Sunday 11/19/17
Series: Doers of the Word
Message – What does Your Heart Value
Heart Values
Learning about being…
- Doers
- fruit bearers
- those who live what they say they believe
This year, I believe we have seen change, but I know that some of you are still not pleased with where you are.
You don’t want to be someone who just mentally agrees to certain facts.
You want – your actions to be consistent with what you claim to believe.
You don’t just want to be acceptable as His child, you want to be well pleasing to Him.
{***Link to article on Acceptable and Pleasing***}
Jesus told us that falling in love with God is of utmost importance, but there are different kinds of love. In the Bible many are eluded too and the have a specific word for it. So often, the majority of what we call love for God is the same as Peter’s on the shore that morning in John 21.
It’s Phileo… A friendship type of love…which is good, but there are places of loyalty to God that emotional or friendship love cannot take you!
By way of illustration let me ask you, how many realize that in physical love there is a thing called “chemistry”.
How many know that there are different degrees of chemistry?
The problem with chemistry is that you can have great “chemistry” with your mate, and yet still meet a perfect stranger with whom you have even greater chemistry.
In those times, you need something greater than “chemistry” or your faithfulness to your spouse stands in jeopardy!
You know you can have a terrific marriage where there is commitment and little to no chemistry. BUT you cannot have even a good marriage where you have all the chemistry in the world, but lack commitment.
So it is with Christ!
There are times when…
- Emotions will fail you
- Desires to honor Him will be out stripped by the heat of the moment
But when there is dedication and commitment, loyalty and devotion – agape there will be long-lasting fidelity.
What makes the difference?
What do you value?
In regard to God our loyalty will be to Him or to our body of sin – what do we value more?
Romans 6,
“6 For we know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that sin’s dominion over the body may be abolished, so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin’s claims.”
Well many times, it IS Him that we value more…but in some areas, our bodies have the upper hand.
How many of you have ever seen a young girl who doesn’t value herself much?
Truth is… any guy who is looking for more than a one night stand will not value her either BECAUSE he sees the value she has placed upon herself. He views her the way she views herself.
How you view something has EVERYTHING to do with the value you place upon it.
Jesus said it this way, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” ~ Lk. 12:34
It is interesting what Jesus was actually saying there…
The word treasure doesn’t really mean “what you value” but what you store up.
So He was saying, what you amass… what you store up is where you’re true affections, desires, feelings, passions & impulses are.
Change your views and reset your values
So pay attention to what you value, because that is what you will store up and what you store up is where your Impulses and passions will be.
Set your values above and not beneath.
Turn to Phil. 3:20-21
Someone explain what humiliation means?
An extreme sense of personal shame or embarrassment. Ultimately it is not just for an action, but for the way you see you and the way others see you as a result of your actions. It is humiliating because it says something about you.
Phil. 3:20-21,
“(20) For our citizenship is in heaven; from which also we wait for our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: (21) Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subject all things unto himself.”
Some translations will say…
- Our vile body
- Humble estate
- Humble body
But I believe the clearest representation of the Greek word here is Humiliation or Abasement.
Tapeinosis = The act of humiliation, abasement.
I believe it was the basis for Adam and Eve’s shame in the discovery of their nakedness.
Is it possible that something changed visually? Well sure it’s possible – it’s been speculated that perhaps the glory of God had been a type of covering of radiant light for us so that when it left, they saw their physical nakedness for the first time. But I believe it was something more transcendent than natural.
Jesus was transfiguration on the mountain and shined like the sun, but when He rose from the dead in His glorified body, He looked like any other man…so, no proof there.
Regardless of that… I believe their physical nakedness simply became a focal point of the true source of their shame of falling and NOT because of any visually external change.
For all external purposes, Jesus did not seem to feel shame in relation to His body until He received the fullness of our sins in His Own body on the tree. – Acts 8:33 which I believe offers a key to the source of Adam and Eve’s shame and so also, our current humiliation.
Acts 8:32-33,
“(32) Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. (33) In His humiliation justice was denied Him. Who can describe His generation? For His life is taken away from the earth.”
The times I have felt the greatest shame in my relationship with God have been times when I knew I should have trusted Him and didn’t. Just like what happened in the garden. When the dust settled and His faithfulness shone through, I became ashamed or humiliated at my lack of trust.
This is the way it is used in this verse.
So, as I said earlier. There are places of loyalty in our relationship with God that our emotions cannot take us.
What you value will guide your dedication
Deep heart commitment comes from where we place our greatest value and THAT produces enduring loyalty!
There are times when the only thing that will keep you from sinning…
the only thing which will cause your fruit to continue and remain is loyalty to what you value?
There comes a point where our emotions fail us, and we are left to face the dragons of our weak areas alone. Not without God, but without the support our heightened emotions offer us.
In those times we have to surrender to Christ and resist the enemy.
Kind of like submission and agreement.
Turn to Hebrews 12,
“(1) Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (2) looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (3) For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. (4) You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.”
Turn to James 4:
“(7) Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
His Lordship is a covering for us
Phil. 3 – The chapter
“1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write to you again about this is no trouble for me and is a protection for you.
2 Watch out for “dogs,” [The Jews regarded the Gentiles as “dogs” (Mat_15:26); but by their own unbelief they have ceased to be the true Israel, and are become “dogs]watch out for evil workers (false teachers),
watch out for those who mutilate the flesh.
3 For we are the circumcision, the ones who serve by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and do not put confidence in the flesh—
4 although I once had confidence in the flesh too. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised the eighth day; of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.
7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.Because of Him [My LORD] I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ–the righteousness from God based on faith. [BOAST IN Jesus]
[His GOAL or TREASURE came out of what he VALUED]
10 My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the partnership through shared experience in His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead. 12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
13 Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, 14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
15 Therefore, all who are mature should think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this to you also. 16 In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.
17 Join in imitating me, brothers, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.
18 For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame. They are focused on earthly things,
20 but our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
21 He [My LORD] will transform the body of our humiliation into the likeness of His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subject everything to Himself.”
We do the submitting – He does the Subduing!
1Peter 5:6-11,
“(06)Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, (7) casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. (8) Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. (9) Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. (10) But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. (11) To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
This service had no notes since it was an open discussion…Blessings!
I hope this teaching will challenge you and encourage you to place your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
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