Following God's Vision For Your Life

Following His Vision for Your Life

Online Sermon: http://www.mckeesfamily.com/?page_id=3567

There are many great wonders in this world but certainly one of the most beautiful but challenging of them is a maze found in Venice, Italy called the Villa Pisani Labirinto. Designed by Girolamo Frigimelica in the early 1700s this “classical medieval circular maze of nine concentric patterns and many dead ends” was so intimidating and challenging that Napoleon got lost in it and Hitler and Mussolini were too afraid to enter it at all! What makes this one of the most difficult mazes in the world to navigate is not only its intricate pathways but also its hedges that are too dense to go through and too high to see over. This maze reminds me of the never ending, unknown, almost infinite pathways of life we as Christians must navigate! Living in an interconnected world of constant texting, internet browsing and international news one is constantly being bombarded with so many “voices of choices” that knowing with certainty which are the right paths to take seems to be an exercise in futility. And while the world would have us chase after money, fame, and power this makes little sense considering such endeavors are temporary and of little value considering the eternity God has placed within our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11)! Scripture states that the overall goal of life is to please God (2 Corinthians 5:9-11) by “striving towards becoming spiritually mature and attaining the full measure of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). While knowing this overarching goal is of enormous value to us this still begs the question of what does God-approved decision-making look like when each of His own are given spiritual gifting and assigned unique divine tasks to accomplish (1 Corinthians 12)? While we know finding the right paths to take in the maze called life is found through much prayer and fasting to prepare one’s heart to listen to God’s often gentle whisper and command to go and serve in His name, many believers still wander aimlessly in the maze of life simply because they are too enamored with their own path that seems so very right in their own sight! The following sermon is going to give several examples of Biblical characters who when hearing God’s call obeyed and as a result got to participate in a divine role in His kingdom that far outlasted their time on this earth!

“The Walls Come Down”

Joshua was called by God to lead the children on Israel to take the Promised Land. It had been forty years since he and the other eleven spies first surveyed the land (Numbers 14:34). While it truly was a land filled with milk and honey, Joshua still remembered both him and Caleb tearing their clothes in disgust (14:6) because the other spies saw the size of the people and fortified cities and became too scared to follow God’s plan for their lives (13:28)! As Joshua came near to Jericho some forty years later, he looked up and saw the commander of the Lord’s army standing before him with a drawn sword (Joshua 5:13). Joshua fell face down in reverence, removed his sandals, for he was standing on holy ground (5:14-15); and intently listened to what the Lord had to say about conquering Jericho. The Lord told him that Jericho had already been delivered into his hands if he followed His plan of judgment upon the nation (6:2). For six days he was to have the army march around the walls of the city and have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day he was to march around the city seven times with the priests blowing the trumpets. Up until this time Joshua told the army not to speak a single word (6:10) until they heard a long blast on the trumpets and then they were to shout, and the walls of the city would collapse, and victory would be theirs (6:3-5). God gave Joshua a path to take that required incredible faith. He could have devised his own plan to conquer Jericho steeped in military strategy but instead chose to trust in God to come good on His promise! Like Joshua often the path that God presents for our lives may not seem wise by human standards but in faith will lead to pleasing Him, which is the reason for which we exist! Had Joshua said “NO” to God when he saw the giants in the land of Canaan would he not have perished like all the other Israelites who lacked faith? The choices we make in life matter to God!

“Putting Others First”

Because King Ahab had “done more evil in the eyes of the Lord than those before him” (1 Kings 16:30) God told Elijah to announce His wrath upon Israel, “no dew nor rain in the next few years” (17:1). The Lord then told Elijah to flee to the Kerith Ravine where God instructed ravens to bring him bread (17:4) but when the water dried up in the brook God told him to go to Zarephath in the region of Sidon (17:2-9) and request food from a widow. When Elijah saw the widow gathering sticks, he asked her for something to drink and a piece of bread to eat (17:10-11). She explained to Elijah that all she had was a “handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug” that was about to be used to prepare the last supper for her and her child before they die (17:12). The prophet told her don’t be afraid for if she granted this request to take care of the servant of God the “jar of flour would not be used up and the jug of oil wound not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land” (17:13-14). What would you say to a request from God that puts others first and at the expense of your own well being or that of your family? When God asks us to walk in faith to do something that requires the miraculous how many times does our “human foolishness” get in the way of His ways that are so much better than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9)? In essence Elijah was asking the widow to trust in the Lord, lean not upon her own understanding but in all ways acknowledge His right to rule her life and He would make her paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-6). The widow in this story gave the prophet of God her last meal and in doing so not only did she have food to eat every day but also when her son became ill and died Elijah cried out to the Lord and he was raised from the dead (17:17-24)! Had the widow said “NO” to the Lord’s request to feed Elijah would she not have prepared her last meal and both her and her son died shortly thereafter? While you are unlikely to be asked by God to make a physical life and death decision like this one, does not every broad path that we take in life not lead to spiritual deadness because we have missed the mark to please our Lord? The choices we make in life matter to God!