“Three Keys to a Significant Life”
1 John 2:15-17
Scripture Reading
1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
I. Key #1 – Find the Will of God
a. The pursuit of God
Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
Psalms 27:4 One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek…
Acts 17:27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
Jeremiah 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
b. The petitions to God – Jesus found the will of God in prayer and so will we! In John chapter 18 we find an example of prayer that paved the way to finding God’s will. Beginning at verse one Jesus prayed for himself, for his disciples and then for all those who would come after him. At the end of this season of prayer Jesus is committed to doing the will of God, composed as he meets his betrayer and compassionate in his behavior towards others. Gideon put out his fleece, Jacob wrestled all night with an angel and Daniel prayed in the lion’s den!
ILL - There was a pastor who had a parrot. All the parrot would say was, “Let’s pray, let’s pray.” The pastor tried to teach him to say other things but to no avail. He learned that one of his deacons had a parrot. Thet parrot would only say, “Let’s kiss. Let’s kiss.” So the pastor decided to invite the deacon and his parrot over to his house. When the deacon arrived they put the parrots into the same cage to see what would happen. The deacon’s parrot said, “Let’s kiss, let’s kiss.” The pastor’s parrot said, “Thank you, Lord. My prayers have been answered.”
There’s great power in prayer.
ILL - A little boy wanted $100 very badly. He prayed for weeks, but nothing happened. So, he decided to write a letter to God requesting $100.
When the postal authorities received the letter to "God, USA", they decided to send it to the President. The President was so amused that he instructed his secretary to send the little boy a $5 bill. The President thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy.
The little boy was delighted with the $5 bill, and sat down to write a thank-you note to God. The postal authorities forwarded this letter on to the President, too.
It read:
"Dear God, Thank you very much for sending the money. However, I noticed that for some reason you sent it through Washington, D.C., and those guys deducted $95 in taxes!"
ILL - The great preacher and pastor of Chicago’s famous Moody Church, A.C. Dixon declared, "When we rely upon organization, we get what organization can do; when we rely upon education, we get what education can do; when we rely upon eloquence, we get what eloquence can do, and so on. Nor am I disposed to undervalue any of these things in their proper place, but when we rely upon prayer, we get what God can do."
c. The precepts of God’s Word
GOD’S WILL IS GOD’S WORD
ILL - Jimmy is a professional fisherman. He makes his living fishing on the BASS (Bass Angler Sportsman Society) circuit. He is also a devout Christian and belongs to the FBC Keys, Oklahoma.
This year, BASS made a ruling that to be eligible for the fisherman of the year award ($100,000), you had to wear the patch and decal of a prominent sponsor--Busch Beer!
Jimmy Houston refused to do it, thereby forfeiting his chance at the $100,000. A fellow Christian fisherman on the circuit asked him, "Jimmy, have you prayed about that?" Jimmy replied, "I don’t have to pray about it. There is no decision for me to make. God has already made the decision in His Word when He said not to do anything that would damage our testimony as Christians."
He didn’t use these words, but Jimmy was saying to this fisherman, "This is not a part of God’s specific will, it’s a part of God’s general will. God’s Word clearly tells me what God’s will would be in this matter."
Once we understand that the majority of God’s will is revealed in the Word, and that the small part that is His specific will can only be discerned using principles taught in the Word, we can make a statement about knowing God’s will. The knowledge of God’s will and the knowledge of God’s Word are, for all practical purposes, one and the same! You cannot know God’s will without knowing His Word, and you cannot know God’s Word without discovering His will!
(Source: SBC Life, June 2003, pp 12. From a sermon by Tim Huie, "The Truth about Pleasing God" 1/16/2009)
II. Key #2 – Follow the Will of God
a. It requires a commitment
Luke 9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
Philippians 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
ILL - Written by Irenaeus from the 2nd Century. “From God’s Hands:”
"It is not you who shape God; it is God that shapes you. If then you are the work of God, await the hand of the Artist who does all things in due season. Offer the Potter your heart, soft and tractable, and keep the form in which the Artist has fashioned you. Let your clay be moist, lest you grow hard and lose the imprint of the Potter’s fingers."
(From a sermon by Jason Jones, Highly Favored, 12/7/2009)
b. It may sound contradictory
Matthew 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
ILL - Rowland V. Bingham, founder of the Sudan Interior Mission, was once seriously injured in an automobile accident. He was rushed to a hospital in critical condition.
The following day, when he regained consciousness, he asked the nurse what he was doing there. "Don’t try to talk now, just rest," she replied. "You have been in an accident."
"Accident? Accident!" exclaimed Dr. Bingham. "There are no accidents in the life of a Christian. This is just an incident in God’s perfect leading."
Joni Eareckson Tada
ILL - "One hot July afternoon in 1967, I dove into a shallow lake and my life changed forever. I suffered a spinal cord fracture that left me paralyzed from the neck down, without use of my hands and legs. Lying in my hospital bed, I tried desperately to make sense of the horrible turn of events. I begged friends to assist me in suicide."
Struggling with the question if paralysis was God’s plan she said, "I believe that God’s purpose in my accident was to turn a stubborn kid into a woman who would reflect patience, endurance and a lively, optimistic hope of the heavenly glories above."
c. It leads to a course – I am absolutely certain that God has a plan for every life.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
A PLAN FOR EVERYONE
ILL - In the opening pages of his autobiography, “An American Life,” Ronald Reagan writes, I was raised to believe that God had a plan for everyone and that seemingly random twists of fate are all a part of His plan.
My mother - a small woman with auburn hair and a sense of optimism that ran as deep as the cosmos - told me that everything in life happened for a purpose. She said all things were part of God’s plan, even the most disheartening setbacks, and in the end, everything worked out for the best. If something went wrong, she said, you didn’t let it get you down: You stepped away from it, stepped over it, and moved on. Later on, she added, something good will happen and you’ll find yourself thinking - "If I hadn’t had that problem back then, then this better thing that did happen wouldn’t have happened to me."
After I lost the job at Montgomery Ward, I left home again in search of work. Although I didn’t know it then, I was beginning a journey that would take me a long way from Dixon and fulfill all my dreams and then some.
My mother, as usual, was right.
SOURCE: An American Life by Ronald Reagan
Sometimes we must wait for God’s plan to unfold. It make take a while for His will to be revealed.
ILL - Susan Filipp writes:
My husband, Alex, and I were overjoyed when the doctor confirmed I was pregnant. "Thank you, God," I prayed. "Please let everything go right." And things did—until I went into labor two weeks early.
Alex and I rushed to the hospital at 5:30 A.M. In the delivery room, I could tell something was wrong. The doctors’ and nurses’ eyes were serious. I heard their urgent whispers. "Breech birth . . . she’s too cold . . . quick!" Why won’t they let me hold her? I wondered as I drifted off, exhausted.
When I woke up, my husband told me gently, "Our daughter’s in the ICU, honey. She had some trouble. Her temperature was only 96 degrees. Her left lung collapsed. Plus her hip is dislocated."
I gasped. Could a tiny baby survive so many problems?
Alex took my hand. "But there’s good news." He explained that our neighbor, a pediatrician, had been out for his predawn jog when he noticed our porch light on and guessed that I’d gone into labor. He had come straight to the hospital, so he was on hand to help with the delivery.
"And just yesterday they had a state-of-the-art incubator come in," Alex went on. "Our daughter’s the first one to use it. Now she’s a healthy 98.6 degrees, and her breathing’s back to normal too."
"What about her hip?" I asked.
"That’s going to be okay too," he assured me. Apparently, a while back an orthopedic specialist at the hospital had read about an apparatus that could be used to correct dislocated hips in infants.
"He ordered one on a whim," Alex said, "and it’s been sitting in his office. Isn’t that incredible?"
I should have known that God was capable of doing incredible things; including making sure that the world was ready for our daughter before she was even brought into it.
By Susan Filipp, Glenmont, New York. Guideposts Magazine, March, 2001.
Luke 6:47 Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:
48 He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.
III. Key #3 – Finish the Will of God
a. We will find relevance – Our prayer should be, “Lord help me to avoid a life that has no meaning, this is irrelevant; a life that has no impact for time and eternity.”
ILL - "Dear God, Your will, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. Amen."
--Bobby Richardson
b. We will find rest – There is nothing that can be compared to the peace that come to us when we do the will of God.
ILL - In the mid-17th century, Oliver Cromwell sent his secretary to the continent on some important, state business. One night during his travels he found he was unable to sleep. According to an old custom a servant slept in his room and that evening the servant was sleeping soundly. In the middle of the night the secretary woke the man up to tell the servant that he could not rest because “I am so afraid something will go wrong with the diplomatic mission,” “Master,” said the valet, “may I ask a question or two?” “Of course.” “Did God rule the world before we were born?” “Most assuredly He did.” “And will He rule it after we are dead?” “Certainly He will.” “Then, master, why not let Him rule the present, too?” The servant’s reply stirred the secretary’s faith he found a deep sense of peace, and in a few minutes both he and the servant were sound asleep.
ILL - A woman was struggling with a disabling illness, and was asked if she wished to live or die. She replied, “I wish to have no wish about the matter, but to leave it in the hands of God.”
Matthew 11:29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
c. We will find reward – Our text declares that, “…he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” What does this mean?
Matthew 24:45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?
46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
SHOUT
ILL - A church ran into difficulty when the elders decided that one man was shouting too much in church. They thought he might disturb the very distinguished guests the church was suddenly now having. So the elders called the pastor aside and notified him that this shouter must be refrained. The pastor told them "I won't tell him to stop shouting, but I will go with you if you wish to tell him". So, soon off they went to vist this farmer.
As they drove down the dusty road to his house, they found him plowing his huge field with his mule near the fence line. One elder spoke for all of the others, stating how they had voted to ask him to hold the shouting down when in the worship service and the potential problem it would cause.
The old farmer quickly stated, "See that beautiful wife standing over there? God gave her to me. See that beautiful farm house? God gave us that house. "See those beautiful children playing in the yard? God gave us those children. See all of this beautiful land? God gave me this land. Now, hold my mule while I shout!"
