Invest
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Is anyone in here afraid of living a life of little to no significance?
Investing our lives into things that matter is a struggle
I Struggle with distraction and time management
If I don’t get serious I will have a lot of regret on my deathbed
Ill look back on an existence that didn't matter
That moment would be filled with so much regret
Its dishonoring to God when we waste our lives
He made us in His image
Called me into His kingdom
Opened my eyes to the lost
If I choose to live an unintentional life and I squander the incredibly gift that God has given me
Investing ourselves is of upmost importance, so today were talking about what we need to live a well invested life
Susana Spurgeon
Lived with one of the most significant men in the 19th century
Her husband preached to tens of thousands, wrote countless books, sold thousands of sermons, and used to lead many to Christ
Susanna was the wife of Charles Spurgeon
It would be difficult to live in the shadow of a giant of the faith like that
What made things worse, she was an invalid
Massive buildings would fill up to hear her husband preach, and she was stuck at home in bed
We could all in part imagine how hard that would be, as a fear of insignificance crept us into being a reality
She noticed the books in His study, and how vigorously he studied them for his sermons
She thought about how sad it is that the poor ministers had nothing to assist in feeding their flocks
Charles challenged her to do something about it
The first year that Susana Spurgeon started her book fund, she gave away 3038
By the time of her death she gave away 199,315 books to help these ministers
Can you imagine the impact of these thousands of pastors being better equip to lead the body of Christ? She had a massive impact from her bed
For all of us, we must never become paralyzed by our circumstances but strive to live significant impacting lives by investing ourselves well in the kingdom of God
Were in a reading plan called relentless, and there is so much in this past weeks reading about what it means to invest yourself well in the Kingdom of God
In order to invest well we need love
In order to invest well we need love
I know what you’re thinking, yes Jon… We’re Christians… we obviously need love, but its not a given.
Love is extremely important
says
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
Open your bibles to
Jesus is teaching and there is a very interested scribe that wants to ask Jesus some questions because he sees that Jesus is a really smart guy
He wants to know… If he spends himself for the kingdom where is the place where he should put most of his effort so he asks what the greatest commandment is
Jesus tells him…
29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Mark
Love God
Jesus is quoting in His response
He says to love God with all your heart soul mind and strength
He’s saying to love God with your whole being
Not to be compartmentalized in your love of God
For men this can be difficult.... I don’t get it but I hear most guys are very compartmentalized
He’s saying that we should allow our love for God to be primary above all else
This is difficult, I know we say we love God with our whole selves, but how many of us if were honest actually do,
For many of us we don’t even know what we love
You can know what you love by observing where your mind goes when you have nothing to think about at all
Im strange, I get bored mentally very easily
So I find out everything there is about any given subject
I have to catch myself on setting my hearts affection on things that will rot away
Ive done this with computers recently and tery helped me realize it and repent
Every-time I didn't have something to think about I thought about computer parts… Nerdy, I know.
The limited tank of my hearts affection was being taken up by things that will be outdated in 3 months, how ridiculous
If I kept investing myself into that, It would be a tragedy
But Jesus tells us to set our hearts on the one who has always been and is infinitely more worthy of our love than anything else
But Jesus doesn't stop there
Love others
He tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves
There seems to be an intentional flow of this love, Our love of God trickles down to our love of neighbor
Now, you might be thinking “Well Jesus doesn't know my neighbor”
Yes sinners are difficult to love, your neighbor might play really loud music at night, or have super bright lights on that make you think the sun has come up at 2am (these are definitely not my problems)
Loving is hard, but when we love God with all of ourselves, we see how God has been so patient with us, we see His long suffering love, His steadfast grace on us trickles down and allows us to love like He loves
So if we’re going to invest well, we need to be all about loving God, and being a conduit of God’s love to our neighbors, but if were going to start that process, we need to become a GRACE SATURATED PEOPLE
GRACE SATURATED PEOPLE
GRACE SATURATED PEOPLE
I don’t know if you knew this or not… Jesus was absolutely saturated with grace, it oozed out of every word he spoke. Even the harsh things that Jesus spoke were gracious showing sinners their need for repentance
Why is it such a big deal that we would be grace saturated people
Here is an insight that will allow you to love your neighbor better
People who don’t know Jesus don’t obey him… mind blown
Its so interesting to me when Christians expect the dead to behave like the living
Jesus had grace and it saturated everything which is what gave him the ability to love the loveless
As you love your neighborhood, we need to learn from Christ what it means to love the sinner
Peter was a sinner and Jesus was so loving toward him
66 And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came, 67 and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus.” 68 But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what you mean.” And he went out into the gateway and the rooster crowed. 69 And the servant girl saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.” 70 But again he denied it. And after a little while the bystanders again said to Peter, “Certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.” 71 But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know this man of whom you speak.” 72 And immediately the rooster crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, “Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And he broke down and wept.
Jesus was betrayed by one of His closest friends but He still chose to love
Mark 14:66-7
Peter was with Jesus for 3 years and he betrayed the Son of God
Jesus however sees through Peters betrayal and insecurity and looks at him with eyes flooding with grace and Jesus redeems Peters foolish decision
To invest well we need to be willing to see the redemption of those who betray, and belittle us.
Later in the book of John, Peter is revived by the grace of Christ when Jesus asks him to feed God’s sheep, when we are filled with the love of God, and overflowing with His grace, we can see the same things happen to those around us.
Being a people who love God and want to invest in people is primary in the Christian life but… if we do nothing about it we don’t show our value with our action. The reality is this… We must act quickly… Heres why…
32 “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. 34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. 35 Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— 36 lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”
Mark 13:
Urgency Demands Action
Urgency Demands Action
A day is coming when Jesus returns and separates the faithful from the unfaithful
When you go out your door and you see people getting home from work, do you realize that they have an eternal destiny? Your neighbor has a destination that they will live in for eternity.... Our investment is so crucial
We must have an eternal perspective, because if we don’t act, who will?
More importantly, we GET to be a part of winning people to Christ, this is such a massive honor to be called by the master to make disciples
Like I said earlier, there is something that disillusions us to forget that eternity is in the balance
Distraction… It Lulls us to sleep
They take our minds off the urgent and move us to instant, easy, feel good numbness
Ask any alchoholic, while theyre drunk the numbness feels great, but when they wake up to the harsh reality of sobriety
Jesus says in Verse 33 to be on guard and stay awake
Forgetting that Christ is returning doesn’t impede his return
I get it… Urgency in action is weighty, but I desperately want to protect us from drowning in our numbness
Jesus telling His followers to go make disciples is the call that becons us into the great rescue plan for humanity, why wouldnt we want to be invested in that!!
You see… Christians are like rescue workers during the sinking of the titanic.
We must be on guard and awake, imagine how ludicrous it would be for a rescue person to be distracted during that wreck
It is impossible to see the reality of a lost world and say “Id rather love my TV than rescue my neighbor”
Invest yourself most in what matters most
So look around you, you see those empty seats each one of those is representative of a soul that needs Jesus
Address hangups:
Fear of rejection (we don’t want to seem like the weirdo)
Fear of rejection? Jesus accepts us, and Jesus is calling people to himself
Fear of not having enough to invest
Were only called to give what the Lord has equipped us with
Jesus is in control, He gives the words to say in the moment, and He transforms the hearts of unbelievers
-Fear of not being bold enough? Well His spirit brings a boldness that mere human strength could never come up with
Not having clarity on the goal or the process (Great book: The walk by Steven Smallman)
Purposful numbness: “If I don’t think about it, its not really there”
Here’s the twist ending everything that we try so hard to produce by being loving people, and having grace saturated hearts, everything that we try to accomplish when we let the urgency of the situation press us to action is all under the complete power of Christ.
We need to take rest in the fact that unless the Lord raises the house in vain its builders strive.
This does two things, first it keeps us dependent on him
The pressure is off! We can rest in the finished work of Christ even in our evangelism, when were trying our best to invest well, we can still lean whole heartedly on Him knowing that He does the work of salvation!
Fear of rejection? Jesus accepts us, and Jesus is calling people to himself
Fear of not having enough knowledge to invest? Jesus is in control, He gives the words to say in the moment, and He transforms the hearts of unbelievers
Fear of not being bold enough? Well His spirit brings a boldness that mere human strength could never come up with
When Jesus is the one doing the work in the heart of unbelievers it frees us to say Lord Here I am Use Me!
When its not about us and our own skill sets and winsomeness, we can actually point others to Christ without the crushing anxiety that we have to perform perfectly or else someone is going to hell for eternity
Second it gives all glory to Christ our king
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