"Conquering Life’s Fears & Doubts!"
"More than a SURVIVOR" series part 1 of 4
Text: Rom. 8:35-39 & Selected
"FRIEND DAY"
Cross Creek Community Church
Pastor Dave Martin - April 29, 2001
www.crosscreekcc.org
God’s Word is Powerful, Relevant, and Life Changing!
The American culture has been watching a television series called SURVIVOR. The show is built around various challenges and the inter-relationship of the players. Being a survivor has a nice ring to it, especially in the end winning a million dollars. Colby, one of the contestants, keeps winning many of the challenges, which gives him immunity from being voted out. Oh to survive! Oh to have immunity!
We go through life with fears and doubts. We ask ourselves, what is the meaning of life? Why am I here? Is this all there is to life? Does God exist, and If He does, does He have a purpose for my life? We can be more than a survivor. God says in Rom. 8:37 we are more than a conqueror in Christ. That’s what we are going to look at this morning, being more than a Survivor - to be a conqueror!
As we journey through life, we all end up somewhere. When the final chapter is written about you, what will it say? Where will you "end up?"
There is a relationship which makes life complete, a new life with Jesus Christ. Without that relationship, there is a void, a vacuum in life. Many people, even those who are well-known, can attest to that void.
What is the meaning of Life?
Arthur Clark who wrote 2001 space novel wrote, "I’m afraid I have no concrete ideas of the purpose of life."
Albert Ellis, a psychiatrist said, "As far as I can tell, life has no special meaning or purpose."
Thomas Negle said, "I’m afraid the meaning of life still eludes me."
Joseph Heller, author wrote, "I have no answers to the meaning of life and I no longer want to search for any."
Isaac Asimov wrote, "As far as I can see there is no purpose to life."
H. G. Wells, famous historian and philosopher, said at age 61: "I have no peace. All life is at the end of the tether."
The poet Byron said, "My days are in yellow leaf, the flowers and fruits of life are gone, the worm and the canker, and the grief are mine alone."
The literary genius Thoreau said, "Most men live lives of quiet desperation."
Ralph Barton, one of the top cartoonists of the nations, left this note pinned to his pillow before taking his own life: "I have had few difficulties, many friends, great successes; I have gone from wife to wife, from house to house, visited great countries of the world, but I am fed up with inventing devices to fill up twenty-four hours of the day." Morning Glory, May 29, 1993
In today’s fast paced society many people are searching for the answers to life. Many are living in fears and doubts, a perpetual state of fear of growing old, fear of death, fear of the unknown. We often wrestle secretly with Life’s Fears and doubts for years, many times until death itself overtakes us. We busy ourselves with "things" to help keep our mind occupied, never truly coming to grasp the purpose of life. We feel like our world is spinning out of control, we ask ourselves, is this all there is to life?
Having Life’s fears and doubts is natural, being able to conqueror them is found in the Bible.
There are four main thoughts I want you to grasp this morning.
1. UNDERSTAND who YOU really are.
Who are you? Do you know?
A. You are divinely crafted.
Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
* God created mankind in His own Image, in His likeness, male & female.
* Created in God’s image distinguishes us from the animal world. With a capacity to know God.
"But nothing in nature, except for man, ever tries to think of the meaning of life. Nothing climbs above its natural physical needs. No living creature, except for a man, is able to take a risk, and even the risk of death, for the sake of truth."
* God has made you, you. Absolutely unique, no two of us are alike. He broke the mold.
* DNA, Retina scans, finger prints, heart rhythms, brain waves - you stand alone in a sea of 6 billion people - you are divinely crafted by God from your personality to your looks.
B. You are incredibly complex.
Psalm 139:13-14 "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."
* Pause for a moment and look at yourself, your fingers, speech, eyesight, hearing, mental capacity with your thoughts and memory, digestion system, your heart and lungs, skeleton structure, blood vessels, nerves - inside you are some 100,000 miles of nerve fibers along which messages zip at speeds of 300 miles per hour!
* In the fraction of a second that it takes you to say one word, the marrow in your bones produces over 100,000 red blood cells. We are divinely crafted and complex!
What the Body Does in 24 Hours
If you are an adult of average weight, here is what you accomplish in 24 hours:
* your heart beats 103,689 times
* your blood travels 168,000,000 miles
* you breathe 23,040 times
* you inhale 438 cubic feet of air
* you eat 3. 25 pounds of food
* you drink 2. 9 quarts of liquids
* you lose 7/8 pounds of waste
* you speak 4800 words, including some unnecessary ones
* you move 750 muscles - body is about 65% water.
* your nails grow . 000046 inch
* your hair grows . 01714 inch
* you exercise 7,000,000 brain cells
And all these spontaneously and automatically! Source unknown
Psalms 95:6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
Psalm 139:14 "I will praise Him, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."
C. You are infinitely valuable.
Genesis 2:7 the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
* Man became a living being, a living soul. What does this mean? God gave life to the body! An eternal being!
Job 33:14
* Man is made up of Body, Soul and Spirit.
* Body - the physical body, the house for the Soul and Spirit.
* Soul - Our conscience of natural surroundings - reason, affections, emotions, the real you. It concerns life, action, and emotion.
A Swedish doctor in a new book says he discovered the human soul weighs 21 grams. He placed beds of terminal patients on sensitive scales and saw the needle drop when the patients died, he says. -Pastor’s Manual
* Spirit - God consciousness - only mankind has this. part related to worship and divine communion.
The two terms are often used interchangeably, the same functions being ascribed to each (cf. John 12:27; 1 Cor. 16:18; 2 Cor. 7:13 with Matthew 11:29; 2 Cor. 7:1 with 1 Peter 2:11; James 5:20 with 1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Peter 1:9).
* Mt. 16:26 - The Lord speaks about gaining all the wealth of the world and losing your soul - you’re valuable.
* We cannot begin to imagine the value of your eternal soul. You will eternally exist forever in one of two places - heaven because of Christ or hell because of sin.
Understand who you are before God...
2. EVALUATE MY Life’s Values.
What motivates you?
Ephes. 5:15-16 Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, 16making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
* Evaluate, analysis your life - what makes you tick? What drives you? How busy are you?
* Values are often unwritten assumptions that guide our actions.
* Values demonstrate our convictions and priorities.
* Values are confirmed by our actions, not just our words.
* What do you feel passionate about? Where are your deep convictions? Life’s driving force.
A recent survey found that the average adult spends about one-third of his waking time bored!
Famed economist Stuart Chase once sat down to figure the calendar of his days. There is, he said, an ascending scale of human values and somewhere on it there is a line between living and mere existing. In how many hours of the week, he asked himself, had he truly and intensively lived? In how many had he just existed? Out of the 168 hours of the week he found that he had been "alive" only 40, or about 25% of the total time!
-Woman’s Day
* Life’s fears and doubts can be masked over with busyness or clutter of life.
* Evaluate yourself - are you living with a purpose? If not then why not?
I’m appalled at the aimlessness of most people’s lives today; 50% don’t pay any attention to where they are going; 40% are undecided and will go in any direction; only 10% know what they want, and even then all of them don’t go toward it. -- Katherine Ann Porter in Ship of Fools. Christianity Today, Vol. 31, no. 2.
* Making money can be your life’s value, maybe tremendous guilt from something is the past.
* Where does God fit in your value system?
A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder - to be fulfilled, have a purpose in life!
Three Oranges
On April 14, 1912, 10:00 p.m. the Titanic crashed into an iceberg in the mid-Atlantic and four hours later sank. One woman in a lifeboat asked if she could go back to her room. She was given only three minutes to do so. She hurried down the corridors, already tilting dangerously, through the gambling room piled ankle-deep in money. In her room were her treasures waiting to be taken, but instead, she snatched up three oranges and hurried back to the boat. One hour before she would have naturally chosen diamonds over oranges, but in the face of death, values are seen more clearly.
Source unknown
* At funerals, bouts of sickness or when a dreaded disease strikes we often have a value shift toward the Lord. God uses hurts and pains for a reason.
* What is propelling my life? We need to evaluate my life’s values.
* Is there enough evidence in my life to convict me in court of being a Christian?
Understand who you are, Evaluate your life...
3. BELIEVE God created ME for a Purpose!
Isaiah 43:7 "everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made."
* The Bible teaches us God created everything for a reason, for a purpose.
Prov. 16: 4 "The Lord has made everything for his purpose..."
* From the honeybee to fish to the wolf to mankind, everything is created for God’s purpose.
* There is a purpose for everything, God does not have accidents or makes mistakes.
* You may not have been planned by your parents - God planned you!
* God created you and me as an eternal being. We stand unique in this truth.
* Our Creator God desires fellowship with us, a relationship, which is real and vibrant.
Without a purpose, people live by reaction rather than initiation.
Gordon MacDonald, Leadership, Vol. 13, no. 4.
* God has a purpose for your life - First He desires a personal relationship with you through Christ.
* You are not here taking up space. If you have breath and life God has a plan for you.
What I am is God’s gift to me; what I do with it is my gift back to Him.
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.
* Let me ask you a question? Are you truly living or are you just existing?
* You have never truly lived until you encounter Christ. He gives hope and a secure future.
* You can conqueror any challenge which comes your way.
Understand who you are, Analyze what motivates you, Believe God created you for a reason...
This is the last and absolutely essential step - a new relationship to God!
4. COMMIT MY Life to Christ!
Acts 4:12 "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name (Jesus) under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
* Our messed up relationship with God is because of our sins.
* That’s why Jesus came to earth - His mission, to seek and to save the lost, the lost in sin.
* God tells us we are all sinners - Rom 3:23, all spiritually dead in our sins - Eph. 2:1. We need Christ the Savior!
* Commit - To trust. This is Salvation - to commit your life to Christ.
* To trust in Him alone to forgive your sins. When this takes place the Bible says...
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
When you commit your life to Christ, God gives you a new heart! New direction! New thoughts! New attitudes! New peace! New Hope! New Future! New Plans! New Purpose!
John 1:12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--
John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Professional golfer Paul Azinger was diagnosed with cancer at age 33. He had just won a PGA championship and had ten tournament victories to his credit.
He wrote, "A genuine feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me even harder. I’m going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. It’s just a question of when. Everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live."
Then he remembered something that Larry Moody, who teaches a Bible study on the tour, had said to him. "Zinger, we’re not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We’re in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living."
Golfer Paul Azinger recovered from chemotherapy and returned to the PGA tour. He’s done pretty well. But that bout with cancer deepened his perspective. He wrote, "I’ve made a lot of money since I’ve been on the tour, and I’ve won a lot of tournaments, but that happiness is always temporary. The only way you will ever have true contentment is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don’t have problems, but I feel like I’ve found the answer to the six-foot hole."
-- Robert Russell, "Resurrection Promises," Preaching Today, Tape No. 151.
To conqueror Life’s fears and doubts you need Christ. You can find forgiveness in Him, He’s real, He will change you, you will become a new person. You can spiritually be reborn into the family of God!
Let’s Pray
