Today I want to talk to you about quality of life. Quality of life is an issue that we mention a lot in life. If you are struggling with a terminal disease, for example, and you’re trying to wrestle with trying a treatment like chemotherapy or something, one of the questions asked is it’s a quality of life issue. What do we do in this situation.
If you’re working on economic development or in third world countries or things to help them, you’re trying to improve their quality of life. Three things you’re looking for is healthcare, you’re looking for economic opportunity, and you’re looking for education. Those are three things designed to improve quality of life in a third world country.
When it comes to quality of life in the United States, all the states are listed according to their rank of quality of life to see where your state fits into the picture. The one on the top, number one, is Washington State. So apparently living in Washington State offers the best quality of life. I know you’re wondering where New Jersey is. New Jersey is number twelve. That’s not too bad considering there’s fifty states, so that’s encouraging.
But I want to talk specifically about personal quality of life and your quality of life because you can increase your quality of life today and I want to show you how to do that. In fact the Bible has a lot to say about quality of life. The Bible is about quality of life. So we’re going to look at some scriptures and try to understand a little bit more about what that means and what that looks like in very practical ways.
In fact in order to understand quality of life in the Bible, there’s two words that are going to help you – the word ‘life’ and the word ‘death’. Now we usually think of those as living and dying. But in the Bible they are often used to refer to a quality of life that is living or a quality of life that is death. So you can choose a quality of life that’s death or a quality of life that’s living while you’re still alive. So the Bible talks a lot about that. And when the serpent comes to Eve and says, “Oh you won’t certainly die,” that is a big statement that the serpent is making trying to question Eve. And every time we question sin we think we’re increasing our quality of life, but in reality we’re doing great damage to ourselves in decreasing that quality of life. I want you to see that. In fact let me show you some verses from God’s word that use the word quality of life in this sense when it talks about life and death.
In John 10:10 it says (Jesus is speaking) – I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. So He’s talking about a quality of life.
Proverbs 18:21 and most of the time in the book of Proverbs when the word life and death are used, they’re used to describe a quality of life. In other words, if you’re wise, he’s saying in Proverbs, your quality of life is going to increase. So he says in Proverbs 18:21 – The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. The tongue is this power of life and death. That doesn’t mean you’re going to lick someone to death. What it means is that you’re going to have these words that come out of your mouth that can either bring life to someone or it can bring death to them. It’s a quality of life issue.
Deuteronomy 30:15 Moses is saying to the people – See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. So the word life and death are used for this quality of life. A significant way to understand and look at these ideas as we’re trying to understand a personal quality of life ourselves.
Now last week we talked about the temptation of Eve and what that temptation looked like. I called that sermon “Never Have a Discussion with a Talking Snake.” So just talk about how the temptations take place. This week the title of the sermon is “Increase Your Quality of Life.” Now we’re going to do that by understanding a little bit more about life and death and what actually takes place when Eve and Adam sinned.
So go with me into the Bible in Genesis 3:7. Let’s read this and we’ll take this verse by verse and understand what’s happening. Because the first thing that happens is spiritual death. That’s what takes place. Notice what it says there. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Spiritual death. Can you imagine walking with God in the cool of the evening? Every day just when the weather’s just right, it’s cooled off and you just want to take that walk in the evening and you’re with God. And then all of a sudden on this day because things have changed now in your life, God’s out there for the walk and you’re hiding. Spiritual separation. There’s spiritual death. Every time you sin there's some form of death that takes place.
Let’s go back to the beginning. Then the eyes of both were opened. Now again this is figuratively open. They weren’t blind before. But now they saw something they hadn’t seen before. They’ve experienced something they hadn’t experienced before and it changed their lives. And they knew that they were naked. Something that was good before is now inappropriate. Something happened in their thinking that’s going to change all kinds of things. But one of the things it changed was this ability for them to be appropriate or inappropriate in regards to their looking at each other.
I’m sure that you can think of things that you’ve experienced that you wish you wouldn’t have experienced. Because they’ve changed you. Now you can’t undo some of the things that you’ve experienced. I’m sure there's some things you’ve seen that you wish you wouldn’t have seen because they change you when you see them. When their eyes were opened, what it means is they experienced something God didn’t want them to experience. The become aware of things He didn’t want them to be aware of. And consequently it’s affected their lives, it’s changed them. That’s why we take great care as parents to put parental controls on or to say no to our kids about certain activities. Why? Because we don’t want them to see something that’s going to change their life. We don’t want them to experience something that will be damaging for them.
What they experienced changed them. This idea of sinning wasn’t just a mistake they made; it was a big event. You might say well it was just about a fruit. Well it wasn’t just about a fruit. It was about something much bigger than that. You see the serpent said to Eve, “You will be like God.” The idea is God is withholding some things from you and if you have these, you will have a higher quality of life. You’ll do better. I would suggest that every time we sin, we’re taking control of our lives and we’re saying, “I want to be like God. I want to control my destiny. I want to control what’s going on here. I want to take charge. I want to experience something that I wouldn’t be able to experience otherwise.” So sinning creates this death experience.
What ended up happening here in this story is that when Adam and Eve sinned it created a sin nature inside of every one of us. So when Adam and Eve sinned, it goes down, it’s passed on to every one of us and we have that sin nature that I want to talk about in just a moment.
But notice what they did. They took good things then, fig leaves. Where do fig leaves come from? They come from the fig trees. And God said all of these things were good. They took good things and they created coverings for themselves to hide themselves. People do that today. They hide themselves behind good things. Hopefully people won’t see them. Hopefully people won’t know who they really are. So there’s this hiding that takes place in our lives because of sin in our lives. It damages us in some very significant ways. So it creates all this problem.
They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, so they hid themselves when God wanted to work with them. Their spiritual death, separation from God. Every time you sin that takes place. There’s a separation from God.
Now what I want to do… Because this passage is all about bad news. This is all a bad news passage. I know you came to church here not just for the bad news, you want to hear the good news. So I’m going to take you to the opposite of each of those. And in this case I want you to see spiritual life and what it looks like. I want to take you to a passage that’s referring back to the garden here and the sin and the consequences.
In Romans 5:17 it says – For if, by the trespass of the one man (Adam), death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
When we come to Christ and we accept Christ into our lives, we have spiritual life. See God has a solution. I know we have a sin nature and that sin nature is this tendency to sin. This tendency to make myself be like God. The tendency to be selfish, self-focused, grab-it-for-me kind of mentality. That’s the sin nature in action. And the sin nature tends to corrupt things. And the sin nature, we all have it. You live with it all the time. But when you accept Jesus Christ into your life, God does something very significant and He gives you this new life. This new life that is spiritual life so you can enjoy life, your quality of life increases because you know who God is and what He’s doing in your life. So spiritual death, spiritual life. But that’s only the first thing. What else do we experience in the passage?
We go back to Genesis 3. We experience emotional death. Let me show you that because that’s what it says in the scripture there. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” Shame.
You remember earlier in the passage it says they were naked but they weren’t ashamed. And now they hid themselves because they are ashamed. So now you’ve got these two emotions, two of many. I mean emotions are basically good, but they can get really messed up in our lives. Most emotions are good. Shame is not good. Shame is not guilt. Guilt is this sense of I’ve done something wrong and I need to deal with it. Guilt is designed to motivate us toward repentance. If you’re feeling guilty, you probably need to do something about it. It means go apologize to your husband or wife. It means go and make restitution. Or it means just confess it before the Lord and get it right. And God offers forgiveness to us. It’s a beautiful thing that He does. Shame is different. Shame says you’re a bad person, you don’t deserve any love. You’re unworthy, unlovable, unacceptable. Shame is an attack on the person. Shame is bad. Shame is a satanic attack that limits us, puts us on the shelf, creates damage in our lives. Shame is not a good thing. And that’s what we’re experiencing in this passage here.
But he’s also afraid. So they’re hiding. People who live in fear continually have to hide, they have to be careful. Oh someone’s going to catch me. You know the shame and the fear together are very difficult emotions. But there’s some people who are just driven by fear. That’s the emotional death. And you’ve got to realize you have a sin nature, I have a sin nature. And because of that sin nature, there is a tendency to really mess up our emotions. You become an emotional wreck. Emotionally challenged.
Let’s look at the good news here. I want you to see what emotional life looks like. Because in 1 John 4:16-19 we learn more about this because the whole passage John wants to just take this idea of love and he wants us to understand it. He says – God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment. So when the day of judgement comes you won’t have to be ashamed. Because God is love. Do you see how that fits right in there? God is saying I’ve got healing for you here. You don’t have to feel guilty on this day of judgement. You don’t have to feel ashamed because God is love. But perfect love drives out (what?) fear. Okay. I just want you to see this is emotional healing that takes place that helps us address the issues that we have because of our personal sin nature. God wants to do healing in our lives.
Let me just finish the passage. It says – In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. Interesting. Shame. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love… And read this; this is important because this is how you’re going to experience emotional healing, emotional life. We love because he first loved us. That’s a reference right back to God giving us Jesus Christ as that gift, demonstrating His love to us through the gift of Jesus Christ. And when we accept Christ into our lives, He does that work of providing emotional healing in our lives. Want to raise your quality of life today? Turn that part of your life over to the Lord. Let Him redirect you in your emotions. Good things can take place in the midst of that. Emotional death, emotional life.
Let’s go to another one. Well before I do, there’s three questions and I just want you to see that. He asks where are you, He’s going to ask who, and He’s going to ask what. Three questions. And whenever God asks questions He’s not asking questions because He doesn’t know the answers. He’s asking questions to motivate us to do self-reflection. Good idea. It’s helpful for us to do self-reflection and to ask questions about ourselves to make sure we’re where we want to be and where God wants us to be so we can raise our quality of life.
Three questions are listed right there. Let me just read now. Because He came to the man and said – “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
The man said… Here we go because this is what happens when you…because of our sin nature we have a tendency to blame the problem on other people and that’s what Adam is going to do. Who do you think he blames? He’s going to blame Eve, but he’s also going to blame God. Look at this. He says – “The woman whom you gave to be with me (the woman you gave me, God, she’s the one), she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” So the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” So there’s this blaming that goes on and that’s what happens when our sin nature starts to take over. We start to blame other people for the problems of life.
It’s really important to understand how we’re going to raise our quality of life. Because what happens is when you sin, your temptation is to build these loin cloths and hide and blame, hide and blame.
That is what happens in our lives. There are a lot of people who go to counseling, loin cloth counseling, or fig leaf therapy in order to try to get help for their lives. I just want to encourage you be careful of counseling. I think it is a good thing. Counseling is generally good. There’s a problem because the world counsels people this way often. It's very easy. You’ll see it out there. You are hurt. You’ve definitely been hurting in your life. Find out who hurt you, blame them. Now once you blame them, you’ll have somewhere to focus your hurt so then you can be angry and that anger is going to be…boy, you’re going to find as soon as you get angry, you start talking about your anger, there’s going to be a lot of other people that join with you and you’re going to be a great big anger party there. And what ends up happening is you become a very unhappy person. So you want to be careful. If you’re going into counseling, make sure you’re not going into one of those therapy sessions that’s going to find out who do I blame for this. Do I blame my parents? Oh yeah. Let’s blame my parents because they’re a good target. They’re definitely at fault. Or maybe you were in a relationship. Blame that person. That person abused me or that wife abused me or that husband abused me. So blame, anger intensifies. Now you’ve got all these people around you that want to support you because you’re right, you’re angry about this, and that makes you an unhappy person. It's anger empowerment therapy and it’s bad. It’s a wrong kind of counseling you want to get.
What do you want to do instead? Okay if you say I’ve been hurt in my life, okay if you’ve been hurt in your life what do you need to do? You don’t go blaming the problem on other people. What you want to do is say first of all, what does God say? Look at His word if we’re doing biblical counseling here. First of all, look at yourself. You want to say okay, what do I need to do? Was there something I need to do that I’ve done wrong? You deal with yourself and then next you forgive. Forgiveness is a very important part of that. Then you set limits on other people. Because if you’re trying to set limits on other people or get justice with other people with anger fueling that, you’ve got anger empowerment therapy and it’s not going to work. This is wrong what they’re doing. They’re blaming the problem on other people. It’s all part of the sin nature. You don’t want to go there. It's dangerous.
Well God now is going to talk to each one of the parties involved and He’s going to start with the serpent and He’s going to describe to them the consequences of sin. He’s going to say because you’ve done this, this has opened the door for all kinds of things. This is what’s going to take place in your life because you’ve sinned. So He first talks about the serpent. He says to the serpent you’re going to crawl on your belly, but then He makes this proclamation, a very important proclamation in verse 15. Let me read this to you. He says – “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
So there’s this great battle now that takes place in our world between God and between worldliness. That’s what happens. The worldliness and God. There’s this big battle that’s taking place and it starts there. It’s not just with Adam and Eve and God and the serpent. Now it’s gone down to the offspring you see. And it’s pointing to this event that’s going to take place. This event we know as the crucifixion. But it says and you can picture this in the crucifixion what’s happening in that event is that this offspring of the woman, he’s going to bruise the head of the serpent and then the serpent is going to bruise his heel. So in this process is going to be this crushing of the snake, bruising him.
Because here’s what’s going to happen with sin. Understand this. Because the penalty of sin is taken care of now through Jesus Christ. The penalty. But the presence of sin still exists. And the power of sin exists to the extent that we allow it. Let me say that again. Make sure you get this because the presence of sin still exists. The penalty of sin has been paid for through Jesus Christ. But the power of sin is present to the extent that we allow it to be present in our lives. We now have the power to overcome sin because of Christ in our lives. Now our quality of life is increasing and we can see that. God is talking to the serpent describing this very important event that’s going to take place in history. Well let’s go on because next we’re going to see what He says to the woman. Let me read it to you.
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” I know you can hardly wait to hear what I’m going to say about this, right? First of all, let’s look at what the desire is of the woman. Because we have a great description of that in the next chapter. Let’s just go there and understand desire is about mastery or controlling or ruling over somehow. Domineering. So husbands, if you have a domineering wife you want to listen because this is where it comes from. It says – “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right…” See God is talking to Cain who hasn’t killed his brother yet, but he’s angry and this anger is causing a problem. “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is to have you, but you must rule over it.” Same words. Desire, rule. Same construct. What He is saying is that this sin, this anger that you have is desiring to rule over you, but you must master it.
Now let’s take that same meaning back into our passage about relationships. Because of selfexaltation, because of the sin nature, there is a tendency for control to want to take place in a marriage relationship – on the part of the woman to control and the part of the man to rule over. It's the same idea. Controlling. So now we have this difficulty in relationship. This is what makes relationships hard because we all have a sin nature. We come together and we want to do it our way. Do it my way. I want you to do it my way. I don’t want to do it your way. So there’s this conflict because of the sin nature between a husband has this desire to rule over his wife and the woman has this desire to rule over her husband or desire to control. So it creates this conflict and this dissonance and this relational death. That’s why. And death is really the separation. You see it in physical death, the separation of the body from the spirit. In spiritual death the separation of fellowship between God and people. And you see it in relational death. In divorce it takes place eventually, but there’s a separation of relationships.
How are we going to overcome the death of relationships? You’ve got to know there’s a tendency for relationships to go bad. You just got to know that. If you’re going into marriage you’ve got to know there's a tendency for relationships to go bad. I know that’s not good news, but you’ve got to be ready for that. You can’t think “oh we feel so great, we love each other” because there's a tendency for relationships to go bad. It's part of the curse, it’s part of the sin nature that we carry around. So if we’re going to work through this we must understand what relational life is all about.
Let me show you. I’m going to take you to one passage about relationships. By the way, in Ephesians 5 it talks about two words, submit and love, when it comes to relationship to offset the controlling attitude that wants to take place in those relationships. In Ephesians 5 it talks about this giving of yourself to the other person. They are very similar, submit and love. Because the idea of love here is sacrificial love, being willing to die to self. That’s what it is. Die to yourself, just like the person who’s submitting is submitting, giving up their own agenda. So there’s this relational concept that takes place in marriage that’s described in Ephesians 5. But I want to take you to a different passage about relationships. Watch what it says in this passage about relationships and how God wants us to experience relational life.
Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. Let’s just start right there. Don’t go into this thing without your eyes open. You recognize what’s going on and you’re praying about it. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.
Relational life. You have relational life through Jesus Christ. God wants to empower you, He wants to increase your quality of life when it comes to relationships. There’s a tendency to move in the wrong direction. You must understand God’s grace and apply it in your life in order to experience what God wants you to have in your life.
Alright. I’m going to go to another kind of death. Let’s go to economic death. And we’re not done yet because now he’s going to talk to the man. Watch what He says. He says to Adam – “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife…” Wait, wait, wait. Let’s stop right there. Because you listened to your wife? I want to tell you first of all, men, you really should listen to your wives. It's a good idea. Except when she’s saying something that’s against God. The most intimate, close, personal relationship cannot get in the way of God’s word to you. “Because you have listened to your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Okay. So when it comes to earning a living, you’re going to have thorns, thistles, and sweat. That means there’s going to be problems. It’s not going to come easy. There's going to be pain when it comes to earning a living and trying to work. So you can expect that. You can expect that when you go to work things are going to be challenging. You’re going to have thorns and thistles in the forms of people that are there. They’re irritating to you if that’s your kind of work. If you’re out in the garden working, you’re going to have thorns and thistles that are real there. Wherever you are, you can expect that your work is going to be challenging. It’s not going to be easy. You’re going to sweat. People have sin natures and when those sin natures come together they create problems. The earth is affected by the very sin that came into the world. We have a broken world. So we’re living in this broken world and the solution is Jesus Christ.
Let me take you to a passage that talks about economic life. In order to do that, let’s look at a passage that’s actually talking about employees. It uses the word ‘slaves,’ but you get the idea. Economic life. Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.
See your job is not just about earning a living; your job is growing in sanctification. When you go and bump up with those thorns and thistles, when you’re sweating out there, God is doing something in your heart wholeheartedly. He’s doing something inside of your heart. Part of your sanctification is the work that you do. When you go to work you don’t just think, “Oh I’m getting this task done and checking it off my list.” You’re saying, “God, what are you teaching me here? How are you growing me in this? What do you want me to learn from this?” And God does His sanctification work in that job environment. In the same way that He uses the marriage relationship that has all kinds of challenges in it to build us in this sanctification He uses work as well. Economic death…but if you know Jesus Christ, He puts a new purpose to your work. He gives you new vision for where you’re going. Work takes on new meaning because it’s not about the tasks or the people. It’s about serving the Lord in work. No matter what your work is, you’re serving the Lord. Now you have this economic life instead of economic death in the process.
Well let’s continue because in that same passage at the end it says – till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. So let’s talk about physical death. Physical death we will all face. In other words, the end of our life as we know it will end. And notice He describes this as going back to the dust. I know that a lot of people can really make their loin cloths look really good so they don’t look like dust. They’re made out of dirt, but they can look really good. You can be really educated dirt and you can be really rich dirt and you can be really cute dirt. But the reality is that at the end of all of this you’re still dirt and we all end up back where we started with dirt. So we end up in the ground. That’s physical death that He’s describing there. But the beauty of this is when Jesus Christ came, died on the cross, He conquered death so we can have physical life.
Let me just read to you from 1 Corinthians 15. It says this: But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man (that man is Adam, so he’s referring back to creation. Same story. Just taking application from there), the resurrection of the dead comes also through (what?) a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. And the good news is today you can have physical life. If you’re facing death and it’s coming close, you know you can experience life. That physical death moves you into this eternal life that God has for you. It's a beautiful thing that God offers. So that’s going to take us to the last part of the passage and to this idea of eternal life as well.
In Genesis 3:20-23, it gives us some conclusions, some ideas about what we just read. It says there – The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Eternal death. Eternal separation from God…if it weren’t for Jesus Christ. See when you accept Jesus Christ into your life you have eternal life, not eternal death. And that’s the beauty. See God knew that as this all unfolds that there’s a whole plan for redemption. So we don’t have to live in this quality of death, this poor quality of life. We can have this quality of life that comes in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
So 2 Timothy 1:10 says this: But it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
Through the gospel. What is the gospel? The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ died for you, He saved you from sin, He saved you from death, He wants to increase your quality of life, and that takes place when you come before God and you say, “Yes, I know I’m a sinner. Yes, I know I need Christ in my life. I want to trust Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I know I need that because my sin nature is ruining my life. I need to take on Christ in my life to overcome that so that I can overcome the power of sin and I can experience all kinds of life.”
Eve had no idea when the serpent said “you will not surely die” what would happen in this situation. Sin is so difficult. It’s so damaging. We need life. We need this quality of life. You can experience that in your life today. Your quality of life can increase today by turning yourself over to Christ more and more, allowing Him to work in your life in new ways to deal with all the specific areas.
You know that when Christians are dealing with quality of life issues we think differently? You see when a Christian goes into a third world country or Christian organizations go in, they go in for the same three goals. They’re trying to help with healthcare, economic advantage, and education. But they do it in a different way because they come in with the gospel. It’s the gospel that we’re talking about in 2 Timothy 1:10. It's the gospel that makes the way for them to be able to do that. So why do they set up these schools? They set up the schools so that children can learn how to read the Bible. And they’re teaching them about the Bible. Because it’s not just about education, it’s about knowing God. When you try to help people with healthcare, they come in and set up hospitals or send doctors. These doctors come in not just to teach them how to be healthy, but a holistic approach so they’ll have spiritual health as well. When they’re providing economic opportunity, they do it in conjunction with the church.
That’s why I like and we enjoy ministering with Samaritan’s Purse and the Operation Christmas Child and the shoeboxes because they’re trying to do economic development in a country and they’re doing it with the gospel. So they’re bringing in money, but they’re doing it with the gospel as well.
You know companies like UNICEF are doing a good job. Or Salvation Army is doing a good job. Red Cross is doing a good job. But when I’m going to put my money somewhere and when our church puts money into ministry, we want to do it in a way that’s bringing the gospel also. Okay? We don’t want to just help people fix their problems, we want to help them deal with the root of their issues and we want to help them with the gospel so their quality of life can really increase. We support Restoring Hearts in Trenton. The reason we support Restoring Hearts in Trenton is because that’s a development program that brings the gospel in in addition to feeding the poor, caring for them in different ways. But the gospel is at the center of that. That’s why we support. There’s other things that are going on in Trenton that are good, but we support the gospel going in in addition to those things in order to bring about substantial change. The gospel changes us.
You know if you feel like you’re captive in life, you’re stuck, then you need to know the gospel. It’s freedom for you no matter what situation. No matter what state you live in, what country you live in, what house you live in. If you don’t have any parents, if you’re an orphan then the gospel for you looks like a home that God provides. Your quality of life can increase. It’s a beautiful thing that God wants to do. We live in this generation now that’s kind of confused. It doesn’t really know what to do. Their quality of life can increase and it comes through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We learn that from this story in Genesis. We see that death is something we want to avoid, but God has provided life for us. Let’s trust Him. Let’s ask Him to work in our lives.
Would you pray with me please? If you’re listening online and you’ve never accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then I want to invite you to pray with me. This is an opportunity for you to experience a greater quality of life right now where you are. And God wants to do something special in your life. Just pray with me.
Lord, I realize I’m a sinner. I realize that my sin nature is creating problems for me. Lord, I need a Savior. I want to ask Jesus Christ to come into my life now. I want to trust you, Lord. I want you to change me. I want life. Lord, increase my quality of life, my eternal life, my spiritual life, relational life, economic life, emotional life. Lord, do all of those things in my heart. I need you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
