God's Authority and Human Relationships

There was a time in the universe's history when there wasn't anything. There wasn't a star, there wasn't a sun, there wasn't a moon, there wasn't an earth. There was just God. That's all there was. God decided one day that he wanted to change this circumstance, and in his mind he planned what he wanted to do. He planned to make all the universe with all the stars and the planets and the asteroids and all the other things that are out there. And this great plan that he had, he did it. It's not hard for God. He thought up what he wanted and he did it. Then he decided he wanted something really different and special. He wanted a place where he could have just what he wanted with people. So he made the earth, he made ground, and he made water. Then he filled the water with fish, all different kinds of fish. Some fish that we've never seen. We find fossils of them. So he made them for his own enjoyment, not necessarily for us. His own enjoyment. Then he made animals on the land. We've seen all kinds of animals in our world. Maybe we've discovered all of them that live in this world. But we do know that he made a lot of them that we've never even seen. We only see the bones of them in the ground. He made them for his own pleasure and joy. And after he'd done all of this, he made birds in the sky. All kinds of different birds. Wide varieties of birds. He likes to do things that bring him pleasure. And then he made on this earth people. Now in this natural order of the stars, the moons, the asteroids, all of this stuff, the birds, the fish, the animals, every single thing that he made did exactly what he told it to do. His authority over all the natural order was complete. It reflected the nature and character of God. He is intelligent, so the things in this world make sense. He is powerful, so he was able to make things that are strong and powerful, like gravity in this world. He is a God of beauty, so that everywhere you go and you see something that no man has ever been there, it's overwhelming because of its beauty. God is like an artist. He's like a builder with skill. He does the most intricate things. He plants within his creation things that we could never imagine so that they work together and they fit together. All of this is under the authority of God. He is the ruler of all the natural order. We learn something about God by watching the natural world around us. We see his order. Every year we have spring, summer, fall, and winter. It's amazing. We never have to worry in the middle of July when the grain is in the field that you're going to have a 12-inch snowstorm here. It doesn't happen. The order that God has is completely submissive to him, and it reflects to us something of the nature of God. Now, the Bible indicates that this is true in Psalm 148. Praise him, sun and moon. Praise him, all you shining stars. Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the sky. Let them praise the name of the Lord. And when the phrase the name of the Lord is used, it means his character, his nature, what he's like. For he commanded and they were created. He set them in place forever and ever. He gave a decree that will never pass away. Now, the sun does not say, God, you're great and wonderful. It can't speak. Neither do the shining stars say to God, you're magnificent. Boy, I grew up in northwest Arkansas, hill country. There were places on our farm where you couldn't see a light at all. You couldn't see a house. You couldn't see any lights at all. And as a boy, you could look up in the sky in that kind of circumstance, and the Milky Way was absolutely stunning. The stars at night were just bold and bright, like they were right there at you. They didn't say anything, but they reflected something about the nature and character of God. For he rules all of the natural order. Everything in the natural order does what God tells it to do, exactly what he tells it to do. Performs as he made it to perform. Acts as he made it to act. These things are under the authority and control of God. The natural order is a kingdom that God controls. Now if you walked into the house of a person and you looked at the wall and you saw a beautiful painting, you would look at the painting and you would not assume that the painting itself had organized all the color and all the strokes on the canvas. You would assume that there was someone out there who had the thought in their mind of a picture, and then they had the skill to be able to make that picture that you see on the wall. And you would say, that is a wonderful artist by looking at the painting. This is what the Bible is talking about. When we see the natural order, we say, who could ever have thought of this? We think, who has the power to do this? If you've ever been here in Kansas in the summertime when there's a lightning storm, and you hear the claps of thunder and the power that it exhorts, and you see the flashes of lightning and the power they represent, you stand in awe of the God of such power and majesty. They don't say a single English word, but they announce to us that the creator who controls this universe has power, has power beyond anything that humans can imagine. And we're always in awe when we see the landscape after a tornado has gone through it, how it just strips everything. I remember one year near our house, about a mile away from our house, a tornado came through. Down there is a lot of old timber, big oak trees, lots of different kinds of trees. And when it was over, you could drive down the road, and when you came to where the tornado went across, you could look out there and it looked like someone had taken a giant lawnmower through weeds and just mowed a strip. As far as you could see, the tornado stepped down and just leveled those trees as smoothly as a lawnmower cuts grass. You can't look at that and not say, what power God has. God is the ruler of all the natural order, and the natural order proclaims something about God, his artistic skill, his ability to make things take place, his power, his creativity. All of those declare that about him. That's important for us. But it's not all the story. After God had finished making all of this world that would allow him, because he made it to be the king, and everything would live under his authority, it was not enough. I mean, you can talk to your dog or your cat, you can carry on a wonderful conversation, but your cat won't talk back to you. Your dog won't talk back to you. It may look at you, and you may imagine what it's saying to you, but it will never utter an English word. God longed for something in his creation that wasn't there. He said, I'm going to make something that is like me, in a way that nothing in all the creation is like me. It has the capacity to think. It has the capacity to feel. It has the capacity to respond. And so he made a man and woman in his image. Now, the Bible says he made a man and woman in his image. It means that there's something about men that's like God, and there's something about women that are like God. He is bigger than any one of us, but he draws together all of the nature that we have in humanity. And what he wanted was someone who could interact with him. He wanted to be able to talk to them and allow them to understand what he was saying, other than just saying, planet, stay on your orbit, and it would do it. He wanted a relationship, and so he made us, human beings. He made Adam and Eve and placed them in this garden. And what he wanted to do was he came and talked to them, interacted with them. We don't know how long all this took place in the garden because the Bible just moves from one thing to another quickly. But every day God would come, and he would interact with them. It would be amazing to know what they talked about, wouldn't it? Adam was talking about what he was naming the animals, the things they were doing to keep the garden up. God was responding to them with instructions or directions. We don't know what it was, but they talked. He came in the cool of the evening for Adam's sake. God didn't have to worry about getting hot or cold. He didn't have the same physical capacities we do. But in mercy to Adam, in the cool of the evening, they would walk in the garden and just talk. This was what God wanted most of all in the world. He's proud that the stars and planets do what they do, but he most of all wanted people to be his friend and to relate to him and to listen to him and to reflect him. He wanted all the people he made to reflect his nature and his character. So he told them in the garden, this is what I want you to do, this is what I don't want you to do. If you'll do these things, you will find this life the best that could possibly be. They had everything in the world they needed, everything in the world that was useful and helpful to them. He ruled the Garden of Eden. He was the king of that place. He was the king of Adam and Eve. And it was a perfect world. The supreme ruler of everything ruled all the natural order, all the animals and everything there, and the human beings in that place were perfectly submissive to him. There was not one problem in the world. Adam and Eve had no clothes on, but they weren't afraid of each other. They never were afraid of anger. They never were afraid of somebody hitting them or robbing them. They weren't precious to get all their stuff and hide it from other people. It was open. No anger. No resentment. No bitterness. No fighting. No murder. No thievery. Everything exactly as God wanted it. And Adam and Eve reflected the nature of God like the stars reflected. But they reflected in a different way. They loved each other. They took care of each other. They supported each other. They reflected the way God was to them between each other. And then something terribly drastic happened. One day they said, you know, maybe God's not right about this. Maybe if we ate the fruit he told us not to eat, our life, we would be smarter, we'd have new experiences, and we'd maybe be more like God. And in that one moment, everything changed. God's rule over their life was thrown away. No longer did they say, okay, we're going to do everything God tells us. But they now said, let's trust our judgment. Now the world's changed. On this earth there are people who live under the kingdom of God, like Adam and Eve in the garden, saying, Lord, you are the Lord of our lives. You rule us. We will live the way you want us to live. And then there are people in the world who are saying, we are going to do exactly what we think is best. We're going to do exactly what we want to do, when we want to do it, the way we want to do it. And it doesn't matter to us what God says or thinks. So now in the world there is God's rule over the natural order, God's rule over his people, and the kingdom of this world that is ruled by Satan. What God wants is to draw together the people who were part of that kingdom that he started in the Garden of Eden and restore it. When Jesus came, he came to talk to his disciples about what he wanted out of them. He was talking about what it means to live in the kingdom of God. In the Old Testament, the people of Israel had received the Ten Commandments and the explanation about how to keep those in the Old Testament. But Jesus came setting before us the idea that this is what the kingdom of God is really like. And I'm going to summarize for just a bit what happened when Jesus did this. He talked about this primarily in terms of reflecting God, and this is critical, by the relationships that we have. And so he said, the very first of the... I'm going to summarize sort of the Sermon on the Mount in a really short period of time. Don't be angry with each other so that you get angry and fight and end up killing each other. Don't lust for another person who's not your spouse. Be satisfied with what I've given you. Protect the relationship between you and your spouse so that it's never broken. Keep the promises that you make to the people around you. Always tell the truth. Whenever people do bad things to you, don't get even with them. Don't fight among yourselves. Love those who do bad things to you, your enemies. Care for those who are unable to help themselves. Don't display your religious nature as if you're better than other people. Have a humble spirit with others. Don't worry because God has promised to take care of you. Don't place all your concerns on the physical things of this world, but instead value the spiritual things. And do not run down or condemn the people who are around you. All of these things have to do with what was in the Garden of Eden. The way God treated the people who were there, and the way the people treated God, and the way they treated each other. Relationships are the key issue in our reflection of the nature of God. What God intended with Adam and Eve was, if you live by the rules that I give you, and the rules God gives us are like the natural order in the world. If you get on top of a building and you take one of your special glasses that you have, that you paid a lot of money for this crystal glass, and you drop it from there, what do you think is going to happen? You know, don't you? When it hits the ground, it's going to shatter. And no matter how many times you drop it gently, or you throw it hard, or you try to throw it up in the air so it might float, the same thing is going to happen. God made the world so that if we do not live according to these directions with us, our lives become broken. So you see around you people who lie and steal, kill, murder, fight, all those things all around us. They're all the result of one single thing. That people are not living with God as the authority and king and ruler of their lives. So what God says is, here's what I want to do. I want to start a group of people who are going to be in my kingdom. That's what he did with the Jewish people. You're my people. I want you to act this way. I want you to dress this way and eat this way and talk this way so everyone in the world will know you're not like the rest of the world. You're like I want you to be. And they'll look at you and say, I want to be like those people. He said to Abraham, through you all the nations of the world will be blessed. And how will they be blessed? They'll be blessed by knowing what it's like to live with God as their king. When Jesus came he said, now I want to tell you how to put in practice these things in the Old Testament. It's going to be different. It's not just Jews but all of you have a chance here. If you will accept my authority over your life, come and follow me. I will teach you how to live a life so that you will reflect the very nature of God himself. And so he gathered around him twelve guys, ordinary people. He began to teach them what it was God wanted them to do. And they began to incorporate that in their lives. They began to see in Jesus something dramatically different than themselves. They knew he was not like anyone else because he reflected the nature of God as they knew him so completely and so perfectly that they said, you must be God. And he was. And by living out this nature of God he declared to everyone around him the greatness of God. You don't go anywhere in the world where people think Jesus is not significant or important. Even other religions look at Jesus and they say this is the kind of person everyone should be. What he reflected was here is a person who lets God control him. He said one time, I say the things God wants me to say. None of us can say that. I do the things that God tells me to do. None of us can say that. But he did. That was his life. And so when people see the life of Jesus they are astonished because they see the very character and nature of God himself. Now God was like this all the way from the beginning of creation. But we couldn't see him clearly. He told us these things but we couldn't see him clearly. And so he brushed back the coverings of this earth and he came down to live among us and he said, this is what it's like to live with God as your king. And everyone who reads the story of Jesus is overwhelmed to want to be like him. They see in his character and nature the very things they wish that they had for themselves. What he did was he reflected the full nature of God to us. We see what it's like for a person who's born in a family, grows up in a family, works at a construction job, that's a job that he had, and does the things God tells him to do, who in every circumstance does always the right thing, always does the right thing. And no matter what happened to him, he was always victorious even in his punishment and death. And even in those moments in which he appears to be most defeated, we look at him and say, he wins. It's not the Romans that win. It's not the Jewish leaders that win. It is the man on the cross that we admire and respect. The man on the cross that grabs our hearts and says, this is the way you should live. The kingdom of God fully demonstrated in Jesus' life and taught to us by his instructions. Why is it that people reject the kingdom of God, his rule over us? Here's the big one. It requires us to say, I will do what you tell me to do even if it's against my nature, even if I don't want to do it, even if it's costly, even if it's deadly. That's what Jesus demanded. He demanded absolute allegiance. You can't follow me unless you love me more than you love your parents or your husband or your wife or your children. You can't follow me if you love the things of this world more than you love me. If I ask you to give it away, I want you to give it away. You can't follow me and be a part of my kingdom unless you follow every single law that I give you. For when you deviate from one of the least of these, you have suddenly become an enemy of mine. When you violate one of the least of these instructions, you have become rebellious to me. That's what Jesus demanded and his requirement. And so if you'll open your life and your heart to me and live the way I want you to live, you will find life. So when Jesus ended his ministry, he said to his followers, this is what this is all about. I've come to live before you so that you can see what the kingdom of God is really like. When there is one person who is willing to say to God, I will do everything you tell me to do, exactly as you tell me to do it, as long as you tell me to do it, no matter what the cost. And now you've seen this. You realize that I died, and now I'm here standing before you living again to tell you that there is not one thing in this world that can destroy you if you live in my kingdom. So he said, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You have a person that stands and says, Jesus Christ is my Lord, he is my King, he is my Ruler. I used to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, the way I wanted, but no longer. Jesus Christ is my King. So we say, you're buried in the water to show that your old life is over, and you're raised up to show your new life has started with Jesus as your King. So you're to go out, and you're to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the fullness of God. And teaching them to obey everything, that word, everything, I have commanded you. And surely, I will be with you always to the very end of the age. You know, Adam and Eve did pretty good. They only did one thing wrong. One thing wrong. I'm sure that if you're like me, there probably been this week, more than one thing you did that you look back on and say, whoa, I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have thought that, I shouldn't have said that. Just one thing. It wasn't the one thing they did that was the problem. It was that they knew they were not supposed to do it. They looked at the fruit and said, we would like to eat that fruit. But they remembered in their mind that God said no. And so they said, in spite of what God says, I am going to do this. Many people don't enter the kingdom of God and find the fullness of it because they may make that first step, but they don't know the rules. What am I supposed to do? So they don't know the Bible. And so they don't study it, they don't go to church, they don't listen. And so they stumble along, having made this promise to God, but violating the things God wants them to do because they don't know what they're supposed to do. God has gracious patience with all of us and especially people who find themselves in that circumstance. But there's another way, you know. You start reading the Bible and you find out some of that stuff is pretty hard to do. No, I shouldn't say that, I guess. It's impossible to do. Forgive people that hurt you. Turn the other cheek. It's hard stuff. Give away your money when you don't always have enough. That's hard stuff. But you see, living in the kingdom of God begins with one proposition. I trust you that everything you tell me to do, everything you tell me to do will be right. It's a lot like learning to drive on ice where you have to give up all of your natural instincts about how to drive the car and go against the grain. And that is really hard the first time you do it. And then you discover that it works. And then you learn to do it automatically. That's true about the kingdom of God too. Many people listen to God. They want all the benefits that He gives them. But they come to say, Wait a minute. I'm not sure this will work. So they want to look at the Bible and pick the things that they enjoy doing or that are easy for them to do or that seem comfortable for them and then make a list of those things that they don't think work. I don't think I want to do that. But I want to do these. You can't do that in the kingdom. You don't get to sit down in this country and say, Which of the laws on the books do I want to live by? If you do, you become an outlaw. Not a good citizen of the community. And when you become an outlaw toward God, you're not in His kingdom. You've joined the kingdom of His enemy. What Jesus wanted was for us to live in the way He did so that everyone who would see us would say, There is a person who is like God, not like me. The word Christian means simply a small Christ, a small representative of the very nature of God Himself. So we're to go in the world and like the stars and the moon, we don't have to talk to people all the time about God, but our relationships should show it. So we all have the same jerk for a boss, but you seem to get along with him. You seem to be able to live with this. How do you do it? We all are married to someone that doesn't necessarily do the things we want them to do. People look and say, How do you get along with that? We all have kids that are not necessarily the way we want them. We all have neighbors that are not necessarily the way we want them. But they look at us and say, How do you do this? And we say, It is God in me who has done this. I got a call one time from a man that wanted to get some gas. It was on Sunday, and so I asked somebody in the church, Do you think we should do this? And we prayed, and he said, Yeah, I think we should do it. So we went down to give this guy some money for gas. And when we got there, he knew what he was supposed to be, very grateful and thankful to us. Because if you give somebody something, and they say, Oh, you're wonderful. This is great. You're a great person. I wish everyone in the world was like you. We begin to say, Oh, boy, I'm a pretty good guy here, you know. And we agreed before we went what we would say. So when he said that, we told him, No. I said, You know, I'm not naturally a generous person. I'm kind of self-focused, really. And whenever you called, I didn't want to give you anything. But when we talked to God about this, He said we should come down and give you some money. So we're not giving you this money because of ourselves. It's a reflection that God said, I care for this man and I want him to have it. Every time someone compliments you about your life, if you're living under the authority of Christ, you should always remember they're complimenting the Spirit of God inside of you. Left to our natural actions and thoughts and behavior, we're not like this. But when Christ enters us, we become like Him. Because He's living in us. He's causing thoughts to come to our mind. He's causing feelings to come to our hearts so that we begin to act like Him. You don't have to say, I hope when the full moon comes up in all of its glory, somebody will think it looks nice. You don't have to wonder about whenever the sun goes down in the west or comes up in the morning and people look at it, that someone will think it's beautiful. They will. You don't have to worry about being a witness to the nature and character of God if you're living and acting under the authority of God. You don't have to wonder about that. They will see the difference between you and the other people they know. And you will be able to say, this is God. If your life is just like all the other people out there, no matter what you tell them, it won't make any difference. If you have the same problems and you have the same nature and the same character and the same home and the same situations as all the other people and you say, I'd like you to become a Christian like me. Forget it. The stars and the moon bear witness to the glory of God and our lives lived in submission to Him bear witness to the glory of God. For when we live as Jesus described, God lived and wanted us to live, everyone around us will know this person is different. What God has called us to is a life to make the world different and change it. He wants us to become a different world because we are different than the rest of the world. There are three kingdoms in this world. The kingdom of the natural order which none of us can take part of except our physical bodies are part of that. There's the kingdom of Satan which are the people who say, I don't want to do what God wants me to do. I want to live my life the way I want it. I want to read the Bible when I want to or if I don't want to. I want to go to church when I want to or don't want to. I want to act like God wants me to if I want to or don't want to. Those are my decisions. I'm sorry you're not in the kingdom. It's not your works that get you in the kingdom. It's the recognition of the authority of the ruler of the world. What he wants is for you to say, God, here is my life. I can't in my natural human nature live the way you want me to. But I place my life in your hands like a canvas is placed in the hands of an artist. Make me like yourself. When you tell me something's wrong with me, I'll stop and say, Okay, God, forgive me for being different than what you want me to be. Change my mind, my heart, my behavior. And whatever you ask me to do, I will try my best to live in obedience to you because you are my king. You will find over the time that you live this way with God that he will change you to be more and more and more like himself. If you get to the place where you get to stop and say to God, I'm not going to do that. Your journey's over. He's not going to go any further with you because you've just told him, You are not my king. I am in charge of that. Whatever it is, it could be your money, it could be your hobbies, it could be your lifestyle, it could be your language, it could be a lot of things. But unless he's king of everything, he's not really your king. There are a lot of people in the world who think that they're part of the kingdom of God. In the book of Amos, Amos wrote to the people of Israel who were faithful to go to church, who were faithful to give their tithe, who were faithful to do all these things. He said, this is what God says to you when you come to church. I hate, I despise your religious feasts. I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings, grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring me choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs. I will not listen to the music of your harps, but let justice roll on like a river and righteousness like never ending streams. God is not so much interested in your giving to him your money or how well you sing or what you sing, as he is about these two things. Actually one, let justice roll on like a river. Now when we hear the word justice, we think going to court, hearing a trial, the judge says, okay, I'm in favor of you, you did the right thing. That's not what the Bible means by it here. The word justice means treating people correctly, whether it's in court or in your job or on your block or in your family. Treating people right. The next word parallel with it is righteousness, which simply means the same thing. What God wants of you, he said, is not your singing, not your giving, not your reading the Bible, but your lifestyle to reflect how God treats people. So our real evidence of the kingship of God is what other people say about us. Your music does not praise me, your songs don't praise me, your life praises me. I see sometimes in a church service, a sir would go by and I saw him the other day, he said worship 8 to 8.30 and preaching 8.30 to 9. Now, the worship is from when you wake up in the morning until you go to sleep. For every decision you make in your life in a day that is consistent with what your king wants you to do, you are saying to the world, he's my king. Look at my life and you'll see a reflection of him. That's your worship every single hour of the day. If it doesn't happen in the six days out there, when you come before God to sing and to pray and to discuss the Bible, he has his fingers in his ears and he's closing his eyes. Why are you here talking like this when you will not do what I tell you to do? But my arms are open and the kingdom is open. Welcome. Just say to me, I give my life to you. Would you bow please for a moment to pray. I want to ask you if you can say to God straight out, I have given you my life. I've given you my will. I've given you my behavior. I've given you my lifestyle. I've given you my home. I've given you my family. I've given you my job. I've given you my marriage. So that you control all those things. And you've never done that. You're outside the kingdom of heaven and when you die you'll never go to heaven. This is urgent. I don't care what you think or what you heard in the past. This is urgent for you. And today God opens his doors to the kingdom of heaven. It's narrow because you can only get in if you say I give my life to Jesus Christ. I urge you to do that. It will change your life. It will change your world. Maybe you've given your life to him but you begin to look around you and see a lot of people that don't seem to be that serious about it. And so you let yourself slip into a pattern where you do the things that you think God wants you to do that's convenient for you but you're not willing to do much more. I'd be worried if I were you. It's like getting out on the highway with no driver's license or insurance. It's a big risk. You can make sure that you're on the right road if you clarify that with God. I can see God that I've been playing with you. I want to say to you today take my life whatever the cost it is. God is alive and he's talking to you. He's putting thoughts in your mind. You listen to it. He tells you today that you ought to do something to make a change. We're going to give you an opportunity to do that. The moment the pianos are going to play, go ahead and start. I want you to think about what you have in your mind. Any good thing that comes to you, it's God saying this is what I want you to do. Every excuse is Satan saying, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. What are you going to follow? The kingdom of God or the kingdom of hell? If you feel the need to make a public commitment of your life to Christ in some way or make a promise to him and you'd like us to pray for you, I'll be here, Kathy will be here. You do what God wants you to do. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Can you stand please for a moment of prayer together? The big disasters in our life are overwhelming. How do you go through those disasters? I mean things that are overwhelming and crushing. Tonight we're going to look at the story of Jesus as he faced the most difficult days of his life. How do you go through that? He reflects again under the control of the Father how we can face anything. And following his example helps us to face whatever disasters we come upon. So tonight at 6 o'clock, Father we're thankful for your kingdom. We have a king who knows exactly what to do. We elect governments and people in charge and sometimes we know they have no idea what they're doing. They're trying their best but they don't know. We never have to fear that with you. You always know what's right. You always know what's wrong. You always know what we should do. And not only that, you give us the power and ability to do it. What a wonderful king you are. We look forward to the days that you have us with you forever. And we can look at you with our eyes and see you and hear you with our ears and celebrate that time with you. Our king, our Lord, Jesus Christ, our Savior, it's in your name that we pray and live. Amen. [♪ piano music playing ♪ Praise Him, praise Him, Jesus our blessed...