“He Never Promised...” By Brother Kenneth Ray Sunday, January 24th,
2010 Matthew
28:18-20
…Go ye therefore, and
teach all nations, baptizing them… He told the disciples to do three things: Go, teach, and baptize. Who was He speaking to? The eleven disciples. Why eleven? Because that’s all there were. That was the whole church, and what He said to them applies to the whole church today. Our mission statement also has three things: Evangelize, Educate, and Equip. In verse 20 He made a promise, that He would be with us always. Now, the title of this message is, “He Never Promised…” which may sound a little funny, especially since I just said that He did promise. He also made promises to Abraham and to Jacob, but there are some things that He never promised. God can only account for Him; He can’t account for you. When the disciples walked away from The Great Commission, don’t you think that questions came up? I’m sure they did. When I was young, I used to wonder, “Why am I here? I’m born, I live, and I die. That seems like a cruel joke. What was my purpose?” We often struggle with things that we don’t understand. We get worn down by things. As weakness increases, so does frustration. Little things can make you scream. He promised the disciples that He would be with them, but He didn’t promise that they would always be with Him. John
21:3-4
…the disciples knew not
that it was Jesus. How many times is Jesus standing right there, and we don’t even know it? How many times has He answered our prayers, and we chalk it up to coincidence? John
21:5-6
…Children, have ye any
meat? What have you been doing? I’ve been fishing. Yes, you have; what have you caught? Um, well, I, uh, nothing. Our way isn’t going to get it. John
21:7
…It is the Lord… Now that you’ve done it right, take what you have, add it to what I’ve got, and come and dine. Jesus is ready to feed you, if you don’t do it your way. Sometimes I do need to be reminded. He’s never forsaken us; stop running from Him. We didn’t HAVE to stand the test alone. He wants to be right there to help you out. He never promised us a break, but He did promise that we would get through. What do I have to do to do this? Schedule your day, one hour at a time. At the end of the day, ask yourself about your day. “Did I pray today? No, I was going to, but the game was on.” “Did I complain today? Yes, about an hour and a half.” God gave you free will. Ezra
7:10, 13 …seek
the law of the Lord… God breathed life into Adam, and he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7); he didn’t become a living robot. Sometimes he made good choices, and sometimes he didn’t. There is nothing new under the sun. He said His yoke was easy (Matthew 11:30), but He didn’t say that the cross wouldn’t get heavy sometimes. He said you could move a mountain (Luke 17:6); He didn’t say that the mountain would be demolished. Paul prayed that God would remove the thorn from his flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-10), but God said no. God said, I’m God, and I know what you need. Proverbs
3:5 …lean
not unto thine own
understanding. That’s hard for us to deal with sometimes. God gave us a work to do, but He didn’t promise that our ‘joy’ wouldn’t turn into a ‘job.’ We need to give worship and praise unto God. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that to be Christian means to be Christ-like; we need to act like Jesus. We often think that once we become a Christian, then all the troubles stop. Jesus said that they hated Him, and they will hate us also. We have to exercise our faith; it isn’t fun, but it makes us better. Somebody said that SIN is Self Inflicted Nonsense. Sometimes we’re coming up on the rough side of the mountain by choice—there’s stairs on the other side of the mountain, with a big sign pointing to them, but we want to do things our way. You can’t live in the past and still move forward. “I know” isn’t good enough. If you know, but you don’t do anything with that knowledge, you haven’t accomplished anything; you have to fight to achieve victory. You won’t find the perfect church. There is no perfect church, at least, not in this life. There are no perfect people, not even the critic that’s looking to find fault. Daniel
3:16-18, 23-25
…Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego… Talking about victories: God never promised a victory without a battle. These three were in a fight for their lives; they stood to lose everything. They went into the fire alive, but bound, and they were loosed, and walking around with someonethat Nebuchadnezzer said looked like the Son of God. Jesus hadn’t even been born yet; how did he know what the Son of God looked like? God doesn’t always show up when we want Him to, but He’ll show up on time. Hebrews
13:5 …I
will never leave thee, nor
forsake thee. Psalms
46:1
…a present help… Psalms
40:17 …Thou
art my Help and my Deliverer… Within ourselves we will surely perish. If we are dropped in the fire, we cannot, on our own, get through it. He said He’ll get you through it. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it. Sermon notes by Pete Shepherd |
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