Are You A Risk Taker? Series

How long does it take you to get dressed in the morning? (Get someone to give you their morning routine) Why do we worry about the clothes we wear to school? Most of you have to deal with a dress code, does that make it easier or hardeer to figure out what to wear? All of us have worried about what we wear to school? We want people to like us and we feel that our clothes are a way to help that out. Because we think about we are going to see or what we are going to do and we dress accordingly. We dress different if we are going to church than to school (normally). We dress to impress if we are going to see someone that we like or that we want to date.

Dressing to impress is not a bad thing. Most people want others to like the way they look. This is why places likeAbercrombie and American Eagle exist. We take pride in our appearance, even if we are just putting on a front. The clothes you wear are not always a definition of who you are. I buy most of my clothes from Target and Walmart, does taht make me less of a person than someone who spends all their money in the mall? Not in my eyes and definitely not in God’s eyes.

The last couple weeks we have been going through the book, "Cure for the Common Life" by Max Lucado. Last week we talked about what it means to unpack the bags that God has equipped you with and how to find your SWEET SPOT. Each of you have a gift that was given by God, to allow you to do something pleasing in His eyes. When I introduced this book, I read the story of the Master who gave out talents to 3 of his servants. He gave 5 to one, 3 to another and 1 to another. The first two servants took the talents and doubled their money. Now to give this story meaning, let me tell you how much a talent is worth. A talent is worth 10,000 denarii. Well, how much is a denarii??? (BE SARCASTIC). A denarii is calculated as a fair days wage. So lets say that a fairs day wage for you is $40. A talent would be worth, $400,000. So we can read the story like this, to the first servant he gave 2 million, to the next servant he gave 800,000 and to the last servant he gave 400,000.

Now how would you feel if your boss gave you 2 million to do with what you want. Two of these servants knew what to do with it. They started playing the stock market, hitting the banks and working their money. They started making money for their master. But the one servant decided that he wasn’t going to take any chances, and he went and buried that money until his master returned. For those who haven’t gotten this, we are those servants, but God has given us something greater than money, He gave us gifts and talents. And he gave us those talents because He wanted su to use them. What would you tsay to me if I had the ability to be in the NFL draft but decided that I wanted to be a baker. You would call me an idiot because I would be missing out on fame and fortune, rather than eating pastry. But what if you hated football, even though you were good at it? What if you just loved to bake more. I mean, you can always make money. How risky would it be to give up an NFL career just to bake. Our society would call us nots. But God wouldn’t. Maybe god gave you the gift of baking because he wanted you to use that gift to feed the hungry. What if you oepned your own store and helped out those in need. Giving your left overs to those who didn’t have anything to eat. When you begin to think like God, the risk of ditching the NFL isn’t all the great.

QUESTION: What is the biggest risk you have ever taken?

STORY: Talk about the first time you went repelling...

Our life is full of risks. Going to school today is a risk. Driving a car is definitely risky, especially with some of you on the road. But how many risks do we take on purpose? What if we thought about only what God wanted us to wear when we dressed in the morning. How would your wardrobe change? Probably would be different for the girls than it would the guys. But that changes how we think about ourselves. The same concept goes with how we use the gifts that God has given us. Are we play the part of someone else? Doing what mommy and daddy want us to rather than we really makes us excited? Doing what God wants is risky? But in this case the reward is far greater than the gift.