What are you? Truthful? A Keeper? Or are You Part of the Problem?
Church is...
being thankful to our Father God for each day, thankful that the Holy Spirit leads and guides us
asking that the Word of God would speak to us, influence our lives, change our lives, that we let it give us a vision to grasp the opportunity we have to build the Kingdom of God
it's not about church parties and Pumpkin Patches
it's about Jesus, about the Word of God, about finding that truth, following that truth, giving our life to the truth
about paying the price, about presenting our bodies as a holy living sacrifice.
Father God, give us somehow the courage to pay the price and do it! Give us, somehow, the courage not to be different but to be right, doing the right thing, saying the right thing, speaking the truth.
As the new sign says: Speaking the truth is love.
Psalm 145:20 "The Lord keeps all those who love him..."
That is where we have lost our power. Christians are not keepers anymore. Christians are takers, consumers. We don’t really keep things. We use them and throw them away - jobs, clothes, relationships. All my life, be it in the natural or the spiritual, with friends, I have always been a keeper. I have never, as far as I know, by the grace of God, deserted anybody. I have been deserted many times, but as Christians we have got to be a keeper. We need to keep our relationship with God, we need to keep our relationship with one another. It is not enough to sit and hear the Word of God. We need to do it. We need to hold on to that. We need to fight for that.
I bought this cool pair of sunglasses ten years ago. Raybans. $125. That’s a lot of money, but I knew I was a keeper and I take good care of them. I have never lost them. I like them and wear them nearly every day. I have a certain place for them when I take them off. They are always right there. I have a special case I put them in when I am traveling. When the little screw starts to work loose on the side, which it often does, I screw it back in again.
You can buy sunglasses for $10, less than $10, and if you are a sunglasses freak, you have probably spent more money than I have in the last ten years on them. You just get a pair, don’t take care of them, loose them, throw them away. If you are not a keeper, you are just going to go through a lot of cheap stuff and cheap relationships. You don’t take care of anything and no one trusts you.
Relationships should be based upon God, not like in the world. It is not based on friendship. If we are friends, that is an extra bonus. If you like me, good. If I like you, good, but it does not have to be. It is not based on liking, on doing something together. It's based on God, on the vision of God, what God has for us to do. What is God's plan? What is God saying? Being a keeper of that plan, being a keeper of that vision.
In the world it is all based on friendship: I like you, you like me, we have things in common, we don't have things in common. In the Kingdom of God it is not based on that. It is based on God, based on the Word of God.
But people don’t care. “You have a sign outside? Going to sell the church?” You just find another church. That sign should make people cry, motivate them to go on their knees, say, “Oh please don’t let the only, or one of the only, churches in the city that stands up, leave the city!”
"The Lord keeps all those who love him; but all the wicked..."
I like the second part as much as I like the first part of this verse. After 30 years in the ministry, I probably like the second part more than I like the first part of this verse. This is the confidence we have. If you are young you don't know what I am talking about, but if you are older, with some experience, you have experienced how wicked and mean people can be, how people can want you to fail, not to make it. And if you do make it, make it good, make it big, people in general are not happy. They are jealous, angry, mad. We have experienced sometimes how wicked people can be. People that talk to reporters, people that say things that they know are not really true - or there is some truth, but truth has a time the thing was said, or the thing was done.
Are you a part of the problem or a part of the solution? In society, in the church? Unemployment, crime, lying, cheating, in society? In the church, unfaithful, unreliable, don’t work, don’t give any money, don’t serve, you take, consume…. What are you?
The Bible says, "...but all the wicked, he..." ...God! We don't have to do it. We don't have to respond with anger. The Bible says, "...all the wicked he will destroy."
God will do it if we will do our part. Our part is to be a keeper, keep the vision, the relationship, the position, what God has done, where God has put us, who God has put us with. If we will do that, God will destroy the wicked.
