After Worship we unveiled our new logo!
(origins Ben Stuart)
Tonight we worked around the idea of how our God is a God of order.
Sometimes we don't really seem to align ourselves in His was of things though.
We don't plan we don't permit, and we usually don't pursue His ways efficiently to say the least.
Here are some excerpts from the night.
George McDonald “Ordering Your Private World”
In it he lists the symptoms of disorganization.
1. When I look at the condition of my car and it’s dirty on the inside and I’m completely off on my maintenance schedule.
2. Diminution of Self-Esteem. I get a low grade paranoia that people are gonna think I’m unorganized.
3. I get a series of forgotten appointments or deadlines in my life. And in many conversations I find myself giving lame excuses as to why I haven’t done something yet.
4. I invest my energy in unproductive tasks just so I feel like I’ve gotten something done. (That’s such a big thing, how am I gonna get to that?... my bathroom’s kind of dirty though… I can do that…I haven’t seen the floor all year.)
5. I start to feel poorly about my work. I don’t feel good about what I’ve done when I do turn something in.
6. I rarely enjoy my intimacy with God. And when I do get alone with I feel rushed or guilty.
7. The quality of my personal relationships seems to diminish. (How you doin? And I’m done)
But tonight I want to walk through
1. How the Bible sees it
2. What God thinks about order
3. How to put it into our lives.
1. The bible praises order, consistency, and discipline. It praises it.
a. You see it in the their very character of God himself.
b. You see it in His creation… He is purposeful and He is orderly.
c. In Christianity, you see an order to it. For 6 days He creates and on the 7th He rests.
d. Proverbs 3:19 NAS 19 The LORD by wisdom founded the earth;
by understanding He established the heavens.
You see it in His community
- Twelve Men to make 12 tribes
o Gives them different Jobs
- He says “You are to work 6 days and the 7th you are to rest”
You see it in the lives of the people we’re supposed to model ourselves after.
You never see Jesus freaking out.
He never turned to His disciples and said “And Jesus turneth unto His disciples and sayeth “dude what time is it? NOOO!!! DUDE WE GOT TO GO!
Rather you see Him pursue with a purpose.
When he spoke at
When it came to distractions there were some that He was willing to partake in
- A hurting woman
- A deaf man
- A blind man
o Because they were in line with His purposes
There were others that didn’t go that way
- A legal pursuit
- Waiting for this guys Dad to die
o He just “I’m sorry that just isn’t what I’m here to do”
So you see Him prioritize. You see him putting certain things in His life in a rhythmic way.
Luke 5:16 tells us how we would often slip into the wilderness and pray.
So he would live life of solitude and prayer.
In Luke 4:16 it tells us that Every week He would go to the synagogue and read as was His custom. So if you wanted to see Jesus you could go to church every Saturday and see Him.
He had a rhythm.
Paul when he entered the cities, He would go to the synagogue first.
Proverbs 10:26
The idea is of when smoke gets in your eyes and you’re like “AH”
That’s the face people make when they’re around you and you don’t get done what you were asked for.
You’re like the smoke that people don’t like.
He doesn’t want us to get up early and go to bed late.
He doesn’t want to be frantic.
There’s a sense where we’re not panicked but we’re not lazy.
Eph. 2:10
- If you’re a Christian He has saved you and set you up for His good purpose to walk on…
Acts. 17. “God has determined an exact time and purpose to live in order to fulfill
Two Main Problems
- Pursuit
- Like a Nascar Driver Working on his free-throws
- For some of us. God has called here.
- Some of follow Christ, but it seems to always be a short term deal
i. Lord I want to pursue you “oh dude that ‘s hot girl”.. Sorry God
ii. Lord you have this thing for me to do “ICE CREAM”
iii. You want to pursue him You’re just easily distracted.
- Pace
- Some of us are too frantic.. you say yes to everybody.
- Can you do this? YES, yes, yes YES
- You have to study, but someone says “you want to go to a movie?” Yes I do.
i. Some of your paces are just too darn slow.
ii. You get up at the crack of two
iii. What was I supposed to do?... Well I just lay here.
- an octopus with roller skates. A lot of movement, but you’re not moving the right direction.
- Lion tamer… he’ll focus on those four points all at once so he just sits there instead of eating the chewy thing right in from of him.
Proverbs 14:4 When there are no oxen in the barn, the manger is clean. But much revenue comes from the strength of an OX.
What it’s saying is “If you get rid of all your Ox you’ll get a clean barn, because there are no Ox making a mess of the barn, but you also don’t get any work done.
But if you get an Ox you get some work done, but it’s gonna make some mess and you just gotta know that.
It’s the same with us, you can quit stuff all you want.
- Classes
- Sports
- Church
But then you’ve got nothing to show for it and the end of the year.
So you don’t quit everything, you want to stay active.. not super committed.
But for some of you want to stay out there and a part of the game. But I’m just gonna make a mess.. the manger’s gonna get dirty and we just have to know how to deal with that.
2 Things that will help
- We need to get a right perspective.
- We have to grasp who’s in charge and Everything is God’s
No comments:
Post a Comment