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Genesis 1:27 (ESV)

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

            How do we know if what we go through as Christians is really worth it? Is it really worth it to battle to save a difficult marriage? Is it really worth it to pay thousands of dollars to go overseas and care for orphans? Is it really worth it to deny your children the experiences that some other kids have? Is it really worth it to give away 10% or more of your income? Is it really worth it to center your life on worship?

            No, it’s not worth it. Not at all. Unless… Unless God is real, unless Genesis 1:27 is true, unless Jesus really did die for our sins, it is not worth it at all.

            Genesis 1:27 tells us that God created us in his image. An image is a picture. One thing that it means when the Bible tells us that God created us in his image is that he created us to be little pictures of what he is like. You and I exist to demonstrate to the watching world around us what Jesus is like.

            Why is it worth it to battle to save a crumbling marriage? It is worth it, not because God promises you everything will be OK, but because God created you to look like Jesus. When you sacrifice for the good of another, you look like Jesus. When you battle to hold your marriage together even when the other person is not doing what he or she should be, you look like Jesus. When you forgive someone who does not deserve it but who simply asks for it in repentance, you look like Jesus. God made you for the purpose of looking like Jesus, and that is what makes fighting for your marriage worth it.

            The reason it is worth it to spend money to fly to a foreign country to care for orphans or play soccer with street children is because it looks like Jesus. When you sacrifice, leaving your comfortable home to show love and mercy to others, you look like Jesus. When you put your safety at risk to take the message of God’s Kingdom to the lost, you look like Jesus. No, missions is not worth it, unless God is real. Since God is real, and since he calls us to show the world what he is like, missions is totally worth it.

            Do you see the point? Nothing we do as Christians is worth it if Jesus is not alive and if we are not made in God’s image. However, everything God calls us to do is totally worth it if he is real and if Jesus is risen. Focusing on worship of the living God magnifies Jesus. Giving away our money, our time, our “normal” life experiences, even our lives looks like Jesus. Looking like Jesus is what God made us for. Looking like Jesus will fill our souls with the joy of doing what we were created to do. Looking like Jesus is worth whatever it costs.

            Lord, I thank you that I know this day that you are real. Your presence, your reality, your promises are all that make living in this sin-fallen world worth it. I know you called me to show others what you are like. I know you made me in your image. I ask that you help me, weak as I am, to show others the love of Jesus. Help me to do what you made me for. Help me have the joy of living the life you created me to live.

Luke 8:11-15

11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. 14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. 15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.

            I’ve heard many a conversation about the parable of the sewer. Often, Christians will argue about whether or not the seed that fell on the rocky or thorny ground is supposed to be a saved person or a lost person. But this morning, I am convinced that this is not at all what we are supposed to be wondering about; and it certainly is not anything I am concerned about. Jesus does not want us to spend time arguing about security of the believer with this parable. He instead wants us to see what we want to be.

            There are those who respond to the word of God, but who bear no fruit. Christians, under no circumstances do we want to be these people. We do not want to fall away. We do not want to be choked by the riches and cares of this life. We do not want to shrink back when we face suffering and hardships. We want to be those who have the joy of bearing fruit for the glory of Christ.

            What Does God say to me in this passage? He tells me to grow, to serve, to bear fruit. He is not calling me to argue over the salvation of those who show no evidence of salvation. He instead is calling me to be sure that I show evidence of my own salvation. I want to serve Jesus. I want to follow him faithfully. I want to grow. I want to share the gospel. I want to please my Heavenly Father.

            Lord God, I need your help. I want to grow and bear fruit. Please do not let me be one who falls away at suffering. Do not let me be one who is choked by the riches of this life. Let me be one who serves you faithfully. Would you be kind enough to bless my weak attempts at service with fruit? Would you give me the joy of glorifying your name? God, I ask that you make me into a fruitful part of your kingdom for your glory.

Luke 7:41-44

41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

            As we taught our students this last week in our Super Summer Orange School, we began with a look at the holiness of God. Specifically, we wanted to see just how great is the difference between humanity in our sinfulness and God in his holiness. The gap between us is infinite. Even our slightest imperfection is enough to earn for us an eternal punishment for an infinitely holy Creator.

            Some might ask why we spend any time dwelling on something that would be so depressing. Why would we want to show young people that they are not naturally good or that they cannot be right with God on their own—in their own strength? Why accentuate the negative?

            The answer is found in the teaching of Jesus here in Luke 7. The only way that we will ever truly magnify grace is when we recognize how great grace really is. Jesus explained to a self-righteous man that the one who loves God most is the one who has been forgiven most. For us, the one who will love God most is the one who recognizes that he or she has been forgiven an infinite amount by a gracious God.

            Lord, I acknowledge here and now that I have sinned against you in myriad ways. I have never lived a perfect day. You are holy. Your holiness has no end. I am a sinner who deserves a never ending wrath. Thank you for the grace that covers my transgression. Thank you for having mercy on me, a sinner. Help me, I pray, to see just how great my sin is so that I can love you rightly, for the one who is forgiven much loves much.

2 Kings 18:22, 25

22 But if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem”? … 25 Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.’

        There are lots of people out there in the world who claim to understand the truths of God, to have special words from God, or to know what God wants them to do. One thing we do not want to do is assume, just because someone speaks about God or claims to have heard from God, that they actually have a leg to stand on.

            When the king of Assyria sent officials to intimidate the people of Judah under the reign of King Hezekiah, a very interesting exchange took place. The Assyrian official made 2 claims regarding the Lord. First, he claimed that Hezekiah had displeased the Lord by taking down his high places of worship and demanding that the people worship only in the temple in Jerusalem. Second, he claimed that the Lord had told the king of Assyria to go up against the land and destroy it. Neither of these two claims should have had any impact on Hezekiah. The man had nothing to stand on.

            The key to recognizing the falsehood in the man from Assyria is in his claim that Hezekiah had broken down God’s places of worship, his high places. God had commanded clearly in his word that Judah was to worship him and offer sacrifice in the temple in Jerusalem. God had not authorized the setting up of high places. The high places were places where Israel had perverted the worship of God by combining it with the practices of pagan religions.

            Here is the point that grabs me. When we follow God, we are going to face opposition. Sometimes, people will even say that they know what God wants, and that God does not want us to do certain things or condemn certain acts. They will say that they have heard from God. They will say that obeying the clear commands of God is somehow dishonoring to God. But we must stand on what is clear. We must trust in and obey the Scripture. Hezekiah did, and he was right before God even when the man from Assyria claimed otherwise.

2 Kings 8:4-6

4 Now the king was talking with Gehazi the servant of the man of God, saying, “Tell me all the great things that Elisha has done.” 5 And while he was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life appealed to the king for her house and her land. And Gehazi said, “My lord, O king, here is the woman, and here is her son whom Elisha restored to life.” 6 And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed an official for her, saying, “Restore all that was hers, together with all the produce of the fields from the day that she left the land until now.”

                Is God sovereign? Does it matter? O dear me, yes!

                Here’s the story. Elisha had raised this woman’s son from the dead. He then told her, when a  famine was coming, to leave her home and her land. After 7 years, the woman returned to ask for mercy in the form of the return of her abandoned land. It just so happens that she made this request on the very day and at the very hour that Elisha’s servant was telling the king about what had happened in the life of this woman.

                You can choose to believe, I suppose, that this woman just happened to come to the king at exactly the right day and exactly the right moment of the day when the king had asked Elisha’s servant to recount Elisha’s great deeds. You might choose to believe that all these things fell together in a neat set of coincidences that just happened to work together for the woman’s good. But I think it would be better for us to see that God moved the woman, the king, and the servant to be thinking the right thoughts in the right ways at the right times to accomplish a sweet, God-honoring outcome.

                God works in ways we cannot see. Often, he works behind the scenes to accomplish things we have no reason to expect will happen. We need to know this about our God so that we will be bold enough to obey him and trust him to accomplish his will.

                One application point here might be evangelism. You do not know what God has done in a person’s heart. You do not know what conversations they have just had. Maybe, just maybe, that person you think unreachable has just been silently saying in his or her mind, “God, if you are real, have somebody tell me about you.”You don’t know. God does more amazing things than that. Trust him. Obey him. Share the gospel every chance you get.

2 Kings 2:19-22

19 Now the men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees, but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful.” 20 He said, “Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him. 21 Then he went to the spring of water and threw salt in it and said, “Thus says the Lord, I have healed this water; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.” 22 So the water has been healed to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke.

2 Kings 4:38-41

38 And Elisha came again to Gilgal when there was a famine in the land. And as the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, he said to his servant, “Set on the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.” 39 One of them went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine and gathered from it his lap full of wild gourds, and came and cut them up into the pot of stew, not knowing what they were. 40 And they poured out some for the men to eat. But while they were eating of the stew, they cried out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it. 41 He said, “Then bring flour.” And he threw it into the pot and said, “Pour some out for the men, that they may eat.” And there was no harm in the pot.

2 Kings 5:13-15

13 But his servants came near and said to him, “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14 So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

            The truths we see in the Old Testament point to Jesus and to the gospel of our Lord. Today, I see this in the stories of the miracles performed by Elisha. The above accounts are three of those that caught my attention. In this section of Scripture, we see Elisha make clean foul water simply by tossing some salt into the stream. We also see Elisha make clean a poisonous stew simply by tossing in some flour. Finally, in chapter 5, we see Naaman the Syrian cleansed of leprosy simply by washing in the dirty waters of the Jordan River.

            How do these point us toward the gospel of Jesus? In the minds of men for thousands of years, the understanding of how to be made right with God (or with the deity the persons attempted to worship) has always been to do good works, to perform religious rituals, to find secret and sacred knowledge in order to elevate one’s self to a higher level. But the gospel is different. The message of the Bible is that the impossible is done by God, not by us. We cannot earn our salvation. We cannot do good works and get to heaven. No, God awakens our hearts, we put our faith in Jesus, and God saves us by his grace.

            To many, this concept of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone is too easy, too simple, too impossible. It is like, well, like cleaning up a dirty stream with a bowl of salt, purifying a poisonous stew with a pinch of flour, or curing a wasting disease with a bath in a dirty river.

            The Gospel is amazing. The gospel is impossible. The gospel makes no sense to anybody other than those who have trusted in Jesus. Praise God for this wonderful, simple, impossible gospel.

Ephesians 6:23-24 (ESV)

23 Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.

            God grabs hold of my heart with the last line of Ephesians today. Paul closes the letter to the church at Ephesus with a blessing of grace to all who love the Lord Jesus with an incorruptible (NNIV says “undying”) love. With those words, God reminds me of my call to repent and grow.

            Do I love God? Of course I do. Do I love God with a love that feels incorruptible or undying? I can’t’ say that I demonstrate that as I should. My love is weak, fickle, frail. My hatred of evil is not as hot as it ought to be. My passion for right is not as strong as it should be. My commitment to knowing God through is word is not as all-encompassing as it should be. My evangelism is not as frequent and focused as it should be. My love for my family is not as disciplined as it should be.

            On and on I could go, but the point to me is clear. My weakness is a matter of the heart. I know, were I to present this to friends, they would tell me that nobody is perfect and nobody’s love for God is what it will one day be. I know that God has blessed me and saved me and made my love for him true. Yet, when I examine my life, I feel like many of the honest authors I have read who, though they appear strong, they decry the weakness of their own hearts.

            When I see the blessing of Ephesians 6:24, I realize that it is only by God’s grace that I will do anything right, including loving him. How thankful I am that he will keep me by his power and for his glory. How thankful I am that he promised in chapter 2 that he has seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus in order to display forever the riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ. How much I realize I need him and how grateful I am that he never leaves or forsakes his own.

            Lord God, this morning I am reminded of the weakness of my own heart and my own love. I cannot be what I should be on my own. I am frail. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for the keeping power of your grace. Help me, I pray, to love you better. Help my heart to love you, as your word says, with an incorruptible and undying love. Enliven my heart so that I might honor you and have the joy of your presence.