Live life, like you mean it!
2 Peter 1:1-11 MSG.
1-2., Simon Peter, am a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. I write this to you whose experience with God is as life-changing as ours, all due to our God’s straight dealing and the intervention of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in your experience with God and Jesus, our Master.
3-4. Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.
5-9. So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.
10-11. So, friends, confirm God’s invitation to you, his choice of you. Don’t put it off; do it now. Do this, and you’ll have your life on a firm footing, the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.
It was the bottom of the ninth, I was the ninth best player on a team of you guessed it, 9 players in our tiny town,
It was my turn at bat, we were 1 run down, 2 outs with bases loaded.
As I stepped to the plate, the first two pitches went by before I could blink my eyes.
All of a sudden, a sickening feeling started to fill the bottom of my stomach, you know the kind,
you know, the kind that could only be gotten rid of by running and hiding somewhere no one could find you, but I knew that was not an option.
So I made up my mind at least I would go down swinging in the batters box, not from the gallows my friends would latter build for me if I did’nt.
And with that, I closed my eyes and swung hard as I could.
I was startled by a loud noise, It was a miracle,
“Crack” the ball flew way out in center field, the crowd was dumbfounded and so was I.
somehow I had hit the ball farther than was humanly possible that day.
I had hit a homerun, one minute I was a nobody, the next minute I was a somebody.
From a zero to a hero with one wild blind swing of the bat.
No batting coach would ever instruct a player to do what I did.
Anybody who knows anything about baseball will tell you to ‘Keep your eye on the ball.’
They would tell you over and over, whether you’re hitting or fielding. Keep your eye on the ball.
Now while this is only a story that, you might only read in a book or see in a movie
It is the only way to make it in baseball, and its the only way to succeed in life.
You can’t shut your eyes to reality. You gotta keep your eye on what’s going on.
You’ve got to watch what you’re doing and where you’re going.
The boy in the story didn’t try to hit the ball that day; in fact, He didn’t even think there was a slight chance that he could.
It just happened, everybody knew it was blind luck.
There’s a lot of people in this world, living their lives the same way, but we can’t afford to do that in real life. We need to take advantage of the life we have been given, after all the bible says that this life we have been given, is but a vapor.
We’ve got to live our lives like we mean it.
In 2nd Peter, the Apostle talks about the kind of life to lead, that makes a difference.
He says in so many words, You’ve got to live life like you mean it.
What he means by that is, there will be effort but no return. You won’t have anything to show for what you’ve done.
You will have kept the pace, but you won’t have accomplished anything -- at least, nothing worth while with lasting value.
You’ve got to watch what your doing and look where you’re going.
Not only on the ballfield, but also in the game of life, realizing the awesome opportunity that you have been given.
As Paul said, “run the race, to win the race”.
And the way to do this, Peter says, is to ‘make every effort to confirm’ God’s claim on your life.
When he says, ‘make every effort,’ he means "give it your all".
TBS.(the bible says) Don’t let the grass grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus.
The only thing that matters in this life or the next, is what you do for the kingdom.
The kingdom of God is close and at hand, Never in the history of the world, have we been closer to Jesus return, then we are right now!
Its time we as Christians, started Living our lives like we meant it.
Looking towards, what’s to come and getting others to do the same.
Its time we lived our lives with great expectation of His soon coming return.
TBS. Once You’re a person of faith, don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given,
complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline,
passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others.
If you’re not watching what you’re doing in each of these areas, if you’re not looking where you’re going,
Peter says, “Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.” Praise God!!!!!
Really, what he says is: “ its time to get busy and to do the work that you have been called to do for the kingdom of God.
If you take Peter’s words at face value, what he’s saying is: we have been given the most awesome (and that doesn’t even come close to describing it) opportunity ever in the history of the world.
You might say, well what about all the great inventers and the great minds of our time and the opportunities they had?
Well what about them?, They ain’t got anything on you. Are you willing? Then you have an awesome opportunity in front of you.
You may say that “I could never be a great preacher, I could never be a Billy Graham”
How do you know? God may have tapped a 1,000 men on the shoulder, with the same opportunity
before Billy Graham stood up and said “Here am I Lord, send me, I‘ll do it!”.
We can’t shut our eyes to the way we live our life and aimlessly wonder around in a relaxed state of mediocrity.
Who wants that? God don’t like “lukewarm”, He would you rather be "Hot or cold", but not lukewarm!
Or, We can establish some life changing patterns and set some new kingdom building priorities and start doing our part!
We need to add the qualities that Peter talks about to our lives, in a consistent and intentional way.
We’ve got to watch what we’re doing and look where we’re going. We need to start living our lives like we mean it.
And why? This is why: The way we live our life reflects on the One who gave us life.
The way we live our life reflects on the One who gave us new life in Jesus Christ!
When people look at us, guess what they think they’re looking at.
When people look at us, what they think they are seeing is a life that has the stamp of God on it.
We are named with the name of Christ. We belong to him. And they expect to see him in us!
In Ezekiel 36 God says, ‘The nations will know that I am the Lord....’ How? How will they know?
Ezek. 36:22.&23. MSG.
"Therefore, tell Israel, ’Message of God, the Master: I’m not doing this for you, Israel. I’m doing it for me, to save my character, my holy name, which you’ve blackened in every country where you’ve gone. I’m going to put my great and holy name on display, the name that has been ruined in so many countries, the name that you blackened wherever you went. Then the nations will realize who I really am, that I am God, when I show my holiness through you so that they can see it with their own eyes.
In other words, God says, When others look at you and see me through you, then they will know that I am the Lord!
People will look at us as they always do, and what they will see is this:
Either Life in Christ matters, or it doesn’t.
I don’t know about you, but it makes me wonder : When people look at us, are we living the life that were telling them about
You know, the one that’s so great they ought to be living it to?
How can live a life pleasing to God, a life through which God is proved holy as others observe us?
2nd Peter 1:3 MSG says,
“Everything that goes into a life pleasing to God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God.”
Those of us, who already know Jesus, have the answer already!
For those that don’t, This is the secret.
The closer we get to know Jesus, the more intimate we become with Him,
and the more intimate we become with Jesus, the more like him we become.
And the more like him we are, the more his character will shine through.
And he will be ‘proved holy’ through us before the eyes of all who look at us.
Many people over the years have said, one day, I’ll start living for the Lord
One day, I’ll get my life together, then I’ll start living for Jesus.
One day, I’ll start to do more for Him when I get more time,
ya you know one day, when I retire I’ll start to do all kinds of stuff for Him, I’ll have plenty of time then.
One day, when I get rich and hit the lotto, I’ll give more to Him,
one day, I’ll pay off the church or if the church is paid off, I’ll build on to it, one day
Its time to live our life like we mean it.
Time is so short before the Lords return.
The only thing that matters in this life and the next, is what we do for the Kingdom of God.
Today, the day after Christmas, all the big day after sales commence, things start to get back to normal, back to business as usual.
A week from now people will forget, about what they just celebrated for another year and it will be just another ordinary day.
Tell me, when will we start to live our life like we mean it?
*Why not start today
*Why not start today, by accepting Jesus today if you never have before.
If your waiting to get your life together before you come to Him, get used to waiting, because as long as its up to you it will never happen.
The bible says “come as you are” If that’s you, today is your day to start living your life like you mean it!
*Why not start today, by doing more for Him, maybe it’s the ministry of helps
Help someone whose less fortunate than you, help clean the church, help teach a child, help someone have a better day!
Help someone who doesn’t know the way
If that’s you and you’ve always felt like you wanted to do more, today is your day to start living your life, like you mean it.
*Why not start today, by giving more to Him. If you have a desire to one day give a monumental offering to Him,
Then why not start today, giving just a little bit extra.
Do you remember the story of the talents, TBS.(the bible says) he who is faithful with little, one day will be trusted with much.
God knows your hearts desire and as you step out in faith, God will respond to your faith every step of the way and bless you for doing so. If that’s you, today is your day to start living life, like you mean it!
Don’t put anything off till tomorrow, that you can do for the Kingdom of God today.
Lets pray.
*Thanks to Issac Butterworth for the sermon starter idea
