Not 100% Committed
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Greetings…
Today, we are going to considering a verse we all here are most likely very familiar with, Luke 10:27.
27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
This of course is taken by Jesus from Deuteronomy 6:5.
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
I have always found it interesting that in Luke’s and Mark’s account adds “all your strength” to the original.
Why, because it takes all our strength to combat sin and stay 100 percent committed to our God in this old sinful world.
However, today instead of talking about being 100 percent committed specifically I want us to consider what suffers in our lives as Christians we are “Not 100% Committed.”
If I am not 100 percent committed…
My Attendance Suffers
My Attendance Suffers
One Of The First To Go.
One Of The First To Go.
Whether or not people want to accept it the bible is clear on attendance and what it means to the faithful child of God.
Those that love to stir up each other to love and good works will not willfully sin by forsaking the assembling of the saints.
Hebrews 10:24–26 (ESV)
24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. 26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins
The reality is, when God comes in any place other than first place in our heart, mind, and soul anything can end up coming before assembling with the saints and will happen.
Things that never would have had a higher priority than worshiping God with our fellow saints or studying God’s precious word with our fellow saints start to have a higher priority then ever before in our lives.
Things like our kids sports, cattle showings, or camps start taking priority over worship and studying God’s word.
Things like meetings, extra curricular work, or the like starting taking priority over worship and studying God’s word with our fellow saints.
Things like family get-to-gathers, vacations, and traveling start taking priority over worshiping God and studying God’s word with out fellow saints.
Things like a slight cold, or minor pain start hindering us from worshiping our God and studying God’s word with our fellow saints.
Summary
Summary
One of the very first things to happen if we are not 100% committed to our God with “all our heart, mind, and soul” is our attendance suffers.
Another aspect of my spiritual life that suffers when I’m are not 100 percent committed to God is…
My Prayer Life Suffers
My Prayer Life Suffers
Our Prayer Life Slows Or Stops.
Our Prayer Life Slows Or Stops.
When we start putting those things we just mentioned or any other thing above God in our lives one of the daily things that begins to suffer is our prayer life with God.
What once could be described as active and continual…
Luke 18:1 (ESV)
1 And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.
Then starts to become sporadic and heartless.
After all how can one’s heart be into praying to their Father if they know they are not putting him first.
How many prayers do you think David prayed while living in his sin of adultery and murder?
How many prayers do you think Peter was offering up while ignoring the Gentile Christians for the Jewish ones?
It’s no wonder one of second thing Peter told Simon to do after his sinning was “pray.”
Acts 8:20–22 (ESV)
20 But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! 21 You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Summary
Summary
In all my years of being a Christian that continually needs the blood of Christ and in all my years counseling those who are like me I have yet to find anyone say to me that they prayer life has increased while they are not 100 percent committed to God.
No, like their attendance, their prayer life suffers when they are not 100 percent committed to God.
Another area we might not think of right off that suffers when we are not putting God first in our lives is our communion with God.
When I am not 100 percent committed to God…
My Communion Suffers
My Communion Suffers
It Takes Our Full Focus.
It Takes Our Full Focus.
If you or I find ourselves not 100 percent committed to God we will, without a doubt, find ourselves not fully committed to the Memorial Feast.
This is the very thing the church in Corinth found themselves in.
Though they were meeting every first day of the week (1 Corinthians 16:1-2) and they were meeting to partake of the Lord’s supper, it ended up not being the Lord’s supper that they were partaking of.
20 Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper.
Their commitment to their bellies overshadowed their commitment to God.
21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
We simply cannot “not” be 100 percent committed to God and partake of the communion properly because it requires our 100 percent commitment to God to begin with.
1 Corinthians 11:27–29 (ESV)
27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
Summary
Summary
The reason God requires a 100 percent commitment to him in order to partake of the Lord’s Supper properly is because he committed 100 percent to us having an opportunity to be saved.
38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”
Lastly, if I am not 100 percent committed to God with all our heart, mind, and soul…
My Teaching The Lost Suffers
My Teaching The Lost Suffers
It Is Hard When Committed.
It Is Hard When Committed.
It is hard to teach the lost the gospel as you all very well know when you are 100 percent committed to God it become nigh impossible to do it effectively when we are not 100 percent committed.
I honestly think this is the number one reason so many people that have tasted having their sins washed away never end up telling others about this great salvation.
Many never really count the cost of putting God first until they have obeyed the gospel and then when they learn the actual cost of 100 percent commitment, simply try to “just get by.”
When this happens they don’t partake of the blessedness of telling others the joy of 100 percent commitment because they themselves are not leading it.
After all how can one tell of the joy of living a godly life in persecution if they have not really ever suffered for Christ.
2 Timothy 3:12 (ESV)
12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
How does one answer the lost’s question of “how do I give up all these sinful things and put God first” if we ourselves have not really “given everything up for Christ” ourselves?
Summary
Summary
Teaching the lost about the “good news of Jesus” is only easy if we never describe the need to “count the cost of discipleship” yet Jesus said we must.
33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Being 100 percent committed to Jesus means we will suffer but that we will find joy even in our suffering for Christ.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Being 100 percent committed to God isn’t about standing on the corner of a busy street and yelling scripture at other people and it isn’t about carrying a heavy cross on wheels down a street.
Being 100 percent committed is about putting God first in our lives above our jobs, our friends, and even our family because it is loving our God…
Luke 10:27 (ESV)
27 …with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind…
Invitation
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
7 By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.