Consider the Birds

for the birds. Worthless, not to be taken seriously, no good. For example, This conference is for the birds—let's leave now. This term has been said to allude to horse droppings from which birds would extract seeds. This seemingly fanciful theory is borne out by a more vulgar version of this idiom, shit for the birds. ...

WE: IDENTIFICATION (MAKE IT CLEAR THAT YOU STRUGGLE)

God’s world view

Addiction is a sickness

We are just evolving

When we understand how valuable we are in the eyes of God.

When we live in God’s economy of God.

Faith and transformation will happen.

GOD: ILLUMINATION (THE GOAL IS TO RESOLVE THE TENSION

Matthew 6:26

Matthew 6:5-6

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Mt 6:25–29). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Lord, You have told us to learn from the birds of the air (Matthew 6:26). Let it be so in my life. Amen.

—Penney Schwab

Value

Are we not more value than the birds. Know how valuable we are in God’s eyes shows us our worth.

B. Change is not are enemy, rather an opportunity

a. We may not see the opportunity in horse dung but the birds do.

Isaiah 40:31

but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint.

Fear Not, for I

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 40:31–41:1). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

A. Have you ever needed Hope

Here we come back to the theme of trust.

This concept of trust as waiting has appeared three times previously in the book (8:17; 25:9; 33:2) and will appear twice more (49:23; 64:4).

To “wait” on God is not simply to mark time; rather, it is to live in confident expectation of his action on our behalf.

It is to refuse to run ahead of him in trying to solve our problems for ourselves. Thus, just as Isaiah called on the people of his own day to trust God to solve their problems, he calls on the exiles in the age to come to do the same thing.

If they are worn out and weary, hardly daring to believe that there is any future for them, the God of all strength can give them exactly what they need at the right time, whether to “soar,” “run,” or “walk.”

Oswalt, J. N. (2003). Isaiah (p. 448). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

We can put are hope & trust in God.

Hope. It is into a setting just like ours that Isaiah speaks by inspiration. He speaks to people who have lost hope. The impossible has happened. They were sure their nation could not fall, that their temple could not be destroyed, and that their God would not let them down. Yet all that happened. Whatever the future might hold, it would always be one of regret. Yes, God may have acted in the past, for other people, but this situation is beyond him. It is beyond his compassion (“he has forgotten me”), and it is beyond his power (“my way is hidden from him”).

Isaiah says to us as he said to them, “No! There is nothing beyond his compassion or his power. Have you not known? Have you not heard?” There is nothing that a caring Creator cannot change.

We are persons of worth to him, and that means that we really can choose to be and act differently than we have.

In the same way, we can believe that God can change our circumstances. There can be real change for the better. That is, there can be if we believe in a God who is both outside of and inside of history.

These people needed to hear the Word of God in ways that changed how they thought. That is what we need too.

We need lives of faith that are shaped by the Word of God,

its view of reality, and the principles that emerge from it.

If I cannot “believe” God and “hope” in him in the sense of surrendering my life to him in a kind of life that I know pleases him, then his power cannot transform me.

But if I will actively believe his Word, there really are no limits to what he can do for me, for my family, and for my society.

YOU: APPLICATION (TELL PEOPLE WHAT TO DO AND WHAT THEY HAVE HEARD)

Conclusion:

When we understand how valuable we are in the eyes of God.

When we live in God’s economy of God.

Faith and transformation will happen.

St. Teresa’s Bookmark found in her own prayer book after her death:

Let nothing disturb you.

Let nothing upset you.

Everything changes.

God alone is unchanging.

With patience all things are possible.

Whoever has God lacks nothing.

God alone is enough.

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