Dr. Ron Sumners
March 22, 2009
Sometimes people feel that they are on God’s blacklist. A business investment turns out bad. There are headaches, hassles, financial losses, and all the church-going hasn’t helped. “Is my luck just bad or is God trying to tell me something? Maybe He is just against me!” A fairly common response is to say, “My name is on God’s blacklist.”
A young woman, in her mid-thirties, wants a husband and a family. Yet all of her relationships with men turn sour. Or another young woman has been left in the wake of a husband’s ambition and restlessness. He has a new wife and a new life. She now sits alone in church, staring at the emptiness in the space next to her and in her heart. She begins to feel that God has forgotten her.
The successful businessman may not be free of this sense of estrangement either. Houses, lands and position do not fill spiritual voids. Some have made up their mind that what they have is all there is. They accept the common belief in our society that “things” satisfy. And then they wonder why they are never satisfied! Others ask the question, “What does God intend for me? Why did He put me here?”
The search for an ultimate goal in life is revived with every new generation. It is, for most of us, the most important and pressing issue we confront: What does God want from me, what does He intend for me?
We all set goals for ourselves. Some are wrong goals, some are inadequate and some are out of touch with God. When we pursue and follow any of these we can expect to be unfulfilled. But God, over and over again, makes use of every past experience, our mistakes and our failures, even our sins to contribute to our growth. This causes growth and maturity more effectively than our successes! Failure is not destructive if we learn from it. Failure can be a very positive and creative thing in the experience of becoming a whole person; the person God wants us to be. I will talk more about failure in a couple of weeks.
In just a few words, Jesus answers the question about what God intends for me, “I have come that men may have life and may have it abundantly.”
Notice the setting for this text. It comes in the midst of a discourse about the Good Shepherd.
What does a good shepherd want for his sheep? He wants adequate pasture, plenty of fresh water, safety, long life and a good fleece. He wants his sheep to fulfill their destiny as sheep.
There are those who are bent on the sheep’s destruction, to steal or to kill. Their aim is a selfish one. They want nothing but personal profit. They are like those in our day who think little of others or the future; only that they get what they desire today. That certainly could be said to many CEOs in our economy today. But the Good Shepherd wants only the best for his sheep.
When the sheep prosper, the good shepherd is happy.
God intends an expansive kind of life for you and me. He wants us to have a life of freedom. Paul picked up on this thought of Jesus and in several of his letters shared the idea. To the Romans he wrote, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. 8:2) To the Galatians he wrote, “For freedom Christ has set us free.” (Gal. 5:1)
There had been times when Paul wondered if he was on God’s black list. He tried to live in obedience to the law. But, what he called “the flesh” kept getting the upper hand. So, breathing out threats and murder against the followers of Jesus, he set out for Damascus to put an end to the Christians there. The pricks of conscience, the wrestling with passion, the demands of the moral and ecclesiastical law, left him in bondage. He was a slave, working his head off trying to be a righteous man and failing at every turn. We, too often, focus on Paul, the victorious, vital Christian, and forget those early struggles.
You may know what bondage is like. Some of you wrestle with low self-esteem; with insecurities and inadequacies. Some of you are angry with life and angry with all those whose views differ from your own. Some of you have passions that break out and embarrass you and leave you with a burden of guilt. Some of you have potential you have never allowed anyone to bring forth. Some of you have treasures collecting moth and rust. Bondage comes in all kinds of varieties.
That is not what God intends! The sooner we understand this, the sooner we will be free. Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life abundantly.”
God intends that we have a life of good relationships. Creation itself is the first witness to this.
God made man in the likeness of Himself. Man was the only part of God’s creation with which He established fellowship and communion. He gave man a mate, for it was not good for man to live without relating to another person. He gave him dominion – a further expression of man’s kinship to God – but He did not make man, God. He did give us the spirit of creativity and the ability to innovate and the power to rule nature. The whole point in giving us such faculties is that our relationship with God could be a good one and that we might develop into the persons God intends for us to be. That creative instinct has brought us to the man-made marvels that exist in our world. The things we take for granted today were science fiction a hundred years ago!
I believe that God’s purpose in the advancement of human knowledge is so we can better understand the omniciousness and omnipotence of our Creator.
To settle down into a life of selfish ease and comfort, oblivious to our brotherly relationships to other people, is to accept an animal existence rather than a human one.
A real relationship with Jesus Christ has never been more important than it is right now. This is more than religion. Religion by rite and ritual and social convention can become very impersonal. A man may go to church without ever becoming aware of God’s glory and his purpose. A man may go to church and yet remain insensitive to other people.
A new birth through Jesus Christ is the point of beginning a good relationship with God and opens us to the world of human uniqueness. Here is our best chance of developing good relationships with others. In a world of knowledge and machines, we must not allow ourselves to become empty persons! Jesus wants us to have life “abundantly.” That means “full to overflowing!”
There is a statement in the Catholic Catechism that defines another of God’s intentions for us, “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
Enjoy God? Yes! We don’t know much about enjoying God. Our Pentecostal brothers seem to have a better grasp on this idea than we do. But on a second look, maybe all they have is more noise!
What about reverence? He is a Holy God. An awareness of the holiness of God does not mean that we are not to “delight ourselves in Him.” When you check the scriptures, it is surprising to note how often the child of God is told to delight himself in God. There are at least 15 direct statements to this effect and many more in which the thought is implied. Yet, I have never preached a sermon about “enjoying God.” I am ashamed of my neglect.
God intends for us to have a life of great value. God will not be satisfied until all those who are broken and fragmented are made whole again.
It is alarming to see how much self-hatred there is around. There are many people in the world who do not like themselves; probably some of you here today. Many sociologists believe that self-hate is the root of our casual acceptance of physical and moral filth in our cities, of our destruction of the environment, and most of our failure to meet the needs of a decaying society.
What can be done about this? The Good News is that our lives may be a mess, but God loves us because we are His. When this truth gets into our souls we begin to understand that if a Holy God loves us – there must be something in us that is worth loving. We are then free to love our neighbor because God first loved us.
This is not egotism, or self-centeredness. It is a humble acceptance of the immense value God places upon every person. To know this and receive this is to be made whole.
God intends for you to have a life of great value. He doesn’t want anyone put on the shelf and forgotten. A visit to some of our slums, or to the city jail, or to a rescue mission, or to a Third World country, might make some of us think that human life is very cheap and that there are large portions of the human race that have nothing to live for.
The same experience has had the opposite effect upon a significant number of people. To call the roll is to explain what I mean. There was Lottie Moon in China; Jane Adams in Chicago; Albert Schweitzer in Africa; and Mother Teresa in India. What made them look at the world and see hope instead of despair? The difference comes when we see the world through the eyes of Jesus! His transforming work in me gives me the eyes to see the rest of the world in a new light and makes me want to involve myself in its redemption.
Jesus spent His ministry emphasizing the value of persons. When the disciples thought He was too busy to bother with children, He said, “Let the children come to me, for this is the way it is in the Kingdom of God.” He went out of His way to heal the daughter of a Roman official. He felt the touch of one poor woman in a crowd of people touching Him. He had time for the thief on the cross. Jesus came to offer salvation to the world, but He understood that it was realized one person at a time! That is still the case in 2009!
Every life can honor God. Every life can make the world better. Every life can breathe hope for tomorrow. This is what God intends for you.
How can I make such a dream a reality? Such a life is a gift, an inheritance which you must claim. Every bank of any size in this country has a rather large sum of unclaimed resources. The heirs to these estates are ignorant of their existence. Paul said to the Thessalonians, “I don’t want you to be ignorant any longer. There is life in Jesus Christ.”
We have an inheritance that is ours. It awaits our claim. It comes to us when we make Jesus Christ the Lord of our life! It is what He intends for us. He desires for us to claim what is already ours.
The second step toward abundant life is to develop a personal relationship with the Lord. Our relationship to God is not primarily legal or ethical or creedal, but personal.
What does God intend for you? It is to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. Do that and you will have abundant life!
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