Speakers Notes:

M.Kasperson Sermon “Living on Nothing” 3/12/16

Good Morning

The human race which is literally a race depends on every single person having a motivation or a goal to run the race.

Do you know what your goal is???

Now before you answer I am cautioning you it is really a trick question…

Most people today will answer “save the world” “do no harm” “Love everyone”

But just watch them for a while and you come to the conclusion most are not seeking those things

Their actions, decisions and choices in life show more worldly motivations nothing really sinister but it doen’t look like what they feel or say

I think you all have real life examples that reveal things about people they wouldn’t want us or themselves to see. Look at the mess our political system is in and many other systems have suffered because people with no moral compass can’t get along.

Heb 12:1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

We can fall into the same rut too, being in this world, it comes with this environment our lives are so intertwined with it we become selfish and self driven

We get used to things happening a certain way

Rom 7:21-25  I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Are we seeking comfort?

Control?

Status?

Money to get all 3 of theses?

Who do we serve and who are we trying to please ? God or Ourselves???

And on and on it goes!

How do we shake it?

How do we get our lives back??

Well, God has developed the perfect solution for us to practice living His way and bringing our lives back!

A way that does Love everyone, does no harm and eventually the world will be saved- but not the way man thinks

The way God thinks it is done so every single human being who ever lived, or will live, is given a chance and the best chance to be saved

You can personally experience this yourself

A time and season to as I call it “live on nothing” and I would add nothing but GOD

It’s a time when

What can we lose (sin), and then what can we learn (faith)

And can practice it for 7 days

So back on living on nothing?

Remember when the apostles were commissioned by Christ

 Matt 10:5-10 These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans.6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead,[c] cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. 9 Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, 10 nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food.

They went out to preach the Kingdom of God with NOTHING but the clothes on their backs

How do we go about our days, are we depending on God to supply all??

How did the Hebrews enslaved by the Egyptians plan their lives?

Did they have anything?

Exodus 12:39 39 And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they had brought out of Egypt; for it was not leavened, because they were driven out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared provisions for themselves.

They didn’t have anything they lived on nothing, no provisions but God made sure they had enough to survive and eventually provided them manna, water and meat (birds), and material wealth too as the took from the Egyptians much wealth.

So they had to live on GOD and it was a rocky road for them because even as slaves they were used to having enough to eat and some small but creature comforts

So let’s look at God’s instructions to these people the Hebrews who had nothing how did God want them to learn about HIM!

 Lev 23:5-12  5 On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord’s Passover. 6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. 7 On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it. 8 But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord for seven days. The seventh dayshall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.’”

Exodus 12:12-20 12 ‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. 13 Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

14 ‘So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. 15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first daythere shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat—that only may be prepared by you.17 So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. 18 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. 19 For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land. 20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’”

Acts 12:3 3 And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter also. Now it was during the Days of Unleavened Bread.

Luke 2:41 His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover

Matt 26:17 17 Now on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?”

You can see that even in the New Testament the Days of Unleavened Bread were kept and even by Jesus

Passover in that time included the 7 Days of Unleavened Bread

The point is to remove the leaven from your house and don’t eat leaven for 7 days to practice keeping leaven out as a symbol of keeping sin out of your life.

Jesus told us to

 Matt 16:5-6 Now when His disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. 6 Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.”

Matt 16:11-12 11 How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?—but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”12 Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Leaven = teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees you see some of them taught and practiced man made traditions that were contrary to God’s law

Leaven = Sin let’s find this in Pauls teaching to the Corithians

1Cor 5:6-86 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.[a] 8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

So we are to replace sin in our lives with sincerity and truth

Look for the sin in our lives we covered this last week so now you can see how this fits in the process God wants us to follow and practice to remove the world from us and put Him in it’s place.

2Cor 13:55 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.

Jesus Christ is in us and we must work out our salvation – this is the beginning of the really personal and intense practice of our relationship with God on His Holy Days

Philip 2:12-15 12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

14 Do all things without complaining and disputing, 15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,

How do we become lights in this world the same way the apostles did and the Hebrew slaves did, Live on Nothing no sin, no leaven and let Jesus Christ work the miracles from your faith in Him just like the Hebrews and apostles did.

Practice eating unleavened bread and live on nothing sinful no pride no self-seeking only God seeking, seek to be just like Jesus!

John 6:27-58 27 Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”

28 Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”

29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

30 Therefore they said to Him, “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”[a]

32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.”

35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. 40 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

As we have been seeing, it is time to live on nothing!