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.
We don’t need to be afraid to take risk for God. God wants us to take risks and when our focus is on Him and not this world, then our risks change and they becomes time to celebrate the grace of God rather than times to be worried. Pastor Don told us a couple weeks ago that we allow our I-Sight to get in the way. We focus on what we believe we can do or need to do, rather than what God has set for us.
Psalm 139:1-3,5
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
God knows you. He knows what you are capable of. He knows what struggles you are going through. What you can accompliish because he packed your bags. We just have to be risk takers and go off the side of the mountain. Sometimes that risk means we have to lose our reputation. That risk might cause us to go against what our friends think of us.
Some of you are so worried about how other people see you, that you haven’t had an original thought since you were 9. You may not think you do but you base your life and reputation on what other people think about you. If you don’t hear anything else I say tonight, hear this: YOUR FRIENDS DON’T MATTER!!! THE PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE DON’T MATTER. In the end, it is only you and God. Whether you believe that or not, it is true. God does not look at our friends and judge us. There are not grading curves. He looks at what we did with what He gave us.
[Story playing we are the body]
As I wrap this up, I want you to hear this.
Ephesians 4:11-16 - it was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Each of us has a purpose. That purpose is to lift up the God who gave us that gift. We are to take risk because Jesus risked His life for us. He died so that we might have the freedom to do what He called us to do. When you go home tonight, I want you to take inventory of your life.
1. Take inventory of your clothes and ask if God would want you wearing them.
2. Take inventory of your music, would you want God listening to your MP3 player
3. Take inventory of your STORY. Where are you in finding your gifts? If you know what your gift is, are you using it to glorify God.
Lastly, in order to have an uncommon life, we must give God our common life. We must give Him back what He gave us. We cannot continue to say we want the Christian life and then ignore the only person that makes that happen. God has called us to a life beyond anything that we can ever imagine, all we have to do is take the risk and accept it...
Let us pray.
