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SERMON Illustrations TonyEvansIllust newfinal:MP 10/29/08 9:34 AM Page 11 SERMON Illustrations presence of someone she couldn’t now A see. You can’t see the Living God. He’s a spirit, but He’s written to you and ABIDING wants to have an eternal love affair A DINNER plate left out overnight with you. If you hang out there with will be hard to clean in the morning. An His words, next thing you know you’ll alternative to scrubbing is soaking the be packing your bags to meet Him. dish in hot water and dishwashing liq - You’ll have fallen in love with Him and uid. Letting a dish abide in the solution have become transformed by abiding will allow a hard cleaning job to become in His presence. 2 a lot easier. This is what abiding does for [Transformation; God’s Presence] Christians. We are much easier to clean John 3:16; 15:3–5; Rom. 12:2 up when we’ve been hanging out in the right environment. THE PLANET Mercury is hot. Plu - Religion says “Scrape off the dirt.” to is cold. Why is Pluto cold and Mer - It tells us to apply elbow grease to fix cury hot? Mercury is really close to the a problem. Relationship says “Soak.” sun and Pluto is a long way off. The far - Just sit in the hot water for a while. ther you get away, the colder things be - Abiding will set you free. 1 come, but the closer you get, the hot - Eph. 2:8–9; 2 Cor. 11:3 ter things are. You may say that you are not a Pluto Christian or a Mercury SADLY , these days there are many Christian. Maybe you are an Earth young ladies who are being coerced in - Christian where things get hot and directly into bad situations because cold. You may be a seasonal Christian they meet somebody over the Internet. who has changes depending on whether Even thirteen-year-old girls can be it is wintertime, summertime, spring - lured to a location to meet somebody time, or fall. they don’t know because they “fell in God is looking for some Mercury love” over the Internet. Their initial re - Christians. He is looking for some lationship with this stranger is only by folks who want to get close and stay reading. Both parties sit at the computer hot all the time because they stay close and read each other’s words, but after to the S-o-n. 3 awhile, the words take on life because [Discipleship] behind the word is a real, living person. James 1:8; Rev. 3:16 Those words for a young girl grow into emotions and then turn into actions I WAS talking on my phone one day as she figures out how to sneak out to and it began going “beep, beep, beep.” meet him. Those words take on life be - The beeping noise indicated that the bat - cause the girl spent time abiding in the tery was low. After a couple of minutes, TonyEvansIllust newfinal:MP 10/29/08 9:34 AM Page 12 12 ABIDING I heard a clicking noise. The battery had When you hang out in the sun, died because it had been off its charger you’re going to sweat. Why? Because too long. In other words, it was putting you can’t be under that much power out with no refill and so it lost its power. and it not affect you. If you hang out It lost its “anointing.” It lost its abil ity to under the S-o-n, you’re also going to function at the level it was designed to sweat. You’re going to sweat His function at because it had stayed away commandments. You’re going to from its source too long. sweat pleasing Him. You’re going to We can’t keep running on spiri - sweat His Word because you can’t tual empty and wonder why we’re only hang in His presence without Him limping along in the Christian life. We rubbing off on you. are regularly caught unexpectedly The way you know He’s rubbing on empty because we don’t stay close off on you is that you begin to walk as to our source of strength on a regu - He walks. You begin to pick up some lar basis. 4 of His habits. You begin to pick up Phil. 4:13 some of His direction. You begin to pick up some of His influence. 5 A LOT OF people talk about how hot [Discipleship] it is in Texas. The heat doesn’t really Luke 6:40 bother me, though, because every - thing is air-conditioned in Texas. Your I HAVE abided over the last twenty car is air-conditioned. Your house is air- years with American Airlines. They conditioned. Every building you go in have been my airline of choice, and as is air-conditioned. So while you do a result I have been awarded a level of sometimes have to be under the sun, intimacy. That level of intimacy is and while you’re in it, it’s hot, most peo - called Platinum. They have awarded my ple here just don’t hang out in the sun. consistency with them. That Platinum Actually, I’m a hot-weather person. card affords me various privileges that The hotter it is, the nicer it is for me. come simply because I have the card. I Where some people like air condi - can ride first class if the first class tioners blasting in their cars, I prefer seats haven’t been purchased. I can to roll down the windows. I’d rather get bumped up simply because I have have hot air than cold air-conditioning. this Platinum card and I’ve flown two It’s just my particular temperament, million miles with American over the and I know something is wrong with years. They’ve given me a card that says me, but that’s just the way it is. I don’t I’m a preferred customer. They send mind hanging out in the sun. things to my house because they ap - That said, most people I know preciate the fact that I have abided with don’t want to hang out in the sun. them. They like the fact that they can They just want to pass through the pretty much count on me to fly Ameri- sun. What a lot of people want to do can when I travel. with the s-u-n they want to do with When I walk up to a booth, if the S-o-n. They just want to pass people are ahead of me, and first class through. is full, they have a waiting list. If they TonyEvansIllust newfinal:MP 10/29/08 9:34 AM Page 13 SUBJECT INDEX 13 tell me they have Gold members in ductive because they are always look - front of me, I pull out my Platinum ing for the sun. They always locate the card. My status bumps me to the top s-u-n, and because they always are of the list. I take precedence because I looking for the s-u-n, they’re always have a deeper, longer, and more regu - growing. lar relationship with American than When you and I look for the S-o-n, the Gold members do. like the sunflower looks for the s-u-n, However, once a man behind me then we will find the effects of His rays asked the clerk if there were any first softening our hearts so we can throw class seats. The clerk told him there off new seed, new life. It is our re - were, but then added that the first per - sponse to the Word that determines son was a Platinum member and our productivity. Abiding in our re - would be awarded the upgrade first. lationship with the S-o-n will result in The man reached into his pocket the transformation and growth that and pulled out an Executive Platinum many Christians are looking for. 7 card. I felt like slapping him. To re - [Transformation; Spiritual Maturity, main Platinum you have to fly fifty Growth] thousand miles a year. To be Execu - Rom. 6:4 tive Platinum you fly one hundred thousand miles a year. When I walked THERE ARE two ways to drink tea. up to the counter, they let me know Some people are dippers. They dip they liked me by putting me first. their tea bag up and down in the mug. When he came up they let me know A lot of Christians are like that. They dip they loved him. His level of abiding in on Sunday morning then dip back was deeper. out. They dip back in on Wednesday Some Christians are satisfied with night then they dip back out. But there’s Gold status, others are happy with another way to drink tea and that’s to be Platinum, and yet others are after Ex - an abider. It involves the act of just drop - ecutive Platinum. What kind of Chris - ping the tea bag in the water and letting tian are you? We need to know that it stay there. Without touching the bag until we are ready to make the com - an amazing thing will happen. The mitment of abiding, we will never color of the water begins to change as get all the benefits that occur with on - the influence of the bag in the hot wa - going intimacy.
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