SermonIndex Audio Sermons
SermonIndex - Promoting Revival to this Generation
Give To SermonIndex
Discussion Forum : Articles and Sermons : A GOOD WARFARE

Print Thread (PDF)

Goto page ( Previous Page 1 | 2 )
PosterThread
lwpray
Member



Joined: 2003/6/22
Posts: 3318
Sweden

 Re: A GOOD WARFARE



11.
(e) Against Loss Of Responsibility
Finally, the fight against the loss of a sense of vocation and responsibility. That, of course, comes in when Paul says: ”That good thing which was committed unto thee guard” (II Timothy 1:14). Again I think it is Moffat who translates that more accurately: ’The trust with which you have been entrusted’ ... ’That trust, which, being committed to you, guard against this loss of a sense of vocation!’
This is a word for every one of us. The youngest to the oldest should have this strong, deep sense of vocation, of responsibility. It is not optional at all, whether we like it or do not like it, whether it pleases us or does not please us. There is no option about this: it is obligation. It is responsibility. It is a trust that has been put into our hands. Drawing from Ezra, you will remember that when they started out on that long trek back to rebuild the city, they took the treasure, the gold and the silver, from Babylon, and they had to deposit it in Jerusalem, safe, intact and without any loss - and they did. They called upon the Lord for safeguards in order that they should get it through, and at last, we are told, they brought it and delivered it in the house of the Lord. There was nothing lost by the way. It was a deposit, a trust.


_________________
Lars Widerberg

 2004/7/5 14:48Profile
lwpray
Member



Joined: 2003/6/22
Posts: 3318
Sweden

 Re: A GOOD WARFARE



12.
Dear friends, you and I have been entrusted with the testimony of Jesus in fullness, entrusted with a great revelation of Christ. It has been committed to us. Christianity has become, and is, I am afraid, becoming more and more generally a matter of whether you like it or not, something that you like, that pleases you. No, here is a challenge which says: ’Look here, if it costs you everything, even your very life, you have got to see that there is nothing lost.’ It is not a case of whether it pleases you, of your having a good, happy time, but whether, through every adversity, you are determined to land this treasure intact at last at the feet of the Master and say: ’Here you are, Lord. Here is that which is Thine. Nothing is lost. You gave. I return.’ To use the Lord’s parable of the talents, the return is with interest, with increase.

Go back to these letters and you see that all this call and challenge to Timothy, as a representative member of the Church, is that there shall be no loss whatever of a sense of vocation, of a high and holy calling, of real responsibility - ’I am a RESPONSIBLE member of Christ, of His House, of His Church. I am not a passenger, not just someone to be carried and fed, but someone taking responsibility, with a sense of trust.’ There has been given to each one of us a deposit by Jesus Christ, and at the end He will look to see what we have done with it.

Now, you see, this is the significance of these letters, and I think you will agree that all this is familiar to us today, this tendency to lower, to deteriorate, to decline, to lose something. It is a real battle, is it not, to maintain the high standard, to keep things on a high level, to maintain spiritual fulness. There are the pressures, the discouragements, the heartbreaks, the treacherous Christians; there is Alexander the coppersmith.
So, to end where we began, we note that the conflict is from the beginning to the end. Paul’s life, from conversion to execution, was marked by conflict, and there was no let-up at the end. If the testimony of Jesus is truly and deeply bound up with a life or a people, it is only logical that the forces of evil will not abandon their antagonism to what is predestined to be their doom, and anyone or any company called into that destiny will be marked for that antagonism. The warfare, therefore, will continue as long as we ”Stand, withstand, and, having done all, stand”.

The Lord help us so to do!


_________________
Lars Widerberg

 2004/7/6 1:10Profile





©2002-2024 SermonIndex.net
Promoting Revival to this Generation.
Privacy Policy