I read about Pastor Dan Cale who said he tried to play a computer game his daughter got for Christmas called Roller Coaster Tycoon. In it you build a roller coaster park and try to make a profit. He said “as usual I started playing it without reading the directions (typical guy right). After a bit of failure I finally broke down and read the instruction manual to find out what I was doing wrong and FINALLY - success.”
I thought of how similar this game is to the lives of Christians today. Only after some measure of failure in life do we ask God how to succeed. I want you to know this morning it really bothers me to look around at the lives of God’s people in disarray and so often in despair. So I want to seriously look at a series over the next few weeks entitled 12 secrets for Abundant Living. It’s based on three principles found in God’s word that must be built into our foundation.
1. God has a plan for your life - Jeremiah 29:11
“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
2. There is a battle going on, right now, for your life - John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
3. Too many of God’s people are losing the battle - Marriages are falling apart, children are falling away, finances are in shambles, life sometimes seem too hard.
Matthew 9:36 - “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
Now I don’t mean for these to be used as some magic potion - but as principles coming from God’s word which is the very foundation for life. We call it our instruction manual for life.
Would you like to have God’s abundance in every area of your life?
Well let’s see if we can answer 4 of life’s most important questions.
Who are you? What are you? Where are you? What do you really want?
1) Who are you? -When I ask you that question you may say “boy that’s an easy one.” That may seem as easy as falling off a log. But the question really isn’t easy at all.
I am not asking you for your name - that’s easy. I asking who are YOU.
Did you know that most people can’t answer that question because they don’t really know who they are.
We wear so many masks. We want people to think we ARE something or are NOT something.
Often we get lost in the rolls we play and don’t really know who we are anymore.
Life gets easier when you discover who you are and you begin to like you.
What I mean by that is that you begin to see yourself for who you really are, the good and the bad.
When you understand better who you really are you can begin to work out that life.
One of the coolest things to understand is… God knows you - listen to these words in Psalm 139 1-5 “O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.”
The first step to an abundant life is figuring out who you are - that means we to ask God a question. “God, since you know me better than I know myself, who am I?” Show me who you made me to be. I need to know both the good and bad. Help me embrace the good and purify the bad for your glory.
Not only do you need to know “Who you are” You need to know…
2) What are you? This question also seems easy on the surface but too many miss it.
The question really is, “What did God make me to be?” Again in Psalm 139 13-16 David declares, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
Some of you may not have a clue what you were created to be. You need to find out .
Some of you know exactly what God created you to be but for some reason you still aren‘t there.
Fear, frustration, bad decisions, laziness, compromise, and sometimes even success can keep us from being what God made us to be. Some people dropped out of school, some quit looking, some are afraid to give up what you’ve got for what you were made for.
Sometimes our decisions in life may make it harder to become what God made us to be but never give up on your dream.
I was working for an auto dealership as a master technician and making a lot more money than pasturing this church. But I was not more happy. The path that God chose for you may take a little longer, but I promise you, in the long run it will be worth it all.
We figure out “who we are” “What we are” Question #3 is…
3) Where are you? This is an important self evaluation. As I journey through life where am I? What “tools” do I have to work with? My responsibilities? My resources?
With each age and stage in life comes new possibilities and a new opportunities if we are willing to accept them. Pastor Cale talking about his mom, said “she never stopped growing. When we kids were little - she worked hard to keep us fed and clothed. When we were gone - she didn’t stop. My folks are in their 70’s now and my mom just got a laptop computer for Christmas. She is wired in to the computer and wireless in her home. She’s incredible.”
We need to stop talking about what we can’t do and start embracing the possibilities that each age and stage of life present us with.
Paul said in I Cor. 13:11, “When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.”
Maybe it’s time to put away childish things and childish excuses and embrace the power of God to be what He made you to be.
Who are you? What are you? Where are you? And finally
4) What do you really want? This may be the most difficult question and the one least answered.
What do you want your life to look like? What do you want your marriage to look like? What do you want your kids to look like? What do you want to do?
Most people don’t know what they want - they just take what they get. People need to“Stop letting life happen to you!”
Most people don’t what they want but if you can, let me ask you this.
“What have you done in the last 24 hours to make it look that way?”
We will talk about this further but the question to answer today is, “What do you really want?”
Psalm 37 gives us this advice “Trust in the LORD and do good; … Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart… Commit your way to the LORD… Trust also in Him, and He will do it“.
These four questions are the heart of finding a more abundant life - they center on who God made you and what His plan is for your life. Abundant life is not found in money or stuff - it’s found in becoming what you are made to be. Friend you will never find abundance in life until you become what you were made to be.
Adapted from a sermon by Dan Cale
