Deuteronomy 7:17 "Little By Little"

How often we tend to get ahead of God. It’s in our nature. We worry about things that aren’t even realities yet –and maybe never will be. We’re afraid of things that we don’t even have any control over. We get anxious about scenarios that exist only in our imaginations. You know what I mean –we worry that even though we got the bills paid this month, we might not be able to pay them next month. We worry that even though we feel fairly healthy today, we might have someday have cancer. We worry that the car might break down in the middle of the night on some dark deserted stretch of road. It’s our nature to be fearful and anxious. And then when we add to all of our unfounded worries and anxieties, the fears and anxieties that seem justified –we worry about our children and our relationships and our jobs; and then when we add to all those worries our regrets and our hurts and our failings, life can seem a little overwhelming.

I want to look for a few minutes at God’s plan for dealing with all that overwhelming stuff. He doesn’t intend for us to carry all that baggage, but He knows how hard it is for us to set that baggage down, so He has a plan for us. His plan is revealed in the Old Testament in the story of the Israelites wandering in the desert after leaving Egypt.

After the Israelites had left Egypt, God revealed His plan for the Hebrews to Moses, and Moses, in turn told the people. In Deuteronomy chapters 6 and 7, we find Moses telling the people how God has chosen Israel for a special purpose. He is telling them that if they obey God and keep His commandments, God will bless them and God will go before them as they go into the land of Canaan and take it for their own. The problem was that Israel was a puny little country. Well, they didn't actually even have a country; they only had a group of people. And the land that God had promised them was already inhabited. Much of it was inhabited by fierce warriors. Not only were these people fierce and barbaric, but they lived in walled cities that were nearly impenetrable.

Looking ahead, the Israelites were a little overwhelmed. But God told them to go into the land and engage these fierce warriors in battle and drive them out of the land. As you can imagine, the Israelites were a little worried about how this was going to be accomplished –they weren’t all that anxious to engage stronger enemies in walled cities.

But God had a plan for them –a plan for victory.  In Deuteronomy 7, beginning with verse 17, we read, "You may say to yourselves, 'These nations are stronger than us, how can we drive them out?' But stop worrying! Do not be afraid of them. Remember well what the Lord did to the Egyptians…. And He will again work miracles for you when you face these enemies…. So don't be frightened when you meet them in battle. The Lord your God is a great and awesome God. As you attack these nations, the Lord will force them out little by little." 

I want you to read that last sentence again because I think here we find God's basic formula for dealing with stress and worries and addictions and persistent, nagging sin, and all of the things that seem to assault us on our spiritual journey. Here we find God's plan for dealing with those things that seem overwhelming. The Lord will force them out little by little. That was God’s plan for the Israelites when they were overwhelmed, and I think it is God’s basic plan for us as well.

God's plan for dealing with the overwhelming is to deal with it little by little -with Him leading and us following.

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John 10:10, Luke 4:18-19 "Heart Matters"

The heart is central to everything. That’s because of why were created. We were created to love. I think that somewhere down inside we all understand this –love is the whole point. Without love, life is meaningless. We know that if we can truly love, and be loved, and not lose love –we know we would be happy. But you see, this kind of love –love that is true and pure is a heart thing. Loving requires a heart that is fully alive and free. And this is where we have problems.

We forget the importance of the heart. We forget that Jesus told us the greatest commandment is to love God with all of or hearts. We forget that we are to hide the Word of God in our hearts. We forget that God’s commandments and promises are to be written on our hearts. We forget that although man looks on outward appearances, God looks at our hearts. We forget that it is out of our hearts that authentic praise and worship flows. We forget that our hearts are the very wellspring of life. We forget how central the heart is, but, again, our enemy hasn’t forgotten.

Our enemy knows how important our hearts are –and that’s why he is so intent on destroying them –that’s why he is intent on breaking our hearts –on twisting our hearts –on deadening our hearts. If he can disable and deaden our hearts, he has effectively foiled God’s plan for us –God’s plan that our hearts be fully alive and free to love God with all of our hearts –to worship God with all of our hearts. If the enemy can break our hearts, he has broken us.

Over a period of time, we have all suffered blows. We’ve all had hardship and trials. And to some degree, we have all lost heart. And as a result, instead of the life that Jesus came to give us, we settle for efficiency, busyness and productivity. To some degree we have all suffered some heart damage, and we tend now to drift through life, going through the motions, but not truly understanding how very much God loves us, and incapable –because of our damaged hearts, to truly love God.
The thief, satan, our enemy, has done the job of stealing, killing and destroying when it comes to matters of the heart, hasn’t he. Boy, do we need some help.

That’s why Jesus packaged the two thoughts together in John 10:10. “The thief has come only to rob, kill, and destroy, but I have come so that you can have life, and have it abundantly.”
This is what the relationship with Jesus is all about –getting our hearts back. The thief robs and kills and destroys –but Jesus gives life. The enemy twists our hearts and deadens our hearts and breaks our hearts –but listen to this prophecy from Isaiah chapter 61 that Jesus said was about him:

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for prisoners,"
(Luke 4:18-19)


The enemy robs and kills and destroys, but Jesus gives life, binds up the broken hearted, and proclaims freedom and release to those in bondage. Jesus restores our hearts.

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"Not Tolerant, But Good" Exodus 35:6-7

The acceptance of toleration as the only valid religion has permeated our society so completely that we have developed an entire new style of language. It's no-fault language.

A factory in Vermont no longer fires people or even lays them off. Unneeded or unsatisfactory employees are given "Career change opportunities."

General Motors called a plant closing a "Volume-related production schedule adjustment."

Chrysler Motor Company called plant closings a "Career alternative enhancement program."

In many schools, children do not fail anymore, they "achieve a deficiency."

At some hospitals, patients never die. They simply experience, "negative patient-care outcome."

The idea behind this no-fault language is that since no opinion is actually wrong, we want to word things in such a way that nobody takes offense or ends up feeling badly about him or herself.

This has created a difficult environment for the church because despite what the culture teaches, tolerance is not very high on God's list of priorities. That sounds like an awful thing to say, but it is true.

Since the beginning of the last century, it has been considered enlightened to believe that there is no such thing as sin. After a hundred years of wrong thinking about the nature of sin and man, we have come to assume that when people do wrong, even when people do outright evil, that they have been victims of some circumstance outside of themselves. It is assumed that they have been the victims of poverty or too much sugar or bad education or even bad toilet training. It's assumed that people are basically good, so if they do wrong, it must be attributed to some outside factor.

With this social history, it really is not surprising that our non-Christian neighbors are stunned when we talk about sin. They are outraged when we say that abortion is wrong, that adultery and pornography and sexual relationships outside of marriage are immoral, that lying and cheating are unethical, that homosexuality violates God's law.

They immediately assume that if we believe in moral absolutes, if we believe in absolute truth, if we believe in sin, that we hate all the people we consider to be sinners. To the average person, the absence of tolerance simply means hatred. And since by definition to be a Christian means to accept God's law as absolute truth, we are intolerant and therefore we are hate-mongers. But nothing could be further from the truth.

The problem is that unspiritual people cannot understand the truth of God's Word, and so what we actually believe is misunderstood and misrepresented. We are pictured as cold, uncaring, bigoted, hatemongers, who restrict women's rights and bash gays and cram our version of morality down people's throats. We have even been compared to modern day Nazis.

But, I grew up in the church. The cultural stereotype of Christians does not match my experience. Most of the people I have associated with all of my life have been Christian people. And far and away, most of the Christian people I know are caring, compassionate, forgiving, loving, people. Certainly there are some that are not -but those "Christians" who are uncaring and unloving do not accurately reflect the character of God.

God is not especially tolerant, yet He is "compassionate and gracious..., slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin." (Exodus 35:6-7)

We, as followers of Jesus need to be the same as our Father...not especially tolerant...not calling evil good and good evil; yet, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, quick to love and forgive.

Unspiritual people will never understand us, but we need to represent Father accurately regardless of the world's understanding.

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"The Choice (part two)" Galatians 5:22-23, Galatians 6:7-8

If we want qualities like true joy and true love and true kindness and true goodness and true peace –if we want those kinds of qualities in our lives, then we’ve got to sow the right seed. We sow the right seed by choosing to walk in the Spirit instead of the flesh.

In Galatians chapter 6, Paul explained it like this: He said that whatever we sow, we will reap. To think otherwise is to mock God –but God can’t be mocked.

If we are sowing seeds that produce death and destruction, we shouldn’t be surprised when harvest time comes that we find ourselves reaping a harvest of death and destruction. But on the other hand, if we sow according to the Spirit, when harvest time comes we will reap spiritual fruit. The fruit of the Spirit that comes as a natural consequence of following the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). 

Understand that there are natural consequences for our choices. If we sow to the flesh, we will reap a natural (flesh) outcome –if we sow to the Spirit, there will be a spiritual outcome.

We now can choose to walk in the Spirit. We now can choose to sow good seed that produces the spiritual qualities we want and need in our lives.

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"The Choice (part one)" Galatians 5:16

We have a choice. I’m talking now to all of us who have already asked Jesus into our hearts and lives and have claimed Him as our Savior. We can follow God or follow our own path. But we can’t do both. We can do one or the other. And that’s good news.

There was a time when we had no choice –before we came to Jesus, we were slaves to sin –we didn’t have the choice to sin or not to sin, we only had the choice to sin –there was no other option. All have sinned and fallen short. We all were slaves to sin, doing whatever our own best thinking and the physical senses and our flesh demanded. 

But now, as Believers, Jesus has set us free from bondage to sin. We once had no choice –we were slaves to sin. Now, however, we have a choice. We can choose to sin –but we can also choose to not sin. We can now choose to obey God. That’s the part we could not do apart from Christ –but now we can.

Galatians 5:16 says,  ^"So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh."  We can choose to not sin because now, if we are in Christ, we have the Holy Spirit living in us. That’s what the Bible says.

Now the choice I have moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, in every situation is this: will I listen to the Spirit who is in me speaking to my heart, prompting me, leading, guiding me, helping me to know wrong from right? Or will I listen to the Flesh –my own best thinking, the world’s best thinking, the stuff I perceive with my senses instead of my spirit. Will I trust God, or trust myself? This is the choice.

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Luke 2:7, John 1:14 "No Room" (part two)

And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.  (Luke 2:7)

 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (John 1:14)

This was clearly the most significant event in all of world history –God had become man. God’s plan for redemption and salvation had been put into action. Angels were amazed, but the humans were oblivious.

Christ, the Messiah, had come to Bethlehem, but Bethlehem didn’t even know it. These people who thronged the streets and hawked their wares and filled the inns –these people who had longed for and prayed for God to send the Messiah –these people missed the birth of God. 

They didn’t miss the advent of the Messiah because they were terrible people. Not at all –they were mostly good, devout Jewish people. These other people living in the village of Bethlehem didn’t miss the most important event in all of human history because they were hopelessly evil or wicked or cruel. They missed the birth of Jesus simply because they were too busy to notice.

That brings me to today. I wonder –do I really have to make the application? We sure are busy people aren’t we? We have much to do –don’t we? Here it is already the Christmas season. On top of our jobs we have chores to do, errands to run, places to go and people to see. And somehow we still have to find the time to trim the tree and hang up some decorations, and do some Christmas shopping –and, of course, we have parties to go to, and get-togethers, and pageants, and caroling. And then guests are going to be arriving for the holidays –or else we’ve got to get packed to go home ourselves. We are always busy people, but at Christmastime we are even busier than usual.

And just mentioning these things has gotten some of your minds racing, thinking of all the things that still need to be done around your house. But I want to encourage you to take a moment right now in the middle of this busy season to stop and think of how much love God has shown us through this baby that was born.

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Luke 2:7 "No Room"

And she gave birth to her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in strips of cloth, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.  Luke 2:7

We like to picture the manger scene as a nice sterile place with clean, fresh hay, and clean stalls with pretty little sheep and maybe a friendly cow or two. And that’s alright for our nativity sets we put out to symbolize this scene and remind us of the circumstance of Jesus’ birth –I mean, who wants a dirty, smelly barn sitting out on the coffee table? 

But let’s be realistic. Jesus was born in a real barn with real sheep and real cows and real goats and maybe chickens. Real animals living in real barns don’t stay pretty and clean for very long. 

Jesus was born in the midst of musty hay and sweaty animals and manure and mice and cobwebs, and his mother wrapped him carefully in some rags and laid him carefully in the feeding trough so that the cows wouldn’t accidentally trample him while she rested. 

This is how God entered the world –the King of all Creation, Almighty God became a tiny baby, born to a teenage girl in a barn behind the local inn.

I want to invite you to pause for a moment -in a sense, to pause before the manger and look at that baby and think about God’s extraordinary love. 

God loved the world so much that He sent His only Son that whoever believes on Him will not perish, but have everlasting life. This is love –not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 

This is love –God sent His Son. 

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