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Tuesday, August 14, 2007

June 24, 2007 "Free to Rise and Shine"

Jun24’07
FREE TO RISE AND SHINE
Isaiah 42:1-9, Galatians 5:1, Ephesians 1:4

People are a superstitious bunch. One of the areas of interest that all of us seem to have is what will happen in the future. Look at some of the ways we will go to find out about our future.

You can search through your newspaper and find the daily horoscope that will give you some direction for each day. Or you can go to a Chinese restaurant and after your California flower sushi you can crack open a fortune cookie and see not simply advice but a prediction for your good fortune. At the County Fair there is a booth where a soothsayer will read your palm and tell you about your future. You can pick up the telephone and call the Psychic Hotline.

All right, so you aren’t a superstitious person. But you still want to know what the future holds.

So you pick up the newspaper and read the financial page or you watch a cable news channel and get all sorts of Wall Street information to predict how well your investments will earn. Maybe you’ll call a Charles Schwab type.

My, oh my how we want to know what will happen to us. Not that we want to know if bad will occur but that something good will come to pass. We seek and look for something positive in our life. We long to know if this spiraling circle of pain and frustration will ever end and that good will come our way.

In Isaiah’s day the people of God were no different than we are today. They wanted to know what the future holds just like us. So they looked to other gods and idols. They sought after things made of wood and stone instead of the Living God. And so God speaks through Isaiah and makes his own prediction. He promises the coming of a Servant who will be God himself who will bring justice and mercy. This coming Servant will not break the bruised reed nor will he snuff out the flickering candle. Why is God promising this? Because he has called his people to righteousness and to be a light to a lost world. He has called you to something better and greater than just having an easy life.

1) Seeking Freedom from Corrupt Sources.

Everyone wants to be free. “Free to be me.” “Free to succeed.” Freedom is the anthem of the United States.

But where do we truly find freedom? The Apostle Paul writes to the Galatian churches calling on them to “Stand strong in the liberty…” But too often we forget the liberty we have in Christ and look elsewhere.

The world of Isaiah’s day did much the same thing. People looked for hope and freedom from idols and things. These corrupt sources could not do what God can do. What is it that people back then and today take a hold of in order to bring some kind of freedom into their life?

a. Money.

18th Century author and poet, James Russell Lowell, once wrote: “Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, and it means leisure, it means liberty.” For most people, to have money means for them to have more leisure and liberty. Throw in security for safe measure and you have pretty good picture of how money can become an idol real fast.

The sad thing is that those who relentlessly pursue money find their life lived in a vacuum. They miss the joys of life because they have centered all of their decision-making around money. They have a hard time giving to the Lord’s work because they don’t want to lose financial ground.

Don’t get me wrong; to be good stewards of our income is critical to good spiritual health. But if we allow the bottom line of our estate to dictate how we give then we have missed the whole issue of living by faith and trusting in God.

On the flip side of the coin, those without money can be just as guilty of making money an idol. The result? They short-change society by ignoring what they owe and stealing from God by not tithing.

God wants us to have a healthy balance when it comes to money and not make money an idol.

b. Health.

There isn’t a person who doesn’t want good health. But we must be careful that we are not setting up our doctors and nurses as “gods.” They do a lot of good, but what about prayer? Do we really believe that God cares and heals our hurts and pains?

c. Education.

I am a firm believer in knowledge. I think that the worst thing is for a Christian to not know the scriptures and thereby not know God very well. I also believe in college education- whatever the cost. But good intellect is not the answer to the deepest hurts in your heart if that education does not include God. I did not agree with the village sign that had the quote: “A good education is the foundation of our youth.” A good education is important but not the most important thing in life. Education should not be an idol.

d. Success.

We all love success stories. Like Elmer Doolin who bought the recipe for some corn chips from a Mexican man in Texas who wanted to go back to Mexico in the 1930’s. He parlayed that $100 purchase into Fritos® corn chips and started the Frito Lay company.

Success is wonderful, but we can be so focused on it that it becomes an idol for far too many people.

e. People.

I heard that Paris Hilton is getting out of jail soon and is going to do an interview with NBC, of whom will give her a million dollars for some childhood photos. While in jail, she has set a record for the most mail received of any inmate before her.

Look at how we set up celebrities and worship what they do, what they wear, what they eat and where they go. We even do this in the church.

Again, let’s keep some balance. I have certain people that I hold in high regard. But I must realize that their feet are made of clay. They are not God. They are people.

We cannot allow people to become idols.

f. Things.

And then there are “things” that can easily become idols. How would you respond if someone rammed your car? I have seen two examples of that in my lifetime. I slid into a dear elderly lady’s car in the Oakwood Wesleyan parking lot. She was mad at me for several weeks. I was crushed in my spirit that such a thing would be so important to her. I apologized, offered to pay for the car but she would not speak to me at all. Until my pastor talked with her.

This last winter, someone in our church got dented while in service. How did they respond? Had it fixed. I offered to talk to the neighbors and find out who did it but they said there was no reason to.

These things we have- our home, our nic-nacs, our vehicles and anything else important will of no value when we get to heaven so why should they consume so much of our values here on earth.

These needful things are really not so needful if we keep our focus on God. God says to us just as he spoke to his people back in Isaiah’s day: “Indeed they are worthless; their works are nothing; their molded images are wind and confusion.”

And in your desperation of living a full life with corrupt sources, we can still miss the boat if we are…

2) Searching for Love in all the Wrong Places.

You want to be loved. Don’t deny it, don’t hide it and don’t run from it. You and I want to be loved by someone else.

That is only natural. We were born that way. God built into our very essence as human beings to love and be loved. But somewhere along the way- probably beginning in the Garden of Eden, that essence has been hijacked by the devil. People are running and searching everywhere for true love and true happiness. And most, including a lot of Christians, never find it.

And so, their life becomes filled with pain and misery in relationships that God cannot bless. What are some of the wrong places that people search for love?
We all want to be told that we are loved. I love to hear the words, “I love you” from my wife and kids the most. These are important.

What is it, then, that keeps so many people including some of you sitting here from truly experiencing the love of Jesus Christ in your heart and life? I can’t get exhaustive but I believer perhaps three hungers of love that everyone longs for but many find in the wrong places.

a. Affirmation through sexuality and impurity.

This is a huge, huge problem in our society. Something happens in a wrong way for a lot of people. They short-change their sexuality to be loved or in the misguided idea of loving someone else. They give up purity for impurity.

Others, in their inability to have a true and transparent relationship with someone else, will engage in a private fantasy life neither affirms them as a person nor does it make them happy.

When a person seeks to be affirmed in a way that degrades their God given dignity, they become a hollow personality and cannot have meaningful relationships of any kind. This includes family, friends and co-workers. Something happens in the human psyche that breaks down a person’s ability to relate with others when they are engaged in immorality.

b. Acceptance in exchange for expectations.


Performance orientation is a term that is used to define the role too many people have to live in order to be accepted by family or friends. Basically it means that you have to perform to certain expectations. A classic example can be found in the statement: “Mommy won’t love you if you do that.” Or, “Daddy will love you if you do such and such.” These statements may not be spoken specifically but they are shouted loud and clear through dysfunctional parenting practices.

Far too many of us here today have lived trying to please our parents. To get acceptance we do things. What if I don’t do them? Then Mother or Father will be disappointed.

God has called you and I to freedom in Christ. However, we cannot truly follow Christ unless we put off following others. This is a fact of scripture. Jesus calls on us to give up these in order to put him first in our life. Then these other relationships fall into their proper perspective.

c. Acknowledgment of any kind and in kind.

“If she’s nice to me then I’ll be nice to her.” This is that classic golden rule reversal and it’s something that gnaws at one’s self-esteem. We think we are doing what’s right for our self by doing this. This tit-for-tat relationship never works in the end. Again, it is a hollow relationship that’s not real. If you want people to be nice to you then you be nice to them. No problem. But when we reverse that we become a slave to the negative.

Once again, God looks and sees people like you and I who long to have true relationships and give and receive true love. He sees your pain and frustrations with life. And he wants to rescue you.

Through Isaiah he says in verses: “Who has declared from the beginning that we may know? And former times, that we may say, ‘He is righteous’? Surely there is no one who shows, surely there is no one who declares, surely there is no one hears your words. The first time I said to Zion, ‘Look, there they are!’ And I will give to Jerusalem one who brings good tidings. For I looked, and there was no man; I looked among them, but there was no counselor, Who, when I asked of them, could answer a word.”

All around us there are no answers to love and acceptance. Who will be able to stand among us today and be the answer? Who will be able to hear and deliver truth to our hearts?

3) A Life of Significance in knowing Christ Jesus.

God looked among those in his holy city and saw no one. He saw that there was not going to be an answer among the people. They were hooked on idols and pleasure. So then he makes a promise. And that promise has vibrated through the centuries. He promises Jesus Christ. He promises someone who is a man but is also like him.

a. The Promise of Redemption.

And if you are sitting here with as a bruised reed or a smoldering flame, know that even though others may have given up on you or have kicked you while you’re down, the Suffering Servant has arrived to deliver to you justice through truth and to make you righteous.

i) The bruised reed.

All of us at one time or another was once a bruised reed. You can’t get through life without being bruised in some way. The question then becomes, “What do we do about the bruise?”

Jesus Christ comes to you as the suffering servant who does break the bruise reed. Reeds are those hollow cane plants such as cat-tails or sugar cane. A reed gets bruised by storms or animals or even people. And when a reed is bruised it begins to lose its vitality and eventually needs to be removed.

Do you feel helpless and maybe even worthless this morning? Do you sense that deep within your self, you are a bruised reed? Don’t be afraid, our Lord is very near to you.

ii) The smoldering wick.

Not only will the coming Servant Jesus Christ not break the bruised reed, but he will not put out the smoldering wick. The original Hebrew calls the wick “flax.” What causes a wick to smolder? Sometimes because it doesn’t have enough oil to keep it fresh, it will smolder and eventually flame out. Other times the wick may become wet and struggle to stay lit. And other times, someone may throw something over it to keep it from breathing.

A smoldering wick describes a lot of people. They want to trust God but their faith becomes weak. They want to believe but something struggles within them to grasp a hold of that for which Christ Jesus took a hold of them. They long to have a real relationship with the Living God, but so many things are going on around them and a lot of them aren’t good.

Jesus Christ does not come along to finish off your flame. There has been so many times in my life that I wonder how much longer the candle would stay lit. So many times I have searched within the darkness of my world for just a light.

Back in the late 80’s, rock band Scorpions recorded a hit song called “Send Me an Angel”. It’s a beautiful but unbiblical ballad that sings of the humanistic philosophy the operates for too many people. Hear the words:

“The wise man said just raise your hand
And reach out for the spell
Find the door to the promised land
Just believe in yourself
Hear this voice from deep inside
Its the call of your heart
Close your eyes and your will find
The way out of the dark.”


However, this is not a life of freedom. I remember the song in those dark rough days of my floundering faith. But I realized- with the assistance of some Francis Schaeffer writings and my own church family- that the words of this song might sound beautiful, the lyrics might ring with some truth but it held no real answers. Only in Jesus Christ- fully and completely surrendered to him, did I find true freedom and significance.

b. The Assurance of Faith.

Without Christ life makes no sense. But with Christ you may not know the answers or the future but you can know a few things that will make a world of difference in your everyday faith.




• With Christ you can know true love and acceptance.

• With Christ you can know the forgiveness of sins.

• With Christ you can know your purpose in life.

• With Christ you can know the future is in God’s hands.

• With Christ you can know the value of your new self.

Conclusion

Outside of the city of Ephesus there was a dump that held not only the city rubbish but also the imperfect babies that were born. For a family to not have children was a tragedy; but to have deformed babies was a curse from the gods. And so the parents who gave birth to such a child, would make there way there.

Like most dumping grounds, what is thrown away by one might be treasured by another. And on occasion you would see a childless couple seeking to have their own family, going to the dump in hopes of finding a child still alive- even though it would deformed in some way.

When the Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:4- “God loved us and chose us in Christ…” This is our adoption into God’s family. Before the creation of the world he loved you and chose you in Christ. You and I were in the ash-heap of life. We were crippled by sin, blinded by the devil and lost without any hope. But God in his great mercy loved you like no other could.

As we move into our time of communion, I invite you to partake of the elements as a celebration of your life in Jesus Christ. This is that wonderful time and opportunity for you re-dedicate your life to God. This is also that time when- through this means of grace- that the Holy Spirit comes down and meets your deepest need.

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