrupted, "but instead we were converted! And we have learned by experience, that unless people are willing to die for their faith, they cannot be fully trusted."
I think of what would happen if something like that were to occur here. How attached are we to what we have?
(we watched a video of Abraham and Isaac, displaying what I had been saying)