Living Life: No Reserve, No Retreat, No Regret

Living Life: No Reserve, No Retreat, No Regrets
The election date in the USA is approaching fast and voters are weighing many policies and past decisions of the candidates as they make their decision on who they will vote for. One of the debates that has been in the forefront of American politics since 1973 and is at issue in the current election centers on the right to life for the unborn. The Roe vs. Wade decision stripped away the rights of the unborn and gave rights to pregnant women to abort a child for any reason. The real issue is not human rights of the unborn or the woman but who is the Author of life and what rights He has over the life he created. Our origin determines who has ownership and rights over our lives. If life is only the product of human reproduction and the value of a human being is determined by mankind then abortion can be legitimized by the consensus of the people who make our laws and interpret our laws. If life is a gift from God then its value changes because of its ownership.
As Christians we believe that life is a gift from God. Psalms 139 beautifully expresses that each person is uniquely created by God to serve his purposes.
13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—and how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.16 You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

He is the Creator of all of life and we will only understand our value and purpose when we embrace Him as our Creator and seek Him. As Creator God has rights over his creation and it is He who gives life, gives meaning to life and controls what happens in life. Clarifying who God is, his character and nature as well as man’s purpose and destiny have always been questions asked of people throughout the ages. There are millions of people today who have not met and understood who God is. They have made god in their own image and likeness or have resigned themselves to view him as unknowable.
In Acts 17 we read of Paul’s ministry in Athens a city that was filled with idols and false beliefs.
16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city. 17 He went to the synagogue to debate with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and he spoke daily in the public square to all who happened to be there.
18 He also had a debate with some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. When he told them about Jesus and his resurrection, they said, “This babbler has picked up some strange ideas.” Others said, “He’s pushing some foreign religion.”
19 Then they took him to the Council of Philosophers. “Come and tell us more about this new religion,” they said. 20 “You are saying some rather startling things, and we want to know what it’s all about.” 21 (It should be explained that all the Athenians as well as the foreigners in Athens seemed to spend all their time discussing the latest ideas.)
22 So Paul, standing before the Council,addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious, 23 for as I was walking along I saw your many altars. And one of them had this inscription on it—‘To an Unknown God.’ You have been worshiping him without knowing who he is, and now I wish to tell you about him.
24 “He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, 25 and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need there is. 26 From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand which should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.
27 “His purpose in all of this was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. 28 For in him we live and move and exist. As one of your own poets says, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29 And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone. 30 God overlooked people’s former ignorance about these things, but now he commands everyone everywhere to turn away from idols and turn to him. 31 For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.”
32 When they heard Paul speak of the resurrection of a person who had been dead, some laughed, but others said, “We want to hear more about this later.” 33 That ended Paul’s discussion with them, 34 but some joined him and became believers. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the Council, a woman named Damaris, and others.

Paul was disturbed in his spirit at what he was witnessing. He was grieved by the statues and idols that were in abundance in the city. His heart was stirred by the lostness of the people who were literally groping in the darkness of false beliefs. He was irritated and motivated to do something. He could not sit idly by and allow the false beliefs to continue when he knew the truth. Paul knew God, knew his character and nature, knew that He was the Creator of life and that apart from knowing God, life will never be experienced as God designed it. His desire to proclaim the gospel message and the truth about God compelled him to go daily to the synagogue and to the market place to speak to the people. The Epicurean and Stoic philosophers of the day listened to Paul but rejected what he had to say about the resurrection and stated he was a “dreamer” or “he is pushing some foreign religion.” In spite of their rejection he was invited to Mars Hill to address those who gathered there to discuss philosophies of the day. Paul accepted the invitation and saw it as an opportunity to tell the people about a god they worshipped but did not know the true God. Paul in his address to the people in Athens confronted them about the monument they had erected to “The Unknown God.” He immediately establishes God as Creator and Lord of heaven and earth who is beyond the limited confines of the human mind. He cannot be limited to a monument, and idol or a manmade temple. He is so much greater than what the human mind can conceive. God is the author of life, he gives life and breath to everything and satisfies every need there is. Life is a gift from God. This is the foundational stone in our belief system. We are not products of evolution, time plus chance plus matter. We have a Creator who has given us life. He has given us life so that we can know Him as He truly is. Our essence our purpose our reason for living is based solely in Him. Paul went on to state, “In him we live and move and have our being.” Our life is centered on our connection to God. When man disconnects from his Creator, or embraces false ideas about his Creator, chaos occurs. We witness daily what happens when people do not understand who their Creator is, his character and nature; who they are and why He created them. We have been mentioning the past couple of weeks the chaos that is happening in parts of India. The radical Hindus are killing Christians who formerly were Hindus. Many of the new converts are leaving the lowest caste system level, the untouchables, who are viewed as less than human and this is disturbing the Hindus. The new believers have discovered that life is a gift from God who has created them in his image and likeness and has given them great worth and purpose in life. They are breaking out of the false beliefs that have held them captive and slaves of the society. They are discovering what life is all about and they do not want to return to their former false beliefs. When mankind realizes who their Creator is there is great liberation and joy! The radical Hindus as well as the radical Muslims who seek to destroy life have never experienced the joy God desires for them. Their perception of God is warped into believing that by killing the messengers they can stop the message from spreading. Truth will always prevail and the gates of hell will never be able to stop the message of the gospel from spreading.
Life is a gift from God and it must be lived with and for God. Once we realize who God is and that He has given us life then our response must be that we live our life for him. He is the Creator and has rights as our Creator over our lives. We were created for His pleasure not our own. This does not mean that God has some perverted ideas about how he can use us to accomplish what he wants to do. We are not pawns that he moves about in the game of life. As Creator God has designed us for a purpose, His purposes which are only good. God has no evil plans for our lives but in him we can experience life filled with joy, peace and righteousness. This requires complete submission on our part to Him but that can only happen when we come to the realization that we are not in charge of our lives and that God has good plans for us. As we live our lives for Him, he transforms our minds and invites us to be co laborers with him (2 Cor. 6:1). He calls us “friends” not slaves to His purposes. He invites us to be a part of His work on earth to redeem mankind. He trusts us to carry out his plan to preach the good news to every creature in every nation. He honors the desires that we have to fulfill his desires. He delights to give us the desires of our heart (Psalms 37:4). Some of you have desires to do certain things in your life that arise from your love for God and desire to see His Kingdom established in the earth and souls brought into the knowledge of Christ to experience salvation that comes only through him. Bill Johnson in his book, “The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind” wrote the following: “We are co laborers, meaning that apart from Christ our work is not complete, and at the same time, amazingly, his work on earth is not complete without us. God looks to you and me as contributors to what he is doing, not just robots carrying out His ideas. He actually is interested in your desires and dreams and has opened up His plan on this planet to your influence.”
King David (1 Kings 8:15-17) had a desire to build a temple to honor God and though he was not the one who built it God allowed him to make all the designs for it. Can you imagine what it was like for David to be able to draw up the plans for something as important as this to the spiritual life of the people? David was a worshipper and he wanted to design a temple that would be a place of worship and inspiration. David was engaged, participating, putting his ideas and desires into motion. God was not upset that David was drafting these plans. He was not saying, “There goes David again, doing his own thing!” I believe God was pleased and that he was giving David inspiration as he put down the plans. When you are working as friends on the same mission, it is a wonderful thing to be able to share ideas and make plans together. Do you see God this way or do you see yourself as a robot only doing what you are told to do?
What are your dreams for God? What plans are in your heart of things you would love to devote your life toward? Follow these dreams and desires that you have for the advance of God’s kingdom. As a father I want to see my child’s desires fulfilled as I know it brings satisfaction, joy and a sense of accomplishment of a worthwhile purpose. If our desires are always dashed or rejected it is easy for us to become complacent and lose motivation for attempting anything. William Carey the father of modern day missions made a statement that has always impacted my life. He said, “Attempt great things for God, expect great things from God.” You can sit around waiting for a special directive, handwriting on the wall etc. and be paralyzed from attempting to do anything for God. Or you can act on the desires that you have, the dreams in your heart and move forward trusting God to partner with you to accomplish them.
A.A. Allen was a preacher who God used in marvelous ways to bring salvation and healing to thousands of people. He had no interest in a healing ministry but was encouraged by his church to visit a healing crusade of Oral Roberts. After seeing what God was doing through Roberts his mindset changed about the healing ministry. He returned to his church with a new attitude which was expressed in his words,
“If Oral Roberts can do it so can I.” Was this desire to start hosting tent meetings to preach the gospel and pray for the sick something that was just his idea and not at all what God wanted him to do? Where did this desire come from and was it just a selfish thing he wanted to do to gain public attention and notoriety?” I believe he was inspired by what he saw happening in the crusades of Roberts and he saw his previous ideas as limitations of what God could do through a human vessel. God blessed his ministry and obviously partnered with him. Unfortunately A.A. Allen’s life ended when he was only 59 years old and his reputation has been tarnished with accusations that he was an alcoholic who secretly drank to relieve pain he had in his knees.
Our life has to be lived for God and with God as friends co laboring and co partnering with him to accomplish his desire to make himself known, to declare his glory among the nations and bring the message of salvation to the ends of the earth.
The final point about our lives is that our times are in his hands. God is in control of what he allows to happen in our lives. He orders our steps in a way that brings delight to us and to him. Psalms 37:23 states “The steps of the godly are directed by the LORD. He delights in every detail of their lives.”

He gives us freedom of will to operate within his sovereign will. We jeopardize our lives and ministry when we walk in disobedience to what we know to be God’s will. We cannot operate with disregard for God’s word and expect nothing evil to happen. God in his mercy often protects us from experiencing the consequences of poor, foolish decisions but there are also times when we make choices that he lets us experience the gravity of our actions. Call it the school of hard knocks or school for hard heads but it is allowed by God to be a teaching moment that will hopefully bring a change in attitude.
I think we all struggle with understanding why things we perceive as bad or evil happen to people who are innocent or are trying to accomplish God’s will, doing great things for him. We are in a battle against an enemy who seeks to destroy the work of God in the earth. We must constantly wage warfare against him and at the same time look to God and trust in his unfailing love, mercy, justice and sovereignty to make sense of what we are not able to understand. We can allow adversity to embitter us toward people and toward God or we can allow it to propel us into the heart of God, to seek him and live each moment of our life for him, trusting Him to be in control. We see things from a human perspective which is limited but God sees all things with eternity in mind and he understands how all these things we don’t understand work toward accomplishing his plan.
The life story of William Borden is one that I would like to close with tonight. It is a story of great inspiration yet tragedy that is hard to understand with our limited human understanding. William was born into a family that had great success in the milk industry. Borden products are still sold today and William was heir to receives millions of dollars. He graduated from high school in 1904 and his parents gave him a trip around the world as a graduation present. Some of you will receive the same gift when you graduate from language school! The trip around the world had a huge impact on his life, one I am sure he did not expect when he left. During this trip he saw the needs of humanity and the lostness man without God. It stirred his heart, much like Paul’s heart was stirred when he was in Athens. William returned from this trip with a new vision and focus for his life. He decided to become a missionary and attend Yale which at that time was a training school for pastors among other things. His friends thought he was crazy. Why would he give up the family business and the financial rewards that came with it to become a missionary? William wrote two words in his Bible, “No reserves.” When we reserve something we hold back. He was not going to look at what he left behind but was going to look to God to direct his life. He refused to reserve the right to with hold anything from God. During his first year of college he began a Bible study with one other student and by the end of the year a 150 students joined him. When he finished his final year of college 1000 of the 1300 students were praying with him and studying the Bible. Clearly God’s hand was on his life and he was influencing many students. After graduation he was offered jobs with several companies that promised a great future with many financial rewards. William turned them all down and wrote two more words in his Bible, “No retreat”. Nothing was going to keep him from his pursuit of God’s call on his life; there was no looking back or returning to a previous life. He enrolled in Princeton Seminary to further prepare for the missionary call. At the conclusion of his seminary training he purposed to go to China to reach a group of Muslims. Before arriving in China he went to Egypt to study Arabic and during the first month contracted spinal meningitis. Sometime after he knew he had the fatal condition he wrote two more words in his Bible, “No regrets.” Four weeks after his arrival he died, never having made it to the mission field in China. Some would look at his life and say what a waste, yet his life has inspired many to pursue the desire of their heart and leave their lives in the hands of God. We do not know our future but we know the God who does and has all things under control. William Borden’s friends perhaps thought they knew better and the proof of his short lived life was only confirmation to them that they were right. Yet they did not see the full picture that only God can see. In our humanness we hang on to life and try to do everything we can to preserve it. We make heroic efforts to save someone who is dying because we value life. The Apostle Paul made a decision to go to Jerusalem to reach out to the Jewish people. When he announced his plan, he was met with great opposition and even prophetic words regarding what was going to happen to him. Paul’s final address to the elders from the church of Ephesus whom he invited to meet with him in Miletus on his way to Jerusalem reflects this same attitude of “No reserve, no retreat, no regrets.”
Acts 20:18-24
18When they arrived he told them, “You men know that from the day I set foot in Turkey until now 19I have done the Lord’s work humbly—yes, and with tears—and have faced grave danger from the plots of the Jews against my life. 20Yet I never shrank from telling you the truth, either publicly or in your homes. 21I have had one message for Jews and Gentiles alike—the necessity of turning from sin to God through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
22“And now I am going to Jerusalem, drawn there irresistibly by the Holy Spirit not knowing what awaits me, 23except that the Holy Spirit has told me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead. 24But life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about God’s mighty kindness and love.
My life is worth nothing unless I use it to fulfill God’s purposes of preaching the gospel. No reserves, no retreat, no regrets, is that your life statement? Are these the words that others will remember you by?
Our life is a gift from God and it must be lived for God. This life we enjoy is in the hands of God and we must entrust it completely to him and be willing to do whatever it takes to see his will and purposes accomplished in the earth during this short time we have. The Holy Spirit will lead us as we entrust our lives to the Lord. There will always be people who will not understand but our allegiance must be first and foremost to our Creator who has given us life, gives us purpose and has our life in his hands.
Tonight I want to close by singing a hymn that I hope some of you know. It captures why we do what we do as believers, what motivates us and what will continue to motivate us in our service to the Lord. The hymn is entitled,
 
“More Love to Thee.” By Elizabeth Prentiss
1. More love to Thee O Christ, more love to thee
Hear thou the prayer I make on bended knee;
This is my earnest plea; more love, O Christ to Thee
More love to Thee, more love to Thee
2. Once earthly joy I craved, sought peace and rest;
Now Thee alone I seek, give what is best;
This all my prayer shall be; more love O Christ to Thee.
More love to Thee, more love to Thee
3. Then shall my latest breath, whisper Thy praise
This be the parting cry my heart shall raise;
This still its prayer shall be, more love O Christ to Thee
More love to Thee, more love to Thee

It is our love for Christ and what he has done for us but even more what he deserves that motivates us to live our lives for Him and with Him. I pray tonight that his love for each one of us will be real and that our love for him will increase each day as we serve Him. It is our love for Him that will cause us to live with no reserve, not retreats and no regrets. The Lamb is worthy!

The audio file of this message can be downloaded by clicking on the following link:

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