Trinity Baptist Church January 14, 2007
Looking forward
(Psalm 39:4-6)
(Played “Resolve” video from www.sermonspice.com)
That video addresses it: a year begins and many of us get -- temporarily -- motivated to set goals, make promises or lay out new directions. Some of those actually work out!
Behind each urge is the concept that “this year things will be different.” A New Year means a new start. Change is in the air. So, we get on tracks like: getting in shape -- or, spending less and saving more -- or, eating better and getting healthier. One of the all time favorites for Westerners: lose weight!
Maybe you heard the story about the wife who walked into the bathroom just as her husband was getting on the scales to weigh himself. As she watched, he got on, then as he sucked in his stomach. She said sarcastically, "That’s not going to do any good!!" He said, "Sure it will. It’s the only way I can see the numbers."
Let me remind you of what we talked about last time. I challenged you to take a look back -- to sort of diagnose the state of your Christian life. I gave you three questions drawn from biblical principles: questions we ought to ask and answer consistently -- and honestly -- before God.
The first was “How’s your heart?” The Bible says my heart encompasses my mind, emotions and will. Your heart is the “real” you. If you want to check up on your spiritual condition, your heart is the place you need to begin.
God wants your heart. We talked about four gauges which disclose what’s going on in our hearts. One is our speech: how we talk divulges the secrets of our heart. Another is how we handle money. The third was what and whom we love. Finally, there was worship -- the worship alone of God and the way we worship Him. The heart question is the crucial question.
The second question was, “What are your commitments?” Every day you breathe, you make dozens of choices -- choices based on prior commitments you’ve made. Commitments we have to things like comfort, or money, entertainment and the like, daily direct how we spend our days.
Christ has assigned priorities to His followers. My response should be to align my commitments with His priorities. We‘ll talk about those today.
The third question, which then emerges from your commitments: “What are your daily habits?” The minutes, hours and days we have we spend -- we invest each resource somewhere to some one or some thing. My investments become the habits I have grown to practice.
Habits, in turn, are largely the direction and course of my life.
God has candidly and graciously told us how and where we can invest life for maximum return.
I trust you carved out some time to wrestle with those questions. If you haven’t -- if you weren’t here last week, it‘s not too late. But, don’t just let things go. Don’t move on into 2007 before you do. If we don’t accurately assess where we are, we just stay passive and paralyzed and no real change will happen. Start with the look back. Your heart, commitments, habits.
We began with Psalm 39. I want to again highlight two verses. David wrote,
"Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered—how fleeting my life is. You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath." (Psalm 39:4, 5 -- NLT)
The words aren’t hard to interpret. God’s Word says: life is short -- it’s like your breath vapor on one of these cold nights. Now you see it, now you don’t. Every one of us gets a limited number of trips around the Sun. You need to understand the implications of that.
That Truth ushers us to a second one. Earthly existence is not all there is. What we now call “life” is just preparation for what we will be and know and experience in God’s eternal presence. And that’s why it is so critical that we stop and evaluate. If we don’t, we simply, by default, begin sliding back to living life the old ways. Evaluation is meant to direct us to intentional living.
If you’ve done some evaluating -- and if you’re ready to take intentional steps, the Bible offers us some solid investments. I want to talk about three of them this morning -- they’re intimately related. One flows into the next.
The first investment you can make this year is:
1. Invest in knowing God. (Colossians 1:9, 10)
Paul prayed for the Christians in first century churches. He told them often what he prayed for them. That’s the case for the Colossian Christians. Chapter 1 tells us some of what he prayed.
He wrote, "So we have continued praying for you ever since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete understanding of what He wants to do in your lives, and we ask Him to make you wise with spiritual wisdom. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and you will continually do good, kind things for others. All the while, you will learn to God better and better." (Colossians 1:9, 10, NLT)
Look at that last phrase. You will learn to know God better and better. The NASB says, "increasing in the knowledge of God."
One of the astounding, unique characteristics of NT Christianity is -- we have a God Who can be known. Most world religions describe gods who are -- distant, unknowable, uncaring. Others have a supreme being shrouded in great mystery and darkness. Our God is very different. He can be known -- and for one solid reason -- He revealed Himself to man.
It happened through creation. The Designer left imprints of His character on His designs. Scripture says, "the heavens declare the glory of God." It says, "the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of God." Beyond creation, God spoke to prophets in words, ideas, dreams and visions. Then He declared Himself in Scripture. We have an inspired and clear, written message which we can hear, read and understand. Then, Hebrews 1 says, God spoke through His Son, Who incarnated in human flesh and blood. God repeatedly and powerfully made Himself knowable to people.
The most beneficial investment you could make this year is to get to know God better. I was at a conference in Germany once -- there were several Christian leaders there. One of them, a man named Wolfgang, was assigned the devotional the first evening. He read a passage of Scripture to us. Then he said, “we come to these conferences and meetings, and we often will ask one another, ‘do you know so-and-so, or do you this person or that person?’”
The room got very quiet when he said, “I want to ask you a different question tonight: ‘Do you know God? And how well do you know Him?’”
A.W. Tozer wrote, “were we to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, ‘what comes into your mind when you think of God?‘ we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man.“
You see, knowing God, knowing Christ stands at the heart of your Christian life. Everything in your spiritual life stands or falls there. We can really busy and work hard and try to act and look Christian, but everything that is Christian about you centers on this: how well you know God?
This has to be the heart and soul of all that you are about in your Christian life. Your progress, your usefulness, your fruitfulness all depend on it. He’s not a subject we study or a few facts we memorize, He is a Person we come to know just like we come to know others. Jesus said, this is eternal life, that they may know You, Father, and Jesus Christ, Whom You have sent. (John 17:17) How do we go about investing in knowing God? Let me suggest four concepts:
One is get to know the Truth about Him.
The Bible is God’s delivery system for Truth about Himself. Listen: the Truth about God in Scripture stands at odds with what you assume about Him or think about Him, based on what you‘ve heard, or what others have told you. Here’s what happens.
You engage Truth about God in Scripture -- and you will begin to know Him as He declares Himself to be -- instead of through the experiences you or others have in life. Hear me -- your interpretation of life experiences regularly lies to you about "Who God is" and "what He’s like".
So let me suggest a few of the kind of things you can do: study some passages which tell you about God’s character. Read great declarations of His character, like you find in the Psalms. Memorize a Psalm -- like Psalm 103. Then buy some classic books like The Knowledge of the Holy by Tozer, or Knowing God by J.I. Packer. Make it your aim this year to know Truth about God. Ask Him day by day as you read Scripture to make Himself known. Meditate on the Truth of His character and begin counting on it as you encounter life‘s experiences.
A second concept: study Jesus. Jesus said, if you’ve seen Me you’ve seen the Father. He said, I and the Father are one. Jesus incarnated to show us God in flesh and blood. If you want to know what God is like, start taking long looks at His Son.
We have four records of Jesus’ incarnation in written form. For the next 12 months, lay out a plan -- first, read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- read them several times. They’re shorter than most books you’ll pick up. Then, choose one of them -- take a couple of months to go deeper -- read it, jot down some notes and observations -- just start writing down what you see. Again, ask Christ to show Himself to you, in His character, His Wisdom, His teaching, His Person, His actions and dealings with people. Take some long looks at Jesus and you will get to know Him better.
Obviously, if you want to know a Person, you practice the third concept. Spend time with Him. Make this the year you consistently set aside time with God every day. I was amazed years ago -- and embarrassed -- that I could find time to read the newspaper every day, but somehow I could not manage to consistently spend time in the presence of the God of Heaven.
David wrote, One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to meditate in His temple (Psalm 27:4). To dwell in God’s house is another way of describing living fellowship with Him.
The fourth concept: respond to Him. Here’s what I mean by that. Do something whenever God speaks to you and teaches you -- from a verse, a sermon, something you hear on the radio or in a tape. The reason I say this is, knowing God isn’t a mind game. God loves to reveal Himself to His people. But He will make Himself known to you for a reason: to transform your character. When God speaks, make some kind of response. Don’t take a couple of notes and stuff them in your Bible. Don’t just listen or read. Some ways to respond:
Change the way you think based on what God has said. Repent, when God speaks to you about your sin. Commit to steps of obedience. John 14:21 He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is (he’s the one) who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him. God delights to reveal Himself to people who will walk with Him and relate to Him and obey Him. He wants to be known by you. Imagine the results, at the end of this year, if you could say, “I’ve come to know God better“. Consider some steps to make that a reality.
A second investment: 2. Invest in your own growth. (Ephesians 4:15, 2 Timothy 3:16, 17)
The Bible describes us at the start of our faith as spiritual infants. But just like with new babies born to us, God’s desire for His children is to grow. Every indication is that growth process is not automatic. It requires response. Ephesians 4:15 says, . . . we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ. . . (Ephesians 4:15)
There are two decisions most of us will have to make if we’re going to grow up spiritually. The first is dump my excuses. Human begins are wildly creative when it comes to making excuses for ourselves. Lack of spiritual maturity gets its share of our creativity and excuses. We say things like, “I‘m not motivated.” “What happened to me in the past holds me back.” “I’m too busy to do the stuff you need to do to grow” -- or even -- “I‘m not doing too bad compared to most people.”
Let exhort you with this, at the beginning of 2007. Make this the year you jettison those attitudes. Don’t let the year run its course, don’t keep letting life run its course while you just merrily keep making excuses -- to others, to yourself, to God for why you don’t seek out opportunities to grow and therefore grow!
The excuses we employ keeps us from the rich things God wants to do in our lives. Listen: God’s desire for you is to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ. The normal Christian life, for you, for me, is a life of going on, a life of growing up into Christ. It is maturity.
Would you quit with the excuses and begin moving in line with God’s desires for you?
The second decision is get God‘s Word into my life. Growth largely depends on your time in and saturation by Scripture. It’s God’s Word which will change you, shape your thinking, transform your hearts, and change your life.
2 Timothy 3:16, 17 informs us that Scripture is God’s resource to teach us, equip us and make us effective for any kind of good work. You can get Scripture into your life five different ways. Hearing includes listening to teaching and preaching or Scripture on tape or CD. You can read Scripture. Reading it gives you the big picture. We’ve offered reading plans from Back to the Bible. You can buy a One-Year Bible. You can study the Bible. That’s more intensive. You could study a topic or a book of the Bible. You can study on your own, or with your roommates or spouse, or a small group.
A fourth way to get Scripture into you is to memorize verses and passages. Obviously, God’s Word stays with you constantly when you do that. Scripture memory pays huge benefits that don’t come any other way. Then, you can Meditate on what you’ve read or memorized. Meditation involves deeply considering the truths of Scripture for the purpose of application.
Let me challenge you to add at least one additional method to whatever you do now.
If you’re consistently coming to church and hearing God’s Word; if you’re spending some time, reading then add another method. Most Americans Christians are just hearing -- many Christians aren‘t even doing that consistently. Our culture is becoming increasingly electronic and decreasingly a people who look at the written word. Some experts say we are literally becoming an illiterate people. We as Christians are a people of the written Word -- Romans tells us faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We cannot afford the kind of illiteracy our culture is embracing. We cannot afford that sort of future as Christians and the Church.
That will only mean we’ll be spoon fed culture’s tripe and be grossly malnourished. Make a choice -- against another activity and for adding a new method to get into Scripture. Imagine the payoff. Dump those old favorite excuses and determine 2007 will be the year you consistently begin to get God’s Word into your life.
The third investment is
3. Invest in building Christ’s Church. (Matthew 16:18, Matthew 6:33)
Jesus said, in Matthew 16, "I will build My church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it." We occupy the time frame of Earth’s history when Jesus is working to expand the borders of His kingdom and Church by driving back the forces of Hell. The battle for that expansion will continue until He returns. He now summons followers to join with Him where He’s working to that end.
There’s no limit to the opportunity, there is no limit to what kind of people He will use. There is only limited availability on the part of His people.
We read Matthew 6:33 last week where Jesus says, "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things shall be given to you." He was responding to His followers’ who got their priorities confused. They were thinking about the stuff they needed for everyday life. Food, clothing, shelter.
Material beings naturally pursue material stuff! But Jesus told them, and He speaks to us today and says, that’s not why you’re here. Will you stop investing your life primarily in things that won’t matter in the long run and invest them to what will?
He said, pursue the expansion of His kingdom.
That means buying up opportunities in anything and everything which will lead to building up the Church.
It means reserving our time and energy and creativity for people who don’t know Christ. It will mean re-directing some time which you have already committed elsewhere.
On the Luis Palau Festival card we talked about this morning, you have room to jot down 5 people today. Would you do that, and begin to pray for them every day. You might take them to Omaha with you this Summer, you might just figure out some creative ways in which you can share life with them.
Go somewhere together -- here’s a radical thought: invite them over. Get to know them. Ask them if there is something going on in their lives for which you could pray! And every day, ask God to open doors for you to share Jesus Christ with them. Do you have time for the things on God’s heart? For His kingdom? For His Church? Will you, this year, nail down with someone in leadership what your unique gifts and abilities and commit to using them? Will you throw you heart and time and money into eternal values?
Steps I will take
I asked you, in so many words, last week, as I have before, “to what are you giving life?” There are no greater purposes in all of life that these that we’ve talked about this morning.
Imagine having the great goal of you knowing God well. That He would often speak to you, show you Himself, press you closer in your following. What a powerful thing to be at the heart of your Christian life! And that you grow well, that you would grow up spiritually.
And that you invest whatever God puts in your hand to further Christ’s Kingdom and build up His Church. If you want to be challenged and stretched, this is the way to go. We’re going to lay some things on the line in the next couple of months which will stretch us all. And by God’s amazing grace, we’re going to respond as people and as a church which will say “yes” to God. This is the year for you to intentionally go on. Doesn’t matter where you’ve been. It’s a new year. It’s a new day. Let’s not end up December 31 at the same place we are now! Let’s go for it.
