©2005 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

01-16-05

Good News And More

1/16/05 Good News And More

I’d like to welcome you this morning

to the celebration of the good news given to us by our God.

It is the good news that what your spirit hungers for

really does exist,

the good news that your past

will not define or determine your future,

the good news

that there is no pit so deep

but that God’s love is not deeper still.

It is the good news

that our God is not trying to force our eyes back to our failures

so that He can then beat us up with them,

He is trying to fix our eyes on our future with Him,

and on His ability to bring life out of death,

and hope out of despair,

and love out of hatred,

and freedom out of bondage,

and boldness and confident assurance out of fear.

I don’t know what you brought with you into this meeting this morning

that’s causing the anxiety that you feel right now,

but I do know it exists at least in part

because you are trying to carry something

that your God has not designed you to carry,

and the weight of it

is placing tremendous stress on your spirit.

What is it you think your God is requiring from you

before He will allow you to enter into His peace?

What do you think He expects you to fix

before He will then fix you?

What obstacle course have you set up for your soul,

what hoops must you jump through,

what walls must you scale all by yourself,

what hurtles must you successfully clear

before you can finally reach and then relax in the arms of your God?

Has it occurred to you

that your God may not be

where you think He is - at the end of that course, waiting for you?

Do you know where He is right now?

He is not at the end of that obstacle course,

holding His stopwatch in His hand,

looking at the seconds ticking off,

wondering why it’s taking you so long

to work your way through the maze to Him.

I’ll tell you where He is...

He’s standing right next to you,

looking with you at the obstacles you see ahead.

And what He wants you to know right now more than anything else

is that those are NOT obstacles you must overcome FOR Him,

in order to reach Him.

You don’t have to reach Him,

because He has already reached you.

JOH 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

You don’t have to fight your way through to your God

because He has already fought His way through to you,

and now all He asks of you

is that you reach out to Him,

and take His hand,

and allow Him to become your God in truth.

Some of that burden you’re packing around with you

He’ll remove from you forever.

The worst one,

the one made up of all that sin that weighs so heavily on you,

and all the shame that comes with it,

that one will be the first to go.

Your sins

will become His sins,

and then He’ll take them all

and write across them in His own blood,

“Debt paid in full forever.”

Do you remember David’s words in the 103^rd Psalm we were looking at last week?

PSA 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

How far north do you have to go

before you start going south?

The North Pole.

How far east do you have to go

before you start going west?

Can’t get there that way, huh.

That’s why our sins are not removed from us as far as the north is from the south,

but rather as far as the east is from the west.

I am not going to get side-tracked on the 103^rd Psalm two weeks in a row,

but since I brought us back to verse 12,

I can’t stop without pointing out verse 13 too, just because I love what it tells me about my God.

David goes on in verse 13 to say,

Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.

I know that some of you hear that verse and just don’t get it

because you had a “father” who was unworthy of the title,

a man who never felt your pain,

who never saw your need or reached out to meet it.

But when I read that verse

I know exactly what God is doing

in His efforts to communicate Himself to us.

He’s tapping into one of the deepest human emotions a man can ever feel

and then He’s telling us

that if we want to understand His heart toward us

we should recall those responses we felt toward our own children.

Some of the most intense emotional pain I have ever known

has come into my life at those times

when my daughter, Joni, was in pain

and I longed to find some way of easing that pain for her.

The most intense times of rage I have ever felt

were at those times

when my child had been treated unjustly by someone in authority over her

and I knew she needed her daddy as her advocate and protector.

When we father as God intended,

when we reach into the lives of our children

and allow them to wrap themselves around our hearts,

when we enter their world to the point

where we can see through their eyes,

and in the process feel that depth of compassion for them,

a compassion that motivates us to do anything within our power to ease their suffering,

it is at that point

that we then have some insight

into our God’s response to us.

Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.

Parents, let me state it as clearly as I know how.

Recall a time when you saw your son or your daughter hurt,

suffering,

in pain.

Now remember how that made you feel.

Remember those emotions it brought up within you.

Do you realize

that your God has had those same responses to you when you hurt,

and that if you are in pain right now,

that is what He is feeling about you right now?

He does know your pain,

and He does care more deeply than you could ever know.

Well, back on track...

Some of your burdens He will remove from you immediately,

and some of the others He will not remove,

but He will go through them with you,

giving you the strength you need as you lean on Him.

I love the way Peter said it.

1PE 5:6-10 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.

You see, it really is good news, folks,

the good news of God

that He loves us so much

that He has made a way for us to live in the presence of His love forever.

ROM 5:1-2 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand...

But that isn’t exactly where I wanted to take us this morning,

even though I have no regrets about going there for a few minutes.

What I really wanted to do this morning

was to clear up just a few left-overs from that study we were in at the end of last year

about some of the challenges we face

in our efforts to communicate this good news

to the unique culture in which we live.

We now live in a culture in which there is no longer any universally accepted standard of morality.

When we were going through this study a month ago

we saw that during this past generation

there has been a subtle yet radical shift

in our whole cultural concept of good.

Fifty years ago, during my now distant childhood,

a “good man” as defined by our culture

was a man who lived by the moral standards revealed in Scripture.

We didn’t call it “Scripture”, of course,

we called it our Judeao-Christian heritage.

But we all knew what that meant.

It meant the Bible.

That doesn’t mean this “good man” was necessarily a Christian,

but it does mean

that the cultural lines between good and evil,

between moral and immoral

were basically those lines drawn for us by God.

Sexual faithfulness and purity as defined in the Bible,

honesty in all aspects of life, both public and private,

an approach to language that reflected a high standard of appropriate and inappropriate speech,

a basic respect for and submission to the established authorities over us,

a genuine compassion for the needy and the hurting in this world -

these were the things that defined the good man by cultural standards.

I can remember a time

when a divorce in his past

would eliminate a man as a potential candidate for the presidency.

But during the last half of the twentieth century,

as our culture fought against

and then finally threw off our Judeao-Christian heritage,

a whole new cultural concept of “good” developed within our nation,

a concept in which we now believe that a truly “good” man or woman

is a person who boldly defends each individual’s right

to live by any moral standard or personal lifestyle they choose

so long as they do not infringe upon any other person’s right to do the same.

And as we moved through our study

we saw that we now live in a world

in which moral good is defined in terms of absolute tolerance

of every individual’s personal value system and life style,

a world in which even the suggestion of all people being held accountable

to one divinely revealed standard

is considered divisive

and destructive to the greater good of society as a whole.

We then saw the way in which

the void created within us through the loss of this absolute standard

has caused us to develop a layered approach to our lives,

an approach in which we think and live

in terms of numerous distinct layers of life,

each one isolated from the others,

each one lived on the basis of a different set of governing principles.

We have our public life,

and then we have our private life,

we have our family life,

and our school or career life,

and our entertainment life,

and our relationship to the government,

and our approach to insurance companies,

and the kind of ethics we bring to our dealings with the stores in which we shop,

and on and on.

I know, of course,

that as Christians it is easy for us to think that

because of our relationship with Christ

and His life within us

we are immune to this kind of layered approach to life.

But the truth is

that we are all products of the generation in which we are raised,

and as such

we all begin our thinking

with this same layered mentality.

And it is only through the careful working of the Spirit of God within us

that He then rebuilds for us

a truly solid footing for life.

For example,

a Christian father will say to his son either with his words or with his attitude,

“Son, God has established me as the authority over you during your childhood,

and you really do need to submit to me and my authority as your father.”

OK, there is a clear presentation of the concept of an absolute moral standard

given to us by our God,

a standard that we are all called to submit to.

Well done, dad!

Then dad takes his son fishing on the Kenai

and his son watches as dad takes out his special snagging gear

and begins yanking away at that river glutted with fish,

hooking them in the belly and the back and the tail

until he’s got his limit.

And his son says,

“But dad, I thought snagging was illegal.”

To which dad responds,

“Well, son, those snagging regulations are really stupid laws.

As long as we don’t take more than our limit, what difference does it make how we catch them?”

Now, we could debate whether or not it’s a stupid law all we want,

(and I have a pretty good idea how the debate would go,)

but the truth is that what dad has just communicated to his son

has nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of the fish and wildlife regulations.

What he’s really done

is to reinforce in his son

that same basic message

that forms the foundation for our entire culture -

there really are no universal moral standards that apply to every situation,

and in each area of life

we have the freedom and the right

to decide for ourselves

what rules we will choose to govern our conduct.

And my point here is simply that

this cultural layered non-absolute approach to life

is now so deeply ingrained into our entire culture

that, apart from the intervention of the Spirit of God into our lives,

it is where we all begin our thinking processes.

And then we went on to see

that the first great step our Lord seeks to lead each of us through

as He rebuilds our lives in Christ

is His drawing us into the discovery of

and then the personal commitment to

that universal protective moral framework revealed to us in His Word.

True freedom of spirit and soul

does not come from having the right to live any way we want.

It comes from having the knowledge about how life

and especially how human relationships are designed by God to operate,

and then having the ability

to choose to live our own lives on the basis of that revealed pattern.

And God’s first step in preparing each of His children

to relate effectively to this culture in which we live

is to create within us

an unshakeable trust in and commitment to a life lived within His revealed moral framework.

And our preparation for effective living in this culture

begins by our recognizing and then laying aside

our own personal layered approach to life.

JOH 8:32 “...and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

I find it fascinating to see the way in which our culture responds to this process within the people of God.

In the broad cultural arena

we are clearly viewed and portrayed

as a cancer within society,

an enemy to forward social progress.

It’s great to be “spiritual” in the politically correct, Oprah sort of way,

but nearly every time Christians are portrayed in literature or on TV or in the movies

they are presented as judgmental, narrow-minded, unthinking individuals

who have nothing positive whatsoever to offer.

And unfortunately

there are enough judgmental legalistic religious imitators of the truth around

draping themselves in Christian banners

to reinforce this perspective.

But what fascinates me

is that, even though this image of the Christian is deeply ingrained in our culture as a whole,

yet on the individual basis,

when it comes to our one-to-one relationships with one another within our society,

when a non-Christian’s life begins to fall apart,

do you know what they do?

They start looking around for someone in their world

who’s life seems to be working,

and most of the time that person is a Christian.

Some of you are here this morning for that very reason.

You may have come here expecting condemnation,

but your need for answers was more powerful than you fears.

And if we’re fulfilling our calling here as we should,

what you’re hearing is not one more religious system, but rather the Good News of God -

that is the hope

and the promise

of both new life in Christ,

and a new pattern for life through Him,

a pattern that will bring you solid footing as you’ve never known it before.

But before we leave this whole cultural thing,

I just want to state clearly one more time

that process by which God brings true righteous living into our lives

within a culture that is anything but righteous.

It is a truly remarkable process

through which God’s Spirit brings us into growing freedom in our lives.

I know we have touched on these principles many times in the past,

but I know, too, that it is essential that, as Christians, we become very familiar with this process in our lives.

It is a process that we will literally be involved in every single day we live,

a process that, once we understand it,

will become our strong anchor in life,

our security no matter what changes may take place in the culture around us,

and one of our most consistent evidences of the love of our God for us.

It’s not complicated,

it’s not high-tech.

It’s just so very different from anything we would have expected

on the basis of the flood of religious systems around us.

And let me give it to you in three statements.

First, when we come to our God through faith in Christ,

He creates within us a hunger and a thirst for righteousness.

It is one of the many things He does for us when He enters our lives.

Deep within our spirits

He creates a longing for a life of true moral integrity.

Only God can create that hunger within us,

and without it

there will be no true life transformation.

There are a lot of things I, as a Bible teacher, can accomplish in your lives.

But one of the things you will never hear me attempt to do

is to create within you a desire to be good.

Only God can do that within us,

and if He’s done it I don’t have to,

and if He has not

I never could.

So, first he creates within us a heart that longs for righteousness.

Then, second,

through His Word

He gives us the broad strokes of that protective moral framework He offers us.

He says things such as,

COL 3:5,8 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry... But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.

OK, there’s a “list” of things we should do and not do,

but look at what’s on that list -

immorality,

impurity,

passion,

evil desire,

greed...

What do those things mean?

What does immorality mean in the context of that dating relationship you’re involved in right now?

What does impurity mean?

What is the difference between greed

and wise stewardship?

And the answers to those questions

and others like them

come in step three.

For, after giving us a hunger for righteousness,

and painting the broad strokes of that protective moral framework,

our God then places His Spirit within us

and step-by-step and issue-by-issue

He personally interprets those broad principles for us one day at a time.

But what I want us to see here

is that this whole redemptive work God offers us through Christ

simply does not work apart from an attitude of active daily dependance upon the working of God’s Spirit in our lives.

And then, just one other thought.

When we were in this study a month ago

several of you asked me

how we can love the people around us

in a way that doesn’t allow them to believe that we condone their immoral behavior.

I’ve thought a lot about that since the question came up

and my answer to it is this.

If we allow our God to truly love another person through us

they probably will choose to misinterpret our love

as being the same thing as our approving of their behavior,

and it probably doesn’t make any difference.

When it comes to our individual relationships with the people around us

we are not here to fight against immorality,

we are here to love those around us in a way that will, hopefully,

allow us to eventually point them to our Savior.

Certainly, if God has placed us in positions of authority over others,

we use those positions to uphold Biblical morality where ever possible.

But when it comes to our individual relationships with others,

whether we communicate approval or disapproval of their conduct

will never change their behavior.

Only God can change their behavior,

and only our love for them

and our ability to communicate that love in a way they can hear it

will ever give us the opportunity we need

to point them to the only one who can break the power of the bondage in their lives.

And with that I believe I really will bring my cultural comments to a close.