We continue in our series dare to be different and this month our theme is different function.
The word Function is a Noun and it means an activity that is natural to or the purpose of a person or thing.
So for this all-age service what I want us to think about is the function that God has commanded all of us to have.
Something that perhaps is not natural or easy to some of us, but it is both an activity and a purpose each of us should demonstrate in our everyday lives.
What am I talking about? In Leviticus 11:45 God commands, “you must be holy because I am holy”.
“Be holy” What does “holy” mean?
It means “set aside for a relationship with God”
It means “belonging to God”
It means following God’s commandments and rules.
It means living in a way that we know and others know we are God’s children and we belong to Him.
“Be Holy”
In Bible Times God gave His people a list of commandments to help them function in a different way to the many other people in the world.
Listen to Exodus 20:1-17 in the Message paraphrase of the Bible,
God spoke all these words: I am God, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a life of slavery.No other gods, only me. No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God, punishing the children for any sins their parents pass on to them to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation of those who hate me. But I’m unswervingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments. No using the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won’t put up with the irreverent use of His name. Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don’t do any work—not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town. For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; He rested on the seventh day. Therefore God blessed the Sabbath day; He set it apart as a holy day. Honour your father and mother so that you’ll live a long time in the land that God, your God, is giving you. No murder. No adultery. No stealing. No lies about your neighbour. No lusting after your neighbour’s house—or wife or servant or maid or ox or donkey. Don’t set your heart on anything that is your neighbour’s.
So what have we discovered so far?:
God commands us, His people, to be Holy.
Because we belong to God He has told us how to function, how to live in the correct way.
Belonging to God means living differently from the other people who live around us.
Living in God’s way.
Keeping God’s Commandments.
Obeying God’s commandments so our lives show who we belong to.
When we live the way God has told us to live we show other people what God is like.
When we repent and accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, all of our sins are forgiven.
We are adopted into God’s family, we become His children and we experience Him blessing us.
God has given us the Ten Commandments so that we can live and behave in a way that shows we love and trust God.
We must be holy because God is holy.
In Bible times, it seems like the Israelites often forgot they belonged to God.
The Bible speaks many times about people who failed to function the way that God expected them to function.
People who filed to keep the Ten commandments, people who failed to live as followers of God.
The good news is that although the people made God sad by what they did, God did not give up on His people.
God still loved and cared for His people and wanted to be in a real relationship with them.
God spoke to His people through one of the prophets, a man called Jeremiah; God said that a day was coming when He would make a new agreement with people.
God would call a people to belong to Him and instead of writing His commands on tablets of stone, He would write them on people’s hearts.
That day began when Jesus came two thousand years ago.
Jesus called people to follow Him, to become His disciples, His followers.
Today, Jesus is still calling people to belong to Him,
calling people to be in relationship with Him,
calling people to function and live for Him,
calling people to have their sins forgiven,
calling people to experience and enjoy His blessings.
Now, if we are followers of Jesus, if Jesus is our Lord and our Saviour, we belong to God.
That means we must still live differently from those around us who do not know Jesus and we must function differently from people who ignore God’s commandments.
Jesus was asked which was the greatest of the commandments, this is what He said in Matthew 22:36-40, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
Jesus said the Ten Commandments can all be kept by following the two commandments of:
Loving God and Loving other people.
It may sound simple to love God and love others, but actually doing it isn’t always easy is it?
As God’s people, we are given the help and strength we need to function correctly.
The Holy Spirit comes to live inside us, when we choose to respond to God’s invitation to belong to Him.
The Holy Spirit helps us to be the people God has commanded us to be.
And now for the challenging questions:
When people look at you do they see:
- A person full of love?
- You live differently from other people?
- You are a follower of Jesus?
- You belong to God?
Are you “Being holy as God is holy”?
I want you to ask your self the question “Who do I belong to?”
Do you know Jesus as your Saviour?
Have your sins been forgiven?
Are you saved?
You can ask Jesus into your life right now, for all who call on the name of the Lord are saved.
If you already belong to God, then you must love other people as Jesus commanded.
Love is a practical word and love can be shown by giving your time or effort or even your money to someone else.
As I draw to a close, may I encourage you to express your love by doing something this week for someone else.
Perhaps an act of kindness that will show a person that they are loved.
It doesn’t matter who the person is, or what you choose to do. The key is that you are choosing to live and function out of the place of knowing who you belong to.
Ephesians 1:4-7 says, Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace He has poured out on us who belong to His dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that He purchased our freedom with the blood of His Son and forgave our sins.
In your freedom, out of love, function for Him.
The final thought is this, a verse from the New Testament that reaffirms the command for followers of Jesus to be Holy: 1 Peter 1:15, But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy.
Amen
