Hope For The Hopeless Romantic

Notes From My Purity Teaching Last Wednesday in the CYM Service 

God created Man and Woman for each other! We were created for relationship. It's how we've gone about trying to get that relationship that's wrong.

By looking in the story of Ruth, we can see characteristics of REAL people living pure lives!

1. Ruth put her need for God above her need for a husband.  Chapter 1 v 15-18
   1. Naturally it was wiser for Ruth to go home-
      Naomi couldn't provide a husband for her. But Ruth recognized that Naomi possessed something more important- a connection with God.
      
   2. Your relationship with God must come first. If your purity is only based on what you'll get out of it (a good spouse) you won't stay pure. Purity should be based on love for God and desire to have Him dwell with you!
      
2. Ruth wasn't lazy. Chapter 2 v 2-7
   
   1. Ruth provided for Naomi- she took initiative. Laziness is NOT an attribute of men and women of God!
      
3. Boaz noticed Ruth! Chapter 2 v 5
   
   1. Purity is attractive! Like spirits attract one another.
      
4. Ruth's reputation preceded her. Chapter 2 v 6, 11
   
   1. Your reputation precedes you! Guys- are you lazy, course, rude, a player/flirt? (the girls know) Girls- are you lazy, catty, a gossip, shallow, a flirt (The guys know)
      
   2. You can't just try to change who you've always been to try and get a mate. Who you've always been will be who you are unless you start changing now!
      
5. Boaz protected Ruth from afar. He cared for her safety. Chapter 2 v 8-9
   
   1. Boaz was a gentleman- not for what he would get out of it- but because that's who he was.
      
6. Ruth was open with Naomi about Boaz. Chapter 2 v 19-20
   
   1. No relationship is worth hiding. If you hide your relationship now- what will you hide later (an affair)?
      
7. Boaz's reputation precedes him! Chapter 2 v 22
   
   1. Boaz's fields are safe! He's honorable with what he has and provides a safe place for the poor to come.
      
   2. How men treat those who are 'less' than them is how they will treat their wives!
      
8. Ruth listens and submits to Naomi's advice. She honors Naomi's authority in her life! Chapter 3 v 1-5
   
9. Because Ruth was submissive to Naomi, she was submissive to Boaz. Chapter 3 v 7
   
   1. How a girl treats authority in her single life will be how she treats authority in her married life!
      
10. Boaz, even though he loved Ruth, was willing to give her up to do the right thing. Chapter 3 v 13
    
    1. No love is worth doing the wrong thing to get!
       
11. Boaz was a man of his word! Chapter 3 v 13
    
12. Boaz didn't procrastinate! Chapter 3 v 18
    
13. Ruth was blessed because she was a woman of great character! Chapter 4 v 11-12
    1. She was blesses to a wife likened to the Mother's of Israel
       
    2. Ruth and Boaz's offspring were blessed because of Ruth's character.
       
14. Naomi was blessed through the lives of Ruth and Boaz. Chapter 4 v 14-17
    1. You purity should bring honor to your parents!
       

Ruth is the story of redemption. Boaz redeemed Ruth. He saved her from a life of widowhood and namelessness. In the same way Christ redeemed us. Each of us was lost and without hope. Sin separated us from the relationship we were created for- our relationship with God. But through the death and resurrection of Jesus we are redeemed back into that relationship with God our Father!

The Power of One

In 7th and 8th grade I participated in the SMART program. Adults volunteer their time and read to Kindergartners and 1st graders. I would walk from my junior high to the elementary school during my lunch time once a week to read to a little girl named Angel. She was very small for a kindergartner and most of her teethe had brown spots on them. She was a very sweet little girl and I loved to read to her, but so many times she wouldn't be at school. For whatever reason she would miss school and eventually I started getting frustrated. Here I was sacrificing my lunch time walking all the way to the school and Angel was hardly ever there.

I thought about quitting and as I walked to the school I would think, "Ok, if she's not here today then I'm gonna quit." But I never did.

In High School our church started a bus ministry for kids on Sundays. I signed up to be a bus captain and I would go door to door inviting kids to come to our kid's church. One day, I knocked on a rundown apartment complex and a woman answered the door. I tell her about what we're doing and why I was there. Suddenly two small eyes peer around her mom's legs. It was Angel! She recognized me and I her. Her mom looked confused and I explained how we knew each other. Angel came to church that Sunday and every Sunday from then on. Eventually her brother started coming and, one Sunday, her mom. Their whole family was transformed over the next few years.

Was it worth it? Was it worth all of those missed lunch periods? I wanted to show God's love to this little girl through a secular program, but I had no idea that God wanted to transform her whole family's lives. Do not give up! Keep working on the one! Keep praying for the one! For one girl to get saved and have her life changed it was worth more that just some lunch periods- it was worth a lifetime of lunch periods.

The Life Well Used

At the end of 1 Samuel we see King Saul die in battle. He dies with his three sons, his armor bearer, and all of his men. "...on the same day all together." His body is found the next day by the Philistines who strip his armor and cut off his head. They then fastened his headless body to the wall of Bethshan. What a tragic end to a tragically lived life!

Saul's life was plagued by insecurity and fear. He never fully let God develop him into the leader that he needed to be to lead the people of Israel. Failure after failure follow Saul until he dies alone with everything that he's ever built. He doesn't even get to leave much of a family line to remember him by.

This morning, as I was reading the death of Saul, I thought about how different Saul's end was compared to Elijah. Elijah is a prophet to Israel well after Saul's reign is over. Elijah struggled with insecurity as well. He would prophesy to the king and then flee for his life, praying that God would kill him and end his suffering. But, in 1 Kings 19, when God speaks to Elijah and visits him, Elijah changes. He isn't insecure anymore. He allowed the words of God to sink deep into his heart and transform him from the inside out. He recognized that the call, or the things God wanted him to do, was so much greater than his own fears and struggles. He let the commands of his Lord overwhelm the doubts in his heart.

In 2 Kings 2 we see Elijah's end, or lack there of. He is taken up to Heaven in a whirlwind! And Elisha is right there to continue the work, the legacy. Saul died alone on a battle field. All of his sons that he had raised to take his place died with him. His legacy died with him. Elijah submitted his own insecurities to God and allowed God to make him into a mighty man. And when he was taken up to Heaven he left Elisha in his place so there wouldn't be a lack in the land. Saul's life was failure after failure, jealousy after jealousy. But Elijah was a life well used by God.

From A Retrospect

Hudson Taylor-
"It is always helpful to us to fix our attention on the God-ward aspect of Christian work; to realise that the work of God does not mean so much man's work for God, as God's own work through man."

Who's In Charge Of The Multitudes?

Acts 2 begins with disciples recieving the filling of the Holy Spirit and ends with 3,000 people getting saved- kind of a good day, right? I was thinking about this passage this weekend and something interesting stuck out to me.
1. The disciples are faithful to obey Jesus' command and wait for the Holy Spirit. They are all gathered together in one place waiting and then the Holy Spirit comes and they are all "filled with Holy Spirit and began speaking in other tongues." Somehow they are loud enough to begin to catch people's attention.
2. A crowd develops (let's talk more about this in a second)
3. Peter delivers the word of God. He preaches an amazing message "cutting them to their heart." The crowd hears the word and says, "what shall we do?" And Peter leads them to salvation (repenting, baptizing, and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit).

What I thought was interesting is- Who drew the crowd? Three thousand people gathered and heard Peter speak? Who got a hold of those people, mailed them invites, knocked on their doors, met them at Tinseltown? Who did it? I think that Acts 2 teaches us a principle that if we could grab a hold of it would revolutionize the way that we respond to the Great Commission. We must wait on God- cry out to Him, wait for the filling of the Holy Spirit and when the crowd comes we must be ready with the words to speak- but God brings the crowds. He draws the multitude. So many times we spend all of our efforts fretting over when the crowds will come. How will we get them? Will they come? What we need to grasp is that if we are in the will of God and crying out for him to bring us souls and divine appointments why wouldn't God want to answer that prayer? If we are willing to be broken for the lost-cry out for their souls like John Hyde, God is faithful to draw them to us.
Talk about a divine appointment!!! Three thousand souls in one day!

"Sin is punishment enough"

Thomas' hands were sweating in his pockets. He ran his finger over and over the little paperclip in his pocket. This was his first time. He'd never done anything this big before. Sure, he'd swiped some jeans, t-shirts, and once even some money when a worker had the register open and wasn't paying any attention. But a car? No, he'd never stolen anything like a car before.
This was it- he knew he had to act cool and move fast. He didn't want to draw any attention to himself. He pull out the paper clip, almost slipping, his palms were so drenched in sweat at this point. He wiped them on his pants' leg. Quickly he got the door open- No alarm. He sat down in the seat. He began to move his hands down beneath the stearing wheel. "There we go," he thought as we hot-wired the car.
The engine began to roar.
"Almost there." He put the car into drive. He pulled forward. He began to drive down the lane, but something caught his eye.
"Have they been there this whole time? Did they notice him? Did he look suspicious?" A police car was idling just around the block. He looked right into their eyes as he passed through the intersection.
"Please don't let them pull out, please don't let them pull out..."
The cop car pulled out behind him. Thomas began to panic, he hit the gas and began to flee. He turned down a side street, then another. He wasn't completely sure where he was since everything ws residential. He checked the mirror. No sign of the cops. He began to slow down a little. He checked his mirror again, but when he looked back at the road there was a black lab crossing. Instinctively he swerved. The road was narrow and barely missed a parked car. He over-corrected and swerved the other way. This time the car bounced up the sidewalk. He could hear the car crunching as it swiped a small tree. He was barely keeping it together. The car was bouncing so erratically he couldn't see in front of them, and then...
Thomas awoke to burning pain. Both legs felt like fire from the shins up. The car had crashed into a 3 ft cement wall separating two people's yards. He opened the door and began to try and move his body out of the, as he was struggling to move his legs he raised his head only to see the police car pull up.

Sin destroys people's lives- right? I mean that's obvious. Liars, perverts, rapists, murderers, and adulterers. They don't usually live happy, healthy, blessed lives. I've been hearing a lot lately that the consequences that sin natural brings are enough punishment. God doesn't even need to punish sin. I'm going to use this story about Thomas to prove if this is true. Now, Thomas has stolen a car and then crashed it. This is bad- he broke the law. But that's not the only thing he broke. In the crash Thomas also broke his legs. Isn't the consequence of crashing the car and breaking your legs enough? I mean, that's gotta hurt. He clearly learned his lesson. But justice hasn't been met. Thomas is in for a lot more consequences for his night of fun. He'll be arrested and tried and most likely convicted. He'll be fined, his license will be taken away, and he might even do some jail ttime. When we do something wrong, even if what we do hurts us, we still have suffer the punishment. There are real consequences when we break laws. Why would God be any different? When we break God's law, we have real consequences we have to suffer, over and above however our sinful behaviors harm us. Just because you contracted an STD after having an affair with someone, doesn't mean that because you're sick now your wife isn't going to leave you and your life isn't going to fall apart. And just because you have an STD, no wife, no family, and a crappy life life, it doesn't mean that you won't be removed from public positions once your affair becomes public. Just because bad things happen because of what we've done doesn't equal payment for sin. David experiences this after he has an affair with Bathsheba and then, because she's pregnant, has her husband killed. He had a lot consequences naturally just for having the affair. The kingdom would have looked at him differently, his army would begin to distrust him, his own family would begin to fall apart- that's punishment enough isn't it? God wouldn't need to punish David, because David's sin brought punishment enough naturally- NO! David's sin required that David suffer conseqences. Nathan delivers those consequences to David in
2 Sam 12:9-14:
"Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.' 11 Thus says the Lord, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12 For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.'" 13 David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die." ESV
Sin is not punishment enough- Thomas still has to face the legal punishments of his actions becuase he broke the law. How much more important is justice in the spiritual realm?

While in Canada...

I'm in Canada with Jake, and I read this, almost like for the first time, this morning.

John 2:24-25 ESV

"But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man."

Jesus KNOWS whats in man- what's in us. He didn't need anyone to bear witness about Himself because He knew what we were made of. He didn't need all of the pomp and parade that the people wanted to offer because he knew their hearts. He knew how easily they would turn on Him. Jesus came to establish His Heavenly kingdom-not earthly. The people, being shortsighted, wanted Him to establish His earthly kingdom. How many times do we expect God to do something in our lives (establish an earthly kingdom for us), and when we realize that the is not His intention we turn away? God knows our hearts, He knows our intentions. It didn't matter what the people said about Him, He already knew what they believed about them.

Thoughts From This Morning

Are we attempting to force God to dwell among us?
In the Old Testament, the Israelites built the tabernacle in the middle of their camp because God desired to 'dwell in the midst of them.' But the Israelites had to live specific ways and had to make atonement for sin so that God's presence could dwell amongst them.
Today, we live under a new covenant. But God still desires to dwell in the midst of us. And now we know that the temple is no longer a place outside of us that His presence dwells in, but it's in us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. This means that God desires that His presence can dwell inside of us.
Christians are praying for moves of God. They are crying out for revival. But we can pray and pray, but if we're not clean we won't get the answer we are praying for. How can we cry out for revival in our cities if we aren't living in a way that God can dwell with us?
We write worship music and sing beautiful songs, but without holiness what is it for? Yes, worship God. He alone is worthy of all praise and all glory. But what are we trying to do? We're trying to get God to dwell in the midst of us. God will not dwell where there is sin. He cannot dwell where there is sin. If we will not deal with sin, (attitudes, angers, bitterness, secret sins, rebellions, not praying enough, not reading our Bibles enough) than how can we expect God to move.
What are we praying for? We need to be clean, so that God can have His way. I'm not talking about being clean in your own strength- but it should take some of our strength. We need to begin to clean house. What have we allowed to dwell inside of us for too long? We cannot force God to move, we cannot force Him to do anything. But, we can get on board with His will. And I want to be the temple of the Holy Spirit that can house the presence of God inside of me. This means the greatest prayer of all- Less of me and more of Him.

"If you sin at all, let it be your daily grief. The man who does not aim at his, means to live in sin. Such a man need not expect God's blessing, for He is not sincere in desiring to keep all His commandments."
-Charles Finney

Whose Steps Are We Following?

Thoughts From Psalms 85:8-13:

I will hear what God the Lord will speak,
(We have to choose inside of our will to HEAR what God says- this insinuates action from our hearing)
for he will speak (promise to us- It's not a question of if but when God will speak) peace to his people, to his saints;
but let them not turn back to folly.
(Warning to each of us- Once we HEAR the voice of God we are accountable. We are warned not to turn back to 'lack of good sense')
9 Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him,
(Ps 86:11- Unite My heart to fear your name.")
that glory may dwell in our land.
(Where's our land?
-National Land- Our country- when we begin to live in the fear of the Lord we will begin to see God's glory begin to dwell in our land- just like God dwelt amongst the Israelites in the wilderness.)
-Corporate Land- Our Local Church- As we begin to unite ourselves with our brothers and sisters and follow hard after God- seeking His will and His way, we will see His Glory in our churches.
-Personal Land- Ourselves- When we personally seek after God and 'break up the fallow grounds' of our hearts, God's glory will be able to dwell within us!)

10 Mercy and truth have met together;

(The tension of compassion on people and speaking the hard truths into their lives)

Righteousness and peace have kissed.

(The tension between living a holy life in action against sin and having peace that we are a work in progress in the hands of God.)

11 Truth shall spring out of the earth,

(Out of our hearts out of Us!)

And righteousness shall look down from heaven.
12 Yes, the Lord will give what is good;

(God will give to us what is good)

And our land will yield its increase.

(All three areas of "our Land" will yield increase)

13 Righteousness will go before Him,
And shall make His footsteps our pathway.

(Holiness in action against sin will go before Him and will make His footsteps Our pathway. What a promise- As we are faithful to Listen to the Word and follow what it says, God will give to us what is good, we will experience increase, and, most exciting, his footsteps will become our pathway.)

What Wrecked Me This Morning...

Some Earth Shaking Thoughts From Charles Finney's Revival Lectures:

"Sleep! Should the firemen sleep and let the whole city burn down, what would be thought of such firemen? And yet their guilt would not compare with the guilt of Christians who sleep while sinners around them are sinking stupidly into the fires of hell."

"The fact is, Christians are more to blame for not being revived, than sinners are for not being converted."

"How often have we seen churches, and even whole denominations, cursed with a curse, because they would not wake up and seek the Lord, and pray: 'Wilt Thou not revive us again, that Thy people may rejoice in thee?' (Ps 85:6) ...A church declining in this way cannot continue to exist without a revival. If it revives new member, they will, for the most part, be made up of ungodly persons. Without revivals there will not ordinarily be be as many persons converted as will die off in a year."

"Sometimes Christians do not seem to mind anything about the wickedness around them. Or, if they do talk about it, it is in a cold, and callous, and unfeeling way, as if they despaired of a reformation: they are disposed to scold sinners- not to feel the compassion of the Son of God for them. But sometimes the conduct of the wicked drives Christians to prayer, breaks them down, and makes them sorrowful and tender-hearted, so that they can weep day and night, and instead of scolding the wicked they pray earnestly for them. Then you may expect a revival. Indeed, it is begun already."