Doing the right thing
Selected Scriptures
Introduction-
I have to tell you that I believe that we have hit a nerve when we began looking at practical ways to experience God.
Last week sermon on worship was well received and talked about this past week. It seemed that some were energized and refreshed. I got several great emails with encouragement and personal testimony of what God is doing in their life. That is a sign that the Lord is working.
We saw that worship was more than just an outward expression. It was what God was working on the inside of each of us. The stuff people usually don’t see.
If we only look at what is visible on the outside we would really be missing what God wants to accomplish on the inside.
I want to stay in the vein of worship by talking about doing the right things in our life according to God’s Word. That is in itself a form of worship.
Holding to some of the truths that we learned last week, we can see why doing the right thing for the right reasons is so important.
Attitude again plays a factor in doing the right thing.
Priorities still have to be right.
We do the right thing because we want to please God more than we want to please ourselves or others.
Doing the right thing at times is very hard.
Depending on what it is it may not come naturally to you or it may not be something that we want to do.
Doing the right thing may come in a variety of ways. Lawfully or by choice.
It may be a law, which is a mandate that is lay down and forced upon everyone for the safety and well being of the public.
You do it because you have to and if you don’t, there is a penalty or consequence for disobeying.
Then there is rules by design that God has lay down. Some coincide with the laws of the land and some are designed as choice and you obey them because you love the Lord and want to do what He has asked us.
The best way to do what is right is because you by choice have determined that you want to do it. One is mandatory and one is by free will.
Which one do you think God desires when He is looking at the people of God? Mandatory because I have too or because we have determined to please God and want to make Him happy?
Couple of Scriptures to write down this morning, here’s the first one
Romans 12:1-
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God-this is your true proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- his good and pleasing and perfect will.”
Paul tells us that because of God’s grace and mercy, it is reasonable to live honorable lives for the Lord. The problem comes when it feels like we have too instead of because we want to.
Illustration-
For all of you that think your pastor is and was perfect as a kid and lived 59 years in a bubble, you probably don’t want to hear this next illustration.
My first car was a 1966 Pontiac Lemans, Sky blue. I jacked it up, painted the pumpkin so that if you saw it from behind you would have to say it is a really sharp car. My 1966 I bought in 1973 so it was 7 years old when I got it. And I got it from my boss’s wife. I worked for a family owned grocery store and was their night manager at 17 years old. I worked part time in his store since I was 15 years old. I was crossing the 27th street viaduct in Milwaukee in that Lemans late one night with a gal that is not my wife because it was way before God gave me my beautiful wife Becky. I was speeding and showing off, cutting in and out of traffic of a four lane highway that separated North and South Milwaukee. I got about ¾ of the way across a mile span and I see the red lights behind me. There is no place to pull over on the viaduct so I cross and the store that I managed was the first parking lot across the bridge. I pulled into the lot and behind the store and I waited in my car for further instruction of the police. I am looking in the mirror, nervous, and the policeman that got out of the car was a cop that came into the store every night for coffee and to make sure that everything was okay in the store because the store was not in the best area of the city. I have to tell you that I was glad to see that it was him. He came to the window and asked me for my license and registration and I began kidding with him and getting out my information. I learned very quickly that he was not happy or impressed with me. He screamed at me to get out of the car and put my hands on the hood and he was in my ear like a drill sergeant telling me how reckless I was and how I was driving so reckless that I did not even notice that they were trying to stop me at the other end of the bridge.
Thoughts came across my mind that he did not recognize who I was, and then that he was having a melt down and I was going to be his next victim. He said things to me that I cannot repeat but he scared the daylights out of me. At the end of it after making me stand there embarrassed for what seemed hours, he came back to the car and told me to go in my store and don’t ever do that again. I was not cocky anymore, I was not taking anything for granted, I replied yes sir and I went into that store. I was numb and all I could think of was I was glad it was over. About a week later the same two police officers came into the store like they usually did. I told the one that I was sorry…and before I could finish he stopped me and said that was the other night, this is a new day. Unless you forget the lesson you learned the other night, it will not be brought up again. I saw the wrath and mercy of that police officer that night.
I have never forgot that night and that was over forty years ago. I see the Lord that way, there is a wrath side of God, but that is not the side that He desires, but He will if need be, and the mercy and grace of God that says that if we learn our lesson, that it is behind us.
You can do the right things because you have too.
You can do the right things for the wrong reasons.
You can do the right things because you want to, to please the God that created you.
If you are trying to please God out of obligation, out of fear, it works for a period of time but you will never see the results that God desires to see from you. It wont stick so to speak because when it does not come from the heart, rebellion wins out, selfishness wins.
I had two reactions when I was pulled over by those police officers- (1)oh no, because the cops were pulling me over, and (2)oh good when I saw that it was a officer that I knew. It was not till I learned my lesson and determined that I would never do that stupid thing again that I really learned the lesson that God had for me that night to experience his grace and His mercy.
Let me read a Scripture to you. 1 Corinthians 13:1-7 Read from bible
Sounds familiar right?
That is one of the most used verses in the Bible for marriages.
Most look at it as verses for your spouse.
It is really talking about the maturity of a believer and how a person of God views love of God and love of people and they are not really separated because as a person grows in Christ the love they have for God and the love they have for each other both should be growing.
If we express our love only by our words, they will fall short and the intended person will be empty of the true meaning of love.
“Clanging cymbal” is not an instrument here. It is metal that makes noise when it is struck. In its original context it is what paid mourners were during biblical time. They were people paid to be at funerals because the one that died did not have any fiends to attend. Sad, it is so insignificant without love. Our words would be empty without love.
(2) “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” Love is the key, not rules.
I don’t step out on Becky because of rules, or if I could get caught, I don’t step out on Becky because I love her and would never want to hurt her.
Is doctrine important? Yes it is, but there is a way to tell people things from God without always going for the kill shot. The truth hurts sometimes, and I do not imply that we are to water down the word of God, but there is a way to tell them that they know you love them even if we have to disagree with them.
“People will not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Let them sense your love before they sense your corrections.
We can believe the right things, teach the right things, preach the right things, and still not do the right things for the right reasons.
Paul tells us in these verses not to conform to this world- we have to beware of what God says about the life we live, but we also have to be aware that the best way to reach someone is not pointing out all their faults but showing them how they can live a better life with Christ.
He says that there has to be a transformation, there has to be a change.
There will be a change if it is indeed the Lord doing the work.
You cannot take the plank out of someone else’s life until you get the plank out of your own life.
We need to do the right thing because above all else we want to please God. We want to express our love for Him through our actions.
Listen to me, hang in there just a while longer.
We want to do the right thing, but without God’s help, we cannot do the right thing. Without the Lord in our lives we continue to make mistakes and we continue to sin.
Apart from Christ we all fall short.
True faith in Christ will cause us to become new creations, because Christ is doing it.
We will have new desires because He transforms us, He changes our thinking and our desires.
He causes us to look at things through His eyes instead of the way we use to with our selfish desires.
As Christians we do the right thing not because it saves us. That would be a works salvation, but because Christ saved us. In everything we do, do it all for Christ glory.
C.S. Lewis
Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching.
Theodore Roosevelt
Knowing what is right doesn’t mean much unless you do what is right.
James 4:7
Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
James 1:22
Be doers of the word and not hearers only.
John 14:23
If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.
God’s love poured out on us makes us want to love him more, serve him, and love and serve others. Doing the right thing and doing it when no one is watching.
Amen.
