Who' Driving Your Car

Who’s Driving Your Car?

Acts 9:19-27; 13:13-15; 13:44,45; Galatians 1:15-18

Have you ever known anyone who needed solitude in their lives.

Listen to this story

John had married young, divorced young, came from a wealthy family, had moved from Central America to the U.S. when he was five, lived in New York City, L.A., and Albuquerque, and was a member of a national gang, Las Podillas.

He was scared for his life because he wanted out of the gang, but some gangs don’t let you leave. In fact, they kill you if you try to leave. John’s parents had told him many times that he was a mistake and he wasn’t a part of their family. He didn’t have much faith, because he found little acceptance in church.

John had a terrible addiction to drugs and his criminal record was longer than most. John had a battle within his mind to go back to L.A. or stay in a very quiet suburb of Albuquerque.

He said it was so quiet in Albuquerque that he got restless and was itchy to hear the street noise and get involved with the street life he knew so well in L.A.

It was here that I stopped him and told him God was at work in his life. God had removed him from harm, from violence, from an awful life of hatred, to a place where he could find quiet, peace, solitude, and a family who loved him.

My sister, Diane, knows because of the tenderness of her own heart, that one way God carries us through pain and sorrow is to give us someone else to minister to. So while my sister, the mother of seven, is going through an awful divorce, she is renting out her garage apartment to Peter, offering him a place to find strength, hope, and solitude. This young man is, no doubt, seeking God to change his life.

2,000 years ago the apostle Paul was changed in an astonishing conversion on the road to Damascus.

The man who killed Christians, now became one.

Yet after a life of hatred, killing, and deliberately finding violence on the open road of life,

Paul knew that his new life as a Christian would not grow unless he took time to be with God and listen to him.

SOLITUDE CERTAINLY ENRICHES OUR LIVES

Turn with me to Acts 9:19 & 20, and listen as I read.

Whether it is life of John, or my old Biblical friend, Paul, these are people who needed solitude in their lives

to find the God who is changing their lives for the better.

What about you?

When you are on the open road of life,

who’s driving the car- you or God?

In today’s lesson we will see that Paul found who needed to be driving his car, his wagon, his chariot: God.

We will not have a lot of luck finding much of God

on the open road if we insist on driving the car,

steering it, and even determining the highways we travel on.

Who’s driving your car- you or God?

We find in Acts and Galatians that even though Paul immediately began to preach after God saved him,

he also knew he needed to spend time away from crowds

in order to better get to know God.

Paul went away to Arabia for a length of time.

In that time alone with God he was able to rethink

his former position against Christianity.

During this time alone Paul probably studied the Scriptures, prayed, and thought about the meaning of Christ’s

crucifixion and resurrection.

Paul’s beliefs and the very way he was to now live

was not formed from consulting with other believers,

but alone, with God’s guidance.

Paul took time to put into focus the changes

God had brought into his life.

Where are you ?

There has to be more to life than the routine of everyday living;

We have seen how God, provides "graceful curves" in the road of life, even in the midst of danger and crisis.

Find solitude;

Find time alone with God.

To spend all your time with people is to soon have nothing

to give to any of them.

Do you spend time alone with God?

Remember that Solitude enriches.

REPUTATIONS ARE REVAMPED

In reading Acts 9:21-27 we see that there were doubters all around Paul.

Jews no longer trusted him because he had become a Christian;

Christians were hesitant to trust him because he had been a persecutor of Christians.

It is difficult to change one’s reputation, and Saul had a terrible reputation with Christians.

However he had been, he now knew that his new life would anger many-because now he had integrity and would see over a lifetime a new reputation developing.

There has been much written lately about Bobby Knight, head basketball coach for the Indiana Hoosiers.