Are You Choking?

Do We Need The Heimlich Spiritually?

I remember my life pretty well before I became a Christian. I used to do things not really thinking whether or not they displeased the Lord. I really didn’t enter into my mind at all what the Lord said. I did things because my friends were doing them, because coworkers were doing them. I wanted to be part of the accepted crowd, and I did whatever I could to remain there.

All I can say is Jesus Christ changed my life. He completely changed my way of thinking. Now I try to look at everything I do to see if it will please Him or not; whether or not it makes me look more like Jesus.

Paul tells us in that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. We need to look at the things we say, do, or even think so that we can bring glory to our God and honor Him with our lives.

Some things we can automatically see are not God’s will. Even common sense should tell us that it is wrong to kill, steal, lie, etc. But for some things it takes diligence in study to find the truth. But what about these things?

· Is it wrong to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers play football? …I don’t think so.

· Is it wrong to watch the Pirates play baseball? …….No, I don’t see anything wrong with it.

· Is it wrong to watch “appropriate” television shows or to read a good fiction novel? …….NO, I really don’t see anything bad here, as long as those TV shows are appropriate.

· Is it wrong to do gardening and landscaping at home? ….I doesn’t think so.

· Is it wrong to go out to dinner with a friend, or spend a weekend on vacation? No

· How about spending time on the internet playing games?

Are any of these things wrong? The answer to all these questions is no. In and of themselves, these things are not wrong.

But I’ll tell you one thing that is true:

If we keep piling up more and more of these things our priority that we claim to have of following Jesus will get narrower and narrower till we just squeeze Him out of our lives. We need to be careful of this great danger. I noticed this in my life a few years back, where I got to the point during the week that I would spend so much time on different activities, that I was almost totally squeezing Jesus out of my life. I made myself too busy for study and service to God.

I might have taken a couple minutes each night for a prayer, and that was about it for my daily time with God. I was going to worship on Sunday and on Wednesday night at that time, but other than that I really didn’t spend much quality time with the Lord. It got to the point where the spiritual things that were supposed to be my highest priority as a Christian were coming in a distant second to my own non-spiritual activities. It is that easy to be taken away by the cares of the world.

The question that I would like each one of us to answer for ourselves is

DO YOU NEED THE HEIMLICH MANUEVER SPIRITUALLY?

ARE YOU CHOKING?

If you would please, turn your bibles to Luke chapter 8

Jesus here speaks of 4 different kinds of soil. He shares with us later on that the different soils are the hearts of individuals that receive the seed of the word of God. When the word of God goes into a heart, it can give each person one of the four different responses that Jesus speaks of in verses 11-15.

I would like to focus on in this lesson comparing the two responses in verses 14 & 15.

I always looked at where it says worries and pleasures of the world, and thought that it was only speaking of sins that we can commit that can choke the word out of our lives. But I realized in my own life that the cares of the world can actually be things that are not evil in and of themselves. These things when we commit too much of the Lord’s time to them can choke the word, and we can actually bear no fruit.

Now what is the difference between these two types of soil? Obviously, they both heard the word.

We see that the good soil are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.

We see that those with the thorns have different attitudes than the ones who bear fruit. It seems to me that they are more self-focused than God-focused. They were not willing to keep a firm hold on the word. The word gets choked out.

Those in the good soil held to the word and were God-focused. They bore fruit with patience, steadfastness, & perseverance. They didn’t do it just part of the time.

The ones in the thorns were choked until they became unfruitful. And we are deceiving ourselves if we believe that can’t happen to us. We can fill our lives with so many things that aren’t spiritual at all, that we can choke ourselves spiritually to where we become stagnant, luke-warm Christians that bear no fruit in service to the Lord.

Let’s just think about this thought for a moment: What are our priorities? What is our focus supposed to be? Being good employees, good children, or good husbands and wives?

When we are doing these things we are serving God and those are not the things that I am speaking of that can choke us. We need all of these to be important parts of the way we spend our time because when we do them according to God’s will, we are doing God-centered activities.

What things should be our highest priorities?

What about our spiritual growth? Should our spiritual growth have a priority? No doubt it should.

TURN--

shows us many aspects in our lives in which we are to grow in.

5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;

These things should be a priority in our lives as Christians. We need to be diligent as Peter says to make these things abound in our lives. This should be a priority and it takes time to develop these things. If we want to be the good soil in Jesus’ parable, we must work on these things; we must diligently add to our faith these great traits. If we do, our God says through Peter that we will never be unfruitful in our service to Him as the soil with thorns.

instructs us to grow in every way so that we may look like Jesus Christ. We need to be willing to use one of our most valuable possessions; our time, to devote to studying God’s word and applying it to our lives.

What are other needs? Do we show a concern for our brothers and sisters in Christ?

How about Evangelism? I’m just too busy to share Jesus with others?

We need a bigger concern for lost souls. We need that same compassion for the lost that our Lord has, seeing the lost of the world as sheep without a shepherd. Seeking the lost should be a big priority for us because it was the purpose of our Lord’s coming to die on the cross. He said that He came to seek and save the lost.

How grateful are we for what the Lord has done for us? This question reminds me of a story that we have in . Jesus cast the legion of demons out of a man. When the man who had been healed wanted to follow Him, Jesus refused to allow the man to accompany Him. Putting myself in this man’s place, I can see why he would have wanted to be with the one who cured him; but Jesus said no. What Jesus preferred was for the man to testify of His work in the city. And this man did just that.

And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

Jesus left this area not being too popular with the townspeople. They had asked Him to leave. But the next time that He arrived in the area of Decapolis, it was a different story. In we see a multitude of people around Jesus, and they brought a man to Him to have Jesus heal. Quite a difference in reactions to the Lord, and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if it was because of that man who was demon possessed going throughout the region telling the people what the Lord did for Him. He was grateful!

How about us? This man received salvation from the legion of demons that he was being tormented with, but we have received so much greater of a salvation; so much greater of a hope. How are we responding to it? Are we willing to tell others about the great things that Jesus has done for us?

Encouraging and spending time with brethren?

23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; 24 and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, 25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

How high of a priority is it to us to make sure that we spend time with God’s people? I believe this text has application so much farther than the worship assemblies that we attend. We need to be around God’s people much more time than just during our assemblies. I’m afraid that one of the biggest reasons that the majority to Christians are not on fire for the Lord is simply because they are always off by themselves doing their own thing, spending time with the people of the world. We know that the scriptures teach that evil companions corrupt good morals, but we always seem to think that we are the exception to that rule.

We need to spend time around men and women of God who have their focus in the right place so we can encourage and lift one another up to better service to our Master.

(NKJV) "Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. 15 "But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.

This passage in Luke challenges us to find out what the “thorns” in our life are. Are we so busy, that we are choking ourselves spiritually? Are our priorities in line with God’s will is for us?

I’m not telling us that we cannot have any activities or have any hobbies that we are involved in. That is not the point. The point is that we can pile up so many things on our plate that are good in and of themselves that we can start choking ourselves spiritually. It is very easy in this world we live in to make ourselves overly busy. It is very easy for us to hold onto the things of this world and to put our focus on ourselves instead of Christ.

We need to remember who we belong to as Christians. We belong to Christ. He purchased us with His blood! In everything we do, Christ should be at the center of our lives. We should not be just giving Jesus a few hours out of each week.

Story that some may have heard before:

A picky customer comes to a small food shop and sees a new delivery of fresh fruit. "Give me two pounds of oranges and wrap every orange up in a separate piece of paper, please," he says to the saleswoman.

She does.

"And a pound of cherries, please, and wrap up every one in a

separate piece of paper, too."

She does, although frustrated with the demand.

"And what is that there?" he asks pointing out a bushel in the corner.

“Raisins," says the saleswoman, "but they are not for sale!"

There's nothing wrong with a customer in a grocery store who wants to individually wrap each piece of fruit.

But sometimes we tend to do the same thing with our lives. We wrap up a piece of our lives and give it to our family. We wrap up another piece of our lives and give it to our employer. We wrap up another piece of our lives and leave it laying on the couch in front of the television set. Oh.....and we certainly don't want to forget God! So we wrap up a few hours of our lives and give it to Him on Sunday and on Tuesdays if we assemble with the Lord’s people then.

There's only one problem with that approach to life (but a very big problem it is!). God doesn't just want the couple of hours of our lives that we have wrapped up and presented to Him. He wants all the pieces! He wants the part of our lives that we designate for family, and the part we designate for work, and even the part we designate for recreation. Every piece of our lives is to be lived with the purpose of bringing God the glory.

"whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." ()

Do we ever get our lives to the point where we have COMPARTMENTALIZED them to the point where we are only giving God a little bit of our time and hearts?

How focused are we on the Lord on seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness? Is it possible that we may be choking ourselves spiritually because we spend more time doing our own thing during the week than we do thinking of our Lord and spending time with Him? Are we choking the word out of our lives?

The difference between the good soil and the soil with thorns is what our focus is. Is our focus on Christ and helping others get to heaven, or is it on us? Are we seeking as our priority the things that are above as our Lord instructs us: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness.”

(NKJV) 14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; 15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

As we return to our question that we asked at the beginning of this lesson. Each one of us needs to answer it for the well-being of our souls: “Do you need the Heimlich maneuver spiritually?”

If there is anything that we can do for you to help you from choking yourself to death with the cares and the riches of this world, we hope that you will make your needs known before it’s too late. If we can be of service to you, why don’t you let us know today? I thank you for your attention