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Staying
Positive in a Negative World |
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A Pocket Paper Robert J.
Morgan Likewise, you younger people, submit
yourselves to your elders. Yes, all
of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for
“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Therefore, humble yourselves under the
mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care
upon Him, for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:5-7). This fall, we have been in a series of topical sermons on how we, as Christians, should interact with our culture. How can we remain holy in an unholy world? As we’ve worked through some of these issues, perhaps you’ve been a little discouraged. We’re living in a very pagan world, and our society is drifting further and further from its spiritual roots. On top of that, each one us has difficulties in our own lives. It’s hard to live in a world like ours. And so today’s topic is “How to Stay Positive in a Negative World.” It’s based on only one word in the Bible. It is very unusual for me to preach from only one word. I generally prefer preaching from paragraphs of Scripture, but today’s message is based on a tiny little word that occurs over 4000 times in the Bible. It is the word “all.” And it is a very easy word to exegete. “All” means “all” and that’s all “all” means. But if we can understand the significance of this word in certain Bible promises, it will enable us to remain positive in a negative world. I first came to realize this a year or so ago during my quiet time. Being troubled about something, I went to the Scriptures and began reading in this book of 1 Peter. When I came to this familiar old verse—1 Peter 5:7, a verse I’ve read many times—I didn’t expect to see anything new. But suddenly like a bolt of lightning, this little word “all” flew out the verse and hit me. 1 Peter 5:7 doesn’t tell us to cast our cares on the Lord. It says to cast ALL our cares on Him, for He cares for us. Nothing is too small for Him to notice. Nothing is too big for Him to handle. Now, that made me wonder if there were some other “alls” that I had been missing, and that’s when I looked up this tiny word in the concordance and was staggered to find it occurring 4660 times in the Bible. And it shows up remarkably frequently in the promises. God has given us great and precious promises, and those promises are given to enable us to handle the negatives of living in a negative world. Over and over again, in our greatest and most precious promises, is that word “all;” and it is all-to-often overlooked. Obviously we can’t look up each of those occurrences, but I would like to show you a handful of other passages in which this word brings to us an unusual blessing. Psalm 23:6 Notice the ending of the 23rd Psalm, for example. In the Authorized Version, it says: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” How many days? If you live to be 80 years old, you’ll live over 29,000 days on this earth. How many of those will be filled with goodness and mercy? Every one of them, if Christ is your Shepherd. All the blessings in this wonderful Psalm come to those who have made the Lord their Shepherd, and some of the old commentators used to say that goodness and mercy were God’s sheepdogs. Spurgeon called them twin guardian angels who are always at our back and at our beck. They follow behind us, guarding us, making sure that every day has its share of good blessings from God and rich mercy from the Throne of Grace. And notice also the word “surely.” This is a promise with two modifiers. SURELY—certainly, it is guaranteed, it is for sure, it is ordained by the God whose word cannot be broken—surely goodness and mercy shall follow me ALL the days of my life. No days are exempt, although some may seem so. Earlier this year I read Catherine Marshall’s wonderful book To Live Again. Her husband, the Scottish preacher Peter Marshall, had become the much esteemed Chaplain of the United States Senate. He was young and eloquent. But on a cold Washington morning in January of 1949, Peter had suffered chest pains and had gone on the hospital. She had wanted to go with him, but there was no one to watch their little son, Peter John, who was getting ready for school. So she was going to get him off to school then proceed on to the hospital. Suddenly the phone rang with the indigestible news that Peter was dead. He had suffered a massive heart attack at the hospital, and he was gone. She later said that she went to the hospital in a state of shock, saw her husband’s body, walked out of the room and heard the door click behind her. But, she said, despite the pain and anger and confusion, there was a deep abiding faith that goodness and mercy would surely follow her every day of her life. No days are exempt. If we will only look, all the days of our lives we will see the goodness and mercy of the God who invites us to cast all our cares on Him. His mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness. 1 John 1:7 Now, let me show you another of the Bible’s great promises in which this word “all” crops up. In 1 John 1:7 we read: “If we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from ALL sin.” And it’s repeated in verse 9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from ALL unrighteousness.” There is a story that one night Martin Luther went to sleep troubled
about his sin. In a dream he saw an angel standing by a blackboard. At the top of the board was
Luther’s name. The angel, chalk in hand, was listing all of
Luther’s sins, and the list filled the blackboard. Luther shuddered in
despair, feeling that his sins were so many that he could never be forgiven.
But suddenly in his dream he saw a pierced hand writing above the list these
words: “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all
sin.” As Luther gazed in amazement, the blood flowed from the wounded
hand and washed the record clean. Do you feel that God cannot forgive that particular sin that you’d give anything to un-do? Do you feel He can forgive some of our sins, but not all of them? Do you sometimes feel there are too many sins for God to forgive? He cleanses us from all sin. Matthew 6:33 Now, let’s move on to another of our favorite promises—Matthew 6:33: But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Here God promises that if we will allow Him to sit enthroned at the center of our lives, He will meet all our needs. That includes our physical and financial needs as the context indicates, but that also includes our social and emotional and relational needs. ALL these things. College student Richard Greene worried about how to make ends meet. As he finished balancing his checkbook, he noticed that the numbers on his calculator, registering his final checkbook balance, were $6.33. Those figures looked familiar to him, and for a moment he studied them curiously. Then this verse came to mind, and it was a lesson he never forget. Let me ask you a question. What do you need most right now in this life? Take a moment and think about that. If the Lord Jesus Himself were to come to you personally today and ask, “Tell me, what do you need most in your life right now?”—what would you say? He would then reply, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and that need will be wonderfully provided in my own time and way.” Philippians 4:19 Now we have the same promise
stated in different words in Philippians 4:19: And
my God shall supply ALL your need according to His riches in glory by Christ
Jesus. There is that word again—ALL. Not some. Not most. ALL your need. But, just as with Matthew 6:33, there is a condition. Notice the first word of the verse is “And…” which indicated that the promises of Philippians 4:19 is connected in some way with the previous verse. The context is this. The Apostle Paul was writing to this church in the city of Philippi, and we know from other references in the Bible that the apostle was very dear to these Philippians. He had actually been flogged for bringing them the Gospel, and they felt very indebted to him. Everywhere he went, they sent him financial assistance. Now he was in prison, and they sent one of their members, a man named Epaphroditus, with financial assistance. So the actual occasion for the
writing of the book of Philippians was Paul’s receipt of this
gift. He was writing back to say
“Thank you.” Look at
verse 15ff: Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel,
when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving
and receiving but you only. For
even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek
the fruit that abounds to your account…. I think, incidentally, that this should be my attitude toward our church members regarding their tithes and offerings. I’m prone to look at the budget and to appeal for gifts because we want to meet our budget. Paul also had a missionary budget, but he said, “I’m not so concerned with meeting my budget. I’m more concerned that you church members experience the personal benefits that abound in your lives when you learn the blessing of giving—the fruit that abounds to your account.” Verse 18 continues: Indeed
I have all and abound. I am full,
having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling
aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. And my God shall supply all your need
according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. And so this promise was given
to church members who had given of their means to help support God’s
work through the ministry of the Apostle Paul. You see, it is very similar to Matthew
6:33: Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these
things shall be added to you. Matthew 19:26 Now let’s go to another passage. In Matthew 19:23ff we have our Lord’s words: “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” As I read that, I thought of a conversation the prophet Jeremiah had with the Lord in chapter 32 of his book. Jeremiah was greatly disturbed about something. He was anguished over something. So he did what we should all do—he took it to the Lord in prayer. And he began his prayer by saying, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.” And then Jeremiah went on to pray—as we often do—complaining at the Lord’s lack of responsiveness. Later in the chapter the Lord responds and he said to Jeremiah: “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me?” He was reminding Jeremiah of the implications of His omnipotence. Nothing in your life is too hard for the Lord to do if it be His will. He can do all things. With men it is impossible, but not with God, for with Him all things are possible. Romans 8:28 And that brings us to Romans 8:28, one of the best-loved verses in the entire Bible. Romans 8 tells us about the role of the Holy Spirit in our Christian growth and victory. The Holy Spirit takes the work of Jesus Christ and applies it to our lives. He takes the character of Christ and reproduces it in our hearts. He will take the resurrection of Christ and reenact it in our bodies when Jesus comes in glory. Now, in the same way (says verse 26), the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. What kind of weakness is he talking about? We are weak in many ways. But in this passage the apostle Paul is very specific about the particular weakness he is addressing. It is in our prayer lives. We are weak when it comes to prayer. In what way are we weak in our prayer lives? Well, we are weak in many ways, but here again Paul has something specific in mind. We are weak, he says in this: many times we really don’t know what we should specifically pray for. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for... Why don’t we know what we should pray for? Because we are not omniscient. We don’t know everything, nor can we see into the future. So we don’t know whether the things we’re asking for will turn out being good or bad for us. We don’t know if the things we want will really be good for us, or bad. We can’t see the future. That’s why James tells to us to pray, “If it be thy will...” For God does know the future. He is Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last. He knows the end from the beginning. And he knows how all things will turn out. So verse 26 says, In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes [prays on our behalf, makes prayer requests] for us... And how does He do it? Intensely. ...with groans that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts — who is that? God the Father – knows the mind of the Spirit. That is, he can understand the groanings of the Holy Spirit on our behalf. And he answers. God the Father always answers the prayers of God the Holy Spirit. And the result is what? The result is Romans 8:28 — And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. As the Holy Spirit prays for us, God answers his prayers and therefore all the things that happen to us turn out for good in the unfolding providence of the Lord. Romans 8:37 Now while we’re in Romans 8, look at Romans 8:37: Yet in all these things we are more than conquers through Him who loved us. Not just in some things, but in all things. 2 Corinthians 9:8 We could go on and on, but
let’s close by turning to 2 Corinthians 9:8: And
God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all
sufficiency in all things may have an abundance for every good work. Earlier this year I read the
biography of Amy Carmichael, the famous missionary to India. I later loaned my copy out, so I
don’t have the exact details of this story; but I remember it
reasonably well. Amy had gone to
hear a great and famous old preacher, but to her disappointment the
auditorium was packed and she could only squeeze into the back. And this was the days before
amplification, and the old fellow was up in years. He didn’t have enough volume,
and Amy could not make out a single word he said—except for one. He read this text—2 Corinthians
9:8—and as he read it he placed a special emphasis on the word
“all”: And God is able to make all grace
abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all
things may have an abundance for every good work. She later testified that the word “all” was all she had gotten out of the sermon, but it was all she needed. And that’s the point of my message today. Christ is our all-sufficient Savior. He is all we need. He is our all-in-all. We can cast all our cares on Him. His goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives. He cleanses all our sin. As we seek Him first, He adds to us all we’ll ever need. He meets all our needs. He can do all things. He makes all things work together for good in our lives. He is able to make all grace abound toward us, that we, always having all sufficiency, may always abound in every good work. So we can sing: All I need my Savior gives me, He has promised blessings sure. Plenteous strength and peace and guidance, Grace sufficient to endure All my daily bread supplying; Every need is fully met All my cares on Him I’m casting; There’s no need to worry or fret. Copyright StatementWe grant permission for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied for use in a local congregation or classroom, provided no more than 1,000 copies are made, the material is distributed free, and the copies include the notice: "Copyright (year) The Donelson Fellowship."For any other use, advance permission must be obtained from The Donelson Fellowship church office. |
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