How To Get Your Stuff Back

How to get your stuff back

6/24/01

scog

I Samuel 30:1-8

Intro

Webster defines the word stuff simply as material. Some folks have lost their material. They have lost what they are made of. Material is what makes up an object. If you have lost what you are made of then this message is for you. Some have lost their joy, hunger, prayer life, power, love, commitment, children, and marriages. God wants you have your stuff back.

He wants you to be made of what you use to be made of. The Bible says, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to day and forever (Heb 13:8).” Aren’t you glad that God hasn’t lost what he’s made of? He still has it.

In John 10:10 the Bible declares, “The devil has come not but for to steal, and to kill and to destroy.” John also said, “he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it.”

73% of kids 12 to 17 are online in America today. But only 35% are in the word of God on a weekly basis. Americans spend an average of 6 hours a day watching TV yet only spend less than a minute a day in prayer. 50% of all marriages end in divorce and many of those who haven’t divorced are on the verge of it. Don’t be surprised.

I shared with you last Sunday about the fatherless generation. When you have a nation without fathers and parents who give their children a sense of responsibility this is what you are left with.

The Bible says, “You shall teach my commandments to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up (Deut 6:7).” If you find someone talking about the commandments today they are talking about why we don’t need them any more.

“Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away (Matt 24:35).” Friend you don’t need houses, cars, money or land but you do need the commandments of God.

We have a nation that loves to talk about everything but God. This week in Kenly I saw a big sign on the door of someone’s car that said, “Ask me how to lose weight.” America is busy talking about losing weight and winning sports and making money.

We need to get us a sign that says, “Ask me how to find peace.” The world has been so busy talking about so many unimportant things that the things that really matter have no significance in their life any more. Even Christians have lost sight of what really matters in life.

Christians by the multitude are following after the world. They can get excited and be faithful to every sport and dance class but can’t shout about Jesus. I was with a man once who got excited when his team scored a touchdown. Oh, he would just go crazy. I’ve seen that same man in sit in church and hold his peace while someone is preaching about gift of forgiveness and eternal life.

The world will get excited watching a man on TV doing 360-degree slam-dunk but they don’t realize Jesus has done something greater. He opened the eyes of the blind; he raised the dead and died for our sins on the cross. He has given the gift of life.

Can I be so bold as to say that the world has put on a “form of godliness (II Tim 3:5)” and the church has taken on a “form of worldliness?” While the church has been trying to keep up with the Jones’, the devil has come in and stolen the glory of God from the people of God.

The same thing was going on in I Samuel. The Bible says that Phinehas’ wife called her child Ichabod because the “glory is departed from Israel (I Sam 4:21).” The glory of the Lord had been taken away from Israel by the enemy.

Friend we are at war with the world. “Love not the world neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him (I John 2:15).” James said, “Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God (James 4:4)?”

When you are close with the world you are close with the god of this world. When you are close with the god of this world you are not close to God. Being close to the god of this world means he has easy access to your stuff.