To How We Live Series

INTRODUCTION:

Get up…eat breakfast…head to work…work all day… return home…eat some supper…watch a little tv…go to bed… and then repeat those same steps tomorrow.

Some of us may have a few more steps; some of us may have a few fewer steps. No wonder people ask the question: “Is this all there is to life?” And it’s not just unbelievers who ask that question; there are many who know Christ as their Savior that ask that same question.

God tells us in John 10:10 (NKJV)

10 … I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

God says there is more; and if we don’t see it; or more so, if we are not living that way then we are missing something. We saw the first week; we can miss that “more” by sticking to the routines of life and not listening to the calls of God on our life. God interrupts our routines of life and calls us to do certain things, and if you are not open to Him, then you may miss them. Then last week, God showed us that this world wants us to live in spiritual blindness or at the very least a spiritual fog rather than seeing with clarity. But God calls you and me to spiritual clarity so that we can have “more.”

Today, Jesus is going to show us the third way that you and I miss the “more” out of life. There is a script for our life, and it is called the will of God for our life. I don’t know what your individual script is for your life, and you don’t know the script that God has written for my life, but both your script and my script line up with the Word of God. By attempting to go off script, and we have the free will to go off-script, we move from the “more” of the Christian life and settle for a lot less. Let's look at how we go off-script.

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Romans 12:2 (NKJV)

2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Matthew 4:1-11 (NKJV)

1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.

3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."

4 But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' "

5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple,

6 and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.' "

7 Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.' "

8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

9 And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me."

10 Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.' "

11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Reality television! Everybody is watching it from Survivor, Hell’s Kitchen, The Biggest Loser to Intervention, to name a few. Even the President of the United States had an unscripted show, The Apprentice. In the year, 2000, there were only four reality shows on all the networks. But the year 2010, the number had grown to 320 shows, and by 2015 there were 750 unscripted shows on TV. And I would dare say that the number has increased since 2015.

Here is the thing: we like things off-script because we feel that there is more excitement. A scripted love story we know that the guy will get the girl in the end. A scripted detective show, we know the good guy will get the bad guy in the end. We don’t know how the unscripted is going to turn out.

And just like we are drawn from the scripted to the unscripted in our tv viewing, the world tries to move us from the scripted plan of God for our life which is His will for our life to an unscripted life which now focuses not on God but me.