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Praying Like Jesus

November 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Praying Like Jesus

# 1. The Vision of a Praying Church – Luke 11:1-4.

In some ways Talbot Creek is beginning of a brand new year in terms of the church. It is the time when we start all over. I don’t know how many of you realize it but we have actually completed six years of ministry here at Talbot and we are thankful to God who has brought us this far.
Looking over those six years we have done some things right and in some areas we have missed the boat altogether. Some of the things we have done right I think are these:
• We have reached out into the community through our Summer Fairs, Community assistance to families in need, soccer camp and through monthly messages in the Chronicle and other means.
• We have reached out into the Schools through Big Brothers and other programs there.
• We have established an active and alive Youth Group that meets twice a week.
• We have a viable Sunday morning worship service and children’s program.
• We have at least some active home Bible Study groups going.
• We have reached out through missionary giving both to projects at home and overseas.
Those are all good things which we have done and which we need to celebrate in our thanksgiving.
But there are also some areas in which we have dropped the ball.
• We have not done well in reaching the un-churched.
• We have not done well in creating spontaneous fellowship during week days. As a result of this we have lost some of our families.
• We have fallen down in the area of prayer.
Now, I mention prayer last but it is really the most important part of what we do here at Talbot. In fact it is central to everything we do. After much prayer and thinking about the direction in which we should go this coming year I believe that God has given me a clear impression that the thing we need to do most is to go back to our original vision and back to the most important part of that vision, which is prayer. In the light of that I want to start off the new ‘church year’ with some messages which I hope will challenge you to make Talbot a praying church and thus a powerful church.
Now stay with me. This is not an attempt to beat up on you but to teach you principles about prayer, which, if we practice them, will renew our passion for God and His Church. Right at the start of this church I preached a message on ‘Core Values’ in which I outlined five things I wanted to see develop in the lives of the members of this church. Let me repeat them for us:
• We want to see people here who are prepared to live under the authority of the Word of God.
• We want to see people who have developed the habit of daily prayer and who are expecting answers to prayer through the power of the Holy Spirit.
• We want to see a church in which people are known for their integrity. They live by their word. You can trust them.
• We want to see people who give their best for Jesus in whatever they do – no half-hearted effort here.
• We want to see people developing their leadership abilities to the fullest.

Now, it is this area of prayer and prayer ministries that I want to concentrate on over the next five or six weeks. The church should be a place where people experience amazing answers to prayer and I believe that many of us do but we don’t share these answers in an open way. I want us however, as a congregation, to renew our commitment to prayer and the instrument I want to use in getting there is ‘The Lord’s Prayer.’ We are going to look over a number of weeks at our Lord’s teaching relating to prayer. Let me invite you to turn with me first to Luke’s record of the

Lord’s Prayer – Luke 11:1 – 2.

Notice that Jesus was praying in a certain place and his disciples obviously saw and heard him pray. It must have been an awesome experience for them to see and hear their Master in communion and fellowship with the Father. The disciples do not give us a description of how he prayed but they indicate that there was something awesome about it. And so they waited until Jesus was finished, then they came to him and said, “Lord teach us to pray.”
Church members sometimes say to me, “Pastor Cowan, I wish I could pray like you.” What they really mean is that they would like to be able to find the same words that I use when I pray but what they are seeing and hearing when I pray is only the outward visible and audible action. True prayer comes from the heart and that is not easy to see.
Here is what we learn however from the disciples’ request.

1. Prayer can be Learned – ‘Lord, teach us to pray.”

In fact we need to be taught because it is not something we do naturally. I was taught to pray as a child. My parents taught me very early in infancy, as soon as I could talk, to pray, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee lord, my soul to take.’
Later on I learned, ‘Jesus tender shepherd hear me, Bless Thy little lamb tonight. Through the darkness be thou near me; Keep me safe ‘til morning light.’ Still later on I learned the Lord’s Prayer just by hearing it repeated in Church.
That was about my limit in prayer until I was truly converted at 17 years of age. I just didn’t know how to pray so I took my hymnbook and learned prayer hymns and prayed them back to God. Sometimes I would pray ‘Teach me thy way O Lord, Teach me thy way…’
You see, here’s what you need to know about prayer.

‘Learning to pray is a lifelong process.’

It begins with learning to pray during devotional times when no one else is listening to you but God. God is not concerned about the actual use of words or the proper use of grammer. It’s only people who have that concern. God is concerned about the heart.
In public prayer it may begin with just one sentence, what some people like to call a ‘popcorn prayer.’ The first time I ever prayed openly in the presence of others was shortly after my conversion when someone who thought I had been a Christian for years asked me to open in prayer. Absolutely stunned at the request, I closed my eyes and repeated the Lord’s Prayer. Don’t be embarrassed if you can only pray one sentence or the Lord’s Prayer in a public meeting and please remember, we can learn to pray.

2. It’s the Lord who teaches us to pray – ‘Lord, teach us.’

It is interesting, isn’t it, that when you go to the Old Testament you really find no instruction on how to pray. There are scattered principles about what to pray but no how to pray. You don’t find any such teaching in the books of Moses or the instructions of the Prophets.
And when you come to the New Testament the same is true. You find a lot in the Epistles about the content and challenge of prayer but little about the process of prayer. It is only in the Gospels in the teachings of Jesus that you find out how to pray. You find it in the Sermon on the Mount and in other places where Jesus taught on prayer.
Jesus teaches us in the Gospels and He teaches us in His personal relationship with us. He is able to teach us because He is as close to God the Father as anyone can get. He is One with the Father (John 10:30). This closeness and oneness with the Father enables him to know and teach us how to pray.

3. We all need to learn how to pray – ‘Lord, teach us…’

Notice that it was the hand picked disciples of Jesus who asked the question. They needed to know ‘how to pray.’ They had seen up close in the life of Jesus what prayer was able to do. When they made this request of Jesus they were really admitting to Jesus that they did not know how to pray. Can you imagine that? The Disciples of Jesus who would later on become known as the Twelve Apostles were admitting that they did not know how to pray.
In the old days most Evangelical churches had mid-week prayer services. In most of those churches only a handful turned up for the prayer service. In a church of 500 you may find 20 people at that service. Why? When I would ask people this question, ‘Why don’t you attend prayer meeting?’ the most common answer I would get was “Pastor, I don’t know how to pray.”
Is this a common church problem? Listen to the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:26, ‘We do not know how to pray as we ought.’ This is the only thing Paul ever admitted to not knowing. He knew how to write letters, how to explain deep theology, how to work with his hands to support himself, how to explain and defend the Gospel, how to plant churches – things that you and I know how to do them. But he didn’t know how to pray as he ought. Paul would have to say like the rest of the Apostles, “Lord, teach me to pray.’
Do you feel that need in your own life? Do you need to go to Jesus as the Disciples did and say, “Lord, teach me to pray.”

Here are some questions I want you to answer to yourself:
• When you pray, do you feel like you are talking to yourself?
• Has prayer become for you just a meaningless habit?
• Are you getting no answers to prayer?
• Do you pray only when you face a crisis?
• Are you any different because you’ve prayed?

Closing:

As we close this message today, let me take you back to the statement we made six years ago in our Vision Statement for this church –
‘We want to see people who have developed the habit of daily prayer and who are experiencing answers to prayer through the power of the Holy Spirit.’
To put it in a much simpler way:
‘We want to see you experience amazing answers to prayer.’
Over the next few weeks I want to challenge you to learn to pray, privately and openly and to help you do that I want to invite you to become part of a Prayer Partner Team. What I want to do is to have small groups of prayer partners who will meet at their own convenience once weekly for prayer. When the service is over I want you to talk with one another and see if there are others who will join with you. The teams should be four to six persons. If two couples would like to make a team that would be good. Set a time when you can meet and start as soon as possible.
There is a sheet of paper on the Welcome table where you can register you Prayer Partner Team. This is for my benefit and knowledge.
I will also provide a list of things to pray for and you can add to that list request from your own group.
I am willing to come to any group and give you a help in starting to pray effectively.
I want you to come and receive the teaching over the next few weeks that will help you to pray as Jesus prayed.
And those of you who are receiving this message over the Internet, why don’t you write and let us know that you too are willing to be a Partner in Prayer with us. May the Lord bless you abundantly today.

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Sandals of the Gospel of Peace

April 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Sandals of the Gospel of Peace – Ephesians 6:15.

I was once visiting an Old Order Mennonite Church when I saw something I shall never forget. A little boy of about eight or nine years old entered the service late, dressed in what looked like a brand-new suit. Underneath that black suit was a new plaid shirt. But what drew my attention the most was that, in spite of that black suit and attractive plaid shirt, he was barefooted. He wore neither shoes nor socks.

Now perhaps he had a reason for going sockless and shoeless. Perhaps they didn’t seem important to him. Perhaps his parents couldn’t afford them although that seemed unlikely given his attractive new suit. Perhaps he was late for church and didn’t have time to finish dressing. Or, perhaps, he just couldn’t be bothered. Whatever it was it seemed peculiar to me because I was a stranger to the practices and culture of the Old Order Mennonites. The moment I entered that church I was transported into a totally different and peculiar culture. They were wonderful, friendly, gracious people but they lived their lives in a totally different way from the world around them.

Imagine how you would feel if you were suddenly transported from this century into a Roman army camp in the First Century A.D. Everything would be peculiar to you and among the strange things you would see would be the Roman soldier’s feet prepared for war. Why? Because, instead of army boots, he would put on sandals. We all know what sandals are, just the sole of a shoe with straps attached to secure them to the feet. This was what the Romans wore but there was one thing that was different. The soles of those sandals would have studs underneath them like golf shoes today.

You will understand why as we look at:

  1. The Purpose of a Soldier’s Sandals.

Why did a Roman soldier wear sandals? Well for three main reasons.

  • A. For Firmness.

He needed something to keep him from slipping and sliding in the heat of the battle. He needed the ability to stand his ground and the studs underneath would help him to do this. He did not know what kind of terrain he would be fighting on so he needed to provide his own foundation, and his sandals were specifically made to accomplish this.

  • B. For Protection.

In modern warfare we often hear about the ground being mined. In the First Century they had no explosives and no technology to mine the ground so they did something else. They fixed into the ground sharpened sticks or spikes so that, when the enemy came running along he would injure his feet on these spikes. The Roman soldier wore sandals with tough soles to prevent this from happening.

  • C. For Mobility.

In the heat of the battle the soldier would soon be killed if he remained in one spot too long. He had to keep moving so as to get the advantage when he was under attack. Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones tells us that one of the secrets of Alexander the Great’s military success was his ability to move his army about quickly. How did he do it in an age when armies moved very slowly? By providing his soldiers with the proper footwear to do it, namely studded sandals.

So then, there are the three main reasons for the soldier’s sandals – Firmness, Protection, and Mobility. With that in mind let us now consider:

 

  1. The Practices of the Saviour’s Soldier’s.

‘Stand firm,’ writes Paul, ‘with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the Gospel of peace.’ Literally, in the Greek, it says, ‘’shoeing the feet with readiness of the Gospel of peace.’ Paul looks at the Roman soldier and he sees an illustration of what Christians ought to be. They should have their feet ‘shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.’

 

  1. What is the Gospel of Peace?

  • It is the knowledge of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which brings peace with God and peace in the human heart. The Apostle is picturing a Christian who is under Satanic attack constantly. He is the object of temptation and demonic oppression. Life has not been easy for this person. We see people like this around us every day. Some Christians go through it more than others, but it is there. How can a Christian handle these things?

To begin with he needs to be absolutely sure of the reality of his faith in Jesus Christ. He needs to know, without the shadow of a doubt, that he has made his peace with God and nothing can separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Every person listening today or reading this on our web site, needs to ask himself or herself this question:

‘Am I truly born-again? Have I unequivocally invited Jesus Christ by faith to come into my life and be my Lord? Have I truly experienced forgiveness with God? Do I have the peace of God which passes all understanding in my heart and mind?’

When the Apostle Paul was arrested for preaching the Gospel and thrown into prison in Rome where he suffered for two or more years, he could say without the shadow of a doubt,

‘I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day,’ (2nd Timothy 1:12).

Paul had received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour and he knew that nothing could ever take that away from him. He was at peace with God and when Satan threw temptation, and persecution and arrest and imprisonment and a dungeon at him, he remained steadfast and secure in the greatness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Do you know Christ in that way? Have you made your peace with God? Have you settled once and for all the issue of whether or not you are saved? You cannot face the storms of life and you cannot face the attacks of the devil with confidence and stability until you know with certainty you are right with God.

Moreover, you need to be committed to this Gospel. You cannot go into battle with Satan in a half-hearted way. That would be like a Roman soldier going into battle with his shoes unlaced or his sandals untied. That would be inviting trouble to overtake you. No, the Gospel calls us to live in a certain way – to live a life worthy of this Gospel – to accept the duties and responsibilities of the Gospel. We cannot have the benefits of the Gospel while we reject the responsibilities of the Gospel. To be ready to go into battle with demonic forces of this world we must be resolute in our commitment to live a life completely surrendered to Jesus Christ.

 

  1. How does this work in practice?

Well, it works in Christian warfare just as it did in Roman warfare. When you receive the Gospel of peace in your life and make a serious commitment to live by it, here is what it provides.

  1. Firmness.

When you put on this commitment to the Gospel you are now equipped to take a stand for Jesus. You are no longer like some unstable Christians who are thrown off balance by every teaching that comes along in this world – Ephesians 4:4. You do not need to run from church to church and conference to conference looking for some new teaching and some new experience constantly. No, a total commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ will keep you firm in your faith and help you to stand firm no matter what Satan may throw at you.

  1. Protection.

Alongside of the need to stand firm, there is the need for protection. If the devil can’t get at you in one way then he will try in another way. If he can’t get at you by distorting the truth, he will throw all kinds of subtle desires before you. He will create new ambitions in the area of material wealth, security, positions in this world, prestige before men, and anything else that he thinks will draw you away from God. That’s the way he does it. He changes the focus and distracts you from the most important thing in life, which is wholeheartedly following Christ. We need protection from the world, the flesh and the devil, and we also need:

  1. Mobility.

Our foundation gives us ability to move. When the battle becomes too much for us we can move to a new position. We can ‘flee youthful lust’ or change our tactics in battle. When I first became a Christian I use to argue with members of my family about the Gospel. Then someone suggested that, instead of trying to convert them I should just pray for them. Since that time I have seen literally dozens of my family members come to faith in Jesus Christ. The Christian can confront and rebuke someone today and do an act of kindness for that some person tomorrow. He becomes sensitive to the leading of the Spirit of God and it gives him this sense of mobility.

Closing:

The challenge for you and for me today is the ‘put on the sandals of the Gospel of peace.’

  1. You have to put it on; no one can do it for you.

  2. That means you must know the basics of the Gospel by studying them; no one can do it for you.

  3. It means you must take the Gospel with you, that it, first in your heart, anywhere you go, for you never know when you will come under attack from Satan.

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Christian Warfare – The Breastplate

March 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Breastplate of Righteousness – Ephesians 6:14.

The great Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, once said, “Like the Spartans, every Christian is born a warrior. It is his destiny to be assaulted; it is his duty to attack.” Today I am concerned with the Christian who is being assaulted, who is being fiercely attacked and needs to be protected.
Sometimes we look at people who face several physical and social difficulties in life and we naturally assume that they are under a heavy attack from Satan. I recall, for instance, a pastor-friend of mine whose wife died a few months after discovering she had cancer. He was left with eight children to take care of and some eleven churches to supervise. Shortly afterwards his eldest son lost a leg in a car accident. Then one of his daughters died in a drowning accident and another lost an eye in yet another accident. It all happened in little more than over a year. Like Job in the Old Testament it seemed that one tragedy followed upon another. Christians naturally reacted by saying that he was under severe attack from Satan.
They were probably right, but you know, there are other kinds of attacks that sometimes are never seen outwardly but are just as severe as the visible physical attacks. There are attacks upon the mind and the heart which have been violent and painful enough to drive away believers from fellowship with God. For some Christians the attack has been so strong that they have given in to things they literally despise. Some have found themselves trapped and in bondage to things they hate. It all happens because of the onslaught of the devil.
How do we as Christians prepare for this sort of thing? Is there a way to safeguard ourselves from such a time in our lives? I believe there is and I think this is exactly what Paul is answering for us when he says, ‘Put on…the breastplate of righteousness. Let’s begin by:

1. Describing the Breastplate.

In his description of the Christian’s armour Paul is once again drawing from the image of a Roman soldier. Paul is a prisoner in Rome and there he is guarded by Roman soldiers and, as he observes their equipment, he takes note of the breastplate. Each soldier wears a coat of mail that covered the ‘trunk’ of his body, that is, the front and back from the neck to the thigh. This was very important equipment for it covered and protected the vital organs, the heart and the lungs. If either of these were wounded in battle you were almost certain to die. It covered the abdomen as well which, to ancient people, was the seat of the emotions – see Phil. 2:1 ( KJV).
When applied to the Christian life, the ‘breastplate of righteousness’ offers protection for us when we are assaulted in the areas of our feelings and conscience. Consider, first of all:

A. Our battered emotions.

Our feelings or emotions play a significant role in who we are as persons. Secular psychologists have discovered this and are struggling to teach us how to deal with our feelings today. They always want to know ‘how do you deal with this’ problem and that issue. They ask questions like, “How do you feel about your parents? What emotions do you experience when you spouse walks into the room? Are you angry with your teacher?” The list goes on. “Do you feel accepted by your co-worker? Do you like being with your neighbour?” These are all questions designed to deal with the heart, questions to put you in touch with your feelings.
Emotions are also the Devil’s target. If somehow he can play with your emotions, make you feel unwanted until you fall into despair and depression, make you feel angry to the point of sinful outburst, make you feel sinful desire to the place where you lose control, then he’s got you wounded.
I see it in my counselling all the time. There are Christians whose emotions have been wounded by uncaring parents, a harsh spouse, a neglecting pastor, a gossiping friend, and so on, and the Devil takes advantage of it.
Then, there is the area of:

B. A Confused Conscience.

The conscience is that inner sense of right or wrong. It is that sense of having to give an account of ourselves. We don’t seem to be able to get rid of it. It is always there nagging away at us – Romans 2:14 – 15; 1st Timothy 4:2.
Satan tries to confuse the Christian in the area of the conscience. Whenever you hear someone say, “It can’t be wrong when it feels so right,” you are hearing the opinion of a confused conscience. Whenever you hear someone say, “God could never forgive me,” that is a confused conscience. Whenever you hear someone say, “I don’t feel badly about it because I did it in good conscience,” that is a confused person. Satan comes along and he tells you that the end justifies the means; that it is okay to cheat on your exams because everyone does it; that pre-marital sexual involvement is okay because it proves your love for your boyfriend or girlfriend; that is an attack in the area of the conscience by Satan. And that is the kind of language we are hearing today from many Christians which means that Satan is winning the battle in their lives.

Now here is the answer to that kind of an assault – Hebrews 9:13 – 14.

We need an inner cleansing of the conscience. How? Through the blood of the lamb – Revelation 1:5c; 12:11. But, once we have been cleansed, how do we protect the heart and the conscience? We ‘put on the breastplate of righteousness.’

Before I talk about our part in all of this, let’s:

2. Define Righteousness.

To define righteousness we need to turn to Philippians 3:4b – 9. In this passage Paul speaks of two kinds of righteousness. The first is:

A. Man-made.

This is the kind of righteousness which is legalistic. It is the result of my own self-disciple and obedience to rules and regulations which others I have made or others have imposed upon me. It makes me feel good because I have kept all the rules. That kind of righteousness is purely external and totally inadequate in terms of defeating Satan. It makes me want to commend myself before God and pat myself on the back but it won’t stop Satan from attacking me. We all know people who we knew to be people of honesty and integrity, and then, for seemingly no good reason, they do something out of character that totally alarms us. We say, “I can’t believe he did that!” But we shouldn’t be surprised. Man-made righteousness always ends up that way.

B. God-provided righteousness.

There is a righteousness that God imparts to us when we come to Christ and which we receive by faith throughout the Christian life 1st Corinthians 1:30 & 2nd Corinthians 5:21.
The best way I know to explain this is by using Puritan terminology. The Puritans talked about ‘imputed righteousness’ and ‘imparted righteousness.’ Imputed righteousness is righteousness that God puts on our account. For instance, in the same way that a wealthy man may take some of his money and put it into an account for a poor relative, so God takes from the infinite righteousness of Jesus Christ His Son and puts it on your account.
Now, back to the rich man and his poor relative. Once the money is in the relative’s account it is his to draw upon and use as he wishes. He can leave it there and live like a pauper and have his creditors harass him for payments, or he draw upon it, pay off his bills and enjoy the benefits of what is left over.
So the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, purchased by the shedding of blood upon the cross, has been imputed to every believer to provide for us and protect us from the assaults of Satan and his demons. This imputed righteousness must now begin to work in me. It must become infused into my heart and mind to protect my emotions and my conscience from being damaged, confused and defeated by Satan.
What is my part in all this?

3. Doing Our part.

Paul says we are to ‘put on…the breastplate of righteousness.’ How can we do that? Keep in mind that we are talking about the emotions and the conscience. We must begin therefore with the heart. The Great Commandment says:

A. ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart’– Luke 10:27.

Here the word ‘love’ is a verb and an active verb as well. In other words, it is something you must do. You must exercise your love for God. When you love someone you do things for them. You want to spend time together, go places together, send them cards and flowers or whatever is appropriate to the relationship. All of these things help to grow and maintain the relationship and to protect it from outside influences. When you do these things for the loved one you are ‘putting on’ love.
So it is with God. When we take the time to practice our love for God we are literally ‘putting on,’ not just love, but the righteousness of God. We do these things by spending time with God, by answering his call to serve someone in need, by putting effort into our worship, by rebuking Satan with His word when Satan comes to tempt us, by taking time every day to seek cleansing for our hearts and minds. When you do these things you are drawing upon the righteousness of God and putting on ‘the breastplate of reighteousness.’

B. ‘Love the Lord your God with all your mind.’

Paul tells us in that we are to ‘bring every thought into captivity to Christ.’ Practice giving your thoughts over to God. Ask him to take them, cleanse them and remove evil and anxious thoughts from your mind – Psalm 139:23.
Many Christians today are being defeated in the area of their thought life. The things they think about other people are not very pleasing to God. We need to pray sincerely every morning and every night Psalm 19:14, and we need to pray it with intensity.
Now I could talk about the other two parts of that commandment because it is all part of putting on the breastplate of righteousness.
Part of that is also putting the word of God into your mind and into your heart. We will talk more about that when we get to the ‘sword of the Spirit.’

As Christians we are to ‘put on the breastplate of righteousness.’ Just as a good Roman soldier protected the vital organs of his body with a covering of mail, so you and I are to protect the two vital aspects of our personality, the heart and the mind or the emotions and the conscience, with the righteousness of God. These must be guarded from Satan’s attacks. God has provided that righteousness for us by sending His Son to shed His blood for our sins.

The righteousness He provided in Christ we must ‘put on.’ We put it on by loving God with all your heart and all your mind.

God has done His part; the rest is up to us.

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Christian Warfare – Ready for Battle

February 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Christian Warfare

Ready for Battle – Ephesians 6:11 – 13.

You may or may not remember this event, but a few years ago when the United Nations decided to send troops ito Iraq, it took the Canadian Forces several weeks to prepare before the ships could leave for the Gulf. The same was true of the Americans and British troops, and in face, of all the troops that went from other countries in that coalition.

Why do I bring this up? For this reason, that, in ancient and modern warfare, armies had to prepare before going into battle or else defeat is certain.

The Christian who wants to be a ‘good soldier of Jesus Christ’ must be prepared. He or she cannot and will not overcome the forces of evil unless proper preparation is made. Twice in these verses the Apostle Paul calls draws our attention to this matter of preparation. Twice he says, ‘Put on the full armour of God.’  He will go on to describe each piece of that armour, but, before he does that he gives us this vital piece of instruction, ‘Put on the full armour of God.’

Here is the scenario then. The war has already began. In fact it has been going on since the dawn of Creation when Satan tempted Eve and then Adam. All of us need to be prepared because sooner or later the fierceness of the battle will reach us where we are, and, if we are not ready, we will not be able to stand. We are in a battle, and as Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says, “we can’t contract out of it.”

So then, let us take a closer look at how we can become Ready For Battle.

Consider, first of all:

1. The Importance of Order.

The Apostle Paul issues certain orders here. He tells us: ‘Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.’ That comes first. He then adds to that: “Put on the whole armour of God.” These are two vital pieces of instruction and the order in which they are given is important. The first order of business is -

A. The Summons to Courage.

‘Be strong in the Lord…’ We are by nature weak and fearful but there is such a thing as ‘the grace of courage,’ that is, Christ is able to give us the courage and strength we need to face the battle.

Can you imagine how Joshua felt when Moses suddenly died leaving him in charge of a nation of over a million people who had wandered around in a wilderness for forty years? It must have been a fearful thing for Joshua but God appeared to Joshua and said, “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you…only be strong and courageous.” Joshua was to think of who God was and what God had done and on the basis of that he was to summon up the courage to do the job.

Fifty years ago, my brother and I, as brand-new Christians, were challenged by an elderly lady to go into a large ghetto area in Jamaica and start a ministry for children. Neither of us had any experience in ministering to children but we met several times for the next two weeks and prayed about it. Then we went into the area and observed the children on the streets. We invited other young people to come and pray with us. Finally we went back into the area and asked parent to allow us to have a Bible Club in her backyard. She did and we went on the street and invited children to attend. That one club grew into eight and we moved into an abandoned building. The club grew into over two hundred children and we decided to start a Sunday Morning worship service. That grew into a church and today there are over five hundred attending that church in what was once considered a hopeless area in terms of evangelism.

But did you notice how it came about? We were challenged and we were scared, but before we went on the attack, we strengthened ourselves through prayer. We prayed together and got others to join us

Is there something that God is calling you to do? Before you take a step toward doing it, you must summons the courage by prayer and by joining force with others of the same mind.

B. Strengthen Yourself.

‘Put on the full armour of God.’ You may recall the story of David and Goliath from the Old Testament. Before David went to meet Goliath Saul dressed David in his own armour. David, however, could not go to battle in Saul’s armour. Why not? He was not used to it and it did not fit.

What was David’s armour? David was used to carrying a shepherd’s staff and a slingshot, not a sword and a shield. Later on he would learn to carry a full suit of armour, but not for this battle. He was not yet strong enough for that.

Note the instructions of the Apostle, ‘Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.’ Note what the armour is that you are going to have to wear and carry – the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the Gospel, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. You are going to have to put on each piece of armour for yourself. No one is going to put them on for you and God is not going to zap you with power so that you suddenly find yourself clothed in this armour.

If, for instance, you are going to carry ‘the sword of Spirit,’ you have to take the time to read, understand, receive, memorize and use the word of God. If you are going to wear the shoes of the Gospel you are going to have to understand what the Gospel is and how to share it with others. No one can do these things for you; you have to do them yourself. That is your Christian responsibility. It takes time and it takes effort. You are to be like a soldier who has joined the army and he is sent away to camp to learn soldiering. He spends his time learning to obey orders, learn to use his armour and ammunition and strengthening his body for day when he has to go to war. So we too must get ready by summoning the courage and strengthening ourselves for that time.

With that in mind, let us move from The Importance of Order to:

2. The Necessity of being Armoured.

Why is it so necessary for us to ‘Put on the full armour of God?’ After all, these things take up so much time. Could we not, once we are saved, just jump into the fray of the battle and leave it to the Lord to arm us? Some people really believe that that is the way to go. They do not think it is necessary to spend time studying the Scriptures, learning to pray, and practicing righteousness. They would claim that all you really need is a supernatural influx of power and you are bound to win the battle. But they are wrong. The armour is absolutely necessary. Why?

A. For defence and protection.

Without the armour we become very vulnerable. For instance, if we are not armed with truth we become vulnerable to Satan’s lies. We hear some seemingly great teaching that is being passed along as truth but is, in fact, totally different from what the Bible teaches, and we embrace it and are deceived. This is the way people are drawn away. They are drawn away by pseud0-christian cults, by secular psychology, by humanistic philosophy, and other things that creep in slowly until it takes root in the mind and lead us astray. We can’t resist these things if we are not protected with the3 belt of truth and shield of faith.

B. For offence and direction.

The Christian has obligations in this to preach the Gospel, to help the needy, and to bring healing to the broken areas of this world. Every time a Christian fulfills one of these obligations, he is striking a blow against Satan and his army. He is seizing territory once controlled by Satan and handing it back to Christ and kingdom.

For many years now I have been involved in working with Pregnancy Care centres in several cities in Canada. I get regular reports on some of the ministries carried out by these centers. I read about Care Closets that provide baby clothes, maternity dresses, car seats, magazines, literature and health information for mothers who want to keep their babies. I read about Shepherding homes where families can live and be helped by another family while they await the arrival of a new baby. I read about Home With A Heart where single mothers can learn about keeping and caring for a home with a child in it. I read about Post-abortion teams that help women to cope with a past abortion and so on. Every time I read one of these stories I am reminded that these centers and the people who work there are striking a blow against Satan and his hosts. But they couldn’t do it without first strengthening themselves by training, learning, and praying together.

We’ve looked at ‘The Importance of Order,’ and ‘The Necessity of Armouring.’ Lastly I want us to look at:

3. The Character of Soldiering.

We are to put on the ‘full armour of God.’ That is, we are to put on all of it. Each piece has been personally chosen by Christ for a special and definite purpose and it covers every area of need in the battle. You and I, therefore, cannot pick and choose what parts we need because we need it all.

Many Christians have problems in this area. Some would like to take up the shield of faith and exercise faith in many areas of life. They want to believe God for great things, but they don’t want to take the time to take up the ‘Sword of the Spirit’ which is the word of God. Others want to take the ‘Shoes of Salvation’ but not the ‘Breastplate of righteousness.’ In other words, they want to preach or teach or share the Gospel but they don’t want to have to live a practical life of holiness.

Well, the truth is this, if you only take up part of the armour and leave out others you will never win the battle against Satan and his demons.  The character of the armour is this, that is piece is attached to the other and is dependent upon the other and if you try to put one on without the other, you become vulnerable and will be defeated. This, I dare say, is the reason so many Christians fail in the battle of life.

Closing: In bringing today’s message to a close, let me remind you once again that the enemy we face in this Christian life is not flesh and blood, but a powerful and dangerous spiritual personality.

The way of victory is decided by God, not by us.

Professing Christians have sometimes devised formulas that promise us victory over the enemy but we need no man-made formulas. The Scriptures are very clear in this passage as to what we need. The way to victory has been decided by God. He summons us to courage and strength, and He calls us to put on the armour He has provided.

The rest is up to us. Armed with faith, righteousness, truth, the Gospel, salvation and the word of God, we are headed for victory. Without any of these we are headed for defeat.

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Christian Warfare 2 Recognize the Enemy

February 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Recognizing the Enemy – Ephesians 6:10 – 11.

Today we return to the study of Ephesians 6:10 – 18 on the subject of Christian Warfare. One of the things we often hear about in modern warfare is what is called ‘friendly fire.’  ‘Friendly fire’ occurs when someone is attacked by his own army because they did not recognize them and took them for the enemy, or because they got in the way when fighting was going on. In both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan there have been a number of casualties resulting from ‘friendly fire.’

It is also true that, in Christian Warfare, there has been through the centuries of Christianity, far too much ‘friendly fire.’ Christians have, far too often, attacked each other, and the result has been casualties in the Christian faith and life. Many have walked away from the Church; some have gone back to the old life; and sometimes once useful and productive Christian organizations have lost direction and ministry because of ‘friendly fire.’

For this reason Christians need to learn to identify the enemy and recognize where to concentrate on the battle rather than wasting time fighting one another, many times over issues that are of little relevance to the spreading of the Gospel. Christians must recognize Satan’s agents and his tactics and concentrate the battle on those things, not on one another.

In our study today Paul directs us to three things involved in Recognizing the Enemy.

1. Recognize the Commander in Chief.

Notice what it says in Ephesians 6:11. We are to ‘take our stand against the devil’s schemes.’ Paul writes that our real struggle is not ‘against flesh and blood.’ We tend to think that, like modern warfare, our real fight is with humans and human institutions, but that is not so. No doubt the devil uses individuals and human institutions to carry out his dirty work, but they are just instruments for in his hand. The real enemy is the devil, Satan himself.

We must therefore change our focus from the instruments of warfare to the person behind the warfare. When we focus on humans and institutions we tend to use carnal weapons to do our fighting, but

Paul reminds us in 2nd Corinthians 10:4, that ‘the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world.’

What does the Bible teach about Satan?

A. He is a Person.

The Bible presents him as a spirit personality who is hostile to God and to anything that contributes to the higher welfare of humans. In the Book of Job he dares to present himself before God – Job 1:6. He even accuses Job before God – Job 1:9 – 11. The Apostle John tells us that he was a sinner from the beginning – 1st John 3:8. And the Apostle Paul calls him ‘the prince of the power of the air,’ Ephesians 2:2.

In all these passages his personality comes out clearly. We are not just dealing with some vague principle or law of evil in the world but with a spiritual personality as old as the creation itself. We are dealing with one who has a mind to think even though he thinks only evil. He has a heart to feel even though he feels only wickedness. He has a will to act even though his actions are all corrupt.

We as Christians are engaged in a struggle with a very cunning and relentless personality who will stop at nothing to destroy our relationship with Jesus Christ and the advance of the Gospel in the world.

B. He is Powerful.

Verse 11 talks about ‘the devil’s schemes.’ As Commander in Chief of the armies of evil he has many tactics which he will use to overcome the Christians.

§  Temptation:

Mark 1:13 tells us that Satan tempted Jesus for forty days in the Wilderness. Acts 5:3 tells us that he entered the heart of Ananias and Saphirra. We read in 1st Thessalonians 2:18 that Paul wrote, ‘We wanted to come to you…but Satan stopped us.’ Paul wanted to take his missionary team to Thessalonica but Satan did something deliberate to prevent it. We have heard of missionaries in our time that arrived on a mission field only to find that their visas were cancelled at the last moment. We have read in recent times of Christian churches and homes been burnt in some countries. We blame it on humans but behind it all is the work of the devil. He is a powerful personality.

§  Tampering with the mind:

We read in Mark4:15 he is able to ‘take away the good seed sown in the hearts of men.’ He does it all the time. Someone hears the word of God and respond but very soon Satan sows other thoughts and ideas in his mind which seem more import or more modern or more acceptable.

We could go on a long time looking at this area but we must move on. In addition to Recognizing the Commander in Chief, we also need to:

2. Recognize His Purpose in Warfare.

The real purpose of the devil is to destroy the Church, the body of Christ. Every scheme that he formulates is aimed at one thing – get rid of the Church…read Matthew 16:13 – 18. God loves the Church but Satan hates the Church. Why? Because, more than anything else in the world, the Church reflects the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here is an example of Satan attacking the Church – read Revelation 2:8 – 10. The local church in Smyrna was being afflicted by members of a local synagogue. Normally a synagogue would be described as the ‘synagogue of Yahweh,’ but Jesus calls this particular group the ‘synagogue of Satan.’ Why? To let the church in Smyrna know that behind the persecution and all the bad things that were being said about them they were experiencing the hand and purpose of Satan.

Our age, like every other age before it, is an anti-church age. The Church is being battered within and without and all around us because it is Satan’s primary target. When you, as a Christian, experience opposition and persecution, you need to realize that Satan has a much bigger target than you – the Church of Jesus Christ.

You and I therefore must be committed to build the Church, protect the Church, promote and defend the Church at all cost. While the Church is not without its faults we must never become a party to its destruction.

And know this also, that in the end the Church will triumph over the devil and his schemes and one day the whole Church in glory will shout and sing to the glory of God:

Hallelujah! For the Lord God almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory!

For the wedding of the Lamb has come,

And His bride has made herself ready.

Revelation 19:6 – 7.

Finally:

3. Recognize the Army that follows him.

There are three groups of followers of Satan described in Ephesians 6.

A. Principalities and Powers.

Principalities are the names given to demons that have control over the nations. They are, as it were, the generals in Satan’s army and they set the tone for evil in a nation. For instance, you will find each nation in the world has its peculiar form or feature of evil. It may be given over to the evil of sexual pleasure as Rome was at one point in history. At that point its temples were filled with male and female prostitutes. Its noblemen, from the Emperor down, held nightly orgies in which they were served by naked slaves and drunkenness reigned supreme. Many of its philosophers were pedophiles, and on and on it goes. This was the work of demonic forces. They set the tone for the moral direction of the nation.

In today’s world one nation is materialistic, another emphasizes culture, still another is racist, another allows child slavery and so on, and each one carries this evil bias as the very thing that makes it distinct.

Revelation 19:6 – 7.

B. Authorities and Powers.

These are the ‘privates’ in Satan’s army. While the generals set policy and decide trends, these are the demons that carry out the work. They do it by possessing, oppressing or directing people’s lives. They use whatever medium is available. For instance they may use the medium of music. Today we find music that promotes violence, drugs, free sex, sexual abuse, suicide and murder. It is music that is demonic in nature. You can find the same trend in some home-made videos and some of the literature of the day.

C. Powers of the dark world or rulers of the darkness of this world.

These are the demons that control certain people in positions of power. Certain people have stood out as leaders of great nations and armies whose total way of life was given over to evil. We could name such people as Antiochus Epiphanes, Emperors Gaius, Caligula and Domitian, Hitler, Stalin, Edi Amin and others. They were not content merely to rule. They wanted everything for themselves and they became evil and ruthless in their attempts to gain total control over a people and sometimes over the world. It is not hard to detect the demonic in them.

D. Spiritual Wickedness in High Places.

These are the demons that operate in the realm of religion. They produce idolatry and create cults. They oppose freedom of worship. They place nations in bondage to religious laws of their own making and they persecute the Church.

What is the point of all this? Just this, that the devil has a very well organized group that is right now manipulating our world. This is why the world does not submit to God. This is why non-believers are blind to the truth of the Gospel (2nd Corinthians 4:4.) This is why our world is a world of rebellion against God and it should come as no surprise to us that the world opposes the Church and opposes Christians.

Close:

This then, is what you and I are struggling against. The question is, do we recognize it? Do we understand it? We need to, for only as we know who this enemy is and understand his primary purpose, and recognize his strategies, only then will we grasp the significance of the teaching in this passage. We will look at each piece of armour that Paul mentions here and we will discover that each piece is specifically designed to fight the strategies and schemes of Satan.

To counteract this, the world will tell you that the devil is not real, and that demons do not exists; that evil is really good, that pornography is really art, that filth is really literature, that murder is really freedom and so. Let us not buy into it.

Let’s recognize the enemy, take up the full armour of God, and prepare to follow Christ into battle.

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Christian Warfare Part I

February 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Onward Christian Soldiers – Ephesians 6:10.

The hymn ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ was written in 1865 by Sabine Baring-Gould, a gifted Anglican preacher in England. This British writer and clergyman published 85 books in his lifetime on such subjects as religion, travel, folk-lore, mythology, history, fiction, biography, sermons and theology, and the British Museum shows more titles by him than by any other writer of his time.
Yet, in spite of all this, Sabine Baring-Gould is known and remembered today, not for his preaching or his books, but for a simple children’s hymn written for a Sunday School festival. Unable to find a suitable marching song for school children marching in a festival from village to village, he sat down the night before the festival and hurriedly penned these words:
Onward Christian soldiers, Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle, see His banner go!
At the sign of triumph, Satan’s host doth flee;
On, then, Christian soldiers, On to victory!
Hells foundation quiver, at the shout of praise;
Christians lift your voices, Loud your anthems raise!
Like a mighty army moves the Church of God.
Christians we are treading, where the saints have trod.
We are not divided; All one body we:
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war;
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Today, 145 years after his death, several churches have revised their hymnals and dropped this magnificent hymn from their hymnbooks; while those of us who have no hymnbooks have just ignored or forgotten it. We live in an anti-warfare period of history when people dislike anything that has a military sound to it, and, in the church, many feel that it conveys the wrong concept of Christianity.
However, while we may omit such hymns from our hymnbooks, we can never omit the theme of Christian warfare from the Scriptures. The concept of a military view of Christianity flows through the Bible. The Song of Moses and Miriam in Exodus 15 says, ‘The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name,’ Exodus 15:3 – 4. The Bible is full of such comments about God.
The Church that Jesus Christ founded is a militaristic church. The Apostle Paul exhorts us in 2nd Timothy 2:3, ‘Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Jesus Christ,’ but he also reminds us in 2nd Corinthians 10:4, ‘The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.’ So, when we use the language of warfare we are not approving or promoting the kinds of things that take place in today’s battles, but we are saying that we are engaged in a battle on a spiritual level and we have to have the same disciplines as soldiers need today but we fight with totally different weapons.
We also have words we use to describe the Church today. We refer to the Church in two ways which reflect for us the militaristic aspects of the Church. We speak of the Church in Heaven as the Church Triumphant and the Church on Earth as the Church Militant. The passage which we’ll be looking at over the next few weeks has to do with the Church militant on Earth and the ways in which it functions. ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ is alive and well.

Now then, let’s put this text, Ephesians 6:10 – 20, in context.

It comes almost at the end of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. In that letter Paul spent the first three chapters talking about what we might call ‘The Christian’s Wealth.’ He expounds and explains the great doctrines that undergird Christian living – election, forgiveness, salvation by grace alone, and so on. Then in the next two and half chapters he makes this practical by showing us how we ought to conduct ourselves in the world, how to keep the unity of the church, how to use our spiritual gifts, how to use our time responsibly, and so on. We could call that the ‘how to’ portion of the letter.
But now, as he comes to the end of his letter, he realizes that all this is not easy. Christians will face opposition in the world and the primary source of that opposition will be the devil himself. He will use culture to push us to conform to the world. He will use old habits to entice us to sin. And he’ll use the confused morality of society to tempt us to stray from God. How are we to handle those things? The way we do it is by being ‘good soldiers of Jesus Christ.’ And so he begins his short lesson on Christian Warfare with these words in Ephesians 6:10, ‘Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.’ Let us take a little time and analyse these words. We begin by looking at:

1. The Need for Strength Today.

The Apostle writes, ‘Be strong in the Lord.’ Why do we need strength today?

A. Because of the nature of the Opponent.

The natural man, the person without the Spirit, sees his enemy somewhere in the structures of society. When something goes wrong in his life he finds something or someone out there to blame for it. He looks at the government, at business, at the education system, at the judicial system, at the neighbourhood in which he lives and he finds something to blame it on.
But the New Testament maintains that the secular system in which we live is controlled by a much greater force and that, as Christians, our struggle is not so much against these man-made systems, but against a spiritual force that controls them. ‘Our struggle is not against flesh and blood…but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.’ These are no ordinary spiritual forces. The Apostle Peter calls us to be ‘self-controlled and alert’ because our ‘enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour,’ 1st Peter 5:8. A failure to recognize that we have this very active enemy stalking us will result in failure and disaster in the Christian life.
This is what sometimes happens to Christians who enter certain high profile secular professions where the pressure to compromise is greatest. I am thinking of such things as politics, law, financial services and even the ministry. Quite often their motives are right. They want to change the world and change society and they try to do so by getting on the inside and sometimes they do succeed while others fail. But there is the tendency, once we’ve been settled into these professions for a while, to forget that behind all the pressures and temptations, there is a powerful enemy who seeks to destroy our Christian testimony and stop us from bringing the Christian influence to the structures of society.
Now let’s be careful here. It is easy to point fingers at those who try to do something good and fail when we know almost nothing about the difficulties and pressures they face in their professions. Nevertheless, if we are going to succeed as Christians in anything in the world, we need to ‘be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.’ We need this because of the nature of our opponent, the devil.

B. Because of the nature of the World in which we live.

In verse 13 Paul talks about a ‘day of evil’ that is coming. When you compare one period of time to another, you will often find some periods that seems far more evil than others. And there are those periods when evil seems almost unrestrained in society.
I think we live in one of those periods of time now. We live in a period of confused morality and things once considered evil in society has gone out the door.
Take the movies for instance. It is difficult to find a movie today that doesn’t portray extra-marital sex as the norm for life. The prevailing philosophy in Hollywood is that, for a movie to sell, you need some religion, some violence and some sex. Even our so called ‘family movies’ are only edited versions of the more raunchy originals.
Our young people in High School are under pressure to live in common-law relationships before they marry and if they reject homosexuality as immoral they are considered homophobic. The world in which we live wants to condition our minds to reject Christian morality and replace it with majority preferences in society.
Every Christian needs to understand this, that sin is defined by God in the Scriptures, not by society, education or human laws. Society accepts certain things as normal not because they are right but because they are convenient. Christians define right and wrong by the teachings of the Bible.
But to take such a stand today we need strength, supernatural strength that will protect us from the pressures of the society in which we live. This is why Paul gives us this admonition, ‘be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.’ We need that strength and it is available if we know how to find it. Where do we begin? We begin with:

2. The Recognition of Christ’s Strength.

There is strength to be had but we must go to the source to get it. Today’s society with its emphasis upon self-help, will tell us that, if we want to find moral strength, we have to look inside ourselves. This is a direct contradiction of biblical teaching. Paul writes in Romans 7:18, ‘I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.’ Yet so many psychologists, motivational speakers, and religious leaders are bent on telling us that the source of our strength is to be found in ourselves. But that is so wrong. Why are leaders forcing this concept on us? Paul gives us the answer in 1st Corinthians 2:14, ‘The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned.’ So I am not surprised when I hear these things because there is a reason people think this way. They are blind to spiritual truth.
Where do we find strength to withstand this evil society?

A. It is in the Lord.

‘Be strong in the Lord.’ The strength is in who He is. The Apostle Paul writes again in Philippians 4:13, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’ As Paul found himself been pressured and hampered on every hand he focused his faith on Jesus Christ the Lord and the grace of Christ strengthened him to keep on doing what God had called him to do.
Now, the reason Paul found this strength in Christ is because Paul himself was ‘in Christ’ and Christ was ‘in him.’ Paul had received Christ as His Lord many years before in that Damascus Road experience and surrendered himself to Christ as his Lord. In return the Lord saved him from his sins, forgave him and came to live in him by the power of the Holy Spirit. And as long as Paul kept on trusting in Christ he found strength for every day and every situation in life.
Once Paul was sick and whatever it was that ailed him, he said it was painful. He described it as ‘a thorn in the flesh,’ that is, something painful and physical. He said that he prayed three times for God to remove it and He didn’t, but rather than removing it, God gave him this promise, ‘My grace is sufficient for you,’ 2nd Corinthians 12:9. that same grace is available to us but we must be ‘in Christ’ and ‘Christ in us’ for us to experience it.

B. it is in His Mighty Power.

That is, His ‘extraordinary’ power. All of us are born with some ordinary powers such as the power to see, to think, to challenge, to compete, to analyse, and so. We applaud people who have developed these powers, especially those who have developed them on the physical side; people like athletes.
But when it comes to spiritual warfare we need ‘extraordinary power’ and that is what Paul is talking about here. This is power to resist the devil. This is power to break down spiritual strongholds. This is power to stand up and be counted for God when everyone around you is failing. It is the power that gives us courage in the midst of dangers and difficulties. It is the power to trust when all seems to go wrong.

Conclusions:

So what does all this mean to us today? Well some of you are finding it difficult to live openly for God because of the pressure of family and friends and people in the workplace and you’ve learned the subtle art of compromise on serious spiritual issues. You need the strength to overcome these compromises.
Some of you came into the Christian life with habits, traditions, and practices which are contrary to Scriptures and you need to forsake them but it’s difficult and you need Christ’s strength to do so.
Some of you have satanic strongholds in your life, areas where he has gotten control of you and some forbidden thing has become a part of your life and you need to break those strongholds. Christ provides ‘extraordinary powers’ to do so.
So, no matter how weak you are today in and of yourself, and no matter how much you have failed in the past, one stands among us today with supreme strength and extraordinary power to set you free; and He offers it to us. He stood before men and the devil and won every battle. In His strength we can triumph.

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The Positives of Love 1st Corinthians 13:7

November 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

This verse is a kind of summary of the last three verses. Paul is saying, “I’ve described love in some real negative terms – love does not envy, does not boast, etc. – but let me return to the positives of love. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” And please notice the word always. He is speaking of agape. My love and your love will weaken and burn out, but agape love never weakens or burnout. There are times in my life, and I am sure in yours too, when I feel that I just can’t go on. I say to myself, I will never go to another meeting, I will never preach another sermon, I will never perform another wedding ceremony, I cannot answer another question or meet another need. I just want to get away from everyone. But that’s not agape love speaking. That is Neville Cowan speaking in the weakness of the flesh. And when that happens, I have to return to the Lord to gain strength to go on. And its then that I discover the truth of God’s promise in 2nd Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
‘A young lady named Sally took a seminary class taught by Professor Smith, who was known for his elaborate object lessons. One day Sally walked into class to find a large target placed on the wall, with several darts resting on a nearby table. Professor Smith told the students to draw a picture of someone they disliked or someone who had made them angry – and he would allow them to throw darts at the person’s picture.
Sally’s friend (on her right) drew a picture of another woman who had stolen her boyfriend. Another friend (on her left) drew a picture of his younger brother. Sally drew a picture of professor Smith, putting a great deal of detail into her drawing, even drawing pimples on his face! She was quite pleased at the overall effect she’d achieved.
The class lined up and began throwing darts amidst much laughter. Some of the students threw with such force that they ripped apart their targets. But Sally, looking forward to her turn, was filled with disappointment when Professor Smith asked the students to return to their seats so he could begin his lecture. As Sally fumed about missing her chance to throw the darts, the professor began removing the target from the wall.
Underneath the target was a picture of Jesus. A hush fell over the room as each student viewed the mangled image of their Saviour – holes and jagged marks covered his face. His eyes were virtually pierced out.
Professor Smith said only these words, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me,” (Matthew 25:40, KJV).’
That is why relationships, especially among God’s people, are so important. Love doesn’t hurt people; ‘Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’ Let us take a closer look at those four phrases.

1. Love always Protects.

The word translated protects here (Gr. Stego), carries a double meaning. It can mean that ‘love bears in silence all annoyances and trouble,’ or it can mean ‘love covers up all things,’ that is, it conceals the faults of others instead of disclosing them.
To put it another way, what this person is doing is protecting someone else from ridicule, gossip, or harm. It’s the love of a person who will go out of the way to protect another from unnecessary harm or hurt.
I have seen that kind of love displayed in the action of a child who came to the rescue of another who was being bullied. I have seen it in the actions of a woman who, even though her husband was divorcing her, refused to say anything negative about him. Even when there is terrible sin and terrible wrong done a person goes out of the way to bring the least amount of harm to someone. That is agape love.
The world doesn’t know much about this today. The popular attitude among many people, even among Christians, is ‘Don’t get angry, get even.’ Do everything you can to embarrass the person who wronged you. Expose them and let them hurt for hurting you. It’s what the Bible refers to as ‘an eye for an eye.’ How different that is from the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 5:43 – 48.
And this doesn’t mean that love justifies wrong doing and sin. Love will often rebuke, discipline and correct a wrong; in fact, it must, but it will do it in a way that seeks to redeem and build up a person, not in a way that diminishes and destroys.
The next phrase is:

2. Love always Trusts.

Dr. Charles Hodge says, that this means that love ‘is not suspicious, but readily credits what men say in their own defence.’ In other words, it hopes for the best in all people. It doesn’t mean that you don’t evaluate people or you allow people to deceive you easily. But it means that you give people a chance to prove themselves.
Have you ever had the chance to do something worthwhile and important with someone else and someone comes along and says, “I wouldn’t work with him; he is not reliable or responsible’ and as a result you reject that person; but someone else comes along and welcomes working with him and it turns out to be a bonus. It happens to the best of us.
I have learned to evaluate people, not by what others say, but by what I see in them. Whenever you are faced with doubts about someone, if you truly have the love of God in you, you will give them the benefit of the doubt.
The flip side of this is that, when you let people know that you trust them – trust them to be on time, trust them to do a good job, trust them to uphold their end of the bargain – it is an encouragement to them to do the right thing. It is an encouragement for them to go the second mile. It is an encouragement for them to achieve.
And when they do the job well, you must show your appreciation and admiration for what they’ve done. Never mind the fact that they are obligated to do it. They did it and did it well and they deserve your commendation. Go out of your way to find ways to let people know that you believe in them so that you might be an instrument of encouragement.
Next in Paul’s list is:

3. Love always Hopes.

True agape love knows that failure is never final. We live in world that doesn’t like to give a second chance. The attitude is, ‘You had your opportunity and you blew it. It’s too bad but you won’t get a second chance.’
Some of you here know the story of the conflict between the Apostle Paul and the Barnabas, the man who helped Paul as a young Christian. The story is told in Acts 15. Barnabas accompanied Paul on his First Missionary Journey. There was also a young man named John Mark who came along but somewhere in the middle of that journey he turned around and went home. When Mark wanted to go on the Second Missionary Journey, Paul would have none of it. As far as he was concerned Mark was a failure and should not be given a second chance. But Barnabas saw potential in Mark. He knew that if they didn’t take him along Mark might become discouraged and turn away from proclaiming the faith. So Barnabas separated from Paul and took Mark with him on his own missionary journey.
We don’t know what happened on that journey but when it was all over Paul so respected young John Mark that he wrote to his ‘son in the faith,’ Timothy, “Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in the ministry,’ (2nd Timothy, 4:11). Barnabas never gave up hope in Mark and Mark grew in faith, became a great missionary, wrote the Gospel According to Mark, and became a figure of great stature in Christian history.
Peter, the outspoken disciple of Jesus, denied Jesus three times during His passion, but Jesus never gave up hope in Peter.
The Prodigal’s father in Luke 15 never gave up hope for his son who abandoned his family in order to enjoy his inheritance and squandered it all.
Write this down somewhere and remember it, ‘Love is supernaturally optimistic,’ (Tommy C. Higle).
Why is it we must never give up on people? We must never give up because, when we give up on people we give up on the power of God to change them.
 Husband or wife whose spouse is still unsaved, never give up on them; trust God for their conversion.
 Parents whose children have walked away from the faith and from Jesus Christ, never give up on them Pray for them every day.
 Christian whose friend has used and manipulated you over and over, don’t abandon them. Share your faith in Christ with them and wait on God to correct them.
Never give up though adversity presses,
Providence wisely has mingled the cup;
And the best counsel in all our distresses,
Is the wise watchword, ‘Never give up.’

Finally,

4. Love always Perseveres.

If we look back to verse 4 we hear Paul saying that ‘Love is patient.’ Here he says that ‘love perseveres.’ The word used in verse 4 refers to having patience with people, but here the word ‘perseveres’ speaks of enduring circumstances. If you want a picture of this kind of perseverance you should read the story of Joni Eareckson Tada sometime or watch the movie Joni. Joni, as many of you know, broke her neck in a diving accident when she was just a teenager. She has been in a wheelchair ever since with little movement anywhere in her body except for her head. Yet she sings, she speaks at conferences, she paints with her mouth and she writes books. Here is an excerpt from an article she wrote back in 2000 in Decision Magazine.
‘Honesty is always the best policy, but especially when you’re surrounded by a crowd of women in a restroom during a break at a Christian women’s conference. One woman, putting on lipstick, said, “Oh, Joni, you always look so together, so happy in your wheelchair. I wish that I had your joy!” Several women around her nodded. “How do you do it?” she asked as she capped her lipstick.
“I don’t do it,” I said. “In fact, may I tell you honestly how I woke up this morning?”
“This is my average day,” I breathed deeply. “After my husband, Ken, leaves for work at 6:00 A.M., I’m alone until I hear the front door open at 7:00 A.M. That’s when a friend arrives to get me up.
“While I listen to her make coffee, I pray, ‘Oh, Lord, my friend will soon give me a bath, get me dressed, sit me up in my chair, brush my hair and teeth, and send me out the door. I don’t have the strength to face this routine one more time. I have no resources. I don’t have a smile to take into the day. But you do. May I have yours? God, I need you desperately.’”
“So what happens when your friend comes through the bedroom door?” one of them asked.
“I turn my head toward her and give her a smile sent straight from heaven. It’s not mine. It’s God’s. And so,” I said, gesturing to my paralyzed legs, “whatever joy you see today was hard won this morning.”
I have learned that the weaker we are, the more we need to lean on God; and the more we lean on God, the stronger we discover Him to be.’
(Perfect Illustrations, p. 153).
Love always perseveres. So many of us as Christians have had to deal with difficult family situations, terrible circumstances at work, illnesses which are incurable from a human stand point, weakness which cannot be corrected, yet for the sake of a loved one we persevere, we hold our position, we refuse to compromise our standards or to back down from what we know God wants us to be, to do and to say.
Joseph, in the Old Testament, suffered the most awful circumstances in his life. He was hated by his brothers who sold him into slavery. He was abused by his master’s wife who had him thrown into prison. But Joseph persevered through each of those circumstances until God raised him up and made him governor of Egypt. And many years later when he faced his brothers again there was no bitterness with him. He could openly and honestly say to them, “You meant it for evil but God used it for good to preserve your lives.”
We learn from the Apostle Paul that ‘When God says “no” to a request to relieve our pain or distress, He always gives us the grace to endure it,’ (Tommy C. Higle).

At the end of this series on these four verses in 1st Corinthians 13:4 – 7, I hope your hearts have been blessed and your lives changed in some way in the ways you relate to people.
A few days ago Facebook users had what they called ‘Unfriend Day.’ It was a day to get rid of all the people who contacted you on Facebook whom you didn’t want to be a friend. The claimed it was a great success.
I think that it would be a great thing if each of you decided to set one day a month aside in which you would make one new friend to relate to for Christ.

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Building Better Relationships Preventing Selfishness Anger Unforgiveness

November 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Reading – 1 Corinthians 13:5b – c.

Today I have put together three character traits from our passage of study. I am doing this because these three fit very neatly together and because I have dealt with Anger and Unforgiveness on several occasions in this congregation. They represent three aspects of our character which we need not only to avoid but to prevent form overtaking us. They are always there trying to get a foothold in our lives and they will unless we take steps to prevent it from happening.
The three character traits we have here are Selfishness, Anger and Grudges (unforgiveness). Paul writes that Love ‘is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.’ The Message translates the text, ‘Love…Isn’t always “me first,” doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others.’ How can we as Christians prevent this trio of negative responses in our relationships with those around us and especially with our Christian brothers and sisters? Let us look at each of these individually.

1. Selfishness.

Craig Barnes, a Presbyterian preacher in Washington, D.C, wrote this in a sermon:
‘A man told me he had been dating a woman for several years, and she was starting to wonder if they would ever marry. He told me he didn’t know if he could ever marry her because, as he said to me, “I don’t think she makes me happy.”
I asked him why not, which was a mistake. He went on explaining all the reasons why she didn’t make him happy.
Finally I interrupted and asked, “What kind of a wife would make you happy?” The more he described what he was looking for in a wife, the more convinced I became that what he really needed was not a wife. He needed a goldfish, the pretty kind with the long tail that floats around, or maybe a Golden Retriever – but even a dog will make demands on you emotionally. A goldfish, though, just sits there and looks pretty and don’t ask you to communicate. It doesn’t ask you how your day was or expect you to listen to how its day was. The last thing he needed was a wife, because his whole understanding of why the world existed was to meet his needs.’
(From ‘Perfect Illustrations,’ p. 247.)
There is a word for that kind of attitude. It is called ‘selfishness.’ ‘Selfishness,’ wrote Pastor Tommy Higle, ‘comes home from a hard day’s work, sits down in his favourite chair, reads the newspaper, watches T.V. or goes to the home computer and continues to work. Selfishness doesn’t have time to listen to his children tell him of the good grades they made at school or to see them ride a bicycle for the first time. Selfishness is always working late and coming home tired and grouchy. Selfishness doesn’t have to be gone to be not at home.’
We could give many illustrations of selfishness because we see it around us every day. This is predominantly a selfish world in which we live. We hear a lot today about bullying in our schools. It is becoming such a problem that several kids in this country and in the United States have either committed suicide to escape it or they have killed other students in retaliation. Where does it all come from? It stems from selfishness.
Rich Tatum in the United States, writes in a book entitled, “When Kids Kill,” writes:
‘The recent bunch of accused killers are “very self-centered, very self-absorbed, angry youngsters who derive extraordinary pleasure from savage vengeance they wreak on one another.’
How do we deal with selfishness and self-centerdness in our own lives? We cannot stop it in the lives of others until we deal with it in our own lives. The world never works in a way that suits all our demands. Nothing that you and I do can alter the creation to meet our particular needs, so what do we do?

A. Prevention begins by learning to show appreciation for the things that other people do.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4:29, ‘Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.’
When people do things that irritate us we tend to respond in a harsh way and use harsh words to speak against them but Paul urges us to do the very opposite. Don’t let any dirty or foul language come out of your mouth, only that which helps the other person. That is hard, isn’t it? Somebody says something that irks you and you want to give them a piece of your mind but Paul says, “Say something nice to them.’ Tell them that you appreciate something good that they’ve done. Write this down:
‘Appreciation finds what can be sincerely praised and complimented.’
Practice doing this on your spouse, your children and your friends, but especially on those who rub you under the skin. When you show appreciation your help people to see their potential and develop their gifts.

B. Prevention continues by learning to accept people as they are.

One of the worst things I’ve ever heard a husband say to his wife was, “Why can’t you be like my brother’s wife who knows how to keep a house?” Selfishness makes us think that everyone else should be just like us. My spouse should be just like me – love fast foods and hates broccoli. My children should be just like me – grow up playing football. This is not the Christian way. What is the Christian way? You’ll find it in Romans 15:7, Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.’
This should be especially true of family members, especially our spouses, but it should also be true of our church family.

C. Prevention culminates in giving attention to the needs of others.

Philippians 2:4, ‘Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interest of others.’ I think of this verse when I hear someone say, “Pastor, the only reason he is here is because…” or “The only reason he said that was that…” Well then, if that is true, according to this verse we should give attention to his or her interests. The least we can do is discuss it and see if there is any merit in it.
It is not only little children that need attention, we all do. Some of us need it more than others but we all need it and if we can’t find it among God’s people where else will we find it? Probably someplace where it is being given by other selfish men and women and children, and believe it or not, people, like children, will respond to attention.
So, there is the trio that will prevent selfishness from taking over our lives – Appreciation, Acceptance and Attention.
So much then for Selfishness, let us move on to:

2. Anger.

‘Love…is not easily angered.’ ‘Anger is one of the most persistence enemy in relationships.’ In this country thousands of women are battered each year and have to seek refuge in women’s shelters to escape the outrageous anger of their husbands and partners; thousands of children end up in foster homes and group homes, not to mention hospitals because of threats and abuse from angry parents. Again let me take you to Ephesians 4:26 & 31. This is God’s instruction concerning the control of anger. What is he telling us here? Three things.

A. Anger is not to be repressed inwardly.

Deal with it as soon as you can. We are not to push it away or deny that it is there. We are not to avoid it like we avoid selfishness. Repressed anger will stay inside and fester and grow into bitterness which will eventually break out into some deadly form of expression. Do not repress your anger.

B. Anger is not to be expressed sinfully.

It is never to be expressed in ‘unwholesome talk,’ that is, dirty language or false accusations or any other form of verbal or physical abuse. You can do irreparable damage to a relationship if you express your anger in these ways. The Bible says that the person who expresses anger in this way is a fool – Proverbs 29:11. If you are in the habit of losing your temper you are a foolish person. So what are we to do with anger?

C. Anger is to be confessed honestly.

Mastering your anger means that you must, first of all, tell God about it. Tell Him, “Lord, I am angry. I am boiling over at what she did to me. Help me to control it and get rid of it,” and so on, and guess what, God will help you overcome it.
But you also need to confess it to the people who make you angry. Instead of abusing them with a few choice words, you need to say, “What you did or what you said, makes me very angry?” Sometimes people don’t know we are offended by their words or their actions and if we are, we need to let them know. We don’t have to do this with every petty issue that comes up but we do need to confront it when it is an issue that is destroying our relationship or draining our emotional, mental and spiritual energy.
So, there are three things to control anger: Repressed inwardly? No! Expressed sinfully? No! Confessed honestly? Yes!
Finally, let’s talk about:

3. Grudges.

‘Love…keeps no record of wrongs.’ There are people in this world who can remember every wrong thing that has ever been done to them since they were five years old but cannot tell you of any good thing they have ever received. That is really sick. Everyone should be able to let go of little, meaningless things that has been done to us.
The word translated ‘wrongs’ here is speaking of heavy things, things that hurt deeply, things that causes injury to the heart and the soul, not to the little minor offenses we face every day. Love, agape love, keeps no records of these things. Now, the key to not keeping grudges lies in two things.

A. Learn how to forgive as God forgives.

What does that mean? Look at Jeremiah 31:34. When God forgives our sin He ‘remembers’ them no more. What does that mean? After all, God has perfect memory, so how can He say “I will remember them no more?’ This is what it means. Once God forgives your sin He never brings them up to you again. He never uses them to condemn you or belittle you in anyway.
We are to forgive others as God has forgiven us – Matthew 6:12. I sometimes hear people say, “I can forgive her but I’ll never forget.” God isn’t asking that you never remember what someone has done to you. That would be foolish because it could put your life in danger. What God is asking is this, once you have forgiven someone of their offense you are to wipe the slate clean. Don’t ever bring that up again to condemn or accuse or belittle or endanger the reputation of that person. Forgive them in the same way God has forgiven you.

B. Pray for Inner Healing.

God is a healer and he will heal. James wrote, ‘Pray for one another that you may be healed,’ James 5:16; and in Psalm 147:3, we read, ‘He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.’
One of the most touching stories in the Old Testament is that of Abraham and Hagar. At the request of his wife Sarah who was beyond the age of child-bearing Abraham had sexual relationship with a young Egyptian slave named Hagar and she became pregnant. It was a way for Sarah to get a child since the child born of a slave would belong to Abraham and her. But the incident created conflict between the two women. Sarah demanded that the woman and the child should be thrown out of their household. Abraham gave in to her request and threw them out and left them to die in the wilderness. It was sexual and physical abuse at its worst. She could not go back to her own people and so she was prepared to die in the Wilderness with her child beside her.
But God came to her and recued her. Where could He send her for help? He sent her back to Abraham’s house and He changed Abraham’s heart so that she was accepted back into the home and cared for. God healed her heart, healed Sarah’s heart and Abraham’s heart, and as a result, Ishmael grew to become a great man and a Father of many nations. Don’t underestimate the healing power of God.

Selfishness, Anger, and Grudges are a dangerous trio that will destroy relationships if we fail to prevent them.

So, let’s take a minute and review how we deal with them.

Selfishness – Prevent it by appreciating, accepting and showing attention to others.

Anger – Don’t repress it inwardly or express it sinfully, but confess it honestly to God and to those who hurt you.

Grudges – Learn how to forgive as God forgave you; and pray for inner healer.

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Better Relationships Love

October 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Building Better Relationships

Love is kind – 1 Corinthians 13:4b.

‘Love is kind’ wrote the Apostle Paul in this text. Another translation, the Message, translates the text, ‘Love cares more for others that for self.’ Over the last two weeks we’ve been looking at the subject of ‘Building Better Relationships’ as that is outlined for us in 1 Corinthians 13. On week one I talked about ‘Love,’ God’s agape love, that unconditional, unmotivated love which is at the very center of God’s nature. That love is the true foundation for better relationships with people.
We have talked about ‘Patience.’ Paul writes that ‘love is patient.’ It never gives up. It always hopes for better in people. It is long-suffering, not short-fused.
But today we are going to look at ‘Kindness’ for ‘love is kind.’ These are just three simple words but what beautiful words they are.

‘Love is kind.’

A Malayan proverb says, ‘One can pay back a loan of gold, but one lives forever in debt to those who are kind.’ Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote, ‘Kindness should be cultivated till your heart yields a full crop of it. Pray for a short memory as to all unkindness.’

The word ‘kindness,’ means ‘to do something helpful, thoughtful, gracious or sympathetic.’

Patience may put up with all kinds of bad things from other people, kindness will do all kinds of good things for other people.
Let me tell you a story of kindness that appears in ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul.’
‘“Your son is here,” the nurse said to the old man. She had to repeat the words several times before the man’s eyes opened. He was heavily sedated and only partially conscious after a massive heart attack he had suffered the night before. He could see the dim outline of a young man in a Marine Corps uniform, standing alongside his bed.
The old man reached out his hand. The marine wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man’s limp hand and squeezed gently. The nurse brought a chair, and the tired service man sat down at his bedside.
All through the night the young Marine sat in the poorly lighted ward, holding the old man’s hand and offering words of encouragement. The dying man said nothing, but kept a feeble grip on the young man’s hand. Oblivious to the noise of the oxygen tank, the moans of the other patients, and the bustle of the night staff coming in and out of the ward, the Marine remained at the old man’s side.
Every now and then, when she stopped by to check her patients, the nurse heard the young Marine whisper a few comforting words to the old man. Several times in the course of the long night, she returned and suggested that the Marine leave to rest a while. But every time, the young man refused.
Near dawn the old man died. The Marine placed the old man’s lifeless hand on the bed and left to find the nurse. While the nurse took the old man away and attended to the necessary duties, the young man waited. When the nurse returned, she began to offer words of sympathy, but the Marine interrupted her.
“Who was that man?” he asked.
Startled, the nurse replied, “He was your father.”
“No, he wasn’t,” the young man said. “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
“Then, why didn’t you say something when I took you to him?”
“I knew there had been a mistake by the people who sent me home on an emergency furlough. What happened was, there were two of us with the same name, from the same town and we had similar serial numbers. They sent me by mistake,” the young man explained. “But I also knew he needed his son, and his son wasn’t there. I could tell he was too sick to know whether I was his son or not. When I realized how much he needed to have someone there, I just decided to stay.”’
That is kindness. Kindness serves others joyfully, even those who hurt you. If we are kind there are at least three things we will do on a regular basis.

1. We will encourage others.

God is an encourager. You can’t read the Bible and not see that. In Psalm 10:17 we read these words, ‘You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them and you listen to their cry.’ God doesn’t give up on people just because they fail once. He helps them up and He encourages them. When we, as Christians encourage others positively, we are reflecting in our lives the character of God.
One of the things that has kept me going in ministry for many years is the many notes of encouragement that I have received from people every where I’ve been. Let me read some of them for you.
‘Dear Pastor Neville, A quick note to say how blessed I was in the Sunday morning service. I thank you for continuing to seek God’s direction for our “flock” and for the service format. I am so encouraged by your continuing desire to have us become a people dependent on Him through prayer.’
Here’s another:
‘Thank you for always being so gracious whenever we have had a burden to bear. May God continue to give you health and wisdom for all the challenges.
Thank you too Ruby for taking such good care of your man. Your warmth and sense of humour blesses all who know you both.’
Those are just two of hundreds of encouraging notes I have received over the years. It is one of the many ways God encourages me. These people may not realize it, but they are being used of God to keep me in service. (Special thanks to all of you who have read these sermons on our web page and have sent in notes of encouragement to me. I really do appreciate hearing from you.)
Did you notice in Psalm 10:17 that God encourages people just by listening? Concerning the afflicted the Psalmist says, ‘you listen to their cry.’ We shouldn’t be surprised at this. One of the best ways to be like God in the area of relationships is to take time to listen to someone who is hurting or discouraged.

Secondly, if we are kind people:

2. We will be Compassionate.

In Luke 10:30 – 37, we have what we have come to call ‘the Parable of the Good Samaritan.’ The Good Samaritan is one whom we may call a kind man. Listen to the story as I read it from The Message (read).
If we are kind people we will have compassion for the needs of others and we will do something to help them, something more than just talk.
• When we as a church get involved in the Big Brothers movement at the school, that’s kindness.
• When some of us go there and listen to the children read their essays, that’s kindness.
• When you shop for groceries each week and remember to buy something for the food bank, that’s kindness.
• When we provide someone in the community with fuel to heat the house for the winter, that’s kindness.
• When we take a hungry man over to the coffee shop and buy him breakfast, that’s kindness.
• When we clean up someone’s yard in the community and plant gardens for them that is kindness.
And all of that kindness is reflecting the kindness of God to us and therefore bring the glory of God to the world around us. And there is much more we can do. You young people can help around the house, keep your room clean, help with the dishes, help your brother or sister with homework, sit with someone for an hour in a nursing home, etc. There are hundreds of ways in which we can be kind to others. We just need to be sensitive and do it, not for congratulations or recognition, but for the glory of God and the blessing of others.
Acts of kindness should go beyond our family and friends. They should reach out to the more unfortunate in society. We should take personal action, that is, action apart from what we do through the church, to meet the more specific needs of hurting people. That may mean volunteering at the hospital, or in a nursing home, or at the Lighthouse drop-in center – read Colossians 3:12.
Genuine love, God’s agape love, calls us to be compassionate towards people who are in need.

3. We will bear each others’ burdens.

Read Galatians 6:2. In Matthew 11:30 Jesus uses these words, ‘My yoke is easy.’ He invites his disciples to come to him for rest and to take his yoke upon them because ‘my yoke is easy.’ A yoke is a heavy wooden harness that fits over the shoulders of an ox or oxen. Farmers in ancient times, and in some countries today, used the yoke to train inexperienced oxen for ploughing. The inexperienced ox was placed in a yoke alongside of an experienced ox. This way he did not carry the full load but simply learned how to plough or pull by walking alongside the experienced ox. ‘My yoke is easy’ means that it is not burdensome because he makes it lighter by pulling alongside of you.
Now, the word ‘easy’ here is the same word translated ‘kind’ in 1st Corinthians 13:4. It means that we not only do kind deeds for people but there are times when we have to come alongside and yoke ourselves to them. We have to carry the burden with them.
I can think of many examples of this. I think of one elderly man who lived alone, was very feeble and sickly but he came to church every Sunday morning. Two of the ladies in the church noticed how feeble he was and how poorly dressed he was. They visited his home and saw the poor conditions under which he lived. They took it on to visit him every week, clean his little house and take his laundry home for washing. They brought him a couple of meals every week. They did this for years until he passed away. That is bearing the burden. According to Paul, when you do things like that, you ‘fulfill the law of Christ.’

So there are three things we need to know about kindness. If we are kind:

• We will encourage others;

• We will be compassionate;

• We will bear one anothers’ burdens.

One of the areas I didn’t have the time to deal with today is what we often hear referred to as ‘Random acts of kindness.’ I was going through the drive-through at Tim Hortons one day and when I came to collect my purchase the server said, ‘Sir, the person in the car that went ahead of you paid the bill.’ That was a ‘random act of kindness. Let me close with a list of ‘random acts of kindnesses’ from ‘List to Live by for Simple Living.’ As you listen to this list why not pick one or two things from it and determine to practice these during this week.
• Let someone cut in front of you.
• Send a thank you note.
• Take a bag of groceries for someone in need.
• Volunteer.
• Give a larger tip than normal.
• Open a door for someone.
• Visit the elderly.
• Pick up litter.
• Write a note of encouragement to a teenager.
• Invite a widow to dinner.
• Be polite.
• Take flowers for your neighbour.
• Run errands for someone who is sick.
• Bake something for a friend.
• Listen. Watch someone’s children.
• Ask, “What can I do for you?”
• Invite someone new for coffee.
• Make a new employee feel welcome.
• Smile at a stranger.
• Be a big brother or sister.
• Help without being asked.
• Compliment five people each day.
• Offer to pick up a neighbours mail.
• Talk respectfully.
• Donate to a non-profit organization.
• Send a gift anonymously.
• Do for others what you would like them to do for you.

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Better Relationships Envy and Jealousy

October 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The Price of Envy and Jealousy – 1 Corinthians 13:4c,

‘The story goes that a hip young man bought one of the best cars around – a Ferrari GTO. He took it for a spin and stopped at a red light. An old man on a moped pulled up next to him. The old man looked over the sleek, shiny car and asked, “What kind of a car ya’ got there sonny?”
“A Ferrari GTO. It cost half-a-million dollars.”
“That’s a lot of money,” said the old man. “Why does it cost so much?”
“Because this car can go over two hundred miles an hour,” stated the young man proudly. The moped driver said, “Mind if I take a look inside?”
“No problem,” replied the owner.
So the old man poked his head in the window and looked around. Sitting back on his moped, the old man said, “That’s a pretty nice car, alright!”
Just then the light changed, and the driver decided to show the old man just what his car could do. He floored it, and within thirty seconds the speedometer read 160 MPH. Suddenly he noticed a dot in his rear view mirror. It was getting closer! He slowed down to see what it could be, and – whoosh – something whipped by him going much faster.
“What on earth could be faster than my Ferrari?” the young man said to himself. Then, ahead of him, he saw a dot coming toward him. Whoosh! It went by again, heading in the opposite direction – and it looked like the old man on the moped.
“Couldn’t be,” he thought, “how could a moped outrun a Ferrari?”
Once more, though, he saw the dot in his rear view mirror, followed by a bang as the speeding object crashed into the back of his car. The young man jumped out and saw the old man lying on the pavement. He ran to him and asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?”
The old man whispered, “Unhook my suspenders from your side view mirrors.”
Be careful what you admire.’

Today, as we continue to look at this subject of Building Better Relationships, our study is going to focus on this phrase –

‘Love does not envy.’

Notice that Paul begins with two positive statements, Love is patient love kind. Love, patience and kindness are all fruits of the Spirit listed for us in Galatians 5:22 – 23. The seeds have been sown in us and we have the responsibility of treating them in such a way that they will grow into maturity in our lives. We have to grow them by nourishing them with the word of God and prayer and practicing them in everyday life. If we do this they will grow and mature with time.
There is an old poem my mother taught me as a child which I like to quote. It goes like this:
The heart is a garden where thought flowers grow,
And thoughts that we think are seeds that we sow;
Every kind loving thought bears a kind loving deed,
While the thought that is selfish is just like a seed.
We must watch what we think each minute, all day,
And pull out the weed thoughts and throw them away;
And plant loving seed thoughts so thick in a row,
That there will be no room for weed thoughts to grow.
(Written by Katherine Merrill).
Envy is a ‘weed thought.’ It was no put in you by the Holy Spirit. It was suggested by Satan, the enemy of our soul. Weed thoughts need to be rooted out and utterly destroyed.
The first of these ‘weed thoughts’ is ENVY. The Greek word is zeloo, and it can be translated ‘envy’ or ‘jealousy.’ Now there is a difference between ‘envy’ and ‘jealousy.’ ‘Envy’ is wanting what someone else has; ‘jealousy’ is fear that what you have will be taken away.
Envy and jealousy are the opposite of love. They are weeds in the garden, and just as weeds serve to choke the flowers and kill the garden, so envy and jealousy will choke the flower of love and destroy a relationship. Therefore, we must deal with these two bad weeds if we are to build secure, lasting, good relations with others – in our homes, in our communities, in our church.
Let’s begin by considering:

1. The Problems created by Envy and Jealousy.

First of all:

A. Envy and Jealousy can make you mean.

It makes us want something that belongs to another. A number of years ago a mother in the U.S.A. plotted to kill a girl in High School so that her own daughter could replace her as cheer leader for the school’s football team. How mean can we get?
We hear of people stealing newborn babies from their mothers out of envy. It’s nothing new. It happened in Solomon’s time – 1st Kings 3:16 – 18. This is not just a story about the wisdom of Solomon; it is also a story about envy, jealousy and its results.
Whenever we begin to envy others for their wealth or success, or their good looks or whatever, the end result is always evil. James wrote in James 3:16, ‘For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.’

B. Envy and Jealousy moves people away from us.

They are not constructive character traits; they are destructive. There is a story in Genesis 24 which illustrates this so well.
God promised to bless Isaac and He did. The neighbouring Philistines became envious and jealous of all that God had given Isaac, so they plugged up his wells and tried to get rid of him.
Another such story is that of Joseph and his brothers. Out of share envy and jealousy they sold their brother into slavery That’s what envy and jealousy does. It separates people from one another.
It is one of the biggest killers in a marriage today. Spouses try to control one another out of jealousy and that leads to disagreements and conflicts and a feeling of bondage. Eventually it drives a partner away. Unreasonable jealousy is really telling your partner, “I don’t trust you.”
If you don’t know this, you need to learn it now. People are attracted by trust but repelled by jealousy. Proverbs 6:33 – 34 is a warning not to let jealousy get the best of you.

C. Envy and Jealousy Makes us Miserable.

If you’ve ever been envious or jealous you’ll know this from experience. You can’t be happy and envious and jealous at the same time. These jus don’t go together. Listen to Proverbs 14:30, ‘A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.’ In that verse King Solomon is telling us that envy not only robs us of joy and peace in life, but it affects us physically.
Saul was the first King of Israel. He could have been a happy man. He had everything necessary for his happiness – Power, prestige, treasures, a good family and religion – but Saul was jealous. He was envious and jealous of David and his envy and jealousy led him to sin against God and sin against David. His reign as the first King of Israel ended because of envy and jealousy.
No matter what or how much we have to make us happy, we can never be happy until we eliminate from our lives the sins of envy and jealousy. These destroy lives, families, friendships and a host of other relationships.

2. The Remedy for Envy and Jealousy.

If I interpret Paul correctly in 1st Corinthians 13:4, he is telling us that the real remedy for envy and jealousy is to replace it with ‘agape’ love. ‘Love does not envy,’ therefore, if you practice ‘agape’ you will not be envious and jealous of other people. However, in order to do this, we must first of all:
A. Renounce them as Sinful. These are not just flaws in human character, they are sinful.
Now we know that not all jealousy is sinful. The Bible says that ‘God is a jealous God,’ (Exodus 20:5). God is jealous but His jealousy is justified. He knows that His people are attracted by worldly things and are easily tempted to stray. Human jealousy can be this way too, especially in a marriage relationship.
However, human envy and jealousy is, by and large, selfish and sinful – Romans 13:13; 2nd Corinthians 12:20. Selfish jealousy acts as a kind of incubator for other kinds of sin such as bitterness, hatred and violence. The Bible tells us that Judas betrayed Jesus because of envy – Matthew 27:18. And it is because of this sinful aspect of envy and jealousy that you and I need to renounce it as sin.
Not only do we need to renounce it as sin, but we also need to:

B. Remove it from our Lives.

How do we do that? We replace it with contentment. If we are content it is impossible to be envious and jealous – Philippians 4:11. Paul had learned contentment. He had learned progressively to detach himself from material things and other worldly attractions. For him it was something he disciplined himself to do. Instead of envying others for what they had he would rejoice with them. That’s the attitude of contentment.
You must renounce them as sinful and remove them from your life.

C. Rekindle ‘Agape’ in your life.

The risen Christ, from the Island of Patmos sent a message to the Church in Ephesus. He commended them for their hard work and perseverance, for their refusal to tolerate sin and heresy in their congregation but He also rebuked them. He said, “I have this against you; you have lost your first love, your Agape.” Most of us can testify how fervent we were when we first came to faith in Jesus Christ. Can we still say that? If we have lost our first love or the love we had at first, then let us seek to rekindle it.

- Rekindle it by getting back to fervent prayer.

- Rekindle it by daily reading of God’s word.

- Rekindle it by exuberant, inspiring and authentic worship.

- Rekindle it by total commitment and surrender to Jesus Christ.

- Rekindle it by changing your attitude and the way you think about other people and things in this world.

- Rekindle by conforming to the image of Christ.

- Rekindle it by having the mind of Christ in you.

Envy and jealousy are to relationships what weeds are to a garden. They will choke the life and love out of your relationships if they are allowed to grow and multiply. They can only grow and multiply if we allow them to but you don’t have to allow them to grow. Whenever you see them begin to spring up between you and others, get rid of them immediately. Rebuke them with God’s word and kill them by practicing Agape love.

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