Remember What You’ve Got Series

OPEN: The year was 1905. There was a baseball game between the Rhyolites and Beattys in Salt Lake City. The batter stepped up to the plate and hit a ground ball toward First Base - but it struck a small rock and shot off at an angle. Fortunately the 1st baseman (William Giffiths) easily fielded the ball and beat the runner to first. Not wanting the rock to effect the game again he went over and picked it up meaning to throw it off the field. But when he took he took a closer look at it… he put it in his pocket. Later that night he returned to the ball park with a lantern and spent an hour picking up most of the rocks on the field and putting them in a bucket. The next day, he took the bucket to the assay office and the man there told him that he’d found what he thought he had – GOLD! So he called 2 friends and they quietly bought the ball park… and became very wealthy men. The name of the mine they dug? First Base Mine. (The Saturday Evening Post July/Aug 2000 H. Allen Smith and Ira L. Smith)

Now, how did this man become rich? He found something others hadn’t noticed, and when he found it he knew what he had. And it made him very well-off!

(PAUSE)

In our text today, Paul tells us WE have found something others may not have noticed, and he says that it is important that we KNOW what we have found, because WHEN we know what we have… it can make us very well-off.

Paul told the Christians at Ephesus “REMEMBER that (before you’d become Christians, you had been) separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel & strangers to the covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Ephesians 2:12-13

Paul’s saying: REMEMBER WHAT YOU HAVE! And that is the purpose of Church/Sunday School and Bible Studies etc.- to help us REMEMBER what we have! Because if we forget, we may be tempted to drift back to the old way of life - the way things were or might have been if we hadn’t become Christians. So, this morning we’re going to REMEMBER what we have.

And the first thing (and most important thing) we need to remember … is that we have Jesus. “… now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:13). In other words - ALL that we have and all that we are is because of the blood of Jesus! That is so critical for us that Jesus asked us to remember that in our worship. What part of worship would that be? That’s right, the Lord’s Supper. It’s HERE – every week at the Communion table - that we take of the cup and bread the remind us of the body and blood Jesus gave so that we might be forgiven of our sins. Without that we have nothing.

(PAUSE) But, if we NEED to remember Jesus, is it possible that Christians ever forget Jesus? Well… yeah. And the reason Christians might forget Jesus is if they start loving something else more than they love Him.

ILLUS: I read the story of a man in Egypt who asked some visiting preachers to pray for his son. It seems his son had fallen in love with a Muslim woman… and was determined to marry her. However, in order to marry her, he’d have to abandon his faith in Christ and embrace Islam. What bothered the father was this: DID HIS SON LOVE THE GIRL MORE THAN HE LOVED JESUS? (Philip Young, Evangelist, Oblong, IL)

Jesus said: Whoever LOVES father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:37-38) If you love something else MORE THAN Jesus – you’ve got a problem! Because (if love something else) that “something else” will always compete with your love for Him!

WHY is that important. Well, because (as Jesus said): "If anyone loves me, he WILL KEEP MY WORD, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me DOES NOT KEEP MY WORDS...” John 14:23-24

There’s a lot of people who “go” to Church and follow the rules and go thru the motions… but they do it out of obligation, not because they love Jesus. And when that’s true (where they do what they do out of obligation) -when that “something else” comes along and grabs their attention - well it’s not a big deal to just shift over to that OTHER THING.