New Year: Be Goals
Notes
Transcript
What do I believe God wants them to know? They are to be more focused on who God wants them to be than what they are to do
Why? What we do flows from what we do
What do I believe God wants them to do? Set who God wants them to be goals
Why? From there they will be and do what God wants them to be and do
ME/WE/INTRO
2023 is here!
This is the time of year where we start thinking about, planning, preparing, and and doing what we want to have happen this year.
We start thinking
I want to do this thing this year
I want to focus on that
I want to go there…we were supposed to go there in 2020 but we couldn’t
I want to accomplish that
I want to stop doing that…that habit that is not good.
I want to say no to that
Some of us set a New Years resolution…anybody…even if we don’t we think about the new year
AND what happens we start off good…then what happens
- After the first week 25% say maybe next year I’ll loss weight or read my Bible everyday
- After the first month there are 66% say that was a good month maybe we will try for two months next year
- After sixth months only 20% are going strong but say I made it half way
- How people would you guess made it the whole year? 8%
WHY IS THAT? WHY DOES ONLY 8% MAKE IT?
this is maybe why some of us make a New Year’s resolution to not make a New Year’s resolution....
Because we lack self-control?
some of it is that but it also for THREE other reasons
2 Practical reasons
We often over plan what we can do in 1 year and under plan what we can do in 5 years
We say we are going to do this and that, and this and that
Our 1 year list is huge
But our 5 year list is small, we are not even thinking about about 5 years from now
Psychological reason…God gives us scientist
Year long goals are hard to keep and run oppisite to how our brains work.
90 days are better…our days function better on 90 day goals....it sooner
next 90 days I am going to read my Bible everyday
Many of us know this. How many of us have tried to lose 15 lbs in, I am going to do it in the next three months…5lbs a month
If we set a goal to lose 15lbs or let’s go higher 25lbs goal for one year
What do we often do?
We lose a decent amount of weight at first “Hey I lost 10lbs in the first month” I can take it easy…and we take it easy for 10 months and then in November we are potentially scrambling to lose not 5lbs but 20lbs because we gained more weight and so we give up
Set 90 day goals and then after 90 day goals set another 90 day goals
Put it off or
Scripture reading: I am going to read the Bible everyday for a year and then we get behind and what turned into 1 chapter a day is not 11 chapters a day (or Bible in one year is 4 chapters a day and we are 20 chapters behind)
become overwhelmed and give up
BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY than know the practical and psychological
3. Before we set out to do this or that or stop doing this or that
We need to ask the question who does God want me to be?
Before we set out on I want to do this or that we need to ask the question who does God want me, want us to be?
Not what do I want to do or what is everyone else doing
To say it another way as a pastor once said it “It is almost always a mistake to decided what you want to do before you know who God wants you to be”
“It is almost always a mistake to decided what you want to do before you know who God wants you to be”
Here is the thing you can accomplish great things…wonderful things but they can be GOALS that God doesn’t want you to do.
I had a pastor friend who had a GOAL to run a triathlon, good lofty goal, he’s a marathoner
But he made this goal when he had a young family…he had a newborn and I believe a two year old
What this goal did was move his time away from his family and being the man of God, God called him to be.
He got out and worked out at 5am and then he would work out after work until 6pm as a result he would have little time with his family.
though he accomplished his goal...HE WAS NOT THE MAN OF GOD, GOD WANTED HIM TO BE
This is the year for some of you God wants to show you who He wants you to be..Son, daughter of God
TENSION
How do we know what God wants us to be?
We see this take place in a famous story, a story that many of us have heard…that on the outside looks like a do goal but at it’s root it’s a BE goal.
But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.
And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.
A lawyer knows the 613 commandments of God
He knows the legal ins and outs
Test him “this shows he doesn’t think Jesus is the Messiah because we are not test God except with one thing…anyone know what the one things is money…tithing
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
What is the greatest commandment we must do? The one thing above them all
The lawyer is probably thinking if Jesus says this ___I got him or If he says that I got him
What does Jesus say?
I am going to answer with the Shema…a prayer they prayed everyday
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the great and first commandment.
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Jesus says if you just do these two things....a better way to say it is if you
BECOME A LOVER OF GOD AND OF OTHERS THEN YOU WILL FULFILL ALL MY COMMANDMENTS…DON’T WORRY ABOUT WHAT TO DO BEFOR YOU BECOME A LOVER OF GOD AND OTHERS
HOW DO WE LOVE GOD WITH ALL OF OUR HEART, SOUL, MIND....WHAT IS IS SAYING WITH OUR WHOLE BEING
What does that look like?
How do we become lovers of God?
Let’s first go to the O.T. first four show us how we love God.
You shall have no other God’s before me
You shall not have or worship any other idols
He is your everything. He consumes every part of you.
I don’t always like using negatives but it helps.
This means we cannot say we love God if we not spending time with daily
Worship test
Where do I spend my
Time
Money
Think about most shows what we worship
3. You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain
Does not mean to not use the Lord’s name as a curse word....though that is not good…it means this as believer in God His name is written upon you…God’s son, God’s daughter and when you act contray to the ways of God you are taking the Lord’s name in vein.....WITNESS
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
4. You shall remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
you shall stop working to worship
This one is dual benefit WORSHIPS God’s and RENEW’s us
The first four commandments are about WORSHP and WITNESS
To be a LOVER IS TO BE A WORSHIPPER, not just worshipping on Sundays but everyday
What about the N.T.?
What does it have to say?
I love Luke’s version of the greatest commandments. He spells out what it means to love God with your whole HEART
To become a Mary in a Maratha world
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.
And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.
But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”
Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains 25.238 περισπάομαι
περισπάομαι: (a figurative extension of meaning of περισπάομαι ‘to be drawn off from around,’ not occurring in the NT) to be so overburdened by various distractions as to be worried and anxious—‘to be overburdened and worried, to be distracted and anxious.’ ἡ δὲ Μάρθα περιεσπᾶτο περὶ πολλὴν διακονίαν ‘Martha was overburdened and worried about so much work’ or ‘… about all the work she had to do’ Lk 10:40.
But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things,
but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
You know what it means to love God, sit at my feet.
We are to be FEET sitter, WORSHIPER OF GOD, FIRST
BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE is to worship GOD
What God wants you to be above else first is to be feet sitter, worshipper of God.
WHY SHOULD WE DO THIS??
We will worship Him because we will hear
At the feet we hear Jesus say
I am the bread
I am the light
I am the living water
I am the way, truth, life
I am the good shepherd
I am the door
I am the resurrection
I am true vine
I am the one who you casts your cares upon me
I am the one who knows what you need and will provide it for you
I am HOPE
I am LOVe
You are
Forgiven
Loved
Valuable
My child
Listend to
THIS IS WHO I AM CALLING YOU TO BE
This is what we are to do now