Video…Awkward Invitation
Slide #1
Welcome…Guest/Holy Grounds
For VP church to be successful this year in reaching in our community…
I felt it necessary to go beyond the training we have already have put in place here at the church..
Many of you are currently involved in the Sunday morning Apologetics class as well as the Wednesday evenings Revelation study …but are they enough…are they preparing us to serve God?
This is why I felt it necessary for each of us to take a few moments this morning to get trained in what I call…D.S.T.
Slide #2
For Christians to be 100% successful in reaching people for the Kingdom…each one must realize that spending personal time in the desert is a necessity.
I have yet to run across anyone who enjoys this type of training…but without going thru it…your effectiveness for God is limited.
If I have noticed anything about living in the southwest during the summer time…it is this.
If you don’t first prepare yourself for your journey…it can be detrimental to not only your health…but more importantly to your spiritual walk with God.
Before the average person leaves the city and journey’s out into the desert…It is in their best interest that they carry a survival pack.
(Explain what’s in pack…Lay out on table)
When a person is properly prepared to spend many days and nights in the desert… their experience seems to be more enjoyable.
But when a person is not properly for their journey that very same experience can seem to last a life time.
The desert can be a great experience if people are prepared to accept how God is going to train and provide for them ……...
Prayer
This morning we are going to look at 4 desert experiences that each of you might find yourself in … as God prepares your heart for service.
The first area desert travelers’ find themselves in is…
Slide #3 Seeking Direction
Before a person can head out into the desert for their Godly training… they first need to agree with….
What Matthew 22:14 says. “For many are called, but few are chosen”
Not every person who heads into the desert is 100% ready to know or serve God.
God understands (and is disappointed) that man is saturated by his sin nature.
And the desert experience is the best way to clear away all of life’s impure/dirty thoughts that have been planted by Satan.
God wants your (Individual) desert experience to be life changing.
God also realizes that your time spent in the desert with Him is different from any another’s.
The apostle Paul spent 3 years in Arabia…while God prepared his Heart for service.
Moses spent 40 years in the desert lands of Median… before God called him back to free the Israelites from their bondage.
Joseph spent 13 years in Egypt…serving in Potiphar’s house.
And David spent many years of his life in the desert fleeing from King Saul before He became the appointed King.
In all honesty with the technology we have today…our desert travels could greatly be reduced to a minimum…(compass..GPS)
But there is something unexplainable that happens to a person while they travel with God in the desert.
It’s in these very times that we… like Moses get to experience our own burning bush while on God’s Holy ground.
I know that many of you…currently are on this spiritual quest right now…
And my advice to you as a Pastor is… DO NOT rush through your journey.
Let God reveal the direction that you are to travel on.
Cherish each moment that you spend with God…and watch in the mirror… the life changing transformation that happens to you.
Seeking direction is where each of us begins our journey with Christ.
The Second desert area travelers’ find themselves in is…
Slide #4 Seeking Out Water
God wants your undivided attention…and way too often… the only way He can get your attention is to separate you from what is comfortable.
The Bible share with us from the book of Luke 4:2 that Jesus lived for 40 days without food…but what about water… it’s a much different story.
Man can only live 3 days without water…thus the reason that God choses to send us out into our deserts…
When a person is endlessly wandering around the desert physically dying of thirst…they have no other option but to place all their trust in God to provide.
How many people do you know that can make water magically appear on command?
Millions of Israelite’s got to see this very thing happen…
(During their Exodus from Egypt the Israelites found themselves on their own desert experience)
Numbers 20:10-11…
“Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them,
“Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?”
11 And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock.
God is the only one who holds the power in His hand to bring lifesaving water to people who are thirsty in the desert.
When my family and I visited Hobbs for the first time in December of 2010…
Is when it became very clear to me that living in the Desert is different than living in the Midwest?
I know that the locals here call this area the high plains…
But I also know when you come from a land where farmers are required to put drainage tiles into their fields to remove water from it... This is the desert!
God not only allows people to gain wisdom and mature while in the desert…He also provides life for it as well.
Slide #5 Desert flowers
No matter how dry the desert is…it still holds beauty... (Explain baby cactus)
God will provide water for even the thirstiest land…
The Third desert area travelers’ find themselves in is…
Slide #6 Seeking For Truth
How many of you here know what a mirage is?
The dictionary explains a mirage as an illusion of something unreal or un-attainable.
It’s amazing to me how our minds…as intricate as they are. Trick us into believing illusions…and fantasies.
How many of you have ever seen a mirage?
Daily… millions of people live their lives in this mirage…
How many of you here have ever played the Powerball?
This Past November (2012) the Power Ball drawing totaled up to be a $588 million cash prize.
This jackpot was the second-largest in U.S. History… At one time 130,000 tickets were sold per minute.
The chances of winning this mirage is… 1 in 175(million), 223(thousand), 510.
Maybe you live your life with the mirage of winning something a little more practical…like…the Publishers Clearing House contest.
This was my mirage (newly married) …I knew that Ed McMahan was going to show up at #10 Brookdale court in Bethany Illinois…
Knock on my front door and hand me my Million dollar check.
You see I had the system figured out… (I was 26 years old…I had life all figured out)
I ordered the Field and Stream and Better Homes and Gardens magazines…just knowing that if you First…purchased a magazine…your odds winning greatly increased.
Well…………..Ed never showed up……
For once I would agree with the dictionaries definition of a mirage. (It’s an illusion of something unreal or un-attainable.)
What about the mirage of following the daily horoscopes…or maybe playing the Ouija (we-je) board.
Your mirage may include a visit to a fortune teller to read your palm…
Or much simpler you just believing a fortune cookie from China Buffet?
Mirages are nothing more than the devil placing thoughts in your mind… trying his best to distract you from spending time with God in the desert.
God wants you to rely on Him to provide for you…not mirages of this life.
The Fourth and final desert area travelers’ find themselves in is…
Slide #7 Seeking Shelter
When a person looks back at the many trials they have gone thru in their life.
It is easy see to when and where God steps in and guides them through the desert.
When you’re walking around the desert…God is the only one who can provide you with shelter and protection.
When I look back at my personal life…I am so thankful to be where I am today in my walk with Christ.
My past was…dirty…hopeless…empty.
Nothing I did…displayed Christ-like character.
But because God loved me…He had to allow me to get to a point in my life that I felt broken and lost.
It was at that moment that He began to reveal to me what can happen …if I allowed Him into my life.
I learned in a church…much like VP…that I was just like dozens of other people.
…endlessly walking around life’s desert…in need of God’s saving grace.
It was at that moment…God shared with me these life changing words from…
Isaiah 41:17-18
“When the poor and needy seek water,
and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the LORD will answer them;
I the God of Israel will not forsake them
.
18 I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the midst of the valleys.
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.
In these 2 verses confirmed to me that God is the only provision I need to survive.
I don’t know where you are at today…in your relationship with God.
Or even if you have one.
But this I do know…if you are just trying to survive life’s travels on your own.
You cannot do it.
If you’re here today and ready to let God be your guide in your desert…this alter is open for you.
If you’re the one here today and know God personally…but you’re tired of trying to do it all alone…why not ask God to help you.
Invitation…
Slide #8
(Explain small pack with water/Bible)
At the end of our invitation today…I want to each of you to come down and grab a bottle of this water.
It’s not Holy water…but it does hold a mystery that every person in Hobbs needs to learn about.
This year I want each of you to share Jesus without fear.
