Message Title: “Men of God, Let Us Be Men of God.
Text: 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV) 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
I want you to see something more than “do” something today. A man of God is not a self-made man, but a God made man. It is not something we do; it is something we become. There are behaviors associated with being a man of God, but those behaviors don’t make us a man of God. Being a man of God starts at the heart and the heart is God’s workshop. It’s where He makes everything that is authentic. Everything that is solid. Everything that endures.
A single line definition of a man of God: A man of God is one whose heart is becoming more and more accessible to God.
How can I be a man of God? Talk to the Lord about it. Tell Him to feed and fuel the vision. Ask Him to turn that request into a passion and that passion into an obsession. Don’t be afraid of what may happen if You become Christ-obsessed. As Billy Joel put it, “I don’t care what consequence it brings. I have been a fool for lesser things.” For girls, for sports, out of peer pressure, job pressure.
To be Christ obsessed is not the same as being a religious fanatic. There is a difference. The difference is in the relationship versus the rules. A Christ obsession doesn’t make us retreat from life He leads us to engage it more passionately and intentionally and it has eternal value.
1. To be a man of God is to be a man who is dependent on God.
- Challenges, setbacks, difficulties are all confidence-builders. Not confidence in self but confidence in God.
- When it comes to having a Christ-effect upon others, I prefer Your nearness to my “know how” because “nearness” is about the experience of relationship.
- I do not just want Jesus “in my life;” I want Him to lead my life according to His purposes for me
2. A man of God is in regular communion with God.
- Communion with God involves authenticate communication. It is more that reciting religious jargon or phrases. It is honest dialogue with the living God about everything that matters to me. It is pouring out our hearts before Him. As Psalm 62:8 instructs us to do.
- This is exactly what appealed to me about making the decision to continue as a pastor, speaking to the “Tavernites,” allowing them to air their questions.
- The goal was not to dismantle their faith but to authenticate it. God is neither insulted nor intimidated by our questions. On the contrary, He delights in truth in the innermost being and invites us to pour out our hearts and all our anxieties (restlessness of spirit whatever its source) to Him.
3. It is to be a man who is desirous of God.
- Psalms 63:1 (NIV) 1 O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
- Psalms 27:4 (NIV) 4 One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
- These verses are more about our “appetite” for God than our “activities” for God.
- Desiring God means, seeking the Master is not a means to the mission; seeking the Master is the mission.
- God’s word invites me to know Him personally and intimately and it also makes it clear that He remains infinitely knowable. Whatever I think I know about God is only a pebble on the seashore.
- I am in continuous search of the God who exists beyond the boundaries of the familiar, and of my expectations.
“Thank You, Lord, for revealing to me the buffet of Your delightfulness and for inviting me to grab a plate each morning and come. I do not see myself as more spiritual than anyone else or more disciplined or more faithful; I am just hungry. But I do recognize that hunger is from You, a gift of Your grace, and for that I am thankful to You again today.”
4. A man of God is in community with other men of God.
- I want to be thankful today for the people in my life and the contributions they make to my life that help me to abide and delight in You. Because it is Your love and care being dispensed through them. I would like to be more keenly aware of their influence and more appreciative of Your provision of care in this way.
- We are not in competition with each other. None of us has more or less favor with God. None of us have any disadvantages before Him. Physical appearance, talent, education, family background, their prominence and profile in ministry. None of that gains us an advantage with God nor does the lack of them create any disadvantage.
- When we meet together as men of God, we meet as equals before God.
Men of God, let us be men of God by His grace and together.
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