2016
New Year Revolution
Ever marvel at snow it is so white and pure and untouched?
2016 is like that it is a year all wrapped up with just one piece of sellotape undone – we still don’t know what is in this gift from God. For some they don’t know if it is a good gift for them or like the socks you sometimes get from some long lost aunty.
Wrong size – wrong colour and a poor fit!
This gift of a new year is a gift from God and it is how we unwrap it and what we do with it that will be life changing for us.
It will be lifechanging but whether it is lifechanging in a good way or a bad way is totally dependent on who we walk with and what we do as a reaction to that.
My suggestion this morning is that you make a new year revolution.
No I didn’t get that wrong I said new year revolution.
The revolution will come as we walk with God.
I want to take as my text this morning some lines from Psalm 23.
The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside quiet waters.
Sounds quiet and kind of restful doesn’t it. It might even encourage you to look for a cottage in the country where you can rest in God’s love and watch the world go by. The world can spin on it’s axis wars and famines may happen in other places and people may choose to follow evil and do bad things – but me! I will stay here in my place of rest. Yet this passage was written by one of histories most famous generals – a man who knew the cut and thrust of battles – was pursued by his enemies – who honoured God and indeed was considered a man after God’s own heart by God himself. Furiously refused to follow the desires of his own heart by slaughtering the unjust King who was trying to kill him. Honoured God in all he did. Who knew temptation and committed adultery and killed a man in the cover up – knew what it was to be humbled in tears and to see his own family disintegrate into disarray as a result of his own sin – yet somehow kept returning to God.
This man says and can say – The Lord is my shepherd I shall not be in want.
The history of the author suggests we should sit up and listen and listen well for he is a man who knew the toughness of life the foolishness of his own heart yet always returned to God even in the most extreme circumstances.
, Robert Ketchum tells about a Sunday school teacher who asked her group of children if any of them could quote the entire twenty-third psalm. A little four-and-a-half-year-old girl was among those who raised their hands. A bit skeptical, the teacher asked if she could really quote the entire psalm. The little girl came to the podium, faced the class, made a little bow, and said: "The Lord is my shepherd, that’s all I want." (sermon central.)
Lets consider together this morning why it makes a difference to have God as our shepherd in 2016!
Because, if we do, it will mean a New Year Revolution.
1st point is remember who is in Charge. – The Lord is my Shepherd. The Lord. God is in charge. Christians are people who have accepted Jesus as their Lord. But I wonder how well we understand the Lordship of God in our lives.
The word Lord in Hebrew The LORD (Yahweh Or Jehovah) ...or in Greek Kurios and particularly the Noun The Greek noun phobos can mean “reverential fear” of God, “not a mere ‘fear’ of His power and righteous retribution, but a wholesome dread of displeasing Him” (Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, 1985, “Fear, Fearful, Fearfulness”). This is the type of positive, productive fear Luke describes in the early New Testament Church:
“Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied” (Acts 9:31, emphasis added).
The Lord at the start of psalm 23 and also 2016 then is critical to all that follows. Walking in the fear of the lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit caused the church to multiply. People are drawn to the Lordship of God in someone’s life and that gravitational pull produces life.
When Jackie Pullinger went to the walled city in Hong Kong in the 1970’s it was alawless 6 acres of hell where 30,000 people lived in crime and drug induced squallor.
She bought the gospel
One by one many of the gang members became Christians. When the gang members kicked the drug habit they stayed away from drugs for life. The boys turned to Jesus. Many of them went on to witness to their families and former gang friends. When the addicts who really wanted to change could see the miracle of healing that faith in Jesus brings, they were willing to listen to the Gospel. Not all accepted the truth, but many did.
Some were afraid of going “cold turkey” from their addiction. The pain of the withdrawals was horrific and some even died during withdrawal. But many of those who turned to Christ for forgiveness and trusted in Him for their new life never went through the withdrawals. Some didn’t even have so much as a headache. These miraculous healings helped to draw others to Christ. This drawing power of Christ is what happens when the Lordship of Christ is present.
When Jesus shines through us people are drawn to Jesus. I have noticed that people are drawn to Jesus yet are constrained by their sin and lifestyle in all9wing him to be Lord of their lives.
If we are to be effective in our Christian lives we need to have Jesus at the centre of our lives. To have Jesus as Lord we must gain reverence for him because we realise there is no other way of living.
Acts chapter 4 verse 12 v Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." Actually there is no other alternative
The second reason is it is the only place that there is any peace in this life
In Psalm 34 King David also tells us about learning the fear of the Lord: “Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. … Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it” (verses 11, 13-14).
The Lord then only takes on relevance when we can say My Lord.
The second point in this sermon is God is not only our Lord but also our shepherd. – All kinds of sermons have been taught on this subject and I don’t think I can or should top anything already said. Shepherds in our context of rural New Zealand is the context of somewhat industrialised farming. But we are not here referring to massive flocks we are talking of a shepherd who knows his Sheep personally and has their welfare at heart.
JN 15:9 "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
It’s not easy to get a sheep to lie down. A strange thing about sheep is that they will refuse to lie down unless four requirements are met. (1) They must be free from all fear. (2) There must be no tension between members of the flock. (3) They must not be aggravated with flies or parasites. (4) And they must be free from hunger.
It is the shepherd who must see to it that his flock is free from any disturbances. Sheep are very easily frightened. A stray rabbit jumping out from behind a bush can stampede a whole flock. When one startled sheep runs in fright, all of the others will follow behind it in blind fear, not waiting to see what frightened them. But nothing quiets a flock of sheep like seeing their shepherd in the field with them.
Like sheep, we also are easily frightened. We live in an uncertain life. Any hour can bring disaster. And generally, it is the unknown, the unexpected, that frightens us most. But nothing quiets our souls like knowing that our Shepherd is near.
It is strictly true that the sheep know and understand the eastern shepherd's voice; and that they will never answer to the voice of a stranger. H. V. Morton has a wonderful description of the way in which the shepherd talks to the sheep. "Sometimes he talks to them in a loud sing-song voice, using a weird language unlike anything I have ever heard in my life. The first time I heard this sheep and goat language I was on the hills at the back of Jericho. A goat-herd had descended into a valley and was mounting the slope of an opposite hill, when turning round, he saw his goats had remained behind to devour a rich patch of scrub. Lifting his voice, he spoke to the goats in a strange language. It was uncanny because there was nothing human about it. The words were animal sounds arranged in a kind of order. No sooner had he spoken than an answering bleat shivered over the herd, and one or two of the animals turned their heads in his direction. But they did not obey him. The goat-herd then called out one word, and gave a laughing kind of whinny. Immediately a goat with a bell round his neck stopped eating, and, leaving the herd, trotted down the hill, across the valley, and up the opposite slopes. The man, accompanied by this animal, walked on and disappeared round a ledge of rock. Very soon a panic spread among the herd. They forgot to eat. They looked up for the shepherd. He was not to be seen. They became conscious that the leader with the bell at his neck was no longer with them. From the distance came the strange laughing call of the shepherd, and at the sound of it the entire herd stampeded into the hollow and leapt up the hill after him" (H. V. Morton, In the Steps of the Master, pp. 154, 155). W. M. Thomson in The Land and the Book has the same story to tell. "The shepherd calls sharply from time to time, to remind them of his presence. They know his voice, and follow on; but, if a stranger call, they stop short, lift up their heads in alarm, and if it is repeated, they turn and flee, because they know not the voice of a stranger. I have made the experiment repeatedly." That is exactly John's picture.
H. V. Morton tells of a scene that he saw in a cave near Bethlehem. Two shepherds had sheltered their flocks in the cave during the night. How were the flocks to be sorted out? One of the shepherds stood some distance away and gave his peculiar call which only his own sheep knew, and soon his whole flock had run to him, because they knew his voice. They would have come for no one else, but they knew the call of their own shepherd. An eighteenth century traveller actually tells how Palestinian sheep could be made to dance, quick or slow, to the peculiar whistle or the peculiar tune on the flute of their own shepherd.
Every detail of the shepherd's life lights up the picture of the Good Shepherd whose sheep hear his voice and whose constant care is for his flock.
THE DOOR TO LIFE (John 10:7-10)
10:7-10 So Jesus said to them again: "This is the truth I tell you--I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If any man enter in through me, he will be saved, and he will go in and out, and he will find pasture. The thief comes only to kill and to steal and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
The key is to hear God’s voice and to obey him.
Seatbelts can be a hassle. Some people just don’t want to be bothered even when the law requires them to buckle up. According to the Associated Press, a New Zealander named Ivan Segedin took it to an extreme.
The police ticketed him 32 times over five years for failing to use his seat belt. Even though this was costing him big money, Segedin refused to buckle up. Finally, instead of obeying the law, the man decided to rely on deception. He made a fake seat belt that would hang over his shoulder and make it appear that he was wearing a seat belt when he was not. Ivan Segedin didn’t like wearing seatbelts. He had 32 fines for not wearing a seatbelt, he also didn’t believe in warrants, rust testing and was partial to meth and cannabis.
He rigged a fake seatbelt so he wouldn’t get caught but unfortunately crashed his rust bucket head on with an on-coming car and was killed. He died from multiple injuries in the accident that had he worn a seatbelt he may well have survived.
His trick worked for a while. Then, he had a head-on collision. He was thrown forward onto the steering wheel and killed.
Discussing the accident, the coroner described the fake seat belt: "Though his car was fitted with seat belts, an extra belt with a long strap had been knotted above the seat belt on the driver’s side, providing a belt to simply sit over the driver’s shoulder." [Source: Craig Brian Larson, "Fake seat belt to fool police causes death of New Zealand driver," The Associated Press (2-22-08) From a sermon by Stephen Collins, "A Deadly Game")
Many people try to fake obedience to the Shepherd. But only the obedient can truly say The Lord is my shepherd.
The third point which should encourage us to implement the first two is I shall not be in want in 2016.
In every respect what ever happens in 2016 you will not be in want.
Because if God is your Lord and Shepherd then you can be sure that you will not be in want. David knew this and when he faced a ripped powerful gigantic fool called Goliath – armed to the teeth – David did not fear because he knew his God. When he faced Saul he did not fear because he knew his God and when he failed morally – devastated as he was, he faced his failure and God again was his provision.
Be sure that God will provide for your every need in 2016.
You will not be in want – this is not prosperity doctrine but we can be sure that whatever our circumstances God shall still be our provision.
(Photo courtesy of GFA)
India (MNN/GFA) — Some people spend their entire lives trying to escape poverty. For those fortunate enough to get out, not many would want to return. But that’s exactly what one preacher did.
Pastor Marty grew up under a bridge in the slums of Mumbai, India. Like most slum children, he grew up playing with friends and experiencing the joy of childhood amidst extreme poverty.
But soon, the reality of Marty’s struggles settled in. His father, a severe alcoholic, would waste what little money his family had. He soon died, forcing Marty and his brother to find work.
“I remember searching through garbage bins just to find small pieces of bread to fill my stomach. This was my childhood every day,” Marty said in an interview with Gospel for Asia through a translator.
Marty found a ray of hope when a pastor began preaching in his village. He gave his life to Christ and began developing a relationship with God.
But the ray soon disappeared as Marty’s struggles worsened. Now with a family of his own, Marty struggled to provide for his wife and son. When his son fell seriously ill, Marty lost all hope.
“I couldn’t care for my family’s basic needs,” Marty told GFA. “I wanted to kill myself.”
All along, members of the local church had been praying for the boy’s healing. And when his son miraculously recovered, Marty praised God.
“I cried to the Lord, ‘Use me for Your glory,’” he told GFA.
(Photo courtesy of GFA)
And he meant it. Marty enrolled in Bible college to become a pastor, but he never forgot the suffering of his childhood.
After graduation, Marty returned to the slums, where children lacked education, clothes, and other necessities. Now, he is sharing Jesus and meeting the same needs he himself once faced.(Source Gospel for Asia.)
God will provide for your every need if you will but let him – many people in the western world suffer incredible pain and hardship through childhood hurts and abuse because they have not let God into the room of their pain. Many people suffer economic and personal hardship because they have failed to let God into their situation. Many times in my own life I have met people in financial hardship and they have told me that they have refused to give God his share of their income through tithing until they are better off.
But that is not what the book of Malachi says –
Malachi says – 3.10v New International Version
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.
Isn’t this a key word for us today – the principle is The Lord – put God in chare – is my shepherd – let him guide us and he will give us all we need – we shall not be in wantI want to suggest to you that if you put these three points into practice in your lives then
You will face a New year Revolution!
Wouldn’t that be a great way to live in 2016.
