Give me your eyes

Text: Luke 15:11-32

Imagine you go out on a Saturday afternoon and buy the most awesome car you’ve ever laid eyes on. This is the car of your dreams- the one you have been saving for your entire life. After driving it off the lot, you see one, then another, and another … soon you realize that every single car on the road is exactly like yours. They’re free to everyone who walks through the door.

Suddenly the excitement is gone. Why? Even if we don’t realize it, it is in our very nature to want to be recognized for who we are and loved for what we have accomplished.

To the wretched man who can’t afford a car? To him this gift is everything.

We work hard, we achieve. We’re friendly, we have friends. We’re loving; we are loved back.

Logic tells us that love is earned, God tells us it is a free gift. (Learning to Love 4 Week Bible Study, Darlene Schacht, The Time-Warp Wife)

Valentine’s day celebrates a type of love called eros – it is a romantic love. God’s love is an agape love – unearned, unmerited, unconditional. We all know about God’s gift of unconditional love for us. John 3 :16 For God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  Now I could preach today on how much God loves us. But lets be honest, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I am not really into the feel good messages. I want you to leave here today and every other day I preach challenged.

So my question today is what do we as Christians do with God’s agape love in a world that is self consumed?

Let’s look at the Parable of the Prodigal Son

11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Luke 15:11-32 NIV

As we read this parable, it is easy to understand why the older brother is upset. He has stuck by his father through everything and his brother has gone off and deserted the family. Now he comes back and they are having a party. I can hear it now… uh hello, what am I chopped liver? I stay here and stick by you and I get nothing. He leaves you, squanders everything away and he gets a party?

But this is agape love. It  doesn’t make sense. It is foolishness to the self righteous. It goes against our desire to be recognized for what we have done. But to the sinner who understands the depth of his sin, it means everything.

Agape reflects the unconditional love of God and it is this unconditional love that we as Christians are supposed to be showing. But agape love does not make sense unless we remember that we are here to serve God. This means we love because He loves us!

So what does this agape love look like in today’s world? We show agape love to God through obedience and submission to Him. Part of this obedience and submission requires sacrifice. We must love the world He has put us in with a sacrificial, unconditional love.

Chris Tomlin has a song titled, Give me your eyes. The words go like this:

Step out on the busy street.

See a girl and our eyes meet.

Does her best to smile at me.

To hide what's underneath. 

There's a man just to her right

Black suit and a bright red tie.

Too ashamed to tell his wife he's out of work, he's buyin time.

( you see agape love takes the time to see more than what is on the surface. We walk around a world where people are putting on appearences. Agape love takes the time to build relationships and see what is inside being hidden away from the world and then seeks to meet those hidden needs)

All those people going somewhere, why have I never cared.

I've been there a million times

A couple million lives

Just moving past me by, I swear I never thought that I was wrong

But I wanna second glance so give me a second chance

To see the way you've seen the people all along

Give me your eyes for just one second

Give me your eyes so I can see,

Everything that I keep missing,

Give your love for humanity.

Give me your arms for the broken-hearted

The ones that are far beyond my reach.

Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten.

Give me Your eyes so I can see.

Our world needs God’s Agape love and the only way they will get it is if we take the time to share it. We need to see the world through His eyes because only then can we truly love them with agape love.

God’s agape love is why He sent His only son into this world knowing the world would reject Him and put Him to death. Why did He do this?  There is only one reason for this act of sacrifice. And that is to bring His children back into a right relationship with Him. He poured His agape love out on us because He wants a relationship with us. It is this very reason that should be the motivating factor behind our display of agape love. We don’t love the world around us because they deserve it. We love them because God puts them in our path to love with His unconditional love.

So, here is my challenge. I believe that God has put people in our lives that He wants us to pour His agape love out on. People who need to experience this love first hand so they will understand what God wants to do in their lives. Our world is filled with “Christians” that have distorted the world’s view of who God is and what He is all about. My challenge is that we as a church come to Him first seeking forgiveness for those times when we did not show His love. Then we need to seek His path. We need to ask Him who it is that He wants us to be building relationships with and pouring His agape love out on. We need to commit to praying for these names He puts on our minds and seeking His council for how we need to go about building a relationship with them. Start off with one person, unless God gives you more than that. Purposely pray for that person. Purposely build a relationship with that person. And when that person asks you about the love you are pouring out on them, be confident in sharing with them the love God has for us that allows you to turn around and show the same kind of love. Be His love in their life until they can’t stand it anymore and want what you have. Then help them get it and disciple them as they begin their relationship with God.

God Size Dreams/advent

Today we continue to celebrate Advent. Advent means coming and is a time of year that we anticipate the coming of the baby Jesus – our Savior. At the time of the first Christmas season, the Jewish people had been in advent for hundreds of years. They had been anticipating the coming of their long promised Messiah. Many had given up hope. Have you ever been there? You have prayed in faith. You have lived in anticipation of His answer, but it doesn’t seem to be happening so over time you give up hope. 

Galations 4:4 says: But then the right time came. God sent His son. A woman gave birth to him. 

Jesus came at the right time. Not a minute before, not a minute after. It is the same way with our prayers. He will answer our prayers at the right time – not a minute before or after.

I've been thinking and praying a lot about our church and its future. As I do, I find myself dwelling on what seems to be a huge task. It is overwhelming.  As I continue to pray about it God has impressed upon me over and over that we simply need to have faith. Faith is the persuasion or convincing of the mind that something is true. It is my heart convincing my mind that the impossible is possible with God.

Matthew 9:29 says, "According to your faith, let it be done to you." This is the key for our church. He will grow our church according to our faith. It has nothing to do with how many we have here now. It has nothing to do with how much money we do or don't have. What it comes down to is how much do we want it; how much faith do we have that it will happen and are we willing to put action to our faith? Faith is like a muscle. What happens to a muscle that is never used?(it gets weak) So what do you do to strengthen a muscle? (you use it) So as individuals and as a church we need to be exercising our faith if we want to rebuild our church. God has His ways of strengthening our faith and that is what we are going to look at today.

First, God gives you a dream. Let's pull over and park here. Tell me about your dreams for our church. These are definitely God sized dreams. We can't achieve them on our own. They require that we have faith in Him to fulfill those dreams. As a church, the first thing we need to do is spend time in prayer asking God to reveal to us His dream for our church. We are here for a purpose. God will reveal that purpose to us if we care enough to seek Him. Ephesians 3:20 says: God is able to do far more than we could ever ask for or imagine. He does everything by His power that is working in us.

Next, we need to claim it. No matter how big the dream is He has for us; no matter how unobtainable it seems, if God gives us the dream, we will be able to see it fulfilled if we just have faith in Him! Mark 9:23 says, "Everything is possible for the person who has faith." Here is God's message for today, "Salisbury, First Church of the Nazarene, you get to choose how much I bless your church. If you believe, I will do it! If you believe, I will bless!" James 1:5-8 says: If any of you need wisdom, ask God for it. He will give it to you. God gives freely to everyone. He doesn't find fault. But when you ask, you must believe. You must not doubt. People who doubt are like waves of the sea. The wind blows and tosses them around. A man like that should't expect to receive anything from the Lord. He can't make up his mind. He can never decide what to do.

Perhaps the hardest part of dreaming big with God is the waiting! What happens when we have to wait for God's promises? Often we either give up or like Abraham and Sarah we take matters into our own hands. As we look around the world today, I think we can all agree that taking matters into our own hands can have serious long term affects. Habakkuk 2:3 says: (the message) This vision(dream) is a witness to what's coming. It aches for the coming - it can hardly wait! And it doesn't lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time.

We may run into difficult times as we go down this journey of building our church, but God's message is clear - Hang on! Don't give up! But we must also be prepared because if we dream big with God, if we claim His dream for us as a church, Satan will fight us. When we start dreaming big with God, we become a threat and Satan will fight. But if we hold onto our faith we will not just survive, we will thrive!

I would like to share the words to a song I learned one year in vacation Bible school. God brought this song into my life during a very trying time and it was what helped me get through. I believe its words, its message is exactly what we need right now for our church.

It seems like there's so much to hope for, so many dreams I wish they all could come true. When I think about your ways Lord, it gives me so much faith in all that You do.

Faith to see beyond what I can see. Faith to know that You will do great things. I will trust you Lord, I'll always believe. As I hold onto my faith, Jesus You are holding onto me.

You see, this is exactly what I propose we need - this kind of faith. The kind of faith that stays focused on the dream God gives us. The kind of faith that sees past our lack of workers, our lack of money our lack of whatever obstacles Satan will undoubtedly throw our way and simply know that God will do great things in our church if we just stay focused on Him. Will you trust Him today? Will you believe? Will you hold onto the faith and allow Him to hold onto you?

Here is my challenge to you - This week I want you to be in prayer for our church. I want you specifically to pray that God will give you His dream for our church. Come prepared next week. I am going to have a poster board to hang up for us to write the dreams God reveals to us. That way we have something to look at, to pray over, to help keep us focused.

Quiet Moments with God

Day 4: Proverbs 4:17, 23

They do evil just as easily as they eat food. They hurt others as easily as they drink wine.

Above everything else, guard your heart. It is where your life comes from.

So many verses in this chapter spoke to me, but these were the two that the Holy Spirit kept bringing me back to over and over.

As I read verse 17 over and over, I could not help but ask myself, "Linda, do you do good just as easily as you eat food? Do you love others as easily as you drink sweet tea (since I don't drink wine!)  This was very convicting. I want to say absolutely yes I do, but the reality is I often fail. Sometimes, more than I want to admit, I have to work really hard at doing good and loving others. My first instincts are not always those that would be pleasing to God. I have to work hard at not giving into first instincts. I don't want to give in and I don't want it to be so hard. I want to be so close to God that His ways are my first instincts.

Then it dawned on me (ha dawned on me, right, love how the Holy Spirit connects seemingly unconnected thoughts!) that if I want His ways to be my first instincts that verse 23 gives me the formula - guard my heart. It is where my life comes from. Guarding it means to protect it. Protect it from the things that will rip it away or slowly tear it away from God. Protect it from the evil of this world, from the darkness of this world. I need to protect it from things that are seemingly good but take my focus away from God and the things that He wants for me.

Quiet Moments With God

Day 3: Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend  on your own understanding. In all your ways remember Him. Then He will make your paths smooth and straight.

I like how it reads in the Message:

Trust God from the bottom of your heart. don't try to figure everything out on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; He's the one who will keep you on track.

It goes on to say: Don't assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil!

"Trust God from the bottom of your heart."  This is not just a trusting God when it makes sense. This is trusting God with every part of you. Knowing without hesitation that He will be there, He will protect you, strengthen you, take care of you. That He is all you need!

"Don't try to figure everything out on your own."  Even the easy stuff He wants us to bring to Him. We often mess things up because we try to figure things out on our own first and only turn to God when we have made such a mess of things we don't have any idea what to do to fix it. God wants to be the first one we turn to with the good, bad and the ugly!

"Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; He's the one who will keep you on track."  As written in the first translation, I always read this and said to myself, "I must be doing something wrong because my path is not smooth or straight." But really that is not what this verse is saying. Thus I like the way the Message says it, Listen for His voice and He will keep you on track! It won't always be easy, in fact the closer we get to His return we can count on it not being easy at all, but when we listen for His voice and follow its leading, we will stay on the track that leads us straight to Heaven!

So, I have the head knowledge. Now to apply it to my heart. To Run to God in everything first before I panic, before I have a melt down. This is my work in progress!

Quiet Moments With God

Day 2: Proverbs 2

Scripture: Proverbs 2: 1-6

My son, accept my words. Store up my commands inside you. Let your ears listen to wisdom. Apply your heart to understanding. Call out for the ability to be wise. Cry out for understanding. Look for it as you would search for silver. Search for it as you would search for hidden treasure. Then you will understand how to have respect for the Lord. You will find out how to know God. The Lord gives wisdom. Knowledge and understanding come from his mouth.

Observation/Application:  One of my favorite verses is Jeremiah 29: 13 When you look for Me with all your heart, you will find me.

Proverbs 2:1-6, I believe helps clarify exactly what Jeremiah 29:13 is talking about. The key here is looking for Him with your whole heart. It's not just a "I've lost me shoe" type searching. No, it is a "I've got a treasure map to the world's largest, most valuable treasure and the first person who finds it gets to keep it all to themselves with no taxes" type searching! These verses promise if I seek Him like that I will find out how to know God! More than anything in this world, that is my hearts desire - to know God. I feel like I have only barely scratched the surface of Him. I want to know Him more. I want to know Him so deeply that I don't think I just do what I know God would do.

Quiet Moments with God

Day 1: Proverbs 1

Scripture:

Proverbs 1: 32-33

Childish people go down the wrong path. They will die. Foolish people are satisfied with the way they live. The will be destroyed. But those who listen to me will live in safety. The will not worry. The won't  be afraid of getting hurt.

Observation: These verses offer a wonderful promise from God. As with all promises, there is a condition. It is the "if you... then I will..." pattern that is so often present in the Bible.

If you are childish you will go down the wrong path. Your soul will die apart from God and be in Hell for eternity.

But the good news is:
If you listen to God, you will live in safety. Why because your soul belongs to the creator of this world!

God takes care of His children. In this day and age, I can't think of a better reality to live in. As the world darkens around me, I don't have to be afraid. No matter what the world throws my way, I am in the safe hand of God.

As I sit here typing this, I am listening to the baby birds sing right outside my front door. They are sitting high in their nest that sits about two feet from my front door. They don't have jobs, cars, clothes, refridgerators, walmart for birds. None of these conveniences we have yet they sing. How much more should we His children made in His likeness do the same!

Application: As I read over and over these verses, I hear God saying to me, "Linda, are you listening to Me? Are you striving daily to live in the way I have instructed? Then why are you worried. You see, I know God will take care of me. My heart reminds me of this all the time, but sometimes, a lot lately my mind gets stuck on the stress of all that is going on around me. This was just another reminder to me to keep focused on Him not on the circumstances around me.

God Size Faith

I've been thinking and praying a lot about our church and its future. As I have been thinking about our future, I find myself dwelling on what seems to be a huge, impossible task. It is overwhelming. Anyone else feel overwhelmed at the thought of trying to grow our church? As I continue to pray about it God has impressed upon me over and over that it is a matter of faith. So my first question for you today is, what is faith? Faith is the persuasion of the mind that something is true.

Matthew 9:29 says, "According to your faith, let it be done to you." I think this is the key for our church. He will grow our church according to or faith. It has nothing to do with how many we have here now. It has nothing to do with how much money we do or don't have. What it comes down to is how much do we want it; how much faith do we have that it will happen? Faith is like a muscle. What happens to a muscle that is never used?(it gets weak) So what do you do to strengthen a muscle? (you use it) So as individuals and as a church we need to be exercising our faith if we want to rebuild our church. God has His ways of strengthening our faith and that is what we are going to look at today.

First, God gives you a dream. Let's pull over and park here. Tell me about your dreams for our church. These are definitely God sized dreams. We can't achieve them on our own. They require that we have faith in Him to fulfill those dreams. As a church, the first thing we need to do is spend time in prayer asking God to reveal to us His dream for our church. We are here for a purpose. God will reveal that purpose to us if we care enough to seek Him. Ephesians 3:20 says: God is able to do far more than we could ever ask for or imagine. He does everything by His power that is working in us.

Next, we need to claim it. No matter how big the dream is He has for us; no matter how unobtainable it seems, if God gives us the dream, we will be able to see it fulfilled if we just have faith in Him! Mark 9:23 says, "Everything is possible for the person who has faith." Here is God's message for today, "Monroe, First Church of the Nazarene, you get to choose how much I bless your church. If you believe, I will do it! If you believe, I will bless!" James 1:5-8 says: If any of you need wisdom, ask God for it. He will give it to you. God gives freely to everyone. He doesn't find fault. But when you ask, you must believe. You must not doubt. People who doubt are like waves of the sea. The wind blows and tosses them around. A man like that should't expect to receive anything from the Lord. He can't make up his mind. He can never decide what to do.

Perhaps the hardest part of dreaming big with God is the waiting! What happens when we have to wait for God's promises? Often we either give up or like Abraham and Sarah we take matters into our own hands. As we look around the world today, I think we can all agree that taking matters into our own hands can have serious long term affects. Habakkuk 2:3 says: (the message) This vision(dream) is a witness to what's coming. It aches for the coming - it can hardly wait! And it doesn't lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time.

We may run into difficult times as we go down this journey of building our church, but God's message is clear - Hang on! Don't give up! 1 Peter 1 6-7 : I know how great this makes you feel even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, its your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory. Rest assured, if we dream big with God, if we claim His dream for us as a church, Satan will fight us. As long as we continue the way we are, just existing, we are not a threat to Satan. When we start dreaming big with God, we become a threat and he will fight. But if we hold onto our faith we will not just survive, we will thrive!

I would like to share the words to a song I learned one year in vacation Bible school. God brought this song into my life during a very trying time and it was what helped me get through. I believe its words, its message is exactly what we need right now for our church.

It seems like there's so much to hope for, so many dreams I wish they all could come true. When I think about your ways Lord, it gives me so much faith in all that You do.

Faith to see beyond what I can see. Faith to know that You will do great things. I will trust you Lord, I'll always believe. As I hold onto my faith, Jesus You are holding onto me.

You see, this is exactly what I propose we need - this kind of faith. The kind of faith that stays focused on the dream God gives us. The kind of faith that sees past our lack of workers, our lack of money our lack of whatever obstacles Satan will undoubtedly throw our way and simply know that God will do great things in our church if we just stay focused on Him. Will you trust Him today? Will you believe? Will you hold onto the faith and allow Him to hold onto you?

Here is my challenge to you - This week I want you to be in prayer for our church. I want you specifically to pray that God will give you His dream for our church. Come prepared next week. I am going to have a poster board to hang up for us to write the dreams God reveals to us. That way we have something to look at, to pray over, to help keep us focused.