Pillars of a Christian Life
Notes
Transcript
What do schools, video games, sports, friends, and work all have in common? They are all things that are fighting for the forefront of our brains. They all are fighting for all of our undivided attention in our “spare time”. Even in high school yall all have such busy lives and that doesn’t a lot for much free time does it?
How many of you have jobs?
How many of you play sports?
How many of you do nothing when you get home from school?
The things that you spend your time doing are the things that you prioritize in your life. And not to say that work, school, sports, and things that youre interested in are inherently bad. But when we put anything before our relationship with Christ and we lose focus of our faith we are in a bad place.
The first reason for rejecting Christ has to do with personal priorities.
A. W. Tozer
If seeing Christ exalted really was the most important thing in our lives, how would that change our priorities and perspective?
Steven Runge
Sunday morning Bro Danny talked about the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish man who built their house on the sand in Matthew 7. To be able to build a house at all you have to have good studs as well as a good foundation. So tonight were gonna look at 4 pillars that you should build your house on.
First Pillar: Family
First Pillar: Family
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
As children which we all are we are or were at some point are commanded to listen to our parents. Our parents may sometimes seem like they are always breathing down our neck ya? Those whose parents are in here may not want to answer that. Our parents are there to support us and love us. I know that yall are all around the age where you think you know everything and that you have it all figured out. Well,
Remember the story of Jonah? God asked him to go to Nineveh, but he had his own plans! At every turn, he found reasons not to listen; he thought he knew better. Just like when our parents say 'clean your room' or 'do your homework.' We might think they just don’t understand. But let’s face it, listening to them is a lot less messy than ending up in the belly of a fish!
How many times have you tried to do things on your own and things just didn’t go well, but you aren’t going to admit that to your parents because that may warrant punishment or an I told you so. Our parents have seen much more than we have in our lives. They have much more life experience than you think. And most of them just want you to be better than how they turned out.
When you honor your parents you honor your heavenly father. And this isnt to say that your parents are always right because guess what. They are human too. They may mess up sometimes. They fall short of the glory of God just as much as everyone in this room so give them some grace. Maybe surprise them and listen to them and respect them.
Second Pillar: Friends
Second Pillar: Friends
A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for adversity.
Being a friend is incredibly important. Wether you think you do or not we all have friends. We all have people that lookup to us. As believers building our relationship with God the relationships that we have with others will notice. We are called to be in community with other believers and to be in discipleship. When we are poured into regarding our faith our natural instinct is the outpouring of our hearts. And like we talked about last week sometimes that’s uncomfortable. If we are with friends who are unbelievers we don’t want to look uncool infront of them do we? We dont want to be rejected by them. So we dont step out in that discomfort of our faith. God puts the people that we have in our lives there for a reason. The way that we let them influence us is what matters. How do we prioritize their friendship and do our we keep the priorities of God when were around them. We are meant to seek and save the lost and if we aren’t even reaching out to our friends that are lost then what are we doing?
Third Pillar: School/Work/Hobbies
Third Pillar: School/Work/Hobbies
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
Everything that we do in life reflects our walk with Christ. The way that we act at school, the way that we perform at work, the craft that our hands put out with our hobbies. Everything that we do its important to understand what we do these things for. As we go about our lives our daily tasks become repetitive and mundane like theres no point to it anymore. We drag on through life dreading waking up in the morning. We dont want to go to work or school or do anything. We have lost our focus. When we keep our focus on Christ as the head of any of our tasks how can we hate life? I know that doesnt mean that there wont be hard days. But everything that were doing is for him. If youre doing homework, playing a sport, working, sitting in class. It is all for him.
Fourth Pillar: Christ
Fourth Pillar: Christ
And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Christ is the fourth pillar of our lives and the most important one. Christ is our priority. So many of us lose focus on that fact. We let our lives blind our priorities. The things that we think about the most are what we prioritize in our lives. If we aren’t constantly being Kingdom minded and carrying our cross then what really is our priority?
Do we prioritize any of the other pillars but lose focus of the reason that we have them?
When you follow Christ you have to lay your wants and desires aside and focus first in your heart on him. When you do then the things that you desire will become the things that he desires. The things that you struggle with youd be freed from. The challenges that you face wouldnt be so hard because you wouldnt be doing anything alone anymore.
He wants to set us free from the burdens of sin and shame that we feel.
We all carry around burdens. We all at times have the wrong priorities at times. We all have mountains standing before us. We cant conquer them alone.
Until we prioritize our faith then the mountain will conquer us.
Until we build our pillars right then our house will never stand.
If you are missing any of these pillars tonight we would love to pray for you to build them.
If your pillars are crumbling and you need help were here.
Your not called to build these alone.
Come to the altar rearrange your priorities.
