©2002 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

811//02

What We Owe God

Rev. 1:5-6

8/11/02 What We Owe God

Those of you who were here last week

heard Chuck ask me a question during our discussion time following the teaching.

He said, “What would I tell a new Christian he owes God?”

I made a brief response to that question last week,

but I have thought about it a great deal since then.

And, before we return to our study of Romans

I want us to spend a little more time with it.

I didn’t mention this at the time,

but, when Chuck asked that question,

I noticed a fascinating response within myself.

I knew what the correct answer was,

but I also noticed a strong desire within myself to want to protect myself somehow.

I wanted to provide a “safe” alternative to the truth.

I wanted to pad the truth just enough

so that it would fit more comfortably into our religious world.

I wanted to offer our flesh

a reasonable alternative to the truth.

Our flesh longs for something it can do

that will imitate the truth,

something that will create the appearance of a right response to God

without requiring us to face the real issues within us that need to be addressed.

But then this past week

I came across a statement

made by the Apostle John in the New Testament

that answered that question, “What do we owe God?”.

I’ll tell you where it’s found in few minutes,

but first I want us to work through the statement phrase by phrase together.

The statement begins with just the words we’re looking for.

It begins with the words, To Him ...

Now, I need to tell you that the phrase just before those two words

makes it clear who the “Him” is.

It says, “... Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth...”

John is obviously talking about Jesus Christ.

And then, following that description of Christ as “the ruler of the kings of the earth...”,

the next words John writes are these, “To Him...”

He is going to tell us what it is we owe Jesus Christ,

what it is we are called upon to give to Him.

But then, before he tells us what it is we owe Him,

what it is we are to give to Him,

suddenly John breaks his thought in mid stream

and reminds us of 4 things this Jesus Christ has done,

4 things that provide us with the basis upon which we are then called to give to Him what it is we owe Him.

John says, “To Him who...”

To Him who has done four things.

It’s not enough that He is the faithful witness to the entire human race

of the true nature of God.

It’s not enough that He is the first,

and up to this point the only one ever to rise from the dead, never to die again.

It’s not enough that he is the ruler of the kings of the earth.

There is more John wants us to know about this Jesus

before he calls us to give to Him

what it is we owe Him.

Now, before I share with you

what John says next,

I need to ask you a question,

because I think it will help you to better appreciate the power of the words that follow.

And before I ask you the question,

I need to have you imagine something for just a moment.

I’d like you to imagine that this gym we’re all gathered in this morning

is completely empty.

All the people around you are gone.

All the chairs are gone.

All the bleachers have been pushed up against the wall.

Even the mats have been rolled up out of the way.

All of this has been done

so that this room can be used

to provide you with a meeting place

for a face-to-face encounter with God Himself.

Now, if we think about this casually,

we might find ourselves thinking

of all sorts of questions we’d like to ask God.

A lot of them would probably begin with the words,

“Why did You...”

or “Why didn’t You...”

or “Why don’t You...”

But the truth is,

if my imagined interview really did take place between you and your Creator,

you would not be the one to open the conversation.

It doesn’t work that way with God.

In fact, we have two similar encounters recorded for us in the New Testament,

one between the Apostle Paul and Christ,

and the second between the Apostle John and Christ,

and in the accounts of these encounters we are told

that both men dropped to the ground

before even a word was spoken.

So, given the fact that,

if you were to have such an encounter,

it is reasonable to assume that He would rightly be the One to speak first.

OK, here’s my question - if you could choose anything

that you would most like Him to say to you,

what would it be?

If you could write the script for God,

choosing the words you would most want to hear as the first words spoken by Him to you in that interview,

what would those words be?

I was in a conversation with a person recently

in which I asked him what he thought God would say if He were to speak audibly to him at that moment.

The person I was talking with responded immediately by saying,

“I think He’d say, ‘Why didn’t you listen to Me!?”

I understand why he said that.

I’ve felt that way myself sometimes.

There have been more than a few times

when I’ve said that same thing to myself,

“Larry, why didn’t you listen to Him?

Why didn’t you trust Him?”

And it is natural for us to assume

those are the words He would use to begin His conversation with us.

And of course they would be words

for which we had no good answer.

But, if you could write the script for God,

if you could give Him the words

that you would most want to hear Him speak to you,

what would they be?

How would you want Him to begin that conversation?

Of course I can’t answer that question for you,

but I can sure answer it for me.

If it was me standing here,

meeting my Creator face-to-face

the first words I would want to hear Him speak are these, “My son, I love you.”

And if those were the first words He spoke,

it would help...it would help a great deal.

It would give me hope.

Even on a human level

there is nothing else in human experience

that has more power to bring healing into our lives

than our discovery that another person really loves us.

I’m not talking about romantic love, now.

I’m not talking about sparks flying

and sexual response and all of that.

I’m talking about those remarkable relationships in life

where we become aware that another human being

knows us honestly at a significant level

and then realize that they truly love us in the face of that knowledge.

There is nothing more healing,

more transforming in human experience.

It answers questions deep within our spirits,

questions that most of us never even dare ask

for fear we will not get the answers we hunger for.

I hope you know

that the creation of those healing love relationships

is the highest calling given to us by our God,

and the central purpose of His work within us here on this earth.

JOH 13:34-35 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

And that’s just on a human level.

What if we were to hear those words from God Himself,

knowing that He didn’t just guess at who we really are,

but that He knows us perfectly, totally.

If I could write the script

for my interview with God,

the first thing I would want to hear Him say

is, “My son, I love you.”

But if I really could write the script for my Creator,

and if I could give Him a second line to speak as well,

something that would enable me to really relax with this Divine interview,

the second thing I would want Him to say

would be something along these lines.

“My son, I love you, and I want you to know

that all that junk in your life,

all that stuff you’ve been so worried about,

all the blunders,

all the failures,

all the sins are forgiven forever.

I Myself have paid the debt you owe,

I have paid it in full for you with my own blood

because I love you,

and because I wanted to make certain

that nothing ever would

or ever could separate you from Me.”

Now, wouldn’t that be a comforting script to write for God?

If we could put our words into His mouth

wouldn’t those be wonderful words to hear Him speak?

But, of course we cannot write the script for God.

We cannot tell Him what to say to us.

We must accept only whatever He has really said.

So let’s go back to those words of John

and see what we find.

You remember, now, who the passage is talking about.

It’s talking about... “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

And then, John goes on to say “To Him...”,

and the clear intention of what he says

is to tell us what it is we owe to Him,

what it is we owe God.

But then, before he does that

he breaks his thought

and shares with us those things we most need to know about this Jesus Christ,

the things that provide the basis

upon which He then calls us

to give to God

what it is we owe Him.

Now, just listen to what he says

about this ruler of the kings of the earth.

“To Him...

who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood...”

And there it is -

the script we would have written for our God if we could have.

The first thing He wants us to know

is that He loves us,

He loves us with a love

that is rooted in his perfect and absolute knowledge of who we are -

no secrets,

no hiding places,

no false images for us to hide behind.

He loves us.

And the second thing He wants us to know

is that He has released us from our sins by His blood.

No hiding place,

and none needed.

But that isn’t where John stops,

because it isn’t where our God stopped in His involvement in our lives.

He doesn’t just bring us back up to zero.

He doesn’t just clean the house and then leave it empty.

He doesn’t just deal with our crud.

He goes on to recreate our world

and then give us a role of remarkable significance in that world.

Listen to what John says next.

He says,

“To Him...

who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood... AND He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father...”

He has made us to be a kingdom...

He has made us a part of His family,

bringing us under His care,

His oversight,

His protection forever.

And then John takes this one step farther,

telling us that Christ didn’t just love us,

He didn’t just remove our sin from us forever,

He didn’t just bring us under His care,

but  He then gave us each

a role of remarkable significance in this world.

He made us...priests to His God and Father...”

And for us to understand what John is saying here

we need to first undo some damage

that has been done to our thinking

as a result of the religious world in which we live.

For many of us,

when we think of a “priest”

what we think of is a man dressed up in strange clothing,

maybe all black, with a clerical collar,

or maybe in some sort of long robe,

who spends his time conducting religious ceremonies,

and possibly listening to confessions,

and administering last rights over people at the point of death.

Now, for us to understand what John is really saying here

we need to get rid of all of that.

Just set it aside.

It has nothing to do with what John is talking about.

All of that is the product of 2000 years of man-made religious systems

that have corrupted the truth of God.

Do you know what a priest really is?

A priest is someone who makes it easier for another person to find his or her way

into the love of God.

A priest positions himself between God and his fellow man

and brings the two together.

And I don’t want you to do

what I think some of you are doing with this truth in your minds right now.

I think some of you are thinking,

“Oh yes, Larry means that,

when I share a passage of Scripture with someone,

or when I pray with them,

or for them,

then I’m being a priest.”

Please, don’t do that to this truth.

Maybe this will help...

There was a time this past week

when I was sitting under a tree in the rain

with a nine year old boy,

roasting hot dogs over a little barbeque,

and letting my young friend shoot bottles with my .22.

And as I was doing that

I was fulfilling my high priestly calling,

and also having a great time doing it.

We didn’t read any verses from the Bible.

We didn’t pray.

We just had fun together,

and in the process I was being a priest to that boy

because I was making it a little easier for him to discover the goodness of his God.

Every contact we ever have

with another human being

is an opportunity for us to fulfill our priestly calling,

because every contact we have

provides us with another opportunity

for us to make it a little easier

for the person we are with to discover the love of God in a deeper way.

Husbands, you are priests to your wives.

Wives, you are priests to your husbands.

Parents, you are priests to your children.

It is a role of incredible significance,

and one that,

when we begin to understand it,

will become far and away the most fulfilling thing we will ever do in this life.

And, as long as I’ve wandered into this,

I can’t leave it without one additional comment.

I’ve just shared with you

the truth that our God has given each of His children

the role of serving as His priest on this earth.

If that seems strange,

or overwhelming,

or confusing to you,

let me see if I can simplify it this way.

We fulfill that role every time we choose to relate to another person in love...

every time we treat them with respect,

every time we treat them with dignity,

every time we show them kindness,

or compassion,

or honesty,

or integrity in our dealings with them.

Serving as a priest

is simply allowing our actions and attitudes

to mirror for another person

the way God would relate to them

if they were to allow Him into their life.

But let me get us back on track.

John began this remarkable sentence

with the two words, “To Him...”

It is a sentence he wrote

to share with us

what we owe to God.

But, before he could complete that thought,

He first qualified for us who this “Him” is.

He is the one who loves us and

the one who released us from our sins by His blood.

He is the one who has made us to be a kingdom,

and the one who has appointed each of us as priests to His God and Father.

And because of all that

John then goes on to tell us what we owe Him:

“...to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

What do we owe God?

We owe Him the only thing we have to give -

hearts that honor Him,

and praise Him,

and glorify Him for His goodness to us.

But here’s the catch.

And, in fact, here is the problem with the question that got us into this whole thing in the first place.

Our flesh,

and the basic religious nature that flows out of it,

is forever looking for something it can do,

something we can produce through our own effort,

through our own energies

that will satisfy God.

And when I say that the only thing we owe God is praise and honor and glory for what He has done for us,

there is an instinctive flesh response within us

that says, “OK, I can do that.

I can honor and praise and glorify God.”

But the truth is,

the kind of honor, and praise, and glory

that John is talking about here

is not something we choose to do.

It is something that flows out of the human spirit

in response to our having understood

and received what our God is seeking to give us through Christ.

So this is the way it works.

The only thing that can ever produce

a truly rich and productive walk with God

is a heart within us

that overflows with thankfulness,

and gratitude,

and praise,

and honor to God.

The only thing that can produce that kind of response within the human heart

is our own personal discovery

of the depth of God’s love for us.

And the only way for us to encounter the love of our God at that level

is for us to allow the Spirit of God

to lead us through the painful process

of showing us ourselves without Him-

showing us our sin,

showing us our pride,

showing us our utter helplessness apart from our Creator...

not our worthlessness,

but our helplessness without Him.

Only when we reach the point

where we begin to understand

that our God does not love us because of anything,

but that He just loves us,

only then will our spirit be freed to respond with the only thing we can ever really give God,

a heart overflowing with gratitude.

So here it is, Revelation 1:5-6

To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood – and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father – to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.