Living the Good Life
A Study of John 1 & 2
Having what it takes to make it in the world today…
Jesus came for one purpose
John 10:10b
“…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
To give us an abundant life.
God never intended that we be miserable, hurt, damaged, or depressed.
The problem is that we human types keep trying to find the good life in all the wrong places, using all the wrong tools, with all the wrong resources, and getting miserable empty results.
We all know this!
We keep trying it anyway.
It doesn’t have to be that way!
Let me show you what Jesus teaches us about living the good life.
Jesus came to show us how to obtain a great life
He showed us by the example he set in his daily deeds.
He taught us with simple profound stories and crisp clear illustrations from the world surrounding us.
He empowers us through his Holy Spirit to become new creatures and to overcome the evil one.
Learning about Living the Good Life
Finding the Source of Significance – John 1:1-13
Satisfying the Hunger for Approval – John 1:14-34
Discovering Your Purpose for Being – John 1:35-50
Understanding the Root of Happiness – John 2:1-11
Focusing on the Valuable – John 2:12-25
The Right that changes everything
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
God is the author of life
To Live the good life you have to build on the right foundation…
It is critical to understand that God is the author, designer, and creator of life.
God is the author of life. Jesus is God. Jesus is the author, designer, and creator of life.
Every so often the news will report that man has come up with life…In a test tube; On Mars; On a Saturn moonscape; or in the polar icecape 17 gazillion years before prehistoric man.
These reports are all suspect. In a test tube we find people carefully coaxing amino acids to join up and become proteins – hardly life and hardly accidental.
On Mars and Saturn moon there is evidence of water or ice… which is hardly life and hardly Godless if there is life.
We are facing many ethical issues with respect to life
Abortion, cloning, birth control pills, the night after pill, genetic engineering, euthanasia, and the list goes on.
All these issues obscure the truth and miss the point by a good country mile!
Life comes from God – God breathed…
Humankind will never be masters of life – only possessors and stewards
Humankind will never be a creator of life – only procreators.
If humankind ever becomes designers it will be of the vessel – not the spirit.
God is the source of significance
As the creator he has endowed us with our innate purpose and reason for being… our significance
Satan wants you to believe three lies – all of which diminish God’s part in your significance as a person.
Lie #1: God, if he exists at all, is not really interested in you.
John 1:12
12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
I have the right to become a child of God.
Not part of the normal biological processes
Not born of natural descent, Nor of human decision, Not in a test tube, invitro, adoption – Or a husband’s will
Not sure why it says husbands will – seems to me that wife is usually involved in these decisions!
I can be born of God
To give those who will receive him the right to become children of God
That tells me that he cares – for a child has five rights and expectations
The right of daily care and substance
Holding a baby in your arms moments after birth is a life-changing moment. There is not a father in the world that has done this that has not driven home from the hospital with a new sense of purpose and reason for work.
The right of protection
This is so innate that when we hear of a parent who abuses, neglects, or abandons a child, we are incensed.
The expectation of participation in the family
The family is not a dictatorship. It is a bonding of souls in a loving relationship with different participants in different roles. The father teacher leader. The mother sustainer guidance giver. The child who has a place of safety and source of significance.
The expectation of teaching and discipline
The family is a place where we can safely learn the lessons of life.
The right of inheritance
all that is the parents belongs to the child – eventually.
God clearly cares because he extends to each of us the right to become his child!
Lie #2: God’s love is conditional and based on your appearance, position, or performance in life.
Our culture is totally focused on these three coins of value.
Appearance
We live in a world where Barbie and Ken are idolized and normal people are marginalized. It is a world of beauty contests, beefcake calendars, and a never-ending flow of books about dieting and exercise.
I once heard a news story about a woman who had been murdered by a serial killer. The reporter made a final comment at the end of his story that said, “What makes this even more tragic is that this woman was a competitor in the Miss Illinois contest last year.” Like if she wasn’t a looker it wouldn’t have been tragic? If she was really ugly it would be ok?
Position
Sociologists tell us that there are in any group of people an “inner ring” of people. We all long to be part of that inner ring!
In HS the inner ring is jocks and cheerleaders, brains and preppies, wannabes and geeks. (aka nerds)
John Ortberg tells a story about his daughter who moved to a new school while in fifth or sixth grade. The first day of school was traumatic because of the newness of the school and the difficulty of building new friendships. That night as John put his daughter to bed he asked her how she felt. She said, “I felt like a little mouse without a hole.”
We can all identify with that feeling because we all want to desperately to fit in. We want to have a place where we belong and where our position is clear.
HS Camp – “The In Club”. Donna was in it. And I was not. I started my own club and called it the “The Out Club”
Producing Fame and Fortune
Many different ways to seek significance
Would you like to be famous? Would you like to be rich? Who wants to win a million dollars? Would you like to have degrees after your name? Would you like to be an athlete of great reputation? How about owning factories or being a famous and revered musician?
These will prove that you are significant and have great value as a person.
That is what the lies says.
If you can’t compete on these levels there are other ways!
Lighting A Charcoal Grill
by Dave Barry
(The Miami Herald)
Our subject today is lighting charcoal grills. One of our favorite charcoal grill lighters is a guy named George Goble, a computer person in the Purdue University engineering department. Each year, Goble and a bunch of other engineers hold a picnic in West Lafayette, Indiana, at which they cook hamburgers on a big grill. Being engineers, they began looking for practical ways to speed up the charcoal-lighting process.
"We started by blowing the charcoal with a hair dryer," Goble told me in telephone interview. "Then we figured out that it would light faster if we used a vacuum cleaner."
If you know anything about (1) engineers and (2) guys in general, you know what happened: the purpose of the charcoal-lighting shifted from cooking hamburgers to seeing how fast they could light the charcoal.
From the vacuum cleaner, they escalated to using a propane torch, then an acetylene torch. Then Goble started using compressed pure oxygen, which caused the charcoal to burn much faster, because as you recall from chemistry class, fire is essentially the rapid combination of oxygen with a reducing agent (the charcoal). We discovered that a long time ago, somewhere in the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (or something along those lines).
By this point, Goble was getting pretty good times. But in the world of competitive charcoal-lighting, "pretty good" does not cut the mustard.
Thus, Goble hit upon the idea of using - get ready - liquid oxygen. This is the form of oxygen used in rocket engines; it’s 295 degrees below zero and 600 times as dense as oxygen at room temperature. In terms of releasing energy, pouring liquid oxygen on charcoal is the equivalent of throwing a live squirrel into a room containing 50 million Labrador retrievers.
On Gobel’s World Wide Web page http://ghg.ecn.purdue.edu/, you can see actual photographs and a video of Goble using a bucket attached to a 10-foot-long wooden handle to dump 3 gallons of liquid oxygen (not sold in stores) onto a grill containing 60 pounds of charcoal and a lit cigarette for ignition. What follows is the most impressive charcoal-lighting I have ever seen, featuring a large fireball that, according to Goble, reached 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The charcoal was ready for cooking in - this has to be a world record - 3 seconds.
There’s also a photo of what happened when Goble used the same technique on a flimsy $2.88 discount-store grill. All that’s left is a circle of charcoal with a few shreds of metal in it. "Basically, the grill vaporized," said Goble. "We were thinking of returning it to the store for a refund."
Looking at Goble’s video and photos, I became, as an American, all choked up with gratitude at the fact that I do not live anywhere near the engineers’ picnic site.
Will the 3-second barrier ever by broken? Will engineers come up with a new, more powerful charcoal-lighting technology? It’s something for all of us to ponder this summer as we sit outside, chewing our hamburgers, every now and then glancing in the direction of West Lafayette, Indiana, looking for a mushroom cloud.
Larry who launched himself skyward
Although Walters’ flight brought him instant fame, it never proved very lucrative for him. He was paid a few hundred dollars here and there for television appearances and made a little money as a motivational speaker, but it wasn’t until Timex paid him $1,000 in 1992 to appear in print advertisements featuring "adventurous individuals wearing Timex watches" that he saw any real payoff. Even then, he still hadn’t recouped the estimated $4,000 it had cost him to make the flight ten years earlier.
Not much else in life worked out for Larry, either — he broke up with his girlfriend of fifteen years, his speaking career didn’t pan out, and he worked only sporadically as a security guard. On 6 October 1993, Larry hiked to one of his favorite spots in Angeles National Forest and put a bullet through his heart.
Receive Jesus – become my children
When you have a child you love them – “As is”
God loves us all and wants us all to become his children.
Provided us a way past the barrier of sin.
There are lots of hurting people in the world.
In fact if you are in the world you have been hurting
God says “Be mine! “
No physical limitations. No per-requisites. No performance required.
Lie #3: Your hunger for significance can be satisfied by someone or something other than God
Some chose to not compete and look for alternatives
For some it is in drugs or alcohol and "dropping out".
Others register their insignificance in one society seeking significance in another – they join cults, dabble in the occult, get involved in mystic societies, become part of a gang, get active in a cause, continue their education for decades, or participate in a political movement.
And the lies live on in person after person
Your significance is in WHO YOU ARE
That comes from your knowledge that you are a child of the king of the ages!
Your worth is innate.
Just as you are!!!!!
God is your father
When you accept that your significance comes from God - YOU become whole and YOU begin to change and that changes your family
Your significance is not based on performance
It has nothing to do with your skills; with your body; or with your relationships. Your significance is not based on whom you know; rich or famous; influential or powerful; artistic or intelligent.
The foundation: You have been chosen to become one of God’s children
Your worth as a person does not come from your work, your beauty, or your intelligence. It doesn’t come from the name of your family either. Your value was built into your being from the very beginning.
A friend of mine wrote this and gave it to me a couple of years ago when we talked about this. He said “That knowledge changes everything for everyone”
Life Lessons:
Stop beating your self up and start understanding how much you are worth. Stop buying into the lies!
Raising your children to have a good self-image involves teaching them that their significance is built in. It comes from God. (Stop making your kids do so much stuff!)
Receive Him and accept your significance!
