I'm currently reading The Gospel According to Starbucks by Len Sweet. The book, in a nutshell, is about how much of what we love in the Corporate Java Giant represents the kind of life Jesus expects of his followers. (Okay, that's a vast oversimplification, and Len might not be too happy with that synopsis, but it's the best I got after a day of teaching fourth graders.)
So, there's one line that grabbed me and just keeps coming back to me: "Do you think Jesus ever got bored?" My loud answer is "NO! Of course Jesus never got bored." But what bothers me is what that says about my life. Why do I at times find myself bored? Maybe it's because I don't have the clarity of purpose and personal life mission that Jesus did. Maybe it's because I get myself involved with stuff that isn't worth my time. Maybe I don't always have a razor sharp focus on what my life is about. Maybe I don't listen as carefully to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as Jesus did.
The hardest answer, and maybe the most truthful, is that sometimes I am going through the motions. I am doing all the things I am supposed to be doing. I am working hard, being there for my wife and kids, showing love to other people, but I'm on autopilot, cruise control. And when I fall into that slump, I get bored. No more autopilot, cruise control faith for me. From now on, boredom is a warning signal, a sign that I need to refocus on what God has put me here for. From now on, boredom is a sin for me, and I don't intend to wallow in it for very long.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Speaking the Truth in Fun
One of the core values at The Crossroads Community Church is fun. Alright, officially, it is, "Do everything with joy." We believe being a follower of Jesus Christ means having "unspeakable joy" and it should be expressed in everything we do. So we have a really good time with each other and in our relationship with God and in serving him and in our weekly worship.
So, I got to thinking about the value of communicating God's message with joy. There are lots of different styles of preaching. There's loud, red in the face, fire and brimstone preaching. There's somber, liturgical, appeals to the reason type of preaching. There's impassioned, vision-casting, challenge people to commit type of preaching. There's emotion filled, broken-hearted style preaching. There's all kinds of preaching, and there is certainly value to many of them.
But the one I'm really digging is fun in preaching. I guess I thought about it because of the message series we are involved in right now. Pillow Talk is about how to have the satisfying, fulfilling, amazing sex life that God wants you to have. And we are having lots of fun with it. We are dealing with a pretty sensitive subject, and touching on lots of sensitive issues in the midst of it, stuff like sexual dysfunction, sexual tension in a marriage, bad sex, what's appropriate when it comes to sex, sexual addiction, sexual sin, the burdens of a sexual past, getting through all of this stuff to a satisfying sex life in marriage. It's pretty heavy stuff.
But we are injecting a good deal of humor and fun and lightheartedness in the midst of the heavy stuff. Don't get me wrong, we are in no way making light of the beauty and the sacredness of sex or of the seriousness of sexual sin. We just soften some of the blows by balancing serious stuff with humor.
And what I am finding is that humor opens the door into people's hearts so that they let some of the more serious stuff in. For example, this week, I addressed the men in the audience. I talked to them about how, as men, we often bring a lot of pride to the issue of sex within our marriages. We feel like we are sexual gods and if there is something wrong with our sex lives, it must mean there is something wrong with our wives. We feel like men are just supposed to know about sex. As a result, many a wife goes around extremely dissatisfied, and maybe even resentful of her sexual relationship. Pretty heavy stuff. But we used humor to approach the subject, and as a result, the men went away delighted with the message.
The men took away two principles from the message: #1 I need to love, honor, and cherish my wife 24/7 if I want her to take delight in our sex life. #2 I have to become the expert at knowing what pleases my wife. Awesome principles that they were incredibly receptive to because we had fun.
The Bible says "A cheerful heart is good medicine" (Prov. 17:22), or in the words of Mary Poppins, "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down." The truth of God's word is the medicine that many sick souls needs. If we at times present that truth with joy, fun, energy, and excitement, it may be just the opportunity for the seeker to open their heart to the incredible message of life and hope found in Jesus Christ.
So, I got to thinking about the value of communicating God's message with joy. There are lots of different styles of preaching. There's loud, red in the face, fire and brimstone preaching. There's somber, liturgical, appeals to the reason type of preaching. There's impassioned, vision-casting, challenge people to commit type of preaching. There's emotion filled, broken-hearted style preaching. There's all kinds of preaching, and there is certainly value to many of them.
But the one I'm really digging is fun in preaching. I guess I thought about it because of the message series we are involved in right now. Pillow Talk is about how to have the satisfying, fulfilling, amazing sex life that God wants you to have. And we are having lots of fun with it. We are dealing with a pretty sensitive subject, and touching on lots of sensitive issues in the midst of it, stuff like sexual dysfunction, sexual tension in a marriage, bad sex, what's appropriate when it comes to sex, sexual addiction, sexual sin, the burdens of a sexual past, getting through all of this stuff to a satisfying sex life in marriage. It's pretty heavy stuff.
But we are injecting a good deal of humor and fun and lightheartedness in the midst of the heavy stuff. Don't get me wrong, we are in no way making light of the beauty and the sacredness of sex or of the seriousness of sexual sin. We just soften some of the blows by balancing serious stuff with humor.
And what I am finding is that humor opens the door into people's hearts so that they let some of the more serious stuff in. For example, this week, I addressed the men in the audience. I talked to them about how, as men, we often bring a lot of pride to the issue of sex within our marriages. We feel like we are sexual gods and if there is something wrong with our sex lives, it must mean there is something wrong with our wives. We feel like men are just supposed to know about sex. As a result, many a wife goes around extremely dissatisfied, and maybe even resentful of her sexual relationship. Pretty heavy stuff. But we used humor to approach the subject, and as a result, the men went away delighted with the message.
The men took away two principles from the message: #1 I need to love, honor, and cherish my wife 24/7 if I want her to take delight in our sex life. #2 I have to become the expert at knowing what pleases my wife. Awesome principles that they were incredibly receptive to because we had fun.
The Bible says "A cheerful heart is good medicine" (Prov. 17:22), or in the words of Mary Poppins, "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down." The truth of God's word is the medicine that many sick souls needs. If we at times present that truth with joy, fun, energy, and excitement, it may be just the opportunity for the seeker to open their heart to the incredible message of life and hope found in Jesus Christ.
Last.fm
I've been checking out Last.fm over the last couple of days, and so should you. Basically, it lets you build a radio station that is totally customized exactly to your tastes. You end up with a radio station that only plays the music you like. In addition, it recommends new stuff to you based on your previous musical preferences and constantly updates based on new stuff you are adding to your library. It is totally cool, totally free, and totally tubular, dude! You should get online and spend a few minutes playing around on it.
Pillow Thoughts
How do you have the amazing, incredible, fulfilling sex life that God wants you to have? That's what my new message series, "Pillow Talk", seeks to address. (You can access the audio for the series here.) This week, the first message in the series was "God Loves Sex" in which I talked about God's plan for sex.
There were two passages of Scripture that I pointed to as foundational for our understanding of sexuality and God's design for sex, both of which come from the first chapter of the Bible. First, Genesis 1:27-28: “So God created humans in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female. God blessed them and said, ‘Be fertile, increase in number, fill the earth, and be its master.’” Three important priniples from that verse alone: Sex is designed by God. God created man in his image as male and female. Second, in some way, our sexuality is a reflection of the image of God. Sex is a spiritual issue. Third, sex is commanded by God. In fact, it is the first commandment in the Bible, "be fruitful". Yes, I know, it's a command to have children, but where, I ask, do children come from? Sex. Listen to the audio to learn more.
The second foundational Scripture is Genesis 1:24: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” It's God's design for sex in one verse: leaving, cleaving, and becoming one flesh. Separating from our past life and past allegiances, separating ourselves in devotion to our spouse, and physically uniting in the beauty of sex.
Okay, so all of that is in the message. Here's what I thought about since then. Both of these passages of Scripture come in the first chapter of the Bible. Both of them precede the Fall. Sex between a husband and wife is one of the most beautiful, purest expressions of our humanity as created in the image of God. Our sexuality is intimately tied to our humanity, to our personality, to our being bearers of the divine image.
So, maybe that's why sexual sin is so destructive to our personhood. Maybe it is why Satan tries so hard to distort the incredible beauty that is sexuality. Maybe that is why impure sex is one of Satan's number one temptations. Maybe that's why God's instruction for dealing with sexual sin is to run away from it. Maybe that is why humans tend to worship sex.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Unspeakable
Being silent is hard for me. Really hard. I am a people person. I like to connect with new people. I am a church planter, so talking to other people is a pretty vital part of my job. So going for three weeks without speaking at all was a huge blow to me.
Here's the story. In June of last year, I began to experience some hoarseness in my voice. I do speak for a half hour to forty-five minutes every week, so, being hoarse is not something out of the ordinary. However, I put my voice under some additonal strain by doing some singing and preaching. I was also under the stress of getting ready to start planting The Crossroads. Stress causes tightness in the throat, so that created more strain.
I didn't worry about it at first, but a week turned into a month turned into three months. I began to suspect that I probably had a cyst on one of my vocal cords. The same thing had happened four years earlier, and I was pretty sure it felt the same. The solution the previous time had been surgery to remove the cyst, but I was not too anxious to have another surgery. The surgery is quick (like 10 minutes) and simple (if there is such a thing when it comes to surgery), but there is a risk with surgery that I would be left permanently hoarse (not good).
So, I was reluctant to go to the doctor, as in I didn't go to the doctor until December. The doctor confirmed my suspicions and gave me two options: repeat the surgery with the aforementioned risk or go on complete vocal rest for three weeks. I reluctantly chose option B. My enforced silence started the week after Christmas and went halfway through the month of January.
Tough, really tough, and frustrating. Tough trying to communicate everything imperfectly through hand signals, grunts, facial expressions, and writing on a marker board. Tough not being able to join in conversations. Tough not being able to give instruction and direction (being a type A personality). Tough and frustrating being misunderstood, misinterpreted, and "misquoted" even by people who love and care for you. It was so refreshing when someone "got" what I was trying to say and so frustrating when I just had to give up trying to communicate because the conversation had already moved on before I could get out what I was wanting to say or because other people simply could not understand me.
I have been asked by a lot of people what God told me during that time, and here's what I got. One of the weeks of my silence covered a week when we were on a mission trip to Mexico delivering blankets, stuffed animals, and Spanish gospels. Being in a vanload of your friends for a twelve hour drive, going into Mexico as one of the few Spanish speakers, and not being able to talk, that was sheer misery.
The trip was phenomenal, as it always is. The first day in Mexico, I did what I always do. I cried. We took about 700 blankets into a little fishing village on the Gulf Coast. As we distributed them, I came face to face with the reality that always hits me: "It's not enough!" There are so many millions of people who need to know about Christ. There are so many hurting, hungry, cold, impoverished people. We as Americans are so blessed. And it's not enough. For the 700 people whose lives we blessed and with whom we were able to share something of Christ's message, there are millions more who need to feel his love and hear his message. It's just not enough.
Okay, okay. So, here's what I learned. The church is the body of Christ, and the vocal cords are getting strained. For too long we have relied on "career missionaries" to get the job done. We send them money every once in a while, we pray for them, we may send them cards and letters. But we have placed the full responsibility of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth on a tiny segment of the church. As a result, the voice of the church is often silenced, and maybe it has even become sick.
How can you see this? USAmerica is now the third largest mission field in the world. Our voice has been silenced even on our "home court." Our voice is no longer being heard. We do not have the strength to proclaim to the world, much less our own nation, the message of Jesus Christ. Why? In part because we have relied almost exclusively on the vocal cords of the church (missionaries, pastors, evangelists) to communicate the message. And that's not the way God designed the body.
You see, there is far more to communication than just the vocal cords. I learned from my doctor that I have to take better care of my voice by doing more than just pushing my vocal cords harder. Effective speach requires much more of the body. Good projection depends on the abdominal muscles, the lungs, lung capacity, breathing techniques, the mouth, the tongue, even what you eat or drink and when you eat or drink. Effective communication also requires more than just the voice. Facial expressions, eye contact, hand gestures, tone of voice, choice of words, all of these things are vital for effective communication. In short, the whole body must be involved to effectively communicate.
We need the whole body of Christ to be involved in sharing the message of Christ if we ever hope to "do enough" to reach the world for Christ. We need everyone to be involved at home and around the world in loving people, touching people, and sharing God's message with other people. I wonder if God sometimes feels frustrated that he has the most incredible message in the world for the world, but his voice is weak because his people are not carrying that message to all the world.
In Christ, we have been given "unspeakable joy" (1 Pet. 3:8), but that doesn't mean we don't speak about it.
Here's the story. In June of last year, I began to experience some hoarseness in my voice. I do speak for a half hour to forty-five minutes every week, so, being hoarse is not something out of the ordinary. However, I put my voice under some additonal strain by doing some singing and preaching. I was also under the stress of getting ready to start planting The Crossroads. Stress causes tightness in the throat, so that created more strain.
I didn't worry about it at first, but a week turned into a month turned into three months. I began to suspect that I probably had a cyst on one of my vocal cords. The same thing had happened four years earlier, and I was pretty sure it felt the same. The solution the previous time had been surgery to remove the cyst, but I was not too anxious to have another surgery. The surgery is quick (like 10 minutes) and simple (if there is such a thing when it comes to surgery), but there is a risk with surgery that I would be left permanently hoarse (not good).
So, I was reluctant to go to the doctor, as in I didn't go to the doctor until December. The doctor confirmed my suspicions and gave me two options: repeat the surgery with the aforementioned risk or go on complete vocal rest for three weeks. I reluctantly chose option B. My enforced silence started the week after Christmas and went halfway through the month of January.
Tough, really tough, and frustrating. Tough trying to communicate everything imperfectly through hand signals, grunts, facial expressions, and writing on a marker board. Tough not being able to join in conversations. Tough not being able to give instruction and direction (being a type A personality). Tough and frustrating being misunderstood, misinterpreted, and "misquoted" even by people who love and care for you. It was so refreshing when someone "got" what I was trying to say and so frustrating when I just had to give up trying to communicate because the conversation had already moved on before I could get out what I was wanting to say or because other people simply could not understand me.
I have been asked by a lot of people what God told me during that time, and here's what I got. One of the weeks of my silence covered a week when we were on a mission trip to Mexico delivering blankets, stuffed animals, and Spanish gospels. Being in a vanload of your friends for a twelve hour drive, going into Mexico as one of the few Spanish speakers, and not being able to talk, that was sheer misery.
The trip was phenomenal, as it always is. The first day in Mexico, I did what I always do. I cried. We took about 700 blankets into a little fishing village on the Gulf Coast. As we distributed them, I came face to face with the reality that always hits me: "It's not enough!" There are so many millions of people who need to know about Christ. There are so many hurting, hungry, cold, impoverished people. We as Americans are so blessed. And it's not enough. For the 700 people whose lives we blessed and with whom we were able to share something of Christ's message, there are millions more who need to feel his love and hear his message. It's just not enough.
Okay, okay. So, here's what I learned. The church is the body of Christ, and the vocal cords are getting strained. For too long we have relied on "career missionaries" to get the job done. We send them money every once in a while, we pray for them, we may send them cards and letters. But we have placed the full responsibility of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth on a tiny segment of the church. As a result, the voice of the church is often silenced, and maybe it has even become sick.
How can you see this? USAmerica is now the third largest mission field in the world. Our voice has been silenced even on our "home court." Our voice is no longer being heard. We do not have the strength to proclaim to the world, much less our own nation, the message of Jesus Christ. Why? In part because we have relied almost exclusively on the vocal cords of the church (missionaries, pastors, evangelists) to communicate the message. And that's not the way God designed the body.
You see, there is far more to communication than just the vocal cords. I learned from my doctor that I have to take better care of my voice by doing more than just pushing my vocal cords harder. Effective speach requires much more of the body. Good projection depends on the abdominal muscles, the lungs, lung capacity, breathing techniques, the mouth, the tongue, even what you eat or drink and when you eat or drink. Effective communication also requires more than just the voice. Facial expressions, eye contact, hand gestures, tone of voice, choice of words, all of these things are vital for effective communication. In short, the whole body must be involved to effectively communicate.
We need the whole body of Christ to be involved in sharing the message of Christ if we ever hope to "do enough" to reach the world for Christ. We need everyone to be involved at home and around the world in loving people, touching people, and sharing God's message with other people. I wonder if God sometimes feels frustrated that he has the most incredible message in the world for the world, but his voice is weak because his people are not carrying that message to all the world.
In Christ, we have been given "unspeakable joy" (1 Pet. 3:8), but that doesn't mean we don't speak about it.
The Crossroads Messages on Website
Audio for messages from The Crossroads Community Church are now available at http://www.welcometothecrossroads.com/content.cfm?id=213. Check out our current message series "Pillow Talk."
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Faith on the Football Field
I've posted a link to Rick Reilly's column about the football game between the Grapevine Faith Christian School and the Gainesville State School. Now, here's the video. Get your tissues ready. This is what it means to be salt and light.
Monday, February 2, 2009
How to Have the Time of Your Life
If I asked you what you would like to have more of in your life, what would you say? One of the things we did and are continuing to do as we start The Crossroads is we are doing surveys throughout the community asking people four questions: What are your top three favorite radio stations? What do you think are the three greatest needs of the community of Anna? Why do you think most people don’t attend church? And if you were looking for a church for you and you’re your family to attend, what three things would you be looking for? And question number three, why do you think most people don’t attend church, what do you think is the number one answer we have received for that question? Time. They don’t have enough time.
You know, time is a non-renewable resource. Once you’ve used it up, it’s gone. Every one of us, from the moment we are born, have a certain amount of time on earth, and you can’t get any more of it. And so, one of the most important things you can do with your life is figure out how to make the most of your time. Did you know, if you are the average person, you will spend two years of your life trying to return phone calls to people who aren’t there? You will spend six moths waiting for the traffic light to turn green, eight months reading junk mail, and five months tying your shoes. You will spend three years waiting for somebody, five years getting dressed, and six years eating. You will spend twenty years working, twenty years sleeping, and nearly eighteen years in front of a television set. Your time is your life, and however you spend your time is how you spend your life.
Let me ask you this, if somebody told you that at the beginning of each day, they were going to give you $86,400, but at the end of the day, whatever you didn’t spend was going to be taken away from you, what would you do? You’d try pretty hard to spend that money, right? Well, each of us, at the beginning of each day, are given 86,400 seconds, and when the day is over, they’re gone, and you don’t get them back. So, one of the most important things you can do is figure out how to use the time in your life. Read with me Ephesians 5:15-16: “Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” God doesn’t want you to waste your time. He wants to use you to make a difference, to impact other people, to fulfill his purposes for your life.
But there are a thousand different things that war for control of your time. Getting to work, getting the laundry done, getting the kids to school, washing the car, mowing the yard, shopping for groceries. One of the greatest tools that Satan has that he uses against you is busyness. Because if he can keep you busy, if he can use up all your time, then you don't have time left to do the things that God wants you to do. So, I want to offer you today five biblical principles for how you can have the time of your life.
The first one is pray. You will multiply the time you have in your life if you dedicate time to prayer. Martin Luther, the leader of the Protestant Reformation, once said, “I have so many things to do today that I have to spend an extra hour in prayer just to get them all done.” Now, that’s contrary to the way a lot of people think. A lot of people say, “I don’t have time for prayer, I don’t have time for a quiet time, I don’t have time to spend with God, I don’t have time for church because I have too many things going on in my life.” Luther understood that he had no hope of getting all the things done in his life without God’s help.
Maybe the reason so much of the time we don’t get things done and we don’t have time in our life for God is because we are trying to live our lives without God. And as a result, we have to work harder and struggle more to get things done.
I’m pretty sure Jesus had the most important responsibilities that any human being has ever had. He had three and a half years to take a group of teenage fishermen, a tax collector, a former terrorist, and turn them into a force that would change the world and start the church. He had sick people to heal, give sight to the blind, cause the lame to walk, and raise people from the dead. And he had to give his life on the cross for the sins of man. But, I want you to look at what Jesus did at the height of his popularity. Luke 5:15-16: “Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” The more the crowds were demanding his time, the more time Jesus spent getting away to pray.
So, how does prayer, spending more time in prayer, give you more time in your life? Spending time in prayer gives you two things. It gives you power. If you devote your schedule to God and you ask for God’s blessing on the things you have to do today, suddenly you aren’t trying to do everything in your own strength. You have the power of God to do the things in your day. When you ask God to bless your day, suddenly problems that you couldn’t work out just seem to work themselves out, people who were wasting your time now become helpers in getting things done, computers that weren’t working right run fine, traffic goes your way. Prayer opens up the power of God in your life to get things done. It’s like my weedeater. When I was a kid, my dad trimmed the yard with a little pair of metal shears, and it took him forever. But w/ my weedeater, I can do all the trimming in our yard in about 30 minutes. Greater power gets things done faster.
Then prayer also provides clarity. It helps me to look at the things on my to do list and understand what really needs doing. Look at Ephesians 5 again, and look at the next verse, verse seventeen. “Act like people with good sense and not like fools. These are evil times, so make every minute count. Don't be stupid. Instead, find out what the Lord wants you to do” (Eph. 5:15-17). How do you find out what the Lord wants you to do? You pray. Prayer helps you to figure out what the Lord wants you to do. A lot of the reason why we don’t have the time of our lives is we are trying to do things that God never intended for us to do. Prayer helps you figure out what you are supposed to do.
The second way to have the time of your life is prioritize. You need to be able to look at your life and your schedule and figure out what’s really important, because not all things are of equal value. Some things are more important than others. Look at Philippians 1:10: “I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until Christ returns.” What really matters? One of my most important responsibilities as pastor is helping you to figure out what really matters in life.
Now, I’ll just tip my hand to you, the most important thing in life is your relationship with God and living for his purposes in your life. Jesus said, “Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern” (Mt. 6:32-33). If you will orient your life around God and his purposes for your life, then everything else will make a whole lot more sense. Did you ever play with a Rubick’s cube? Did you ever throw one against the wall? I am told that the secret to solving a Rubick's cube is in knowing that the center squares never move, and every other piece has to be oriented to the center. And that’s true with life. You put Christ at the center, and all the other things in your life will make a whole lot more sense.
So, let me give you a very quick and basic list of biblical priorities for life. #1 God and your relationship with him, #2 your family, spouse then kids then parents. #3 God’s purposes for your life, celebrating God’s presence in worship, connecting with God’s family in fellowship, growing as God’s people in discipleship, showing God’s love in ministry, and sharing God’s message in evangelism. And really, the first three should prioritize everything else in your life. After that comes work and getting the house clean and making it to soccer practice and all the other stuff in life. Now, the truth of the matter is, for most of us, myself included, the things that take the most of our time are things that come lower on the list. The trick is, to be used by God, to give priority to the things that come high on the list.
So, you’ve got to prioritize. And you’ve got to prioritize in two ways. Prioritize life as a whole, and prioritize your schedule for each day.
And that really leads to the third thing which is plan. You’ve got to have a plan for what you are going to do with life. What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to see happen? How are you going to make that happen? The Bible uses the example of ants, Proverbs 6:6-8: “Go to the ant, you sluggard consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” In other words, to get things done, you have to have foresight. You have to be able to look ahead, make a plan and follow through on it. Look at Proverbs 21:5: “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.” You need to plan. There’s a popular saying: If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
Now, what does planning mean. It just means you look at what you want to accomplish and you figure out, what are the things that need to happen for me to accomplish that? So, you need to plan for your year, your month, your week, and especially your day. What do I want to get done today? Now, how am I going to get those things done.
But let me give you this warning. The Bible is very clear that you have to include God in your planning and that if you don’t you are asking for disaster. Jesus tells a story about a rich man who has his life all planned out and has his retirement accounts in order and plenty of money and security, and he says to himself, "I've got it made. I can sit back and enjoy all my wealth and security." And God says to him, "You fool. This night your life is required of you. And God takes his life. You have to consider God's plan in your planning. Proverbs 16:3: “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” So, this goes back to the first one. You plan with prayer. You seek God’s plans for your life. Planning is not about saying, “This is what I want to do.” It’s about saying, “God what do you want me to do and how do you want me to do it.”
And here’s how planning helps your time. You plan with a schedule. You devote certain segments of time to certain tasks. So, you plan.
Now, the next one is one I’m bad at, and that is don’t procrastinate. Procrastination will kill your time, because stuff starts backing up on you. I learned this in college. If you don’t get started on papers when they are assigned, they all come due at the same time, and you are swamped. If you are a procrastinator, let me give you a verse, Ecclesiastes 11:4: “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.” Don’t put things off, don’t wait for perfect conditions. Now, do you know what kinds of things we tend to put off doing? Things that we don’t like doing or that are going to be uncomfortable, distasteful, or unpleasant. Now, let me let you in on a life secret: The things that we put off doing because they are unpleasant will not be more pleasant a week from now. In fact, they will probably be more unpleasant. Case in point: cleaning the refrigerator. What happens the longer you put off cleaning the refrigerator? It grows more mold and requires more work and more time.
There is a direct proportionality to the things we put off doing and how long it takes to do them. In other words, the longer you put something off, the longer it will take to do it. Whatever needs doing, don’t wait for perfect conditions, don’t wait until you feel like it. Do it now. Proverbs 6:10-11 says, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest-- and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.” Procrastination is a robber. It robs you of time, it robs your of spending time with your family, it robs you of finances, it robs you of peace of mind. Don’t procrastinate.
If you want to have the time of your life, pray, prioritize, plan, don’t procrastinate, and then this is the fun one, play. Play. Now this one seems counterintuitive. If you want to have the time of your life and make the most of your time, how can you take time to play. But it’s true. You need some margin in your life. You don’t need every minute scheduled with things to do. And I can demonstrate this biblically. God commands you to take one day out of seven where you don’t work, where you stop what you are doing. It’s called a Sabbath, and Sabbath literally means to stop. God is so serious about you having some margin in your life that he commands that you take a day off for worship and for rest. Now, I want to focus on the rest part. Three things you need from a good day of rest: relaxation, relationships, and recreation. Relaxation. You need time to rest. It's okay to take a nap on Sunday afternoon. In fact, for some of you, the most spiritual thing you could do right now is take a nap. You need to be rested to be used by God. Relationships. You need to spend time with other people. Recreation. Have fun. Play. Enjoy yourself.
You see, here’s the thing, God wants to use you to do incredible things in life. God wants you to use your time to make a difference and change the world and live out his purposes for your life and he wants you to have fun doing it. God doesn’t intend for you to live your life so stressed out that you can’t enjoy it. 1 Timothy 6:17: “Their trust should be in the living God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.” The Bible says two incredible things. God has created all things for his glory, and he has given all things for our enjoyment. The two are not mutually exclusive. God receives glory when we take delight in the the things he has created. You need to intentionally schedule margin in your life, schedule fun, schedule recreation. And I have discovered that you have to be intentional about it or other things will eat up your down time. Look at what Jesus said in Jn. 10:10: “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” Now, Jesus did not mean a full schedule. Jesus wants you to experience a fulfilling, meaningful, blessed life. He wants you to experience life the way he designed for you to have it.
I heard about a man one time who computed how many Saturdays he had left in his life. He had about 1,000. So, he went to the store and bought 1,000 marbles and put them in a jar. And every Saturday he would take out a marble as a reminder to him not to waste the Saturdays that he had left in his life. So, let me ask you, what are you doing with the marbles you have left in life? Jesus said, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (Jn. 9:4). Time is limited. Jesus is coming back soon. So, what are you giving your life for? What are you using your time for? Are you using your time in the best possible way?
You know, time is a non-renewable resource. Once you’ve used it up, it’s gone. Every one of us, from the moment we are born, have a certain amount of time on earth, and you can’t get any more of it. And so, one of the most important things you can do with your life is figure out how to make the most of your time. Did you know, if you are the average person, you will spend two years of your life trying to return phone calls to people who aren’t there? You will spend six moths waiting for the traffic light to turn green, eight months reading junk mail, and five months tying your shoes. You will spend three years waiting for somebody, five years getting dressed, and six years eating. You will spend twenty years working, twenty years sleeping, and nearly eighteen years in front of a television set. Your time is your life, and however you spend your time is how you spend your life.
Let me ask you this, if somebody told you that at the beginning of each day, they were going to give you $86,400, but at the end of the day, whatever you didn’t spend was going to be taken away from you, what would you do? You’d try pretty hard to spend that money, right? Well, each of us, at the beginning of each day, are given 86,400 seconds, and when the day is over, they’re gone, and you don’t get them back. So, one of the most important things you can do is figure out how to use the time in your life. Read with me Ephesians 5:15-16: “Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” God doesn’t want you to waste your time. He wants to use you to make a difference, to impact other people, to fulfill his purposes for your life.
But there are a thousand different things that war for control of your time. Getting to work, getting the laundry done, getting the kids to school, washing the car, mowing the yard, shopping for groceries. One of the greatest tools that Satan has that he uses against you is busyness. Because if he can keep you busy, if he can use up all your time, then you don't have time left to do the things that God wants you to do. So, I want to offer you today five biblical principles for how you can have the time of your life.
The first one is pray. You will multiply the time you have in your life if you dedicate time to prayer. Martin Luther, the leader of the Protestant Reformation, once said, “I have so many things to do today that I have to spend an extra hour in prayer just to get them all done.” Now, that’s contrary to the way a lot of people think. A lot of people say, “I don’t have time for prayer, I don’t have time for a quiet time, I don’t have time to spend with God, I don’t have time for church because I have too many things going on in my life.” Luther understood that he had no hope of getting all the things done in his life without God’s help.
Maybe the reason so much of the time we don’t get things done and we don’t have time in our life for God is because we are trying to live our lives without God. And as a result, we have to work harder and struggle more to get things done.
I’m pretty sure Jesus had the most important responsibilities that any human being has ever had. He had three and a half years to take a group of teenage fishermen, a tax collector, a former terrorist, and turn them into a force that would change the world and start the church. He had sick people to heal, give sight to the blind, cause the lame to walk, and raise people from the dead. And he had to give his life on the cross for the sins of man. But, I want you to look at what Jesus did at the height of his popularity. Luke 5:15-16: “Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” The more the crowds were demanding his time, the more time Jesus spent getting away to pray.
So, how does prayer, spending more time in prayer, give you more time in your life? Spending time in prayer gives you two things. It gives you power. If you devote your schedule to God and you ask for God’s blessing on the things you have to do today, suddenly you aren’t trying to do everything in your own strength. You have the power of God to do the things in your day. When you ask God to bless your day, suddenly problems that you couldn’t work out just seem to work themselves out, people who were wasting your time now become helpers in getting things done, computers that weren’t working right run fine, traffic goes your way. Prayer opens up the power of God in your life to get things done. It’s like my weedeater. When I was a kid, my dad trimmed the yard with a little pair of metal shears, and it took him forever. But w/ my weedeater, I can do all the trimming in our yard in about 30 minutes. Greater power gets things done faster.
Then prayer also provides clarity. It helps me to look at the things on my to do list and understand what really needs doing. Look at Ephesians 5 again, and look at the next verse, verse seventeen. “Act like people with good sense and not like fools. These are evil times, so make every minute count. Don't be stupid. Instead, find out what the Lord wants you to do” (Eph. 5:15-17). How do you find out what the Lord wants you to do? You pray. Prayer helps you to figure out what the Lord wants you to do. A lot of the reason why we don’t have the time of our lives is we are trying to do things that God never intended for us to do. Prayer helps you figure out what you are supposed to do.
The second way to have the time of your life is prioritize. You need to be able to look at your life and your schedule and figure out what’s really important, because not all things are of equal value. Some things are more important than others. Look at Philippians 1:10: “I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until Christ returns.” What really matters? One of my most important responsibilities as pastor is helping you to figure out what really matters in life.
Now, I’ll just tip my hand to you, the most important thing in life is your relationship with God and living for his purposes in your life. Jesus said, “Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern” (Mt. 6:32-33). If you will orient your life around God and his purposes for your life, then everything else will make a whole lot more sense. Did you ever play with a Rubick’s cube? Did you ever throw one against the wall? I am told that the secret to solving a Rubick's cube is in knowing that the center squares never move, and every other piece has to be oriented to the center. And that’s true with life. You put Christ at the center, and all the other things in your life will make a whole lot more sense.
So, let me give you a very quick and basic list of biblical priorities for life. #1 God and your relationship with him, #2 your family, spouse then kids then parents. #3 God’s purposes for your life, celebrating God’s presence in worship, connecting with God’s family in fellowship, growing as God’s people in discipleship, showing God’s love in ministry, and sharing God’s message in evangelism. And really, the first three should prioritize everything else in your life. After that comes work and getting the house clean and making it to soccer practice and all the other stuff in life. Now, the truth of the matter is, for most of us, myself included, the things that take the most of our time are things that come lower on the list. The trick is, to be used by God, to give priority to the things that come high on the list.
So, you’ve got to prioritize. And you’ve got to prioritize in two ways. Prioritize life as a whole, and prioritize your schedule for each day.
And that really leads to the third thing which is plan. You’ve got to have a plan for what you are going to do with life. What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to see happen? How are you going to make that happen? The Bible uses the example of ants, Proverbs 6:6-8: “Go to the ant, you sluggard consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” In other words, to get things done, you have to have foresight. You have to be able to look ahead, make a plan and follow through on it. Look at Proverbs 21:5: “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.” You need to plan. There’s a popular saying: If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
Now, what does planning mean. It just means you look at what you want to accomplish and you figure out, what are the things that need to happen for me to accomplish that? So, you need to plan for your year, your month, your week, and especially your day. What do I want to get done today? Now, how am I going to get those things done.
But let me give you this warning. The Bible is very clear that you have to include God in your planning and that if you don’t you are asking for disaster. Jesus tells a story about a rich man who has his life all planned out and has his retirement accounts in order and plenty of money and security, and he says to himself, "I've got it made. I can sit back and enjoy all my wealth and security." And God says to him, "You fool. This night your life is required of you. And God takes his life. You have to consider God's plan in your planning. Proverbs 16:3: “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” So, this goes back to the first one. You plan with prayer. You seek God’s plans for your life. Planning is not about saying, “This is what I want to do.” It’s about saying, “God what do you want me to do and how do you want me to do it.”
And here’s how planning helps your time. You plan with a schedule. You devote certain segments of time to certain tasks. So, you plan.
Now, the next one is one I’m bad at, and that is don’t procrastinate. Procrastination will kill your time, because stuff starts backing up on you. I learned this in college. If you don’t get started on papers when they are assigned, they all come due at the same time, and you are swamped. If you are a procrastinator, let me give you a verse, Ecclesiastes 11:4: “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.” Don’t put things off, don’t wait for perfect conditions. Now, do you know what kinds of things we tend to put off doing? Things that we don’t like doing or that are going to be uncomfortable, distasteful, or unpleasant. Now, let me let you in on a life secret: The things that we put off doing because they are unpleasant will not be more pleasant a week from now. In fact, they will probably be more unpleasant. Case in point: cleaning the refrigerator. What happens the longer you put off cleaning the refrigerator? It grows more mold and requires more work and more time.
There is a direct proportionality to the things we put off doing and how long it takes to do them. In other words, the longer you put something off, the longer it will take to do it. Whatever needs doing, don’t wait for perfect conditions, don’t wait until you feel like it. Do it now. Proverbs 6:10-11 says, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest-- and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.” Procrastination is a robber. It robs you of time, it robs your of spending time with your family, it robs you of finances, it robs you of peace of mind. Don’t procrastinate.
If you want to have the time of your life, pray, prioritize, plan, don’t procrastinate, and then this is the fun one, play. Play. Now this one seems counterintuitive. If you want to have the time of your life and make the most of your time, how can you take time to play. But it’s true. You need some margin in your life. You don’t need every minute scheduled with things to do. And I can demonstrate this biblically. God commands you to take one day out of seven where you don’t work, where you stop what you are doing. It’s called a Sabbath, and Sabbath literally means to stop. God is so serious about you having some margin in your life that he commands that you take a day off for worship and for rest. Now, I want to focus on the rest part. Three things you need from a good day of rest: relaxation, relationships, and recreation. Relaxation. You need time to rest. It's okay to take a nap on Sunday afternoon. In fact, for some of you, the most spiritual thing you could do right now is take a nap. You need to be rested to be used by God. Relationships. You need to spend time with other people. Recreation. Have fun. Play. Enjoy yourself.
You see, here’s the thing, God wants to use you to do incredible things in life. God wants you to use your time to make a difference and change the world and live out his purposes for your life and he wants you to have fun doing it. God doesn’t intend for you to live your life so stressed out that you can’t enjoy it. 1 Timothy 6:17: “Their trust should be in the living God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.” The Bible says two incredible things. God has created all things for his glory, and he has given all things for our enjoyment. The two are not mutually exclusive. God receives glory when we take delight in the the things he has created. You need to intentionally schedule margin in your life, schedule fun, schedule recreation. And I have discovered that you have to be intentional about it or other things will eat up your down time. Look at what Jesus said in Jn. 10:10: “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” Now, Jesus did not mean a full schedule. Jesus wants you to experience a fulfilling, meaningful, blessed life. He wants you to experience life the way he designed for you to have it.
I heard about a man one time who computed how many Saturdays he had left in his life. He had about 1,000. So, he went to the store and bought 1,000 marbles and put them in a jar. And every Saturday he would take out a marble as a reminder to him not to waste the Saturdays that he had left in his life. So, let me ask you, what are you doing with the marbles you have left in life? Jesus said, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (Jn. 9:4). Time is limited. Jesus is coming back soon. So, what are you giving your life for? What are you using your time for? Are you using your time in the best possible way?
It's Time for Change
This week was an incredibly historic week in the life of the United States of America. We have inaugurated our first African American president as the 44th President. It’s a time of incredible change, as President Obama campaigned for. So, we stand today at the beginning of a new year, a new presidency, a new era in American history. It’s also a time of a lot of uncertainty. The economy is in horrible shape. The housing market has fallen apart. We are in the midst of an ongoing war against terrorism. President Obama has a daunting task ahead of him. And he has lots of plans and hopes and dreams about what is going to happen in the future. A lot of people have plans for things they would like to see happen in the new year and this new presidency.
But how many of us, as we consider change and new things think about what new thing God wants to do in our lives? What are God’s plans for us? You see, the Bible teaches us that God never changes, James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows," and Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” God never changes. With all the change in the world, He is always the same. But that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t want to change your life. The Bible also teaches that He is constantly doing something new in the world, constantly working to bring about the new, constantly working to do something different in our lives.
You see, God wants us to be like Him, and so what God is about in our lives is constantly working to bring about change in our lives to make us more and more like Him. In fact, God’s plan for all of history is about doing something new in the world. Look at Revelation 21:5: “And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’” God’s plan for all of human history is to radically and completely make all things new, a total transformation of people and the universe and government and our relationships to him and to each other.
So, as we look at a new year and a new presidency and a new era, and all the expectations we have for it, all the plans we have, all the resolutions we are making, all the unknowns that are still in store, we need to remember that God is in control and that God is working out his plans and his goals and his resolutions for our lives. Isaiah 42:9 says, “See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.” God says, “Look, everything I have said would happen in the past has happened, and everything that I say is going to happen will happen.” God already knows what this year holds for you. He already knows what he wants to do in your life. We don’t know what the new year may hold, but God does, and he has some incredible new things that he wants to do in your life this year.
So, today I want you to think about what are the changes that God wants to do in your life, and how to respond to that change. We are going to look at four areas where God may want to bring about a change in your life, and four ways that you can respond to the new thing that God is doing. Now, the first area is a change in circumstances. In the new year, God may have some new circumstances in store for you, something new in your job, you get a new boss, you receive a cut in pay or a raise in pay, transfer to a new location, you lose an important account or you gain a new one. There’s a decent chance that you may lose your job. It can be a new relationship with people, your kids going away to college, you gain some new friends or an old friend moves away, you have a new baby, your spouse passes away. It can be a change in your health. There are any number of changes in circumstances that can happen in a year’s time. Someone you love dies, you buy a new car, your bills go up. In fact, I can almost guarantee that in a year’s time there will be some significant change in your circumstances in some area of your life.
Now, here’s the thing, most of us don’t like change. We try to avoid new circumstances because they produce uncertainty in our lives. But the great thing about new circumstances is that they almost always represent new ways that God is working in our lives and new opportunities for us to grow. Look at Isaiah 43:18-19:
God says, “Stop looking at the past and focus on what I’m doing right now! I’m doing something new and amazing, something that you have never seen before, and it is an opportunity for you to see me work in a way you’ve never seen me work before.” God doesn’t want us stuck in the past. He doesn’t want us to get hung up on what has happened before or how he worked in our lives before or even what he did just last year. God wants us focusing on the new thing he is doing in our lives right now. When God does something new, it is an opportunity for us to make the most of the life God has given to us.
So, how do you respond to new circumstances in your life? You trust God. You depend on the fact that no matter what new thing may happen in your circumstances this year, God is still in control. Your life is working out according to the purpose and plan of God. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then you can be assured that there is absolutely nothing that comes into your life that God either hasn’t caused to happen or allowed to happen. So, there’s a purpose in everything that happens in your life. So you trust God. In Matthew 6:31-34, Jesus says:
Jesus says, “If you live your life in dependence on me, then I will take care of all the circumstances of your life.” There is no circumstance in your life that Jesus cannot provide for.
So, the first change that God may bring in your life this year is a change in circumstances. Then, the second change that God may bring about is a change in character. Not only may God change the external circumstances of your life, but God may want to do something new on the inside in your life. God may want to do something new in you. It may be a sin that he wants to get rid of, an attitude that he wants to change, a broken relationship that he wants you to restore, or a habit that he wants you to break.
Becoming a Christian is about our character being changed into the character of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 4:22-24:
Being a Christian is about continually, constantly being transformed, being changed to be more and more like Jesus Christ, and it is a never-ending process. Until the day you die, as a follower of Jesus Christ, God is going to be doing something new in your character. In this passage, Paul uses the picture of taking off an old set of clothes and putting on a new set. For Christmas, I got several sets of new clothes. Now, one of the things I have to do is get rid of some of the old clothes to make room for the new. Our kids got a lot of new stuff for Christmas, and yesterday they went through their old toys and got rid of some of them to make room for the new stuff. Now, that was a painful process for them. There were some things that they didn’t want to get rid of, but they were things that they didn’t really need and things that weren’t good anymore, and they needed to be discarded. And that’s the same thing that happens with our character. God has some things that he wants to change in our lives, some new aspects of our character, some ways that he wants us to be more like Jesus, but he also wants us to get rid of some things.
God is going to be working on your character this year, teaching you something new, growing your faith, developing your love for others, giving you peace of mind, growing your patience, giving you a greater sense of joy in the middle of trials, helping you to learn to be kind toward unkind people, turning you into a giver instead of a taker in life. There are all kinds of new aspects of character that God wants to work in your life this year.
So, how do you respond to the new character that God wants to bring about in your life? You submit to God. You just say, “God, here’s my life, and if there’s anything you want to do in my life this year, if there’s something you want to work on, if there’s an aspect of my character that you want to change, then I fully submit to whatever you want to do.” Look at Isaiah 64:8: “O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” What does clay do in the hands of the potter? It just gets molded into whatever the potter wants to fashion it into. It doesn’t resist. It just yields to whatever the potter wants to do with it. That’s what it means to submit to God. I want to challenge you this morning to say to God, “God, this year, I want to be clay in your hands. I submit my life and my character to you to be formed into the kind of person you want me to be.”
So, a change in circumstances, a change in character, then, third, a change in calling. God may have a new assignment for you in the new year, a new thing that he wants you to do in service to him. God may be saying, “I’ve got something new that I want you to do for me.” God may have a new ministry that he wants you to be a part of. God may be calling you to be involved in something that takes you outside your comfort zone. God may be calling you to full-time service for him. Look at what happened when Jesus called the disciples: “Jesus replied to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid! From now on you’ll be fishing for people!’ And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus” (Lk. 5:10-11). They left everything and followed him. Following Jesus meant something radically new and different for the disciples, but they left it all to be with him.
Some of you, God is calling you into the ministry, and you’ve wrestled with him for a long time, and you have had arguments with him over this, and you’ve given him all the excuses, but God still keeps telling you that he wants you to give your life full time to serving him. Some of you, God is calling you to missions, to go tell the story of Jesus to other people in other parts of the world, and it scares you to death, but God keeps calling. Some of you, God is calling you to be more involved in evangelism this year, telling your family and friends and coworkers and neighbors about Jesus. Some of you, God is calling you to lead a ministry, to start a new ministry here in the church, to teach a bible study. God is calling you. And you know it, and you’ve heard his call, but you’ve been reluctant.
So, what do you do when God is calling you to something new? You answer the call. You do what Isaiah did in Isa. 6:8: “Then I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, ‘Whom can I send? Who will go for us?’ So I said, ‘Here I am. Send me!’” Now, do you know what most of us do when confronted with a calling like Isaiah? We say, “There he is. Send him!” or “There she is. Send her!” When we sense the call of God in our lives, we say, “God you missed. You meant the person next to me and you hit me by accident!” Answering the call means saying, “God, I hear you, and I am ready to do whatever you ask me to do!”
Listen to me, I know it’s a scary thing when God calls you to do something. Why? Because God always calls us to do things that we can’t do on our own and in our own strength. God always calls us to do God-sized tasks that only he can do and that require his strength and his power and his ability, and if he doesn’t show up we will fall flat on our faces and fail. And that scares us to death.
But let me tell you as someone who has been there, someone who is there right now in my life, there is nothing any more exciting in life than following God wherever he leads. When you finally let go and you say, “Okay, God, if you ask me to do something, my answer, in advance is I’m available, wherever, whenever, whatever, however,” there is no greater sensation in life, no greater freedom in life than that moment when you let go and let God have control. Answer the call.
So God may want to change your circumstances. He may want to change your character. He may have a change in calling for you to follow. Or he may want to change you. Some of you here today have never experienced the new life that God has to offer through Jesus Christ. And maybe you are here today because you want a change in your life. Maybe you want to have a new start in life. Maybe you want to do some things differently. Maybe you feel like you have messed up in life and you want to be able to start over again. Well, the greatest news that has ever been told is that you can have a brand new life in Jesus Christ. “When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same anymore. A new life has begun!” (2 Cor. 5:17). You can have a new life. You can have a new start. God can make you brand new. It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter where you come from. It doesn’t matter how bad the stuff is you’ve done. You can have a brand new life. Now what exactly does that brand new life involve. Well, first, it means forgiveness for your past. Every bad thing you’ve ever done, every person you’ve ever hurt, every sin you’ve ever committed, every hurtful thing you’ve ever said, every relationship you’ve broken, every bad thought you’ve ever had, it can all be wiped away. That’s forgiveness. You can have forgiveness for your past. You can have purpose for your present. You can have something to live for. You can have a life full of joy and peace and hope. You can live a life that makes a difference that impacts other people and that changes the world by following Jesus Christ. You can have forgiveness for your past, purpose for your present, and the promise of eternal life for your future. You can know that if you died today that you would spend eternity in heaven with Jesus Christ.
Now, how do you get all that? How do you have a new you? Very simply, you accept Jesus Christ. Now, how do you accept Jesus Christ? John 1:12 tells us. “To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” You believe and receive. You believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for your sins, that when Jesus died on the cross, he died in your place, and that he rose again to overcome death and the grave so you could have eternal life. You believe, and then you receive. You receive Jesus as the leader of your life. You say, “Jesus, I’ve tried living life my way, and it hasn’t worked out so well. From now on, I want you to be the leader of my life.”
God wants to do something new in your life this year. God is all about doing something new. “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD” (Ps. 40:3). God wants to do something new in your life, and as you allow him to do so and as he works in your life and you praise him for the new thing he is doing, he will use that to impact other people’s lives as well. Nine times in the Bible it talks about God putting a new song in the hearts of his people. I love the last time, in the book of Revelation it says that they sang a new song before the throne of God and no one could learn it except those who had been redeemed from the earth. Through the things that he is doing in your life, God is writing a new song of praise that only you can sing, because you are the only one who has experienced him in that way. What is the new thing that God wants to do in your life this year?
But how many of us, as we consider change and new things think about what new thing God wants to do in our lives? What are God’s plans for us? You see, the Bible teaches us that God never changes, James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows," and Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” God never changes. With all the change in the world, He is always the same. But that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t want to change your life. The Bible also teaches that He is constantly doing something new in the world, constantly working to bring about the new, constantly working to do something different in our lives.
You see, God wants us to be like Him, and so what God is about in our lives is constantly working to bring about change in our lives to make us more and more like Him. In fact, God’s plan for all of history is about doing something new in the world. Look at Revelation 21:5: “And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’” God’s plan for all of human history is to radically and completely make all things new, a total transformation of people and the universe and government and our relationships to him and to each other.
So, as we look at a new year and a new presidency and a new era, and all the expectations we have for it, all the plans we have, all the resolutions we are making, all the unknowns that are still in store, we need to remember that God is in control and that God is working out his plans and his goals and his resolutions for our lives. Isaiah 42:9 says, “See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.” God says, “Look, everything I have said would happen in the past has happened, and everything that I say is going to happen will happen.” God already knows what this year holds for you. He already knows what he wants to do in your life. We don’t know what the new year may hold, but God does, and he has some incredible new things that he wants to do in your life this year.
So, today I want you to think about what are the changes that God wants to do in your life, and how to respond to that change. We are going to look at four areas where God may want to bring about a change in your life, and four ways that you can respond to the new thing that God is doing. Now, the first area is a change in circumstances. In the new year, God may have some new circumstances in store for you, something new in your job, you get a new boss, you receive a cut in pay or a raise in pay, transfer to a new location, you lose an important account or you gain a new one. There’s a decent chance that you may lose your job. It can be a new relationship with people, your kids going away to college, you gain some new friends or an old friend moves away, you have a new baby, your spouse passes away. It can be a change in your health. There are any number of changes in circumstances that can happen in a year’s time. Someone you love dies, you buy a new car, your bills go up. In fact, I can almost guarantee that in a year’s time there will be some significant change in your circumstances in some area of your life.
Now, here’s the thing, most of us don’t like change. We try to avoid new circumstances because they produce uncertainty in our lives. But the great thing about new circumstances is that they almost always represent new ways that God is working in our lives and new opportunities for us to grow. Look at Isaiah 43:18-19:
“The Lord says, ‘Forget what happened before, and do not think about the past. Look at the new thing I am going to do. It is already happening. Don't you see it? I will make a road in the desert and rivers in the dry land.’”
God says, “Stop looking at the past and focus on what I’m doing right now! I’m doing something new and amazing, something that you have never seen before, and it is an opportunity for you to see me work in a way you’ve never seen me work before.” God doesn’t want us stuck in the past. He doesn’t want us to get hung up on what has happened before or how he worked in our lives before or even what he did just last year. God wants us focusing on the new thing he is doing in our lives right now. When God does something new, it is an opportunity for us to make the most of the life God has given to us.
So, how do you respond to new circumstances in your life? You trust God. You depend on the fact that no matter what new thing may happen in your circumstances this year, God is still in control. Your life is working out according to the purpose and plan of God. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then you can be assured that there is absolutely nothing that comes into your life that God either hasn’t caused to happen or allowed to happen. So, there’s a purpose in everything that happens in your life. So you trust God. In Matthew 6:31-34, Jesus says:
“So don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing… Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
Jesus says, “If you live your life in dependence on me, then I will take care of all the circumstances of your life.” There is no circumstance in your life that Jesus cannot provide for.
So, the first change that God may bring in your life this year is a change in circumstances. Then, the second change that God may bring about is a change in character. Not only may God change the external circumstances of your life, but God may want to do something new on the inside in your life. God may want to do something new in you. It may be a sin that he wants to get rid of, an attitude that he wants to change, a broken relationship that he wants you to restore, or a habit that he wants you to break.
Becoming a Christian is about our character being changed into the character of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 4:22-24:
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Being a Christian is about continually, constantly being transformed, being changed to be more and more like Jesus Christ, and it is a never-ending process. Until the day you die, as a follower of Jesus Christ, God is going to be doing something new in your character. In this passage, Paul uses the picture of taking off an old set of clothes and putting on a new set. For Christmas, I got several sets of new clothes. Now, one of the things I have to do is get rid of some of the old clothes to make room for the new. Our kids got a lot of new stuff for Christmas, and yesterday they went through their old toys and got rid of some of them to make room for the new stuff. Now, that was a painful process for them. There were some things that they didn’t want to get rid of, but they were things that they didn’t really need and things that weren’t good anymore, and they needed to be discarded. And that’s the same thing that happens with our character. God has some things that he wants to change in our lives, some new aspects of our character, some ways that he wants us to be more like Jesus, but he also wants us to get rid of some things.
God is going to be working on your character this year, teaching you something new, growing your faith, developing your love for others, giving you peace of mind, growing your patience, giving you a greater sense of joy in the middle of trials, helping you to learn to be kind toward unkind people, turning you into a giver instead of a taker in life. There are all kinds of new aspects of character that God wants to work in your life this year.
So, how do you respond to the new character that God wants to bring about in your life? You submit to God. You just say, “God, here’s my life, and if there’s anything you want to do in my life this year, if there’s something you want to work on, if there’s an aspect of my character that you want to change, then I fully submit to whatever you want to do.” Look at Isaiah 64:8: “O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” What does clay do in the hands of the potter? It just gets molded into whatever the potter wants to fashion it into. It doesn’t resist. It just yields to whatever the potter wants to do with it. That’s what it means to submit to God. I want to challenge you this morning to say to God, “God, this year, I want to be clay in your hands. I submit my life and my character to you to be formed into the kind of person you want me to be.”
So, a change in circumstances, a change in character, then, third, a change in calling. God may have a new assignment for you in the new year, a new thing that he wants you to do in service to him. God may be saying, “I’ve got something new that I want you to do for me.” God may have a new ministry that he wants you to be a part of. God may be calling you to be involved in something that takes you outside your comfort zone. God may be calling you to full-time service for him. Look at what happened when Jesus called the disciples: “Jesus replied to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid! From now on you’ll be fishing for people!’ And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus” (Lk. 5:10-11). They left everything and followed him. Following Jesus meant something radically new and different for the disciples, but they left it all to be with him.
Some of you, God is calling you into the ministry, and you’ve wrestled with him for a long time, and you have had arguments with him over this, and you’ve given him all the excuses, but God still keeps telling you that he wants you to give your life full time to serving him. Some of you, God is calling you to missions, to go tell the story of Jesus to other people in other parts of the world, and it scares you to death, but God keeps calling. Some of you, God is calling you to be more involved in evangelism this year, telling your family and friends and coworkers and neighbors about Jesus. Some of you, God is calling you to lead a ministry, to start a new ministry here in the church, to teach a bible study. God is calling you. And you know it, and you’ve heard his call, but you’ve been reluctant.
So, what do you do when God is calling you to something new? You answer the call. You do what Isaiah did in Isa. 6:8: “Then I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, ‘Whom can I send? Who will go for us?’ So I said, ‘Here I am. Send me!’” Now, do you know what most of us do when confronted with a calling like Isaiah? We say, “There he is. Send him!” or “There she is. Send her!” When we sense the call of God in our lives, we say, “God you missed. You meant the person next to me and you hit me by accident!” Answering the call means saying, “God, I hear you, and I am ready to do whatever you ask me to do!”
Listen to me, I know it’s a scary thing when God calls you to do something. Why? Because God always calls us to do things that we can’t do on our own and in our own strength. God always calls us to do God-sized tasks that only he can do and that require his strength and his power and his ability, and if he doesn’t show up we will fall flat on our faces and fail. And that scares us to death.
But let me tell you as someone who has been there, someone who is there right now in my life, there is nothing any more exciting in life than following God wherever he leads. When you finally let go and you say, “Okay, God, if you ask me to do something, my answer, in advance is I’m available, wherever, whenever, whatever, however,” there is no greater sensation in life, no greater freedom in life than that moment when you let go and let God have control. Answer the call.
So God may want to change your circumstances. He may want to change your character. He may have a change in calling for you to follow. Or he may want to change you. Some of you here today have never experienced the new life that God has to offer through Jesus Christ. And maybe you are here today because you want a change in your life. Maybe you want to have a new start in life. Maybe you want to do some things differently. Maybe you feel like you have messed up in life and you want to be able to start over again. Well, the greatest news that has ever been told is that you can have a brand new life in Jesus Christ. “When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same anymore. A new life has begun!” (2 Cor. 5:17). You can have a new life. You can have a new start. God can make you brand new. It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter where you come from. It doesn’t matter how bad the stuff is you’ve done. You can have a brand new life. Now what exactly does that brand new life involve. Well, first, it means forgiveness for your past. Every bad thing you’ve ever done, every person you’ve ever hurt, every sin you’ve ever committed, every hurtful thing you’ve ever said, every relationship you’ve broken, every bad thought you’ve ever had, it can all be wiped away. That’s forgiveness. You can have forgiveness for your past. You can have purpose for your present. You can have something to live for. You can have a life full of joy and peace and hope. You can live a life that makes a difference that impacts other people and that changes the world by following Jesus Christ. You can have forgiveness for your past, purpose for your present, and the promise of eternal life for your future. You can know that if you died today that you would spend eternity in heaven with Jesus Christ.
Now, how do you get all that? How do you have a new you? Very simply, you accept Jesus Christ. Now, how do you accept Jesus Christ? John 1:12 tells us. “To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” You believe and receive. You believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for your sins, that when Jesus died on the cross, he died in your place, and that he rose again to overcome death and the grave so you could have eternal life. You believe, and then you receive. You receive Jesus as the leader of your life. You say, “Jesus, I’ve tried living life my way, and it hasn’t worked out so well. From now on, I want you to be the leader of my life.”
God wants to do something new in your life this year. God is all about doing something new. “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD” (Ps. 40:3). God wants to do something new in your life, and as you allow him to do so and as he works in your life and you praise him for the new thing he is doing, he will use that to impact other people’s lives as well. Nine times in the Bible it talks about God putting a new song in the hearts of his people. I love the last time, in the book of Revelation it says that they sang a new song before the throne of God and no one could learn it except those who had been redeemed from the earth. Through the things that he is doing in your life, God is writing a new song of praise that only you can sing, because you are the only one who has experienced him in that way. What is the new thing that God wants to do in your life this year?
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