Falling Away
April 23, 2023
I really believe God has a sense of humor. I also believe God can be really sarcastic! If you read the Bible you will see some of His questions lead me to that conclusion. But I also believe that because God created me in His image and I’m that way. So, that’s my justification.
Well, last Sunday after I came home from worship, I was getting my comfy clothes on, and I felt God asking me, “so that was encouraging?” Um, well, uh, well, God, I guess not!
If you recall last week I was talking about the fact that it’s easy to fall away from lots of things. We can fall in our relationships, and say, I’m not just feeling it, we fall away from our diets, and healthy eating and lifestyle changes and devotion to God.
It’s easy to do, I mean you don’t need a degree to draw closer to God. It would seem like common sense would do it, but common sense according to the world’s standards isn’t quite getting us there, is it?
If you’re not happy with someone, cause damage to them; if you’re angry at the police department, call in and say there’s a shooter, if you’re angry, take revenge. We say, let your heart lead you, and that can be really, really dangerous, because our hearts often have desires that are not from God. You know what I mean? I don’t think I need to spell that one out.
Jeremiah tells us - - - 9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? - Jeremiah 17:9
That’s a pretty intense statement to make about our hearts. But if you really think about it, there’s truth in that statement. That’s not to say all bad things come from your heart, it just means when we allow our heart to be the leader bad things can happen. Our heart and our brain don’t always work in sync. That can happen a lot and we can easily choose poorly.
You’re angry, you want revenge; you’re hurt, so you don’t want to forgive; you don’t want to love, don’t give, don’t serve. Don’t do what you know is right, because you’re heart doesn’t feel it. You need to agree with me, because I have the truth! That’s kind of the way of the world right now. And it’s not getting better!
So, how’s that for my encouraging start? Not! But that’s our starting point. We’re continuing from last week where I spoke about what I believe is our call from God . . . and it’s to seek to be like the early church from Acts 2. And what stuck out to me, was their - - - -
DEVOTION
They were devoted to God and devoted to one another! It all came from the fact that they had a deep love for God and one another. Let’s start with your devotion to God. How are you doing with that? Because I want believe God wants you to be so devoted to Him, that your life will forever be different, because you consistently and persistently follow Him, even through the hardships and difficult times in life. That’s what devotion means in the Greek. It’s a persistent and constant devotion to God.
And that’s where I want to encourage you today. I’ve been reading a really deep book called - - - You are what you love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. It’s by James Smith. As I was reading last week, what he was saying was just so powerful. It hit me that this is about how we grow in Christ and who we are in Christ.
So, let me try to explain to you what Smith is saying. And it really made me stop and think about my past. He tells us this and why often skim over it. The apostle John wrote - - -
19 We love, because He first loved us. - 1 John 4:19
It’s super basic, but when you think about it, my ability to love didn’t just miraculously appear. I didn’t learn how to love just out of nowhere. I had to learn it. It doesn’t always come naturally.
So, how does a baby learn to love? They experience love! They experience it from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and so on. How do they learn to laugh? It doesn’t just naturally happen when they grab their feet and shove them in their mouth. It happens because we lead them to laugh.
A Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar captures this, in an image that is both beautiful and biblical, a metaphor that is natural and supernatural at the same time. Let me explain . . .
I was thinking about the first time I really remember Joshua laughing. It wasn’t from me or Debbie! Sorry honey! It was from your dad. I was too nervous to do much when he was a couple of months old. But there was Debbie’s dad holding Joshua on his knees and making faces at him and clapping his hands together. And Joshua was loving it. I thought, dang, this isn’t hard.
Joshua didn’t just spontaneous laugh out of nowhere, he was influenced to laugh. I hope I’m making sense. It makes sense to me. I am able to love in a more healthy way because I have experienced the power of God’s grace and love. If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be able to love in as healthy a way as possible. Because if we were to admit it, some of us didn’t have the best parenting to show us what love is.
Balsthasar wrote - - - - “After a mother has smiled at her child for many days and weeks, she finally receives her child's smile in response. She has awakened love in the heart of her child, and as the child awakens to love. It’s as if we are loved into loving.”
In this case the love was initiated by the mother, was represents the transcendent.
So, we learn to love from God and from one another. It’s really important for us to hold onto that. And this love mirrors the love God has for us, if we were willing to allow God to love us and allow others to love us, it would change our worlds. Our hearts wouldn’t be filled with anger and deceit, instead, love would overflow from our hearts, and spirits and minds and our entire being.
We would truly be physical representations of God. We would be love, because He is love and first loved us.
Now, I’m going to pause for a moment and see if this makes sense. Give me head nods, yes or no! If not, well, I’ll just try to make it up and say it another way. But I really believe this is important for us to get.
So, I’m going to take this another step. Because the goal of this little 3 week series is to help us not to fall away from God. It’s easy to get distracted and get off track. So many of us have been there, I don’t want that to happen.
Last week we looked at a passage from Hebrews. I want to expand it and talk about it in a different way - - - -
19 Therefore, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,
20 by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh,
21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
22 LET US draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
23 LET US hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
24 And LET US consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. - Hebrews 10:19-25
So, how do we gain salvation? It comes through Jesus. He is the only One, the Son of God, who as verse 19 told us, He’s the One who shed His blood for us so that we could enter into the holiest of places, which is for us to be in the presence of God.
And we have confidence. It’s like that child trusting the adult who is caring for them. The one who loves them and smiles at them and talks to them, and feeds them and changes them. The one who showers them with love. That’s who Jesus is for us. He’s the One who showers us with love as shown through His death. He shed His blood for us. And we are confident in what Jesus did for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So we can walk with our heads held high, knowing and trusting Jesus is who He says He is.
Because of this we’re told to draw near with a true heart in full assurance, knowing we’ve been cleansed by Jesus’ blood and we are now pure, washed and considered by God to be holy and His child. So, we hold onto this confession with a firm hope, which is our foundation.
Now, we’re told and this is where I want to go in our final few minutes - - - - to verses 24-25
24 And LET US consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. - Hebrews 10:19-25
In the book I referred to James Smith doesn’t refer to Hebrews. But he talk about our lives as small l’s (liturgies) at home and the big L’s (liturgies) at church.
What I hear him saying is this. And this is pretty simple. It’s the fact that we learn from one another and we need one another. In order for me to grow as a follower of Jesus, I need the big church. We can change his letters to small c and big C. My home is the small c, the church is the big C.
We need one another. I don’t buy into the people who say I don’t need the church to have a growing and vital and active faith in Jesus. If we are neglecting to come together and encouraging one another, we’re going to be in trouble. We miss out on a huge blessing.
So, the writer says, paroksysmós
pa????sµ?? - Last week I said it was to agitate, which is kind of right, but it goes further. paroksysmós – Literally it means - - - -
a provocation which literally jabs (cuts) someone so they "must" respond. See 3947 (paraxynomai).
Have you ever had a friend or family member who hates it when you poke them in the side. So you do it anyways, right? You know what I mean? I’ve done that to my kids and to Debbie. You want to get a reaction. Good or bad, usually bad, you want a reaction.
Well, that’s what this words means. It means to provoke someone so they do something. It’s to say come to worship with me. And they say no, but you’re obnoxious in a Christian way (if there’s such a thing) and so finally they come, and they’re thrilled to be here.
That’s what the writer is talking about. You see, when you come here, and if you get to know people, you find some of the most amazing people are in this room and worshiping online.
You listen to their stories and you’re drawn to them. You see how they’ve coped with loss, death to spouse, to kids, to parents, to grandkids. You see how they’ve handled the aging process. You see others who have been through difficult life decisions, others have been through the mill physically.
We see the families that have struggled through marriage, divorce, kid issues, job issues. It runs the gamut here.
And that’s why it’s so important to be here. It’s not only about the songs and the message, in some ways it’s more important to be with the people. Because every person has a Bible story. They may not know it, but they do; and if we were willing to listen to that story, we would learn and marvel and our faith would be touched in a way it’s never been touched before.
My words and the songs add to the value and meaning of our gathering. But to walk in and experience the power and grace of Jesus. To know and trust that He is here. He is with me as He is with you.
That’s awesome and holy. And that’s what Smith was getting at with the big and small L’s. But to me it’s the small c and capital C. At home, at work, at the store, on the disc golf course, wherever I go, I represent Christ. I represent the church. You represent Christ and the church as well.
So, you and I are the small c’s that make up the capital C, the Church. We need one another, we learn from one another, we can encourage one another, even to hold one another accountable.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say, “what do people do without Jesus?” I don’t know. But what I do know, is we need one another.
That’s the beauty of what God had in mind. There’s no reason we should even shun one another. Hold accountable to lead to repentance, YES! Always, but restoration and hope are the back bone of who the church is.
Think about what we’d be like if there were no hope! No offers of grace and mercy. If when Peter asked Jesus ‘how many times do I need to forgive?’ And Jesus said, ‘once is enough!’ Oh my!!! Once! Come on, I’d use up my once in the first hour of the day.
No! It’s 70 x 7 times. It’s to infinity and beyond. That’s the hope we have. My sins are forgiven by the Lord and we then come together and we offer a grace and hope to one another. We hug and cry and celebrate and there’s nobody better than you to do it with.
You’ve got my back and I’ve got your back! So, we love . . . why? Because He first loved us and we now love one another.
And those are the 2 great commandments . . . .
Love God
Love one another
I think I’ve been all over the place this morning . . . so I want to kind of summarize.
God calls us to be devoted to Him, not because we must, but because we want to, because we have a desire to know Him and experience His power, mercy, grace and love.
Because He has loved us, we now can go into the world and demonstrate His love. We’ve learned His love, not ours, not the worlds, but His love - - - which is perfect in every way.
Then as we love one another we do it in such a way that we want more. Not because we’re needy, but because it’s good love. It’s healthy, whole, pure. It’s all about His love and grace that we receive and then pass on to others.
It’s like the movie PAY IT FORWARD. That’s what we do in here and out there.
I can look at so many of you, and I’ve spoken at funerals, performed weddings, and I’ve hugged you in times of joy and times of grief. I’ve learned from you. You’ve blessed me by letting me in on some of the most intimate moments of life.
And the great thing about this church is we’re willing to do it with one another. Once we get to know you, we start to share and when we do, you get to see Christ at work. The small c - becomes the CAPITAL C, the church.
So, my friends - - - don’t fall away from God or one another, instead draw closer, hold one another tighter and firmer knowing we will always win, because Jesus is the King!
