The Dog-Life is Gone!
Matthew 7:6-12
Intro: In the Peanuts comic strip, we find Snoopy thinking to himself: "Yesterday I was a dog. Today I’m a dog. Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a dog. Ohh…there’s so little hope for advancement." Well, there is hope for those who have a dog’s life, but the change will require them to make a choice. Regardless of why our life is the way it is today, where it goes from here is primarily up to us. We can wake up tomorrow to another dog’s day, or we can ask the Lord to help us make some changes, both inside and out.
-After asking the Lord for His help, every Christ follower is called to share his or her faith with others. As long as this world exists in its present form, the good news about Jesus will remain urgent and relevant and good for those who are broken. Jesus left instructions for His followers to keep spreading the truth about Him until He returns a 2nd time to wrap things up. Matthew 7 gives us some great principles to follow as we seek to share His love with others. Last week we covered the first 5 verses which told us not to be critical of others. The long bony finger of accusation or criticism will never draw anyone to Jesus. Today we want to look at the next few verses, and I believe they will help us know the heart of God and know how to show His heart to others.
-Here is the main thought of the message today:
Prop: God’s kingdom will come, but it can only be received by willing hearts.
TS: Let’s look at some thoughts about how we can make God’s kingdom more accessible to those around us.
I. Don’t force it! (Matthew 7:6)
6 "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.
-The Bible is filled with references to man’s free will. God has given man the ability and authority to choose his own master. See, man was created to serve – created to worship. In the OT, Joshua told Israel to choose whom they would serve – the other gods their ancestors had worshiped, or the Creator God of Israel. As for me and my house, we choose to serve Yahweh, the only true God. God’s leaders, Moses and Joshua, both warned the people of the dire consequences of choosing wrong, but they both upheld the freedom to choose good or evil.
-Moses said it like this in Deuteronomy 30:19-20: 19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life…
-Did Moses force Israel to choose life and blessing? No. Why not? Because he couldn’t. Even if he could have forced them into some kind of external conformity, he could never force their hearts to be right before God. The bare facts are that the human spirit must exercise its ability to choose. Some will choose God and the life He offers, and others will choose what they think is a better way, but ends in death and destroys life.
-Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”
-In the movie, The Matrix, the main character, Neo, must choose a red or blue pill. The red pill will answer the question "what is the Matrix?" (by removing him from it) and the blue pill is simply for life to carry on as before. As Neo reaches for the red pill Morpheus warns Neo "Remember, all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."
-Well, I hope you know that God offers truth and something more! He offers life, hope, help, and companionship. He offers us His personal promise to stay with us and help us figure things out in this life. But the choice has to be made by each individual, and at some point, the refusal to choose becomes a choice to reject who God is and what He offers.
-With this in mind, Jesus gave some guidelines to His disciples to help them spread the good news about God. Matthew 10:14 “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town.”
-I think what Jesus was saying was, “Don’t force it.” Don’t waste the precious little time you have trying to convince those who are not interested. God has already gone before you and prepared the hearts of those who will believe on Him. All we have to do is live it out in front of them and tell them about it. If they do not receive it, we don’t have to get angry or try to force them to believe. We should move on to someone who is ready. The HS can still work on the hearts of those who are not yet ready to believe and surrender their hearts to their Creator.
-I know this verse sounds kind of harsh. However, I don’t believe Jesus was calling anyone a dog or a pig. He was showing that a person’s heart must be ready before they will receive the good news about Jesus. In fact, as I read this passage, I began to see these words in a different light: 1. Don’t try to force people to receive something they don’t understand or value – something they are not ready for. 2. It is by asking that people receive the grace of God, not by coercion. When they can see the Father’s heart on display in your life, they will be drawn to Him, wanting to ask, seek, and knock. Giving them a bunch of rules to follow and a club to belong to is not what they really need or want. If we force a way of life on them rather than living a loving relationship out before them, it is similar to giving them a stone to eat. Or even worse, force-feeding may damage them – like making them eat a snake.
-These sayings of Jesus in verses 6-12 are all related. At first glance they may appear to be disjointed proverbs. However, I sense that as Jesus spoke in this given setting on the Mt. of Olives, He wasn’t just rambling on, spewing as much isolated truth as He could think of. He had more focus and purpose than that. The topic of the day was Life in the Kingdom. Here is how the people of God should live in His kingdom. Don’t force His kingdom on those who aren’t ready for it. The kingdom and its blessings are received by those who come close enough to ask the Father, to seek Him, and to knock at the door of the King’s palace. A person’s heart must be ready to receive God for who He really is!
-If you could get close enough to knock on the door of the White House, you most likely would not get in. You might be lucky enough to get to stare through the bars of the surrounding fence. Yet, if we knock on the King’s door, the door will be opened and we can find audience with the King Himself. Why? Because He really is our Father and wants us to seek Him out often. He enjoys being with His kids!
-TS: So, don’t force it. If someone isn’t ready for the good news about Jesus, move on to someone else who is. I’ve already tipped my hand, but vv. 7-11 is talking about trusting God for results as we share His love with others.
II. Trust your Father for results (Matthew 7:7-11)
7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
-These verses, 7-11, tell us something about our Father. From 7-8, we see that our Father loves to give, He loves to reveal or uncover what is hidden, and He loves to open the door to those who want in. We generally apply these verses to prayer, and so we should. However, I wonder if maybe they are also about how people enter the kingdom. We can’t force them to enter, but through prayer and consistent love we can help move them closer to a point where they will ask, seek, and knock out of a sincere desire to be close to God.
-John 3:16 reminds us that God our Father loves to give. He gave His Son Jesus to us so we would be able to find forgiveness and healing for our broken lives and begin to see what God is really like. God is love, and love gives. Love must express itself in some way. God has expressed and revealed Himself to us in numerous ways: through creation, through history, through Israel, through the Bible, through prophets & teachers, and ultimately through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And that is how we get in to the kingdom. We trust in Jesus, the One who was sent by the Father.
-Vv.9-11 further illustrate what the heart of the Father is like. He can be trusted to give good gifts to those who ask Him. Again, the key is that each person must come to a point where they will ask the Father for His help.
-So, as we seek to share the relationship we have with Father, we need to trust that He is already at work in the lives of the people to whom He sends us. We may have a chance to plant some seeds of love and truth and grace. We may have a chance to water the seeds that other Christ followers have planted. Or we may have a chance to help someone ask the Father for His help. It really is a win-win situation. We always want to see people seal the deal on the spot. However, we must leave the results up to God and trust that He cares more for each person than we possibly could.
-TS: Finally, here is something that should go without saying, but many seem to miss it.
III. Treat others with respect and kindness (Matthew 7:12)
12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
-The marriage counselor told the husband to start being more attentive to his wife and start treating her with more love. So, one day he comes home a little early with a dozen roses in one hand and a box of chocolates in the other.
His wife opens the door, sees him and burst into tears. In between sobs, she says, “Little Johnny threw up, your parents called and said they were coming over for dinner, and to top it all off, you come home drunk!” If you haven’t been living by the golden rule, some people may be surprised when you start treating them well.
-Obnoxious Christians can do a lot of damage to the name of Christ. Sometimes Christians, who are supposed to humble themselves and have the malice of a child, can be the most arrogant, malicious people to be found. I don’t know why. We were all once in the same boat, but at some point maybe we started believing that either we had saved ourselves or that we deserved to be saved. And instead of reaching out in love to those who are still overboard, we shout at them to get out of the dangerous water. “Don’t you know you could drown in there? Just climb in the boat! If you are really serious about this you will find a way to get on board with us!”
-Sometimes we fail to recognize that those in the water cannot help themselves. They need us to show them what the rescued life is like. Some think it is a trap. They might need us to actually stick with them and offer them our companionship until they are ready to receive help to climb in. Others may think that the boat is an illusion or delusion and don’t want to be taken for a ride. Still others encounter such smug arrogance and self-assurance that they say, “No thanks! I’d rather drown!”
-I’m speaking rather strongly today, and I hope I’m not coming across as arrogant or malicious to you. But God values and cares deeply for those who have not yet asked Him for help. And we must do the same. On the ocean if someone falls overboard, forced rescue is acceptable. However, in relation to entering the kingdom of God, there is no such thing as forced entry. Rather, we must pray like we’ve never prayed before, and treat others with the same tenderness and respect that God does. Have the life line ready so that when people call for help you can be there for them.
-The fact stands that many (when presented with the good news about Jesus) will choose the response of the angry dog or the surly swine – especially if you toss your pearls out there for them. Your pearls are precious to you, but they don’t know what to do with them. They aren’t edible. They don’t understand their meaning or value. The pearls may even make them angry because they expected something good from you- something that would feed them and meet a need.
-So, what if we used our pearls more wisely? What if we used our pearls to meet the physical needs of those we are trying to help? Pearls can buy food, clothing, and help meet needs. Using our pearls wisely is treating others the way we would want to be treated if we were in their shoes. The pearls could represent the grace of God in our lives. By His grace we are saved, and by His grace we are blessed with many blessings – only some of them are financial. Don’t let God’s grace stop with you. As God’s grace is expressed through our lives, more and more people will be drawn to the true heart of God. Their own hearts will be changed so they will want to ask for the pearls of God’s grace. They will begin to seek for those pearls as they begin to recognize what a treasure they are. And what seemed like a closed door to them before swings wide open so they can come in and get to know the King, Jesus, who loves them and gave Himself for them.
-That’s no dog’s life! That’s the life of a prince! That’s the life of a princess! That is the life that Jesus came to give to the full – access to God, understanding and enlightenment about the King and His kingdom, and good gifts from the King Himself!
Conclusion: When God created us, He did not intend for us to live a dog’s life. He did not create us to bark and snap at others or be ungrateful for what we have. Our life has meaning and purpose. God created us to have friendship with Him and one another and to enjoy His goodness forever. He loves to give good gifts, He loves to reveal things of value, and He loves to open the door to those who want to be close to Him.
-No more dog’s life means that God has prepared our hearts to the point that we began to hunger after Him. It means that we have caught a glimpse of His heart and are asking Him to help us, trusting that He can and will. No more dog’s life means that we have begun to seek God out for ourselves. And maybe today you find yourself at a door. Behind that door is the unknown. That may cause you fear because maybe there is a snake there- something bad and poisonous. Or maybe you are afraid of being disappointed – Oh, there’s only a rock and I was hoping for something really good.
-The dog’s life ends when we will trust our Father enough to knock on that door, seeking entrance. Father God, let me in to where You are! I don’t want to live for myself anymore. I want to live for You! I want to find You and receive the good gifts of forgiveness and grace. I want peace in my life. I want to be free from the chains that have held me away from You!
-You don’t have to hang on to your old life. God offers a new one. I hope you will ask Him for it.
-Maybe you’ve already done that, but you know that you still need to change a lot of things. Let me recommend the same path. Keep asking God for His good gifts. Keep seeking Him for who He really is. Keep coming back and knocking, and come on in so you can be close to God. Spend time with Him. Just being with Him will change who you are and how you live.
-Pray
