The God of the Impossible: Give it to Me
God of the Impossible • Sermon • Submitted
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Intro:
27 But He said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”
For the next three weeks I want to preach on [The God of the Impossible]. The title of my message is [Give it to Me].
Give it to me. Give it here. Let me have it. These seem like such simple requests. I never put much thought into them until we had a one-year-old.
Now, a simple request like this seems impossible for our son. I have looked at that Cherub and said, Davis, Give it to me, to which he will shake his head no.
He likes to test his limits, but for him, with his mommy and daddy, it is a case of the immoveable force meeting the unmovable object.
He doesn’t want to give it and Bekah and I won’t take no for an answer. So we will grab whatever it is and take it from him. Granted, he does not understand, when we want him to give whatever it is to us, it is for his good.
Some things we want from him, he doesn’t need anymore. We do not let him have his pacifier in the daytime. And should he find one, and we utter the word— give it to me, for him that is just impossible.
Some things we want from him he doesn’t need EVER. He likes to grab rocks and guess where He puts them? Right in the mouth. Trying to pry a rock from his mouth seems impossible.
Other things we want from his he doesn’t need right now. If he gets ahold of our one of our phones, he gets a death grip when we say GIVE IT TO ME.
For him, it is just impossible. How can a one-year-old survive without a pacifier in one hand, an iPhone in the other, and a mouth full of rocks?
And should we take the pacifier, pry open his mouth to get the rock, or take our phone from him, here come the tears and the confusion. Life is hard for a one-year-old, it almost seems impossible.
I thought of this when I read this passage in the book of Luke. We have spent the last two weeks looking at impossible situations.
As I mentioned :
The word impossible is found four times in Scripture,
The word possible is found fifteen times in Scripture,
And all of the references are found in the New Testament.
Through Jesus, NOTHING is impossible. Last week we focused on Zachariah and Mary who issued the promise from Gabriel that nothing is impossible with God.
We looked at an encounter Jesus had with a demon. Through His actions we discovered that He really is the God of the impossible.
But these two accounts were heavy on spiritual matters. An angelic visitation and a demonic possession, those actually do require divine intervention.
What about the every day tasks?
There are some situations we face where WE could make it work out, but we know that God has a better way. What do we do in these situations?
What do we do when Jesus say, give it to me, and we want to hold on for dear life?
I am not speaking of angels coming to visit or demons taking over. I means seemingly simple things:
trusting Him with our finances
giving Him our hurts
releasing our future
prioritizing him on our schedule
including him in our relationships and friendships
At times when we are invested in something, that for others it might not seem like much to give to Jesus, but for us it seems impossible.
What do we do when Jesus says, Give it to me, and we do not understand?
Sometimes people, adults, throw tantrums like one-year-olds, wanting to hold on screaming MINE.
Other times people will ignore the command.
But I want us to see how it is possible to give EVERYTHING to Jesus. I want to look at what Jesus wants from us in three categories, [What We Do No Need Anymore], [What We Do Not Need Ever], and [What We Do Not Need Right Now].
Let’s begin
1. What We Do Not Need Anymore
1. What We Do Not Need Anymore
22 So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
23 But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich.
Following Jesus seemed attractive to many people. He garnered a reputation as:
a prolific teacher
a faith healer
a prophetic figure
an unconventional rabbi
but one that got results
As His fame spread through the region, many people wanted to latch onto his popularity to increase theirs. One of these people was a rich young ruler.
We do not know his name, but his conversation with Jesus tells us much about his character. He began by calling Jesus good teacher.
It always seemed peculiar that Jesus would tell him that Only God is truly good. Isn’t Jesus God. We know that, but they did not know that at this time.
Jesus wanted the young ruler to start to think about his actions, not matter what he had, it was not enough to make him good or to inherit eternal life.
He reveals his self-reliance:
what must I do to inherit eternal life
all these I have kept from my youth
He felt that because of what He did and who He was, that all things were possible for him. He viewed eternal life as something he could could achieve through his own strength and power.
Evidently that was the case so far in his life. He was rich, he had a leadership position, and he attained all of this at a young age.
The young man focused on all he did, Jesus got down to the source and made him think about what he had. He told him, take everything you have, sell it, and give it to the poor, then come and follow me.
But the young man had mixed priorities. He could not give up his wealth, but Jesus wanted him to see, you do not have to trust in that anymore.
Follow me, and I will take care of you!
Why did Jesus issue this command?
Did He have a problem with wealth?
No, that contradicts Scripture. God lays out a plan, should we put Him first and trust Him first, then everything else will come to us.
To personalize this story, we can replace wealth with what we depend on in life.
Do we depend on ourselves more than God?
Do we depend on our families more than God?
Do we depend on our savings more than God?
Do we depend on our status more than God?
How can we know if we depend on something more than God?
Would we trust God with what He asks from us? Would we give it to Him or would we think, that is impossible.
What the Rich Young Ruler could not see is that following Jesus would have brought eternal life. The Lord wanted him to give up what he really didn’t need anymore, and that was his self-reliance.
But for him, that was impossible.
2. What We Do Not Need Ever
2. What We Do Not Need Ever
24 And when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, He said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!
25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
When the young ruler left, he was said, because he could not release his riches and realize, one he found Jesus, he did not need anything else or anyone else.
The crowd watched in confusion and concern. Why wouldn’t Jesus want the young man to follow Him?
For the crowd, this man would have helped Jesus in ways they could not. Jesus, was full of the Holy Spirit. He walked in the gifts of the Spirit.
He knew what the people were thinking, and here is what He says:
It is next to impossible for those who have everything to enter into God’s Kingdom. It would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.
Another version of this passage has Jesus saying, it is easier for a ROPE to go through the eye of a needle.
What was Jesus’s point?
He was not against wealth, per se. Instead, Jesus had a problem with mixed priorities. He took issue with this man placing his trust in what HE HAD and not in what JESUS OFFERED.
Jesus ALWAYS has an issue with those who place their trust in themselves:
16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.
17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—
Riches do not always equal money. Jesus describes a person who lives with the mindset that THEY DO NOT NEED GOD.
Jesus’s point is, it is hard for those who depend on themselves instead of God to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
26 And those who heard it said, “Who then can be saved?”
27 But He said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”
Someone in the crowd heard what Jesus said and just had to ask, if this rich young ruler cannot be saved, who in the world can receive eternal life?
In ancient Israel, if someone had wealth, they believed it was a sign of God’s favor and blessings on their life. If God’s blessings are on his life and he cannot get saved, what is our hope?
Jesus’s answer— what is impossible with men is impossible with God.
When I began to study for this series, I looked at the times this phrase was in Scripture. I knew the Rich Young Ruler’s story, but I did not remember this phrase in connection with his refusal to follow Jesus.
What is Jesus’s point?
When we come to God genuinely hungry for Him, all material possessions, positions, and popularity, will not matter.
Without God, it is impossible to give anything away. But with Him, we realize we do not need anything this life has to offer. When He is first in our lives, HE will take care of everything else.
Had the rich young ruler come to Jesus with sincerity, he would have found he did not need his wealth and self-sufficiency anymore.
Jesus wants the crowd to see that when we come to Him, what the world considers success, we do not need that ever.
3. What We Do Not Need Right Now
3. What We Do Not Need Right Now
28 Then Peter said, “See, we have left all and followed You.”
29 So He said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God,
30 who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life.”
Peter, who generally said what everyone was thinking, told Jesus— we have left everything to follow you.
This was true, they left their homes, their families, their jobs, and their lives to follow Jesus.
What is Peter really saying?
Help us understand, we made a once-and-for all act of abandoning everything to be your disciples. What does this mean for us?
Initially, I thought that Peter was being selfish, like he had a tendency to be. But as I thought about this passage, I tried to put myself in Peter’s shoes.
He, like everyone else, would have been taught that wealth was a sign of God’s blessing and favor. Jesus shattered this notion, but showing that God wants us to surrender everything to Him.
The disciples genuinely wanted to know what all Jesus meant with this encounter with the rich young ruler.
Jesus’s reply?
Whoever leaves everything to follow me, family, homes, jobs, livelihoods, will be repaid many times over in this life and in age the come.
Matthew adds one more statement of Jesus in this passage:
30 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.
How were they repaid in this life?
Jesus saw what the disciples could not see. But their willingness to leave everything to follow Him meant that:
they were first to see the resurrected Christ
they were the first to receive salvation
they were the first to be baptized in the Holy Spirit
they were the first to have God’s miraculous power flowing through them
they were the first to preach the gospel throughout the world
They would not see it right then, but Jesus knew that if they would be patient, that He would do for them what was humanly impossible.
He repaid them in this life, but what about the next?
History shows that all but one of the twelve apostles died for their faith.
In the next life there were some of the first to hear, well done my good and faithful servent.
They were some of the first to spend eternity with Jesus.
And in that city whose builder and maker is God, the Lord planned the New Jerusalem:
14 Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
Their names are forever enshrined in eternity as example of what happens when we say yes and give everything to Jesus.
No wonder Jesus told them:
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;
20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
In this life, if they put Him first, He will take care of them and their impossible situations. Then as they keep giving it all to them, they will have treasures in heaven.
Close:
God sees what:
We do not need anymore
We do not need ever
We do not need right now
And today, He issues an invitation to each of us. He sees our hopes, our dreams, our faults, our failures, our desires, our lack, and our wealth, and he calls to us— give it to me.
He sees what we cannot see. And He calls us to give everything to Him.
When I read this passage of Scripture, I thought of the life a missionary named Jim Elliot.
He was born in 1927 and at the age of 25, he moved to Ecuador in South America. Three years after his arrival, he and four other missionaries went to spread the gospel to an unreached tribe.
After four months of dropping gifts to them overhead by way of an airplane. They met some of the native tribe. The reception went well and they thought everything was good.
Two days later, on January 8, 1956, some members of the tribe came to the missionaries. Jim Elliot and another missionary went out to great them.
The native took out spears and killed all five missionaries. He left behind a wife and a ten-month-old daughter.
Look up Jim Elliot— He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
Amongst his writings was his most famous quote, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Two years after his martyrdom, his wife began to learn the language of the tribe that killed him. Two years after that, in 1960, her and her daughter went to minister to the people who killed her husband.
Many of the tribe got saved and accepted Jesus as their personal Savior.
Jesus offers the invitation— GIVE IT TO ME.
I cannot help but think of that quote, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
What could have happened to that rich young ruler if he had given everything to Jesus?
What amazing exploits happened by the disciples who gave everything to Jesus.
Today, God gives us a choice— will we give it to Him or hold onto it forever?
We might ask, what is it?
It is unique to each of us. God is calling to each of us, Give it to me.
I hesitate to even list the possibilities, for I know that the Lord is speaking to hearts. What I do know is that God see:
what we do not need anymore
what we do not need ever
and what we do not need right now.
I feel that we need to spend some time and ask the Lord, is there anything in your life that you want me to give to you?
If there is, remember, He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.