Mapping Out The New Year 1 Peter 3:10-3:12
INTRO.- Have you ever had a bad day?
• Everyone has a bad day once in a while Who hasn’t?
• But what about a really bad day? Here’s one that tops many I’ve heard.
• The following came from a Florida newspaper:
• A man was working on his motorcycle on his patio and his wife was in the house in the kitchen.
• The man was revving up the engine and somehow, the motorcycle slipped into gear.
• And when it did , The man, still holding the handlebars, was dragged through a glass patio door
• And along with the motorcycle dumped onto the floor inside the house.
• The wife, hearing the crash, ran into the dining room,
• And found her husband laying on the floor, cut and bleeding,
• With the motorcycle laying next to him and the patio door shattered.
• So The wife ran to the phone and called an ambulance.
• Because they lived on a fairly large hill, the wife went down the several flights of steps
• To the street to direct the paramedics to her husband.
After the ambulance arrived and transported the husband to the hospital,
• The wife up picks up the motorcycle and pushed it outside.
• And Seeing that gas had spilled on the floor, she gets some papers towels,
• And wipes up the spilled gas and then throws the towels in the toilet.
• Meranwhile her husband was treated at the hospital and was released to come home.
• After arriving home, he looked at the shattered patio door and the damage done to his motorcycle.
• And he became so upset that he went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet and smoked a cigarette.
• After finishing the cigarette, he flipped it between his legs into the toilet bowl while still seated.
• The wife, who was in the kitchen, heard a loud explosion and her husband screaming.
• She ran into the bathroom and found her husband lying on the floor.
• His pants had been blown away and he was suffering burns on the buttocks, the back of his legs and his groin.
• So again The wife runs to the phone and calls for an ambulance.
• As luck would have it The same ambulance crew was dispatched and the wife met them at the street.
• The paramedics again load the husband on the stretcher and began carrying him down to the street.
• And While they were going down the stairs with the wife, one of the paramedics
• Asks the wife how the husband had burned himself.
• She told them and the paramedics started laughing so hard,
• That one of them tipped the stretcher and dumped the husband out.
• And He fell down the remaining steps and broke his arm.
I Peter 3:10-12 1Pe 3:10 “If you want a happy life and good days, keep your tongue from speaking evil, and keep your lips from telling lies. 1Pe 3:11 Turn away from evil and do good. Work hard at living in peace with others. 1Pe 3:12 The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and his ears are open to their prayers. But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil.”
If think we all want a happy life,
• And I think we all would like to see many good days, instead of bad days?
• I mean after all Who wouldn’t?
• And I think there’s a way to see many good days in life.
Today I think one of the best modern inventions is the GPS (ELAB)(Guides Us)
Now This got me thinking
• It got me thinking that wouldn’t it be nice
• If we could have some kind of divine GPS for our life?
• A divine guidance system that would help us make all the right decisions in life?
Today, we need to plan ahead.
• Someone once said that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
• We need to plan our lives so we make the right turns and the right decisions
• So we don’t get off course.
• We need to map out a plan for the New Year
• So that we will see many good days.
And what we need to understand is that the Bible is our divine GPS
• And we need to use it to map out our lives
• And if we do we will experience good days.
• But What does this divine GPS tell us to do?
• Well today we are going to see that it tells us 3 things
1- Seek the Lord
2- Follow the Lord
3- Trust the Lord
I.SO FIRST LETS TALK ABOUT SEEKING THE LORD
Isa 55:6 Seek the LORD while you can find him. Call on Him now while He is near.
Seek the Lord while He may be found.
• Does this mean that there may be a time when we can’t find Him?
• It’s possible, because He’s calling the shots.
• But we all need to seek the Lord every day and in all things.
This should be obvious , but it’s not.
• And the reason is We’re stubborn people and we want to do things for ourselves,
• And every once in a while we find that we have gotten ourselves into something that we can’t handle.
• That’s when we realize that we need someone other than ourselves.
• A lot of times we have to be knocked down before we will ever look up.
Matthew 6:33 “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness....”
If we would put the Lord’s kingdom first in our lives
• A lot of our problems would be cured
• And we would see good days.
• But what is the Lord’s kingdom? It’s His church.
• And church is not always a priority for alot people.
• It’s more like, “I’ll come if I have the time or I don’t have something else to do.”
Isnt it terrible that we often wait until we’re senior citizens
• Before we realize just how important God is?
• We should always Seek first the kingdom of God AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
In Jn 5:30 Jesus tells us “But I do nothing without consulting the Father. I judge as I am told. And my judgment is absolutely just, because it is according to the will of God who sent me; it is not merely my own
• Now if Jesus sought only to please His Father
• Don’t you think that we should do the same thing
• When we seek to please God
• How can we go wrong?
Heb 11:6 So, you see, it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.
What a wonderful verse and promise!
• When we earnestly seek the Lord in faith
• We will please Him and we will be blessed
Our divine GPS says that we must seek the Lord always and in all things in order to see good days.
II. SECOND WE NEED TO FOLLOW THE LORD
• And by this I mean that We need to follow the Lord
• By living our lives in the same way that He lived His life.
• We need to do what He did
1Pe 2:21 This suffering is all part of what God has called you to. Christ, who suffered for you, is your example. Follow in his steps. 1Pe 2:22 He never sinned, and he never deceived anyone.
• Our divine GPS says we should follow in His steps.
And If we truly believe Him and if we truly believe in Him
• Then we should do our best to do what He did.
• We should follow Him in His devotion / service.
So How devoted was Christ to His Father?
• He was so devoted that it tells us
Mk 1:35 The next morning Jesus awoke long before daybreak and went out alone into the wilderness to pray.
Jesus got up early so he could get away from people / spend time in prayer,
• Talking to His heavenly Father.
• And We need to do the exact same thing.
The problem is it’s hard to spend time in prayer
• When the kids are running through the house
• / the TV is blaring.
• So how do you get away from it all
• To spend some private time with the Lord in prayer?
You do it either early in the morning or late at night.
• And I think it’s a better idea personally to do it in the morning
• Because it helps us prepare FOR the day
Someone once said that prayer should be the key of the morning and the bolt at night.
Matthew 14:23 “After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.”
• We need to get alone in prayer.
Luke 5:15-16 “Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
Jesus often withdrew(Went away, Hid) to lonely places and prayed.
• Why did Jesus do this?
• It must have had something to do with the pressure / the stress of the day
• Or the stress of dealing with people.
“When it’s hardest to pray, we ought to pray hardest.”
• Because of life’s difficulties, we need to pray.
Luke 6:12 “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.”
And not only do we need to follow His example on prayers
• But we need to follow His example in seeking the lost as well.
Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."
The main reason that Jesus left heaven was to save us.
• He took our sins upon him when He went to the tree
• Now obviously, we can’t do this for people,
• But we can point them to the One who can save them!
• And that’s the way we can follow in His steps.
• We need and We must point people to Christ!
We make God happy when we showcase Jesus in our lives.
• When through God’s grace, we remain patient, resist temptation, offer a smile, bless a child, sit silent, meet a need, sing a hymn, repeat a scripture, praise the Father, give the gospel, work faithfully, feed the starving, help a neighbor,
• When we do this we make God happy.
Our divine GPS says to follow in His steps. And when we do, we’ll be blessed and see good days.
III. FINALLY WE NEED TO TRUST THE LORD
Pr 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.
Pr 3:6 Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths.
Our divine GPS says we should trust the Lord for everything.
• We should trust Him for our salvation.
• When you hear this are you worried? You shouldn’t be.
• Because If you’re worried it’s either because you’re looking at your sin
• Or your own goodness and neither one of these is a good thing.
• We can’t save ourselves
• And because we can’t we shouldn’t consider our own goodness
• Or our good deeds as something that will impress God. Because It won’t.
We have to stop concentrating on our sins and start looking at the One
• Who bore our sins
• He alone is the Savior!
• It’s all about who He is and what He did
• And we have to learn to trust Him completely!
• If we don’t get in the door by through His grace,
• Then there’s no getting in the door of heaven at all!
Our divine GPS says we must trust the Lord in life when it comes to material provision and everything else. And the more we learn to trust Him, the more we’ll see good days.
STAWGRTC ----------------------------
I find myself Remembering the old song, “Happy Days Are Here Again”?
• That song came out in 1929
• And It’s best remembered as the campaign song for Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) 1932 Presidential campaign.
And it says that
Happy days are here again,
The skies above are clear again
Let us sing a song of cheer again --
Happy days are here again
The idea of the song sounds great, doesn’t it?
• And many people may think, that
• “It’s a new year and happy days are here again.”
• And my response would be “Oh really? Are you sure about that?”
• There’s only one way for us to see happy days again,
• And that’s through a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Because It’s only when we seek Him in all things,
• And we Follow in His steps, and We trust in Him
• That we will see many good days, and many happy days.
