God's Heart #1
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
New Series Starting Today
New Series Starting Today
Last week when I was talking to you about prayer and praying for this church to become what it truly should be, it occurred to me that perhaps we should spend some time exploring just what God’s Heart truly is.
What is it that He desires?
What its it that He wants to do in the earth?
Where do we fit in?
What is it that He wants us to do?
What IS his heart?
Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained,
But happy is he who keeps the law.
What the writer of Proverbs was telling us is that if we don’t have a vision or direction for the future, we will simply be confused - going circles, so to speak.
But if we have a clear vision of the heart of God - what He desires to achieve in the earth - then it seems to me, at least, that we could all have a much clearer understanding of just what we are doing here and what we SHOULD be doing here.
Maybe you don’t care - you just want to live your life getting by the best way you can each day.
But I care - I want to live my life to the fullest, and I understand that I can only do that when I am squarely in the middle of God’s heart. And I think that some of you feel the same way. Perhaps you just need a bit of vision and direction to see it happen.
David - the Man after God’s Own Heart
David - the Man after God’s Own Heart
Almost everyone who has ever opened a bible knows that King David was known as a man after God’s own heart. He was a murderer and an adulterer, yet God gave him this title. Paul explained why in these terms:
“After He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.’
From this I take it that the man (or woman) who will do all God’s will will be called a person after God’s Heart. You just need to know what His will is - right?
And there lies the problem for so many people - just what IS God’s will for my life? I’ve heard it over and over again -
“I’m just waiting on God”
“I’m seeking God for his will”
“I’m trying to find the will of God”
“I need to know what God’s will for my life is”
In other words, WHAT IS GOD’S HEART?
Perhaps we don’t need to be as worried about what God’s will for MY life is as being worried about what His will for his creation is.
If we know that, and we work to help Him achieve that, then isn’t it pretty clear that we would be in His will?
If, for example, his will is that all should come to repentance and be saved:
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
then it would seem perfectly logical to me that if I work to help bring people to repentance (and salvation) then I would be in His will - and have His heart!
The question is not:
What His will is for my life?
but:
How can my talents and passions be used for His will in the earth?
When you put your talents, your passions, and your giftings to work advancing His will in the earth, you have put yourself squarely in His will. You earn His favor. And you build something that will last YOU for eternity.
Discerning God’s Will in the Earth
Discerning God’s Will in the Earth
God has an overriding, overall will for His creation - he had it from the beginning. Man did his part to detour it, but God had a way to get us back on track so that, ultimately, his will - his plan - will happen.
And its all laid out in the Bible.
God’s will is manifested in Creation
When God created the heavens and earth and all that was in them along with man, he had a plan and a purpose. We see it in
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”
In Genesis 1, we learn how God fashioned the world to operate in perfect unity, peace, and complete flourishing – what the Old Testament prophets call shalom.
In the first few verses of the chapter, God worked, molding the universe out of nothing. If you read it closely, you begin to see God as a maker, a creator, and an artist who takes pride and finds pleasure in his good work.
He created the heavens and the earth, and he was pleased.
On the sixth day of creation, God topped it all off by creating man and woman, the crowning glory of his work, and he fashioned them in his own image (Gen. 1:27). At the end of the day, he saw everything that he had made and declared it “very good” (Gen. 1:31). God looked upon his work with love and delight.
Putting our creation in this context changes my view of my purpose in life. God didn’t make me to be some robot - mindlessly and mechanically going about doing his work. And he didn’t create me without giving me a purpose. No! He created me out of his great love and he made me in his image. He gave me power and abilities to help him carry out his work while living in relationship with him! I love and work with him because he first loved me - 1 John 4:19.
The second chapter of Genesis tells me that:
The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it.
The story of creation lets us in on how awesome and great God’s love for us is. He shaped and molded us in HIS image - made us like Him! We were made to reflect his glory. And he trusted us with the greatest responsibility of all that he created - to care for, cultivate and GROW his kingdom.
In his image, we have the ability and desire to be in relationships and to create. These aspects of God’s image form the foundation of our human dignity, desires, and abilities. You can never forget that because of God’s love for us, he gave us purpose on earth.
God’s plan from the beginning was for man to live in close, personal relationship with him while working to fill the earth with people made in his image.
However, a problem developed with the plan:
God’s will in Creation sidetracked by the Fall
The third chapter of Genesis makes it clear that because our first parents rebelled against God, we are fallen creatures with a sinful nature that manifests in selfishness, greed, and exploitation (Rom. 5:12).
Things are not the way they are supposed to be. This rebellion of Adam and Eve against God in the Garden of Eden broke the command he had given to them and introduced sin into the world
And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”
Sin now contaminates every aspect of human life and the order in which God created things. (Gen. 3:7-24). The unity and peace God had so carefully built into everything began to unravel. Every part of the created order was damaged; even the environment was altered. Everything was broken, including our relationship with God.
The Fall effects every part of our lives. Instead of living in close relationship with him, now we seek independence from God and look to idols to satisfy our longings. Our relationships are broken and full of despair, hurt, pain, sadness, anger, and envy. Instead of peace and happiness, we are filled with self-doubt, insecurity, pride, and depression. Even the earth itself is effected, filled with famine, drought, floods, and other natural disasters.
Sin has touched every part of Creation.
Our relationship with God was damaged: intimacy and trust with Him was replaced with fear; our self-image was destroyed, as shame replaced innocence; our relationship with others was broken, as the blame game was introduced; and their relationship with the rest of creation became distorted, as God cursed the ground and the childbearing process.
These four relationships which have been so badly damaged: relationship with God, relationship with self, relationship with each other and relationship with creation are the basis of everything that we do in life. And because they have been so badly damaged, they have effected everything - our economic, our social, our political and even our religious, and political systems. EVERYTHING that we created throughout history has been adversely effected.
At the heart of all of this lies our broken relationships - relationships that are messed up because WE are messed up. We deny what is true: that Jesus Christ is Lord over our lives, deserving of all honor, glory, and praise. Instead, we value other things over him, especially ourselves. We place our trust, confidence, and love in ourselves rather than in God. We deny God’s truth and adhere to lies. We choose to live in a way that glorifies “me.” From that, all relationships suffer. Sin has so badly damaged our understanding of truth and value that forming a lasting, trust based relationship is almost impossible.
That’s why Paul wrote:
For the creation was subjected to futility —not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it —in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.
Thank goodness, the story doesn’t end there. For, even before man messed it up, God had a plan:
God offers recovery from the fallen state through Redemption
Our God is so faithful! He never quits. And he didn’t abandon us because we messed up. He didn’t leave us to die there. That same love that caused him to craft us so carefully and bring us into partnership with him moved him to offer us a way out of sin. That love manifested itself through mercy and grace in the form of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Paul puts it like this:
But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!
Make no mistake - according to God’s holiness and righteousness, not to mention his command - we deserve death. But instead God graciously gave us the free gift of eternal life through his son, Jesus Christ.
Again, Paul has a description:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Because of REDEMPTION through GRACE, we have HOPE.
Oh, I know things are perfect, even in redemption. That’s because as long as we are here in THIS earth, we will always fight our fallen nature. And the world around us still suffers from the effects of the fall - its not perfect as it was in the garden of Eden.
But God wants us to prosper and do well even now - that’s why he has offered us redemption. And when we choose to live FULLY in what he has offered - and living fully in it will be the subject of coming messages - when we appropriate all that he has offered for our healing, we can begin to see healing in all of our relationships. In the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul calls it a down payment or a pledge - a piece or portion - of what is coming.
We see the effects of redemption even in the middle of our greatest trials - for even them - by God’s power and mercy - we can still experience joy, laughter, love, peace. We see redemption in relationships repaired, illnesses healed, cities rebuilt. Communities come together in the face of tragedy to rebuild, support, and care for one another. By living lives demonstrative of Christ’s love, we extend God’s redemptive grace to others.
Dean T. M. Moore, of the Colson Center’s Centurions Program, writes of the greater purpose of our calling made possible by the grace of the gospel:
So the creation has been “subjected to futility,” Paul says, and we who have become the sons and daughters of God, who understand His purpose for our work, have been called in our work to repair, renew, and restore the original beauty, goodness, and truth of God… Our work only takes on full significance when we see it in this light, as part of God’s ongoing work to bring everything to a higher state of goodness.
When we get this - when we begin to understand it, we begin to see Romans 8:28 in a different light:
We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.
Instead of devoting ourselves to our own personal interest, our own economic prosperity, God intends for our work to contribute to the restoration of the CREATION, and the people in it, to raising life on this planet to higher states of beauty, goodness, and truth, reflecting the glory of God in our midst.
But that’s not the end of the story - there is one more chapter:
God’s will in Creation will be completed through Restoration
So, we have seen that in Creation God, moved by his deep love, created us in his image and gave us a purpose. The sin which came as a result of the FALL, alienates us from God and affects all of the life that we live. Redemption, through the death and resurrection of Christ, brings us hope once again - hope that we are indeed destined for a better life through God’s grace.
Restoration anticipates the new world that has not yet come to pass - an age when Jesus will return and complete the work he started.
Then the One seated on the throne said, “Look! I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.”
In Restoration,
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Death will no longer exist;
grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer,
because the previous things have passed away.
In Restoration we find hope in what is to come and in the significance of our work today.
In 1 Corinthians 15:58, Paul says this:
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
The “work of the Lord” that Paul refers to is what what God has called us to do in our families, our churches, our communities, and our jobs. Each one of us has resources, gifts, and talents that God has blessed us with. Our job on earth - here and now - is to do our best to put those to work bringing glory to God. What is done in the here and now, in the age of Redemption, is still important to God. Sin and the devil are still fighting against us, but we can still use what God has blessed us with in a way that honors God. This is good stewardship.
While each of the New Testament writers wrote at least something about the Restoration, Paul gives us the most insight, referencing it in several of his books. In 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, Paul gives us a glimpse of what our work for God here on earth can yield in the new earth:
For no one can lay any other foundation than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on that foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one’s work will become obvious, for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, it will be lost, but he will be saved; yet it will be like an escape through fire.
Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s sanctuary and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
There is so much more to it than we can ever imagine - but it seems clear to me that when I die, I don’t just go to heaven, leaving everything that I’ve worked for for God behind. I’ve often said that there are levels of reward in heaven - now it seems clear to me that the things that I have built on the name of Jesus will in some way go with me when I go.
Jesus himself touched on this:
“Don’t collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal.
And Paul commanded his protege, Timothy, to be sure and instruct his followers:
Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be arrogant or to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God, who richly provides us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do what is good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, willing to share,
What It All Means
What It All Means
If I’ve gotten this over to you at all this morning, hopefully you see God’s purpose and plan more broadly than you did before. Life here on earth is not just about staying “good enough” to go to heaven when you die.
Life here in “Redemption” is a prelude - an introduction - to the new life, the new body, the new world that God wants to include us in. And those who realize this and work WITH HIM to help build toward that new world will find life here in redemption far more fulfilling and satisfying.
As I’ve said often:
What you do here at Exceleration is an audition for what you’ll do in eternity.
(GIVE SOME EXAMPLES - greeters, singers, instruments)
When you work to bring others into this glorious truth, you demonstrate to God that you are good steward of his provision and that you value his gifts above all others.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Altar call - are you living in Redemption?