Last week it was announced during our announcements that I have been working on a new talent, “Mind Reading”. Now, this is not completely true, what I have been working on is the fine art of broadband broadcasting with my thoughts with my mind.
This morning I am ready to give it a try but I am looking for a few good receivers. Who knows, maybe one of you have the gift of mind reading. Let’s give it a try. I need everyone to work with me here and stand if you will. Now what I need each of you to do is to concentrate really, really hard when I tell you to go. I will tell you that I will be thinking of a number between 1 and 10. Concentrate on what I am thinking. Ready set Go!
(Wait a few minutes) Okay, who guessed 1? Nope that wasn’t it, have a seat, (so on and so on until I get to the number.)
Wow, you really must have the gift of mind reading! You know what? Maybe there might be one other possibility to consider. It might be that no one really read my mind at all. Maybe everyone only took a guess at what they wanted me to be thinking, and some of you simply guessed correctly. Raise your hands if this was the case.
You know, unfortunately, most of us approach the idea of discovering our Father’s will with the same kind of random guessing that we used during this fake mind reading exercise. But Scripture tells us that we don’t have to live our relationship with our Father in heaven this way.
1 Corinthians 2: 10-16 10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.[a] 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
With God’s Holy Spirit helping us we can discover our Father’s will as it’ revealed through the pages of the Bible.
Today is Father’s Day!! A day in which we can honor our Father’s for all they have done for us.
Illustration: I think back to my youth and how I desperately wanted to please my Dad. It was almost instinctively imbedded into my very being. I am blessed today to still have my Dad living, he lives down in Texas and even though we don’t see one another much or even talk that much, I still to this day have that strong desire to please my Father in all I do. Nothing beats hearing Dad say, “Son, I sure am proud of you”.
Whenever I let Dad down and did something that didn’t please him, all he had to do was look at me and say, “Son, son, son” while shaking his head. This just really seemed to crush me as I knew that I did not please him, I didn’t do my Father’s will.
As I think back to my life and my desire to please Dad, I feel God has led me to a powerful message in which He wants me to present to you today.
The million dollar question for us is: What can we do to keep ourselves more in tune with the will of our Heavenly Father?
I truly believe that in order for us to be in our Father’s will we need to,
I.We are to attend church regularly
Hebrews 10:25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
A. I want to encourage you to not give up on church. Whether it is our church or another church, just don’t give up on church. Because our Father not only desires us to continue meeting with one another, he desires to give us His instruction as we gather within His presence.
1.Yes, for two to three hours each week we should attend formal Church worship. This is less than two percent of our time. Yet too often our fleshly desires seem to take priority over our Father’s Will.
2.The things that we should be doing for our spiritual health fall behind things that are bad for our spiritual health.
3.We are taught early in life that some things are simply bad for us if we place them first over other things.
Illustration: I can remember my father telling me as far as I can think back, “to be considerate of others. To have manners and care for others because if we don’t care for one another, the world would be in chaos.”
4.Dad knew that I needed to gain that instruction that it would not only affect me and my life but that through his instructions, I would affect those around me as well.
5.I needed to hear that from my father. He taught me the importance of priorities. He taught me that I do not come first! My father’s will was not just to touch my life but to touch the lives around me as well. As is our Heavenly Father's Will for our lives.
6.In order for us to receive that guidance that our Father offers, don’t you think that Church is the best place in which we can receive it? As we come into collective worship each week, we come before God asking and seeking His wisdom, Love and guidance for our lives. It is when we leave His house; we apply the truths that we have been instructed with each week.
II. We are to practice what we learn and teach.
Psalm 32:8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
A.THAT’S IT! To shine, to put into practice all that has been learned. To share that light, that knowledge with others. To brighten up the world with the light of knowledge.
1.To understand our Father’s will, we must put what we learn into action. The scriptures lived for those who wrote them; we can make them just as real for us today if we will live by their teachings.
2.I cannot begin to tell you how many times I failed my father in my youth and in my adult life.
Illustration: Just a few winters ago Dad and my brother came to visit us in Iowa before I had some surgery. Dad noticed that our breaks on the excursion were going out. I guess the first clue to this was the extreme squealing noise coming from the brake pads that for some odd reason I simply didn’t hear.
Dad said “Hey, let’s replace your brake pads.” And my reply was: “Dad, I really don’t know how to do that.”
This was one of those times in which I let my father down. You should have seen his expression when I told him that. Dad was shocked and disappointed. He asked me if I remembered him teaching me how to replace the brake pads on our old V.W. Bug. I said sure I do but I really didn’t pay much attention to it and really forgot.
3.You see, over the years each time one of my vehicles needed new brake pads, instead of doing the work myself, I would always get someone else do it and I suppose over the years I just forgot how to do it because I never practiced what Dad taught me.
4.The point of this is really simple. Use it or Lose it! And the same holds true for each of us today as Christians. Our Heavenly Father’s will is that we use what He has taught us. And not only use it and place it into practice but to share it as well.
5.How can I as a Father teach my children something useful in life that my Father taught me if I never practiced it myself? Once again, my Father’s will was not just to touch my life but to touch the lives of others as well, in this case my children.
6.How can we as children of God evangelize and touch the world as He commands us to do within the Great Commission if we never put into practice the teachings that we receive from our Father? How can we do our Father’s Will if we never apply His Truths to our lives?
7.I remember hearing once that we can listen and read instructions on pretty much any issue or topic in life but hearing and doing are two totally different things. People need to take action like writing down a commitment, a to-do list if you will; you are more apt to actually apply whatever that teaching may be to your life.
Conclusion: This is something that I would like for us to try this morning.
1.You see here before you this morning a Box. I want us to view this box somewhat like a mail box that goes directly to God’s door. Notice that the top of the box has a drop slot on it.
2.Each of you should have received a piece of paper today titled “HAPPY FATHER’S DAY” On that piece of paper I would ask you to write down something that you know is our Father’s Will for you. Something that you know He wants you to do. Something that you don’t normally do but you know that God’s desire is for you to do it.
3.It may be, anything from Witnessing to a certain individual that you know you need to or it could be something simpler such as a commitment to God that you will do your daily devotions. Whatever it is, it should be unique to who you are and to the relationship that you have with our Father.
4.So today I ask each of us to simply write down a commitment to our Father as a Father’s Day Gift to Him. During this time of invitation I ask you to please come forward with your gift to our Father and make a commitment to Him today. Once we all have had a chance to give our Father’s Day gift to God, we will pray over it as an offering to the Lord and ask Him to bless all that we have committed to Him today.
5.You know, I shared today with you about how I have that strong desire within myself to please my Dad and to hear him tell me “Son, I sure am proud of you.” And as awesome as that is to hear from my Dad, it wouldn’t even hold a candle next to hearing our Heavenly Father tell me that. This is what I seek to hear from Him as I pray each of us are seeking as well.
