The Big Ten Wins

Go to the home page: Do You Need A Winning Game Plan For Your Life?

Proverbs 3:1-4    Exodus 20:1-17      Audio file is at the end of text.    

My experience has taught me that every person I meet wants to win.  Maybe since I've been coaching sports for four decades and there is always a score that clearly tells everyone who just won and who just lost I think a lot about how to win.  No athlete ever comes into my office and asks me, "What can I do to help us lose the game?"  God is perfectly clear about how we can all win every single day of our lives.  He wrote the book on it and he gave us the book and he wants us to freely choose to follow the rules.

Today let's look at Proverbs 3:1-4.
"Dear friends, do not forget my commands but keep my teachings in your heart for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity.  Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.  Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man."

How does that sound? Does that sound like a good life? To me it does.  What are the commands the writer is referring to here?  Since we're in the Old Testament we know the reference is back to the Ten Commandments.  Let's go Exodus 20:1-17 where we find, "the big ten."

The Ten Commandments

1And God spoke all these words:

2“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

3“You shall have no other gods before^a me.

4“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

8“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

12“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

13“You shall not murder.

14“You shall not commit adultery.

15“You shall not steal.

16“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

17“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
 

If all we had to go on are these Proverbs and the Exodus passages, it is clear that God will bless our lives.  So what do we do when a 51 year-old father of two children who needs him dies suddenly?  This happened this week.  One of our sixth grade students lost a father.  I can tell you, it does not make sense to me.  All we can do is trust the plan God has laid out for us.  If we keep these commands, even in the death of a loved one, God is going to bless us.  Life is hard, however, when you know that God made you and that God loves you and that he has told us the rules of the game, even in sadness, you can win.

3-4-2012 by Robby4747 on Mixcloud

Follow the Tax Collector

Go to the home page: Do You Need A Winning Game Plan For Your Life?

Luke 18:9-14    Galatians 3:9-10       Audio file is at the end of text.    

We live in a world that is focused on success.  God has put into us a competitive spirit to be the best that we can be.  This drive for excellence can get us in trouble.  One day my father set a goal to try to save $5,000.  When he hit that goal, he tried for $10,000.  Then he told me that he woke up one night in a cold sweat and God was telling him that his striving for the goal to accumulate money was becoming an obsession.

The next morning he set up a scholarship fund at  Louisiana College and gave half of his savings away to help young people get a college degree.  Since that time, hundreds have benefited from his willingness to let go of self and to use his competitive spirit to serve others.  Focusing on any goal can become a passion and this is one way Satan sneaks in and we don't even realize it's happening.  We think we're doing something good, something excellent, something we can take pride in then our pleasure with ourselves take our focus off of Jesus.

What does Jesus have to say to those of us who think so much of ourselves?  We might be proud that we saved some money, or we won a trophy, or that people we work with think we're the best.  In Luke 18:9-14 we hear directly from Jesus on this topic.  He says that it is better for us to be like the tax collector than the Pharisee--the professional religious guy.  This was shocking to those who heard Jesus in person that day.  Why would Jesus say this?

A tax collector was seen as the lowest of the low because he worked for the Roman government.  Rome set the tax then the collector would collect that plus some and the plus part he put in his own pocket.  In a way the Jews saw the tax collector as a bit of a thief or traitor since he worked for the pagans.  The Pharisee was looked up to and admired.  Once again, Jesus turns tradition on its head.  He upsets the apple cart and he makes heads spin.

In this passage we see that the Pharisee stood up in the Temple and bragged upon his personal achievements in his prayer.  He said something like, "Thank you God that I am not like these others around me who are big sinners and particularly I am not like the terrible tax man.  I am good.  I fast and I tithe.

While the Pharisee was making a spectacle of himself, over in a corner of the Temple, the tax man was slumped over in prayer begging God to have mercy on him because he knew at the core that he was a sinner and that only by God's mercy would he be able to live another day.

If you look at Galatians 3:9-10 you see what Jesus was teaching in Luke is what Jesus has been teaching from the beginning of time.  This passage says, 

"So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith--this is no new doctrine!  And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure.  Scripture backs this up:  'Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the law.' "

Paul joins Jesus to condemn the behavior of the braggadocios law-keeper and lift up the behavior of the humble.  If you have brought Jesus into your heart and accepted his free gift of grace and mercy then you are called to humility and complete dependence on Him.

Let's be the tax collector.  Let's memorize his prayer because this is the prayer that Jesus praised.  The tax collector prayed in the posture of a beggar, "God, give mercy.  Forgive me, a sinner."  Next, accept the forgiveness promised and go and be the best that you can be as you walk by faith, not by sight.

2-27-2012 by Robby4747 on Mixcloud