Chasing Convenience

CHASING CONVENIENCE!
Pastor Brad Myers

January 28, 2024

When you look up the definition of “convenience” you read words and phrases like; favorable, easy, comfortable; personal comfort or easy performance; freedom from difficulty. They all sound appealing but they’re all focused on our situation. God is more concerned with changing us before making our lives more convenient. For the next four weeks let’s find out if chasing conveniences really helps us live a better way, a better life!

Today: Chasing Convenience!

Thought: When we define convenience, it tends to be about our situation; but when God defines convenience it tends to be about our person which changes our situation.

Mark 8:35 (NIV)

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

Thought: Convenience is defined as suiting our needs, fitting our time, or requiring little from ourselves. Convenience limits us and what God can accomplish in, and through, us.

Acts 24:24-25

Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁵ As Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, “That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.”

• Abraham: Lived in convenience at home with family and was quite well off. It was in this state that God commanded him to leave his life behind for a land he had never seen.
• Moses: Was living in convenience with his in-laws, working as a shepherd far from the problems of the Israelite people in Egypt. It was in this state of convenience God called Moses from the burning bush, sending him to confront Pharaoh and lead God’s people out of slavery.
• Peter, James, John, Andrew were doing just fine as fisherman, as was Matthew as a tax collector. Jesus called them to drop all they knew and follow Him.
• Gideon, Elisha, Amos, Jonah, Paul, and the list goes on: Drive home the same point:

Thought: If we want God to use us to impact our world we’d better be prepared to be inconvenienced.

Thought: God’s world-changing, world-saving plans need people who are willing to change their thinking regarding conveniences.

The Danger of Convenience

1 Kings 12:25-33 (NIV) Golden Calves at Bethel and Dan

Then Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and built up Peniel. ²⁶ Jeroboam thought to himself, “The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David. ²⁷ If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.”

²⁸ After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” ²⁹ One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. ³⁰ And this thing became a sin; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other.

³¹ Jeroboam built shrines on high places and appointed priests from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites. ³² He instituted a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the festival held in Judah, and offered sacrifices on the altar. This he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made. And at Bethel he also installed priests at the high places he had made. ³³ On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month of his own choosing, he offered sacrifices on the altar he had built at Bethel. So he instituted the festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings.

verse 28: “it is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem”.

1)  The Deception of Convenience (verses 28-33)

• Why did he make golden calves? Satan was behind the scenes getting Israel to worship an image of him.

2)  The Allure of Convenience (verse 28-33)

• Jeroboam put one of the golden calves in Bethel. Bethel was a famous place. It was where Abraham built an altar for the Lord.

Genesis 35:3 (NIV)

“Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.”

Also created a feast to make Israel comfortable with these new idols.

3)  The Danger of Convenience (verse 30)

³⁰ And this thing became a sin; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other.

4)  The Real Reason for the Convenience (1 Kings 11:26-38)

• In the passage it says that Jeroboam did this out of fear of losing the Kingdom.
• Earlier in chapter 11 God had promise that if he would follow his commandments then he would build him a sure house.  So the reality of it is that Jeroboam simply did not trust God and his word.

This is the case with us today.

• Churches changing for convenience.
• Parents taking the easy way out with kids.
• Society neglecting the laws of the land and God’s word.
• All done in the name of convenience.

Thought: Instead of letting our faith speak into our situation; we chase after a convenient situation that ends up defining faith.