PETS – are we God’s pets ?
Bible vs – Matt 10:29-33
For those of you who know me you are probably wondering why I am talking about pets. Let me start by saying that I do know something about animals – I’ve eaten quite a considerable amount in my time. My favourite animal would have to be kangaroo, well done with a pepper sauce. I’d like to save the animals and become a vegetarian, but they are just too delicious.
?? First of all I just want to ask you – who here has a pet at their house ? White ants and rodents don’t count.
Who has more that 2 pets? Then 5, than 10
It’s easy to clock up big numbers with a fish tank or an avery
We have had a number of budgies at our house. I don’t think we ever had one that made it through the summer without deciding it’s all to hot I think I’ll die.
Similarly we’ve tried keeping pet fish a number of times and that’s been even more distastrous. I don’t think they have ever lasted more than about a month for us before they end up getting flushed down the toilet. After first going belly up mind you, we never had them long enough to get bored and want to send them on an adventure to the sewerage treatment.
Too be honest with you, each time we’ve had these pets they have either been deemed a berry family pet, or else mushels – my sisters. I can’t remember having one of my own, I’m guessing one of the fish were probably mine – but we had them for such a short time it’s all a blur now.
The good thing about not owning them is you can them tease them, you know tap on the fish tank, flick the fish to make it go faster. It’s because of kids like I was that I’m so pleased that reincarnation thing isn’t going to happen – I wouldn’t want to be the pet of a kid.
Anyway mush was pretty much always the person who was meant to be the master of these pets. But how often she actually fed these animals, or even now feeds the cat is pretty low.
?? Do others relate to that, who here has a pet owner in their household who forgets to feed the pet at least once a week ?
Simply put, Mushel is a poor master. I’d say at least twice a week, mum would remind her to feed the cat. And the reply would come back, I’m really busy can you do it.
When I think about how bad a master kids like us are for pets, it makes me glad God isn’t like that. I guess it could be because actually God made us, rather than just purchase us from a smelly shop where you get a pair of humans in a bag for a few dollars.
Instead God made us as the pinacle of his creation. It says in the bible that God was pleased with all the animals he made – and when he saw it he realised it was good. But it wasn’t till he created humans that he called his creation very good.
Anyway the bible talks about how God made us in his own image. He loved us that much, that’s why we aren’t just another chore to him. Instead we are his creation who he cares for dearly and he is even interested in our lives.
Thankfully God is a great master. Who created us and cares enough for us to be there for us at anytime. I’m sure there are times when your pets want your attention, but you are just too busy. Well God is never to busy for us. He is just waiting and wanting us to turn to him at anytime. He will listen to you at anytime, and he even speaks back if we care to listen to him.
A number of my mates think of me as being callous when it comes to animals let me tell you the story as to how I became such a heartless lad. When I was young, we had a cat named patchy, as you may imagine it was a crossbread cat that was allsorts of colours. One of my mates used pick it up by its tail and swing it round, and I didn’t like that – most of the time. Cos sweet and innocent young Scott loved that cat. We had it for many years, I have stack of memories of me throwing balls and stick and frisbees and patchy ignoring it. Well it was a cat so you couldn’t really play games with it but, I remember patting it.
Unfortunately it got cat cancer, had to be put down, and I got really upset and cried. It’s pretty much since then that I haven’t really had any great bond with animals. This animal that I loved hurt me, by dying. So cos of that I decide that all animals were stupid, partially cos I struggled to trust that if I loved an animal again I might get hurt.
So I’m pleased to announce that God is not like me. I fulfilled that classic cliché, once bitten, twice shy, and as a result have never really trusted animals again. Amazingly God has been hurt well more than once by humans but he doesn’t turn his back on us when we hurt his – somehow he keeps loving us. God is hurt when we sin, which is when we decide to turn our back on him and do things that are selfish, but he still even then loves us.
?? I want you to help me out – I want to figure out what type of people we have here ?
You know what I mean cat people, or dog people or bird people ?
Make the appropriate noise ? dog – woof, cat – meow, bird – chirp, fish – open mouth / no noise,
Come on if we all do it at the same time you wont feel stupid
Ready, set, go ?
There can’t be that many fish people, lets try again
Ok I know what type of people we have here, a bunch or crazy people
Well think for a minute, I mean think in your head. You don’t need to talk now, how forgiving would you be as if your pet messed the carpet several times a day. Ok so you fish people, pretend you are a dog or cat person. I think eventually you’d give up on your pets and take them out into the wilderness and set them free, you know what I mean - dump them. God’s love and forgiveness is astounding – he gets hurt every time we mess up or sin, but he keeps on loving us. God’s love is unconditional – like no other love. God’s love is never ending and it doesn’t run out if we keep messing up, which is lucky because we all keep messing up several times each day.
So what about the question that inspired this talk. Are we God’s pet ? In essence both yes and no. Yes in that he is master of the universe, he’s in charge, he made this place he decides if we get another breath or when the world will end.
But no I don’t believe that God is our master in the way that mushel might be the master of her cat. I believe God could have treated us like we treat animals. Thankfully he loves us more deeply than we could ever love a pet. But what really set’s us apart is how he relates to us.
Firstly I believe that God has given us the power of choice. From the time you join primary school kids start to get asked the question – what do you want to be when you grow up, because God has given us the power of choice.
Pets on the other hand don’t really have a whole heap of choice in life. If you ask a puppy what it wants to be when it grows up the answer will be “woof”, if you Dr Doolittle was around or someone else who could translate what that type of woof meant, the answer would be a dog. When a dog grows up it will pretty much do the same things that other dogs do – bury bones, run around, eat, make a mess and try and escape the yard so it can be free to get run over. It can’t exactly jump in the car and run off to a movie with its friends now can it - a dog has very little choice in life
As humans we have been granted the power of choice. God says to us that he loves you so much, more than you can imagine – but he leaves the choice up to you whether you love him back or not.
Pets generally love whoever feeds them. We humans however, have been made by God. Yet we get the choice as to whether we want to love God or not.
Another reason I don’t believe we are God’s pets is because he choose us as his children. He has humbled himself and allowed us to be in a relationship greater than that of a pet vs master. Instead we can be his children and he our parents. As Jesus said in the bible in John 1:12 – “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
God doesn’t want to have us as pets, who he looks down on in the way that we might look down on an ant farm. Instead he wants to be loving parents to us. Not like your parents were when you were 4 and they would chose what you would wear but instead he treats us more like the parents of young adult children.
Where you are living on their property and have independence. Will you take this for granted and treat the place like a motel, giving little or no time to the parents who have given you so much. Or will you have the friendship where the parents are really interested in listening to and getting know this person who they made.
Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean you can have a friendship which puts you on a parr with God. But in the same way that I’m friends with my parents, and although I used to live in their house – we are able to discuss things because they treat me as their friends not someone to manipulate.
I believe that YOU can have that type of friendship with God. The reason I believe this is not cos I read it in the bible (although it does say that), or cos I have seen other have a relationship with God like that – but because I have a friendship with God. And I think it’s excellent that God would swing so low as to befriend ME.
Again the choice is upto you, how will you respond to the choice God has given you.
I’m sure those of you here who are pet owners love your pets. I expect as much as you love your pets its unlikely that you would give your own life for your pet. There could be people here that would be willing to die for their pets – but then after dying what is the pet going to eat anyway, with no one around to feed it.
But God loves you so much that he was willing to die for you. Jesus loved you so much that he died for you. Jesus didn’t just get put down at the vet in a peaceful way, he endured an agonising death crucified on a wooden cross because he loves you that much. When my cat patchy died there was nothing good came of it. However when Jesus died, he rose from the grave 3 days later, so that through him dying and rising from death we are offered eternal life with him. It’s through Jesus coming back to life that he can offer to clean up our mess or sin for us and enable us to live with him in heaven when we die.
He didn’t just die so that you could keep surviving and scraping through in this place. But he died so that you could become his child. He didn’t just make you so that he could watch you play and laugh at the funny things those humans do to each other. Instead he loves you and wants you to become his friend.
To become his friend, you don’t have to go to the human equivalent of dog obedience school but instead he loves you right now even though you do messes all over the place. All you have to do to become his friend is admit you’ve made a mess (that is sin) and ask him to come and clean it up so you can start again with Jesus you saviour, Lord and friend. When Jesus comes into your life, he impacts it in so many amazing ways. He comes as your Saviour, which means wipes away all the mess or sin from our life so we can be with him in heaven when we die. As our Lord he is our loving leader ready to direct us through life. And as our friend, Jesus is always there ready to listen and pay attention to us.
For those of you who think that by cutting down on the messes you do, or by running away and keeping yourself busy playing with others will do – it won’t. The bible says that one day we will all be judged for our life. And that there is no way we can make up for all the mess we have done in the past. Our only hope is to be restored back into relationship with God, that is what happens by becoming a Christian.
I just want to finish off with a story about our chooks – molly and ethel. When we first got them, jazz made them a chick coup but they kept getting out and we couldn’t figure out how. One day as I was driving to prayer meeting at the top of our street 100m from our house I was sure I saw one of our naughty fat white chooks on the middle of the street. Unsure what to do, I pulled over and went chasing after it, but it ran into someones back yard, I thought I’ll cut my losses, I don’t want it to poo in my car anyway. Stupid chook, I don’t care, let it run on the road and get run over – I’ve run out of patience for it.
So I left and later found out it wasn’t our chooks and ours were safely in the back yard, so all was fine. The point of the story is – again that God is nothing like me.
His love for us doesn’t run out, no matter how many times we’ve run away, God is always calling us back to him. Knowing that if we choose to do our own stupid selfish thing we are gonna end up in strife – not only now but eternally.
God wants what is best for us, he invites us to accept his love. We have all chosen to be silly chooks, running off and doing our own thing, when God is dying for us to accept his love. His love for us is so deep that he did all that he could, he came in the person of Jesus to die for us, so that we can become not his pets – that he looks down upon, but his children that he loves so dearly.
I’m just going to give you a chance to become a friend of Jesus in a moment, which is what becoming a Christian is all about. But first I want everyone just to bow their heads and close their eyes so that you can just reflect on how God has been challenging you.
For those of you who would like to become God’s child tonite, all you have to do is admit that you’ve messed up in the past, and believe that Jesus died and rose from the grave to take away your mess. If you’ll just ask him into your life as your saviour, Lord and friend. You do that simply through a prayer and then after the service we will ask that you would come forward so we might explain to you more about Jesus.
Let us pray
“Lord Jesus, I thank you that you came, and died, and rose from the grave. I thank you that through this you can take away all the sin from my life. I ask you to come into my life now and wash this mess from my life. Thank you God for the improvement that your presence in our lives makes.Amen
