Tag Archives: Why

May 27, 2019 · 7:24 am

WHY?

Peninsula Community Church

May 26, 2019

John 3:16-21 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

This weekend has been established as a national holiday to celebrate Memorial Day. It is the day we honor those who have given their lives so we can live free as a nation and as individuals. It is noteworthy that Memorial Day began shortly after the Civil War in 1856. The families and survivors of the Union Army were passionate about honoring those who gave their life during the Civil War. They would visit and place flowers on the graves of those who died. After World War I and all wars after that, those who died were honored. Memorial Day serves as a reminder of the price paid for our freedom.

For so many, this weekend is associated with the beginning of summer, but the reality is it is less about the start of summer and much more about the lives who were sacrificed for our freedom. It is a time to remember why they died. Today, we are reminded these men died so we could be free. They died so we could worship and speak freely, even if we do not agree with the worship or speech of another person. They paid that price with their lives. On a side note, it is so sad that those freedoms are being encroached upon and being eroded in big ways.

Last week we noted that to understand discipleship we needed to know the why more than the how of evangelism and discipleship. The how and mechanics of what we do is important, but the why of what we do is even more critical. Without the why, we can become mechanical and programmatic in our approach to discipleship. For a few minutes this morning I would like to consider the why of discipleship and evangelism. In other words, we will look at why we do what we do.

Last we week we were reminded that while salvation is important, growth in Christ in terms of discipleship was the focus of the “Great Commission.” So, why do we disciple others? Why does it matter? Why should we share Jesus with those we encounter and within our sphere of influence? The answer lies in this passage before us today. We are called to be disciples and we are to disciple others because of John 3:16. We do so because God so loved the world.

This sin filled, depraved, godless world has been and still is loved by God. He loved it so much that He sent His son to die on the cross not for one sin but for all sin. This is the most incredible part of this passage. He did not die for some people, He died for all people. He died for the world, the whole world. He died for all mankind regardless of social standing, financial standing, or even one’s looks. Thank God for that. There is not one person who was not on the mind of Christ when He hung on the cross. We are all covered by the sacrifice He gave.

Why did He do this? He did so in order that every person who would believe in Him might have eternal life, and not just eternal life but abundant life. You see Jesus did not come to help us just escape hell. He did not die so that we could join a Christian social club. He died so we could live and live freely in a world that seeks to shackle us with fear, anxiety, and deceit. He died so that anyone who would believe in Him and accept Him would be received as His child. Through acceptance of Christ his or her name is written into the Book of Life.

We must understand that salvation is not automatic. You must choose to accept Christ as your Savior. The sad part is that not all will be saved because they will refuse to choose Him. Instead they will reject Christ and His provision for abundant life. The truth is that not every person will be saved but the opportunity for salvation is available for all people. This includes the worst of all mankind and it includes the best of all mankind. We must all accept Christ on our own and for ourselves. We cannot depend on our friends or our family. We must accept Him personally.

Because of God’s love there is great misunderstanding of some doctrine that is being propagated by some in the church today. There is so much that is based in human ideology and not God’s theology. I have stated this before. We must be assured that our presuppositions are formed by Scripture and not the other way around. We must not allow our presuppositions to determine our beliefs, but we must allow God’s word to form our beliefs. When we start from the basis of our own beliefs, and we are looking for Scripture to give us answers to support our beliefs, we have failed to allow the Word of God to be the roadmap of our life. In a world that is encouraging us to jettison all absolutes and live by our own moral compass, we as believers need to heed the call of God to live by the word and not our own beliefs.

With that said, I would suggest to you that there are four motivating factors for our work in discipleship and evangelism. It is these motivating factors that define for us the why of discipleship. First of all, the love of Christ compels us. As we look at this passage let me let you in on a secret. God did not create the world, sling it into existence and then forget about it. He loved the world before its foundation. He loved the world when mankind failed in the Garden and sin came rushing into their minds and hearts. He loves the world just as much today as He did then. It is that love that compels us to share Christ with others. It is that love that constrains us to accomplish His will. Listen to Paul’s words. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died (2 Corinthians 5:14 NIV). In the ESV the word is Christ’s love controls us.

So, why do we do this? We do so because the love of Christ overwhelms us. We do so because the love of Christ motivates us to speak truth in love to those we encounter and to those to whom we have been given influence. When we embrace the love He has for us and that love overwhelms us and motivates us to share our faith with others.

Second, we are commanded by Christ to disciple. The love of God experienced through the work Christ done on our behalf motivates us to obey God’s call to be discipled and to disciple. If you remember, last week we found that Jesus commands His disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Peter says to all Christians, “Be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15, NIV).

We disciple because it is a part of the plan executed by God. Think about this, God could have used any means possible to share His love. He could have just spoken directly to those around us. But for some strange reason, He chose us. He chose this imperfect, sinful creature created by God to be the vessel He would work through to touch people and to give them the word of hope.

Third, a love for the lost compels us. A love for the lost should compel us to have compassion for those in need, and everyone’s greatest need is eternal salvation. We saw before that it is love that should compel us as a motivation for discipleship. To effectively accomplish this we must have a love for those to whom we are being sent.

To understand that love we must consider how richly God has loved us. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him (1 John 3:1). Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:7-11).

And finally, we disciple because we have a love for God. Our ultimate motivation in evangelism must be to see God glorified, and God is glorified when the truth about Him is known and made known. Thus our desire should be to glorify God by proclaiming the truth about Him as often as we can. This motivation will sustain us when our love for others may run dry. If we are to faithfully evangelize despite rejection, opposition, and even persecution, our deepest motivation must be to glorify God. You see perfect love casts at all fear. When our love for God overwhelms us, we are motivated by faith and not the individual we are sharing hope with.

So why do we disciple others? We do so because of the love of God who sent His son and the love that is manifested in our hearts.

For an audio of this message go to http://pccministry.org/messages.

Grief and the Question Why?

Peninsula Community Church

Grief and the Question Why?

February 10, 2019

Job 3:1-15 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And Job said: “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’ Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it. Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. That night—let thick darkness seize it! Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. Behold, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry enter it. Let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan. Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none, nor see the eyelids of the morning, because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hide trouble from my eyes. “Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire? Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse? For then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest, with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for themselves, or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver.

Today, we continue our study of grief and its effect on us. As we have stated already grief is a normal part of loss. While it is normal each person will experience grief differently and in different ways. We have determined that grief is not a linear process, but it is a bundle of tangled emotions. We have noted that in time we will come to a new normal, and that new normal will guide our lives to a new place of hope and adventure with God, the one who loves us deeply.

As we begin this study today, let me tell you a story. Many years ago there was a man who was a successful businessman. He was a spiritual giant. He was blameless in his actions and his deeds. He had a happy family. He was healthy and most of all he was a passionate follower of God. But one day his life was turned upside down. In a few short hours his children were tragically killed, his business was destroyed, he developed a serious illness, and within days of these tragedies his friends and his wife failed to understand the magnitude of what he was going through. They attempted to deflect the issues and attempted to make him the bad guy. They encouraged him to do things that were not in his wheel house of thinking.

The man I am talking about is Job. In this story satan issued a challenge to God, that if Job were to be tested, he would fail. God agreed because He knew Job’s heart. He knew that Job would endure whatever was thrown at him. As we read the story we see that the Sabeans came in and stole his oxen and donkeys and they killed the servants in charge. This would be like someone coming onto one of the farms around us and stealing the tractors, combines, hay balers, and other equipment and then killing those who operated the equipment. At the same time, we find that his sheep and cattle were burnt up in a fire. This would just like a local farmer’s crops being burnt up and destroyed. The last dagger he received was the word that all of his children had been killed by a sudden violent wind storm. This godly, righteous man according to Scripture faced grief on many levels and on several fronts.

While Job was a faithful and blameless man, he reached the point that we all reach many times when we face heartache and pain. He began to ask the question we all ask! “Why God!” “Why did this have to happen?” “Why did this happen to me?” “Why were my innocent children caught up in this mess?” “Why did I lose everything?” The questions seem to go on and on. As Job did we also have endless questions with little or no answers. In fact, the why question is not just a question we ask at someone’s death, but we ask “why” when we are confronted by many issues in life: divorce, crime, words and actions people take against us.

The question why is a natural question to be ask but it is a question that is much easier to ask than to answer. At first, we find that Job is rejoicing and proclaiming the sovereignty of God. Listen to his words. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong (Job 1:21-22). In a moment that praise is turned the reality of grief and his heart swells with the questions.

When you think Job has had enough, we find that he is infected with horrible sores from his feet to his head. His whole body was affected by these sores and open wounds. Then we find the most painful thing of all. His wife instead of supporting him wanted him to curse God and die. She in essence wanted to get the pain over with. To be honest we might want to judge her, but we must remember that she is dealing with her own grief and pain from the loss of her family. Remember we all respond to grief differently. Then there are Job’s friends. Initially they just sat and did not do anything. Later we see they began to accuse Job of sin and wrong doing. They were blaming Job and they were trying to fix him. How many times have you been walking in grief or experiencing pain and people try to fix you? But, God is the only one who can fix us.

It was at this point where we see Job begin to ask the great question of all time. Why? Why was I born? Why did you not just kill me at brith and be done? This was more than Job could bear. While these are Job’s questions your questions may be totally different. The focus of your grief may be different. Your loss and the circumstances surrounding your loss will drive your questions you ask. With that in mind, let us look at a couple of things about the why question and its relationship to grief.

First of all, it is totally okey to be honest with God about your questions. David was honest. Job was honest. Many Biblical characters we read about were honest with their questions. We can be also honest because God knows our heart and He knows the pain of the unanswered questions that reside deep within us. Sometimes the pain of grief is experienced through the turmoil of unanswered questions, and it is for that reason we need to be honest with Him.

It is here that we are drawn to the words of David in Psalm 22:1-2. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Why have you forsaken me? Why were you not there? Why did you not intervene? But in Psalm 56:8 he reminds us that God does care. You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Think about this, we have a Father who keeps track of the tossing we do and He catches every single tear we cry in a bottle. When we begin to grasp the depth of that truth, we can say with confidence just as David did, This I know: God is on my side (Psalm 56:9). While it may not seem like it at times, God knows your pain. He knows your hurt. He knows the questions you have.

In looking at the question of why we must always also remember that we are living in a fallen world. This world is corrupt and therefore it is filled with sin, disease, and people who make bad decisions. People choose to eat the wrong things even though they have been diagnosed with heart disease or high blood pressure. They choose to drive drunk and cause accidents that take innocent lives. Because of sin, disease has come into the world. In God’s plan for the world there was no sin. There was no disease. There was no evil. Unfortunately from the time of the fall of mankind sin came, disease came, and now people make bad decisions that affect others. That is why sometimes the pain of death is so great. The one we love was taken by someone who made a bad decision and our loved one was innocent. That is painful.

This may be difficult to grasp but God does not owe us an explanation because He is God. In the story of Job we find that he is looking for answers. You see we often look at Job as this guy who never wavered and was stalwart in his faith, but he had questions just as much as we do. In Job 38:4-7 God answers his questions but it was not the answer Job was looking for. God says “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? We are reminded that God’s ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). They are past finding out. In essence, on this side of heaven there will be things that happen that we will not understand but we must trust Him. Job expressed this sentiment in Job 13:15. Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face.

Finally, even if God gave us the answer to our why questions, we probably would not understand. We would still have more questions, and most often we would probably not agree with the answer or reasoning God would give anyway. If we had all of the answers we would probably still not be at peace or find that our grief is less than it is right now. In the end, we must trust God. I know that we keep coming back to this, but it is the truth of the matter. While it is hard to trust anyone when we are in pain, we must recognize that God provides and His ways are far above our ways. Only then can we trust Him and surrender our pain to Him.

With all of this in mind perhaps we are asking the wrong question. Perhaps we need to ask how is this going to be used in my life to make a difference in others? What does God want to do with this event and the grief I am facing? Remember Job. God used his losses to focus him on the redemption of God. In the end, we find that God will restore us to a new normal and He will open doors for us to speak into the lives of others. Job found that to be true. God restored him and brought him to a new normal. Now your new normal will be different, but you will reach a new normal. We know this because of Job’s own words. In Job 19:25 he stated For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. Job knew that weeping may endure for the evening but joy will come again. We will get through this with a new revelation of truth about who God is and what He can do in and through us.

For an audio of this message go to http://pccministry.org/messages.

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