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– Matthew 16:24-27 You are 5 or 6 years old and it is your birthday. Mom and Dad have given you some really great presents and you are out in the back yard playing with them. With you are all the kids that came to your party. One of them, your best friend sees you playing with one of your new toys and comes over and asks to play with it. The conversation quickly irrupts into a fight over the new toy. Mom and Dad come running to see what the yelling is all about. Here you and your now ex-best friend are fighting over the new toy and who should be able to play with it. Your folks look at you and tell you that you should be willing to share your things with your guests. What is your response? No! It’s mine. You gave it to me for my birthday. How would a good parent respond? Before God created man to be in relationship with Him He created the world and everything in it for man. Genesis 1:26-28 (NIV)Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” God did this so that man would have all he needed for life and happiness. It was up to man to care for the earth and all that God had created for him. But sin entered into the equation of man’s relationship with God and everything changed. Even though God had created all things on earth for man, all things began to get in the way of man’s relationship with God. Things began to take the place of God in the heart of man; mankind began to worship and honor the created in their hearts more than God. Rom. 1:25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator
The sin nature took over and self became exalted above everything else, the desire to posses became a stumbling block to mankind. The words “my and mine” took on greater meaning in our lives, expressing the true sin nature of man, moving God from the throne of our lives and putting things there. Stuff quickly began to take God’s place as Lord in our lives. Jesus recognized the problem and as He does most problems, came head on at it. Vs 24-25. The main characteristic of the problem reveals itself as possessiveness. Even the words Jesus uses suggest this: gain and loss. When we enter into relationship with God through Christ we must give everything up in our hearts to Christ. If we can do this we will lose nothing at all. There are no U-Hauls behind a hearse. Fail to lay it all down at the feet of Jesus means to give up the one thing we can take with us into eternity, our souls.Matt. 19:16-24 Look Together Stuff will never make us happy. Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdm of heaven. Here we are told that those who have broken the yoke of slavery to things and their rule over our hearts, putting God first will gain all that God has for them in His kingdom. Theirs will be the kingdom of God.
It is difficult at times to understand what some of these principles mean so the best way to understand them is to look at an example: Abraham is a good example of how this worked out in his life. God had chosen Abraham and covenanted with him to give his descendents the land of Canaan. God also promised to give him descendents as numerous as the stars in the sky. Abraham and Sarah, his wife, grew old and still had no son to be heir of all that God had given Abraham. Then in their old age God gives them a son through Sarah who would be the heir of all that God promised Abraham and the messianic hope through him. When Isaac was born he quickly became the apple of his father’s eye, even though Abraham was old enough to be his great grandfather. Isaac became Abraham’s great love and delight, almost bridging on the edge of idolatry. Isaac grew and Abraham’s love for his son grew with him. They did everything together. Abraham even made some bad choices trying to protect his beloved son. He watched his son grow into manhood and his love for his son grew deeper and deeper until it reached the point of being perilous, dangerous.
This is when God stepped in to save both the father and the son from the consequences of an idolatrous love. Abraham had put Isaac on a pedestal much to the danger of his soul. Gen. 22:2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” Abraham was to offer his son Isaac up to God as a sacrifice on Mt. Moriah. We can only imagine what a restless night sleep and despair Abraham faced that night as he contemplated what God had asked him to do. He may have wrestled as Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane before He went to the cross, on the same mount Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son. How much easier would it have been if God had asked for Abraham’s life instead, but God knew where the problem lie, Abraham had began to idolize his child in the place of God and God needed to remind Abraham where his 1st love and worship should be. But how could Abraham kill his own son?
But, Abraham knew God, he had pursued a relationship with Him, he knew the character of God, the promises God had made and how He never went back on His promises. So, he reasoned that God could raise Isaac from the dead. Heb. 11:17-19 Look So, Abraham rose early in the morning and took his son and the wood for the sacrifice and went up the mountain. In order to save his life and that of his son’s he would have to offer Isaac up to God, removing the one thing that Abraham has raised above God, getting in the way of his relationship and submission to God. Gen. 22:9–12 Look Together Abraham was wholly surrendered to God, a friend and a favorite of the Most High. Abraham was utterly obedient to God, a man who possessed nothing because he had consecrated his all to God. When it comes to the stuff that gets between us and God, God could easily work on the edges of our lives and then move inward. But just as a good surgeon goes in to cut out the disease in us causing all the bad symptoms so God cuts to the heart of the disease that keeps us from pursuing a good relationship with Him. Abraham considered himself a man who possessed nothing but had everything. He had God first and foremost in his heart and was blessed by God with riches beyond compare. The words “my and mine” had a whole new meaning to him. Our possessive clinging to things is a harmful habit. It brings no peace or joy to our lives. But because it is such a natural thing for us, due to the sin nature we have, it has rarely been recognized for the evil that it is. We need to realize that stuff will never make us happy unlike the rich young ruler. We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord for the fear of their safety.
This is especially true for our friends and loved ones. There should be no fear in doing so because Jesus did not come to steal kill or destroy, there is already one here who is doing that. Jesus came with another purpose in heart. John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
The things we have today, our gifts and talents, need to be recognized for where they came from, gifts to us from God. 1 Cor. 4:7 For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? If we were to recognize that our stuff is getting in the way of our relationship with God, knowing Him and our pursuit of a deeper relationship with Him, we must put away all of our defenses, all the “but its mine” and make no more excuses. We must come before the Lord and lay down all the “my’s and mines”, giving it all over to Jesus, taking up our cross, insisting that God take it all. We need to get rid of all the things we are holding to tightly to in our hearts instead of the Lord. Then God alone would be our all in all, ruling and reigning over our lives. Doing so will give us peace and happiness beyond our under-standing and a deeper knowledge of God and all He has for us. If we want to grow in relationship with God we must go the way of renouncing stuff from the thrones of our lives. At times it will be a bitter and harsh experience, letting go of things we held so tightly, but just as the weeds need to be pulled from the garden so its fruit increases, so we need to pull down the strongholds in our lives so we can have an increasing fruitful relationship with God.
Benediction: 1 John 2:15–17 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
