Sunday message: Joseph part three- selling holes

As my former Sunday School students have heard me say more than once, the best messages come to me in the shower.  And so it was, one day this past week, I was praying on the "Five Guys" from the last Wednesday Study (AKA Part 2 of this series), and trying to learn what applied TO ME from their stories.  And a single, seemingly part of a certain verse unconnected to them came to me-

 “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess..."

This was from Mark 10's tale of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus, claiming he wanted to inherit eternal life, and had kept the commandments from his youth- Jesus' answer to him started with this sentence...


“One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess..."

What did the Five Guys lack?  What did they sell to God?

Job had to sell his self-righteousness- his concept that anything HE did gave him a standing with God.  In return, he gained humility.

Noah? He had to sell the world as it was- everything he knew, the very fabric of life, anything he had known from a child.  In return, he got a new world, a new life, a new promise.

Abraham's treasure he had to sell was Isaac, of course, but more than Isaac:  he had to sell the idea- and I struggle with how to phrase this to make it make sense- he had to sell his concept of doing things any way but God's way, no matter how counter-intuitive it might be.

Daniel was selling his own life- along with those of his friends and all the wise men of Babylon- in order to gain their salvation.

And David?  He had to sell the concept of his position allowing him to do whatever he wanted- in effect, he had to sell his kingship, down to its very core idea.


I think this will make more sense as I apply it to myself.  Bear with me a bit longer.


If you really dig into what they were selling, it was the LACK of what they needed to serve God.  Look at Job.  He had to sell his lack of humility when faced with Almighty God.  Abraham had to sell everything that kept him from depending on the Promise.    Every one of them ended up having to sell the lack of what God needed in them.


They were selling HOLES.

Lesson one: What God asks you to give up, you don't NEED.

So I had to ask myself first, what was my treasure?  Well, if you look in your life, you can probably come up with dozens of things you treasure.  Does God want you to give any of them up?

Are any of them holes?

I ask that because, as I meditated further, I saw the point in the rich young ruler.  He came seeking eternal life, not a CHANGE IN HIS CONDITION.  Jesus told him to sell all he had, give to the poor, and CHANGE HIS CONDITION by following Him.  I pose to you, a man who desired eternal life, who had kept the commandments as diligently as he claimed to have, wasn't saddened because Jesus asked him to give up money and he was greedy.  I pose that he could have handled the giving up of the money- but the CHANGE necessitated by FOLLOWING Jesus is what he couldn't handle.

And here is where I found MY application.  I have an obedience problem- big in one area, smaller in others.  I have spaces where I say, "But God will forgive me later."  And when I came down from that shower to read my daily Bible section and it practically SHOUTED at me about my big "treasure", I knew.

I have to sell my disobedience.  I need to sell the "but that's just me" things that God doesn't WANT being me.  It was soon later that another "seemingly random" verse came to me:

And Jesus said unto him, “No man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.”

Luke 9:62.  I wouldn't have understood this, except that a pastor I listened to recently said the Kingdom of God is NOT heaven- it is the Church working here on earth.  I pray a lot that these posts get to the right set of eyes, to whoever it is out there that needs them.  But this tells me, it ain't gonna happen unless I sell my hole.  I cannot write this up, and then go on as before.  I know that, I tell myself that all the time.  But then, to finish me off, Chuck Swindoll said something the other day when talking about Moses that hit me right between the eyes- here is my best paraphrase:

"So Moses would go up the mountain to get the word from God, then come back down to tell the people.  Then he would be summoned back up for more, and come back down. Up, down, up, down.  Climbing a mountain is hard enough, let me tell you- and here is an 80 year old man, going up, down, up, down.  He had to be panting, thinking, Lord, what is this all about?

I'll tell you what it was about.  It is about taking God seriously."

Boom.

Everytime I give in to my "just me" disobediences, I am looking back.  I am not taking God as seriously as He demands.  Proof of that?  My subconscious tried to get me to type "requests" right there instead of demands.  God DOES NOT request anything.  If you want to serve God in a way such as to bear fruit, you have to sell your hole.