Upkeep

I want to tell you a valuable lesson I learned a long time ago at someone else’s expense. Those are great lessons, right? You just take notes and go, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do it differently than what I’m saying. You never had that?

You know what I’m talking about? You’re thinking, man, that’s a bad situation. But you walk away from it different. You gain something from it. And it requires that I take you back briefly to a time that I was working as a gas station service attendant in Salem during my high school years and first year or so of college.

It was a freeway station station. So we got a lot of traffic from various places around the state including southern, the state south of southern Oregon. California, where I came from. So we were fairly new to Oregon. So I was pretty excited whenever California car came in.

It was a summer day, I remember, and the bell dinged. Do you remember the days when you drive up to the gas pumps and it is ding, ding, you know? Now the line’s so long, they don’t need to ding it, right? Somebody will go crazy. If you do that.

But in those days, the bell rang and I went running out to the car and I noticed California plates on the car and went up to the window and I said, “Good morning. Welcome. Filled up for you today.” And they said, “Sure, go for it.” You know, so I did.

And there was a husband and a wife. The husband was driving. And I got going and, “Hey, where are you from in California? I’m from East Bay. I’m telling them.”

And I worked making different connections. And I’m telling them about things I missed down there. And that kind of thing. That’s kind of new, not sure about Oregon at all. Still not sure about Oregon at all.

But anyway. And then along the way, I said, “Hey, you want me to check under the hood?” Which was normal in that day. Today, you have to pay to get that done, right? And he said, “Sure.”

You know, he was actually a little slow to say that. But his wife said, waved it off at first. She said, “No, no, we got that covered.” And I said, “Okay, no problem. I was just waiting for it to get done filling.”

And he said, “Yeah, go for it.” So I went under the hood and pulled out the dipstick. And I have a grease rag with me. And then put it back in and pulled it out again. There’s no reading.

And, you know, the hot engine seems hotter than normal for a car. But, you know, it came off the freeway a long trip. So I said, I walked down by the window and showed him. And I said, “You want me to add a court and see if that makes a difference here?” Usually that meant at least two courts.

So I added a court kind of knowing might take another. And sure enough, there’s still no reading. Yeah, put a second one in. And I’m starting to notice the dynamics between husband and wife in this moment. And I put a second court in, dip the stick and pull it back out.

And there’s still nothing showing. And I’m thinking, you know, I’m a pretty world-class mechanic. I kind of know where the oil goes, you know. But I’m just in case I’m squatting down going, did I miss the fill hole? I’m not sure what I did here.

And sure enough, I had it right. And then I tell him, and they’re now looking and she looks at him and says, “You didn’t get this oil change before we left, didn’t you?” And he’s kind of looking for some kind of, let’s call it a rapture from heaven to get him out of this moment. And his response was, you know, dear? I think I forgot that.

I forgot to do that. And she begins to, and it just goes south from there. $3,800 later with a new engine, I took away a lesson from that that was huge. And that was, I’m trying to figure something really funny right now, but it’s, you got to take care of things or they won’t take care of themselves. And as it turned out, the investigation showed that they had not changed, no, he had not changed the oil in a couple of years.

And I want to say it was 30 or so thousand miles. I think we’re supposed to change it at 3,000, not 30. But anyway, he missed a zero in there. And they, I learned that day the lesson caused a high cost of neglect, right? They’re a trip, they were heading north and it was all changed right there that day.

They needed a new engine and of course we helped them with that. But I’ve been a pastor for 38 years and I’ve observed over the years something that continues to this day. And it’s a dynamic that is true not just in fringe people, it’s a dynamic that we all 100% of us in this gathering today hearing these words has to fight against. And that is the tendency to say I can kind of go along for a while in my own strength and my own power and sort of just kind of carry things along. And the temptation is I’ll get through it.

It’ll be okay, it won’t really cause a problem of of much consequence. And that is listening to deception at a very fundamental level. That’s actually believing a lie. And I’m gonna show you this morning how there’s a real disagreement when it comes to that lie. Because there’s somebody that doesn’t want you to believe that.

His name’s God and there’s somebody that absolutely wants you to believe that it’s okay, let it go. And you’ll learn his name in just a minute unless you’ve guessed it already. And healthy, and this is the principle I wanna start with, healthy won’t just happen. It will not happen in my walk or yours with God. Call it auto pilot, call it what you want.

Healthy will not just happen, it requires regular attention. I’m talking about a subject today, upkeep, that’s not something I like doing when it comes to things like gardens. Painting, we move some pictures around this week. And I heard the dreaded P word. My wife, you know, some movies, pictures, and it’s like, oh, the color’s different there.

We may have to paint. And I’m thinking, Lord, I know it’s wrong, but I was praying for a fire. I didn’t anything but paint. (audience laughs) Paint, you know? ‘Cause upkeep’s not something I do easily.

And you’ve heard me before say, you know, gardening and yards. I mean, bring in the pavers, right? And if that’s too expensive, just asphalt, the whole thing. And we’ll be good. We can park cars there and make some money.

But anyway, so it’s just like keeping a car running. Choices have to be made if we want to keep ourselves spiritual walk well. Okay, that’s the connection I want you to hear. If we want to stay healthy in our walk with God, we gotta make certain choices. And just like keeping our car running well, there are different approaches that people take.

Probably a lot of different approaches when it comes to keeping our spiritual lives well. I’ve identified two, okay? You can write these down. And I’ll bet you, one or the other describes more of your normal sort of natural approach to keeping your spiritual life healthy. The first is this, we’ll call it, we’re close.

So I want to keep it that way. That’s some of your thinking. I’ve got this thing with God. Things are going well with God. And I want to keep it that way.

Like cars, you approach God on a daily basis. It’s something that you forget about. It’s something that defines your day. It’s how you start the day maybe. Or maybe for you, you’re not good in the morning, but at nighttime, that’s your moment.

And you go to your room or go to bed and the light’s still on because you’ve got your Bible open and you’re nurturing this relationship with God. It doesn’t matter. The Bible doesn’t say in the morning or night or whenever. It just says, “Seek God.” You don’t wait for a crisis to hit.

That’s not your approach. Maybe you’re in this first category. Your approach is no. I want to say strong so that in good times, so that when bad times come, I’ll be okay. I’m going to weather the storm, we might say.

There’s a great proverb that agrees with you if that’s your approach. Proverbs 24 verse 10. It says, “If you fail under pressure, “then your strength is too small. Your strength is limited.” There’s a great prophet that’s become like my favorite this last year.

His name’s Jeremiah. And Jeremiah was a prophet that said so many things that I think. Here’s one. He complained in chapter 12 of his writings to God. He took his complaint to God, which is a good place to take your complaint.

Don’t just talk about it, go to God with it. So he did. And his complaint was about how come wicked people have a good time? Ever choked over that one? Anybody?

How come wicked people are doing just fine? I choke over that. If you’re writing notes, write Psalm 37 and Psalm 73. Easy to remember, just flip the numbers, okay? And have you do that on your own time?

Because I want you to see that it’s not just Jeremiah that was bugged by it. It was a lot of people in the Bible that said, “Hold on.” You know, I’m walking well. And frankly, it’s not going so hot in my life. But that wicked person over there couldn’t care less about God and they seem to be on top of the wind looking, you know?

I mean, that’s not good. And it caused you to gag. But instead of an answer, Jeremiah has God asking, ask him two questions. Check out these questions. Chapter 12 in Jeremiah verse 5.

If you’ve raced with men, God’s asking this question. If you’ve raced with men on foot and they’ve worn you out, how are you going to compete with horses? Got to think deeply now. And the second question right after that. If you stumble in safe country, think smooth paved paths.

Then he’s saying, “How will you manage in the thick and thick “of the Jordan?” So the counsel God is giving Jeremiah, he gives to us as well. Stay spiritually healthy when times are calm and problems are small or else you may, what makes you, you’re going to have a crisis and what makes you think you’re going to do okay in that crisis. Turns out that it’s a fairly common second approach that many people take in a crisis. Now what I would call it’s broke, my relationship with God.

Now what? Now where I want to be or should be, and the evidence is everywhere. It’s not, it’s, I’m my life’s a mess. Now what? Like that couple?

It’s spent thousands more than necessary. Neglect leads to a pandemic. Pandemic cry for help. Such a common habit that some people keep, I think, distressful air is handy because they use them so often. They sort of live their spiritual life from crisis to crisis.

They do their own thing and they leave God out until, until their engine stops, stops running, and they have an untimely breakdown. Did you know that there’s an entire book in the Bible? It’s written about the subject. It’s a book of judges. I don’t know if you’ve read it, it’s kind of an old sounding book, but it’s right after Joshua and just before the day of the Kings began, principally started with Saul and that didn’t last long and then David and so on.

There’s a span of 350, 350 years, right? Israel was, was without a king and Israel had this problem that repeated again and again six times in 30, 350 years. And the problem kind of went like a cycle. It was the people walked with God and then started to sort of slumber and slip and wander from God. And then this wandering from God caused them to find themselves in a very difficult spot.

You know that feeling? It’s like you didn’t see it at first. It was creeping separateness, but all of a sudden you’re a long ways from God. And you’re crying out ’cause this is a spot that’s not good. It’s not a healthy spot.

And so you cry out to God and then God does something and this is God’s grace coming your way. In grace he comes to you in the form of deliverance of rescue. And what do you do? He says, give me your hand, I’ll pull you out of that. And of course you take his hand and he lifts you out of that.

And he cleans you up. Think Luke 15 and the prodigal son, you’re getting the idea here, right? Only in your case as it was in the days of judges, that went for a little bit of time and then repeat. It was going well. Don’t need a lot of help.

Look God, got this now. And they go back to their same pattern and get stuck in a spot and cry out. God reaches out and restores. This happened again and again and again. Something I tell you was missing in their lives.

And I think it describes a potential missing piece in my life in your life. It’s the title of this message, upkeep. So the rest of my talk this morning is about that. We want to conclude this series of messages on healthy this morning. We’re going to begin next Sunday talking about actually one of the measures God has made very clear that will actually help us stay healthy.

It’s community. So I hope you come back next Sunday and we’re going to begin a series of kind of understanding God’s heart for community and what does that look like? And it’ll be, I think, very compelling. And if you’re not yet in a part of a community, a life group, we call it here, we hope that that’ll all change and more on that in the coming week. But each message that we’ve kind of journeyed through has been looking at what God says a healthy Christian is, has or does.

That’s been going on since last September to today. And we’ve picked on one of these each week. We’ve sort of said God defines healthy this way. We started, of course, this series and repeated this throughout to avoid a mistake that’s easy to make. And that is, well, if I just get that quality going in my life, I’ll be good.

No, no, no, no, no. That quality is a fruit of something that only I can provide. And it’s the relational fruit. So God says, here’s the deal. I gotta do some work in you.

I’m gonna give you a spiritual newness, a brand new beginning. And it comes in these words from, well, Ezekiel, but it’s told in Jeremiah in other places as well. I’m gonna give you something that you can’t give yourself. And without this, you will not be able to be healthy. What is that?

Well, let’s look at the words. I will give you a new heart. I will actually put a new spirit in you. You’re this guy before. And then I want you to be this person.

I want you to be healthy, a person that is has or does these things. But in order for that to happen, it’s not just changing up a few habits. I gotta start where it all starts, your heart. So God focuses on that. I will remove your heart, put a new spirit in you.

In fact, in the process, I will remove the old heart. I will remove your heart that was there. And it’s, I think, graphically described as a heart of stone, right? It’s what he’s saying there. I will remove that heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

There’s a tenderness and a responsiveness to that image. And then I’m gonna put my spirit in you to move you to do the stuff of healthy. That’s what he’s saying. That’s God speaking. And I’m gonna do that.

We’ve talked about that throughout the series. The New Testament absolutely emphatically agrees. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17, the Apostle Paul says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,” what? The new is calm, brand new creation. The old is gone.

He repeats it. The new is here. It’s a great picture. So the rest of the series is focused throughout this time on how to be healthy based on the newness that God has brought into our lives. So in the process, God wants us to grow up.

He wants us to go from who we were when we met him to who he wants us to be. Sometimes I’ve prayed along the way, “Lord, make me more like you and less like me.” I think that’s getting somewhere close to the heart of God. It’d be a good prayer. It’s a risky prayer.

Don’t pray it lightly. ‘Cause if you’re a selfish person, he’s gonna go to work to change that and make you like his son. ‘Cause you just prayed it, right? And you know the joke about you’re an impatient person. So prepare to get stuck in traffic, you know?

Kind of thing, right? Every time you go shopping at Costco, it will be crazy. And what’s God doing there? Telling you to shop at another store? No, maybe how about let me bear the fruit of the spirit of patience in you in the moment?

And it’s a silly example. You get the idea? So today I wanna talk about, and have you look with me at first Peter? We started here a long time ago, and I just wanna repeat these words. First Peter, chapter two.

And the apostle Peter is really onto something. When he’s talking about this growing up idea. Upkeep that will make us more like Jesus. Therefore rid yourself, verse one, of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander of every kind. Like newborn babies.

Let that image stay with you. They crave pure spiritual milk. You’re to do so as well. So that by it you may, here’s those two words. Now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Get rid of the stuff of a bad heart is what he starts with in verse one. Can I just give you a little Bible technique? A Bible interpretation law? God does not tell you to do something just to use words to fill the page. He absolutely believes that you and I can and should and with his power must get rid of, look at this, verse one, of all malice.

Not improved slightly in the malice area. Malice means wishing hurt or harm to somebody else. I don’t wish it to everybody now Lord, does that make me, you see what I mean? He says what? All malice.

Democrats and Republicans. Anybody you don’t like. I don’t care who you don’t like, who you have malice for. He says get rid of all malice and get rid of all deceit. Oh, no, I just, I don’t do the big lies anymore.

No, that’s not what the Bible’s saying. Get rid of all of it. Yeah, but what about the white lies? That’s not so bad. Well, where did white lies come from?

Like black lives are bad and white lies. Come on. That’s almost sounds like black lives and white lives. You get the idea to see it as bad no matter where it is or in what form it exists. So he says get rid of all of that in hypocrisy and envy and slander and he repeats himself of every kind.

And then he shifts to the positive. He says you’re brand new and brand new babies do what? They start with the basics, but, but they begin to grow. They don’t stay basic and key to that for a baby. Milk, milk is necessary, but get this, it’s temporary.

That’s what the intent here is. Grow, crave the word, the milk of God’s word, but plan to grow on in that. Hebrews five talks about, get into the meat of God. Go deeper than just a couple of verses here and there and call it good. See what I mean?

It’s growing up. Throughout the series, said repeatedly, and it’s really been built. It’s the bedrock of this. When the heart is right, we go from a heart, heart, heart of stone to heart of flesh. We read earlier in Ezekiel 36.

When the heart is right, the feet are swift. Wanna write that down? Because it’s kind of the, if I walked around here and said, hey, tell me about your heart. I would have an impossible task of knowing where your heart is. You wouldn’t have a completely clear grasp of that either.

But when the heart is right, the feet are swift. Now all of a sudden we’re putting it in practical terms. Feet are swift is an image of you’re living a different life that reflects a different heart. When a heart is right, the feet are swift. So assuming you and I with a new heart have taken steps to be healthy.

My final thought this morning is how do we stay healthy? How do we do the upkeep? Go from 1 Peter 2 to the last chapter he wrote in 2 Peter, chapter 3. Would you land in the last paragraph of this letter? I wanna share with you some words right now that kind of alluded to earlier and I’ll make it brief.

But you can write this down because it too there’s a principle that’s worth knowing so you can observe it in your own life. That is that there is a bias, here’s the principle. There’s a bias in nature toward wild. There’s a bias in nature toward wild. And it’s true in gardens just as it is true in human hearts.

You say, well, what’s that look like? Well, let me take you to my backyard for a minute. So we have a lawn, a big lawn. We have a back section of our yard that’s a garden. And it’s where Debbie grows crops and fruits and vegetables.

And she feeds our family with that, right? And I borrowed a Roy B. Two stroke, bad boy, this thing. And it’s a tiller. And it made powder of these raised boxes.

That I made. And it was ridiculous. It was like, whoa, I mean, powder of the soil. I called it dirt and got corrected. So it’s not dirt, it’s soil.

And it was beautiful. And we planted, we changed the pronouns, she planted. And she put seeds in the soil. And they began to grow. Sewed.

And they grew. And then harvest time came last fall. And there was a bountiful crop. Lots of good things, tea, mostly. Okay, I’m not gonna lie, there was squash, plant squash.

Who does that? That’s just, that’s not, that’s not right. Anyway, but I’m sure none of you will share what I just said with Debbie. So I’m safe, safe in this setting. But, okay, so the season of this sowing and harvesting and all, it ended in the fall.

What are we, four months later, five months later? Go look at the boxes today. And you will find a very different look. Soils hard and really muddy right now. And it’s kind of got weeds.

And junk. And stuff that wasn’t planted there. Where did this come from? And you know what’s gonna happen in about three months, two months? Debbie is gonna get it back in shape again.

That might help. But anyway, you get the idea, right? So here’s the deal, how did that happen? The exact same bias works in hearts as well. And so the same apostle who described how to grow up in 1 Peter 2 comes here to 2 Peter 3 and he says, there’s two principles for how to stay healthy.

Keep the garden healthy in there in verse 17 and 18. Therefore dear friends, since you have been forewarned to be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the air of the lawless, and fall from your secure position. Be on your guard that you may not be carried away. Verse 18, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to Him be both glory now and forever more. Upkeep requires that we first, verse 17 tells us, be on your guard or guard our hearts.

Peter has an enemy in mind when he is describing this. And he goes, he has a name, his name is devil. And he’s a deceiver and he first appeared all the way back in Genesis 3. And he was up to what he’s still up to today and that’s deception. And he was very successful with Adam and Eve.

Jesus came along in John chapter 8 and called him out and said, you’re a liar, you’re the first father of lies and everything you’ve ever spoken is a lie. That’s pretty straight up stuff. In other words, the devil is the source of this deception carried away by the error of lawless people and lawless teachers, which has great consequence. Your engine will fail like that car or your life will falter and you will fall from your secure position. You see in that?

So the devil’s up to something. Means he’s really good at it. As the deceiver, he promotes false teaching and it was rampant in Peter’s day just as it is in our day. You could read the rest of 2 Peter and you’ll see what he’s talking about. But God in the midst of that environment wants us to stay close and not be carried away by error.

The devil in contrast doesn’t want that. So we have these words. God, your heart and grow your heart. The Apostle Paul was concerned about this very thing as well. I want to show you in 2 Corinthians 11, 3, sometimes I have this flashback moment as an adult to my childhood when I heard this frequently, Steve, I’m worried about you.

I’m concerned about you. Usually that’s when I got kicked out of school or something like that. And these words are what I think about sometimes. But I’m afraid for you. I’m worried about you.

Paul is saying of Christians like us. He says, “I’m fearful of something that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ would be corrupted.” Isn’t that a beautiful teacher and a way to put it? You people are walking with Jesus. We want and hunger for the things we’re singing about and that we’re giving time and effort to.

We want to be pure and undivided in our devotion to Christ. And Paul is saying of those people. And I would say of us today, I’m fearful, I’m worried about this. Because just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent, read Genesis 3 and you’ll see it right there. That’s what he’s referring to.

Because you happily tend to put up with whatever anyone else tells you. And then he goes into in that day, if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach or a different kind of spirit than the one you received or a different kind of gospel than the one you believe, all different ways that they were at risk of going astray. There is a road, a single road that’s the right road. And there’s a single savior that’s the right savior. Don’t add to or take away from that.

Stay with Jesus and stay on the path with Jesus. And you will be home someday in heaven, amen? Okay, so that’s true. There’s this issue that creeps in slowly because the devil doesn’t come knock on your door. Why would he do that?

You just go, oh, you look bad and smell bad. You’re right, you just leave him. No, I’m not even opening the door. So he’s going to find other ways in. And sometimes it’s through wrong thought, which is why we have to come back to God’s truth.

No wonder Solomon sounded a similar alarm in Proverbs 4.23. The one that wrote the human author of these words was the one who was told, you will be the wealthiest king, wealthiest person alive during your days as king. And secondly, you will be the wisest person to ever live. I noticed some of you moved your position in your chair forward and went, I’m going to pay attention to those words a little closer today. When Solomon says, all else guard your heart, it’s worth taking a note.

It’s worth going and focusing from it, he adds, is everything that you are about. Everything you do flows from your heart. It’s a top priority, not something to fit in. It’s, guard means to watch over. I have this image of military guards at embassies.

I think of their Marine Corps guards. And they are just guarded, I mean, they are in full attention doing their job of guarding. Why? Because all we do, good or bad, Solomon’s saying, is driven from our hearts. So he says verse 17 back in 2 Peter 3, guard your heart.

And then it’s best protection. Against that bias toward wild. And he finishes his thought with grow your heart, verse 18. By the way, the words grow your heart. They’re in a certain tense of the verb in Greek that doesn’t say, hey, every so often when you get around to it, if you got a little extra time, give some attention to your heart.

It’s totally opposite of that. It’s an imperative present, imperative verb that says, you’re heart. Get that? There’s a difference between coming to church on Sunday and getting an hour of some truth and calling it good for the week. Hopefully it lasts that long.

Now the Bible’s saying, no, be continuously growing. Make it your daily drive. Okay, it’s enough. This bias, I’ve watched it for 38 years. And I’ve watched it damage people.

You know what I usually see the form I see it in? Somebody changes up something they’re doing in their walk with Jesus. They don’t go to Bible study anymore. They’re too busy. They go to church.

It used to be 2.3 times a month is the average. Did you know that? But that got a little too impactful to their Sunday. And so they said, you know, I’ll do it. I’ll get fed other ways.

Not saying there aren’t other ways to get fed. I’m just saying this book that you and I are subscribing to doesn’t say, doesn’t advocate for giving up on something that’s very clear. In light of something that sounds sort of trendy. I’m not taking a swing at anything. Radio TV, whatever.

I’m just saying there’s something messy and complicated and incredibly useful to being together on a regular basis. It’s true. It’s true. There is this bias in us to cause us to drift away from healthy. And it’s vital that we hold on to this.

It’s vital that we embrace something that’s not easy for me. I told you earlier, upkeep, maintenance, but anything to reject the neglected until needed approach seems to me is in our best interest spiritually. Can I leave you the promising note? The bias toward wild will be broken. It will end one day.

It will end on that day when we are with Jesus. Until then, we got a fight. I’d like you to bow your heads as we conclude our time together. God, there is a there is a sense that I had when I was preparing these thoughts and even arriving this morning that a sermon series, a message from you. It’s true of every message that I’ve ever preached.

There’s a certain level of resistance. But today I felt like I needed to be bold in you to say, look, even those among us that tend to walk so steady and consistently can easily find ourselves off the path. And eventually, if not stopped or challenged, the damage could be real and big. So God, I pray for us that you would be the daily king of our hearts. You’d be the one that we follow and choose to follow every step of the way.

Thank you, God, that you have been with us in this journey. And as we begin a new one next week, we’re excited to hear what you have to say to us as we seek for the deeper, richer things you have in store through community. We respond now in love to you and worship of you, the one we seek to follow. Keep our hearts healthy. I pray as we follow you.

Amen.

Transcript machine-generated from the sermon audio, so it may contain errors. 5,656 words.