Sunday 10/07/12 RWJ/Pottersville UMC
Sermon: “Do you serve Him when all is lost?”
(Growing in
faith series, Part 6 of 6)
Scripture Lesson: Job 1:1; 2:1-10
Gospel Lesson:
Mark
10:2-16
Good morning
brothers and sisters! I greet you in the name our risen Lord and savior Jesus
Christ! I hope and pray that you have all had a blessed week and I am happy to
be worshipping with you here this morning!
This
morning I am concluding my six part “Growing in faith series.” In concluding
this series, I am going to quickly touch upon what I have talked about thus
far. In my first week of this series, I talked about “Walking our Faith vs.
Talking our Faith,” and how if we had big and strong Christian Churches, that
we could do incredible things for this community and the world with all our
pooled gifts, time, and resources. The second week of this series, I gave a
message called “Faith without works is dead,” and in this message I talked
about the need to live our faith through doing kind and generous things for
others. After all, what good is our faith if we don’t share it? In the third
week of this series, I gave a message called “Would you deny Him?” In this
message I talked about how we need to treat all people as if there were Jesus
Himself. We need to try to love and care for all people, and when we fail to do
so, we deny Him. In week four of this series, I preached a message called “Who
is the greatest amongst us?” While we all are at different points on our faith
walks, God equally loves us all, and we all need His saving grace. In this way
we are all the greatest before God. Last week I gave a message called “What are
our stumbling blocks.” In this message, I talked about how we are all
struggling with different sins and different struggles. I then talked about how
we must identify our struggles and our stumbling blocks, and help one another
to not stumble.
This
week, I am going to be concluding this series of growing in faith, by asking
you, “Do you serve Him when all is lost?” By this, I mean to you trust God and
serve the Lord when it seems you have hit rock bottom? For many of us, we
arrived at this point in our lives at different time for many different
reasons. Maybe we lost a good job for no reason. Maybe we experienced the death
of loved one. Maybe we went through a painful divorce. Maybe our plan for our
lives has not turned out to be our reality. It is easy for us to get bitter, to
blame God, and to turn from God. We also can turn from God when we have
unrealistic temptations. I would argue here this morning that the devil is always
tempting us. Maybe he is tempting us with money, relationships, power, houses,
cars, and etc. I want you to listen to this thing I am about to say very
closely though. This thing is the devil cannot tempt with you with something
that you do not want. Did you here that? The devil cannot tempt you with
something that you do not want. Sometimes, in my flesh I get stressed over
money, I get stressed over material things. In reality though I don’t want the money
or the material things really, I just want to know that God will take care of
me. You see God will provide for us, but the devil whispers to us, “Do you have
enough money?” The devil then says, “Do you own a big enough house?” The devil
then says, “You have not amounted to much in life?” Or maybe the devil says,
“Since you are divorced, can anyone really ever love you again?”
I
think that these deceptions and temptations from the devil are the cause of
much of our sorrow. I mean if the devil tells me that I need to buy a big house
and I do not want a big house, then how can the devil tempt me with a big
house. This is because the devil cannot tempt with something you do not want.
In my Christian walk, I am learning to want nothing but the Lord. This as we
all know is very hard. If we truly wanted nothing but the Lord though, this
really narrows the margin on what Satan can tempt us with doesn’t it?
When
we experience extreme loss, we sometimes ask God, why did this happen? It is so
easy to start to blame God, to blame others, and to feel empty angry inside. Sometimes
we go through spiritual droughts; sometimes we are on the mountain top. The
question I try to ask myself in everything that I do though is “where is Jesus
Christ in all of this?” “Do we serve Him when all is lost?” Do we realize how
much God loves us when we feel empty? Do we realize how much the family of God
loves us when we feel empty? Would we serve God with nothing but ourselves?
You see when we are empty this is the
best time for the devil to tear us down. This is when the devil will tell us
that we are worthless. The devil wants us think that we are unlovable, that we
are rotten to the core, but Jesus Christ always love us. In fact, God loves you
so much, and there isn’t a thing that you can do about it. Even when we feel
like He isn’t there, He loves us. When we feel empty and broken, we don’t need
to stop at just prayer to be healed, but we also have each other. Believe me
when I say that the devil doesn’t like the fact that we are in worship right
now. God loves us, and the devil cannot tempt us with something we do want.
In the scripture reading from Job today, Job
lost everything and at time was angry at God. In this scripture Job did not sin
with his lips, but he at times in the book of Job had anger, frustration, and
doubt. In this way God was testing him. In our lives we will have times that we
feel empty, broken, and weak, and God is there. We have each other to lift us
up, as we are broken. God’s love then shines not only from Him to us directly,
but He shines that loves to us through others.
In the Gospel of Mark reading this
morning, Jesus talked about the way we should aspire to live, and talked about
having hardness of the heart. You see, when are broken, we need to believe that
Jesus is there for us, but He won’t necessarily fix us immediately or make
everything better right away. Sometimes in the great mystery that is our faith
Jesus wants us to struggle and to tarry so that we may know Him better. Sometimes
bad things happen and the mysteries of God are beyond us, but He still loves us
and has a plan for us.
I think of the story I heard on the
news a few years ago of when a person went into an Amish school house and shot
and killed several Amish children. I remember that the families of these
murdered children forgave the killer and I think ever might have went to visit
and love the man in prison who did that. To me I wondered how could people
trust God this much in the face of such calamity and loss? I mean he murdered
their children? There served Him when all was lost? How can you and I serve Him
when all is lost? If everything is lost and we trust God, I mean truly trust
Him, will he be faithful? I think He will, because God is always faithful. He
might not be faithful in the way we think he will be, but he is always
faithful.
About a two years ago, a family that
my wife works with where a couple of hours away for Thanksgiving dinner, and
enjoyed Thanksgiving with their extended family. After a great and blessed
Thanksgiving dinner, the family drove home, and when they approach there house,
they realized that while they were at Thanksgiving dinner, that there house had
burnt to the ground. This occurred, due to some old wiring. Luckily, the fire
department was able to get all of animals out alive, but the family lost
virtually everything. They had no insurance to cover a fire. They lost
everything. Quickly clothing drives and fundraisers got together a great deal
of things for the family. Interestingly enough, when this mother came into my
wife’s office a couple of weeks later, she seemed calm and pleasant. You see
this woman is a devout Christian, and even through this she trusted God. The
family now has another house they live in and God has provided everything that
they need to be successful. Do we trust Him like this?
Do we really trust and serve God when
all is lost? Do we really trust that God will carry us through? Can stop losing
sleep over stress and worry at night? Maybe we should just give God our problems
and go to bed. After all, God is going to be up all night anyway.
I would like to close today’s message
with a story. This story is about a terrible storm. Here is the story: A
terrible storm came into a town and local officials sent out an emergency
warning that the riverbanks would soon overflow and flood the nearby homes.
They ordered everyone in the town to evacuate immediately. A faithful Christian
man heard the warning and decided to stay, saying to himself, “I will trust God
and if I am in danger, then God will send a divine miracle to save me.” The
neighbors came by his house and said to him, “We’re leaving and there is room
for you in our car, please come with us!” But the man declined. “I have faith
that God will save me.” As the man stood on his porch watching the water rise
up the steps, a man in a canoe paddled by and called to him, “Hurry and come
into my canoe, the waters are rising quickly!” But the man again said, “No
thanks, God will save me.” The floodwaters rose higher pouring water into his
living room and the man had to retreat to the second floor. A police motorboat
came by and saw him at the window. “We will come up and rescue you!” they
shouted. But the man refused, waving them off saying, “Use your time to save
someone else! I have faith that God will save me!” The flood waters rose higher
and higher and the man had to climb up to his rooftop. A helicopter spotted him
and dropped a rope ladder. A rescue officer came down the ladder and pleaded
with the man, "Grab my hand and I will pull you up!" But the man
STILL refused, folding his arms tightly to his body. “No thank you! God will
save me!” Shortly after, the house broke up and the floodwaters swept the man
away and he drowned. When in Heaven, the man stood before God and asked, “I put
all of my faith in You. Why didn’t you come and save me? And God said, “Son, I
sent you a warning. I sent you a car. I sent you a canoe. I sent you a
motorboat. I sent you a helicopter. What more were you looking for?”
You see when we serve and trust God
when all is lost, we not only can trust in God, but we need to realize that
sometimes our hope is found in each other. I saw a shirt a couple of years ago
that said, “Sometimes God performs miracles, but the rest of the time He sends
me.” When all is lost God has promised that He will be faithful either directly
or through His people. Let us this week look to God and each other when we feel
lost. Amen.
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