Transcript
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Good to have you here. As we begin session five, as we continue as something we began last week, which is to begin to look at the realities of God that God presents to us as what he wants to all us with. As a means of all replacing fear in our lives. Last time we looked at the fact that, uh, we can be awed by the fact that God is stronger than anything.
That we might face today. We’re looking at the fact that God is sweeter than anything you might lose. We’ve seen that there are five, uh, life, insulin influencing fears that can address our lives. And one of those is the loss of, is the fear of loss or the fear of scarcity. Um, When you find out that your position has been terminated or your biggest client has changed your mind or your investment strategy is, is heading into disastrous waters.
All those things can awaken our fear of loss or of potential scarcity. When friends are turning away, a spouse has a wander. I adult kids reject you, uh, disastrous attempts, uh, have, have not worked out in the dating world for you all threatened us with alone and the sense of relational loss. And sometimes God asks things of us that seemed to be exacerbating.
Our fear of loss or scarcity God’s expenses to tie than our income. He expects us to have high moral principles in our business lives to stand up for him when keeping a low profile seems to a more advantageous. A career move to limit our dating circles to Christian believers. I mean, what is God thinking?
And all these asks he’s what assurance does he give? When he seems to ask things of us that just, uh, cause an increase in the risk of loss or the development of potential scarcity? What does God give us? He offers himself. We’re afraid we’ll lose the things that can take care of us. We’re afraid that we will lose the things that make us feel loved.
We’re afraid that we will lose that, which can make us satisfied. And God says, I offer you myself for, I am sweeter than anything you might lose. God wants to show us how he can be that in our lives, he wants to OSS. And when we think of all, we tend to think of being dazzled by God’s power and transcendence and his might.
But I would suggest to you today that God wants to argue with his love, his compassion, his relentless passion. To do life with you. There are three things I’d like to quickly look at this morning that, or this evening, depending on when you’re watching, uh, that talk about reasons to be awed by God’s sweetness.
In our lives. Number one, we’re awed by God’s grace Psalm one 30 verse three and four says it this way. If you all Lord, should Mark iniquities, Lord who could stand. But with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared. He says fear. We are, we are fearful. We are awed by the fact that you are forgiving.
It stuns us. You think about this? I mean, every sin you have, every committed or ever will commit is not only against your spouse, your children, your parents, uh, it is not only against, uh, your friends or your enemies. It is ultimately against God. Every time you turn to some illicit practice or self-serving addiction or self centered action, you were saying, I’ll do what I want.
I don’t ultimately care what God wants and desires or says is best for my life. But God says about you. I wanted that guy. I wanted that, that woman and I am coming after them with grace that so great is my desire to, to bring them into relationship with me though. They have, they have. Completely rejected my will and desires on their life have displaced me at the Lord of their life.
And in thrown themselves, I’m providing a way they can have forgiveness of all their sins and be brought into a relationship with me. I am a God of grace pursuing them. He wants to argue with that grace. My dad grew up in Rhode Island. My dad grew up in a textile workers home. My dad was the first person that ever went to college.
And in his whole family background, he had some affinity for it. He did well in engineering and found out he had a real affinity in management and business, and he ended up in his career being very successful. My dad didn’t come to. Jesus and embraced Jesus into his life until in the early years of his marriage.
And, but in all the success he had, and he was the, uh, project Manor juror of one of the largest defense contracts in, in, in the world actually, and presented to Navy admirals in Washington often did presentations before the secretary of the Navy, but there was one thing. That was a compelling reality in my dad’s life.
And that was the fact that God forgave him for a sense. If you took a trip up to a little town in Western Rhode Island called Greenville and come to the outside of the little town on a hillside, there there’s a big hillside cemetery. And way back in the back towards the woods, up on that hillside, there’s a tombstone and it’s marked with these words, Eugene El Willie, then in little letters, 1927 to 2000, and then in one big bold print inscribed into the stone is one word.
This is the word forgiven. My dad never got over the fact that God forgave him, my dad never stopped being odd by grace or awed by God’s love knowing how much God loves you is one of God’s greatest desires for your life. He wants to all you with it. That’s why Paul who caught the, the, the, the heartbeat of that from the Lord prayed for people.
He was praying for it. And then the Fisher effusion church, who he knew the best, he spent more time with our church in any other church. Yeah. Um, knew these people, well, what was his greatest passion for them? He wanted them to know how much God loved them. And so he prays and Ephesians three, he says, I’m praying that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints.
What is the breadth and length and height and depth. And to know this love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, God find joy in his children, putting their hope. In how much he loves them. Listen to this words in Psalm one 47, 11, where he associates, what a person who’s awed with God, how he looks at God.
Here’s what he says in Psalm one 47, verse 11, the Lord delights. In those who fear him in those who put their hope in him, unfailing love. He says, I want you to be awed with who I am, and then you’ll put your hope in the fact that my love won’t let you down. We can face terrible pain, great confusion, aloneness and loss.
If we count on this reality, God’s love will not fail. He is going to keep loving you. Being for you, caring for you and the more, you know, how much he loves you. You’ll the more you will know that there is nothing you could lose that is as precious and valuable to you as knowing his love doesn’t fail.
It’s why the Psalmist says this in Psalm 63, verse three. God, your love is better than life. Read a book called the dangerous act of worship by Mark, better born and the latter born. And the book is about, um, a series of stories, but one of the stories is a story of a fundraising dinner that he attended the West coast.
And. The, there was a, a woman there in her thirties that was speaking and it turned out, she told her story and it turns out that her background was an astonishing one horrific. She had been raised as a Christian in a Southeast Asian family. And in her early teams had been abducted and forced into slavery in a major metropolitan area of Asia.
And they’re all alone, separated from anything safe and, um, loving in her life in her world, surrounded by dangers and everything that, that unspeakable environment of that brothel must’ve meant to this young girl. She told many years later of how God made himself known to her, how he carried her, how he loved her and the, uh, organization, the international justice mission had actually gone in and rescued all the girls from the brothel.
And they had taken a picture of her room and the room was. Her bed. And then above the head, she had written on the wall. These words from Psalm 27, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear the Lord is the stronghold of my life of whom shall I be afraid? Of course, none of us understand how you can experience.
God’s love in a context like that. And maybe we’re tempted to say, well, she’s just buried it. And is it. This was many years later and she was testifying saying he was there. He was with me. He carried me. Now, I also know you may be out there saying, Hey, these kind of stores are you saying, this is the kind of thing that God has for me and for my future or the future of those.
I love, I think you’re missing the point though. I understand that response. The point is not what might God might allow to happen in your future? The point is what God will do no matter where you might be. You can trust this God. He is so good that even the most hellish of human situations, you will find his love will not fail you.
And God says, I delight in those that hope in my unfailing love. The third thing that God wants to all us with his care in Matthew chapter 10, Jesus has giving a teaching and he’s talking to people and he says, don’t, you know, don’t be afraid of those that can harm you. Here’s what he says in Matthew 10.
And he repeats a phrase twice. Verse 28 and following do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell are not two sparrows sold for a penny and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear. Not therefore you are of more value than many as two things he’s saying here. And he, and he does it. Both times by the same statement, do not fear. He, first of all says, don’t fear. Don’t fear others, because God is so much bigger. Fear him be awed by him. But then he says, this do not fear him because this God who is watching out for the sparrows is watching out for you.
And he gives this interesting statement. He says the Spiros, uh, sell for, uh, two sparrows for penny. I mean, they’re insignificant. They they’re, they’re not valuable, but God knows when they fall. God knows when the telephone wire, when it, when, when that Sparrow falls off the wire. But Lou actually tells us something more when he tells the account in Luke chapter 12.
And when Jesus retold this story, he actually embellished it a little bit. And this time he said, are you not more valuable than Spiros? And he says, which sell five sparrows for two pennies. Now, if you do the math. You know that two sparrows selling for one penny is not a good deal as five sparrows selling for two pennies.
In other words, with that rate of exchange, one of those sparrows was a throw in. It had no monetary value, ultimately used as an extra to get you to buy. Maybe you’re listening and you’re feeling like that’s me as fifth. Sparrow not influencing anybody. I feel rejected by the people I most wanted to love.
I feel I’m, I’m, there’s nothing in my life in life, just to me is scary and dark and foreboding. Jesus is saying to you do not fear. Your heavenly father who watches out not only for the sparrows, but also for the throw in Sparrow. He says you are infinitely more value than they do not fear. What is he saying?
God is caring for you. God is watching. God knows. He understands we can overcome our fear. Of scarcity of our own inadequacies of just feeling like the ultimate less than he says, don’t fear your value. To me, there’s an expression used in both the old and the new Testament that expresses this, where God, in speaking to those that have embraced him his salvation and have entered this family.
He uses this expression. God is for you. Romans eight verse 31 and 32. It says if God is for us, who can be against us? He, you didn’t spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things. He also says it in the old Testament in Psalm 56, verse 10. This I know that God is for me.
If God whose word I praise in the Lord, whose word I praise in? God I trust in. I shall not be afraid. What can men do to me? God is for us. God is for you people that watching these videos have lost things. You’ve lost people. You love, you’ve lost relationships. You’ve endured pain and rejection. Some of you have been misrepresented or misunderstood.
You’d failed at things you really wanted to succeed at. You’re living now in the exhaustion of sorrow and disappointment. And now you’re scared that you’re going to lose more. Will you not today, lean into this reality. God is for you. This God who graced you with forgiveness and made you his own child.
This God who loves you and delights. When you hope in his unfailing, love that his love won’t fail. This God is for you. The OD him, you can trust him. He is sweeter than anything you might.