Resound Church Leah Ramirez

Holy Revolution: God’s On-Ramps December 13, 2009

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus completely redefines blessing and happiness… Then He tells us HOW to be blessed. We have been invited into an upside-down Kingdom. Everything within our nature fights what Jesus calls us into…And yet, this submission alone brings happiness. It’s the hidden life that counts. It’s the secret life that matters before God. Jesus explains that we can all be significant before God…because He searches the heart. Jesus coins the phrase, “Your Father who is in secret will reward you.” This hidden life is where we are truly known!

I. GOD HAS ON-RAMPS

  1. God has given us the on-ramps to His heart. He provides us with insight to the key to His heart. He lets us know the way to intimacy. These on-ramps unlock our heart by immediately purifying the motive. There is something about doing these things in secret that forces us to come to terms with our faith quickly.
  1. We can do a lot of things publicly for God that we don’t believe privately. We can yell and shout, but on the inside yawn and doubt. We can preach all sorts of messages and yet be devoid of saving faith ourselves. We can teach about accountability and yet hide our real inner workings.
  1. The enemy knows there is power in the secret life. When the enemy uses this hidden life, guilt and shame are always involved. But God wants to claim your inner-life, because it is in the secret place that you are truly changed and truly free.
  1. God’s wants to be known. And just like we cannot truly be known in a crowd…neither can God. He has things that He only reveals in the secret place. They are the deep things of His heart. The inner workings of His heart. The next few scriptures are God’s invitation for us to get real, come close, be known and to know.

Love your Enemies

Matthew 5

43“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

  1. Everything in God is about fellowship. Every test is ultimately about fellowship. Yes, we need to pass our character test, but the joy of recognizing that the press is to find Him in every season. Loving our enemies is not some Zen project; it’s about being like God. It’s about being with Him, being like Him and demonstrating Him on the earth.
  1. Is loving our enemy about our enemy? Not really…it’s really more about us. In the process of yielding our hearts to the Lord we are changed and we are found.
  1. Loving our enemy is way beyond not speaking evil about them. Loving our enemy is way more than nodding hello from across the hall…It’s altogether heavenly. It’s altogether impossible apart from God. And that’s why it has to be all about fellowship.

Cornelia Johanna Arnolda ten Boom, generally known as Corrie ten Boom, (April 15 1892 – April 15 1983) was a Dutch Christian Holocaust survivor who helped many Jews escape the Nazis during World War II.

In May 1942, a well dressed woman came to the Ten Boom door with a suitcase in hand. She told the Ten Booms that she was a Jew and that her husband had been arrested several months before, and her son had gone into hiding. Occupation authorities had recently visited her, and she was too fearful to return home. After hearing about how the Ten Booms had helped their Jewish neighbors, the Weils, she asked if she might stay with them, and Corrie ten Boom's father readily agreed. A devoted reader of the Old Testament, Casper ten Boom believed Jews were indeed "the chosen," and told the woman, "In this household, God's people are always welcome."

Thus began "the hiding place", or "de schuilplaats", as it was known in Dutch (also known as "de Beje", with Beje being derived from the name of the street the house was in, the Barteljorisstraat). Ten Boom and her sister began taking in refugees, some of whom were Jews, others members of the resistance movement sought by the Gestapo and its Dutch counterpart. There were several extra rooms in their house, but food was scarce due to wartime shortages. Every non-Jewish Dutch person had received a ration card with which they could procure weekly coupons to buy food.

Corrie knew many in Haarlem, thanks to her charitable work, and remembered a couple who had a developmentally disabled daughter. For about twenty years, Corrie ten Boom had run a special church service program for such children, and knew the family. The father was a civil servant who was by then in charge of the local ration-card office. She went to his house unannounced one evening, and he seemed to know why. When he asked how many ration cards she needed, "I opened my mouth to say, 'Five,'" Ten Boom wrote in The Hiding Place. "But the number that unexpectedly and astonishingly came out instead was. 'One hundred.'"

The Germans arrested the entire Ten Boom family on February 28, 1944 at around 12:30 with the help of a Dutch informant. They were sent first to Scheveningen prison (where her father died ten days after his capture). Corrie's sister Nollie, brother Willem, and nephew Peter were all released. Later, Corrie and Betsie were sent to the Vught political concentration camp (both in the Netherlands), and finally to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany on December 16, 1944, where Corrie's sister Betsie died. Before she died she told Corrie, "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still." Corrie was released on New Year's Eve of December 1944.[2] In the movie The Hiding Place, Ten Boom narrates the section on her release from camp, saying that she later learned that her release had been a clerical error. The women prisoners her age in the camp were killed the week following her release. She said, "God does not have problems. Only plans."

In her book Tramp for the Lord (1974), she tells the story of how, after she had been teaching in Germany in 1947, she was approached by one of the cruelest former Ravensbrück camp guards. She was reluctant to forgive him, but prayed that she would be able to. She wrote that, For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then. She also wrote (in the same passage) that in her post-war experience with other victims of Nazi brutality, it was those who were able to forgive who were best able to rebuild their lives.

1 Corinthians 13

13:1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

LOVE, v.t. luv. [L. libeo, lubeo. See Lief. The sense is probably to be prompt, free, willing, from leaning, advancing, or drawing forward.]

1 an intense feeling of deep affection

III. GIVING TO THE NEEDY

Matthew 6

6:1“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 2“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

  1. It’s about seeing. There is need all around us. There is desperation all around us. There is loneliness all around us. This is about seeing. God sees. God notices.

Luke 10

25And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

29But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35And the next day he took out two denarii[3] and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

  1. The most religious walked right by…maybe they were on their way to the prayer meeting! Maybe they were headed to preach their next message, or run their board meeting. But the Samaritan sees! The Samaritan does not despise the hidden life.
  1. Giving to the needy is not about only giving money to the poor, but seeing the need that God places in front of us every day. We all walk by something and someone. What do you see? Who do you see?

IV. The Lord's Prayer

Matthew 6

5“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

7“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.10Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread, 12and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

14For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

  1. Again, the main theme is hiddeness! Does that mean that we should shut down all of our corporate services and go home? By no means…but it is the recognition that showing up in body doesn’t necessarily correlate with the inner workings of the heart.
  1. It’s that secret dialog that undoes the heart of the Lord. It’s the movements of the heart that He measures, not your volume. I believe there will be a great reversal in the age to come… and all that has been hidden will come to light. Those who were never known will be validated as the ones who shook the heaven and the earth with there prayers.

Luke 8

17For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. 18Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.”

V. Fasting

Matthew 6

16“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

  1. There is nothing about fasting that is hard. Anyone can do it. It’s really about doing nothing. Nothing. Just stop doing….yahoo, you are now fasting.
  1. Fasting is about purposely not feeding your flesh. It’s about starting your flesh, starving your ability to make it happen. It’s the opposite of making it happen. It’s weakness. Voluntary weakness.

Mark 1

9In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son;[4] with you I am well pleased.” 12The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.