Take Action

Introduction

Happy New Year. Welcome to 2018. And welcome to the first Sunday of 2018. I want to start this morning in this new year taking a survey, and it’s okay to raise your hands. How many of you clumsily had to change your contribution check this morning and try to make that seven look like an eight? Am I the only one? Okay, how many of you are thinking, oh no, I didn’t change. How many of you are people who take New Year’s resolutions? Any? Yeah, okay, some. How many of you have already broken your New Year’s? Some. My New Year’s resolution this year, one of them is to gain weight. Hang on, I’ll show you the wisdom in that. Every time I’ve made the resolution to lose weight, I’ve actually gained weight.

And so I’m hoping that will work in making the resolution to gain weight that I’ll actually fail and lose weight. We’ll see. We’re a people and we’re a society that’s so driven by the calendar, aren’t we? That you can’t ignore a new year. And you can’t ignore whether you’re a person who makes new year’s resolutions or not. You can’t help but recognize that a new year brings a new year. And with it, new challenges and new opportunities. And most importantly, new challenges and new opportunities to serve our Lord. I hope you’re excited for this new year. I hope you’re thankful for this new year. And excited about the days that lie ahead. And excited about the opportunities that lie ahead. I’m excited. And I’m excited for you.

I want you to know that as a congregation, we have so much to be thankful for in this new year and so much to be anticipating and excited about. I know that the shepherds have so many things in store for this new year. And they’ll be unveiling those at the appropriate time. But one of the things that we want to unveil to you this morning is this new year begins. We’re beginning a congregational theme for 2018. And that theme is found in Daniel chapter 11. In fact, get your Bibles, if you will, and go in your Old Testament to Daniel chapter 11, and we’ll introduce that theme this morning. And throughout the year, we’ll be keeping this theme in the forefront of our minds. As we try to work together toward this focus and toward this end as a body of people and as a family together.

We need one another. God made us social being.

And because God made us that way and knew what we needed, he put us together. Have you ever wondered why God didn’t do it differently? Then when it came to Christianity, God could have made it a secret thing, couldn’t he? He could have written in the scriptures that you obey the gospel, you follow these commands to become a child of mine, and when you do, don’t tell anybody. This is just between you and me, God could have said. But he didn’t say that, did he? He said to seek out others who share that faith with you and associate yourselves, unite yourselves, work and worship together, because God knew that we needed one another. And to that need, to that unity, to that work and worship and growth together, we want to focus on this theme.

The theme from Daniel chapter 11 in verse 32 simply says, the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. I don’t want to spend too much in the context of Daniel chapter 11, but Daniel, as you may remember, in his prophecies, has a lot to say about the kingdoms of men, about the future kingdoms. And in chapter 11, Daniel is talking about the overthrow of the Persian Empire and how it will be taken over by, this happens, by the way, during the intertestamental period by Alexander the Great and His successors. And he’s talking about that time. And at that time, what these kings will do and how they will be victorious. And in the midst of that, he says this, Daniel 11 and verse 32, those who do wickedly against the covenant, he, that is one of those rulers, those kings, he shall corrupt with flattery.

But the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. The people who are not in a covenant relationship with God or who do not properly esteem the covenant will be led away, he says. But those who know their God shall stand firm and take action. There’s three parts of that phrase that we may focus on throughout the year. First of all, those that know God. We’re going to talk about knowing God and how we can know him better. They shall stand firm. We’re going to talk about the standing up for what is right, standing up for the cause of God and righteousness. But then we’re probably going to put emphasis upon that third one, and that is take action. And that’s what I want to talk to you about this morning.

1. God’s Faithful People Have Always Been People of Action

Is about taking action, about being those people who know their God, and who will not be led astray, who will not be led away into unrighteousness, or even led away into sloth and inactivity, but those that know God will take action. And so this morning, I want to encourage you to use this, the first sermon of 2018, the first sermon of this new year to challenge you that in this year, and hopefully in years to come, that you’re going to be those people that know God. And that you will resolve to stand firm and to take action. When we talk about this concept of taking action, one thing that we have to note from our study of the scriptures is that God’s faithful people have always been people of action.

I want you to think about the scriptures. And just think about it in that context. And haven’t you found it to be the case that God’s people, those whom God commends, those who God recognizes as knowing Him and being His people, have always been people of action. And that shouldn’t surprise us if we truly know God. That shouldn’t surprise us because our God is a God of action. When we are introduced to God, He is acting. He is moving over the face of the earth. He is putting into order all that we see and know. And from Genesis 1 throughout all of Scripture, we see a God in action. In fact, turn with me, if you will, in the New Testament, in the Gospel of John.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 5, Jesus is being criticized for working, for doing something on the Sabbath day. They thought he was in violation of the Sabbath law. He was not. He was just doing the will of God. And in that context of defending his right to do what God wanted him to do on the Sabbath day, he says this about him and about his father. John 5, verse 17. Jesus answered them, My Father has been working until now, and I have been working. My father has been working until now. We might not always think of it that way. We may have the picture of God of just sitting upon his throne and watching. But Jesus says, no. My father’s been working. That tells us something, doesn’t it?

That tells us one thing that we don’t have some distant God who has just put this planet and us on it and kind of just wound it up like an alarm clock and now is just letting it sit there and winding down until it will finally come to an end. That as the psalmist would have us to know, that he not only created this world, but he sustains it. He is still working. But more importantly, he is not just working in the physical sense of upholding and sustaining life, but in a spiritual sense. Jesus would say, My Father has been working until now. And any astute student of the scripture sees that. We see God working throughout the scriptures, don’t we? And so it shouldn’t surprise us that God’s people would be called upon to be like their God and to be people of action.

And it shouldn’t surprise us that God would ask that of his people. And he’s always asked that of his people.

He told Moses to lead and to deliver his people.

Send me. We hear Gideon saying, I’ll fight. We hear Nehemiah saying, I will build that wall. We hear Peter saying, I’ll get out of the boat. God’s people have always followed the lead and the example of their God and been people of action. Some of them to heroic proportions. And know this about the people of God. Those who have always worked and been people of action, those who have done so tremendously and become heroes, they did that not because they were innately different than you and I, that there was something within their genetic makeup that made them heroes, and that you and I do not exist in that gene pool. They’re people just like us who saw God acting in their lives and said, We will follow.

2. Hebrews 11: An Active Faith

Look with me in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11. We all know Hebrews chapter 11. We know it as that chapter of faith. That hall of fame of faith. Where one after the other, and then finally, as a collective group, they are applauded. Applauded by God Himself for being men and women of faith. But if I ask you to contemplate this morning, what did these people have in common? Faith, yes. But as you read through this list, what else? Maybe that’s not the right way of saying it, but what’s something else that you noticed about these people? Look, as we look at this list just quickly this morning. By faith, chapter 11, verse 4 of the book of Hebrews, by faith Abel offered. By faith, look in chapter 11, verse 7.

By faith, Noah being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear. Verse 8, by faith Abraham obeyed. Do you see the trend there that will continue throughout? That these people, what they had in common was faith, but they had in common an active faith. There is a verb that follows every one of their names. A verb that speaks of action. Here’s what they did in service to God. And to tie this together, go earlier in chapter 11. Verse 3. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. The chapter begins talking about God and what he has done, how he has acted. And then says, those people, those men and women who are being commended and applauded, are being commended and applauded because their faith moved them to action.

God’s people have always been people who acted on their faith.

You will not read of a biblical character. In Hebrews 11 or in the entirety of Scripture who is being commended for not acting in faith. In fact, if the scriptures are uniform about anything, they’re uniform in their condemnation of slothfulness. On a physical side, it says that he who will not provide for his family is worse than an infidel. Spiritually. What would God’s view, God’s attitude be if this is his view of those who acted in faith? What’s his view of those who are spiritually inactive? What does God want of us, though? God’s people have always been, God’s faithful people have always been people of action. That should tell us something. There’s a big hint there, isn’t there? That if I want to be God’s faithful people, if I want to be a person of faith, then there better be a spiritual verb in my life of something that I have done.

3. Hebrews 12: Let Us Be People of Action

And so we challenge ourselves this morning as a congregation as we’ll challenge ourselves throughout 2018. It is time for us to stand firm and take action. Are you still in Hebrews? Go to chapter 12. Chronicling that long list of men and women who acted in their faith and therefore were commended. Absent from that list is anyone who was lazy in their spiritual life, who was lazy in their faith, who did not act, but after that long list of actors, of those who acted upon their service to God and in obedient faith did what was commanded of them, then the lens is turned toward us. In Hebrews 12, where it says, Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Do you see what the Hebrew writer by inspiration does? He says, Look at all of those people of old. Look what they did. Look how they were people of action. And then he points the finger at his audience and says, Now what about you? Being surrounded by all of those who lived and died in active faith. What about us? Let us run the race that is set before us. Let us, as they were, and as our God is, let us be people of action. What will we do about the call that we have received to come and learn of me? Of the commandment to go and teach. Of the admonition to be doers of the word and not hearers only. I want to challenge you this first Lord’s Day of this new year.

4. Faith Without Works Is Dead

To ask yourself, am I really serious about this thing called Christianity? Is it real to me? Am I committed to the cause of Christ and God’s kingdom? And if so, will I not be a person of action? Turn with it to James chapter two.

Where in chapter 1 he says, be doers of the word and not hearers only. We’re familiar with chapter 2, where the Holy Spirit through James says, faith without works is dead. In fact, that may be some of your favorite passages of Scripture. You may have frequently pointed those out to your religious denominational friends and saying, see, you have to obey the gospel. You can’t just sit back and wait for God to overwhelm you and save you in some kind of passive state, but you need to be obedient to the gospel. You need to believe, repent, confess, and be baptized. And where that’s an appropriate takeaway from these passages, please understand that was not James’ original intent. James, the book of James, this letter was not written to non-Christians, trying to motivate them to initially obey the gospel.

It was written to Christians. In fact, James 2, verse 14 says this.

But can we not surmise from this epistle and the time that’s dedicated to this subject that sometime after that they had grown spiritually complacent. And either weren’t doing enough, or maybe weren’t doing anything in their service to God. And so James writes to these Christians, like you and I, and says, be doers, not just hearers. Be doers of the word. To these he said again, what does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? That rhetorical question should answer itself. What good is it if you say you have faith? But that’s not borne out into action. He continues. Can faith save him? Faith alone? Faith without any kind of works, faith without any kind of action. Can that save him?

If there be any doubt, the true answer to that rhetorical question, James will answer it himself. When he says, faith without works is dead. It’s dead. What does it mean that it’s dead? Well, you might say it means it’s not alive. It’s not doing anything. Well, that’s certainly true. Faith, without any kind of obedience, work, or without taking action, is doing nothing. But I think it means more than that when it says that it’s dead. It’s dead, yes, in the sense that it’s not doing anything, it’s not accomplishing anything in our lives. But it’s also dead in the sense that it’s not doing anything for us.

It’s dead because it’s not doing anything through us, but it’s dead because it’s not doing anything for us. That faith will get you nowhere.

We stand before the judgment seat of God.

And God asked if we had faith. And we proudly and confidently say, Yes.

5. Action Accomplishes at Least Three Things

But your faith was dead. And it’s gotten you nothing. Will his reply be, not everyone who saith unto me, Lord, Lord, but he who see the importance of action? Action in our faith, action in our Christianity, accomplishes at least three things. Number one, it will be seen by others. Not in the sounding of the trumpet. But in the sense, when Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5, let your light be seen, so that may see your good works, men may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Who can deny that the primary role of a child of God, of a Christian, is to glorify God. One of the ways we glorify God is by causing others to glorify him through our good works.

If when you are obedient, when your faith is working, you’re causing God to be glorified. I ask you this sobering question. What are you doing when you do not act in faith? It will cause others to be moved to action. We won’t turn over there, but you remember in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, Paul to those Corinthians who had made a commitment to do something and had yet to follow through, pointed to the churches of Macedonia and said, See what they have done. You be motivated by them. You see, action is contagious. And if some of us will begin to work or work harder and be more vigilant, you’ll see that spread like wildfire among this group. And that good leaven will spread until we all say, I can do that too.

Active faith is also witnessed by God. Jesus to the local churches in Asia started every one of those letters with the same refrain. I know your works. If we put that in modern day vernacular, Jesus would be saying to them, I know what you’ve been doing. And you know that phrase carries a very different meaning depending upon what you’ve been doing, hasn’t it? If you’ve been caught with your hand in the cookie jar and somebody says, I know what you’ve been doing, it brings shame and guilt and regret. But if we’ve dedicated ourselves and devoted ourselves to be like God’s faithful people have always been, to be people of obedient faith in action when our Lord says, I know your works, I know what you’ve been doing.

It brings great comfort and solace and reward. That our God sees this living faith in our lives. Active faith is noticed by others, and they glorify God, they grow in their service to God. Active faith is seen by God and commended and rewarded. But active faith changes who we are.

Nothing motivates you to future action any better than present action. It becomes this self-fulfilling cycle of action that we see and we want to do more. Jesus, do we really believe the words of Jesus? Do we think sometimes that he’s things that he said are just platitudes that he just said because they sounded wise? Or do we really believe them? When Jesus said, if you be faithful among little things, I’ll make you ruler of greater things. Do we really believe that? Do we really believe that if I begin to do something, that God will empower me and providentially lead me to greater works. But he’s waiting for us to start.

6. How Do I Become a Person of Action?

But how? How do I become a person of action in my service to God? I’ll give you two takeaways. First of all, Daniel gives us the clue when he says, those that know their God, start from the inside out. Cleanse the inside of the cup so that the outside might be pure and driven to action. Get closer to God. Insert commercial here to engage in the Psalms reading plan. Get closer to God. No greater motivation. No greater impetus to you being a person of action. Secondly. Start small. Sometimes we get overwhelmed by the task in front of us. And it’s so big and so frightening and so overwhelming that we just sit in the corner in a fetal position and nothing gets accomplished. Just start small.

Do something.

It may be just being more vigilant and more faithful in your attendance. That might be the place to start.

It might be in just asking the elders or the deacons or somebody, is there something I can do? I want to be more active in the Bible class program, or I want to be active in the worship service, or is there something that I can do? Here am I, send me. And by the way, tell those deacons, I don’t want a big job. Just give me something small. And the big will follow.

Conclusion

Start small. Use that one talent. And God will say, I know your work. You’ve been faithful over the little things. I’ll make you ruler over greater things. And you’ll be amazed at how your faith, your love, your commitment, and your activity will grow and blossom in this coming year. May God help us to accept this challenge. And may God help us to take action. Would you take action this morning? Would you step out into that aisle and come forward and be obedient to the gospel if you’ve never become a child of God? Start this new year by standing firm and taking action. Maybe you’ve done that in the past, but your faith has waned. Your service to God has not been what it ought to be.

Then why not make that thing right this morning? If we can help you, if we can pray for you or help you in your obedience to the gospel in any way, then why not let that be known as you take action this morning as we stand and as we sing?