Go and Show them the Father
Evangelism • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 40 viewsLIVING LIKE THE FATHER WILL DEVELOP CONSTANT
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Happy Fathers Day! As we continue on this journey of evangelism this week we explore the Father. We started with an overview of the importance of Evangelism in mid May. Instead of teaching you a program for evangelism we are teaching the heart of the believer that will result in Evangelism. So far we have discussed the cross and how it should affect our lives for evangelism, we have discussed Christ and how living like Christ makes us constant evangelists. This week we will discuss the Father and how living our lives with the Heart of the Father will affect those around us and lead us in being living evangelists. Today is a special day to honor fathers and what better Father to honor than our heavenly Father. How does He desire we honor Him? By loving the way He loves. This morning I want you to see 4 things about our Father. God has a long fuse, a short memory, thick skin, and a big heart.We will be exploring how living like our anther will drive us further into this idea of living evangelism rather than repeating some program. Turn with me in your Bible to Psalm 103: 8-12 .While you turn in your Bibles,
I read about the pig craze of the 1980s. People shelled out thousands of dollars to own one of these exotic house pets imported from Vietnam. Their breeders claimed these were quite smart and would grow to a weight of only forty pounds. Well, they were half right. The pigs were smart. They could be trained to walk using leashes, do tricks, and use a litter box. But they had a tendency to grow to about 150 pounds and could become quite aggressive.
What do people do with an unwanted pig? Pig roasts are not the answer; their meat is tough, stringy and marbled with fat.
Fortunately, Dale Riffle came to the rescue. Someone had given Riffle one of these pigs, and he fell in love with it. The pig, Rufus, never learned to use its litter box, and developed this craving for carpets and wallpaper and drywall. Yet Riffle sold his suburban home, and he moved with Rufus to a farm in West Virginia. Then he started taking in other unwanted pigs. And before long, the guy was living, literally, in hog heaven.
There are currently 180 residents on his farm. According to an article in U.S. News & World Report, they snooze on beds of pine shavings. They wallow in mud puddles. They soak in plastic swimming pools and listen to classical music. They wait their turn for one of Dale Riffle's belly rubs. They socialize in affinity groups. And they never need fear that one day they'll become bacon or pork chops. There's actually a waiting list of unwanted pigs that are trying to get a hoof in the door at Riffle's farm.
Dale Riffle told the reporter, "I think we're all put on earth for some reason, and I guess pigs are my lot in life." How could anybody in his right mind fall so totally in love with pigs?
I'll tell you something even more amazing. An infinite, perfectly holy, majestic, awesome God is passionately in love with insignificant, sinful, sometimes openly rebellious, frequently indifferent people. God loves people like you and me. In fact, God loves us so much that he wants to adopt us into his family. And even beyond that, he wants us to call him "Father." That's even beyond what Dale Riffle was willing to do! The Bible never teaches that everybody becomes a child of God automatically. We are adopted into his family. Today we want to focus on three dimensions of that grace.
In this Scripture we will see 4 things about our Father. He has a long fuse, He has a short memory, He has thick skin, and He has a big heart.
Our Father has a long fuse
Our Father has a long fuse
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
This scripture is actually a quote of a Scripture in Exodus. God had just delivered the Israelites from Egypt and when Moses goes up to the mountain to meet with God and is given the Ten Commandments the people begin to party and they make for themselves an idol made out gold that they were blessed by God with. God told Moses to step aside and He was going to take the Israelites out and make a new Nation with Moses. Moses hit his face before God and begged for mercy from God. God granted it and when Moses went down the mountain he became angry at what he saw. Moses got so angry He destroyed the Ten commandments, this was the only time all ten of the commandments were broken all at one time. Moses then goes back up to meet with God and God says I will not go with you and the people you will be on your own. Moses again begs God for His Mercy and God gives it and even gives Moses the ability to remake the Ten Commandments. While Moses is back with God on the Mountain before God tells him what to write on the tablets it says this Exodus 34:6
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
This is the same passage that David is quoting here in Psalm 103. We serve a God who takes a lot to get to His boiling point and even when He is there He relents from His anger. How do you live? Are you quick to anger? We are called to live like our God and to have a long fuse.
I have not always been very good with this idea of being slow to anger and it has gotten me in trouble. I was building a deck for my landlord when we lived out in Lake City. It. Was a long day and I was tired and ready for the day to be over. I was finishing the las board on the deck before being finished and I smashed my finger with the hammer. I got pretty upset and I began to toss things around. I started to toss boards into my truck with some frustration behind it and one of the boards bounced off another and went into the back windshield and shattered it completely. Immediately I knew I should have calmed down.
God is patient and has a long fuse. That is not to say that He does not get angry but He does not act on His anger and is slow to anger. What does the Bible say about having a long fuse?
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.
Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding,
but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.
Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
We are to be like our father and learn to have a long fuse. It is not about not getting angry it is about relenting from the reactions to our anger. God’s anger is righteous yet He still relents. Our Father though not only has a long fuse, He has a short memory
Our Father has a short memory
Our Father has a short memory
He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
Our Father is not only slow to anger, He does not hold on to our mistakes very long. He knows. How to let things go. Some people are not quick to anger but boy can they hold on to things forever. You know what I am talking about the people who don’t say much but when they do they remind you of how you messed up and they can give you the date, time, location, coordinates, and the people around the last time you made a mistake. They remember all of your mistakes and they carry their Rolodex to organize them for you. Our Father according to this Scripture does not hold things against us and lets things go.
A guy complained to his buddy that whenever he argued with his wife, she got historical. His friend said, "You mean hysterical." He said, "No, historical. She dredges up the past and reminds me of every time I've failed her in the past."
We do this in our relationships don’t we. Think about our kids. Everytime a child does something we let them know it and we remind them of it over and over, essentially teaching our children to hold on to things and not let things go. Our God is not like this, look at what the Scripture says.
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
If God were keeping track of every mistake we make who could stand? I could tell you the library of Congress wouldn’t be big enough to hold my mistakes.
For I will not contend forever,
nor will I always be angry;
for the spirit would grow faint before me,
and the breath of life that I made.
In this scripture God says that if He kept bringing things up and throwing them in our faces we would grow weary and would lose the will to live. Our Father does not hold our transgressions against us. Could you imagine going to God and asking for forgiveness and God looks at you and says well Ryan this is the 37th time you have done this so I don’t think I will forgive you this time. He just does not do this, He is always forgiving even though we do not deserve it because when He forgives, he puts our sin as far as the east is from the west. We must be slow to anger but also quick to forget. What does the Bible say about forgiving and forgetting?
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
“I, I am he
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins.
bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;
For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more.”
then he adds,
“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
Our Father is slow to anger, He has a short memory, but He also has a thick skin.
Our Father has a thick skin
Our Father has a thick skin
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
Our father is tough. He is kind, caring, loving, and overlooks the way we treat Him. Our Father is not looking to return to us the things we give Him. Instead when we give Him evil He returns to us good. If God punished us every time we deserved it we would never have a day or hour where we were not punished. God chooses to not give us what we deserve every time we deserve it. Our Father chooses to show mercy and kindness when we deserve discipline.
I love sharing with all of you my family. First because sometimes people get to thinking that a pastors family is or should be perfect and let me tell you mine is not and will never be. Second is because I learn through seeing things and I see things of God in my family and in our parenting. My kids are sweet kids but they are not always sweet kids. If you have spent any time with us you will hear my kids do something or say something and you say that’s the pastors kid? Yeah my kids make mistake and are just like any other kid. They do not sit in their rooms and pray all day and only read their bibles. They play, they fighit, they don’t listen. Rylan though our youngest has learned to try and use his cuteness to his advantage. Rylan is testing his boundaries and we discipline him. We however understand that if we discipline him every single time he should be we would never stop disciplining him. The other day I told him to stop playing with the water and he continued. I walked out of the room for one minute and came back in and there was water all over the living room. My first instinct was to say I told you this and you did that now come and get your whipping. I didn’t though I calmly told him that I would help him clean up the mess. I could tell he though I was going to spank him and he was apologizing the entire time.
God does not give us the punishment we deserve and we should treat others in our lives the same way. If I give everyone around me the things they deserve based on the way they act why would I expect any grace from God. What does the Bible say?
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
Our Father has a long fuse, a short memory, a thick skin, and a big heart.
Our Father has a big Heart
Our Father has a big Heart
Psalm 103:11-12 (ESV)
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
Our Father wants to love us and wants to remove any reason to hold us in contempt. While He has the right to hold us accountable to everything we ever do He chooses to remove it from us and to see us in love and with a desire to have a relationship with us. Are you the type that is looking for any reason to restore a relationship? To continue having a relationship with people who do not deserve your time? Are you a person who ovelooks lol the reasons that someone gives you to cut them out of your life? If you are then you are close to the heart of God. If you are not then why do you suppose that God would do the same thing for you that you are not willing to do for others? We need to be like our heavenly Father. We should have a big heart towards those in our lives and look to have relationships even when people do not deserve it. What does God do with our sins?
He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.
Behold, it was for my welfare
that I had great bitterness;
but in love you have delivered my life
from the pit of destruction,
for you have cast all my sins
behind your back.
“I, I am he
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins.
I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud
and your sins like mist;
return to me, for I have redeemed you.
And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Our Fathers heart is big. Is your heart big to those around you? Evangelism lives and breaths when we live and breath as our Father does. There is no program needed when believers live as Christ. The world will see the difference and know there is something different about us and they who are being called will seek God and the life that we display. The fact is that we do not need a new program for evangelism we simply need to follow the example of our Father and treat others around us as He does. We are to have a long fuse, a short memory, a thick skin, and a big heart. In doing these we will fulfill our command to go into all the world and make disciples. Do we live a life of honor to our Father? It’s time for the church to honor our Father with our lives.
