Setting up your life to succeed in the eyes of God
Grant van Boeschoten
December 30th, 2007
Proverbs 3:6 (NCV)
6 Remember the Lord in all you do, and he will give you success.
We are at the end of 2007 and a fresh new year is waiting in store for every single one of us.
You haven’t made any mistakes yet in 2008; You haven’t sinned, hurt someone’s feelings or missed the mark in 2008.
It is open to hundreds of possibilities for your life. Just think, what might God want to do with you this year.
• Is this the year where you lead someone to become a Christian,
• is this the year when your prayers spark a revival,
• is this the year when God gives you a passion for a brand new thing.
What does God have in store for you in 2008?
One of the things that a lot of people do around the end of the year is to make a resolution for the New Year. That’s good, to set a goal and to resolve to make it happen.
I want to encourage you this year to finish off 2007 by setting up for Success in 2008. It’s more than saying that you are going to lose 20 pounds or that you will spend more time with your family this year. It is setting up your life to succeed in the eyes of God.
The question that we have to ask is what does success look like to God?
1. Success comes when you put God first in your life.
Proverbs 3:6 (NCV)
6 Remember the Lord in all you do, and he will give you success.
In North Shore Baptist Church, in Chicago, the Sunday School Director and one of the deacons in the church was a man named James L. Kraft.
As a young man, just beginning, he wanted to be the most famous manufacturer and salesman of cheese in the world. He was going to be rich and famous, and he was going to do it making and selling cheese.
So as a young man, he started out. He had a little pony named Paddy and a little buggy. He would make his cheese and put it in the buggy and drive Paddy down the streets of Chicago, selling his cheese.
The days passed and the months passed and he fell into despair. He wasn’t succeeding. He wasn’t making any money. He was just working long and hard with no success. One day, driving those streets, in a cloud of despair, he began talking to his pony. He said, “Paddy, there’s something wrong. We’re not doing it right. Our priorities are not where they ought to be. Paddy, He says, “Maybe we ought first to serve God and place God first in our lives.”
When he got home that night, Kraft made a covenant that all the rest of his life he would serve God first. And then he would work as God would direct and open doors and bless.
James L. Kraft went on to found the great Kraft Food Corporation. When you go to the grocery store and see foods with the name “Kraft” on it, you are looking at food made by this man’s company.
Years later, He had the opportunity to speak at a large gathering in Washington D. C. In that address, the founder of one of America’s largest corporations said, “I had rather be a layman in the North Shore Baptist Church in Chicago than to head the greatest corporation in America.” He paused and then added, “My first job is serving Jesus.” (Told by W. A. Criswell).
Success comes when you put God first in your life.
Putting God first is an attitude and it is an action. Sometimes your attitudes will shape your actions and other times it will be the reverse, you will start acting in a certain way and your attitude will form to your action.
For some people this year, putting God first will begin with a commitment to attend the Church regularly, signaling to God that he is first in life and that he is a priority.
For other people it will mean setting your alarm clock to wake up an extra 30 minutes earlier in the morning to read your Bible and pray.
Take a moment to ask God right now, “What does this mean for my life. What must I do to put your first?”
When you believe that your first job is serving Jesus it shapes your actions. You go about your daily routine remembering that God has got opportunities for you and you ask him to open your eyes to see those opportunities.
Some of you might remember this story, because I told it once before in the summer of 2005. But I’m going to tell it again because it is serves this point so well.
It was the beginning of the fall semester and the students were arriving for their first lecture. As the hall filled up the students began to wonder what the empty fish aquarium in the front of the room was for.
When the professor arrived he welcomed the students to their new class. He told them that he was going to test their minds and that he had a way of challenging their perspectives right off the bat.
He walked over to the empty aquarium and began to place large hand sized rocks into it. He put so many rocks in that you wouldn’t be able to fit any more. He looked out at his students and said, “How many of you believe that the aquarium is full?” The majority of students put up their hands and the professor said, “Let me show you how it has room for still more.”
He then brought out a bucket of coarse gravel and poured it into the aquarium. The gravel filled in the holes around the rocks and the students were impressed to see that the whole bucket of gravel fit into the aquarium along the rocks.
“How many of you would say that it is full now?” Half the students put their hands up; the other half figured that the professor must have something else up his sleeve.
The professor went behind his desk and presented another bucket, this one was filled with fine sand. As he poured this bucket into the aquarium the sand found the holes and the entire bucket once again was emptied. The professor looked out at the class and asked again, “How many of you say that the aquarium is full?”
Most of the students put their hand up this time, what substance is finer than sand, they couldn’t imagine that there were anymore buckets behind the desk.
But the professor walked to his desk again and pulled out yet another bucket, this one was filled with water. He walked over to the aquarium and emptied it in.
“What I am showing you is an illustration for your life,” he said. “It is the proper way to prioritize your time. First you place the most important things in the aquarium, then you are able to pack less important items in around. But you must first off place what is most important in your life. If you were to put the sand and water and gravel in first, that would men that you would not be able to include the rocks.”
Life is all about decisions and priorities. That is why God asks you to put him first in your life. He doesn’t want to be squeezed out by less important things.
You set yourself up for success in God’s eyes when you put him first.
Putting God first in your life means that you live according to his laws and his ways. In the book of Isaiah, God is wishing that the Israelites would have kept his laws. They were living out the consequences of their sins and God said to them;
18 O that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your prosperity would have been like a river, and your success like the waves of the sea; Isaiah 48:18 (NRSV)
When you ask God what Success is, you find out that
2. Success is obedience to God’s laws
King David was lying on his deathbed, and in his last words to his son Solomon, he made sure that this next King understood the importance of obedience.
1 Chronicles 22:11-13 (NLT)
11 “Now, my son, may the Lord be with you and give you success as you follow his directions in building the Temple of the Lord your God.
12 And may the Lord give you wisdom and understanding, that you may obey the Law of the Lord your God as you rule over Israel.
13 For you will be successful if you carefully obey the decrees and regulations that the Lord gave to Israel through Moses. Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid or lose heart!
In this speech we see that David understood a little bit about how God sees success.
• He understood that God is the one who gives success.
• He understood that the success that God gives is related to our obedience to his directions for our life. (Solomon had to build the temple for God and God would call that success.)
• David understood that wisdom and understanding are necessary to obey the law of God.
• David understood that Success is obedience to God’s laws.
The Old Testament is a story of God’s love for his people. He wants for their lives to be prosperous, and he wants for his people to get the very best that he has for them.
So God, in his love, gives the people laws to live by. These laws are basically an instruction book for how to get the most out of life. You can watch the history of Israel in the Old Testament. There success and there failure are directly linked to their obedience to God’s laws.
In the New Testament we are introduced to God as a man. Jesus comes to earth and models for us what a life of obedience looks like. We see Jesus operate with tremendous authority and wisdom. We see the crowds that turn up for a miracle and we here them as they are awed and impressed by the teaching that Jesus had.
And Jesus understood obedience to God. He understood that the laws of God were really about the love of God for his people. And so he told those who would listen.
Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT)
37 You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.
If you want to follow God’s commandments then you just need to learn how to love the way that Jesus was talking about.
I know that it sounds as if I am oversimplifying things here, but maybe that is what Jesus was trying to tell the people.
Following God, being a Christian is not about keeping a bunch of rules. It is not about appearing to be good and appearing to be Holy.
Being a Christian is about love. It is about knowing and experiencing the love of God. It is about taking that love and putting it into your life with everyone you meet.
C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity talks about love and attitude and actions. He says, Don’t even bother about considering if you love your neighbor or not, just take the actions to love them.
Don’t weigh the evidence and the facts and the dirt that you have against somebody. Don’t bother wondering if they are “worth” your time and love. Just love them.
If you find yourself being mean to someone you will find that you love them less. If you find yourself being kind, you will find that you love them more.
Corrie Ten Boom in the book, Reflections of god’s Glory (page 69), wrote, “In Africa a man came to a meeting with bandaged hands. I asked him how he had been injured. He said, “My neighbor’s straw roof was on fire; I helped him to put it out and that’s how my hands were burned.
“Later I heard the whole story. The neighbor hated him and had set his roof on fire while his wife and children were asleep in the hut. They were in great danger. Fortunately, he was able to put out the fire in his house on time. But sparks flew over to the roof of the man who had set the house on fire and his house started to burn. There was no hate in the heart of this Christian; there was love for his enemy and he did everything he could to put out the fire in his neighbor’s house. That is how his own hands were burned.”
Love is the way to victory in your life. God wasn’t just giving you a good idea when he said, “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.” He was giving you the answer to a successful life.
• Love makes things work,
• it is the patience to not act out in anger,
• it is the courage to make the difficult decision,
• it is the compassion to see a need and meet it,
• it is the humility to let go of pride and just love somebody no matter what.
• It is the power of God working through you to change and transform your world by the power of his love.
Albert Tomei is a justice of the New York State Supreme Court. A young defendant was convicted in his court for gunning down another person, execution style. The murderer had a bad record, was no stranger to the system, and only stared in anger as the jury returned its guilty verdict.
The victim’s family had attended every day of the 2-week trial. On the day of sentencing, the victim’s mother and grandmother addressed the court. When they spoke, neither addressed the jury. Both spoke directly to the murderer. They both forgave him.
"You broke the Golden Rule—loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind. You broke the law——loving your neighbor as yourself. I am your neighbor," the older of the two women told him, "so you have my address. If you want to write, I’ll write you back. I sat in this trial for two weeks, and for the last sixteen months I tried to hate you. But you know what? I could not hate you. I feel sorry for you because you made a wrong choice."
Judge Tomei writes: "For the first time since the trial began, the defendant’s eyes lost their laser force and appeared to surrender to a life force that only a mother can generate: nurturing, unconditional love. After the grandmother finished, I looked at the defendant. His head was hanging low. There was no more swagger, no more stare. The destructive and evil forces within him collapsed helplessly before this remarkable display of humaneness."
Success in God’s eyes involves your priorities, it involves your obedience, and it involves the generations.
3. Success is Generational.
A friend of mine says “Don’t judge my parenting skills based on my children, look at my grandchildren to see how I trained my children to raise a family.”
When we look at our lives, we need to see ourselves in the scope of eternity. You know, you are a very important person in light of eternity.
There are hundreds and thousands of people who will be influenced by the decisions that we make today.
Think of how many people are influenced by Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb.
How many peoples lives are changed because the Wright Brothers wanted to build a flying machine.
How many people are going to heaven because the apostle Paul gave his life as a servant to the Church.
How many people’s eternities will be affected because of this church and the people in this church.
You see, success to God is generational. He said,
• “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
• 10 But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands. Deuteronomy 5:10 (NLT)
Jeremiah 32:18 (NLT)
18 You show unfailing love to thousands, but you also bring the consequences of one generation’s sin upon the next. You are the great and powerful God, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
Success to God is when the gift that he gave to you gets into the people around you to.
I have the privilege of teaching the drums in a studio in Red Deer. And I learned this year that I will have done a good job at teaching when my students are greater than I am.
That is how it is supposed to be in the Kingdom of God. You live a good life and you put everything that you have got into the next generation.
And those people whom you influence and train you should have twice the authority that you have, they should be able to do at least double the miracles that you can do, they should have double the converts and double the teaching and understanding,
And all this is because you are going to pour your life into the next generation. No one is too old or too young to start. You can choose somebody younger to pour into, the good in your life can be multiplied in some lucky young person.
But don’t go to the grave with all your talents and gifts and treasures invested only in yourself. Give it away and see if God won’t give you even more as you prove yourself faithful.
Psalm 78:4-8 (NLT)
4 We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders.
5 For he issued his laws to Jacob; he gave his instructions to Israel. He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children,
6 so the next generation might know them— even the children not yet born— and they in turn will teach their own children.
7 So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.
8 Then they will not be like their ancestors— stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God.
2008 is a brand new year; it’s fresh and brimming with opportunity. It is waiting for you today. What will you do with this gift of time that God is giving to you? Will you make this year one that counts for eternity?
Will you strive to have success in the eyes of God?
1. Success comes when you put God first.
2. Success is obedience to God’s laws, especially the law of love.
3. Success is generational.
