The Great Adventure - Sermon 1 Series

The Great Adventure Series

Sermon 1

Title: The Great Adventure

Based on the Music by Steve Curtis Chapman

Introduction

Today I want to start a sermon series based on Steve Curtis Chapman’s musical CD called “The Great Adventure”.

Chapman is an acclaimed gospel/Christian singer who has inspired many Christians for more than 20 years. The Great Adventure album, as it was called back then was released in 1992. It was the first ever gospel or Christian CD that I ever bought. It is one of those CD’s that rocked my world.

The very first song that we are going to be looking at is the title song on the CD, which is called “The Great Adventure”.

The words go as follows:

1 Started out this morning in the usual way

2 Chasing thoughts inside my head of all I had to do today

3 Another time around the circle try to make it better than the last

4 I opened up the Bible and read about me

5 Said I’d been a prisoner and God’s grace had set me free

6 And somewhere between the pages it hit me like a lightning bolt

7 I saw a big frontier in front of me and I heard someone say let’s go.

CHORUS

8 Saddle up your horses we’ve got a trail to blaze

9 Through the wild blue yonder of God’s amazing grace

10 Let’s follow our leader into the glorious unknown

11 This is a life like no other oh…this is The Great Adventure

12 Come on get ready for the ride of your life

13 Gonna leave long faced religion in a cloud of dust behind

14 And discover all the new horizons just waiting to be explored

15 That is what we were created for

BRIDGE

16 We’ll travel over, over mountains so high

17 We’ll go through valleys below

18 Still through it all we’ll find that

19 This is the greatest journey that the human heart will ever see

20 The love of God will take us far beyond our wildest dreams.

Steve Curtis Chapman

1. Line 1 to 3

Started out this morning in the usual way

Chasing thoughts inside my head of all I had to do today

Another time around the circle try to make it better than the last

Every single day, we all start out the same way, searching for meaning and purpose to life. Despite all our efforts to find purpose and meaning in life, we some how come up empty handed.

We always look to tomorrow to try and do things better than we did today. At all times focusing only on what WE can do to find our meaning and purpose in life.

Some people today are just existing rather than living. The reason why they aren’t truly living is because they have an emptiness inside of them. An emptiness that only God can fill.

- Material things won’t fill this hole.

- Nor will success

- Relationships alone cannot fill it

- Even religion cannot fill the emptiness

The only thing that can fill the emptiness in our lives is God. This is good news, but to understand such good news, we need to understand the bad news.

2. Line 4 & 5

I opened up the Bible and read about me

Said I’d been a prisoner

Do you want to know one of the saddest truths – so many people go through life without so much as picking up this amazing book (The Bible).

The Bible is like a mirror. There are many people who hate looking at themselves in the mirror. Why? It always highlights our physical flaws and imperfections.

(You must learn to look at yourself in the mirror and love yourself – The word says love your neighbour as you love yourself)

It the same with the Bible. People don’t want to read it because it highlights their spiritual or “spirit man” flaws and imperfections.

Here is the thing, we all have the same flaw or imperfection – SIN. Sin is not just an act but rather a state of being. Another translation, we are not sinners because we sin, but rather, we sin because we are sinners. We are all born with the nature to do wrong.

Psalm 51: 5 – For I was born a sinner, yes, from the moment my mother conceived me” (NLT)

Because we are born sinners, sinning comes to us naturally. That is why we cannot fill the emptiness from within.

Romans 3: 23 – For all have sinned, all fall short of Gods glorious standard. (NLT)

Line 5 starts with - Said I’d been a prisoner – but it goes on…..

3. Line 5 to 7

and God’s grace had set me free

And somewhere between the pages it hit me like a lightning bolt