Have you ever been
invited to a celebration – whether a birthday, a graduation, a housewarming, or
whatever, and discovered when you arrived that you were not dressed
appropriately. Or when you arrived you discovered you were the only one who’d
not brought a gift? Maybe you have. Maybe you haven’t.
But
I’d like us all to think about our invitation to the celebration every
Christian will enjoy – the marriage supper of the Lamb spoken of in Matthew 22
and Revelation 19.
Yes,
every Christian will be dressed appropriately for the occasion, dressed in
robes of righteousness. Listen to Revelation 19:7-8 “Let us rejoice and be
glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come
and His bride has made herself ready.” It was given to her to clothe
herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is
the righteous acts of the saints.”
But
what about your gift? Do you want to show up empty-handed?
Several
weeks ago, I began a short series about the fears many Christians live with at
various times in their lives and that rob their joy in the Lord. The first
message in this series focused on the impossibility of failing in our walk with
Christ if we WANT a successful walk with Him. He who created worlds and
galaxies by simply speaking is the same One who holds us in His arms and guides
us in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake. My second message
focused on the impossibility for true Christians to fail to grow in intimacy
with the Savior if they don’t want to fail. After all, we are each as intimate
with Jesus as we want to be. Think about that a moment. Jesus will never hold
US at arm’s length. He always seeks to draw us into His embrace and hold us to
Himself as a shepherd cradles a hurting lamb. Jesus will never hold us at arm’s
length, but WE so often hold Him off.
And
so I spoke last time about how much He loves us and wants to be intimate with
us – and what we need to do to draw closer to His embrace. And, if you
remember, the key to growing in intimacy with the Savior is wrapped up in the
word – and practice – of obedience.
Today,
I continue this series to address another area of our walk with Christ in which
it is impossible to fail – if we don’t want to fail. Specifically, it is
impossible for the Christian who WANTS to be fruitful for Christ to fail to be
fruitful for Him. It is impossible for the true Christian to arrive at the Marriage
Supper of the Lamb emptyhanded. Why? Because Almighty God will not permit such
a thing to happen to the one who WANTS to arrive with gifts for the Savior.
And
what kinds of gifts are we talking about? Having won a thousand souls to the
Lord in personal evangelism? Having taught hundreds of children about Jesus in
Sunday School classes? Having opened your own city mission to feed and house
the homeless?
Certainly,
who wouldn’t want to do something as big and grand and impressive as those
things? But those are NOT the things every Christian can do because God has not
CALLED every Christian to do such grand and ambitious works for His kingdom.
Listen
to what He tells us through the Moses: “What does the Lord your
God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in
all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep
the Lord’s commandments and His statutes.” (Deuteronomy 10:12-13a)
Listen
also to the prophet Micah: “With what shall I come to the Lord
And bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt
offerings, with yearling calves? Does the Lord take delight
in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of oil? . . . He
has told you, O man, what is good; And what does
the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and
to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6-8)
Surely,
those who CAN do big things for Christ ought to do big things for Christ. But
what of the bulk of Christendom – people like you and me whose place in the
kingdom does not lend itself to win thousands to the Lord or reach hundreds of
children, or build orphanages, or feed multitudes?
Listen
to only two of scores of examples of so-called ‘little people’ who did what
they could for Christ and received His praise. In the first example, Luke tells
us Jesus was speaking in the Temple area to His disciples and the wealthy
rulers and theologians. Then something caught His eye. “And He looked up and
saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. And He saw a poor
widow putting in two small copper coins. And He
said, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of
them; for they all out of their surplus put into the offering;
but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on.”
Luke 21:1-4
Mark
records the second example. A woman entered uninvited to a dinner party. She
approached the Lord as He reclined at the table and she poured an expensive
ointment on His head. Mark tells it this way:
“But
some were indignantly remarking to one another, “Why has
this perfume been wasted? For this perfume might have been sold for over
three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And
they were scolding her. But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you
bother her? She has done a good deed to Me. For you always have the
poor with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them; but you do not
always have Me. She has done what she could; she has anointed
My body beforehand for the burial. Truly I say to you, wherever the
gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be
spoken of in memory of her.” (Mark 14:4-9)
Did
you catch what the Lord said about both women? In the first, the Lord praised
the woman for doing what she could – even more than she could afford. In the
second example, the Lord said of her effort? “She has done what she could.”
Do
we think Jesus doesn’t know when you do all that you can do for Him. Do you
think He doesn’t know when you sacrifice your time, your talents, your
resources for His kingdom? So – what is it that YOU can do?
And
if you don’t know what you can do – then ask Him in prayer – consistent,
intentional, concerted prayer. Not just once or twice or a dozen times – but
again and again until He shows you. And He WILL show you because it is His
pleasure that you give to Him what you can.
I
think now of what God told Jeremiah 33:3 – ‘Call to Me and I will answer
you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not
know.’
So,
what can you do – what do you WANT to do for your Lover? The same questions
apply to me as well. What do we want we give to the One who loves us not only
‘to the moon and back’ – but who loves us to the Cross and back? What will
we sacrifice to the One who loves – who loves us like a rock, who loves us like
the Rock of Ages?
Many
of us know the hymn by Isaac Watts, who died in the 18th century:
When
I survey the wondrous cross/On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss/And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid
it, Lord, that I should boast/Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most/I sacrifice them to His blood.
See
from His head, His hands, His feet/Sorrow and love flow mingled down!/Did e’er
such love and sorrow meet/Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were
the whole realm of nature mine/That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine/Demands my soul, my life, my all.
Small
or large, what can you and I give to the Lord? What can we do for Him? Well, the
foundation of all the gifts we can bring to Him must begin with the foundation
of – in the words of Micah: “To do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with
your God.” ANY gift that does not spring from that root – justice, kindness,
and humility is unacceptable to God.
Listen
to what He tells us through Amos (5:21-24): “I hate, I reject your
festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. “Even
though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will
not accept them; And I will not even look at
the peace offerings of your fatlings. “Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will
not even listen to the sound of your harps. “But
let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing
stream.”
In
other words – first things first: Obey His commandments.That must be the root
of all our gifts. The apostle Peter helps us with this issue of obedience resulting
in fruitfulness for Christ in his second letter:
“[G]iving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8), NKJV)
Rooted in our humility before Christ, this text alone (and there
are many others) is our RECIPE for fruitfulness for Christ. Obedience to His
instructions here and throughout Holy Scripture guarantees that we not
arrive at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb emptyhanded.
Let’s look a bit more closely at this text from the apostle’s
pen: If we truly have a faith that saves, then we will add to that faith
‘virtue’, which means moral goodness in what we do in public AND in private. To
virtue we add ‘knowledge’ – an ever-increasing familiarity with God – His
words, His commandments, and so forth.
To virtue and knowledge, we add self-control, mastering our passions
and desires especially when those passions and desires are at variance with
God's revealed word and will. Self-control also applies to mastery of our
tongue.
To these things we also add perseverance – a patient endurance in
our walk with Christ, not being swayed away from our hope in Him who provides
us hope. And to these we add godliness in our lifestyles. To godliness, we add
kindness – even to those we do not particularly like. And to kindness, we add love
for one another.
Note again what Peter says next: “For if these things are
yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful
in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, when we do these things,
growing in Christian maturity, God PROMISES we will be fruitful.
That
is precisely why it is NOT POSSIBLE for anyone, regardless of age, health, wealth,
poverty, religious background – or any other factor – it is impossible for a
Christian who WANTS to be fruitful for Christ to not be fruitful if he or she
simply follows the recipes God gives us – doing justice, loving kindness,
walking humbly before our God, and maturing in our relationship with our savior
according to His various recipes such as this here in Peter’s letter.
And
please here this. This is important: We ought to seek to be fruitful because we
love Him and want to give back to our Lover what He has abundantly given to us.
We ought to seek to be fruitful because we do not want to show up at the Marriage
Supper of the Lamb empty-handed. And we ought to seek to be fruitful because there
is a judgment for those who are willfully, selfishly, lazily unfruitful.
Many
of you remember the parable at the end of Matthew 25. All the nations will at
the judgment be separated into two groups – sheep on His right hand and goats
on His left. Now listen to this text from that chapter:
Matthew
25:34ff “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are
blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to
eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a
stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick,
and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then
the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You,
or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see
You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we
see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to
them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these
brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
But
that’s not the end of the story, is it? Now to verse 41: “Then He will also
say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal
fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was
hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave
Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in;
naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit
Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry,
or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did
not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you,
to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not
do it to Me.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the
righteous into eternal life.”
I
don’t know how Christians get the idea that doing ‘good works’ is not as
important to our salvation as is ‘faith.’ That idea is totally unsupportable by
Scripture. Indeed, I will say that idea stands in direct opposition to what
Scripture teaches us about works – which are the requisite evidence of
saving faith.
Look
for a moment at James 2:14-20 “What use is it, my brethren,
if someone says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him?
If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of
daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace,
be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for
their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has
no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, “You have faith
and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my
faith by my works.” You believe that God is one. You do
well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you
willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?
Now listen to Paul as he wrote to the Church through Titus
(3:8,14),
“This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you
to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to
engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable
for men . . . . “Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds
to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful.”
As
I said a few moments ago, and I close by repeating myself for emphasis: We ought
to seek to be fruitful because we love Jesus and want to give back to our Lover
what He has abundantly given to us. We ought to seek to be fruitful because we
do not want to show up at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb empty-handed. Just
think for a moment of how embarrassing it will be to see even those we knew in
life presenting to the Savior the souls of men and women and children they won
for Christ, the ones they encouraged in Christ, the ones they fed and clothed
and nurtured for Christ – and meanwhile, we stand emptyhanded.
And
we ought to seek to be fruitful because there is a judgment for those who are
willfully and selfishly and lazily unfruitful.
What
are you doing with the rest of your life? What do you WANT to do for your Lord
for the rest of your life? How often will you seek His answer until He tells
you want He is asking of you?
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