God Is A Weight Watcher
Dan 5:27 & Heb 12:1, I Sam 2:3,
I Samuel 16:7, I Samuel 15:22 Job 3:16, Luke 18:10,
Ps 62:9
Introduction
1. We have officially started our health and fitness ministry at Vineyard Community Church. We have started the following ministries: men’s boot camp, women’s evening aerobic class, we are planning another daytime class to start in April, we are offering a weight loss class to start in April, a Saturday walk/run club to start next week, our first 5 K race w/push up contest in May. We will be having a health fair Sunday, offering blood test for sugar, cholesterol, fat, and blood pressure. The best of all is that we have started a 13-week corporate weight loss campaign; so far we have received pledges for 1,600 pounds. 100 pounds ALREADY LOST!
2. Since we are talking about weight I thought today’s sermon should be about weight. Next week I want to talk about how Jesus helps us to overcome obstacles to health, we will look at our “healthy living” report card. How we can pass with all F’s. Then the weeks after that we will look at God the Body Builder, Jesus the Weight Lifter, and the secret of strength. The last sermon in this series will be “Ironmen/ironwomen for God.” I call this my “Healthy Living” series. Today I want to talk about “weight watching” from a spiritual perspective. God was a weight watcher. Why is God a weight watcher? Does He struggle with overweight? Is He overweight? No, not by any means. As a matter of fact He weighs exactly the right weight for His size and build. Some of you are wondering, just how much does He weigh? Well, you’ll have to wait until you get to heaven to find that out. The weight watching that we are talking about today is not His, but rather ours.
3. God is watching our weight. Now that is a bit scary. I always knew God was watching me and knew my every thought and heard my every word, but watching my weight? Yes, He the Bible says that God does watch our weight and He sees that many people weigh too much or too little.
4. Now we all know that weight watching can be a little deceptive. It all depends on whose scale you use. I am trying to lose 20 pounds during this 13 weeks. I worked real hard this week, no caffeine, no sugar desserts, cut my carbs down, worked out 4 days this week, and was all excited about weighing myself on Saturday. I worked out and then weighed myself, no weight lost!! Wow, something must be wrong with the scale. If it does not say you lost weight the scale must be wrong. Weighing ourselves can be tricky. It depends on when you weigh yourself. Early in morning you weigh less then right after dinner. So if want to think you lost weight, weigh yourself at night and then in the morning you will weigh less.
5. There is a scale in Washington DC that is so accurate that it can weigh smoke. It can tell the difference when a fly lands on it. You actually have to stand 10 feet away from it when using it because the heat from your body can affect it. If this scale says someone weighs so much we can be sure it is accurate. There is a scale at Magic Mountain that weighs tickets that you win, so they don’t have to count them. When we are talking about spiritual weight the same question often arises, which scale is God using and is it accurate? The real question should be which scale really counts, God’s scale or men’s’ scales? Let’s take a look at a few times where God did some weight watching in the Bible.
Belshazzar Dan 5:27 The man who didn’t weigh enough.
1. In the Old Testament book of Daniel (5:27) we see God talking about a man’s weight. It was during a great party of all the Babylonian royalty. They were using the golden vessels they had taken from the Temple of Jehovah God in Jerusalem when they destroyed it and took many Jews captives as slaves. They were the mightiest nation that was ever on the earth. So here they are having a party and were making fun of Jehovah God, since they felt their gods were the greatest. They did not realize that Jehovah God had allowed them to be the punishing agent against Jerusalem for their sins.
2. In the midst of this party a hand appears on the wall and writes a mysterious sentence. The Jewish prophet, Daniel had to be called in to interpret what it meant. The message said that the king had been weighed in the balances and had been found wanting. He didn’t have enough substance to his life to amount to anything on God’s scales. Wanting means deficient, lacking.
3. Now how different God’s scale is to the world’s scale. Here we have a man who is rich, healthy, and the king of the greatest empire the world has ever known, yet we find God saying that his life had no substance. God has a scale in heaven that is more accurate than the one in Washington DC. When God’s scale says you weigh a certain amount, you do in fact, weigh that amount. There will be no disputing it.
4. The king, Belshazzar, was weighed on God’s scales and he was found WANTING.
5. We are told that a day will come when we will all stand on the scales of heaven and be weighed or judged. “It is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment” or a modern translation might read, “It is appointed unto men once to die and then we go into the heavenly weight room and step on the scales.”
6. Psalm 62:9 tells us that men of low degree are a vapor, men of high degree are a lie. If they are weighed in the balances, they are all together lighter than vapor.”
7. People who live their lives without God, live lives that are a total waste. Their lives are a vapor. It does not matter how much money you earn, how much fame you obtain, what great things you accomplish, until you get the presence of God in your live, you are just a vapor, smoke that blows away.
8. God in His mercy is telling Belshazzar in advance that he does not weigh enough. He better put on a little more weight.
9. This is written to let us know that there are many weigh ins before the great weigh in. Just like in training, you weigh in everyday to see how you are doing. Our trainer is weighing us in everyday, letting us know if we need a little more weight or a little less weight and what we need to do about it.
10. What is incredible here is that Belshazzar does nothing about it, he appoints Daniel to third rank in his kingdom. What is incredible is that there are people here today who will do the same thing. God is trying to speak to you about your lives and you aren’t listening. “God’s trying to speak to me, that’s nice, pass the potatoes.” If I am talking to you, don’t pass it off, repent!
11. We also read in I Samuel 2:3, “By Him actions are weighed.” God is not impressed by what people do, He weighs our actions and looks at the motives and intents of the heart.
Did Anyone Ever Weigh Too Much In The Bible? Heb 12:1
1. In chapter eleven of the Book of Hebrews we read about the heavy weight champions who did great things for God. Chapter 12 is telling us that we too can be heavy weight champions, but we need to be sure that we are in shape.
2. In the Book of Hebrews, (12:1) we are told about people who are out of shape because they weigh too much. These people had put on too much weight by becoming too accustomed to their sins. This was written to Christians who had become weighted down with the cares of this life. The previous section of Scriptures that we read about King Belshazzar was about lost people. Their lives have no substance at all. But, even though the Christian life has substance, sometimes it has too much substance. The cares of this life can weigh us down.
3. Sin has its own punishments. The weight of sin is guilt.
4. Many people do not realize that Jesus put these kinds of sins in the same category as drunkenness and immorality. Being weighted down with the cares of everyday life can be as destructive as drunkenness and immorality to our spiritual life. Putting on this kind of weight can be especially bad for the heart. It can be worse than cholesterol build up. Overweight caused by attaching ourselves to the cares of this life can cause us to suffer from hardening of the heart. Hard hearts have been known to be fatal.
5. The problem with most of us is that when we look at ourselves to see if we are spiritually overweight we use the wrong scales.
6. In Luke 18:10, we read of the Pharisee and the publican who went to pray. The Pharisee used the wrong scale when he weighed himself. He used the scale of comparison. He was much better than that sinner publican. He was using men’s scales. He is like so many of us who weigh ourselves with scales that are not really accurate. We say, “Well, I’m not that bad or surely I am not as bad as that guy.”
7. When Jesus was talking to the people about righteousness, He said if they were going to use men’s’ scales they would have to weigh MORE than the Pharisees. They would have to be more righteous than the Pharisees!!! Wow that seemed impossible. There was no one more righteous than they were. What Jesus meant is that if they were put on God’s scales they didn’t weigh anything.
8. The Pharisee and the publican when they prayed were using two different scales. The Pharisee prayed and thanked God that he was not as bad as that publican. He fasted and prayed and gave tithes. He was using the scale of men. Based on that scale he did weigh at least something, surely more than the tax collector next to him.
9. The Pharisee prayed within himself. He was not praying to God but himself. “The proud heart God despises but the broken and contrite heart God will not despise or turn away.” Ps 34:18. “The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit and contrite heart.” Ps 51:17. The door to the kingdom of heaven is so low no one enters except they bow or bend the knee. Like the door of the church of the nativity in Bethlehem.
10. This tax collector worked for the Roman IRS. He was a hated and despised sinner.
11. So compared to the Pharisee he was not that good. But we read in 2 Cor 10:12 that, “Comparing ourselves among ourselves is not wise.”
12. God’s standard of righteousness is not some variable weight, that depends on how good your neighbor is. God’s standard of righteousness is unchangeable. God’s standard for proper weight is that we weigh as much as Him! He is the only one that is righteous. That’s right, we need to weigh the same amount as God. Since God is holy and righteous then we need to be holy and righteous. It won’t matter that we might have lived at least better than our neighbor. To weigh the right amount in heaven we must be holy and righteous. It won’t matter how we measure up to our neighbor. The scale that God uses in heaven is more of a balance type of scale. The kind where you put one measure of weight on one side and then weigh the other side according to it. When we get to heaven it will be as though God Himself is sitting on one side of the scale and we will have to step onto the other side.
13. We must weigh as much as God weighs! The measurement is PERFECTION. He cannot dwell in darkness. The question is not, “Am I as good as my fellow man, but am I as good as God." Since He demands perfection.
How Can We Be Sure We Weigh The Right Amount? I Sam 2:3
1. “By Him actions are weighed.” God looks at the heart. We are more prone to look at the outward appearance of men, but God sees beyond that into the very heart of men. He looks into the motives behind them.
2. It is not the good works that we do, but rather the condition of our heart right that ultimately matters with God. On the day of judgment that we read about in Matt 7:19-23, we read about people who did all sorts of good things. They even brag about it, “Didn’t we heal in your name, didn’t we cast out demons in your name, didn’t we prophesy in your name,” and Jesus says, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”
3. We need to be sure we are being weighed by God’s standards.
4. In this story in Samuel, the prophet Samuel was told this by God to pick the next king of Israel. He first was impressed with some men because they were big and strong, but God refused them. Then the prophet came to David and God told him yes, he was the one. Then God said to Samuel that He looks at the heart not the outward appearance. I Sam 16:7
5. Samuel said something similar to this to King Saul when he told Saul that God wants obedience rather than sacrifice. Saul performed an act that could be construed as godly but Samuel said that God saw through it. I Sam 15:22.
6. In Job 3:16, when Job was being accused by his friends of being cruel and unjust and was told that God was judging him for his sins, he said he wanted to be weighed on God’s scale because he knew God would not find him wanting. Job did not trust the scales of men. He maintained that he had lived a life of faith in God and trusted in Him. He was right. According to God’s Word there was not a more righteous man than Job, on the earth at that time.
7. Do you want to know if you weigh the right amount? We need to pray Psalm 139, “Search me, oh God, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
8. Jesus said that He was the way the truth and the life. He said that no man could get to heaven without Him. Jesus is the only way we can ever weigh the right amount. The Bible says that He will become our righteousness. He will be on the scales with us.
9. If anyone steps on the scale without Jesus by their side they won’t weigh enough. Even though some of us would love to know what it is like to be “underweight,” when it comes to spiritual weight you don’t want to be underweight. Yet withouth Jesus you will be underweight, since God says all of our own good works are no better than dirty laundry. Without the righteousness of Jesus Christ our lives would not have any weight at all
10. But it is possible for some of us here today to be overweight. We have the weight of sin in our lives. We are weighted down with the cares of this life. We are distracted and consumed with our possessions. We don’t seem to have time for God or time to obey Him. We need the cleansing blood of Jesus also or we will have all of our sins attached to us and will remain grossly overweight.
11. If we ask Him to forgive us our sins, then we can step onto the scales of heaven with Jesus Christ at our sides we can weigh the perfect weight. Then and only then will we hear the words, "Enter into the joy of the Lord." You can be sure that God is a WEIGHT WATCHER. The question to ask is, “How much do you weigh?”
