Tests from the Rains--Believe in God

Christian Home Week, 2015

    There’s an interesting phrase in the Bible which says, “God sends the rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). That can be interpreted two ways, either He is good to both just and unjust people or He allow bad to happen to just and unjust people. Both are true.

     When we read about the storms that come to the two houses in this parable, we first hear about the rains. Rain can be both good and bad, but one thing is for sure: rain is necessary for life.

     Tests from heaven can also be good or bad, but when God is testing us, it is also for sure that it is necessary for our spiritual life. As Robin Williams’ character said in Jumanji in response to the truth, “A little rain never hurt anybody;” “Yeah,” he responded, “But a lot can kill you.”

     You may have experienced a test from God. If you are wise and have your house built on the Rock, it may not kill you, but even tests from the Lord may hurt you. God has a plan and purpose for every test that He places on you. The disciples went through a storm that rocked their world on the Sea of Galilee. As Jesus slept on the bow of the boat, the disciples came to Him and shouted above the wind and rain, “Master, don’t you even care that we are perishing,” (Mark 4:38).

     As this is Christian Home Week, tell your children about some of the storms God has brought you through. Tell them of mistakes (as long as they are not too embarrassing!), of victories, of lessons learned, of times when you thought perhaps God didn’t care if you were perishing. Show your kids the importance of prayer and time with God.

     If God our Heavenly Father tests us, then we as loving parents should put limitations and times of testing on our children, not so that they will fail, but so that they can learn the joys of victories.

     The tests from God are not so that we can fail, but so that we can learn and grow from them. Someone has said that Faith is not really faith until it is all you have. God wants you to be at a point where you are utterly dependent on Him.

     There was a man who was imprisoned in a dungeon during the reign of Napoleon. Alone and dejected, he carved the words in the wall, "Nobody Cares." But in a small little crack in the floor, there came a small little plant, which grew and leaned toward an equally small beam of sunlight from his prison window. The man gave a part of his daily water to the plant as it grew into a beautiful flower. In tears, he scratched out the word “nobody” and wrote “God.” The guards saw the writing and the words, “God cares” and it was eventually reported to Empress Josephine. She was so touched by the man’s plight and restoration of faith that she convinced Napoleon to set the man free.

     The rains you experience in life are not signs that nobody cares. God cares and how you respond in the storms and tests of life are going to reveal that God cares. A life based on hearing and heeding the words of Christ are going to be the foundation that keeps our house from falling in the rain and failing His testings.

Christian Home Week 2015 Tuesday

The key to the House built on the Sand

    Who would build their house on the sand? Look around the world. Apparently, there are a lot of people. Intelligence is not necessarily the same thing as wisdom. Jesus said the foolish man builds his house on the sand. The word for foolish is the same word we get for moron. Only a moron would build his house on shifting sand.

    Sand is beautiful, soft to the touch and feet. It certainly is much more pleasant than the hardness and immovability of a rock. I remember reading a book about a person who was contrasting a wall of brick and a trampoline and relating them to our faith. Amazingly, he was favoring a trampoline as an analogy to our faith than a wall of bricks. He might as well have used an illustration of sand and a rock. Trampolines are fine for fun, but for foundations for a house, give me a rock and brick walls, and not shifting sand and trampolines.

     What is your life built on? Some people live for the weekends. Others are longing for retirement. Younger people are longing for independence, a solid career, education, a life-long relationship, marriage, a family. All those are wonderful, necessary even, and certainly worthy of pursuing. But please note: None of those are permanent. All of those will shift. Only one thing is truly worthy of building your foundation on, and that rock is Jesus’s words and living our lives by them.

    How many college students have switched majors? How many marriages have started off so well and yet ended so terribly? How many parents have poured their lives into their children, only to see them go in a different direction than the one to which they have pointed them? Even churches have turned sour on their members. Pastors and church leaders have failed their congregations.

    Jesus is culminating his Sermon on the Mount with this introduction to his conclusion: Don’t place your faith in knowing about Jesus and His name. Don’t place your faith in doing works, even good works, even good works in the name of Jesus. Don’t get hung up in good works, good formulas, and yet being outside of being in the will of God. Jesus says to miss the reign of heaven by an inch is as good as missing it by a mile.

    Is the foundation of your faith based on a formula of works and wonders? King James renders those whom Jesus never knew in Matt. 7:23 as “those who work iniquity,” NKJV and NASB say, “practice lawlessness,” NIV translates them “evildoers,” HCSB calls them “lawbreakers.”

    Jesus doesn’t sound much like a trampoline, does He? He sounds, well, hard. He almost sounds contradictory because those evil doers who will be rejected by Christ did great and marvelous things in the name of Jesus. If it wasn’t clear enough in Matthew 7, Jesus underscores the coming judgment in Matthew 13:41, “The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness.”

    The key to the wise man’s house is found not in the works done in Jesus’ name. It’s not found in avoiding practicing lawlessness, since we all have broken the law. It’s not in calling out, “Lord, Lord.” The key to the foundation of the house built on the rock is found in doing the will of the Father; it’s found in the Lord’s prayer, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven;” it’s found in doing the Father’s will by becoming a part of God’s family (see Matt. 12:50). We are not become a part of God’s family by being born into the right family (“born, not of blood,” John 1:13a), not by working our way to heaven (“nor of the will of the flesh,” John 1:13b), not by any man-made institution or denomination (“nor of the will of man,” John 1:13c). We become born into God’s family by receiving Him and believing in Him (John 1:12).

    Titus 2:4 says that even if we are “evildoers,” Jesus redeems of “from every lawless deed.” Even though God hates lawlessness (Heb 1:9), He will forgive us and not remember our lawless deeds (See Heb. 8:12 and 10:17).

    Perhaps John the Apostle summed it up the best in 1 John 3:1-10 in saying that we all have practiced lawlessness, once we become a child of God, we have a new relationship with Him. We may not be what we are someday going to be, but praise the Lord, we aren’t what we used to be! Read this from the ESV:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

No Cookie Cutter Houses

Matthew 7:21-27

²¹ “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. ²² Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?^’23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

²⁴ “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: ²⁵ and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

²⁶ “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: ²⁷ and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

     Have you ever noticed that in the Bible there are no cookie cutter houses or homes? A cookie cutter house is something that military housing and Killeen should be very familiar with. Designers come up with a good design, supposedly, and then they replicate it over and over again.

     In the Bible, there is no typical family. In fact, it's pretty hard to come up with a Biblical example of any stereotypical family, especially one of a Father, Mother, Son and Daughter, so often thought of in the American Family. In fact, that scenario is now a minority in today's America. Some houses are Single Alone, Never Married, Widowed, Divorced. Others are Single Together, either Roommates, Not Married Yet, Not Ever Going to Be Married.

     Then there are Houses with Single Moms, Single Dads, Married With Kids, Married No Kids.

     Or there are Homes with Extended Family Members (cousins, grandparents, relatives), and Homes with family and friends.

     If you look at the families and houses in the Bible, you will find that many of them would be deemed "dysfunctional" by our definitions. I believe Lydia in the book of Acts was a single mom raising her children in Macedonia, yet she became the first European Convert in Acts 16:14-15. Paul (and Jesus for that matter) was Single, likely a Widower or some even think he was Divorced, perhaps his wife left him after his conversion, since members of the Pharisees were typically married and Paul had been a Pharisee. Peter was married. Timothy was raised with his mother and grandmother close by but his father was not mentioned.

    If you look in the Old Testament, the houses there were even more diverse (to say the least). Whatever our house and home look like, in all of our varieties and different stages of life, God wants us to have one Foundation, one Rock on which to build it upon. That Rock is Jesus, our Cornerstone. That foundation will be strong.

     How do we build upon that Rock? By hearing and doing the words and commandments He has said. In fact in John 14, Jesus says this:

²¹ He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.... ²³ If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. ²⁴He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.

     God relates to us as a family unit, whatever form it takes.

Christian Home Week Devotionals

All this week, FBC Killeen is encouraging our families to have Family Devotionals. We have cancelled all evening activities to help make our Christian Homes strong. You may want to find a book of family devotionals to read around your dinner table. Or get a personal device with connection to the internet and use these devotionals each day this week. Or save them for later and have weekly devotionals that center around God's Word. 

In previous years, we have had Daily Devotionals during Christian Home Week and if you have missed them you can link to them by clicking the links to the right. The purpose of Family Devotionals is to encourage parents to follow the Biblical command found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9:

4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

“The most important social influence in shaping young people’s religious lives is the religious life modeled and taught to them by their parents.” Christian Smith, Soul Searching, 2005.

According to a survey found in Building Faith at Home by Mark A. Holmen, church attending youth listed the following as their Top 5 Ranking Spiritual Influences in their lives:

        GIRLS                        BOYS

#1   74% Mom                  81% Mom

#2   50% Dad                     61% Dad

#3   44% Pastor                57% Pastor

#4   30% Church Youth   30% Church Youth

#5   29% Grandparent     30% Grandparents

In other words, Moms, Dads and Grandparents rank in THREE of the TOP FIVE spiritual influences in the lives of our kids. Parents have a platform. Parents have pulpit. Parents have not only a God-ordained position, but they also have a receptive audience. 

Don't think, "I take my kids to church. It is the Sunday School teachers' job / Children's Minister's job / Youth Minister's job to spiritually influence my kids." There is no Biblical mandate for Sunday School or Children's Ministry or Youth Ministry. There IS a Biblical mandate for parents to minister and influence their children.

Beautiful Beatitudes Saturday And Sunday

SATURDAY

From Purity to Peace; from seeing God to sons

What is a peacemaker? Is it only helping others to be reconciled with one another? If that is all, why would that alone result in us being called children of God? The word “peacemaker” is unique to this verse. A close comparison is found in Col. 1:20 as it is applied to Christ.

¹⁸ And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. ¹⁹ For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, ²⁰and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

Did you catch it? No, not the underlined words of making peace--the other part of the verses, with words like “firstborn” “reconcile” and “the Father.” Isn’t it amazing that the only two places in Scripture where peace-making is explained, it also relates to the family relationship?

Is there a connection? Jesus is not saying “Happy are those who help people get along with each other.” He is talking about making peace with our heavenly Father, and how that gets us to be called His children!

If you have all of the other beatitudes, that is great. But we must help others make peace with God! This is higher than only having our own purity of heart because it brings purity to others. It brings others to Christ, reconciling them and making “peace through the blood of the cross.”

Peace on earth is not lasting. Peace made with Christ is everlasting! “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,” (John 14:27). He is not saying “Blessed are people who make peace like the world makes peace.” Jesus said there would never be lasting worldly peace, instead in the world we would have trouble. “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world,” (John 16:33).

Questions: Combine John 14:27 with John 14:1. What should keep our hearts from being troubled, afraid and essentially give us peace? In John 16:33, What did Jesus say he did to bring peace to believers?

Things that make for your peace

There is nothing that breaks the heart of Jesus more than when people fail to make peace with His heavenly Father. There is Biblical proof that this is true in Luke 19:41-44.

⁴¹ Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, ⁴² saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. ⁴³For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, ⁴⁴ and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

Do you want to see an absence of worldly peace? Bring up the name of Jesus. Jesus spoke about worldly peace but not in a positive sense.

³⁴ “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. ³⁵ For I have come to 'set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law'; ³⁶ and 'a man's enemies will be those of his own household.' ³⁷ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. ³⁸ And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. ³⁹ He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. Matt. 10:34.39

Paul also made it abundantly clear that making peace means bringing people to salvation, reconciliation between God and man. And that results in us being called the children of God! Read Ephesians 2:

¹⁴ For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, ¹⁵ having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances,   so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,  ¹⁶  and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity… ¹⁸ For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹ Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God…

Are you called a child of God?

What does it take to be a child of God? Clearly, it is by grace received through faith, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” (John 1:12-13).

But what does it take to be called the children of God? To be called a child of God is when others see you as a “chip off the old block.” We are called children of God because we are doing what the Father is doing. It means we are acting like God and bringing peace between humanity and God. Read 1 John 1:1 “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.”

We are called children of God because we follow Him, in faith and then in obedience. We are never more like Christ than when we reconcile the world to make peace with God.

Sunday

Why persecution follows peacemaking

Why is a believer persecuted? It is for righteousness sake.

D. Martyn Lloyd Jones wrote “it is interesting…that this particular Beatitude follows immediately the reference to the peacemakers…He is persecuted because he is a certain type of person.”

Not exactly a compelling reason to strive for righteousness or peacemaking is it? But it is true throughout Scripture. Why did Cain kill Abel? Why did Saul pursue David? What put Daniel in the lions’ den or the three Hebrew boys in a fiery furnace? What did Job do to deserve what happened to him?

Many times in life and in the Bible, we see that doing the right thing often leads to unpopularity in the world. There is a reason for that. This is not our home, as we live in a fallen world and God has prepared us for the kingdom of heaven.

Same reward, different degree

  Secondly, look at the reward. We are back where we started. After climbing the steps of the Beatitudes, have we come to the bottom rung? Hardly! Look at Matt. 20:1-16. Laborers hired at the end of the day got exactly what those who worked for at the beginning of the day. They complained, but the owner said, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?”

   When we see all that we have suffered for righteousness’ sake compared to what we might have received without the salvation through Christ, no wonder we will cast our crowns at the feet of Jesus. The reward of the kingdom of heaven is no more deserved at the top of the staircase than it was at the bottom. A true servant of Christ will say as the servant He spoke of said in Luke 17:7-10, “We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.”

So is there a point in attempting to live the Beatitudes, if we are going to get the same reward as everyone else? By all means! Persecution has the same reward of the kingdom of heaven as being poor in spirit, but so much more.

Matthew 13:43 explains the story of the wheat and tares, “Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” God will remember our labor and our persecution and He will reward us. Matthew 5:12 explains further, “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

Verses about God rewarding us.

God will reward you openly for righteous works done secretly.

⁴ Give your gifts in secret, and your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you. ⁶ When you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father secretly. Then your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you. ¹⁸ No one will suspect you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in secret. And your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you. ²⁴ Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and the Master you are serving is Christ. ¹⁸ The nations were angry with you, but now the time of your wrath has come. It is time to judge the dead and reward your servants. You will reward your prophets and your holy people, all who fear your name, from the least to the greatest.

 (Matt. 6:4, 6, 18, Col. 3:24, Rev. 11:18, 22:12).

Rewards for small acts will never be lost. Salvation is free, but rewards are according to our works, especially loving our enemies.

⁴² And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded. ⁸ they will be rewarded individually, according to their own hard work. ³⁵ Love your enemies! Do good to them! Lend to them! And don't be concerned that they might not repay. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to the unthankful and to those who are wicked. (Matthew 10:42, 1 Corinthians 3:8, Luke 6:35)

Some outwardly righteous works won’t receive any heavenly rewards. (See Matthew 6:1-2, 2 John 1:8, 1 Corinthians 3:14)

Why are you being persecuted?

   Finally, let us note again what righteousness is and why that is the source of our persecution. It is not the act of being noble or good or even being what the world would call “right.” The Biblical definition of righteousness is “right standing with God,” and not with the world.

  This is not Murphy’s Law of “No good deed will go unpunished.” This is Kingdom’s Law that says that “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking (that is, living selfishly), but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” In Matthew 5:10, He says “for righteousness’ sake,” and then in the very next verse, He says, “for My sake,” making persecution for righteousness and for Christ as being equal.

Blessed are you who have spent time in this devotional this week
for Christian Home Week. May God richly bless you and
make you a blessing to others. Amen.