(I began the sermon by showing the following video featuring Jeff Foxworthy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxFqVQFvhvw - starting at timestamp1:40). The following is a transcript of the portion of his talk:
Jeff Foxworthy agreed to do a small group study with the homeless at an Atlanta Christian Homeless shelter. He said: “I couldn’t get them to talk because if they had ever been to church its – they don’t participate. You just sit there and listen. And so I learned early on – OK, I gotta come up with questions.
“So, the 2nd or 3rd week my question was “what the Bible?” And all I was trying to get out of them was that, unlike any other book, that it was alive. That different things talk to you at different times. This is an example: I opened my Bible to the book of Romans, and I had 7 different highlighter pens. OK, so at some point I’ve been on these two pages in 7 different something else spoke to me.
“And one of guy said ‘Well, it’s just a book of rules.’ And my buddy (chicken man) who goes down there with me says “Really? It’s just a book of rules. It’s just a book.” And there was a trashcan he slid in the middle of the floor and he took his bible and threw it in the trashcan. There’s just a hush in the room, and nobody was comfortable with it. This great big named Wayne gets up and goes over there and he pulls that Bible up out of the trashcan and says, ‘Don’t do that.’ And Chicken man says “Well, if its just a book, why would that bother you?”
And Wayne says “Let me tell you a story. My mom died several years ago, and when she died, I got $70,000 in life insurance from her.” And he says “I’d never had a wad of money like that before, and I lost my mind. I got 2 girlfriends, and we start partying night and day. But because you’re partying night and day you quit going to work. When you quit going to work you lose your job.” He got fired. He lost his job, quit paying his rent, he gets kicked out of his apartment. He said “So got all my possessions in 4 or 5 suitcases and a couple of backpacks. And the only thing that I owned from my mom was my Bible from when I was a kid. And on the inside page, my mother had written me a love letter when I was a kid.”
“But we’re drinking, we’re smoking, and I don’t have a place to live. So, we go over to the west side of town and we’re in these cheap hotels and the party is rolling day and night. We’re smoking crack and having a great time. But as we’re bouncing from hotel to hotel, I keep losing my stuff, and at one point I realize I’ve lost that backpack that had that Bible – the only thing I had from my mom. But the party keeps going, we’re smoking crack. Several months down the road of course the money runs out. The day after the money ran out, the girls left. So now, I don’t have a job, I don’t have an apartment, I’m a crack addict and I’m on the street. I’m on the street bumming money so that high – for a year and a half. One day, this guy comes along and he said, ‘I’ve got a job for you.’ I guess I did a good job because a week or so later the same guy shows back up. He says, ‘You did a good job last time, so I need you and another guy to help me do something.’ There was another homeless guy reading a newspaper, and he thought “hey, if he can read, he’s smart” so he got the two of us and he took us in his car over a hundred miles away from Atlanta. The guy had bought an old apartment building and he kinda wanted to gut it out and renovate and rent the apartments. He says, “so we cleaned out the ground floor together” and he says, “the other guy’s up there on the 2nd floor and sweeping up putting it in trash bags and dropping them out the window.” He says “I’m getting the trash bags and walking them out to the corner to the dumpster. And this goes on for a couple of hours till he quits dropping bags and I figured he’s done. So, I go up there and he’s done a great job of cleaning up the 2nd floor. It looks good, except there’s a pile of stuff in the corner.” He’s like “Dude, you missed the stuff over there. And he said ‘No, no. That’s stuff I found and cleaned it up that might be worth something.’
So Wayne says he goes over and he starts looking through the stuff and there’s a book down there at the bottom of it, and he reaches down and he picks up the book and he opens it… and there’s the love letter from his mom. It’s his childhood Bible – a year and a half later and 100 miles away. He said “I fell down to my knees and just started sobbing. And I thought, if God is chasing me this hard, I’m gonna stop running. And that’s why you can’t throw it in the trash can.” Wayne has been off drugs for 3 years. Wayne now has a full-time job helping guys transition from the street back into life. And so, I mean, it is more than a book. There really is life in there for people. And even people like that who kind of given up hope.
I shared that video for two reasons: 1st it’s a powerful testimony and 2) the thing that truly shook the homeless man was the love letter his mother wrote for him.
In Psalm 19, David refers to two love letters that God had written that spoke to him of how much God cared for him. David started by saying: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” (Psalm 19:1-2) David looked up at the heavens and saw God’s love filling the night sky.
ILLUS: Abraham Lincoln said: “I never behold (the stars) that I do not feel I am looking in the face of God.” In our culture, we don’t generally spend a lot of time OUTside. We rarely get to experience the majesty of a sky filled with stars, but – when we do – sometimes it’s overwhelming. In Psalms 8 David wrote: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” Psalm 8:3-4
The heavens were so imposing that David wondered why God even gave him a 2nd thought. (pause) But God DID give David a 2nd thought, and David knew it. That’s why he tried so hard to be a man after God’s own heart. And as he’s gazing up at the stars he is realizing just how much God cared for him.
The Bible tells us that God created the stars and sun and moon – just for us! The star may be millions of miles away from us and yet they have always been important to mankind. Many of the ancient cultures (the Aztecs and the Egyptians among others) used the stars to chart the seasons and to determine the best times to plant and harvest their crops. And stars were also used sailors to find their way across uncharted oceans. Without the stars, early man wouldn’t have been wouldn’t have had as much food, or known how to travel the seas.
Then there’s our Solar System. Many of the “stars” in the sky are actually planets, but they reflect the sun’s light. We can see 5 of those planet with the naked eye, and the largest of all those planets in our Solar System is JUPITER. It’s size and position in the heavens serve to protect us from the ravages of space. Jupiter is 2 ½ times larger than all the rest of the planets in our solar system put together, and earth could not survive without Jupiter's presence in the heavens. Jupiter’s gravity field is so huge, it literally sucks in a huge percentage of asteroids and meteors out of the space around it. And those asteroids and meteors would otherwise collide with earth.
Then there’s our Sun - one of the most stable stars in the universe. Other stars in universe would be either too weak or too volatile to sustain life, but not our star. One scientist marveled “In many ways, the sun is just an ordinary star. But in other ways, it is clear that the sun was designed for life to be possible on Earth.”
One graphic (which I put on the overhead) summed it up this way: “The Sun provides energy and light. The plays a role in providing proper climates. Jupiter and Saturn protect us from meteors and asteroids. The solar system is not just a star system – it’s a family.”
My point is this: The heavens are like a huge love letter from God to us.
But David didn’t stop there. While the heavens declared God’s majesty and power and love for us, God’s written word revealed what God really thot about us. David wrote: “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.” Psalm 19:7-10
David was telling us how exciting God’s Word was to him. It revived him; It made him wise; It caused him to rejoice; It was more desirable than gold; And it was sweeter than honey from the honeycomb. Why would Scripture be so exciting to David? Because the Bible told David how much God loved him. That homeless man’s mother put a love letter in the cover of his bible, but the Bible WAS God’s love letter to you.
So what are some things the Bible tells us that SAYS God loves us?
Genesis 1:26-27 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God CREATED MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Psalm 139:13-16 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I AM FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
John 3:16 tells us that God so loved you that gave His only begotten Son. In Psalm 8:3-4 David wrote “When I look at your heavens, THE WORK OF YOUR FINGERS, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” Creating the heavens was just fingerplay for God, but in (speaking about the coming Messiah) Isaiah 52:10 declared: “The LORD WILL LAY BARE HIS HOLY ARM in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.” The creation of the universe was mere fingerplay for God, but when He planned to save us from our sins, He rolled up His sleeves and put all He had into bringing us forgiveness.
And Jeremiah 29:11 tells us “For I know THE PLANS I HAVE FOR YOU, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” In the New Testament God tells us that promise is for us as well as Israel “we are his workmanship, CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS FOR GOOD WORKS, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” God has a plan for your life.
So the Bible tells US that YOU are created in the image of God; YOU are fearfully and wonderfully made; YOU are so special that God has a plan for your life; and that God loved YOU so much that He sent Jesus to die on the cross just for you.
But now - there is a fly in the ointment. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden, someone else was slithering in the background. Satan talked to Eve, and his first question was “DID GOD REALLY SAY…?” And Satan convinced Eve that God really didn’t care for her, because if He did He’d have let her eat of the forbidden fruit. In Genesis 3:5 (Satan tells Eve) “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
God didn’t love her enough to let her be like Him, and so (Satan implied) that God didn’t really love her. God lied to her! But it wasn’t God that lied… it was Satan! He was telling Eve that she wasn’t worthy of being loved … just as she was he convinced her she hadn’t been fearfully & wonderfully made. He influenced her to believe that it wasn’t enough that she’d been made in image of God. And so she became dissatisfied with who she was.
Jesus talked about Satan in the Gospel of John 8:44 “there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” The Bible explains that Satan hates God, and so (since the devil couldn’t hurt God Himself) Satan intended to destroy us, cripple us, and damage us because God loved us. If Satan could hurt us, (those whom God really loves) he could hurt Him. All Satan had to do was hurt YOU and convince you that God didn’t care!
ILLUS: A counselor tell about the time he met with a young man who’d been admitted to a mental hospital. The boy was expected to be there for several weeks at a cost of several thousand dollars to the family. When he met with him he saw that the boy was withdrawn and depressed. In their conversation, the counselor asked this question: “If you had the power to change anything about yourself, would you do it?” The boy replied “You bet I would. I’d change my face.” The counselor was surprised “Your face. What’s wrong with your face?” “It’s ugly.” “Who told you… you were ugly?” The boy replied “When I was in the school hallway, a couple of younger boys came up to me and said “you’re ugly.”
All it took to destroy this young boy’s belief that God cared, was for Satan to work through two silly boys who were probably laughing as they damaged this young boy’s self-image.
And so the counselor began to explain the things we’ve already talked about - He was fearfully & wonderfully made (Ps. 139:14); He was made in the image of God; that Isaiah 45 tells us we have been FORMED by God for His purposes; but that God wasn’t finished with him yet.
Ephesians 2:10 says we are His workmanship. God is working on us and He’s not done yet. The counselor asked the boy to imagine a huge easel with a painting on a canvas displayed upon it. “Imagine yourself being that painting, and visualize God taking the time to shape and form you. Make up your mind not to get down off the easel before God is finished with His portrait of you.”
Then the counselor explained to the young man that he’d worked with a young girl who was struggling with how she looked… and once she accepted that God had formed her just the way HE wanted, she began to accept who she was and stopped fighting God. She became so at peace with this idea that she actually became more attractive to others around her.
But, outward beauty can be empty. There’s a lot of attractive men and women who are worthless. I once spoke to a girl I once dated, and she told me that she’d once been a cheerleader. I hadn’t known that, and I jokingly said “Really? I dated a cheerleader?” Instead of laughing, her face turned dark and she became angry. She rebelled against the idea that she was anything like the cheerleaders that she’d spent time with. On the outside they were beautiful girls… but on the inside they were not. It helps to understand that God is more interested in creating an inward beauty - the character of Jesus (Mt. 5:3-12). And if necessary, God will sacrifice outward beauty to develop inward character.
Then the counselor led the young man in a prayer that changed the boy’s life. He told him that he wanted the boy to pray 3 things that I want you to pray right now yourself. 1) “God I want to thank you for how I’ve been created”; 2. “I especially want to thank you for the things about myself I’ve not been thankful for”; and 3) “God put me back up on your easel and develop in me the inward qualities you desire.”
Within a week, the boy was changed and on his way home.
Now, the stars in the sky, and the words on a page of even a Bible can seem cold and impersonal – but when God gave His Son… that’s something else again. Sing this song with me:
“Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong. They are weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.
Jesus loves you. He loves you just the way you are. He loves you in spite of what you may have done in the past or how badly you may have messed up your life. HE… LOVES… YOU. And He has a plan for your life. And God proved that by stepping down out of heaven and becoming human so that we understand just how much HE really does love us.
INVITATION
