For Better or Worse
Scripture: Psalm 34:1 Date: 25 April 2010
Purpose: Worship God during all times, not just when things are tough.
“For better or worse, for richer or for poorer in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, ’til death do us part.”
That’s the vow that we make when we marry. But what does the “for better or worse” mean?
We’re told by Jesus how important it is to “count the cost” when we become his followers. Whatever vow we enter into, there are important matters to consider before we make solemn promises. And that’s especially true for those of us that have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
When you accepted Jesus into your life, you were telling God that you were going to Love, Honor, and Obey Him at all times. That loving Him was the most important thing to you and that you would serve Him at all times.
Sadly, for many of us, it just didn’t turn out that way .What would you say is the greatest enemy of the Christian faith?
Many of us would point to Satan, or to the moral decline of our nation, or to society’s influences that diminish the role of God, as our greatest enemies.
However, I believe that our most dangerous threat doesn’t come from outside the faith. Instead, our greatest enemy is in the hearts of believers. We as believers have given our lives to God but for some reason through a process of time we seem to have placed God in the closet. Much like the heavy winter coats each of us have here in Iowa, we keep God hung up and simply forget about him until the storm comes.
When the sun is shining and life is grand, why would we need God? We have bought into one of Satan’s most successful lies, “We Only Need God during Hard Times.”
Psalm 34:1
• New International Version: “I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.”
• King James Version: “I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”
• Contemporary English Version: “I will always praise the LORD.”
*RELEASE CHILDREN FOR CHILDREN’S CHURCH*
- I want us to notice that Scripture tells us that we are to praise and worship God ALWAYS. Scripture never tells us to worship God only when things are TOUGH in life.
Too many of us treat God like we treat our military forces, He really isn’t important to us until we are attacked by the enemy. Then all of a sudden God is great and mighty and He can beat all of our problems and we talk about Him and get tuned into what is happening in the Christian world, we go to church more, pray more, and even read His Word more. God becomes all we seem to talk and think about.
Then our troubles pass and our zeal and passion slow down for God. We slowly back off of being tuned into God. We stop praying as much, our church attendance drops, and reading God’s Word is never a thought. Times are good, why would we need to go to church? Why do we need to pray, if we prayed, what would we pray for? Life is Good!!
But we soon realize that we are in a never ending cycle and difficult times come again and what do we do? We run back to God. And this is the game we play. Over and over again.
Why do we do this? We know better but for some reason we fall into the same trap time and time again. I believe that what happens is that we lose our focus of what is truly important to us and what it is that sustains us. Our priorities get all mixed up and before you know it we are in a situation aren’t we?
I. Prioritize
A. The things that we should be doing for our spiritual health fall behind things that are bad for our spiritual health.
1. We are taught early in life that some things are simply bad for us if we place them first over other things.
Illustration: I can remember my father telling me as far as I can think back, “Eat your meal before you eat your desert.”
2. This is a healthy thought. Dad knew that I needed to eat the good stuff first in order to grow healthy. The meat and the vegetables gave my body the nourishment that it needed. I wouldn’t have received any nourishment for my body if I had filled up on sweets before eating my meal.
3. I needed to hear that from my father. As a child our priorities are all mixed up. We want to eat the bad stuff rather than the good, stay up all night rather than get some much needed sleep, and never take a bath rather than take one and do everyone a favor around you.
4. God calls us to place Him first. This is to be our first priority. Satan slowly but surely works his way into our lives and jumbles our priorities up and makes us think as the world thinks.
5. We come first! Whatever feels good takes priority! We box God up and use Him. We use Him as our last priority. We use Him when we have exhausted the world and what is has to offer. We place God last!!
Psalm 78: 7-8 Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands. They would not be like their forefathers— a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him.
VIDEO: “Vacation”
Illustration: I have heard of some Christians that will take a vacation from God. The summer months come and bring with it wonderful weather, Baseball, Golf, activities at the lake, cook outs, and fishing.
They place all of it above God. They will skip church, Bible Study, and even prayer in order to enjoy the summer.
6. Praising and worshiping God can come later when the weather isn’t so good. Later when we have more time, later when the good times stop. Later when we have nothing better to do.
7. Yes, we can prioritize poorly sometimes can’t we? And we also compromise. We compromise our faith.
II. Compromise
A. We compromise our relationship with God with our actions and relationships outside of God.
1. A transitive verb expose somebody or something to danger: to expose somebody or something to danger or disgrace
this scandal could compromise his chances for re-election.
drugs that can compromise the immune system
Illustration: Think of it this way. You are a soldier serving a tour in Iraq. You have been placed on guard duty. Your job is to sit in one of two guard towers; you are to provide security for the south side of your camp.
Your sergeant has given you a shift from 1AM -4AM, not the best shift at all. He tells you the famous Army saying, “Stay Alert, Stay Alive.”
You begin your shift. It’s dark, quiet and you’re getting tired. 2:45 comes rolling around and you can’t take it anymore and you drift off to sleep. The enemy sees you snoozing and slip right on pass you and attacks the south side of your camp and shoots you dead in your sleep. You have just compromised yourself and your unit.
2. This much like what happens to us Christians when we drift off to sleep spiritually. We live in a world full of darkness and it is so very easy to compromise our relationship with God as we are in the darkness. And it can kill us spiritually.
3. We get comfortable when things are nice and smooth, when we have no problems in our life. We allow our priorities and focus to come off of Jesus and we compromise in various areas of our daily lives.
4. You know what I’m talking about. Every time you laugh at someone’s vulgar jokes, Every time you use profane language because you are in a certain situation with someone else that thinks nothing of it, Every time you conform to this world and make those poor ungodly decisions you are falling asleep spiritually and you are not only compromising your relationship with God but you are compromising us as well.
5. Each of us here for the most part are either members or regular attenders of the Fertile Church of Christ. We are ambassadors for this church and for Jesus Christ. Every time we act as the world does and against God, we are compromising.
6. When we compromise our Christian morals. Others see this and are affected as well. It taints not only our witness to others but the church’s witness as well. It makes it more difficult to reach out to others and share His Gospel because it ruins our witness.
7. We need to remain faithful and obedient as each of us has been called to do so upon our conversion. We are not to conform to this world.
1 Peter 1:14-15 14As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;
8. Sometimes in life we get fed up and frustrated with life in general. We buy into the lies, you don’t need church, God can’t fix your problems, you’re wasting your time at Church, take action yourself.
9. We can become blind to what we know is the only way to fix our problems and try to fix them in the dumbest ways.
Illustration: SOUTH KITSAP, WA: November 10 2007
A man trying to loosen a stubborn lug nut blasted the wheel with a 12- gage shotgun, injuring himself badly in both legs, sheriff deputies said.
The 66-year old man had been repairing a Lincoln Continental for two weeks at his home northwest of Southworth, about 10 miles southwest of Seattle, and had gotten all but one lug nut off the right rear wheel by Saturday afternoon, Kitsap County Deputy Scott Wilson said.
“He was bound and determined to get that lug nut off,” Wilson Said From about arm’s length, the man fired the shotgun at the wheel and was “peppered” in both legs with buckshot and debris, with some injuries as high as his chin, according to s sheriff’s office report.
“Nobody else was there and he wasn’t intoxicated,” Wilson said. The man was taken to Tacoma General Hospital with injuries Wilson described as severe but not life- threatening.
- Wow, people do some dumb things when they are frustrated. This sounds like he placed himself in a compromising situation and he got hurt in the process.
10. When life becomes hectic and frustrating we cannot place ourselves in compromising situations either. When we re-act to the things in this world as the world would re-act, we place ourselves in danger.
11. We are not dumb people and we know that God is the answer but we sure do some dumb things at times.
12. This morning, I have shared about what we Prioritize, how we Compromise and now it’s time we all Open Our Eyes!
III. Open Our Eyes
A. We need to open our eyes and look at our lives. I believe that we all have had times in our lives in which we have become complacent and have veered off of the right path so to speak and have allowed of eyesight to become dull to the things that God has for us.
Last week in the evening service I shared an illustration of an elderly mother.
Illustration: Three sons left home, went out on their own and prospered.
Getting back together, they discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly
Mother.
The first said, "I built a big house for our Mother." The second said, "I sent her a Mercedes with a driver." The third smiled and said, "I’ve got you both beat. You remember how Mom enjoyed reading the Bible? And you know she can’t see very well any more. I sent her a remarkable parrot that recites the entire Bible. It took Elders in the church 12 years to teach him. He’s one of a kind. Mama just has to name the chapter and verse, and the parrot recites it."
Soon thereafter, Mom sent out her letters of thanks: "Milton," she wrote one son, "the house you built is so huge. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house."
"Gerald," she wrote to another, "I am too old to travel any more. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be. I stay most of the time at home, so I rarely use the Mercedes. And the driver is so rude!"
"Dearest Donald," she wrote to her third son, "you have the good sense to know what your Mother likes. The chicken was delicious!"
1. We’re all aging and that means our eyesight may be fading a bit, cataracts and all. But the worse eyesight of all is not being able to see Jesus!
2. I believe the reason many of us are unable to see Jesus in our lives is because we have substituted Christ for the things of this world, because of our selfish desires.
3. We place our wants above Jesus and the church in various ways. Our hobbies, our comfort, even our time come into play as far as taking our eyes off of Jesus.
4. What we all need to do is to simply open our eyes! Open them up to whatever it is that is keeping us from God. What is it that is hindering your relationship with Christ? Are there any excuses that you may tell others and yourself for that matter that keep you away from serving and worshipping god?
Conclusion: We need to open our eyes and see. See what our number one priority is in life; it should be God, Open our eyes and see. See what compromising situations we may be in and get it right with God.
When we came to Jesus and gave our lives to Him we told Him we would serve and Honor Him for Better or Worse. It good times and in Bad.
Life is crazy, life is tough, we experience good times and we experience bad times. The only way to truly live in Jesus is to have Him in your life at all times. Where is Jesus in your life this morning?
