All to Him I Owe

Because each marriage contains two selfish people who fundamentally desire their “own way” (Isaiah 53:6), conflict between a husband and wife is inevitable. When those conflicts surface, we often encounter one or both of the following temptations: to respond to the conflict in a fleshly manner or to reconsider our marriage vows.

Please know today that fleshly solutions never solve spiritual problems between two selfish people. Instead, commit to God and your spouse that you will strive to deal spiritually with every sinful issue that surfaces in your marriage. Romans 8:6-8 reminds us that living carnally, or fleshly, only brings more death and further separation from God. The last thing any of us needs while experiencing conflict with our spouse is to also experience a strained relationship with God. 

Some conflicts between spouses are not solved overnight. It takes time for spiritual problems to be solved with spiritual solutions. The seemingly long amount of time to solve problems causes a lot of couples to grow weary and entertain the possibility of throwing in the towel and quitting on the marriage.

But you and I should remain committed to our marriages for two reasons. First, because marriage is designed by God to be a picture of His relationship with His Church. We offend God when we attempt to destroy His picture. We should be loyal and committed to our spouse because of what marriage represents. 

Second, we should be committed to our marriages because we made a vow to our spouse before God that we would remain married to that person until death parts us.  Our culture would say that divorce is permissible because marriage is fundamentally about your preference; therefore, if your spouse is no longer your preference, then you have every right to end the relationship and look for another. But commitment to our marriage is not a matter of preference; it is a matter of integrity. 

Hallmark defines romance with syrupy phrases that make a person feel really good. I would like to suggest, though, that romance is best communicated with words that communicate security, not “fuzzy” feelings. One of the most romantic things we can do for our spouse is to communicate that we are going to solve problems in spiritual ways and that we are firmly committed to our marriage. 

Love your spouse! Stay faithful to God and each other. Satan is lodging a full-blown war on marriages, but victory is possible with Christ.

Are you a little frustrated with the pace and speed of your sanctification? Does it seem like God has stopped working in your life?

We all love it when life leaps into forward gear and we make all kinds of progress. Problems just seem to fall away. Perhaps in your life you’ve had a season like that, a season when your life seemed to shine and flourish. Maybe it was when you first became a believer or during some period when your were very well nurtured by good community and wise input.

Then there are those seasons where things go very slowly. You wonder, “Is this all there is? Why do I keep struggling with the same old things? I keep losing my temper, or feeling anxious, or being clumsy in relationships…” What vision does God give us for what our lives are supposed to look like, especially when we’re dealing with the long, hard struggle part of being a Christian? Let me say two things with the hopes of encouraging you today.

First, don’t estimate your sanctification by how you are feeling. Remember that Philippians 1:6 states, “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” God has promised to be at work in our lives regardless of how we feel, or what we sense is happening. Estimate your sanctification progress with the promise of scripture in mind.

Second, remember that there are particular kinds of growth and strength that may be happening in our lives that we don’t even see. A survey of the beatitudes shows us that much of God’s work is far beneath the surface of our lives before it manifests itself with external actions. God may be growing you today by simply putting affections to death, putting new affections in place, and growing a love for God that will one day show itself in neat external ways. A lot of God’s work in our lives is not categorized as splashy transformations. They’re just good, quiet, strong, steady fruits of the Lord working in our lives.

Affliction makes you cherish your relationships. You begin to value your relationships more. Your heart is encouraged that you have people you can lean on in times of trouble and people who genuinely love you and are delighted to support you. When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and let others in on what we are going through pain strengthens the bond between you and your closest friends and family.

Affliction gives you a compassionate heart. You become more empathetic, tender-hearted and loving. You grow “eyes” that are able to notice others who are hurting and you don’t want others to be alone. It gives you the heart to go toward those who are brokenhearted, to reach out, to be kind. You learn what kinds of things to say, and things not to say. You learn when to listen, when to offer a hug, when to be silent, and when to speak.

Affliction increases your wisdom. You to see life differently and you are given a new perspective of what is most important and what is trivial. You begin to value things that you once overlooked and eliminate things you once thought you could never let go of. You learn how to respond to circumstances with thoughtfulness and intention. You learn to be slower to speak and quicker to listen. Little things don’t bother you as much anymore.

Affliction makes you stronger. Like a growing muscle, you grow in your ability to endure. With each trial and each season of struggling you are better prepared to face difficult situations in the future. Trials are painful, just like exercise can be at times, but after the healing, there is a great strength, which gives you increased ability to withstand even more.

Affliction reorders your priorities. You begin to put things in life in right perspective and as you gain laser sharp focus for what matters most. You might begin to reconsider your career, your health, where you live, how you spend your time, your finances and your relationships. It can help to re-route you and redirect you to new plans, new goals, and new adventures as you stop and ask questions regarding priority you previously didn’t know to ask.

Affliction makes you vulnerable, in the best ways. Your pain makes you approachable, real, and pure. Your life in the midst of brokenness becomes a humble invitation to others who need to be loved more deeply. Your pain gives a firm confirmation to others that you bleed just like they do. We aren’t meant to live life alone and our struggles help us to realize that we need others just as much as they need us.

Affliction teaches you the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is circumstantial, joy is not. We are all tempted to look for ways to end the struggle, feel better and just be happy again. But through hardship, we begin to see that there is something far richer than happiness that is worth pursuing. True joy comes from the Lord, and it has nothing to do with how well or how hard our lives are. You begin to search for joy, which means time with Jesus, instead of a quick fix or a proverbial band-aid.

Affliction increases your faith. Pain brings you to the Bible, the Church and to godly people for advice, encouragement, and hope. When we can’t understand why certain things happen, you begin to realize that although there may not be answers you are not alone. Your desire to understand God and Truth become a priority; a priority you begin to set time aside for. You begin to consider God’s character, and you see the story of the gospel more clearly.

Affliction helps us serve others. When we struggle the Church is built up. Those who know Jesus are encouraged to seek Him in new and fresh ways. Those who do not yet know Jesus see the beauty that comes through your hope in the midst of pain and will begin to want to know where your hope comes from. Your suffering, in the path of righteousness, helps spur others on to be stronger, joy-filled, and more compassionate. It invites others around you to prioritize, to value, to also find joy in the Lord. Your brokenness offers an invitation for others to feel safe in their brokenness too. And your life softly whispers to all “you aren’t alone,” and breeds relational intimacy, oneness, friendship, and companionship.

Affliction glorifies God. It is in our weakness, not our strength, that God is made great. When we are in pain we no longer boast in ourselves, our accomplishments, or our achievements. We have the honor, through our suffering, to boast in Jesus and all He accomplished on the cross for our sake. Suffering produces an eternal weight of glory that will one day come.

“God, when He pleases, can make the worst of places to serve the best of purposes.” What a startling statement by Matthew Henry!

All of us are quick to recognize the worst of places. Sometimes it is an actual place like a waiting room, DMV, funeral parlor, or a broken-down car. Other times it is not a place but rather a season: a season of sickness, transition, moving, or death.

When we are in these places, it is easy to simply think about getting out of them! We sit in them poised to jump out of that place at the first opportunity God affords. If we are not careful, the intense desire to get out of that place can cloud our ability to see the best of purposes.

I’m thankful for the way that Deuteronomy 8:2-3 enables us to break through the fog and see a glimpse of God’s good purposes. It says, “And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.”

Notice the three good purposes that God served Israel in their difficult place:

1. Her eradicated their pride: “to humble thee…”
2. He revealed their motives: “to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart…”
3. He showed them the sufficiency of Scripture: “man doth not live by bread only, but by every word…”

Please don’t forget that God can make the worst of YOUR places to serve the best of purposes.

Our lives often resemble the congestion of a busy highway—people passing by us at lightning speed, while we tightly grip the steering wheel of life trying to make sure we stay in our lane and don’t crash into anyone on our way to our intended destination. Life is busy; but God put us on this earth for the purpose of touching people and sharing with them the good news of the Gospel, on our way to Heaven, our final destination. So how do we do that gracefully, without it feeling like we are just crashing into people as we fly through life? By merging into their lane of life with the use of some good on-ramps. Each of us needs to be building relationships, or on-ramps, into the lives of others. The following tips may equip you in this process.

1. Know your destination and build on-ramps that enable you to reach that destination.

Did you know that the famous London Bridge is actually in Arizona and goes absolutely nowhere? In 1968, Robert McCulloch purchased the bridge for $2.5 million. Each brick was individually coded, and then the bridge was transported to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where it was meticulously reconstructed brick by brick at a further cost of $7 million. Next, a channel was constructed underneath the bridge in order for water to actually flow under it. The irony is that the London Bridge is right next to the Colorado River, which at this particular spot has no bridge going over it, even though there is a legitimate need for one: the nearest crossing points for the residents of Lake Havasu City are either thirty miles to the north or twenty five miles to the south. Great effort and expense were put into building a bridge that really goes nowhere.

Many of the relationships we have built are just like the London Bridge: they don’t go anywhere, because we have not determined our final destination. Our initial destination for any relationship is a clear presentation of the Gospel. But our final destination is leading that person to Christ, discipling him, and then having him join us in helping others come to know Christ.

To build good on-ramps, know where your relationships are designed to end, and build with that destination in mind.

2. On-ramps do not build themselves.

On-ramps, or relationships, are not built through a particular program of the church. They are built by people. Building on-ramps will require initiative and hard word on YOUR part.

That initiative takes the form of a one-on-one, which means much more than just talking to people. I like to define a one-on-one as the process by which we stop our world to connect to someone else’s—and that’s where the hard work comes in.

3. Investment and time are the concrete that makes strong, healthy on-ramps.

On-ramps are strengthened and made healthy through investment, which typically requires both your time and your dime. That means that initially, in order to strengthen that relationship, you may have to drive farther than the one you’re investing in, pay more than he does, and sacrifice more than he does.

But the relationship will begin to grow even stronger and healthier when there is a two-way investment. A practical way you can encourage this is to allow your new friend to begin to invest in you. Ask him to teach you things that he does really well. If he is a grill master, let him teach you how to grill better. If he is good at a particular hobby, allow him to show you his skill. The things that people are good at are often the things they love. When we like what they love, relationships deepen.

In addition to investment, good relationships are strengthened through time. Although the Exchange Bible Study is designed for just four weeks, it may take you a number of weeks, even months, to build a relationship to the place that enables you to start that four-week study. We must abandon the idea that gospel Bible studies will only require four weeks of my life. It will require a significant investment of time to build the relationship for the sake of the gospel and to continue the relationship for discipleship after the person has accepted Christ.

4. Create an on-ramp that has a family environment to it.

Hosting a new friend in your home, a friend who feels like not much more than a stranger, is much different than hosting a family member you love and enjoy. It feels awkward at first, and that’s normal, but our goal is to do some things to intentionally overcome that awkwardness and make our new friend feel like family. Maybe these practical suggestions will help you.

First, use your homes and specifically your dining room table. Christ often gathered with the lost and His disciples around a meal. The act of gathering around a table in your home for a meal creates conversation, which in turn builds relationships. Perhaps your dining room table has become an unofficial storage spot, forcing your family to gather in front of the television for meals. Could I encourage you to clear off that table, prepare a simple meal, and invite your guests to be part of your family around the table?

Second, include the whole family in your pursuit of relationships with the unsaved. Your spouse and children can be part of the team that helps you reach people. The multiple personalities and interests within your home may be the tools necessary to make the people around you connect. If you are going to reach people for the gospel and then disciple them well, they are going to need to start doing life with you AND your family.

Third, invite people to join you for the normal things of life, not just the big events or the special services at church. Backyard BBQ’s, a walk around the neighborhood, watching the big sports game in your home, attending a concert or movie together—all of those normal things of life are not quite so daunting to an unbeliever; and you may find that they prove to be a good method for building on-ramps into people’s lives.

When you were learning to drive, you spent a lot of time on back country roads far from the intense traffic. At some point, you had to leave the country roads, drive down an on-ramp, and enter into the traffic on the freeway. Your knuckles were white, and fear gripped your heart (and probably your passengers’ hearts as well). Over time, though, the fear went away; and driving on and off the freeway just became part of driving. In a similar way, don’t be surprised if building on-ramps and then merging into the lives of people frightens you. Your first steps in building those on-ramps may feel awkward; but over time, it will just become part of living. When merging your life into the lives of others becomes normal for you, you will be accomplishing the purpose God has for you here on earth.

Some people falsely believe that only those who are called by God to be an evangelist have an obligation to evangelize the lost. But Matthew 28:29 gives a clear command to all Christians: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Each of us has an obligation to give the gospel to a lost and dying world; and when we don’t, we’re disobeying God.

Some of the most evangelistic people I know are people who came to a point in their life where they understood their need to just obey God in this area. Like all of us, they had used numerous excuses but realized that their excuses were not legitimate ones to use to disobey God.

Approximately two years ago, God really began to work on my heart regarding my responsibility to witness for Christ. I would give the gospel when the opportunity came to me, but my life was not marked by intentional attempts to make opportunities to witness. As I began to warm to the place of making a decision to be a witness for Christ, I found myself making a mental checklist of all the things I had to prepare or learn to do to be more intentional in witness. It was not long into that checklist that I realized I had completely overlooked the first thing I needed to do in regards to being an intentional witness—to first repent of my lack of obedience to the Great Commission. I have certainly not arrived to a place of perfection regarding witnessing for Christ, but there have been marked demonstrations of improvement over the last two years. The improvement began at that point of repentance.

Here is a thought for you to consider today. Have you considered your lack of fulfilling the command of the Great Commission to be an area of disobedience? If you have been disobeying God, then let’s start with repentance.

It is easy for us to look at our unsaved co-workers, neighbors, and family members and just assume they are all defiant towards the gospel. But not everyone is defiant. Some may carry a surface persona of disinterest and antagonism but are really just quietly searching for answers. One time I heard a preacher describe the Samaritan woman in John 4 as a seductively dressed woman who practiced the behavior of the Proverbs 7 woman, but I’m not convinced that she was truly that way. It is true that she had been married a number of times and was currently living with a man who was not her husband, but those things do not mean she was a harlot living a hard-hearted defiant life toward God. Could it be that she was simply a woman who was extremely hungry for a relationship that fully satisfied and was looking for that relationship in all of the wrong places?

A lot of our evangelism efforts never begin because we have just assumed that a person will not want the gospel if we gave it to them. The Great Commission is not a command to discern who is receptive and who is not. The Great Commission is a command to go into all the world and preach to every creature. Let’s not be guilty of an unhealthy form of evangelistic discrimination.

Keep your eyes out for divine appointments this week. Take advantage of opportunities to give the gospel. Walk into your day armed with a few gospel tracts and a heart that is walking in the Spirit. God may have a “thirsty person” like the woman at the well who simply needs to know the truth that they can have a satisfying relationship with Jesus Christ through faith. You might be able to lead a soul to Christ!

Bad news is what makes good news so good. Presenting the bad news that we are all sinners and deserving of eternal death in hell is hard to communicate. Left to our natural inclinations, we would simply present the love, mercy, and grace of God. But the depth of God’s love, the need for mercy, and the marvel of grace is best understood with the knowledge of our sinful condition.

Gospel presentations like the Roman’s Road, Evangelism Explosion, Netcasters, or the Exchange help us give a balanced presentation of both the bad news and the good news of the gospel. Don’t be afraid of using gospel presentation systems for the sake of insuring that you don’t become guilty of just giving “gospel goulash.” A gospel presentation system helps us insure that we have included all the right elements of the gospel.

Don’t forget, though, that the power of the gospel is in the gospel, not in the presentation system. Don’t become distracted or encumbered with a preference of one particular system that you fail to just give the gospel on a regular basis.

Take what you have been taught and the system you know and give the gospel. Prayerfully present the bad news that makes the good news good and see what God does. I am praying that we see a rich harvest of souls saved at FBC this year.

One of the most damaging notions to a real understanding of God and His relationship with man is the concept that God is simply a force or energy source. Whereas God is indeed a force with which to be reckoned and the greatest power in the universe, He is so much more than that. He is a person! When we remove the concept of His personhood from our thinking, we take away the fact that He has likes and dislikes. We damage our ability to understand the whole concept of morality. We are left to define all the great questions of life by our own experience and intellect.

I want to encourage each of us to be an evangelistic witness for Christ this year. As we witness, seek to emphasize the person of Jesus Christ. People are not saved merely by what they believe but in whom they believe.

Ephesians 1:13 states, “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth…” It is our job to share the word of truth in a manner that presents the person of Jesus Christ.

Would you stop and pray that God would give you an opportunity this week to introduce a lost sinner to the person of Jesus Christ?