“Jesus said unto (Thomas), I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me.”
Jesus lived a humble life, but He never hesitated to tell people the truth about Himself. Jesus was not just another person on this earth. The New Testament makes it plain that Jesus is God incarnate. Prophecies in the Old Testament made it clear that the Messiah was coming and that He would be the Savior. This morning, I thought of Jesus as the divine source of good. Jesus said that He did not come to condemn the world, but to save it. (John 3:17) What do I mean that Jesus is the divine source of good? According to the texts referred to above, Jesus is the source of salvation for those who come to Him by faith. Being saved and enabled to go to heaven forever is certainly a good thing. (That was a real understatement, wasn’t it?) I heard a song this morning that made me think of this: “If it hadn’t been for a place called Mount Calvary, If it hadn’t been for the old rugged cross, if it hadn’t been for a man called Jesus, forever my soul would be lost.” Our soul’s salvation was dependent on the coming of Jesus, of His death on the cross, of His resurrection and His ascension. Because of this, people have the opportunity to be saved. Satan does not have to be in control of people’s lives, because Jesus can save them from his control. The only thing that will count when our lives come to an end is whether or not Jesus was our Savior. In His love, holiness and power, Jesus purchased our salvation. Paul referred to this in 1 Corinthians 6:20, “For you are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” According to John 15:11, Jesus is the source of joy in our lives: “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” When Jesus saved us and empowered us with the Holy Spirit, He gave us His joy. The point here is that the joy that we have in Jesus is not circumstantial; we have it all of the time – it is a gift. This doesn’t mean that we will always be happy, because happiness is circumstantial. Happiness comes and goes with the events in our lives. I’ve never heard anybody say that they were happy all of the time. I can say, however, that I have experienced joy at times when I should have been dejected. The joy that Jesus gives to us rises up in our lives when we need it. We need to be aware at all times that Jesus has given us His joy, and live in the light of that joy. It will help us in the bleak times of our lives to keep our heads up and to keep on serving. James referred to this in James 1:2, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse (many different) temptations (trials).” Why because our trials make us more patient with life’s difficult circumstances. Claim the joy that you have in Jesus. Jesus is the source of the peace that we have in our lives. In John 14:27, Jesus said: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you: not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be trouble, neither let it be afraid.” In John 16:33, Jesus said: “These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me you might have peace. In the world you will have tribulation (trouble): but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Jesus never promised to bring peace on earth. In fact, Jesus promised something quite different in Matthew 24:6-7: “And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that you be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.” The history of the world before Jesus said this, and afterward, proved His point. Jesus gives peace to those who come to Him by faith and are saved. Jesus is the source of many good things in the lives of Christians. The three listed here are, in my opinion, the most important. Bro. Joe
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“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
The first thing that we have to do is determine what this text is about. Notice that it did not say “where there are no visions, the people perish.” The text is not about what we would call “seeing things.” This doesn’t mean that God’s people never have visions, because visions are recorded in the Bible. But that is not what this text is about. The NIV translates it, “where there is no revelation…” The ESV translates it, “where there is no prophetic vision…” In this case the word means “imaginative insight or foresight.” (New Webster’s Dictionary) We need a driving vision, insight or foresight, to effectively serve the Lord. What is the value of having a God-given vision? A God-given vision gives us a purpose for being alive. One of the worst things that can happen to a person, especially a Christian person, is to just drift through life without having a purpose. Successful people always have a purpose. There is an old saying that warns us to “be careful about aiming at nothing because we might hit it.” This is the way a lot of people, even Christians live their lives, and it is the way a lot of churches are as well. The scripture says that “where there is no vision, the people perish." Another translation is that “where there is no vision, the people lose restraint.” In other words, when we have no vision, we “are loose at both ends and flapping in the middle.” Consequently, if you have no vision, you do not have a real purpose and no aim. A God-given vision gives us determination to go forward in our purpose. Paul was a person with a vision. When we met Paul, he had a false vision, because he was persecuting Christians unmercifully. He held the cloaks of the people who stoned Stephen. When Paul met Jesus on the Damascus Road and was saved, he was given a genuine vision. God’s stated vision for Paul was that he would witness and minister to Gentiles. Paul took this vision on with a vengeance. He started numerous churches in Asia Minor, Greece, etc. He witnessed to Jews as well, but his main vision was to win Gentiles to Christ. When we read about Paul in Acts, we read about a man who was determined to do what God wanted him to do. Paul did not aim at nothing, he aimed at ministry and witness to Gentiles, and he did an effective job of it. I can’t imagine that we can be effective in our Christian lives, if we do not have a vision that gives us a determination to do what Jesus wants us to do. What are you determined to do with your life? Does this determination have anything to do with Jesus and His purpose for your life? A God-given vision gives us the desire to persevere in our Christian lives. This would be especially difficult for a Christian who is involved in secular work. It is difficult enough for those of us who are in full-time Christian service, but Christians in secular work can get at cross purposes in their commitment to the Lord. For example, there are people today who are hostile to anyone who expresses Christian values. They have no understanding whatever of what it means to live the Christian life, to be involved in church and in Bible reading and prayer. Today, it really takes courage in some work places to persevere in Christian living. I do not mean to differentiate too much between Christians in secular work and people involved in what we call “church work.” It just seems to me that perseverance would be more difficult in a hostile environment. We who do “church work” can get our values twisted as well and fail to persevere in being the Christian witnesses that we should be. At any rate, all of us need a God-given vision if we wish to persevere in Christian living and Christian service. Keeping all of this in mind, what is your vision? What is your purpose? Are you determined to carry through in living for Jesus at your work, whether secular or church-related? Are you persevering in your vision? Think about it! Bro. Joe “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21. For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”
While I was riding my exercise bike this morning I thought of these verses of scripture, and I really began to question myself about where my true treasures are? We need to think about this and recommit ourselves to putting possessions into the proper perspective. I thought of some things that I hold dear in this life. Of course, the first thing that I thought of was my family. They are not a possession, but they sure are dear. Then I got really silly and thought of some things that I deem important that in the total scheme of things would not be at all important. I thought of my tape cassette player. O.K. they are out of date, but I still have multiple cassettes and I need something to play them on. I thought of the watch that was given to me by Liberty Hill Baptist Church in 2001. It's not running at the present time, but I sure would hate to lose it. I thought of the pictures that I have of the Westwood football team. I am their chaplain and those boys and coaches are important to me. I also have a watch that they gave me that is important to me and it is on display in my den. Then there is the state championship ring from 2012 that the Wildcats gave me, which is also on display in my den. There are many other things, but I will stop there. All of the things mentioned above are important to me, but they are not eternal. Our house could burn down and I could lose some of those “things.” The point is that the deepest part of my heart is to be devoted to God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus told us that “moth and rust” could corrupt the things that we possess on this earth. This means, as I wrote above that there is nothing that we have on this earth that will not one day pass away. I think back over the years to possessions that I held dear that have long since passed from the scene and not a hair of my head was harmed because of it. I think that I have used this illustration before on CouchPotatoRedux, but it bears using again here. There was a preacher whose basement flooded. All of the paraphernalia from over fifty years in the ministry was stored there and all of it was ruined. He said that he sat on the steps of his basement and cried. Then the thought came to him: “But those are just ‘things’ and that is not what has been of most importance in my years in the ministry.” Even all of his sermons were not eternal, except as they made a difference in people’s lives. We don’t need to stake our lives on that which “moth and rust” can corrupt. It is the last statement in this passage that made me really stop and think: “For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.” I asked myself: “O.K. Joe, where is your heart?” Is it in the things that you own or is it in the treasures of heaven. The most important thing that I have in my life is a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Frankly, if I didn’t have that, then nothing else would really be important. I hope that you can say that Jesus is your most important possession, if that’s the right word. Family and friends are of utmost importance. Which of them would I trade for my tape cassette player? (You are supposed to laugh.) When all is said and done, the things that we possess should not possess us. If we are to be possessed, we should be possessed by God, for only He can take care of things now and for all eternity. I hope that these thoughts have made you stop and think about your possessions, for they certainly made me stop and think of mine. Bro. Joe “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways saith the Lord. 9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
These two verses have been on my mind all morning, so I figured that the Lord wanted me to think about them and share my thoughts with you. Have you ever wondered why you do not fully understand God? I’m sure you have. I thought about what God would say if I asked Him this question. I think that He would say, “You do not understand me fully, because I am God and you are not.” He plainly stated through Isaiah: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God is beyond human understanding, but He has not left Himself without a witness through scripture that can help us understand what we need to understand about Him. We need to understand that God judges sin. I will begin with the negative in order to close out with the positive. The Bible is very clear that God does not like sin; in fact, He hates it. We cannot gloss over this biblical fact. Some prominent preachers are trying to do that today, but they are wrong. We can go back to Adam and Eve and understand that God judges sin. Sin is the reason that we do not have paradise on earth today. Throughout the Bible, we see that God does not tolerate sin. God’s own people, the Jews, faced many hardships because they ran afoul of God’s hatred of sin. Perhaps, the greatest illustration of this fact is that when Jesus was on the cross all of our sins were piled on Him. Jesus took the judgment that all of humanity deserves in order for us to be saved. God will judge sin, but He is always ready to forgive sin through the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to understand that God loves us. It is difficult to understand how a God who judges sin can also love the sinner – but He does. The Bible is plain about that: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” The whole theme of the Bible is that God loves us in spite of the fact that we are sinners. Romans 3:23 tells us that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” This means that every living human being is a sinner. Quoting Psalm 14:1, Paul wrote: “As it is written, There is none good, no, not one. 11. There is not one that understands, there is none that seeks God. 12. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10-12) In spite of that fact, God still loves us and has proved it by sending His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. When by God’s unmerited favor, which we know as grace, we put our faith in Jesus, the God who loves us in spite of our sins, will save us. I cannot honestly say that I understand that, but I can say that I believe it because I trust the word of God. You need to understand today that God loves you. We need to understand that in spite of all of our shortcomings, and we all have more than we are willing to admit, God will use us in His service. I have been preaching fifty-four years, and I still wonder why, out of all of the people that I know, some much better people than I, God chose me to be one of His preachers. I sometimes feel like Paul who never fully understood why God would use him after his persecution of Christ’s church. Here is what Paul wrote to his son in the ministry, Timothy: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. 16. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe in Him to life everlasting.” While Paul might not have fully understood why God would choose him, he did understand that if God could save him, He could save anybody. He stands as an example of the love and grace of God, and of the fact that God will use broken vessels to serve Him. This means that Jesus will use you. If you are puzzled by some of the thoughts and ways of God, join the club. But He has given you a Bible to help you understand what you need to understand. Bro. Joe “In all things showing yourself a pattern of good works: in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity (serious), 8. Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he, that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.”
A modern translation of “pattern of good works” is “in everything set them an example by doing what is good.” For the record, this was addressed to young men, who were encouraged to be self-controlled. Like Timothy, Titus was a young man, and, evidently, there were other young men serving with him. But I think that the command fits every person who does the Lord’s work – young, old, male and female. It behooves all of us as Christ’s representatives on earth to “set an example by doing what is good.” I like the word “pattern” in the KJV, because when we have a pattern of behavior, it means that this is the way be behave all of the time. For example, a pattern of bad works would reveal incessant bad behavior. The first thing that I want to deal with is the latter part of verse 8: “that he, that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.” This makes sense. If we want people to think well of our Christian faith, we should live it before them, and that would certainly mean that we are setting a “pattern of good works.” We should live so that when people do not speak well of us, they will be ashamed of what they have said. This does not mean that we are to live to please everybody, it means that our behavior should be above reproach. None of us will do this perfectly, but we need to be careful about how we live before people. The second thing that I want to deal with is the statement that “in doctrine (they were to show) uncorruptness.” The NIV translates it: “In your teaching show integrity.” This means that we cannot teach just anything that we want to teach. We will be careful to base our teaching on plain scriptural truth. For example, we cannot teach what we want to teach about Christ. Some preaching today makes Christ into some kind of “hail fellow well met” who doesn’t care how people live. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus Himself lived a perfect life. We need to propound the teaching that Jesus came from heaven, was virgin born, lived a perfect life, died on the cross for our sins, rose from the grave and ascended back to the Father. That is what the New Testament teaches and we can’t teach Jesus as less than our perfect Savior who has a call on our lives and who makes moral demands of us. There are many other doctrinal things that we could discuss, but, while we can disagree about a lot of things, we cannot disagree about who and what Jesus was/is. The third thing that I want to deal with is that we are to be serious and sincere about our faith. This does not mean that we are always supposed to be somber about our faith. I think Jesus was serious, but His demeanor was such that people were attracted to Him. For example, children loved Jesus. I have heard that if children and dogs love you, you are a good person. I don’t know about dogs, but I know that children loved Jesus. But Jesus was certainly serious about His mission here on earth. All you have to do is go to the Garden of Gethsemane and hear His prayer of submission to the will of the Father to see the seriousness with which Jesus approached His mission. We should be serious about what we believe. This does not mean that we cannot approach life with humor, but we are not to approach it with silliness and shallowness. Our sincerity will make a mark on the work that we do for Jesus in His church and in the community. This seriousness and sincerity will be revealed by “sound speech that cannot be condemned.” We do not need to spend all of our time worrying about what people think of us, but we should care what they think about our faith. If we set a “pattern of good works” they will think well of our faith and of our Savior. Bro. J “Let love be without dissimulation (be sincere). Abhor (hate) that which is evil; cleave (cling) to that which is good.”
I suppose that the cheapest, and the most irritating thing in the world is unsolicited advice. It seems sometimes that there are people who always know more about what we should be doing than we do. If this advice that I am about to give was from me, you could call it cheap, and you might even call it irritating, but it is not from me. It is from the Bible. When I read Romans 12:9 just now, I said to myself that this is some very good advice. I plan to take the advice given here and I hope that you will. “Let love be without dissimulation,” or “let love be sincere” is good advice. It is so easy to say “I love you.” Today, we say it almost on a whim, not realizing the implications of it. In the New Testament sense of the word love, it is not to be taken lightly. This is especially true for Christians. Jesus said in John 13:35: “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, by the love that you have for each other.” The kind of love that Jesus was talking about was not the kind of love that simply says “I love you,” it is the kind of love that is sincere and is realized by the object of love. In other words, people know whether or not we truly love them, or if we are simply saying “I love you.” In John 15:13, Jesus said: “Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Now, that is serious love isn’t it? This is the kind of love that Paul wrote about in this text. It is the kind of love that Jesus has for us. No one could ever accuse Jesus of being fickle in His love for us. He set the example of sincere love by sacrificing Himself so that we could be saved. When we tell people that we love them, let’s be certain that we are sincere. “Abhor (hate) that which is evil.” Love is to be sincere and we are to be sincere in what we hate. You will observe that I did not write that we are to be sincere in who we hate. We should hate that which is evil. The problem is that we have a shallow view of evil. We know that adultery is evil. We know that lying, cheating and stealing is evil. We know that hating people, is evil. Because we might not do any of these things, we might think that we do not have to worry about evil. However, there is a lot of hidden evil that Satan loves to snare us with. One example of such an evil is pride. The Bible is death on pride. It never has anything good to say about the false pride that we will have if we are not careful. Perhaps you remember the prideful prayer of the Pharisee in Luke 18:11-12 in which he prayed: “God, I thank you that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. 12. I fast twice in the week. I tithes of all I possess.” On the other hand, a publican present there prayed, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Jesus said that the Lord did not hear the prideful prayer, but He heard the humble prayer of the publican. We need to learn to hate false pride like we hate murder or lying. I could give you many other examples of hidden evil, but I think that you get the idea from what I have shared. “Cleave (cling) to that which is good” is good advice. People have a tendency to cling to things that are not good. That is what drugs, alcohol, or whatever addiction is about. We tend to cling to that which gives us momentary pleasure instead of that which will give us real soul satisfaction. For example, we need to cling to doing unto others as we would have them to do to us. (You know, the Golden Rule.) We need to cling to being patient with people instead of being impatient with them. (This might be about the most difficult of all.) We need to cling to saying uplifting things to people instead of putting them down. We need to cling to loving other people instead of hating them. I could go on and on with this, but I think you get the idea. Remember, this is not advice from me, it is from the Bible. I need to take it to heart myself, and I hope you will. Bro. Joe “There shall not any man be able to stand against you all the days of your life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with you: I will not fail you, nor forsake you.”
Our text is the Lord’s encouragement to Joshua when he was about to assume the leadership of the Israelites. The promise was ‘as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.” It was a great compliment to Joshua to be used in the same sentence with Moses. Moses was a great man of God, and Joshua would take up his mantle. This meant that God had great confidence in Joshua and knew that he could lead the people in an effective way. The important thing to see in all of this was that neither man could have done the job by himself. Both Moses and Joshua needed the presence of God to do what they were called to do. It is the same with us if we want to effectively serve the Lord. Joshua 1:5 points out why we need God with us. If God is with us we can meet any challenge that we encounter in our lives. The promise in the text was, “There shall not any man be able to stand before you all the days of your life.” If you know anything about the trek that Israel had taken to this point between Egypt and the Promised Land, you know that Joshua would face as many challenges as Moses had to face. There were obstacles in the way at all times. For example they had to constantly find sources of water for all of the Israelites. There was also the challenge of the whining and complaining of the people. Joshua had gone through all of this at Moses’ side, and he knew that the job he was undertaking would not be easy, and that he would definitely need the presence of God at all times. He knew that the one challenge that he would have that Moses did not have, was the challenge of taking over Canaan. It is doubtful that we will have to face similar challenges, but we will certainly meet all kinds of challenges in carrying out God’s will in our lives. We will have to contend with a society that is hostile to our faith, we will have to contend with fellowship problems with our fellow Christians. We can take comfort in the fact, however, that God will be with us through it all. I know that the presence of the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit has been a constant source of comfort to me in my years of service in His work. If God is with us we can be assured that the Lord will renew our strength as we serve Him. The promise to Joshua was that no one would be able to stand against him “all the days of your life.” The promise of God’s presence is not something that comes and goes. It is a promise that we can count on all of the days of our lives as well. One of Jesus’ last promises to His disciples, and to us, was “I will be with you always even unto the end of the ages.” (Matthew 28:20) The great apostle Paul petitioned Jesus about his “thorn in the flesh.” Here was the Lord’s answer: “And He said unto me. ‘My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Then Paul added: “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” Like Moses and Joshua before him, Paul drew his strength from the Lord who was present with him every day of his life. We have a promise that Joshua did not have, and that is that Jesus promised that believers would receive the Holy Spirit to be with them at all times. We do not preach, teach, sing, usher, serve as deacons, or any other service that we might do without the presence of the Holy Spirit who will live within our lives, empower us for witness, guide us in all of our undertakings and encourage us when we are discouraged. We need God’s presence and we have His promise that we will have His presence. We need to praise Him for His presence in our lives. Do it! Bro. Joe “Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? 2. You are our epistles written in our hearts, known and read of all men. 3. Forasmuch as you are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”
I was looking through my sermon files and came across this sermon that I have preached several times across the years. I thought I would share it with you via this media. Because of the problems that Paul had with the Corinthian Church, he asked them if he needed a letter of commendation as some had to do to have access to them. Then he reminded them that they were his letters of commendation. He referred to them as epistles (or letters) of Christ. In other words the Corinthians were letters from Christ to the pagan world around them. The same thing could be said of us. Which leads me to the question: What kind of letter are you? Are you a business letter? These come across my desk all of the time. They are not bad letters, they are just impersonal. When I see “Dear Sir” I know that the person writing the letter doesn’t know me. This is not bad with letters, but it is with us. We can be “business as usual” Christians. You know, the kind that you see in church some Sundays. It might not be true but these “business” people seem to have no heart. It appears that they do not care about people, and that they are cold and uncaring. Don’t be a business letter. Are you a form, or “junk” letter? I have received these types of letters that were written on computers with my name dubbed in. The letter had no interest in me. Their main interest was what I could do for them, or what I might be willing to purchase from them. If we aren’t careful, we can appear to be “junk” letters. We would appear to be interested only in what we can get out of people, instead of serving them. Are you a hate letter? This means that we appear to people that we hate them. I know that it is difficult to “hate the sin and love the sinner” and convince people that we love them, but we should surely try. If we aren’t careful we will come across to people as Pharisees. Are you a friendly letter? The Bible urges us to be friendly people. I know, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that this is not always easy. Proverbs 17:17 reminds us: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” I interpret this to mean if we are to love people with brotherly, or sisterly, love, we will be friends even in adversity. Are you a love letter? Do you remember when people actually wrote letters and sent them through “snail mail” that they would write SWAK on the envelope? That meant “sealed with a kiss.” I don’t mean to be maudlin here, but our lives should be “sealed with a kiss.” We are told throughout the Bible to love other people, and we should certainly love even those who are not easy to love. Are you careful about punctuation? I have little space left for this point, so I will make it short, but, I hope, meaningful. Punctuation makes a difference. Dr. Chester Swor gave an example of the importance of commas: “Woman, without her, man is incomplete.” Now leave the comma out: “Woman without her man is incomplete.” The commas changed the entire meaning. One example: We need “pause marks” in our lives. We need to pause to pray, pause to read the Bible, pause to witness and minister to others. Anyway, what kind of letter are you? Think about it. Bro. Joe “Then I went down to the potter’s house and there I will cause you to hear my words. 4. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter.”
The question is: Will God use broken vessels? According to what Jeremiah wrote in the text above, He will. The gist of what Jeremiah wrote was that when a nation, or as in our case, an individual, goes against God and repents they can be used of God again. There are many people who do not feel that they can be of use to God because of past transgressions. This might be an excuse on their part not to serve the Lord, or it might be that they genuinely feel that they are unusable. One thing is certain; if they have repented they can be used again, just like the marred pottery in Jeremiah 18:4. This would include you and me. We forget that God’s forgiveness is complete and if our confession and repentance was genuine, God has forgiven it and expects us to forgive ourselves. This doesn’t mean that there will not be scars, but scars are a sign of healing. I want to use some examples from the Bible of how God used “broken vessels.” Of course you know that David comes to mind. In one of his sermons in Antioch in Acts 13:22 Paul wrote: “And when He had removed (Saul) he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom He also gave testimony and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill my will.” The point is that David’s sin did not disqualify him from being recognized as God’s servant. Paul obviously wrote this many years after David died. In fact, Jesus referred to Himself as the “root and offspring of David” in revelation 22:17. If you know the rest of the story about David, you know that things did not go easy for him after his sin with Bathsheba, but he was still used of God after that, and was well-spoken of in the Bible. Another person who comes to mind is Simon Peter. The person with even a minimal knowledge of the New Testament knows that Peter denied Jesus. Before Jesus’ arrest, Peter had declared that, in essence, he would defend Jesus with his own life. Of course you know that when it came time to stand up for Jesus he didn’t do it, but he denied even knowing Jesus. Surely, God couldn’t use such a person as this. But in events after His resurrection, Jesus challenged Peter to “feed my sheep…” On the Day of Pentecost, after Jesus’ resurrection, Peter stood and preached a bold sermon about Jesus and His resurrection and three-thousand people were won to Jesus. God used this “broken vessel” to win many people to Himself. We think of Paul as a mighty man of God who wrote a third of the New Testament and started many churches. But we need to remember that before his conversion on the Damascus Road, Paul had been the number one enemy of Christ’s church in Jerusalem, and sought to go beyond that, but God intervened and he was saved on the Damascus Road. Paul never forgot that he had persecuted the church, and actually referred to himself as “the chief of sinners,” but no one can doubt that this “broken vessel” was used mightily of the Lord. That brings us to you and me. If you are like me, you can’t claim to have lived a faultless life. You might not consider yourself a “broken vessel” but you are a “sinner saved by grace.” Some of you reading this might describe yourself as a “broken vessel,” but like the piece of pottery in Jeremiah 18:4 you can be “made over” and be used of God. Don’t give up on yourself, and certainly don’t give up on God. Bro. Joe "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4. What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” ESV
“Man” as it is used here is used in the generic sense meaning male and female. We might call it “humankind.” David looked at the “heavens,” that we would call the universe, and saw all of its beauty and was amazed that of all His creation, God would choose to pour out His choicest blessings on human beings. Looking at our history, we should be as amazed as David was. The question was “what is man that you are mindful of him?” Let me give an answer that will probably not be adequate but will give some reason as to why we should be so favored by Almighty God. Human beings are God’s highest creation. After he had created everything else, God created Adam and Eve. After God created Adam and Eve He rested from His labors. This suggests that they were the pinnacle of His creation. He put them in charge of the Garden of Eden and told them to dress and keep it. After He had created everything else He appointed Adam to name all of the creatures, and “whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” (Genesis 2:19) God saw that Adam was alone and needed a “helpmeet,” so He created Eve to fulfill this need. In Psalm 8, David stressed the point that I am making here: “For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honour. 6. You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.” Human beings are God’s fallen creation. Unless you have never been in a church in your life, you know what happened with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They were told not to eat the fruit of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Actually, God told Adam not to eat this fruit, and Adam evidently passed this information on to Eve.) As you know, they ate the fruit and fell from their high place in the Garden of Eden. The fact that God took the first human beings seriously enough to care what they did, to care that they did not obey Him, shows that God had a special plan for these people. No other creature was given this moral responsibility. The fact that we are sinners does not preclude the fact that God loves us and has a purpose for our lives. Of all of the creatures on the earth, the Lord makes moral demands on human beings. God expects more of us than He does of any of the other creatures. We have a special place of dominion on the earth and we have a moral responsibility to go with it. If God didn’t care for us, He would not care what we do. That makes sense to me, and I hope that it makes sense to you. Human beings are God’s redeemed creation. The fact that we are sinners does not mean that God is finished with us. Even, when in Noah’s day, God sent the flood to destroy everyone, He left Noah and His family to repeople the earth. (My computer says that “repeople” is not a word, but what does my computer know?) The fact that God did not wipe out all people, showed that He still valued human beings and knew that they had contributions to make. At some time back in eternity, before the creation of the universe, God made a plan of redemption for fallen mankind. Revelation 13:8 tell us of this: “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship Him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” John 3:16 tells us the reason for “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” was that God loved us enough to send His Son to give His life as a sacrifice for our sins, and that when we believe in Him we “will not perish but have everlasting life.” Throughout the Bible, we see God at work for the redemption of His highest creation. We do not always act like God’s highest creation, but He continues to love us and draw us to Himself. We can rejoice that God loves us in spite of our penchant for sin. Praise Him! Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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