09/24/2024
Entitlement Can Hit You in Ways
You Might Never Suspect
(What didn’t make the cut from Sunday’s sermon—Part 1—on An Entitlement Mindset)
The people of God (Israel) were chosen by God to fulfill a unique calling—to be a light to all the other nations of the nations of the world. God chose them because of their willingness to be used by Him for His purposes. For instance, Abraham’s willingness to follow God out into what would one day be the promised land, the Hebrew people willing to travel 40 years in the wilderness, a people willing to live by the laws of Moses even when it meant not fitting in with their neighbors, etc. But after a while the Israelites began to think that they were chosen--not because with God they could fulfill a special purpose--but because they were a special people, uniquely favored and loved for who they were. In the Bible, God doesn’t call the equipped. God equips those He calls. But the Hebrew people began to think that God didn’t equip them in order to fulfill their calling, but rather God called them because they were so uniquely equipped to serve him.
I very much doubt there was any particular point when anyone consciously thought to themselves, God loves us because we’re so lovable. It’s a slow road to a sense of entitlement. After a while the Israelites became less concerned about being an attracting light to their neighbors and more convinced that they needed to build fences to keep those neighbors out. The only good gentile is a gentile you can keep out of your clan, tribe, and nation. We are the chosen ones, they began to think. And we’ve been chosen because we are inherently exemplary. Alas, that was the opposite of what God brought his people to the promised land to do and be.
We’ve got to be careful that as Christians we don’t fall into the same trap. We should never forget that God’s grace is amazing because it is capable of saving wretches like us. In other words, without God’s generous favor we would still be wretches. We are inherently wretches. And the only reason we are anything more than that is because God is good and God is gracious.
Archived Posts
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Here is a transcript of the prayer I prayed at the end of yesterday’s sermon.
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It’s kind of crazy when you think about it. Wisdom in the Bible is all about listening. Of course it makes sense that wisdom would start with listening to God, to God’s law and commandments, as well as the promptings and leadings of the Holy Spirit.
Here are some quotes that
didn’t make it into Sunday’s sermon.
(But it doesn’t mean that they don’t offer real insight into the power of risk over the fear of failure...)
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I reflected a lot on the passage about Zacchaeus because it has been written off as “been there, read that, little guy in a tree.” But it is so rich in getting to the heart of what it means to be saved by grace through faith—to live our lives out of gratitude rather than obligation.
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This last Sunday I had so much more to share than time to share it. The last Emotional Management Technique was to stay present in the process. Just as Jesus stayed with the woman who was judged and found guilty by the angry crowd, we stay by our children and our friends, especially when they need us the most. Here a couple of examples...
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Last Sunday I used one of my favorite benedictions.
It was inspired by a saying from about ten years ago: