We tend to position ourselves on the receiving end, and ask God for His blessings.
• Surely He loves us and we know He will bless us and help us through life.
• We need also to see ourselves on the ‘giving’ end, and offer to God what He expects from us.
It’s good to get the right perspective.
• We need to sit back, quiet down ourselves and ask God: “Lord, what do you want from me?”
• We often expect God to do something – this and that. It’s good to reflect on what God wants us to do, so that we won’t end up wasting our time, our life away.
• This is necessary because the Bible tells us God does expect something from us.
• US President John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural address in 1961:
“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
Luke 9:22-26
22 And he said, "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life."
23 Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? 26 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
Is following Jesus Christ easy? No! It was never meant to be.
• Yet somehow, we often hear only the happy side of our faith – that as a Christian, we are deeply loved and greatly blessed.
• This is not wrong, but it is only one-sided. God expects something from our end.
• We are asked to be obedient, to share His love, to preach the Gospel, to serve Him.
• The truth is – a serious Christian (a disciple of Jesus Christ) can expect persecution and hardship, while serving Him in a sinful world.
• We are expected to trust Him, remain faithful, be patient and persevere.
Jesus puts it plainly - the one who truly follows Him must deny himself and take up the cross. The one who loses his life for Him will save it.
• The implication is clear – there will be sacrifices, and we need to be prepared to make sacrifices in life, if we are want to be good Christians.
• Doing the will of God will mean we have to count the cost.
• I’m not talking about some exorbitant cost – go be a missionary. For some, that may really be God’s call for you.
• I’m talking about just little sacrifices we make. It could the small price you pay to serve God in the worship team, or teach the children in the Sunday School, or sing in the choir.
• What are some sacrifices you’ve made for God since becoming a Christian?
Today, most would not ask such a question.
• They would prefer to know what God can do to solve their problems.
• They would prefer to limit Christianity to just about health and wealth.
• But that is not the complete picture given to us in the Scriptures.
• Doing the will of God will mean sacrifices, and we need to be prepared for this.
The sooner we understand this, the better.
• For the Christian who is not prepared to make sacrifices, he will very soon question God’s goodness at every slightest problem, and doubt His love at every slightest pain.
• That was the problem of the Israelites the moment they were saved from Egypt.
• In just a few days, they lost sight of the good and compassionate God who acted on their behalf.
• Instead, they said they would rather have remained in Egypt as slaves.
If our expectation of this journey with God is only all smooth and rosy, then we are going to be disappointed. We are going to get disillusioned very easily.
• For the Israelites, crossing the Red Sea, running from the enemies, having to fight my way into the blessed land wasn’t my idea of the good life God promises me.
• This is a lopsided view of the Christian life, of God and His will for us.
Yes, God wants to bless us.
• But these blessings need not be merely physical or material.
• In fact, many blessings come camouflaged through pain and difficulties.
• It is precisely because of these that I am blessed.
• And unless we go through them, we will not know the goodness of God; we will not know His power and His love for us.
God wants to bless us in more ways than we understand today.
• Many today like to limit God’s blessings only to wealth and health.
• They say God wants us to be happy; He wants to make us successful.
• But where is the ‘cross’? I am asked to carry the cross and follow Him.
Actually, nowhere does the Bible call us to be ‘successful’.
• Nowhere in the NT are the disciples of Jesus promised material blessing.
• God may bless some that way but nowhere in the Bible are we called to seek it.
• In fact, the opposite is true – the disciples were promised persecution, tribulation, and opposition.
• Paul understands this. Despite his many trials and sufferings, he did not doubt God’s way nor misunderstood His purposes.
• We often do. We complain. We get angry with God. We say He is unfair.
If happiness is tied only to physical and material blessings – then we have really fallen short of God’s ideal for us.
• What we are promised is God’s constant presence and love.
• He will never leave us nor forsake us. Nothing can separate us from his love – and then Paul went on to list the hardships (Rom 8:35) – not “trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword”.
Jesus says, “Carry the cross.”
• This understanding is important – be prepared to make sacrifices as followers of Jesus Christ.
• Let’s look at the words of Jesus in two places:
Luke 6:32-36 – “your reward will be great.”
John 12:24-26 – “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies.”
The thrust of Christianity – this born-again new life -is in giving, not in receiving.
• We know God is a great Giver and we can never out-give Him.
• We do receive health, wealth and successes in life, by His grace.
• But the thrust of the Christian life is in giving – we are call to make sacrifices, to ‘lose our life for Christ’s sake’.
• Look at the lives of the disciples, at Paul. There is a major place for sacrifice in the Christian life. And there is nothing wrong with that.
In Luke 14:28-33 Jesus says if you want to be my disciple, you must count the cost.
• You must be prepared to make sacrifices. It’s worth it. God remembers them.
• Our desire is to see that God’s purpose is fulfilled through us.
The Christian life is more than just “God bless me! Make me happy! Make me rich!”
• We have this tendency to look at a person’s wealth and accomplishments and automatically conclude that he is blessed by God. Or the other way around, seeing a poor person, one who encounters many failures and conclude that God’s favour is not upon him.
• In his book ‘Ten Things I Wish Jesus Never Said’, Victor Kuligin said that people usually err on two fronts:
(1) They believe material blessing is a sure sign of God’s favour.
(2) Eventually, it makes material desires the sole aim.
Frankly, we all love things – “Don’t tell me about sacrifices, I want to enjoy my sonship. I’m joint heir with Christ, and I want to enjoy everything now. I desire to be successful in every sense of the word. I don’t mind have greater status. I want all the comforts this world can afford me. And the notion that I may not get any of these makes me question God.”
• I think this is the problem with man. We started off as sincere follower of Christ and soon enjoyed God’s blessing so much that we began to take His material blessings in our life as an end in itself.
• We talk about getting good results at school, successes in business, financial breakthroughs, miraculous healing… And then we get so comfortable we forget about God’s concerns (because we care only for our concerns); and we forget that this world is not our eternal home.
• Augustine said in Confessions, “It is all too possible to want gifts from the Lord, but not the Lord Himself – which seems to imply that the gift is preferable to the Giver.”
• Just like the top men at NKF and Youth Challenge. They started with good intention and a sincere heart; they put in their best efforts. But soon the money they got becomes an end in itself. (Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”)
So, being a Christian and having a good life, is this really the blessed way?
• Why would God give me temporal gifts like these, when I am going to leave them all behind?
• Can fame, status, prosperity, health be the ultimate pursuit of our life?
• I doubt so. The Bible says we are “aliens and strangers in the world” (1 Pet 2:11).
Worldly blessings (whether it’s physical or material blessing) can never be our aim.
• Jesus clearly tells us to store up treasures in heaven; earthly treasures are subject to decay (Matt 6:19), so how can wealth on earth be our goal.
• Our goal in life is to do the will of God, and to accomplish that you and I need to make sacrifices.
• The great English evangelist John Wesley said that if he died with more than five pounds in his pocket, he would be ashamed to face God.
• Instead of asking what God can do for me, we need to ask, more often, what can I do for Him.
• Start taking small steps. What do you think God expects you to do for Him now?
POEM – Author Unknown
I want my breakfast served at eight.
With ham and eggs upon the plate.
A sirloin steak I eat at one,
And dine again when the day is done.
I want an ultra-modern home,
And in each room a telephone.
Soft carpet stewed upon the floor,
And pretty curtains to grace my door.
A cosy place of lovely things,
Like easy chairs with inner springs.
And then I’ll have a small TV,
Of course I’ll be careful what I see.
I want my wardrobe too to be,
Of neatest finest quality.
The latest style in suits and vest,
Why shouldn’t Christians have the best?
But then the Master I can hear,
In no uncertain voice so clear
I bid you come and follow Me,
the lowly Man of Galilee.
Birds of the air have made their nests,
Foxes in their holes find rest.
I can offer you no bed,
No place have I to lay my head.
In shame I hung my head and cried,
"How could I spun the Crucified?"
Alone He fasted day and night,
For forty days without a bite.
A Man of sorrows and of grieves,
No earthly friend to bring relief.
Smitten of God the prophets said,
Mocked, beaten, bruised, His blood ran red.
If He be God and died for me,
No sacrifice too great can be.
For me a sacrifice to make?
I’ll do it all for Jesus’ sake.
Amen.
