Pastor John R. Wiuff
First Church of God,
Medford, Oregon
www.fcog.us
1 John 4:7-12
Do you have any bills hanging over your head? Do you know the shock of getting a large unexpected bill? Debt can carry such strain and anxiety that many find it difficult to sleep at night.
Then there are those nasty business people who want their money. They call and call making veiled, and then not so veiled threats until they are paid. Sometimes it is nasty letters that come in the mail or even creditors knocking on our doors.
All this is very upsetting for us when we owe the debt. Money and how we will live has become the number one issue in people lives as they face uncertain futures. The issue with money and debt is that we don’t really understand how it works. That is why some less the credible people take advantage of us in what has been called “predatory lending.”
The government is even talking about getting tougher on such loans while they are abusive in their own policies.
Today we are going to try to understand some of the basics about debt and what it really means in terms of our relationships, self esteem and freedom. We must be more savvy about debt if we are going to understand our relationship with God and what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross.
Then maybe our attitude about debt, money and loaners will change as well. When we understand what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, then we will understand what He can do in the rest our life, including our finances.
First we must understand that we are in debt. There is bad debt and good debt and when it comes to God we are in bad debt. We owe Him what we have no means to repay. Worst yet we are bad debtors, for many do not consider the debt we owe to be of any concern.
We had a great friend in a man called John the Baptist. He came just before Jesus Christ to remind us of our debt and to warn us that there was one and only one chance to get free of this obligation and to be saved from ruin, poverty and death.
He called out to those who would listen and to us today to “repent” of our sins. He warned people that they were so far in debt that the religious acts they were doing would not be enough to catch up on the dept. Our debt began with breaking a command of God not to eat of a tree. Since then God has warned us to not do a lot of things and do other good things. But we have kept on sinning believing that we could always do something later to make things right with God. John told them they were wrong and so are we if we think that way. We all need to admit that we are so far in debt to God, so far down the road of rebellion to Him that there is no way we can repay Him for what we have done.
If we are going to stop going into more debt we must recognize it us who are creating the debt. More cash will not save us from more debt. We can’t just keep printing more money and think we will get by. We can’t just pray a prayer, give some money, or attend a church service and think we have caught up enough. We are so far down in a hole of rebellion we don’t really want to go back to God, live in His house, by His rules.
Yet, if we can stop, just stop and admit we are going down a road that is leading to ruin, then maybe we can be ready to hear what God has to offer. God has away to not only pay our full debt but to bring our rebellious hearts home to where we belong.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
John 1:29
The offer God makes to us is to pay of our debts, if we are willing to stop a debt creating life. If we will reform, turn around, and start making deposits in our relationship with Him, then God will EXPIATE our debt of sin. That is a fancy word theologians use to say that through His Son Jesus he will end the dept of our sin.
For so God so loves you that He gave His only Son to die upon a cross to pay the full debt or your sin. But what good is it if we just start running up more debt? If we will repent, turn, and admit we have been living a wild prodigal life then the Father will take us back to live in His home and by His rules. This is how we know what love really is.
7. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
1 John 4:7-12
Here is the thing we don’t understand. We can’t know what love is until we know what it means to forgive a great debt. You see we think that when we run up a debt that we are hurting no one but ourselves. “What does it matter to anyone else what I do with my life. If I am hurting my self then what business is it of anyone else?” That’s the problem with debt, because it is borrowing something from other people we have no intention to repay, respect, or return. People who create bad debt just take what they can and consider anyone foolish enough to lend them foolish enough to rob.
Our debts hurt people who trust us with what is there’s. When we fail to give back what we owe we hurt other people. When we fail give back dignity, respect and especially love to those who have lent us there’s, then we hurt them by a theft of the soul.
God can love us but if we take that love for granted and don’t repay it, then we don’t really know the value of His love. If we borrow money and don’t repay it with interest, we don’t really know the value of money or of the trust given to us by another. That is why God’s word tells us “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
Love is not a free pass to do what you want.
Love is not getting what you want or need without obligation.
Love is not seeking your own good and happiness.
Some have called this love, but it is not love. That is a mirrored image of love which reflects back the reverse of what love really is by making us look into ourselves and to our own interest.
What love really is, what God shows us about love, is more like a open window from which we can see a bigger world, and something more important than our own interest. Love is a call to be free of our own interest and invest heavily in a cause much greater.
When we spend our time, our energy and resources on ourselves we are going into debt because there will be no return on what we spend. If we spend our time, our energy and our resources on God through Jesus Christ His son, then we will have invested because a great return will be given on what we give into the Kingdom.
Self love is a debtor’s obsession. The Love of God is an investors dream.
1. “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2. “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4. so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:1-4
So what does it mean to Love like God?
10. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:7-12
Have you ever gone to buy something and someone told you that your money is no good and they wouldn’t accept it, or maybe your credit card? Have your checks ever been turned down? That can be an embarrassing moment, right?
There are many people who are going to heaven with bad currency thinking they have what they need to get into heaven. We know we have a debt with God and when we get there we hope to pay it off with the currency of affection, good works and sincerity. But when we arrive at those gates we will find that our currency is no good, and we will be turned down while our debt will be called in and collected. In the process many will experience a spiritual death and an eternity in hell. (Matthew 25:31-46)
Our definition of love is worthless in heaven. What we think is good enough for acceptance into heaven is no where near the standard of heaven itself. If we had our way heaven will be filled with adulterers, liars, murders, gossips, slanders, and many others that will ruin the place in no time at all. What we can do, save, and scrape together on our own will never be enough to pay the dept we owe God.
What we need, and we need it today, is not more of our so called ‘love’ but the pure and precious gold of God’s Love in our hearts. Now here is the amazing thing. He is willing to deposit that into your heart today. He is willing to pay off all that we owe Him because of what His son did for us on the cross. He paid our debt with blood that was priceless.
That is what atoning means. That is what it costs God when we create a debt through sin. We hurting not only ourselves, but we have do great harm to the God who loves us and chooses to be hurt rather than protect Himself from out rebellion.
Now here is the amazing truth. If we will accept his gift of forgiveness, after we have recognized the terrible nature of our rebellion and accumulated debt, then He will place a Love in us unknown by natural means. We will receive heaven in our hearts. If it is really the Love of God, it will overflow in Love for others, even the worst among us.
Paul knew what it meant to be one of the worst and yet be loved in this amazing way. He wrote:
“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another…”
Romans 13:8
Now do you understand what a debt is and just how far in the hole we have all fallen. No amount of good works or religious actions will pay down the debt. We can’t go on sinning and paying down as we go justifying our actions on balanced ledger.
We are so indebted to God that there is only one who has the means to pay that debt off and that is Jesus Christ. He is willing, but if we take Him up on His offer we no longer belong to ourselves. We have become His possession.
19. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20. you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
When Christ comes and set us free from debt and the debtor’s obsession, He then claims our lives, our bodies, and our future. We receive the wealth of God’s Love which better than gold in heaven. Our balanced ledgers of good works versus sins are burned and only the ledgers of heaven will show that Christ has paid it all and we are his possessions.
11. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Rev. 20:11-15
My friends are you ready to face the balance sheets of heaven? Our record keeping does not show our real debt. We have been ‘cooking the books’ in our favor. We are in a desperate place and not far from when we will stand before the great white throne of God before the courts of heaven. When they open the books, will the find a note by your debt saying: “See Jesus Christ for collection.”
If you not sure let me show you how to be ready. Come, now is the time. If we fail to come now we are saying no to God’s gracious gift. We must choose and what we do know will affect us for eternity. To respond to God’s gracious offer in Jesus Christ is to say yes. To postpone, to think about it more, to wait for a better time is a rejection of God’s love. If we neglect so great a Love of God, what hope can we have on the great Day of Judgment?
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31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Matthew 25:31-46
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