Brian's Blog

Making a Difference – Part 2

// March 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // Messages, Sunday Messages

Ephesians 5:15-20 (NLT)
¹⁵ So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. ¹⁶ Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. ¹⁷ Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.
¹⁸ Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, ¹⁹ singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. ²⁰ And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, according to this scripture, we are to make the most of every opportunity and understand what God wants us to do. I believe that we are given opportunities every day to affect lives around us with the love of God. Too oft en people say that they don’t understand what the Lord wants them to do, well, really, you only need to look into scripture to see.

Verse18, the literal translation of the Greek word for “be filled” is “be being filled;”

· It is in the imperative mood, which means it is a command.

· It is in the present tense, which means it is a continuous thing, not a once for all experience.

· It is plural, which means it is for every believer.

· It is in the passive voice, which means the subject (you) is receiving the action.

o Meaning, it is not our doing, but it is done to us by the Father.

When you are in a place of “being filled” it is a constant flow, like being plugged into the power source. I use the example of a desk lamp, it has the potential to produce light, but it will only produce that light when 2 criteria are met. One, the lamp must be plugged in, and two, the switch must be activated so that the bulb will produce light. It is the same way for us, we need to be plugged into God’s power through the Holy Spirit.

You can only be continually being filled if you have some way of using what is coming in. Again, using the lamp as an example, it isn’t really using any power until you turn it on. God isn’t continually filling us for our own purposes, He is continually filling us for His purposes. We use the power of the Holy Spirit to do the will of God.

God’s will is that we reach people, but what is our motive for reaching people?

· Is it to make our church bigger?

· Is it to make ourselves look better?

· Is it because God requires us to?

· Is it because we have experienced His love, acceptance and forgiveness and we want others to do the same?

Being Christian, means being “Christ-Like,” in order to be Christ-Like, we need to understand what He was like. I believe that most of His interactions with people who were in need could be summed up with one question, “What can I do for you?”

The Love of God working in and through Him affected every interaction. I believe that even in His interactions with the established church leaders he still showed love.

Love is an action, not a feeling! I love because I choose to, not because I feel like it. Loving someone is caring for them, seeing the world and the person you are looking at through the eyes of a loving God.

1 Corinthians 13 tells us that love is the greatest gift, in fact it tells us that we could have every other gift of God, but without being based in His love, they are useless to us.

Who should be the recipients of God’s love through us?

1. Other Christians.

John 13:34-35 (NKJV) ³⁴ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

Look at the church in the 2^nd chapter of Acts;

Acts 2:44-47 (NKJV) Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

I hear a lot of talk in the church today of wanting to be like the “Acts” church. If we truly want to be like them we need to act like them.

They interacted with each other daily. I believe part of the reason the church grew was because people saw the incredible sense of community that existed among the believers and wanted to be a part of it.

In John 13 He tells us to love one another the way He loves us. His love is sacrificial, unconditional, patient, well, just read 1 Corinthians 13. Through love we are Christ to each other. When I love you, it is the Father loving you through me, because I don’t think I would be the person I am without His influence in my life.

Love for each other creates a healthy church body. A healthy body grows naturally, I believe that we put too much emphasis on getting people in the door and not enough emphasis on just loving people.

2. Our Neighbors.

Mark 12:28-31 (NKJV) Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, "Which is the first commandment of all?"
²⁹ Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
³⁰ And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.
³¹ And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these."

Anyone around us is a neighbor. Luke 10; Jesus interacts with a young man who is asking who his neighbor is, and Jesus tells him the parable of the good Samaritan. To a Jewish person the Samaritans were dogs, they didn’t want anything to do with them. We are Christ to those around us, especially to the ones that we see as “un-lovable.”

3. Even our enemies.

Matthew 5:38-48 (NLT) “You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹ But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. ⁴⁰ If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too.
⁴¹ If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles. ⁴² Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow. ⁴³ “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. ⁴⁴ But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! ⁴⁵ In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. ⁴⁶ If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. ⁴⁷ If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. ⁴⁸ But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

We are even Christ to our enemies. Do we recognize the work of the enemy in the lives of those that we would call our enemies? Why do we get upset when worldly people do worldly things? We aren’t called to judge people, we are called to love them!

So, if we are to love people the way Jesus did, what does that look like?

Woman caught in Adultery…

John 8:2-12 (NKJV) Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them.
³ Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, ⁴ they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act.
⁵ Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?" ⁶ This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. ⁷ So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." ⁸ And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
⁹ Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. ¹⁰ When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" ¹¹ She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."
¹² Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."

This all happened in the middle of a crowd, the Pharisees were trying to put Jesus on the spot, in public; they wanted to make Him look bad in front of the crowd. But look at how Jesus treated this woman;

· He didn’t condemn or judge.

· He didn’t lecture her on her misguided ways.

· He didn’t give her a speech.

· He didn’t ask her to repent.

· He didn’t even address the situation to the crowd after she left.

Why do we feel like we have to do all of these things? If someone is truly repentant, then they don’t need us telling them how messed up they are, they already know it!

We are the revelation of Jesus to the world around us. Our interactions should be as “Christ-like” as we can achieve, and that is only achieved in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the reason we need to be constantly living “plugged in” to Him.

I am the church, Christ’s body in this world, I am His representative, am I representing Him correctly? Are people getting a clear picture of Jesus in me, or is the picture distorted by my own human thinking?

I want to make a difference in my world for Christ, I want people to experience the love, acceptance and forgiveness that I have received.

(This post contains a lot of thoughts spurred by two books I’ve read, “Love, Acceptance and Forgiveness,” and “The Monday Morning Church” both by Jerry Cook. I highly recommend these books, but be warned, they will challenge you.)

Qualities of a Godly life

// June 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Youth Discussions

2 Peter 1:3-9 (GW) God’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and for godliness. This power was given to us through knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and integrity.
Through his glory and integrity he has given us his promises that are of the highest value. Through these promises you will share in the divine nature because you have escaped the corruption that sinful desires cause in the world. Because of this, make every effort to add integrity to your faith; and to integrity add knowledge; to knowledge add self-control; to self-control add endurance; to endurance add godliness; to godliness add Christian affection; and to Christian affection add love.

If you have these qualities and they are increasing, it demonstrates that your knowledge about our Lord Jesus Christ is living and productive.  If these qualities aren’t present in your life, you’re shortsighted and have forgotten that you were cleansed from your past sins.

This passage shows us the qualities that should be evident in our lives as Christians, but it also tells us where to find those qualities.  They don’t come from our own “doing” but they come through the power of God that lives inside of us.  Notice that it says here that this power was given to us through the knowledge of God, to me that means that these things will show up in our lives as we come to know Him better and build relationship with Him.  Our “doing” is building relationship with Him and as we do these things will become available to us.

Let’s look at these qualities and also the opposites that show up in the life of the “worldly” person.

The first quality mentioned here is faith, we are told in the word (Romans 12:3) that each person is given a measure of faith.  I would liken faith to a muscle, the more you use it and exercise it, the larger it grows.  Our job then is to begin to use our faith, believing what God says even when we don’t see it.  The opposite of faith, of course, is doubt.  How do we get rid of the doubt?  Focus on the faith, as our faith builds it will begin to push out the doubt!

The next quality mentioned is integrity, the KJV uses the word virtue.  Integrity or virtue are qualities that cause us to live our lives by the moral code that God has set, to me Godly integrity would be living my life, even when no one is watching, by what I know to be God’s values.  The opposite of integrity, I believe, would be hypocrisy.  Hypocrisy is saying that you believe something but living like you don’t.

Then he says to add knowledge to your integrity, I believe the knowledge he is talking about here is knowledge of God and His ways.  As Christians we need to spend time learning about God, this happens through prayer and reading the word.  the opposite of knowledge is ignorance, we probably all know the phrase, “ignorance is no excuse.”  This means that when we face God at the end of this life, we won’t be able to say, “I didn’t know.”  We have no excuse for not having the knowledge, it’s there ready for us to learn.

“To your knowledge add self-control.” All of these are progressive, adding one to the next.  I think there’s a reason that self-control is put after knowledge, we have to know what God expects before we can create it in our lives. The opposite is impulsive, doing things out of habit or because it seems right.  When we have the knowledge of God and His ways and we add self-control, we are taking what we know and directing our lives to display those virtues, we are learning to stop and consider how God would have us react in any given situation.

“To self-control add endurance.”  Of course the opposite of endurance is giving up too easily.  When we learn self-control, we learn to endure, to hang in there even when we don’t see an immediate answer.  Endurance is about staying with things even when you don’t want to, the flesh wants to give up and go back to reflex but our spirit hangs in there and keeps us focused on the will of God.

“To endurance add Godliness.”  Godliness is being “like God.”  This means displaying for the world the character of God.  The opposite is worldliness, how often do we as Christians act the same as the world around us?  Do people really look at us and see someone who acts like God is in control of their lives and future or do they see someone who acts and reacts the same as they do?

“To Godliness add Christian Affection.”  If Christian is “Christ-like” then Christian affection should should be a love like Christ has.  If we look at His life, we see a man who was moved with compassion, and reached out to meet the needs of others through the power of the Holy Spirit.  The opposite is lack of concern or even contempt, looking at people and not caring or even saying, “they deserve what they have.”  It really doesn’t matter where someone has been, none of us deserves the love and forgiveness of God but we have it anyway.

Finally, all of this leads us to a life of love, not human love, but Godly love, a love that overflows out of us in a concern and caring for all that we come into contact with.  We may not be wealthy, but let me remind you of the words of Peter and John in Acts 3, “We don’t have great wealth, but what we do have we’ll give you, In the name of Jesus Christ be healed.”  We do have the wealth of heaven living inside of us, and that wealth of power and love should be touching everyone we meet.

Let me remind you again, all of these things come from God’s Spirit living inside of us, we don’t have to conjure up any of this from ourselves; faith, integrity, knowledge, self-control, endurance, Godliness, Christian affection and love are all attributes of God, they all come to live inside of us when He does, all we have to do is allow them to grow and overflow in our lives as we live in Him!