A WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES
Part Two
Seeing My Life the Way God Sees It
November 15, 2009
8:30 AM & 11 AM
Pastor Brian Matherlee
Video introduction
“Significance”
Psalm 8:3-4
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him?”
We see illustrated in the video how God cares about the minutest detail. There is beauty in caverns that will never be seen by human eyes; flowers that bloom and are eaten by animals. God creates and pays attention to things that we give no thought of and Jesus tells us God cares more about us than these tiny things that God has given detailed beauty to. And we worry about our life-we wonder about the purpose, the outcome, the sustaining of it all. But if we could see life the way God sees it we could relax!
I like the way Casting Crowns sings this truth in the song, “Who Am I?”
Who am I that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name,
Would care to feel my hurt?
Who am I that the Bright and Morning Star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever wandering heart.
Not because of who I am
But because of what You’ve done.
Not because of what I’ve done
But because of who You are.
God is mindful of us because of His love, grace, kindness, and mercy. He loves us as individuals created by Him who have intrinsic worth. We are valuable.
But we have wondered, haven’t we? What is the value of my life? What if you could see your life the way God sees it….wouldn’t that be great?
Jeremiah 18:1-6
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the LORD came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.
God sees that:
1. Life is worth reclaiming
a. Many of us understand what it is like to feel cast off at some point in life.
b. In a world that can offer little more than temporary numbing of the reality of its hurts, this first truth is glorious and wonderful!
c. Perhaps no group in the Bible illustrates this truth better than lepers.
i. Their identity was wrapped up in their condition. “Leper”!
ii. They were broken in body and spirit
iii. They were cast off
iv. They were avoided
v. But Jesus didn’t avoid them
vi. He didn’t ask them to get cleaned up before He would have anything to do with them. As a matter of fact, He touched them in order to heal them when He could have spoken.
vii. Matthew 8 recalls the encounter between Jesus and an individual leper. The dialogue begins with the leper telling Jesus, “if you are willing you can make me clean.” Jesus reaches out and touches the man and says, “I am willing, be clean.” The man believed Jesus could do it…the question was “Will He do it for me?”
d. Jesus came to reclaim lives for God. And He did it on the cross and from the empty tomb.
e. Just like the clay-we are in no position to do anything about our condition. The Apostle Paul writes of our condition in Ephesians 2:1, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” Dead people don’t do much.
f. Unlike the clay we are able to choose whether or not we believe God wants or can reclaim us. Galatians 3:22, “…the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.”
g. I occurred to me that we can see God’s heart in the fact that the clay was marred and the potter worked with the clay. God is working on you before you have faith. God is not waiting for you to be perfect before He reaches out to you.
h. God loves you just the way you are…and right where you are, but He’s not content to leave you that way.
2. Life can be reshaped
a. While the clay is pliable the potter can do anything with it.
b. While our life is open to God’s work, He can do anything with it. Jeremiah records the question, “can I not do with you as this potter does?”
c. We ask the question, don’t we? God, can you use me? Can my life be different?
d. Am I too damaged? Too far gone? Too old? Too anything?
e. It’s not the easiest of processes. And this is where many give up.
f. Think about it:
i. Some things must be taken away
ii. Some pressure must be applied
iii. The clay has to be in the center of the wheel.
g. Our starting point is unimportant. God can rework any life. Think about all those God has used. Moses-a murderer; David-an adulterer; Abraham-a liar; Rahab-a prostitute; Matthew-a tax collector; Simon-a murderous zealot!
h. What does God want to shape within you?
i. Forgiving that person?
ii. Faith that He can do a new work in you?
iii. Patience, kindness, love, gentleness, self-control?
iv. Purity?
3. Life can be redeployed
a. Our lives can be filled
b. Our lives can serve a God-designed purpose
c. The Apostle Paul demonstrates that even the most purposed lives need to be redirected. After persecuting the church Saul became Paul—the greatest missionary ever.
d. God can use anyone. God can use everyone. God wants to use you. It will be the most fulfilling thing you’ll ever know.
“God Dreams” for my life:
1. I ask Him to reclaim me
2. I submit to the process of reshaping
3. I begin my redeployment
