When God Says We Are Safe#4

Text: John 10:7-10,27,28

What a good morning it is to be here with you this first day of the week. God is so good and that really is our theme as Christians as we go from day to day in what at times can be a very difficult world to live in.
It is somewhat appropriate as we gather today on the day called Remembrance day where we honour those who paid a dear, dear price for our freedoms as citizens of this great country that we also honour the One who paid the dearest price to secure our freedom as citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

I don't think there could be a more noble thought in our heads than the thoughts about Jesus and what it means to be citizens of a heavenly nation. The apostle Paul spoke about this in Philippians 3:20,21. So, I hope as Christians that as we are remembering we are also looking ahead anxiously for that day when God calls each of His children home!

It is good to be back with you this week bringing a message of what I believe to be of hope and peace from the great word of God. We are picking up the series that we started last month on what it means when God tells us we are safe! It is kind of ironic that in the wake of such tragedy that we have seen and in a time of war, people are looking somewhere different than they were before Sept.11 for their source of security and trust. Now, hopefully people when they turn from gold & materialism for safety nets they will go towards the One thing that has always stood as the sure thing to stand upon:
Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world!!

But can we really ever feel totally safe about anything in a world like ours?
I mean there is so much in the world that is good:
family, friends and so much more but there is also so much that is bad:
rejection, betrayal, people letting us down, unreliable friends & family. How in this world can we ever truly be sure of something?
Also when you add to it the fact that we ourselves are not perfect in any sense of the word, how can I ever feel safe?
Yet, Jesus reminds us in John 10 that if we are following his voice we have found our one sure thing that can never fail:
When God says we are safe! What does it take for a child to be safe in their Father's hands?
It's not what the child has to offer but what the Father has!

Now to pick it up a little bit from the past couple of lessons- we are safe in the Father's hands because:

The Shepherd leads us in safety - We don't have to find our own way
&
the Shepherd knows us intimately. -Jesus knows what we need when we need it and how much we need!
Remember we must be concerned with following him, he'll be concerned with getting us to heaven.
Now, let's read John 10:7-10, 27,28.

The next reason why we can feel safe in the Father's hands is simply this:
We have come to understand what our shepherd's first priority is! The #1 thing we need to understand about God and Jesus Christ is simply this:
they want most of all to save us!
I think as Christian parents we can begin to understand this. Sara & I often times have sat down together and examined what our priorities are with our kids. There are a number of them that we haven't observed perfectly but they are quite common and we believe good:
we want for them a house of love not of arguing or self-serving right seeking and so on. We want them to be able to take advantage of different opportunities for living in society. Then there are some others that are lower on the list but still good: good education, good jobs etc. When you stop and think about it though, when you measure the big picture:
the #1 priority is that they be saved by Jesus. That they come to know him personally. Even their living long lives cannot compete with the priority of them getting to know Jesus the way they should.

I remember after I was baptized my mom saying to me it won't bother me if you die now. I was a little shaken up by this but that is the way to look at it.
Now, when we stop to think about it, if that's what human parent's priorities are shaped out to be, what must God's & Christ's be?
I say this now and it should mean to be a great encouragement for us as we consider our security with God! Notice as the leader who loves, his #1 goal in leading is to save those he leads. I am the door of the sheep and if any enters by me, he will be saved. Those who would be leaders of God's people today we must be careful that we don't forget our #1 priority:
the salvation of those we lead. In our quest for #'s we must not let that move us from our Lord's primary priority:
salvation of souls.

In Acts 8, Philip had a very successful ministry going where hundreds of souls were being converted, however God sent him to a ministry of 1. Why?
He's more concerned with salvation than numbers!
Christ's #1 priority is our salvation:
Luke 19:10, Matthew 1:21

Notice the contrast when you follow Jesus compared to the others:
they lead with no regard to the followers life! (John 10:10a) Yet, Jesus' only concern is the salvation and safety of his people!
Now, in John 9, Jesus has just healed a blind man and this caused quite an uproar to the point that the blind man made this confession:
"if this man were not from God, He could do nothing." (9:33)
This then got him booted out by the leaders of his day. Think about this, they boot someone out because he is healed of his blindness. How much did they really care for this man?
How much did his healing cause them to rejoice for him?
Jesus says, I am different. I am the door of the sheep. Listen to him, I am the entrance to protection & shelter and I am the exit to liberty & plenty!
Jesus says I am the way you get saved and I also am the way you stay safe! Listen he says, the only way someone could possibly come and get you is if they walked through me! I am the door.
What does it mean if his #1 priority is our salvation?

We can be made whole when we feel so broken! Matthew 5:3, 1 Timothy 1:15.
We sometimes look over our lives and when we are honest we see the things that we have done both good and bad. Sometimes we have done some really bad things. The world will remind us of those times. Christians who are being worldly will remind us of those times. The Devil will help us remember those times if we ever do forget (Revelation 12:10) It's hard to put things back together when you've done a good job of tearing things apart! But then we remember his promise:
my number one goal is to save you!

We can be strengthened when we feel so weak!
Sometimes life has got us so beaten up it's hard to ever think you can get back on your own two feet. Maybe we can't, at least on our own. Matthew 11:28-30. Life is difficult at times, so difficult that sometimes in the desperate moments we can forget that the promises of God are just as true for us as they were for the people of the Bible. But then we remember his promise:
my number one goal is to save you!

We can be filled with hope when it seems there is no reason to hope!
Like Abraham when we're too old, or like David when we're too sinful, or like Moses when we're too unable, or like Zaccheus when we're too short (in more ways than one) we might be just too something and then there is reason to hope. Why?
Because God is on our side!
When God says we are safe we are!! Why?
Because we understand that above everything else, His number one goal is our salvation and He will do whatever it takes to make it happen. Luke 15- lost sheep, lost coin, lost son!
With that as His #1 goal, what do we have that we can lean on during the times of life that are so difficult? A promise that we are never alone!
Isaiah 43:1-7, 41:8-10.

Listen no matter how rough it gets as His sheep we are never alone. We are faced with so many tough temptations and it seems like we're losing more than we're winning, but we're not alone. We are troubled by hard trials and oh how hard it is to defend yourself in these times, but we're not alone. There's other moments of life where we're hurt, suffering, desperate, confused, concerned, wandering & wondering, seemingly without any more ability to fight and yet we're not alone!
In Matthew 14:22-33- Peter began walking on the water with Jesus, then he sank because he looked at the storm but that's not the emphasis for me. The emphasis is this:
Peter was not alone on the sea! He reached up and cried Lord save me and what happened?
Jesus saved him!
It's never just us & our circumstances. When we're sinking in the sea, it's not just us & the water. There's always Jesus ready to lift us up!
There's many places I see the presence of God in my life:
Christian brothers & sisters, Family etc. But that's not enough for me to be safe!
God is present even when I don't see Him! Matthew 28:20, Hebrews 13:5,6
Since He is always present, He is always waiting to save us and to keep us safe. For Jesus said we are in the Father's hand and no one can take us from that.

What about you?
Where are you this morning?
Are you safe in Jesus?
If you aren't, why not?
Do you think it is impossible to be so?
Let me relate a story for you that puts things into perspective:
A man and his pregnant wife always danced together in their living room on Christmas eve. Soon afterwards however there was a problem in the pregnancy and the wife passed away but the daughter survived.
The man was left to raise the daughter alone. Soon, they began the tradition of dancing together on every Christmas eve. He would always extend the invitation to his 2,3 then 4 & 5 year old daughter if she would dance with poppa?
Soon, the time came that she wanted nothing more to do with her father. He never knew when to speak to her and she never wanted to speak to him. She fell in love and ran away with a guy and he never found out where she lived. Then the guy left her and she was alone in a new place with nobody.
Soon, life on the streets took its toll and she had nowhere to turn until another teenage girl showed her how much money she had made dancing at a strip club.
Although initially repulsed by the idea she decided better that than die of starvation. She did this for quite a while until one day someone dropped off a letter. Somehow the Father found her. She refused to open the letter and couldn't imagine facing him like this.
One letter came every week and it remained unopen. Until that one day. When another of the girls said a different man dropped this letter off today and said the girl would understand the message.
All of a sudden she froze, "He was here?" She opened the letter and read it "I know where you are, I know what you do, but it doesn't change the way I feel. What I've said in each letter is still true."
She worried now because she didn't know what he wrote in the letters. She started to read them and suddenly with tears flowing down her cheeks she rushed to the bus station and hoped to make it in time. Just as everything was settling down at her father's home his brother announced "there is someone to see you".
The girl looked at her father and simply said "the answer is yes if the invitation is still good." The father began to cry and replied "Oh my, the answer is still very good."
The two of them began to dance together that Christmas eve for the first time in a long time. What was the invitation?
"Will you come home and dance with your poppa again?"1

Friends, we may think that we are beyond the salvation of God but the invitation is still good:
He knows where we are, He knows what we have done, but that doesn't change His feeling:
He wants to save us. Will you dance with your Father again?

He will do whatever it takes until we are safe in His arms, why don't you come…?

1. Taken from Max Lucado, He Chose the Nails (Nashville: TN, Word Publishing, 2000) p.57-68

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