Treasuring God’s Word to You
CCCAG, Father’s Day 2021
Scripture: Luke 2:19
Back in late October and early November I started to think and plan for this month series of messages revolving around the Christmas season. It's always one of the great challenges of ministry to be able to come up with new and interesting ways of speaking on subjects like Christmas in new and relevant ways.
I went to the word of God and read through all the scriptures pertaining to the events of the birth of Jesus looking for the Holy Spirit to point out what HE would want me to say to his church at this day and hour. I felt very drawn to two scriptures, that say the same thing about two different events in the life of Jesus.
Let’s just look at the first one-
It involves Mary’s response to the shepherds coming to visit Jesus as a newborn in Bethlehem and all the things that they said the angels had told them about the birth of a king.
In Luke Chapter 2, in verses 8-15 it talks about the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night. They are treated to a sudden angelic choir proclaiming the birth of the savior in sounds and lights so bright it would put any modern concert to shame. The shepherds are overjoyed and rush to Bethlehem to see this great site. They come to the stable, worship the infant Jesus, and tell Mary and Joseph everything they had seen and heard, and then in verse 19, there is a small verse most people may overlook-
Luke 2:19
But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
NIV
Prayer
Premise-
I want to talk to you this morning about treasuring God’s word to you.
God still speaks to us today, and God has a word for each one of us. That word is meant to be the guiding light of our lives. It casts light on a specific path that God has for you and helps you to see when all else around you grows dark.
That WORD is your fuel, your guidepost, and your purpose in HIS Kingdom.
You treasure up that word and bury it deep within your heart.
Now-
It may come supernaturally through a God speaking to you like he did Mary by sending Gabriel to tell her she would be the mother of the Messiah.
It can come jumping out at you while you read God’s word- the bible.
It can come through a person or circumstance in life that speaks to your heart.
It can come through recognizing a need that has to be met, and God gives you a passion to see it through.
No matter how it comes to you, there are a few things you need to do to protect it.
The first thing is-
I. Know that the enemy will try to steal it
In Matthew chapter 13 Jesus gives a parable about a farmer who goes out and scatters his seed. the seed represents the word of God and as the farmer is scattering his seed Jesus comments on several different things that can choke out the effectiveness of the word of God. One of the ways that the seed does not take root is that the enemy comes and steals it away from you.
This most often happens when you receive some type of revelation from God and then immediately it seems like all the gates of hell open up in your life.
An example from my own life-
God had been speaking to me about going into the ministry. this culminated during a church service where he directly spoke to me to begin the study to show myself approved and become a minister. I told Tammie and I told my pastor about it and then just let it sit.
When you receive the word of God you'll have this
sense of joy this
sense of promise
this new dream that is put within your head and heart can put you on a spiritual high for a long time.
The thing about receiving a supernatural word from the Lord is that you're not the only person that hears it. Very often that word from the Lord will cause a reaction within the Kingdom of darkness to come and snatch that word away from you and replace it with fear doubt and unbelief.
The enemy knows the potential power that WORD can have in your life, and he will do everything he can to snatch it away from you before it really takes root.
Soon after I received that call to ministry, I was serving at the church for a musical that we were putting on that saw many people come to saving faith in Jesus. I remember getting home on the last night and I was on a super spiritual high. Then I opened the door and found that our apartment had been broken into and ransacked. I don't think we lost anything of major value- a few minor electronic things and most interestingly our vacuum cleaner.
I mean look if you're going to ransack somebody's house at least leave behind the vacuum cleaner so they can clean up after you. It wasn't like it was an expensive vacuum cleaner either- we aren’t talking a Kirby here it was like a dirt devil, a Kmart blue light special level of vacuum cleaner we got for $15. But for some reason they took that.
Then the next week at work we had all kinds of things go wrong. There were layoffs, talks about pay cuts, a lot of infighting going on.
At the church I found out about a movement within the board to get rid of our current pastor and the people who wanted to get rid of him wanted me in on the whole plot. That backfired on them because I went and immediately told the pastor about the plot which alienated me from quite a few people in the church many of whom I respected and had mentored me along the way.
It just seemed like everything was going wrong in my life at that time.
Looking back on it now, I realized what was happening. The enemy was using these circumstances to try to make me forget or discount the word that had been placed within my heart. Instead of holding on to, treasuring it, meditating on it, and letting it guide me, I was instead focused on everything else going on.
That's why when you receive the word of God in your life or a direction he wants you to go, you need to write it down And go back to it often.
I know many of you probably don't have Diaries or journals that you write in. I'm not saying you should necessarily start one but when it comes to your prayer life you really need to have some sort of written reminder of the things that God has spoken to you. It could be a truth that you found out in prayer
it could be some of his word that jumped off the page and grabbed your heart and convicted you and pointed you in a new path,
or even somebody at church speaking into your life that really changed the way that you think and react to different things.
Either way you need to have that reminder of the goodness of God in your life.
Early in the Old Testament, people would build altars. Many of these altars were built as a remembrance when God did something great for a person or for a community of people. They called them Ebenezer stones- stones of help and remembrance of God’s goodness.
Today we build statues of people for the same reason, both good and bad to serve as reminders of the past.
That’s why you need these kinds of remembrances in your life- to remind you of the goodness of God and HIS promises to you.
The second thing to treasure God’s word in your heart-
II. Bury that treasure
I know that seems like the exact opposite of what I just said. Let me clarify-
The enemy will use fear, doubt, and unbelief to cause you to question God’s word in your life. Often, that comes through people, culture, and influences that are not healthy for your spiritual life.
Right after I got called to the ministry, I told my dad what I believed God had spoken to my life. My dad drew me aside and told me that was crazy, I already had too much bad history to be used of God, and that my life would be spent in poverty. I needed to work hard, get a good job, have some fun along the way, and retire early with a nice pension and then maybe in retirement I could do that church stuff.
He actually made a lot of sense. After all, I knew of a guy that did exactly that- Pastor Verne in my church. He retired from a great job, earned a lot of money, and spent his retirement in ministry. Maybe that’s what God meant for me…
Do you see the enemy sneaking in to steal, kill and destroy what God spoke to my heart?
That’s what I mean by burying the treasure.
It’s a protective thing. If you value something, you guard it, protect it, maybe place it in a vault at the bank or have some form of security to keep it safe.
Because there are thieves among us, some physical, but even more spiritual. That’s why you protect what is important in your life, and especially your spiritual life.
Because there is an enemy- a lion out there seeking for whom he may devour.
A funny example-
Have you ever met a person who overshares things about their lives?
It’s like they never grow out of childhood. You know who are the best about oversharing? Kids!
I have kids call out their parents all the time when their parents lie to me in the ER.
Example – When you come into the ER, we typically take you into the triage room. There we get a history, a quick physical exam, and determine what kind of care you need. In this case, I had a family of four children who kept coming in for ear infections. As part of the triage process, we ask about the parents smoking history, or if there is smoking in the home.
In this case, the reason for this is because one of the major reasons for pediatric ear infections is smoking in the home. It’s like 65-80% of ear infections have a parent or some caregiver smoking around them.
However, in this case, the parents both denied smoking in the home, even though everyone in the room smelled like fresh and stale cigarette smoke.
Just as I was finishing up that question, and hearing the parent's denial, the doctor came in and opened the door just as the 5-year-old kid yells- “You’re lying mommy! You smoke in the car, you smoke in the house, you smoke in the bedroom, you smoked on the way here!”
The entire ER heard it, and everyone started laughing hysterically as this kid sat there glaring at his parents, hands on hips, watching them turn beet red.
While that is kind of a funny story, it is just meant to illustrate this fact-
you have to be careful who you share your deep secrets with, and if God gives you a word meant to encourage you- that word is for you, and you alone.
Just like you wouldn’t share intimate details of your love life with others, consider God’s WORD to you like that, and don’t give the enemy a chance to steal it.
III. Ponder it often
Luke 2:19
But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
There is an old saying that says- “Your focus determines your reality”
Or, as the bible says in Proverbs 23:7- “As a man thinks, so he”
In computer lingo, it is called garbage in and garbage out.
This directly ties in with the law of sowing and reaping.
You can't plant for wheat and expect corn to come up.
That's just basic common sense right?
But for some reason, many of us live in such a way where we allow absolute garbage into our lives and expect an output of peace, joy, prosperity, and happiness to be the result.
Whatever your situation is in life, it’s because of decisions that were made that produced a predictable outcome.
Now, many of us had some very bad things happen to us- things that were not our fault nor could we change. Fallen people did evil things that produced an evil result. I get it.
I grew up in a welfare home surrounded by drugs, alcohol, partying, and very irresponsible behavior, so much of my younger life was spent modeling what I saw lived out in front of me.
However, Jesus can and will bring healing to all of those things if you let him. It’s your choice- continue to live in defeat, or chose His victory as yours and truly live again.
One of the ways we do that is what we allow our minds to focus on.
I’ll leave you with a very personal illustration from my life-
I had a graduate-level course on this at one point in my life. Someone who was a very close friend proved not to be such a close friend and betrayed me in the worst ways possible. For months all I could do is think of ways to get even- to cause double the pain to that person as I felt, to make them suffer for what they did to me.
I wanted Old Testament-level retribution- Fire, Brimstone, everlasting torment. I woke up thinking of new ways to hurt this person, and if I could fall asleep at night, it was thinking of what they might be doing right now and how I could mess with it.
I was on my 4th night with only a couple of hours of sleep. Exhausted, spent, all the bile built up in my heart had finally run out for now and I asked Father- to please let me sleep.
Silence.
I asked again-
Silence.
A third time I prayed
Silence.
Frustrated, I cried out to my Father and begged him to answer me.
A scripture came to mind (a little paraphrased)- Matthew 6:15
“If you do not forgive others their sins against you neither will your Father forgive yours”
And then I heard God’s voice- “If you will not act like my son, who forgave the men who beat him, mocked him, spit on him, and crucified him, then don’t call me your Father”
The things I had been pondering in my heart had separated me from the Father, and HE was calling me on the carpet.
That’s why what you ponder in your heart is so important.
Our faith is not about behavioral modification- you have 12-step programs for that. It’s about inner transformation. It’s about putting to death our old nature and allowing the new nature to take over.
What you meditate on in your heart shows how effective that inner transformation has become in your life.
That’s why when you receive a word from God, or THE Word of God, it is to be the thing that feeds you, motivate you, and draws you closer to the Father and HIS plan for your life.
Altar call/Prayer
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