Preached by Chris Broom, 8/17/2008

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David Lickert (second from left) Gets Restored!

Deal or No Deal - Outline

Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. -Luke 9:23-26

Deal or No Deal is a game show where you have to make choices, or deals if you will, in order to try to win a million dollars! At the end of the game, we find out if the contestant made a good deal. Here, Jesus gives us a choice between 2 lives … heaven or earth. In the end, we will stand before God and see if we made a good choice!

• Hebrews 12:16 shows how Esau sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son of Isaac for nothing more than a bowl of stew. Later, he sought a blessing with tears, but it was too late! He made a bad deal.
• Matthew 27: 1 shows us how Judas sold the Lord for 30 pieces of silver. He also cried, but then in self pity killed himself. He made a bad deal.
• On Facebook, I reconnected with a friend that had fallen away, and she is in so much pain. The world is beating her up! She got really open and is coming to dinner next week! She made a bad deal, but she can make a better decision, undo that deal, and come back to God and His kingdom. Please pray!

Psalm 73:1-14

• Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.
• Today we will talk about what causes us to slip and how we can keep from slipping.
• The psalmist sees the wicked as always carefree, and increasing in wealth.
• The psalmist is tempted to think that it was in vain that he had kept his heart pure.
• That all his fighting for righteousness was for nothing.
• How do we battle against this?

1. You gotta get real about how you feel.

• Feelings aren’t always useful, but you have to identify that with scripture (truth).
• How do you feel about the prosperity of the world? Do you envy it?
• A lesson we did months ago called “He Restores My Soul” is a great lesson to help understand how our feelings can lead us astray and cause us to slip.
• David writes Psalm 23  from the perspective of a sheep in God’s care. He boasts about who his owner is when he says, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” Really, it’s the Christian’s claim of belonging to the family of God and the benefits of such a relationship with the Great Shepherd himself.
• “I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters.” So why in verse 3 does David say, “He restores my soul?” Could anyone in God’s care ever become so distressed  as to need Restoration?
• The answer here is a resounding yes. Even the people of God need restoration of the soul.
• To say that a sheep has been “cast” or “cast down” is to say that it has rolled over onto its back and can’t get up. Sheep are made in such a way that once they are in that position, they can’t get up by themselves. It may sound funny, but in fact It’s very dangerous because, once on their backs, their circulation is cut off so that blood can’t reach the extremities of their bodies. Then gasses begin to build up and If the shepherd is unable to find and help that sheep, it will die in a matter of hours or days depending on the weather.
• That’s why the shepherd in Matthew 18 will leave the ninety-nine sheep in search of the one that is missing. If one sheep is missing, fear grips the shepherd, because that sheep could be “cast down.” (Even the strongest and fastest of the flock can be “cast down!”)
• If a sheep is missing, he will run in hopes of finding it before it’s too late. As he approaches it, he is filled with joy and fear. Is he in time? If he is, he will pick up the sheep and help it on its feet. He will then massage its outer limbs to help the blood circulation. He may even talk to the sheep while he does this. Finally, that sheep will rejoin the others, free from fear and able to live a little while longer. The sheep is not only restored to its feet, but to its flock and to its shepherd as well.
• What can cause a sheep to be cast down?
  (1.) Looking for the most comfortable spot to rest. (Act it out and explain how it relates to us.)
  (2.) The sheep can become weighed down if it’s too fat or if it has too much wool. The wool becomes matted down with mud and manure and the sheep becomes weighed down by it’s own wool. The shepherd must deal with this by sheering the sheep so that it won’t lose its life. It’s hard work for the shepherd, and the sheep don’t like it, but it must be done. When sheered, the sheep is set free from its hot and heavy coat as well as the fear of being cast down.
• When we seek a comfortable, worldly life, we become weighed down by all kinds of worldly things and worldly ideas. Then we start living for ourselves and building our own paneled houses instead of living for God and building His kingdom.
• It is at that point that we need restoration.
• Jeremiah 2:19  (Let’s look at the word “Backsliding” in the Old Testament.) “Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God and have no awe of me,”
• Jeremiah 3:22  “Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding.” (We backslide when we are faithless and stop believing in God. Then we do it our way and we fall.)
• Jeremiah 15:6 “You have rejected me,” declares the LORD. “You keep on backsliding. So I will lay hands on you and destroy you; I can no longer show compassion.”
• New Testament Scriptures that follow the same theme are Revelation 3:14-22  and Revelation 2:1-5, as well as…
• Luke 9:62  Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
• 2 Peter 2:20-22  How are we going to help each other and keep each other from being cast down, or backsliding, from becoming lukewarm, from losing our first love, from looking back and therefore not being fit for service in the kingdom of God, or from once again becoming entangled and overcome by the corruption of the world?
• Everyday when we sin, we are in need of restoration. Not an issue of being lost again, but that if we don’t constantly get restored, we will end up spiritually dead.
• Many think that when they fall and are in a spiritual dilemma, God is disgusted, fed up, and even furious with them.
• God goes through the same pattern as the shepherd: concern and compassion. God weeps over those that spurn his correction and He is eager to help. God must do the work of shearing the world off of us or we will end up cast down. We kick and scream, and yes, we get hurt by the cuts of the shearers but it is worth it for the pleasure of being set free from what weighs us down (including ourselves). What a restoration!

Psalm 73:15-26

2. Only when you kneel, will you see what’s really for real.

• In the 1988 film, They Live, the ruling class are in fact aliens managing human social affairs through the use of subliminal media advertising and the control of economic opportunity. When John Nada (Roddy Piper) later finds special glasses that help him see what’s real. He can now see through the aliens human disguise. He also sees the subliminal messages. He notices a billboard that is an advertisement, but with the glasses on, it says the word “Obey!” He also sees that paper money bears the words “This is your God.” All printed matter around him contains subliminal advertising.
• Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. - Matthew 5:8
• Unless we decide to be absolutely pure, we will not see God in our life, or in the lives of other people!
• Goitseone Tlhoiwa saw clearly where she was, because the word was preached.
• Recently in the media, we have seen that Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes have died.
• We are all going to die, and when we stand before God, we are going to have to look at what we did with our lives and ask ourselves, “did we make a good deal?”

Choose God!

- Chris Broom

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