My Relationship With God Does Not Happen By Accident Series

Introduction

After the honeymoon phase wore off, I realized Anne is a difficult person to live with. And I bet you, she felt the same way about me. This year we celebrated our 46th year of marriage because we chose to work at making our marriage work.

In ministry, I had this idea when God calls a man to a certain church, He generally leaves him there to serve. This August, I will have been here as pastor 26 years. The average Southern Baptist Pastor today only stays serving at his church 3.6 years. I know why- it takes work to stay longer. In 3.6 years, I get to know you and you get to know me and now we got to work at making it work together. The newness of our relationship has worn off and I have seen you on your good days and on your bad days, and you have seen me on my good days and my bad days. And now, we got to work at making our relationship work.

Last week, we talked about do overs. And there are do overs in a lot of areas of life. In golf, a do over is called a mulligan. There are do overs in the fast food business called re-makes. And you ladies get us guys to spend a lot of money with a do over of a room called a re-decorate. And I explain there is also a do over with God called a return to God- a coming home to God. Remember God’s word to Israel in Hosea 14 “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sin has been your downfall.”

And I can tell you if we must do a do over with God, it is because we did not do the work it takes to make our relationship with God work the last time. In our Christian life span, we may have to return to God many times. And I can say with certainty, it is never God who did not do His part. We must return because we have not done our part.

So, today, I want to share with you what is our part. If you have your Bibles turn with me to 1 Timothy 4:6-10.

Scripture

1 Timothy 4:6-10 (NIV)

6 If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed.

7 Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.

8 For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.

9 This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance

10 (and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.

POINT #1

IT TAKES WORK TO TRAIN YOURSELF TO BECOME GODLY.

7 Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.

I believe that there are three things that we are needing to work on if we are training ourselves to become godly.

A. WHEN YOU SEE A NEED, YOU STEP UP AND HANDLE IT.

It does not help you to become godly by recognize a need and then calling the pastor and telling the pastor the need you see. If you are training yourself to be godly, you got to step in and handle it. God showed it to you; you take the ball and run with it.

One of my favorite Scriptures, in fact, it is hanging on the wall in my home office is Ezekiel 22:30 (NIV)

30 "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.

When it comes to church and the things of God, we are more comfortable being spectators than participants. The problem is training yourself to be godly requires you move from a spectator to a participant.

B. WHEN YOU NEED TO SPEAK UP, YOU DO.

Christians are called the silent majority for a reason- we seldom speak up. We don’t speak up when we know that sin is taking place, and something needs to be said about it. We don’t speak when God lays on our heart to tell someone what Jesus has done for us. We don’t speak up when God puts a real burden on our heart, because if we tell others they might think that we have gotten too spiritual.