He is saying that God wanted to do many great things for Israel, but the choices that they made in their lives limited the Lord from doing those things.
Illus: Remember how as a child, before Christmas came our parents started telling us to do certain things and if we didn’t, SANTA CLAUS WAS NOT GOING TO BRING US ANYTHING!
We believed all that stuff, and anything they wanted us to do we did, because we thought if we didn’t, all we were going to receive was a bag of switches!
However, we thought if we did those things, we would get all the goodies we wanted for Christmas.
We believed in Santa Claus with all our hearts. We believed that he existed and he would bring us these goodies, but we had to meet the conditions of being good and doing things our parents told us to do.
Illus: I do not know if you noticed this, but when you stopped believing in Santa Claus, you started getting clothes for Christmas.
We all want the blessings of God on our life. Every one here wants the blessings of God on their life. But just wanting it is not enough. The question we are confronted with is this: ARE WE WILLING TO MEET THE CONDITIONS FOR GOD TO BLESS US?
Illus: When the Secretary of the State goes to negotiate with other countries, he goes to those countries with what we call in the political world, “PRE-CONDITIONS.”
He says to the country that wants something from us, “IF YOU WANT THIS FROM US, HERE ARE THE CONDITIONS YOU MUST BE WILLING TO MEET!” These conditions are called LEVERAGE!
If we want the blessings of God on our life, God has these pre-conditions we must meet or else the blessings of God are off the table! In other words, the conversation is over; there is nothing else to talk about.
In the previous sermon, we dealt with two of the things that keep us from receiving the blessings of God in our lives.
I. LACK OF PRAYER
II. LACK OF FAITH
Let’s look at two more things that are equally important for receiving the blessings of God on our life.
III. LACK OF MATURITY
The Bible teaches that we are to be as little children in our faith, ¬BUT WHEN IT COMES TO BEHAVIOR, HE WANTS US TO BE MATURE. Why does he want us to be mature?
Children are very limited in what they can do. If God did not give them parents:
• They would not go to bed at a decent time.
Illus: A doting father used to sing his little children to sleep until he overheard the four-year-old tell the three-year-old, "If you pretend you're asleep, he stops."
• Some would not go to school on a regular basis, if they did not have parents to make them go
Illus: A young boy came to school late. His teacher knew that he was usually very prompt and asked him if anything was wrong.
The boy replied that he was going fishing but his dad told him that he needed to go to school.
The teacher was very impressed and asked the boy if his dad had explained to him why it was more important to go to school than to go fishing.
The boy replied, “Yes, dad said he didn’t have enough bait for both of us.”
• Some children would never brush their teeth, if they did not have parents that made them.
• Some would never take a bath, if they did not have parents that made them.
WHEN IT COMES TO PHYSICAL GROWTH, WE NEED TO CONSIDER TWO THINGS! These kids today are facing a paradox.
(1) THEY WANT TO GROW OLDER
• This is why little boys wear their dads clothing, because they want to grow into maturity.
• This is why little girls wear their moms clothing, because they want to grow into maturity.
Children know they are limited and they want to become an adult so they will not have these limitations. This built-in desire is something every child has.
But life has to be confusing to them because they want to grow older and -
(2) THEIR PARENTS WANT TO GROW YOUNGER
Illus: One lady said that every time she sees a wrinkle in her face she runs and grabs a donut.
• Someone asked why she did that.
• She said, “I do that so when I gain weight it stretches my skin to keep from having wrinkles in my face.”
This has got to be confusing to children today. They want to grow older and their parents want to grow younger.
When it comes to spiritual growth, God makes it clear that we are to become MATURE CHRISTIANS.
• Physically, if our children do not grow after birth we would take them to see a doctor to find out what is wrong.
• Spiritually, if a person is born again and after 30 or 40 years there is no growth, there is concern.
If you are not a better Christian today than you were last year, you have every right to be concerned. YOU ARE NOT GROWING SPIRITUALLY!
If we take the failure of a child to grow physically or intellectually seriously, shouldn’t we take the lack of spiritual growth in our own lives just as seriously?
A person can be a Christian for many years yet remain spiritually immature.
• To GROW PHYSICALLY you have to do some things, such as eat and exercise
• To GROW SPIRITUALLY you have to do some things, such as eat spiritual food and exercise spiritually
Sitting in that pew, week after week, is certainly commendable. But listening to the Word of God being preached and allowing it to go in one ear and out of the other will not produce spiritual growth. We grow spiritually only when we receive the Word of God and then act on it.
Illus: Many today are weak and frail physically, and until they start eating nutritious food, and begin exercising their muscles THEY WILL NOT GROW!
This is how it works in the PHYSICAL WORLD and also in the SPIRITUAL WORLD! It’s possible for a new believer to be far more grown up in the Lord than someone who has been saved for 40 years.
Illus: A good example of this is found in an incident described by Ethel Barrett in her book, “It Only Hurts When I Laugh.”
She said that when D.L. Moody became a Christian, he developed such a hunger for God’s Word, spent so much time reading it, and was so quick to obey it that he became a "menace" to some believers. His rapid spiritual growth was an embarrassment to certain people who, though they had been saved for years, never grew up in Christ. Week after week in the church Moody attended, he would share a new experience he had with the Lord.
Finally, some of the older saints who just couldn’t stand feeling humiliated by his exemplary life, went to Moody’s uncle and urged him to quiet down his nephew.
Ethel Barrett drew this conclusion about Moody: "His robust spiritual health and bounding energy disturbed their napping; he was just too much. So, while they were sucking their thumbs, he was growing until he left them far behind; he grew more in a few years than they did in thirty."
Maturity is a choice, not an automatic thing in the spiritual realm
While physical growth is simply an automatic response to BODY CHEMISTRY, spiritual growth is a function of a BELIEVER’S CHOICES!
Our churches are filled with spiritual immaturity and they are wondering why God can not bless them!
Spiritually IMMATURE CHRISTIANS will often do things they have no business doing. They may want to do certain things but they are not spiritually mature enough to do them.
Illus: Floyd Patterson, one of the ex-heavy¬weight champions of the world, was one of the most talented boxers that have ever fought. Due to his quickness, he was known in the ring as the, “RABBIT”. He had a record of 55-8-1 (40 KO)
He was a light heavyweight-cruiserweight that was good enough to compete with the big boys and actually win the Heavyweight Championship of the World. As an amateur, he won the New York Golden Gloves and Eastern Golden Gloves Middleweight Championships and Light Heavyweight Championships. He also won the Olympic Middleweight Championship.
He was a talented boxer who used a "peek-a-boo" style of holding his arms and hands in front of his face; He was quick and agile and carried a nice punch; His hands were extremely fast; but he had one problem known among boxers. He had a "glass Jaw".
He could not take a solid punch on the jaw. A solid hit on his jaw would cause his knees to buckle every time.
The church today is filled with talented Christians, but many of them have spiritual "glass jaws". Even the slightest hit will cause their spiritual knees to buckle and they will throw in the towel and quit.
Oh beloved, spiritual immaturity has greatly limited the Holy One of Israel.
God works through:
• Prayer
• Faith
• Spiritually mature Christians
A young man may be a great preacher some day, but he has got to develop and mature before God can use him. Immaturity limits God’s blessings in our life.
Illus: In the boxing world, when they find a young man with boxing skills they do not throw him in the ring with some experienced boxer that will hurt him. They keep putting him in the ring with someone just a little better than he is. They work him up the line of contenders, and one day he will be in line to fight for a title match; BUT NOT UNTIL HE MATURES!
God wants to bless many Christians but they are not mature enough for certain blessings.
We limit God by LACK OF PRAYER, LACK OF FAITH, LACK OF MATURITY and -
IV. LACK OF GODLINESS
In 1 Peter 1:16, we read, “Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”
This, probably more than anything I have mentioned, has limited God from blessing many.
We belong to God!
Illus: Suppose a man is untrue to his marriage vows and his wife finds out. Suppose that even though she has found out about his infidelity, and he knows she has found out about it, he wants her to pretend that he is still true to her when he is not, and wants to everything to be normal at home.
HOW DO YOU THINK THINGS WILL BE HIS HOUSE? I can tell you up front; things would not be well at that house!
And things are not good in the house of God, because God knows that many are living ungodly lives and want to pretend they are not.
God knows they are, and God can not bless them until they start living godly lives.
If we are not living a godly life before Him, He knows all about it.
It is foolishness on our part to think that God, knowing these things that He knows, will bless a person like that.
We literally tie the hands of God if we do not live a godly life before Him each day.
James 4:4 says, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friend¬ship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."
Sin in the life of the believer is spiritual adultery. It is something we love more than we love God, and these sins in our lives limit the Holy One of Israel from blessing us the way He would like to.
God placed Joshua in command of Israel and wanted him to lead them into a greater life of blessings. God gave Joshua one command as they went in where un¬godly men and women were.
Look at what that command is, in Joshua 6:18, we read, "... keep yourselves from the accursed thing,”
• When they did, He blessed them!
• When they didn’t, He cursed them!
Conclusion:
God is like the father that I told you about at the beginning of these two sermons. This father had the love and resources to bless his son, BUT HE COULDN’T BECAUSE HIS SON LIMITED HIM.
God has the love and the resources to enrich our lives, but He can’t bless us if we limit Him by doing these things.
Are you LIMITING THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL IN YOUR LIFE?
When are we going to learn that God can not bless us, when we have:
Part 1 of 2
I. LACK OF PRAYER
II. LACK OF FAITH
Part 2 of 2
III. LACK OF MATURITY
IV. LACK OF GODLINESS
