1 July 13th, 2014 Gripped by the Greatness of God Living a Life of Worship - Part 2! ( Title Slide )! Worship is an Act of Our Lives... Towards Our Great Redeemer! - - - - - -
- - - - Today want to talk about... Forsaking All For Christ Sake!!!!!!! A Lifestyle of Forsaking All for Jesus Sake 2
SAKE:!! Someone s benefit, advantage, good, well-being, welfare, interest, profit.!! Think of SAKE as a Pantry! - We are living for someone s SAKE... Someone s Pantry - We are living for OUR SAKE...!!! But we are, first and foremost, to about filling Jesus pantry! - Story of rich young ruler... (The road is narrow & few is those who find it..)!!!!!!!!!! - God, I can t do that, I ll go hungry... [ Matthew 6.33 NLT ] Jesus says... I ask you to... Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and I (he) will give you everything you need. - I want you to focus on MY pantry... Jesus SAKE - God takes care of our needs when we take care of His Pantry!!! - Our Job and soul focus is HIS PANTRY! Living for Christ s benefit, advantage, good, well-being, welfare, interest, profit - Is Jesus being seen in this generation? - When you start living for Christ Sake your decision are different - How is Jesus seen? FORSAKE: Emptying OUR Pantry to Fill HIS Giving up all personal benefit for the benefit of another; surrendering earthly advantage for the advantage of another; letting go of that which is good, and prospers your wellbeing, welfare, and interest, in order that another would find gain; relinquishing profit that another might find riches. 3
! - This is Not the way we are taught to live in America today...! We are taught to capitalize... to gain compounding interest! - Declaration of Independence... RIGHT to Life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness. - God ask, Will you forsake them... to fill my pantry? Nine Degrees of Worshipful Exchange! forsaking all that Christ might be all in all There are 10 degrees of intensity (we will squirm )! - We re not use to God coming into our Pantry...!!!!! You see that thing there on the shelf? I need that.! - When God takes something from our Pantry there is an EXCHANGE that will take place. - He gives you something in return. - Won t look the same, but it is BETTER! - You don t get worse Forsaking things for Jesus... you get BETTER!! - We bring glory to God, We become HAPPIER Even giving up things we ve found happiness in - Testimonies of people who say they would not trade the hardships they have been through for anything. - Through out Bible people rejoice when they were persecuted - It s not worked up and it s not fake... IT S REAL. Because they have beheld a better sunrise 4
#1 5 Forsake Your Individuality, Embrace an Identity in Christ Where people are drawn to you because of Your relationship with God instead of just you being so... unique. [ Galatians 2.20 NIV ]! I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.! [ Matthew 16:24-25 NKJV ]! Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself,! Let him go into his pantry, take SELF and forsake it... Take his individuality and break it over the head of Jesus... and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.! - Want to find life?... Start dealing with Christ s Sake... #2 Forsake Your Earthly Course, Embrace His Control You have a plan for your life (it s good to plan)... Some are good plans - God says, You have plans? I have BIGGER Plans for you God what are you doing with me, Where are You taking me? - The things we have trusted in, we ve trusted in our plans & abilities We re taking these things we ve trusted and pour it out on Him - This is worship!!!
[ 1 Corinthians 6:19 NIV ]!...You are not your own! [ 1 Corinthians 6:19 NKJV ] Amazing symbol of Jesus Christ! So they answered Joshua, saying, All that you command us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.! - Is that the statement of your heart? - This statement is worship #3 Forsake Earthly Comforts, Embrace His Comfort - Sounds like a scary exchange doesn t it... need to know more about this first. - I have a right to Comfort - God says I know you want those comforts... but there is a greater comfort... and you can t find it in this world - God is not interested in making us more uncomfortable than is needed... He s just saying you may be needed to lose some comfort for His sake Paul describing his life: [ 2 Corinthians 11:26-27 NLT ]! I have traveled on many long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not. I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm.! - This is not the definition of American comfort... - Not something we would sign up for... - But this is the life that we are made available to. 6
- Our bodies have Cravings. - Comfort / Sexual / Appetites based / Sleep based... We want life our way - But God says I need that... Need you to make yourself willing and available to!!!!! the removal of earthly comfort -!!!!!! so that I can be your comforter! #4 Forsake Reputation, Embrace Identification with Him! - We all like to be liked and spoken well of - But if you are going to worship God with your life... Your reputation is going to change [ 1 Corinthians 4:9-11 NIV ]! For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. We are fools for Christ,!!! They were thought of as FOOLS, made fun of... Noah also! but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored!!!! - As they treat you with content, you WILL behold God in a greater way! [ Matthew 5:11 NKJV ] Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against! you falsely for My sake.!!! - If you are an idiot hurting people and then saying Jesus loves you...that s not for Christ Sake #5 Forsake Earthly Friendships,!!!! Embrace Intimacy with the Most High! 7
!! - No one wants to be lonely... Like John the Baptist!!!!! - BUT we are not left alone... we gain Intimacy with God - We point to Jesus... - World will hate and reject you like they did in all history - You will lose old friendships - EVEN FAMILY will alienate you to degrees [ Ruth 1.16 NIV ] But Ruth replied, Don t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.! - Ruth was told to stay with friends and family - But her loyalties were shifted #6 - It s a willingness to be forsaken by this world Forsake Earthly Family, Embrace His Adoption as sons and daughters [ Mark 10:28-30 NIV ] Then Peter spoke up, We have left everything to follow you! Truly I tell you, Jesus replied, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields along with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life.! [ Luke 14:26-27 NIV ] If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters yes, even their own life such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.! - God tells us to honor our parents... This isn t the opposite of that!!! - This is a Forsaking a dependency on them 8
- Are you willing to be called across the world and Never see your family again?... For the Sake of Jesus?! That s what it s talking about. - Families today who reject each other because they are Christians - Do you believe He is who He says He is?... Have you seen Him - This is your reasonable act of Worship [ Galatians 4:4-7 NIV ] But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but God s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.! - He doesn t leave us orphaned... - He adopts us / He meets the needs that are in us - He meets EVERY NEED WE HAVE!!! - Seek First His Kingdom... His Pantry #7 Forsake Freedom of Body, Embrace the Intercessor s Call When you are chain to a wall, you don t have freedom of body Are you willing to submit your body in such a way that it would be... leveraged by the kingdom of heaven for the release of captives? - Remember Jesus - He gave up His freedom of body - He became a captive - He was nailed to a tree... pinned down - He interceded for the captives - And He worked as our intercessor 9
- God doesn t want us in prison and chains... that s the enemy - God says... if you knew you could rescue those who are in prison - Strapped in irons to a concrete floor... - Would you be willing to do it to set others free? - That is an INTERCESSOR - When YOU are in chains, you are still free... they are not! - Jesus was built to be Victorious in that situation - SO WILL YOU BE!!!!! [ Acts 16:22-26 NIV ] The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.! This is happening to a Christian? What did they do wrong?... Wouldn t stop talking about Jesus About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God,!! How many of you are praising God in your current difficulties?! and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone s chains came loose. Our willingness in our bonds... sets the captives free! #8 Forsake Health of Body, Embrace the Power of Suffering - We believe God wants to heal. - Are you willing to let this body that God makes strong & allow Him to pour it out? 10
Paul suffered in his body greatly for God s Pantry 11 [ 2 Corinthians 11:23-30 NIV ] Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, - Your body is not your own... it has been bought with a price. - Christians in China has suffered torture for years #9 Forsake Life, Embrace the Martyr s Crown [ Acts 21:8-14 NIV ] Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven. He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, The Holy Spirit says, In this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles. When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, The Lord s will be done.! - Do you have such drive? - Everyone around you says don t go... they will bind you - Have you seen the sunrise? It s worthy to have all of me. - Don t try and talk me out of it.
[ Philippians 1:20-21 NIV ] I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.! - Your body has a purpose, and it s not for you... It belongs to Jesus - The dying of Jesus needs to be shown through your life - I know this doesn t sound attractive to the natural man CHARLES SPURGEON: There are no CROWN-WEARERS in Heaven who were not CROSS-BEARERS here below. Am I here today?... When I hear Paul, I wonder if my answer is the same - There is still a cowardess - There s a desire to lock the pantry before we get to #9 - I m willing Lord, but can you make me more willing?! Do everything without complaining or arguing Do all things without complaining and disputing (arguing) Philippians 2:14 12