Devour or Be Devoured
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Open Your bibles to 1 corinthians 16:13 this morning.
13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love.
Let all that you do be done in love. Our watchfulness, our standing firm, acting like men, me being strong are to be done in love. Which means, they can be done in love. There is another way to carry out all of those things, however, the way to do them successfully, and that is to the glory of god rather than to your own glory, is through love.
Love is something talked about so much in this letter to the Corinthians. It is the bedrock for everything. Nothing, absolutely nothing is profitable or worth anything if we do not have or do it in love. Which means to love is really big deal. The Bible tells us what love is. So we don’t have to guess. God is love. Love, true love, love that is real in the sense of ultimate definitions, this kind of love thy we experience or take part in is a reflection of God.
To know God is to know love. Just go to the book of first John and hear this Said by the apostle that Jesus loved over and over again. If you do not love you do not know God. But it is not just crucial for our doing. Many people hear that and think, if I am going to love someone well or something well, then I need to know Gods love. That is true. But my friends, this is not the starting place. Consider what Jesus said the first and greatest commandment was. It was not to know God or know the love of God. The first and greatest commandment is to love God.
Now, this is so crucial. If we want to take back biblical manhood, and biblical womanhood, and biblical families, and biblical churches, and so on, we need to stand firm, to be watchful, and to act like men and be strong. Yet, the only effective way to do them is to do them in love. but to know what true love is we need to love.
There is a cylce here, because to love we need to know the love of God and to know the love of God we need to know His love for us. listen to paul Ephesians 3:14–19
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that He would give you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being firmly rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”
But look at that last verse. We can know love in its highest form that surpasses knowledge! How? Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:5
you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Therefore as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,
having been firmly rooted and being built up in Him, and having been established in your faith—just as you were instructed—and abounding with thanksgiving.
To even start to love or to know love, we must have Christ. So ask yourself this morning, is your spiritual life, is your faith being grown through Christ this morning? Or something else. Well how will you know? Great question… John 14:15
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
John 14:21-24
maybe even clearer
“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”
Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?”
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.
“He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.
“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
So clear a caveman can understand… To know Christ is to not just know about his word, not just know some verses that I like and move on, but to obey. To believe. To eat and bear fruit from it.
Now, last week I said hunger is involved. Hunger for more. Hunger for God. Hunger for what he offers us. It is one of the clearest signs that we are in Christ and that Christ is in us … The hunger, or lack there of for the word of God. You have heard many passages about this, right? “The wise man who hears my words and does them is he who builds his house on the rock.” “Not everyone who says to me lord lord will enter.” “And then “baptize them and teach them to obey all I command…” You have heard them… But I tell you what, if there is one thing that will cause us to continue to lose the witness of Christ in our life, and quite frankly our nation, it is how trivially we treat Gods word.
Now, I want to make a case to prove my point to you. To show you just how much we need Gods word, and how much we should hunger for it, but also show you a case for what happens when we claim to be of God, but don’t hunger for, or take Gods word seriously. Turn with me to Jeremiah 5…
1 “Roam to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, And see now and know, And seek in her open squares, If you can find a man, If there is one who does justice, who seeks faithfulness, Then I will pardon her. 2 “And if they say, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ Then they swear to a lie.” 3 O Yahweh, do not Your eyes look for faithfulness? You have struck them, But they did not weaken; You have consumed them, But they refused to receive discipline. They have made their faces stronger than rock; They have refused to repent. 4 Then I said, “They are only the poor; They are foolish; For they do not know the way of Yahweh Or the legal judgment of their God. 5 “Let me go to the great And let me speak to them, For they know the way of Yahweh And the legal judgment of their God.” But they too, altogether, have broken the yoke And torn apart the bonds. 6 Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them down; A wolf of the deserts will devastate them; A leopard is watching their cities. Everyone who goes out of them will be torn in pieces Because their transgressions are many; Their acts of faithlessness are mighty.
10 “Go up through her vine rows and make them a ruin, But do not make a complete destruction; Remove her branches, For they are not Yahweh’s. 11 “For the house of Israel and the house of Judah Have dealt very treacherously with Me,” declares Yahweh. 12 They have dealt falsely about Yahweh And said, “Not He; Calamity will not come on us, And we will not see sword or famine. 13 “The prophets are as wind, And the word is not in them. Thus it will be done to them!” 14 Therefore, thus says Yahweh, the God of hosts, “Because you have spoken this word, Behold, I am making My words in your mouth fire And this people wood, and it will devour them. 15 “Behold, I am bringing a nation against you from afar, O house of Israel,” declares Yahweh. “It is an enduring nation; It is an ancient nation, A nation whose tongue you do not know, Nor can you understand what they say. 16 “Their quiver is like an open grave; All of them are mighty men. 17 “They will devour your harvest and your food; They will devour your sons and your daughters; They will devour your flocks and your herds; They will devour your vines and your fig trees; They will demolish with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust. 18 “Yet even in those days,” declares Yahweh, “I will not make you a complete destruction. 19 “It shall come about when they say, ‘Why has Yahweh our God done all these things to us?’ then you shall say to them, ‘As you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’
9 Thus says Yahweh of hosts, “They will thoroughly glean as the vine the remnant of Israel; Pass your hand again like a grape gatherer Over the branches.” 10 To whom shall I speak and give warning That they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised, And they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of Yahweh has become a reproach to them; They have no delight in it.
Now look. If I asked you why God was bringing judgment on these people he is talkin gto, would you be able to deduce it from these passages? I hope so. The answer is because they don’t know Him. Not that he didn’t reveal himself to them. He did. But they cast him aside. He gave them his word, his miracles, his presence, his love, and they knew Him not. He gave them food, he offered them sustenance, and they traded it for false gods… Well that is the old testament seth, it is not like that today, Christians are Christians, God is gracious, he doesn’t do this anymore…
Oh really? Just look at his words to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3… God is the same yesterday today and forever…(Pause)
You know there is this foot race, it is an ultra run, 254 miles in length. I am very very fascinated by it. I watched as hundreds of runners took on the challenge. The winner, Rachel entriken, won the entire thing in a record breaking 56 hours. 56 hours. 254 miles of running. And had just over 20 minutes of sleep for the whole thing… Amazing. But you know what. At the end of the race she said, it is less of a running competition once you get past 100 miles. It is then an eating competition. You have to eat to run. You have to eat smart and eat well to run well. You have to have the right nutrients and the right about of electrolytes and water etc…
But you know, why I am trying to tell you this morning is that the same if true for our spiritual life. Many Christians read, Hebrews 12:1
1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
and think, yes, I need to get to running. But so many are running on empty stomachs. They are weak and weary. Because they do not eat, they do not devour the precious word of God.
The word is often described as food, right? It is as sweet as honey. It is milk. It is meat. Man cannot live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. The word is the bread and water of life. It is where God has revealed Himself to us. And it is what you either devour and find strength in the storm to keep running, or you are devoured for lack of it.
As you saw in the passage the Lord brings judgment on those who despise his word. But consider the warnings of 1 Corinthians 16:13-14
13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love.
Why?
Because 1 Peter 5:8
8 Be of sober spirit, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Devour the word, eat it and be filled, but not just to give birth to wind, as the scriptures say, but to bear much fruit. Treat the word as trival, and your life is prone to much drama, stress, sleeplessness, worry, anxiety, frustration, broken relationships and so on. The devil is on the same trail. He is running to. Not as one to win any prize, but to keep you from running at all.
Trivial treatment of the word of God will lead to vulnerability. And much like a runner who treats his body poorly, trival treatment of the word will lead to ruin of your heart, the destruction of your family, the tainting of your church, and ultimately the loss of your nation.
So what does trival treatment look like? Trivial treatment looks like this… Someone says, “pastor, I am an anger person.”
The pastor responds, “Well my friend here is some scripture that helps you. And here is how to employ it in your life to put off anger and put on righteousness”
The man replies… “Thanks pastor, but I could never do that. This all sounds well and good, but I’m just too far gone, I’m just too angry.” Or, “yeah that is nice but, I think thats a little too simplistic for my big problems…”
Insert anything you want in here… I have seen it time and time again… What have Christians been trained to believe? Over the last 200 years Christians have slowly been trained to believe that the word is good to save me, it is interesting enough to have a bible study around, and it is pleasent enough(those good parts) to be put on a daily calendar… but not good enough to deal with my heart and build my life on, and instead I just need to work harder, I need pills, I need a better plan, a therapist, a vacation, etc…
Have we not been witnessing the devouring of our nation? Nearly on the eve of this semiquincentenial can you say that america holds the same values, standards, morals, and strength as she did 250 years ago? Where did it go? It has gone where our love for God has gone. Away. We have a president that doesn’t put his hand on the bible to be sworn in, who chooses a charismatic crazy woman to be his spiritual advisor, and fills his cabinet and rallies for senate and house seats to be filled with people who claim to be Christians, but have no substance. The highest office, thats the head. What then is in the heart, meaning at our level? Will we too be runners on the course leaving behind a legacy of spiritual malnutrition?
My friends, the Lord God almighty has loved the world in such a way that he not only gives them sun and rain, but he gave his son to reign. He sent his son into the world to solidify the words he has spoken through the law prophets and to train up apostles that would carry on that ministry. And then he died the sacrificial atoning death that is effective to save you, but the blood of Christ is just as effective to deliver you from all sorts of evil, so that you may worship God with more of your heart tomorrow than you did today.
He gave you a book. He gave you his word so that you could read it and study it. He gave it to the church so we could hear it proclaimed and convict us and cause us to repent. He gave it to us so that as we obey it and employ it in your life out of love for Him we will love more of Him.
He didn’t give it to you so that you could read it and agree with it and all of your problems go away like taking some kind of oxicotin or morphine… it is more like Food, that goes down into the stomach and is digested, and over time, through eating that same good food, your body is strengthened, and muscles grow, and your organs get healthier, and you get more productive and lovely because of it.
I so desire to see you run well. But I know the battle. We must throw off our complete and utter dependence on the world and put our dependence back in God. To quote the great missionay hudson taylor,
“Let us see that we keep God before our eyes; That we walk in His ways, and seek to please and glorify Him in everything great and small. Depend upon it, God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supplies.”
Coming to the word in obedience , not with a trivial heart seeking a quick fix or small dose of daily happiness, but counting it as our true food will alway produce the will of God in us. It is the well of grace that never runs out. It is the way we will know God, the way that we will grow in the love of God, and the way that we will be able to be watchful, stand firm, act like men and be strong . To God be the glory.
