Faith is something all people have. We all believe in something.
But what is faith?
The dictionary definition of faith is an unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence; anything believed.
The world sees faith as a blind believing or trust in anything. That is not what faith is see as in Scripture.
Faith is defined in Hebrews 11:1. It says, “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.”
Faith from a biblical perspective is a complete confidence in a truth. That truth is not something that we can perceive with our physical senses. There are many truths that we trust in that we can’t perceive with our physical senses. And the truth we have confidence in is God and there is an overabundance of proof and evidence for Him.
So biblical faith is not just a blind trust in something. It is a confidence based on evidence for the reality of God and His love for us as His human creation.
So what is faith going to look like in everyday living?
A picture of faith and what it looks like in everyday living is found in
1 Peter 2:11-25
Faith is:
Not seeing ourselves as completely at home in this world
1 Peter 2:11
Dear friends, you are foreigners and strangers on this earth. So I beg you not to surrender to those desires that fight against you.
Building 429 has a song called Where I Belong. The chorus says:
All I know is that I’m not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong.
C.S. Lewis says, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
Faith is to not be attached to this world, but to see ourselves as foreigners and strangers.
Acting with Jesus like character
1 Peter 2:12
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Faith cannot be separated from behavior. If I believe something, I will live it out. If I am not living it out then I don’t really believe it.
James 2:17 says, “Faith without works is dead.”
Our faith is not just a mental agreement, but also lived out behavior.
Humbling ourselves under earthly authorities
1 Peter 2:13-15
Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should silence the ignorance of foolish people.
Peter does not write this at a time when the emperor or governors were followers of Jesus. They were very hostile to followers of Jesus. It was a Roman governor who order Jesus’ crucifixion.
Paul shares a similar truth about submitting to earthly authorities in Romans 13.
Submitting to earthly authorities is a command so that we might learn the discipline of submitting so we can more easily submit to the ultimate authority - Jesus.
Living in Jesus like freedom for the benefit of others
1 Peter 2:16
Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
In Galatians 5:1 Paul says, “For freedom Christ has set us free: stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke slavery.”
Doing evil causes us to live in slavery to sin. Living for ourselves puts us into bondage.
God freed us so we can know Him, be forgiven by Him, and serve others in His name.
Showing love and honor to others
1 Peter 2:17
Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
Honor means to highly value something or someone.
We are to love and highly value God’s most precious creation - People.
Romans 12:10 says, “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”
Enduring suffering and unjust treatment
1 Peter 2:18-23
Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly.
In Acts 4 the church is warned to stop teaching in the name of Jesus. In verse 29 the church prays in the context of this life threatening warning: “And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to Your servants to continue to speak Your word with all boldness.”
Notice they didn’t say:
Lord, destroy all the bad people.
Lord, this isn’t fair.
Lord, take all the persecution away.
They prayed to keep doing what they had been doing, because it was the right thing to do, and to help them do it even more boldly.
Suffering for doing right is glorifying to God.
Being unjustly treated because of your life surrendered to Jesus’ will is glorifying to God.
Dying to anything that is not what God wants
1 Peter 2:24
He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
Obeying sin leads to death.
Obeying Jesus leads to life.
Jesus died because of our sin so we could live because of His righteousness. He exchanged His righteousness for our sin.
We need to get rid of anything in our lives that is not of God. We need to let God replace anything not of Him with Jesus.
Surrendering to Jesus as our Shepherd and Oversee
1 Peter 2:25
For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
Faith leads us to trust Jesus and so we let Him be the one who directs and controls our lives. Faith allows us to know that Jesus will treat us with love, grace, and mercy. Faith allows us to submit everything we are and everything we have to Jesus’ authority.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about faith.
Biblical faith is not some spiritually nebulous thing.
Biblical faith is:
Real
Relevant
Righteous
Risky
Rejoicing
In Faith Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Monday, September 22, 2014
Dying Leads to Living
A few weeks ago I was asked what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus. I answered that a disciple of Jesus is one who comes and dies. I was then told that answer was not a popular one. That people particularly the younger generation do not want to hear about dying. They want to hear about life. They want to hear about living.
This response was not from someone who was just a Christian. This response was from a Christian leader.
I had four reactions.
First, I was giving what I believe is a Biblical answer.
Second, I know it is not popular, but it is truth.
Third, in Jesus’ kingdom life follows death as opposed to earthly kingdoms where death follows life.
Fourth, is that where we are in the church, to give popular answers?
So I want to look at each of these reactions.
First, I was giving what I believed to be a Biblical answer.
In Luke 9:23 Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
This same statement of Jesus is found in Matthew 16:24 and Mark 8:34.
A cross is an instrument of execution. It is a thing upon which people die. So to take up my cross means I am to die. I am to take it up daily so that means I am to die daily. If Jesus were speaking in the culture of America in 2014 He would say, “Take up your electric chair every day.” He might say, “Take up your lethal injection every day.”
Jesus is not interested in us becoming better people. Jesus wants us to become NEW people.
Jesus makes two other statements that talk about the fact that we have to die to be His disciples.
Matthew 10:38
And whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.
If I am not willing to die (take up my cross), I am not worthy of being a disciple of Jesus.
Luke 14:27
Whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
Jesus says plainly here that if a person does come and die (bear his cross) he cannot be His disciple.
What does it mean to come and die?
We are to die to:
Selfish Desires
Selfish Dreams
Human-Based Solutions
Human-Based Priorities
We are to do what Jesus says to do in Matthew 6:33: seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.
Second, we are to operate on truth, not popularity.
In John 14:6 Jesus says that He is the way and the TRUTH and the life.
Jesus is truth.
If an answer or concept or principle is popular, that does not necessarily make it right.
If an answer is truth, it may not be popular.
Jesus never did anything because it was popular. He never spoke or acted to get the people to like Him and be on His side. Jesus always spoke the truth in love.
Everything Jesus taught His disciples was the truth and He taught and encouraged them to accept and follow the truth.
In John 8:31-32 Jesus tells those who believed in Him what would happen if they believed Him and His teachings. Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Truth sets us free.
If we seek to always give the popular answer so that people will like us, we will be bound by other’s opinions.
Jesus would never have been crucified if He had said what the Jewish religious leaders and the crowd wanted to hear.
So if we live by and share what Jesus taught, we will not always be popular.
Jesus’ kingdom is different and many times in direct conflict with earthly human-based kingdoms.
Our culture teaches us that before we die we are to live life with the focus on number one, ourselves. We are to live to fully satisfy ourselves. We are to get all the things we want. We are to make our number one goal making ourselves happy.
I even heard a statement by Victoria Osteen saying that when we worship we are not really doing it for God we are doing it for ourselves. She said God wants us to be happy and so that in worshiping God we were making ourselves happy so we were really worshiping ourselves.
Wow!
Jesus’ word in John 12:24 tells a different story. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Jesus’ kingdom is not based on satisfying ourselves.
Jesus’ kingdom is not based on making ourselves happy.
Jesus’ kingdom is based on pleasing Jesus.
Jesus’ kingdom is based on making Jesus smile.
The kingdom that Jesus came and established is a kingdom where life follows death. I have to die to sin and my selfish ideas so I can come really come alive.
Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Jesus died for you and me. We die so we can experience His life in us.
Jesus’ kingdom is based on life after death, not death after life.
Is the church simply after numbers? Is the church simply about having more people? Or is the church about making disciples?
In Matthew 28:19 Jesus tells us to “Go make disciples.”
He does not say go get people to like you.
He does not say go get people to agree with you.
He does not say go be popular.
He says, “Go make disciples.”
I was a child in the church in the 1950’s.
I was a teenager in the church in the 1960’s.
I was a young adult in the church in the 1970’s.
I never was challenged in those years to come and die.
I never was challenged in those years to come and submit all my life completely to Jesus as my sole authority.
I never was challenged in those years to surrender everything I am and everything I have to Jesus.
I was told to be good.
I was told to be nice.
I was told to go to church.
I was told to give.
I was told to do a lot of good things.
But I was never told to do what Jesus told Peter, Andrew, James, and John to do - give up everything and follow Him.
I was never told to do what Jesus told the Rich Young Ruler to do: sell all his material possessions and give the money to the poor.
I was never told that Jesus was to be my all, my everything and not just one of my many things.
When Jesus addresses Martha at the grave side of her brother Lazarus, He tells her in John 11:25-26a, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believe in Me shall never die.” Then in the second part of verse 26 Jesus asks her a question, “Do you believe this?”
So I ask myself that question: do I believe that if I truly die by surrendering my life to Jesus as Lord, will I really then live?
The answer to that question is very important because being a disciple of Jesus means that I come and die.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is lived based on Jesus’ kingdom principle that life follows death.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls by Dying So I Can Live
Joe
This response was not from someone who was just a Christian. This response was from a Christian leader.
I had four reactions.
First, I was giving what I believe is a Biblical answer.
Second, I know it is not popular, but it is truth.
Third, in Jesus’ kingdom life follows death as opposed to earthly kingdoms where death follows life.
Fourth, is that where we are in the church, to give popular answers?
So I want to look at each of these reactions.
First, I was giving what I believed to be a Biblical answer.
In Luke 9:23 Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
This same statement of Jesus is found in Matthew 16:24 and Mark 8:34.
A cross is an instrument of execution. It is a thing upon which people die. So to take up my cross means I am to die. I am to take it up daily so that means I am to die daily. If Jesus were speaking in the culture of America in 2014 He would say, “Take up your electric chair every day.” He might say, “Take up your lethal injection every day.”
Jesus is not interested in us becoming better people. Jesus wants us to become NEW people.
Jesus makes two other statements that talk about the fact that we have to die to be His disciples.
Matthew 10:38
And whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.
If I am not willing to die (take up my cross), I am not worthy of being a disciple of Jesus.
Luke 14:27
Whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
Jesus says plainly here that if a person does come and die (bear his cross) he cannot be His disciple.
What does it mean to come and die?
We are to die to:
Selfish Desires
Selfish Dreams
Human-Based Solutions
Human-Based Priorities
We are to do what Jesus says to do in Matthew 6:33: seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.
Second, we are to operate on truth, not popularity.
In John 14:6 Jesus says that He is the way and the TRUTH and the life.
Jesus is truth.
If an answer or concept or principle is popular, that does not necessarily make it right.
If an answer is truth, it may not be popular.
Jesus never did anything because it was popular. He never spoke or acted to get the people to like Him and be on His side. Jesus always spoke the truth in love.
Everything Jesus taught His disciples was the truth and He taught and encouraged them to accept and follow the truth.
In John 8:31-32 Jesus tells those who believed in Him what would happen if they believed Him and His teachings. Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Truth sets us free.
If we seek to always give the popular answer so that people will like us, we will be bound by other’s opinions.
Jesus would never have been crucified if He had said what the Jewish religious leaders and the crowd wanted to hear.
So if we live by and share what Jesus taught, we will not always be popular.
Jesus’ kingdom is different and many times in direct conflict with earthly human-based kingdoms.
Our culture teaches us that before we die we are to live life with the focus on number one, ourselves. We are to live to fully satisfy ourselves. We are to get all the things we want. We are to make our number one goal making ourselves happy.
I even heard a statement by Victoria Osteen saying that when we worship we are not really doing it for God we are doing it for ourselves. She said God wants us to be happy and so that in worshiping God we were making ourselves happy so we were really worshiping ourselves.
Wow!
Jesus’ word in John 12:24 tells a different story. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Jesus’ kingdom is not based on satisfying ourselves.
Jesus’ kingdom is not based on making ourselves happy.
Jesus’ kingdom is based on pleasing Jesus.
Jesus’ kingdom is based on making Jesus smile.
The kingdom that Jesus came and established is a kingdom where life follows death. I have to die to sin and my selfish ideas so I can come really come alive.
Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Jesus died for you and me. We die so we can experience His life in us.
Jesus’ kingdom is based on life after death, not death after life.
Is the church simply after numbers? Is the church simply about having more people? Or is the church about making disciples?
In Matthew 28:19 Jesus tells us to “Go make disciples.”
He does not say go get people to like you.
He does not say go get people to agree with you.
He does not say go be popular.
He says, “Go make disciples.”
I was a child in the church in the 1950’s.
I was a teenager in the church in the 1960’s.
I was a young adult in the church in the 1970’s.
I never was challenged in those years to come and die.
I never was challenged in those years to come and submit all my life completely to Jesus as my sole authority.
I never was challenged in those years to surrender everything I am and everything I have to Jesus.
I was told to be good.
I was told to be nice.
I was told to go to church.
I was told to give.
I was told to do a lot of good things.
But I was never told to do what Jesus told Peter, Andrew, James, and John to do - give up everything and follow Him.
I was never told to do what Jesus told the Rich Young Ruler to do: sell all his material possessions and give the money to the poor.
I was never told that Jesus was to be my all, my everything and not just one of my many things.
When Jesus addresses Martha at the grave side of her brother Lazarus, He tells her in John 11:25-26a, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believe in Me shall never die.” Then in the second part of verse 26 Jesus asks her a question, “Do you believe this?”
So I ask myself that question: do I believe that if I truly die by surrendering my life to Jesus as Lord, will I really then live?
The answer to that question is very important because being a disciple of Jesus means that I come and die.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is lived based on Jesus’ kingdom principle that life follows death.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls by Dying So I Can Live
Joe
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Fixing Brokenness By Brokenness
Romans 3:23
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
We are all broken.
We are all in the same boat. No one of us is better than the rest.
This make be sick, but that brings me great comfort. That means that people like Billy Graham, Francis Chan, David Platt, and Beth Moore are sinners just like me. They are broken and flawed just like me. They need Jesus to fix them just like I need Jesus to fix me.
So how does Jesus fix broken and flawed people?
Jesus does it through brokenness.
In Leviticus 6 God gives Moses instructions for the various offerings. In verses 20-21 God tells Moses how Aaron and sons are to bring the grain offering when they are anointed as priests. God says, “This is the offering Aaron and his sons are to bring to the Lord on the day he is anointed: a tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a regular grain offering, half in the morning and half in the evening. Prepare it with oil on a griddle; bring it well-mixed and present the grain offering broken in pieces as an aroma pleasing to the Lord.”
Aaron as he came to be anointed as high priest was to bring an offering that was broken. This symbolized that Aaron came broken, surrendered to the Lord.
If we are to be fixed, we have to come broken and submit our lives completely to the Lord. We have to surrender everything to Him with nothing held back.
Then we see a similar thing in Matthew 26 when Jesus takes the bread of the Passover meal and uses it to show what will happen to Him. In verse 26 it says, “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is My body.’”
The broken bread symbolizes Jesus’ body which was broken on the cross for our sin.
It is through Jesus’ death and resurrection that we are fixed and made new.
Jesus knows that we are all broken. He wants to fix the brokenness in our lives caused by sin by having us be broken in Him.
In Psalm 51:17 David writes, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”
The word contrite means crushed.
God wants are our spirit, our old nature broken. He wants our hearts, our wills broken and crushed. If we hang on to our old nature and our own wills then we can never experience the renewing work of God’s Spirit in our lives.
Our old nature has to be broken so the new nature, God’s nature, can fill us. Our wills have to be broken and crushed so that God’s will can become our will.
In Isaiah 57:15 we are told where God lives. It says, “For this is what the high and lofty One says - He who lives forever, Whose name is holy: ‘I live in a high and lofty place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the heart of the contrite.’”
God lives with those who have been crushed and are spiritually humbled. He does that so He can revive their hearts.
1 Peter 5:5-7 says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”
God wants us to humble ourselves under His authority so He can lift us up and so we can learn to trust Him and put all our worries on Him.
In Isaiah 66:2 God says, “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at My word.”
God has high regard for those who have humbled, surrendered spirits and who live in awe of God’s word.
In our culture we value and have high regard for the strong and the independent. God values and has high regard for the humble, those who depend on Him.
In Matthew 5:3 Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
The word poor in this verse means bankrupt. We are blessed when we know that spiritual we are bankrupt, broke, have absolutely nothing to offer God but our broken lives. When we realize that, we will come seeking Jesus in humility. We will not build ourselves up, we will come to Jesus and let Him build us up.
As long as I believe that I have something to offer Jesus, as long as I believe that I can give Jesus something in return for Him fixing me - I will depend on what I have.
When I realize that I have nothing, that I am broke, then I can come to Jesus based on His mercy and grace.
Then I will be fixed.
In Romans 6:23 we are told that the wages of sin is death. The best I can hope to earn is death because in my brokenness I cannot meet God’s standard. But that the gift God is giving me is eternal life by Jesus’ grace and mercy.
According to Ephesians 2:8 we are saved, fixed, made new by God’s grace. That grace is made real in our lives by putting our faith, our complete trust in Jesus. And both the grace and the faith are gifts from God. Ephesians 2:9 tells us that God does it as a gift so that no person can boast about themselves; we all have to praise Jesus.
Jesus was condemned so we can be lifted up.
Jesus was rejected so we can be accepted.
Jesus was abandoned and left all alone so we would never be alone.
Jesus was broken so we could be fixed.
We are all broken.
We are all flawed.
We are all hurt.
We are all needy.
Jesus is the carpenter who will fix our brokenness.
Jesus is the artist who will remove our flaws.
Jesus is the physician who will heal our hurts.
Jesus is the master who will meet our every need.
Jesus fixes our brokenness by becoming broken for us.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about acknowledging our brokenness.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about humbly coming to Jesus.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about receiving the gift of being renewed, restored and redeemed from the mercy and grace of Jesus.
Psalm 107:5-6
They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress.
In Brokenness Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
We are all broken.
We are all in the same boat. No one of us is better than the rest.
This make be sick, but that brings me great comfort. That means that people like Billy Graham, Francis Chan, David Platt, and Beth Moore are sinners just like me. They are broken and flawed just like me. They need Jesus to fix them just like I need Jesus to fix me.
So how does Jesus fix broken and flawed people?
Jesus does it through brokenness.
In Leviticus 6 God gives Moses instructions for the various offerings. In verses 20-21 God tells Moses how Aaron and sons are to bring the grain offering when they are anointed as priests. God says, “This is the offering Aaron and his sons are to bring to the Lord on the day he is anointed: a tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a regular grain offering, half in the morning and half in the evening. Prepare it with oil on a griddle; bring it well-mixed and present the grain offering broken in pieces as an aroma pleasing to the Lord.”
Aaron as he came to be anointed as high priest was to bring an offering that was broken. This symbolized that Aaron came broken, surrendered to the Lord.
If we are to be fixed, we have to come broken and submit our lives completely to the Lord. We have to surrender everything to Him with nothing held back.
Then we see a similar thing in Matthew 26 when Jesus takes the bread of the Passover meal and uses it to show what will happen to Him. In verse 26 it says, “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is My body.’”
The broken bread symbolizes Jesus’ body which was broken on the cross for our sin.
It is through Jesus’ death and resurrection that we are fixed and made new.
Jesus knows that we are all broken. He wants to fix the brokenness in our lives caused by sin by having us be broken in Him.
In Psalm 51:17 David writes, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”
The word contrite means crushed.
God wants are our spirit, our old nature broken. He wants our hearts, our wills broken and crushed. If we hang on to our old nature and our own wills then we can never experience the renewing work of God’s Spirit in our lives.
Our old nature has to be broken so the new nature, God’s nature, can fill us. Our wills have to be broken and crushed so that God’s will can become our will.
In Isaiah 57:15 we are told where God lives. It says, “For this is what the high and lofty One says - He who lives forever, Whose name is holy: ‘I live in a high and lofty place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the heart of the contrite.’”
God lives with those who have been crushed and are spiritually humbled. He does that so He can revive their hearts.
1 Peter 5:5-7 says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”
God wants us to humble ourselves under His authority so He can lift us up and so we can learn to trust Him and put all our worries on Him.
In Isaiah 66:2 God says, “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at My word.”
God has high regard for those who have humbled, surrendered spirits and who live in awe of God’s word.
In our culture we value and have high regard for the strong and the independent. God values and has high regard for the humble, those who depend on Him.
In Matthew 5:3 Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
The word poor in this verse means bankrupt. We are blessed when we know that spiritual we are bankrupt, broke, have absolutely nothing to offer God but our broken lives. When we realize that, we will come seeking Jesus in humility. We will not build ourselves up, we will come to Jesus and let Him build us up.
As long as I believe that I have something to offer Jesus, as long as I believe that I can give Jesus something in return for Him fixing me - I will depend on what I have.
When I realize that I have nothing, that I am broke, then I can come to Jesus based on His mercy and grace.
Then I will be fixed.
In Romans 6:23 we are told that the wages of sin is death. The best I can hope to earn is death because in my brokenness I cannot meet God’s standard. But that the gift God is giving me is eternal life by Jesus’ grace and mercy.
According to Ephesians 2:8 we are saved, fixed, made new by God’s grace. That grace is made real in our lives by putting our faith, our complete trust in Jesus. And both the grace and the faith are gifts from God. Ephesians 2:9 tells us that God does it as a gift so that no person can boast about themselves; we all have to praise Jesus.
Jesus was condemned so we can be lifted up.
Jesus was rejected so we can be accepted.
Jesus was abandoned and left all alone so we would never be alone.
Jesus was broken so we could be fixed.
We are all broken.
We are all flawed.
We are all hurt.
We are all needy.
Jesus is the carpenter who will fix our brokenness.
Jesus is the artist who will remove our flaws.
Jesus is the physician who will heal our hurts.
Jesus is the master who will meet our every need.
Jesus fixes our brokenness by becoming broken for us.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about acknowledging our brokenness.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about humbly coming to Jesus.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about receiving the gift of being renewed, restored and redeemed from the mercy and grace of Jesus.
Psalm 107:5-6
They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress.
In Brokenness Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
Sunday, September 7, 2014
What is Success?
What do Noah, Moses, Jeremiah, and Jesus all have in common?
They would all have been considered failures if they would have been in ministry today.
Noah preached for 120 years and the only people saved were his immediate family.
Moses led people that grumbled and rebelled against his leadership and God for forty years. He didn’t lead them into the Promised Land.
Jeremiah preached for forty years and no one listened. He was rejected as much as any spiritual leader has ever been rejected.
Jesus had one of His own followers betray Him and it was only after His death that growth really occurred.
So were these men failures? - Not in God’s eyes!
Noah was a man who found favor in the eyes of God. - Genesis 6:8
The favor here means grace. God looked upon Noah with grace. God accepted Noah.
In Genesis 6:22 and 7:5, God’s Word says that Noah did everything God commanded him to do.
Genesis 6:9 says this about Noah, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, he walked faithfully with God.”
Hebrews 11:7 says, “By faith Noah when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.”
According to God’s Word Noah experienced God’s grace and was obedient, righteousness, and faithful.
That looks like a successful man.
In Exodus 7:6 it says, “Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded.”
In Exodus 33:15 we find Moses praying to God and telling Him that without God’s presence Moses wasn’t going to lead the people.
And in Exodus 33:17 God says that He will do what Moses wants because He is pleased with Moses.
In Numbers 12:3 Moses is described as not just humble, but as “more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.”
In Numbers 14 God was ready to destroy the nation of Israel for their continual complaining against Him and their disobedience to Him. Moses interceded on the people’s behalf and asked God to destroy him, not the people. Moses is concern was for God’s honor.
The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 3:2, “He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house.”
Then in Hebrews 11:24 we are told, “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.”
God’s Word shows us a man in Moses who was obedient, focused on following God, devoted to God’s people and God’s honor, very humble, faithful, and willing to sacrifice to do God’s will.
That looks like a successful man.
In 2 Chronicles 36:12 we are told that Jeremiah “spoke the word of the Lord.”
In fact thirty-three times in the book of Jeremiah it says in some form that “the Word of the Lord came” to Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 20:8-9 says, “Whatever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, ‘I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,’ His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed I cannot.”
Then in Jeremiah 13:1-10 there is the story of God telling Jeremiah to go and buy a belt. After Jeremiah has bought the belt, God tells him to go bury the belt. Then God tells Jeremiah to dig up the belt and God uses it as an object lesson for the people of Judah. Jeremiah all through the story simply obeys God. He does things that seem to make no sense. He does it all without complaining or questioning God.
Jeremiah is pictured in God’s Word as a man whom God trusts with His Word and who has a passion to share God’s Word. He is pictured as a humble preserving man.
That looks like a successful man.
Jesus is humble, loving, totally focused on doing God’s will, forgiving, and one who puts others before Himself.
That looks like a successful man.
So why is there such a difference in the way God views these men and the way the world does?
The difference is because we have wrongly defined success.
The world sees success from the perspective of results.
For people, that means wealth, power, position, achievement.
For the church, it means budgets, baptisms, and buildings.
Let’s be honest. You and I are never going to have books written about us. We are never going to have a movie made about our lives. We are never going to have a street or a building named after us. School children are never going to study about us in history.
But we can be people who change the world.
In Acts 4 Peter and John are arrested for proclaiming Jesus. Acts 4:13 says, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”
We can be unschooled (ignorant, unsophisticated ), ordinary people but if we have been with Jesus we can shock the world with what He is doing in our lives.
In Acts 17:6 followers of Jesus are referred to as “These that have turned the world upside down.”
They turned the world upside down because they were letting Jesus live His extraordinary life in and through them.
Micah 6:8 simplifies what God wants from His people. It says, “He has shown you, O man what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”
If we act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God, we will help to change the world.
I am a nobody. I have no great talents or abilities. Few people in the world know who am or care. I am not wealthy. I don’t have great human power or authority. I pastor a faith family that I love but we are located in a part of our state that is rural and remote. Most people aren’t sure if we are even part of the United States.
But according to Psalm 17:8 I am the apple of God’s eye. You are too.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls is about making a difference in our community, our nation, and the world.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls is about not depending on our abilities or our personalities to do the changing, but depending on Jesus.
God has chosen the foolish things, the weak things, the nothing things to blow the world away.
An Ordinary Person with Jesus Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
They would all have been considered failures if they would have been in ministry today.
Noah preached for 120 years and the only people saved were his immediate family.
Moses led people that grumbled and rebelled against his leadership and God for forty years. He didn’t lead them into the Promised Land.
Jeremiah preached for forty years and no one listened. He was rejected as much as any spiritual leader has ever been rejected.
Jesus had one of His own followers betray Him and it was only after His death that growth really occurred.
So were these men failures? - Not in God’s eyes!
Noah was a man who found favor in the eyes of God. - Genesis 6:8
The favor here means grace. God looked upon Noah with grace. God accepted Noah.
In Genesis 6:22 and 7:5, God’s Word says that Noah did everything God commanded him to do.
Genesis 6:9 says this about Noah, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, he walked faithfully with God.”
Hebrews 11:7 says, “By faith Noah when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.”
According to God’s Word Noah experienced God’s grace and was obedient, righteousness, and faithful.
That looks like a successful man.
In Exodus 7:6 it says, “Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded.”
In Exodus 33:15 we find Moses praying to God and telling Him that without God’s presence Moses wasn’t going to lead the people.
And in Exodus 33:17 God says that He will do what Moses wants because He is pleased with Moses.
In Numbers 12:3 Moses is described as not just humble, but as “more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.”
In Numbers 14 God was ready to destroy the nation of Israel for their continual complaining against Him and their disobedience to Him. Moses interceded on the people’s behalf and asked God to destroy him, not the people. Moses is concern was for God’s honor.
The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 3:2, “He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house.”
Then in Hebrews 11:24 we are told, “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.”
God’s Word shows us a man in Moses who was obedient, focused on following God, devoted to God’s people and God’s honor, very humble, faithful, and willing to sacrifice to do God’s will.
That looks like a successful man.
In 2 Chronicles 36:12 we are told that Jeremiah “spoke the word of the Lord.”
In fact thirty-three times in the book of Jeremiah it says in some form that “the Word of the Lord came” to Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 20:8-9 says, “Whatever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, ‘I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,’ His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed I cannot.”
Then in Jeremiah 13:1-10 there is the story of God telling Jeremiah to go and buy a belt. After Jeremiah has bought the belt, God tells him to go bury the belt. Then God tells Jeremiah to dig up the belt and God uses it as an object lesson for the people of Judah. Jeremiah all through the story simply obeys God. He does things that seem to make no sense. He does it all without complaining or questioning God.
Jeremiah is pictured in God’s Word as a man whom God trusts with His Word and who has a passion to share God’s Word. He is pictured as a humble preserving man.
That looks like a successful man.
Jesus is humble, loving, totally focused on doing God’s will, forgiving, and one who puts others before Himself.
That looks like a successful man.
So why is there such a difference in the way God views these men and the way the world does?
The difference is because we have wrongly defined success.
The world sees success from the perspective of results.
For people, that means wealth, power, position, achievement.
For the church, it means budgets, baptisms, and buildings.
Let’s be honest. You and I are never going to have books written about us. We are never going to have a movie made about our lives. We are never going to have a street or a building named after us. School children are never going to study about us in history.
But we can be people who change the world.
In Acts 4 Peter and John are arrested for proclaiming Jesus. Acts 4:13 says, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”
We can be unschooled (ignorant, unsophisticated ), ordinary people but if we have been with Jesus we can shock the world with what He is doing in our lives.
In Acts 17:6 followers of Jesus are referred to as “These that have turned the world upside down.”
They turned the world upside down because they were letting Jesus live His extraordinary life in and through them.
Micah 6:8 simplifies what God wants from His people. It says, “He has shown you, O man what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”
If we act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God, we will help to change the world.
I am a nobody. I have no great talents or abilities. Few people in the world know who am or care. I am not wealthy. I don’t have great human power or authority. I pastor a faith family that I love but we are located in a part of our state that is rural and remote. Most people aren’t sure if we are even part of the United States.
But according to Psalm 17:8 I am the apple of God’s eye. You are too.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls is about making a difference in our community, our nation, and the world.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls is about not depending on our abilities or our personalities to do the changing, but depending on Jesus.
God has chosen the foolish things, the weak things, the nothing things to blow the world away.
An Ordinary Person with Jesus Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
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