Tonight
we are going to begin our Spiritual Growth Campaign with a BBQ and by watching a
Campaign overview. This overview will set the stage for what we will be learning
over the next 40 days or so.
These
are exciting days in the life of our church, and God will do some amazing
things in our lives throughout this campaign, so please do what you can to join
us, not only for tonight’s lesson, but for the entire campaign.
A
bumper sticker once said: “Life is too precious to waste.” This is an
interesting thought, but how do we do that? How do we prevent wasting our life?
The
Bible gives us an indication. In Ephesians 5 we read: “…be careful how you live. Don’t live like
fools, but like those who are wise.
16 Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. 17
Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.”(Eph.
5:15-17, NLT2)
Notice
that the Bible tells us to be careful. What is the opposite of careful? Careless.
The Bible says: “don’t be careless with your life…”
Literally
the Greek means: “don’t stumble through life; don’t just drift through
life.”
In
other words: we are to think things through, we must know what we are here for;
we must figure out our purpose.
The
Bible says: “Don’t
act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.”(Eph.
5:17, NLT2)
Over
the next 40 days or so, we are going to figure out what the Lord wants us to
do. We are going to “Make the most of every opportunity…” (Eph. 5:16a,
NLT2) and we are going to seek to understand why God has us here, in this
place, for such a time as this.
This morning, I
would like for us to look at and answer the Three Basic questions of Life.
The
first question that I want us to consider is “What does God want from my life.”
It’s an interesting question, one that I am sure most of us have asked at one
time or another.
As
you read through the Bible, you can summarize what God wants with your life
with a few small words: He wants my life. God wants our all.
There
is not a single verse in the Bible that says that you can be a Christian and
live your life any way that you want.
You see, God doesn’t
want 10% of us, He doesn’t want 50% of us, He
doesn’t even want 99.999% of us.
God wants our all.
ILLUSTRATION- I love church road signs.
Some of the best messages I have ever seen have been on church road signs.
I
saw one church road sign that said: “Try our
Sunday’s... they’re better than Dairy Queen!
The church road
sign at the Zealand Pentecostal Church says: “God
wants complete custody, not just weekend visits”
Many
people think that they can give God a certain aspect of their life, say their
spiritual life—God can have the 10 minutes that it takes to read the “Our daily
Bread”, but God can’t have any more than that.
He can’t have my
work life, my social life, my sex life… those things are mine.
Life
with God doesn’t work that way my friends. God wants full custody, not weekend
visits.
C.S.
Lewis once said: “The only thing Christianity cannot be is moderately
important.” It’s either all
or nothing with God.
Paul
said in Galatians 2: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but
Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of
God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (2:20,
NIV)
According
to the Bible, God isn’t satisfied with one small corner of our lives.
God will take what you give Him, but He won’t stop until
He has your all.
The
Bible says: “…give
yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So
use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.” (Romans 6:13, NLT2)
God
wants complete custody; not just weekend visits. God wants our entire life.
The Bible says: “…this is what the
Lord your God wants you to do: Respect the Lord your God, and do what he has
told you to do. Love him. Serve the Lord your God with your whole being…” (Deuteronomy 10:12, NCV)
ILLUSTRATION- William Booth, the founder of
the Salvation Army, was being interviewed near the end of his life. This is
what he said:
“God had all there was of me. There have been others who
had greater plans, greater opportunities than I; but from the day I got a
vision of what God could do, I made up my mind that God would have all there
was of William Booth.” (taken from my files)
I
wonder what we are giving to God. Are we giving our all to Him, or are we
limiting Him—and thus limiting His work in our lives?
The
Bible says: “In
everything you do, put God first, and he will direct you
and crown your efforts with success.” (Proverbs 3:6, Living Bible)
Jesus
said in Matthew 6: “…seek first (God’s) kingdom and his righteousness, and all
these things will be given to you as well.” (6:33,
NIV)
Over
and again, the Bible reminds us that God wants our all. He is to be the number
one priority in our lives. We are to give our all to Him….
So, what are you
giving to God?
The
second question that we must consider is “what does it take”?
What
does it take to not waste my life? What does it take to allow God to have my
entire life? What does it take to become all that God wants me to become?
What
does it take? Discipline
The
Bible says: “Discipline
yourself for the purpose of godliness.” (1 Tim.4:7, NSAB)
Friends: It
takes work to be like Jesus. It involves discipline.
Discipline can
be defined as “making
yourself do something regularly; to make yourself act or work in a controlled
or regular way.”
ILLUSTRATION- Some of you are very
disciplined in your work. You plan your day; you are meticulous as you go about
your work.
Some
of you are very disciplined in your physical workouts. You never
miss one. It is in your schedule.
Some
of you never miss your favourite Television show. You wouldn’t dream of not
watching it. Some of you would even send your company home so you can watch TV.
Of
course, most of us wouldn’t even think about missing a meal…
Do
you want to know the areas that we show the most discipline? In the areas that
we want to be. The things
that are important to us are the things that get done.
I
wonder what would happen if we were as disciplined to the things of God—prayer,
regular Bible reading, sharing our faith; coming to church—I wonder what would
happen if we were as disciplined to the things of God as we are in other areas
of life? What would happen to us?
ILLUSTRATION- A church goer once wrote a
letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go
to church every Sunday.
“I’ve
gone for 30 years now,” he wrote, “and in that time I have heard something like
3,000 sermons.”
“But for the
life of me, I can’t remember a single one. So, I think I’m wasting my time and
the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all.”
Needless to
say, this started a real controversy in the “Letters to the
Editor” column, much to the delight of the editor.
This went on
for weeks until someone wrote this:
“I’ve been
married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals.
But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of
those meals.”
“But I do know this;
they all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my
wife had not given me those meals, I would be physically dead today.
Likewise, if I
had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today.” (from
my files)
Church: it takes
work to become like Jesus Christ. It takes work to pray. It takes work to read
and understand the Word of God. It takes discipline to allow God to have our
entire life.
The Bible says: “Physical training
is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this
life and in the life to come.” (1
Tim.4:8, NLT2)
We are to train
ourselves for godliness. What we will be doing over the next 40 days, is intense
training.
We will be
reading a devotional each day. We will be memorizing Scripture;
we will be getting together with
other believers. We will be working on becoming like Christ.
Hebrews 12:1
says: “…let us
throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let
us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (NIV)
There are some
things in life that will hold us back from becoming all that God wants us to
become. There are some things—some good things and some not so good things—that
can get our attention and cause us to forget what we are here for.
The Bible
instructs us to get rid of those things. To “strip off every weight that slows us down,
especially the sin that so easily trips us up.” (Heb. 12:1, NLT2)
There may be
things in our life that we will have to set aside in order to become like Jesus
Christ. Some of these things might be good things; some of these things might
be sinful things.
Whatever they
might be, it will take work for us to become all that God wants us to become.
Rick Warren
reminds us that: “If you are serious about fulfilling your purpose in life… you have to
make space for God in your life.
And if you’re
going to make space for God in your life, you’re going to have to cut some
things out.” (PDL. Pre-campain sermon. Pg 7)
The Bible
reminds us that we must put away those things—good and bad—that could draw us
away from our walk with God.
This beautifully
takes us in to the 3rd question: “WHY?”
Why should I
make the effort? Why should I give my all to God?
Why should I do
it? Because
of The Cross.
The Bible says: “(Jesus) died for
everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for
themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for
them.” (2 Cor. 5:15, NLT2)
We are to give
our all to God; we are to give things up because Jesus gave His all for us.
ILLUSTRATION- In the 1993 film In the Line of Fire, Clint
Eastwood played Secret Service Agent Frank Horrigan.
Horrigan had
protected the life of the President for more than three decades, but he was
haunted by the memory of what had happened thirty years before.
Horrigan
was a young agent assigned to President Kennedy on the day he was assassinated
in 1963.
When the assassin
fired, Horrigan froze in shock. For thirty years afterward, he wrestled with
the ultimate question for a Secret Service agent: “Can I take a bullet for the
President?”
In
the climax of the movie, Horrigan does what he had been unable to do earlier:
he throws himself into the path of an assassin’s bullet to save the chief
executive.
At
Calvary, the situation was reversed. The President of the Universe took a
bullet for us. At the Cross, we see how valuable we are to God. (my files)
The
Bible says: “In
Christ we are set free by the blood of his death, and so we have forgiveness of
sins….” (Eph. 1:7, NCV)
Church:
Jesus took a bullet for us; He willingly laid down His life so we could live
with Him.
“This is how we
know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” (1Jo 3:16a, NIV)
Because
Jesus went to the Cross; because He endured the Cross, we can come to God and live
the life that we were intended to live.
Paul
said in Romans 12: “…dear brothers and sisters, I plead
with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let
them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is
truly the way to
worship him.” (Romans 12:1, NLT2)
God
wants our life. This is, as Paul reminded us, the least we can do, because of
what Jesus has done for us.
·
It could be that you have never given your life
to Jesus; this 40 DOP is just for you.
·
It could be that you are unsure if you’re life matters:
this 40 DOP is for you.
·
It could be that there are some things you
probably should give up, but you are unsure what or howàthis 40 DOP is for you.
I
believe that God is not finished with us yet. I believe that God can use these
next 40 days to teach us, to show us, to help us understand what we are here
for.
But
for Him to speak to us, we must give Him our life. We must give Him complete
custody; not just weekend visits.
For
the prayer found in Habakkuk 3:2 to come true in our day; it must begin with
us.
Yes,
God wants to work in your seat mate’s life, but He wants to work in your life
too.
Will you let God
do all that I am hoping and praying He will do? Will you let
God have your entire life?
Perhaps
you have already given your life over to God, don’t think you have arrived just
yet. The Bible tells me that God still has work to do in your life, and He wants
to do it through this 40 Days of Purpose Campaign.
So
please church, join me in this amazing God Journey. It will be some of the best
days of our lives.
“Lord, I have heard the news about you; I am amazed at what
you have done. Lord, do great things once again in our time; make those things
happen again in our own days.” (Hab.
3:2, NCV)
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