Sermon
Lanier Christian Church
January 8, 2016
David Simpson
Priority Planning
James 4:13-15
Well, the New Year is well underway. I have heard several offer their thoughts about the New Year with a phrase that goes like this: “2017 is going to be a great year. I just know it!” I think all of us pray that to be the case. It is certainly a wonderful trait for the new year to have a great attitude and to think positively!
However, many are only using positive thinking techniques to guide their hopes for the future. It’s often a thought expressed along the lines of, “If I just think positively, positive results will occur.” I have nothing against positive thinking. In fact, I would rather be confronted with that any day, rather than the negative wet blanket approach! But, biblical wisdom follows a different pattern.
James wrote: “Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13-15)
So, I want to offer some practical thoughts about how all of us should approach 2017 and the days and weeks and months ahead of us:
Goals are important, but God must be at the center of every goal. Planning is essential, but it must be known that HE is responsible for the outcome
This year, try a new approach to planning. Often times we plan our day and never pray. Sometimes we plan and pray. 1. This year, why not pray first and then, plan. Make God your first focus, not your plans.
Pray first, then plan. Seek Him first. Place your needs second. I like the hymn: “I am thine, O Lord.” The words contain the phrase, “Draw me nearer, nearer blessed Lord…” That ought to be our prayer, “Draw me nearer”. Put yourself in the care of God. You are NOT the one in charge of each day. HE is. Pray with words like: “Lord, I seek your will, not my own.
Trent Dilfer is currently a football analyst with ESPN. He was formerly an NFL quarterback with several teams. He served for most of his career in back-up roles. When the starting quarterback got hurt, he went in. As a Christian, Dilfer prayed that the Holy Spirit would allow him to have an attitude of joy and peace in the midst of his setbacks.
Throughout the 2000 season Dilfer continued to back up the struggling Tony Banks who was quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens. Midway through the season Coach Brian Billick decided to make a change at quarterback. He eventually led them to the playoffs and to many a critic’s amazement, went on to lead the Ravens to an exciting victory in Super Bowl 35. In a league where big egos are everywhere, Dilfer showed a different side when he was interviewed after his Super Bowl victory. His words were indicative of what he had written earlier in his prayer journal: “Thank you, God, that you are using football as the means to break me so that I may know you better.”
Trent Dilfer prays to know God better, to be nearer to Him.
What about you and me? Perhaps this is the year that we pray first, before any plans are made. That we seek God above all – to be near Him, to know Him better to really allow Him to lead our every step.
2. Desire God’s Will above your own.
It’s an easy temptation to say our prayers and try to direct God as to how to answer our prayers. When we do that, we are praying selfish prayers. We are asking God to bless our will, not seeking His will.
Philip Yancey once wrote: “If God doesn’t want something for me I shouldn’t want it either.”
That is so true, but it requires us to be unselfish as we approach this new year and our daily lives.
Perhaps we should explore what the signs of a selfish prayer really are:
Focusing on Your Comfort
When you’re praying because you are just trying to get out of a tough situation and gain your own comfort, that’s a selfish prayer. The focus of that prayer is not in God’s plan for you. It definitely isn’t on his will. The focus is on you. Don’t be surprised if the prayer isn’t answered because God only wants the very best for you and in many cases, the very best situation is something that you need to realize through discomfort and challenges.
Focus on What Makes Your Life Easier
At times it can be easy to look at God as some sort of genie that we call on to grant our wishes. But if that’s how we look at our prayer and relationship with God, we are not really looking at it in the right way. The true relationship with Jesus is to place Him front and center. This doesn’t necessarily mean that our life becomes easier and doesn’t necessarily involve comfort and convenience.
Focus on Things
When we focus on material things in our prayers, we tend to look at those things as the solution to our problems and then we can easily confuse those things with the solution. The real solution is our relationship with Christ. But focusing too much of our prayers in things, we end up confusing ourselves as to how we should really pray which is to first seek God’s kingdom.
Focus on Status
When we focus our prayers on status and how it impacts our social or church status, what we are really focusing on is our pride. This is the ultimate form of selfishness. Instead of focusing on status, focus on our standing with Christ because it’s only his opinion of us that truly matters in the end.
Focusing on our Fears
When we focus on the thing that we can lose, it means that we stop focusing on the things that we have to gain. A relationship with Christ is all about gaining him and by changing the focus of our prayers on letting his will become real in our lives, then we change the direction of our prayers.
Make no mistake about it, when you and I pray based on what we think we need, God is often set aside. God’s will is often overlooked when we focus on ourselves in our prayers.
5 Signs from: http://www.christianquotes.info/images/philip-yancey-quote-5-signs-selfish-prayer/#ixzz4V7KF62Mx;
Telling Ministries
3. We must realize that daily life is about God, not about us.
James poses a question in James 4:14 - What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
We are so guilty of thinking more of ourselves than we ought. I don’t mean we should think poorly of ourselves. I just mean that we should see ourselves as children of God and that He wants to pour Himself into us in a way that will honor him and not point to self. In fact, God has a bigger plan for us than we have for ourselves. We just have to get out of the way.
You don’t need me to tell you that life is hard. There are joys and sorrows. Easy pathways as well as struggles. Yet, if we seek God above all – if our priority planning is about Him, not about us, then we live in victory and not in defeat.
I mentioned Trent Dilfer earlier. He is a committed Christian but really struggled in his faith at a very low point in his life.
In April of 2003, Trent Dilfer’s 5-year-old son, Trevin, died of heart disease. Dilfer, then the backup quarterback for the Seahawks, was so despondent that he thought he had no reason to keep playing football, and little reason to live.
But Dilfer ended up playing five more NFL seasons and is now working as a broadcaster, and Dilfer says it was his Seahawks teammate, Matt Hasselbeck, who did more than anyone to get him to start playing again, and to start living again.
“[Hasselbeck was] walking me through the most difficult time of my life. I mean I was a mess,” Dilfer said, via USA Today. “I’ll be very transparent. I mean I was 265 pounds and drinking myself to sleep. I’m depressed, my wife’s going, ‘What’s going on?’ And it’s that guy, Matthew Hasselbeck, that says, ‘This is over. I love you too much to let you do this to yourself. You need to come back up to Seattle.’ And I credit Matthew Hasselbeck for the type of father I am, the type of husband I am, because he really saved my life in 2003.”
Trent Dilfer: Matt Hasselbeck saved my life
Posted by Michael David Smith on August 24, 2012 Pro Football Talk NBC Sports.
Matt Hasselbeck is also a strong Christian. He knew that Trent had lost his focus, his priorities were on self, and not allowing God’s strength and will to carry him through. He reached out to him, loved him, prayed for him and stood by him through his darkest moments.
Folks, we need to remind each other that life is so short, but God is forever. There is more than this life and there is more TO this life. If we yield to Him, and plan with God Almighty as our first priority, no matter what valley we may face or victory we may experience, we must always give Him the glory and say: “I am thine O Lord…draw me nearer to you.”
