Sermon Central
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The Principle Of Measure
Contributed by Wayne Searls on Jun 1, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: To motivate the hearer to completely seek God in all aspects of his/her life (salvation, life style, tithes giving, relationships).
THE PRINCIPLE OF MEASURE
TEXT: Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”
PROPOSITION: To motivate the hearer to completely seek God in all aspects of his/her life (salvation, life style, tithes giving, relationships).
INTRODUCTION:
I. THE PRINCIPLE OF MEASURE IS TRUE WITH RESPECT TO FRIENDS AND RELATIONSHIPS
A man who has friends must himself be friendly, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
25. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her
28. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.
Application: Never is the “Golden Rule” more relevant than when it is applied to your relationships:
Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Application: What you give will me measured back to you. If you give love, you will receive love in return. If you give strife you will receive strife in return. Jesus said in effect: Whatever you give is what you’re going to get back. So if you want others to do good toward you, you must first do good toward them.
II. THE PRINCIPLE OF MEASURE IS TRUE WITH RESPECT TO LIVING AND LIFE
Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?
QUOTE: “A man all wrapped up on himself makes a pretty small package.”
Application: The only way to truly experience life is to get out there and live it. You cannot know the fullness of life without first emptying yourself so that God can fill you with His abundant life.
Romans 12:1,2 (NLT) 1And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your [lives] … to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.
Application: God’s promise is this:
John 7:37b,38
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
III. THE PRINCIPLE OF MEASURE IS TRUE WITH RESPECT TO EXPERIENCING GOD
Jeremiah 29:13,14a
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord,
Application: You are only going to experience God to the extent that you set your heart to know Him. Knowing about God isn’t enough. You can know all the facts without really ever knowing the one of whom the words are written.
John 5:39,40
You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.
Application: You will know God only to the measure that you set your heart to know Him.
Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.
17. that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18may be able to com-prehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—
19. to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
IV. THE PRINCIPLE OF MEASURE IS TRUE WITH RESPECT TO FINANCES AND RESOURCES
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this,” Says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it.
