What God Wants To Do In Your Life
Phil. 1:6
Pastor Greg Mc Donald
If someone would come up to you today, and ask you, “what do you what to do with your life’? Would you be able to answer this question with out any hesitation? Have you taken the time to plan out your future?
Most people have hopes and dreams. Hopes of one day being able to retire. Dreams of one day building the home you have always wanted. Young men always have the hope of catching the eye of that special young lady. And dream about their whole lives together. Ladies your the same way.
There’s a story of a man in his middle years who was on a Caribbean cruise. On the first day out he noticed an attractive woman about his age who smiled at him in a friendly way as he passed her on the deck, “which pleased him”. (Expand on what he may have been thinking)
That night he managed to get seated at the same table with her for dinner. As the conversation developed, he commented that he had seen her on the deck that day and he had appreciated her friendly smile.
When she heard this she smiled and commented, “Well, the reason I smile was that when I saw you I was immediately struck by your strong resemblance to my second husband.”
At this he perked up his ears and said, “Oh, how many times have you been married?” She looked down at her plate, smiled and answered, “Once.”
You may be asking what does this story got to do with hopes and dreams, and what I want to do with my life? These two individuals I’m sure planned this trip with hopes and dreams of catching that someone special. The key thing is that they made a plan to do something about their future.
Do you have plans for your future? Plans that will enable you to fulfill your hopes and dreams. Many have plans for their future and I’m sure if we took a survey among the congregation we would see that all of us have different plans for our future.
Then there are some people who have desires. Some of witch others may see selfish and others may think are O.K. Then there are those who have a desire to just spend their lives just serving others, to meet the needs of those around them .
We could spend all morning pondering on these questions. But, there is one question that we all need to ask ourselves this morning. A question, that is the most important question we could ask ourselves. A question that has both temporal and eternal magnitude.
That question is, “What does God want to do in your life”? What would be your answer to this question if someone asked you today? Would you be able to answer this, without any doubts and without any hesitation.
This morning we are going to take a look at this question, but first, we are going to take a look at what The apostle Paul says about this. (Read Phil. 1:6)
According to this verse, Paul is saying that God wants to begin a work in your life. In here he says, “He who began” And that He, is God himself. The creator of creation, the one who hung the moon and the stars, The One who can do great miracles, the One who separated the waters of the Jordan.
This same God wants to begin a great work in you. This may be surprising to some people, but, it’s true. He wants to take the life of a sinner and work in it and do great things that only He himself can do.
And it is Him and Him only that can take sinners such as you and I, and work in, and through us, to complete His work in our lives, and in the lives of others. But, first we need to begin to realize our selves, that we need Him. Then He can begin to do his work.
When we come to the realization, “That we need Him and reach for Him”, that’s when amazing grace begins to work in us. Here is the way grace works.
Grace does not make everything right. Grace’s responsibility is to show us that it is right for us to live; that it is truly good, wonderful even, for us to be breathing and feeling at the same time that everything clustering around us is absolutely miserable.
Grace is not a ticket to Fantasy Island; Fantasy Island is dreamy fiction. Grace is not a potion to charm life to our liking; charms are magic. Grace does not cure all our cancers, transform all our kids into winners, or send us all soaring into the high skies of sex and success.
Grace is rather an amazing power to look earthly reality full in the face, see its sad and tragic edges, feel its cruel cuts, join in the primary chorus against its outrageous unfairness, and yet feel in your deepest being that it is good and right for you to be alive on God’s good earth.
Grace is power, I say, to see life very clearly, admit it is sometimes all wrong, and in the center of your life, “It’s all right.” This is one word for all that God is for us in the form of Jesus Christ.
Which is the opposite of what we as humans naturally want. We want to reach for the stars, keep doing what your doing no matter who gets hurt along the way because the sky is the limit. Many struggle and work all there life forgetting everyone around them to reach financial success. We just want to keep climbing higher and higher.
But you see the Creator is a lot different than the creation. We may have been created in God’s likeness but we fall short of showing it many times. Many Christians will walk pass a sinner because we think their to impossible to work with or there is just no hope for them.
We would rather forget about them sometimes, but, God wants to reach down to meet sinners and change their life completely around. He wants to take that old lump of clay that the world has thrown away and mold and shape it to be a vessel of honor for him.
I can just picture it, there’s that old piece of clay without any shape or form. Then comes along the Master Potter. He reaches down and picks up that old piece of clay, lays it on his potters wheel and starts to mold and shape it into a beautiful vessel to his liken.
Then he takes and puts it into the furnace so it will forever hold its shape. And then takes and puts a glaze on it to seal it. Just like we are sealed by his Holy Spirit.
So you see how it works, once he starts working on you he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t get disgusted and forget about you, he doesn’t just throw you away, he keeps working and working and working.
The only way God can work on us, is for us to step towards him in faith. This is how God invites us to be his Children, “By Faith”.
John 1:12 says, “But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even too them that believe on his name”. God wants to start his work of reconstruction in you today. And this is not just any work. God wants to begin a “Good Work” in your life. (Read Phil. 1:6 Again)
God’s work in us may not seem good at first, because it begins with making us aware of our sins. For example in Romans 3:10, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one”. Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the Glory of God.
Then we learn that our works are worthless. Isaiah 64:6, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Then we go to Romans 6:23 to find out we have only earned death. For it says, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”.
But it is grace that brings us hope. God loves us so much He would do any thing for us and he did. He sent his perfect Son to die a brutal death just so we could have freedom that we truly do not deserve.
And all we have to do is step out in faith and receive His grace. And it is then and only then we move from conviction to conversion. It doesn’t cost us a thing, The debt is paid in full.
When we have faith in Christ it brings many good things to our lives, such as forgiveness of sins, no matter what you have done in your life He will not turn his back on you. There’s not a sinner He can’t fix.
Another thing that we have is the assurance of heaven. A place more beautiful than we could imagine. It’s walls of jasper, the foundations of the walls lined with precious stones, like jasper, sapphire, emerald, topaz, amethyst and several others.
There is no need for the sun and moon light there, because God’s glory illuminates it. And we shall live forever and ever.
Another good thing we have in our life, when we have faith in Christ is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Which teaches us and empowers us to teach and preach the word of God boldly. All of these things that where mentioned give us a purpose to live. “Live for Christ”
So this far we have seen that God began a work in us, then we seen that it is a good work, now there is one more thing “God wants to perform a permanent work in your life”
(Read Phil. 1:6 Again)
“Will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ”. So another way to sum this up is, the ministry that God has called you into, He will make it good and it is a permanent work until the day Christ returns.
And I, like Paul, am confident that if he hasn’t begun a good work in you, he wants to, but it’s up to you. And it’s not just any kind of work, it’s a Good Work. Can you think of any better work to be doing. Can you think of a better Boss to have. And you can’t beat the retirement plan, because it’s out of this world.
Let’s take a look through Philippians and get a summary of God’s good work in believers. First it is God who begins the work as we have seen in Phil. 1:6. Second, He continues his work, Phil.2:3 says, “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
Third, He completes His work, Phil. 3:20-21 says, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things to himself.
Church listen to me this morning, I’ve mentioned several times this morning about eternal life. Many people don’t know what to think about eternal life. But it’s exactly what it says it is. It is written in 1John 5:13, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
So, those who trust Christ can know they have eternal life because God says they have it.
Closing:
Have you sensed God being at work in your life?
Have you been convicted of your sins?
Have you been made aware of God’s love?
Are you ready to come in faith to Christ?
***God’s Good Work Can Begin In Your Life Today!!!
