Today, we’re going to wrap up the message series, “Jesus Strong.” Our text, if you’d like to go ahead and turn to it, will be Luke 10:27. That’s Luke Chapter 10, verse 27. We’ll read it together in just a minute.
Just a refresher where we’ve been that last 2 weeks, the first message of this series, 2 weeks ago, was, “Jesus Strong: Because You’re Not Strong Enough”, then, last week was, “Jesus Strong: Because His Grace is…” and now today I want to ask this question:
What happens to me when God’s strength is placed in me? How does that change every aspect of my life? So, today’s message is entitled, “Jesus Strong: Because He Will Change You.”
Before I get into that, though, last week, I joked that one bad thing about Debbie leaving to teach Children’s Church is that I miss having her honest opinion of my sermon. She knows me best, and certainly isn’t afraid to tell me when I blow it.
Well, this week, as I looked through lots of material preparing this message, I came across this story:
An elderly pastor was searching the closet for his clerical collar before church one Sunday morning. In the back of the closet, he found a small box containing 3 eggs and 100 $1 bills.
He called his wife into the closet to ask her about the box and its contents. Embarrassed, she admitted having hidden the box there for their entire 30 years of marriage. Disappointed and a little hurt at the admission of the long-kept secret, the pastor asked her, "WHY?"
The wife replied that she hadn't wanted to hurt his feelings. He asked her how a box with a few eggs and cash could have hurt his feelings. She said, “Well, every time during our marriage that you delivered a poor sermon, rather than say anything to you, I put an egg in the box.
Well, he thought about that for a minute, and decided that 3 eggs meant only 3 poor sermons in 30 years! That was certainly nothing to feel bad about, so he asked her what the $100 was for.
She replied, "Each time I got a dozen eggs, I sold them to the neighbors for $1."
<<<PAUSE>>>
Oh, and I almost forgot, Debbie asked me to announce that she has eggs for sale after Church!
Alright, let’s dive right in to our text, shall we? Luke 10:27, if you missed it before. I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation, which I’ll have up on the screen as well:
“The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’’” (Luke 10:27 – NLT)
As I said a few minutes ago, today, I want to ask the question, “What happens to me when God’s strength is placed in me?” What kind of changes will that make in me?
I believe that our text today gives us the answer to that question. Now, I know that this was a statement of the law, but this is also a result of what God’s strength, working in and through me will bring.
If you remember back the last couple of weeks, we talked first about how I can do all things through Christ, because He is the strengthener, His strength gives us victory, and that we need to trust Him more, and stop trying to carry all the load.
Then, last week, we learned that God’s grace is sufficient to meet all of my life’s challenges, and that only by pushing myself aside, getting out of God’s way, can His strength really work in and through me, and that, by trying to do things myself, my faith actually grows weaker.
But, when we get out of God’s way, when we learn to trust in His Omniscience (His All-knowledge) and His Omnipotence (His all-power) the first result is going to be that we learn to:
1: Love as He loves
Listen, love as we see it in our text, doesn’t come naturally. Love the Lord with all of your heart, mind, body and soul; and love your neighbor as yourself… that doesn’t just happen naturally. Our natural instinct is to “look out for number 1”… I mean, if I don’t look out for myself and my own needs, no one else is gonna’ do it, right?
You might’ve looked on a few verses if you read this in your own Bible and saw that Jesus launches from this verse into the parable of the good Samaritan. You know the story, a man is attacked, beaten, robbed and left to die on the side of the road. Two respected religious men, a Priest and a Levite, walked by one after the other and avoided him, and ultimately, it was a Samaritan – a person who, to the Jews was hated – who took compassion on the man, performed first aid, got him to help and paid his bill.
You might ask, well, who would leave a person like that and not even help?
I found several real-life stories, in fact. Let me share just a couple with you…
Back in 1985, Carolyn Cooley, of Sarasota, FL, was taking her 2 daughters to church one Sunday and was disgusted to find an unkempt man sprawled against a palm tree on the church property. His shoes had holes in them, his battered hat was pulled down over his eyes, and he was surrounded by beer cans. How dare he desecrate church property like that, she thought.
Now, she wasn’t the only one to be offended by this vagrant’s behavior, but her indignation dissolved into tears when, when the "bum" walked up into the pulpit later that morning to give his sermon. The vagrant was church’s preacher, Neville E. Gritt. He had dressed like a bum and stationed himself outside the church building to draw the church’s attention to needs he’d seen while driving through town. (World, June 16, 2001)
There is another story I found about a 28 year old woman who had just gotten off from work a little after 3:00 A.M.
She drove home, parked her car and began to walk down the sidewalk toward her apartment building. About 30 feet from her door she noticed a man standing in the shadows. When he started toward her; she turned and ran in the opposite direction.
She fumbled through her purse to find her keys; she tried to reach a phone to call the police, but the man caught her and stabbed her in the back. She started screaming that she’d been stabbed.
Lights came on in a nearby residence and a man called out, "Leave that girl alone!", through an open window.
The attacker heard it and walked away, but the window closed and lights went out. So he came back a bit later and found her in the hallway of her apartment building collapsed on the floor screaming for help. He sexually assaulted her and stabbed her again and again.
The attacker then went to his car and drove off, leaving the young woman. During the attacks that happened over the course of over a half hour, not one of this young woman’s neighbors came outside to try to help or even called the police for help.
In fact, the police weren’t called until later that morning, to report a dead body. Neighbors who were later interviewed were asked why they didn’t help. The simplest answer was, “I didn’t want to get involved.”
Now, obviously that’s a rather extreme lack of compassion, but loving someone else like yourself is not a natural human instinct. It takes supernatural power working in you to develop that kind of love.
Another change that begins to happen when we allow God’s strength and grace to work in us is that we begin to:
2: Seek Virtue over Vice
Again… this is not human nature. Our nature is that we seek every avenue and vice to bring fulfillment and joy to our lives. When we do that, though, we’re no longer seeking and living God’s will and plan for our lives.
We become like hamsters that run on a wheel. We waste all our time, energy and resources. But, when we get off that wheel, what do we find? We are still in the exact same place that we were when we started running.
Isaiah 30:1 reads: “Woe to the rebellious children! This is the Lord’s declaration. They carry out a plan, but not Mine; they make an alliance,
but against My will, piling sin on top of sin. (HCSB)
All of us, especially when we are younger, all have this grand plan for our lives. At a very young age, I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. And, our lives go on exactly as we planned without a hitch, right?
Don’t laugh too hard!
You see, I’m famous for making “my plan.” And God laughs whenever He hears those 2 words!
Actually, if “my plan” had been carried out, I would have been a famous Christian singer touring the world selling albums, not preaching in a small, rural church in Northwest Missouri.
But, do you know what? I am a success in life, because I’m following God’s plan for my life. He brought me here for a reason – and guess what… you’re here for a reason as well. It’s not a coincidence that you are here listening to this message!
So, yes, I am a success by God’s standard. Am I wealthy? No way - - but my Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills (as well as the hills!)
Am I powerful? I’m not, but God within me is incredibly powerful!
Many people have been deemed successful by the world’s standards and what did they have to show for it when they died? Absolutely nothing!
Why is that? Because if they refused Christ they will spend eternity in Hell.
In Luke 12, starting with verse 16, we read these words from Jesus:
“… The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:16-21, NIV)
Our lives are not measured by what we have done. Our lives are measured by what we have done WITH Christ and FOR Him. What good does it do to be the richest person in the grave?
But here’s the thing… I talked about how our nature is to use whatever vice to gain fulfillment. But, for a lot of people, their vice is not a physical one, but simply, a belief in their own strength. And remember, from last week, that’s where we get in trouble!
There’s a story about a young doctor who had just opened his office and felt really excited. His secretary told him a man was here to see him. The young doctor told her to send him in.
HE wanted to make a good impression on this, his first visitor to his new office, and pretending to be a busy doctor, he picked up the phone just as the man came in.
‘Yes, that’s right. The fee is $200. Yes, I’ll expect you at ten past two. Alright. No later, I’m a very busy man.’
He hung up the phone and turned to the man waiting. ‘May I help you?’
‘No’, said the man. ‘I just came in to install the phone.’
Self-belief, self-esteem, self-reliance, self-strength – I don’t care what you call it – it’s the opposite of faith.
We all want to know everything about everything. But that is not life and it just goes to show that we are not God because we DON’T know everything.
I hate to burst your bubble, but trusting in God to guide your life and totally resting in Him still doesn’t mean that you will have clarity.
You know, people seek clarity. But, clarity doesn’t bring purpose in God’s perfect will.
Faith does.
You must have so much faith in God that you can jump into the volcano of life trusting that He will spare you even though the trials may burn you at times. You must trust that His strength will pull you through no matter how severe the test may seem to you.
Oh, and while I’m bursting bubbles… let me burst one more. Sometimes, when it feels like life has thrown you more than you can handle – guess what?
3: It is More than You Can Handle.
You know, you hear people say that God will never give you more than you can handle. I don’t think that I agree with that.
I believe that at times God will give you more than you can handle, and, in those times, you have no choice but to turn to Him because nothing, and no one can get you through - except for Him.
In 1 Samuel 30:6, We’re told “… David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, … But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” (ESV)
In Psalm 27:13 & 14, David says: “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.” (NASB)
Jesus is the strongest man spiritually and mentally that ever walked this earth. We would all agree on this; right? But where did He seek strength? He sought God in everything. Jesus trusted the full weight of God’s mighty hand at the beginning of His life and ministry all the way to His crucifixion upon the cross.
God prepared Him and upheld Him by His power so that Jesus could endure. If Jesus sought God and His strength in everything than why aren’t we?
David Wilkerson, Christian Author and founder of Teen Challenge wrote this:
“Let’s look for a moment at Israel’s experience at Rephidim: “Then all the congregation of the children of Israel set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sin, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink … And the people thirsted there for water” (Exodus 17:1-3).
The Scripture shows that God led Israel to the driest place in the whole wilderness — no stream, no well, not a trickle of water — where he allowed them to grow thirsty. The people complained to Moses but God had a plan! He was not going to allow them to die; he had a reservoir of water that he had prepared long before.
Why had God done this? He was waiting for a response of faith from Israel. He was saying, “I have taken you through all these things but you have refused to learn. Will you trust me now?””
Members, visitors, regular attenders and Facebook fellowshippers of First Christian Church of Maysville – God asks you right now – “Will you trust Me now?”
One last thing for you to chew on as you go today…
You only grow spiritually when you truly let go, asking God to take it for you.
Remember, Jesus asked for us to give Him our burdens, but we want to hold on to them. We want to keep lugging them all around… Why? Is it fear, uncertainties, lack of trust in the Savior to get us through; or all the above?
You might face a big problem – maybe a scary diagnosis… but NEVER forget that the mountains, the wilderness, path and the storm ravaged sea before us all bow down to Him.
Trust God and rest in His arms. Because it’s so easy for us to misjudge life’s difficulties, we need courage to keep going when we are tempted to quit.
Remember, in His strength, you can conquer any difficult hill.
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Phil 4:13, NKJV)
Not around, above, or under. Only through; all things must pass through our Savior and His ultimate strength.
