Don't be a Dud!

Intro

When I was a kid we had a family tradition around the 4th of July to go out to my Grandma and Grandpa Pettijohn’s house to celebrate.

We would eat dinner, have watermelon, and drink ice cold off brand soda’s like Dr. Thunder and Mountain Lightning.

But the highlight of the night was when it finally got dark, and all the adults would pull their chairs up on the hill that overlooked the drive way and us kids would start the fireworks show.

We would have a blast! A fourth of July never goes by without me thinking about those wonderful times with my cousins, my aunts and uncles, my parents, and my grandparents. My guess is you probably have similar memories, isn’t it a shame we didn’t realize how good things were then?

I was thinking about that today as I passed by a fireworks stand and I was reminded about something my dad always used to say after all the fireworks were popped and we were heading home from my grandparents house. He’d say, I hope you had $20 or if he was feeling really generous that year, $50 dollars worth of fun, because what we did tonight is the same thing as setting a $50 dollar bill on fire and throwing it out the window.

You know, no matter how many times he said that, I never felt like that was the case. I mean to this day I treasure those times with my family lighting fuses and running away from a fiery death explosions. I’d say that was money well spent! Fireworks have a way of bringing wonder, excitement, and joy into our lives.

But that’s only if they work right? You know whats the worst when it comes to fireworks? It’s when you’ve got this really awesome looking firework that maybe cost $10 and you’ve been so looking forward to what it’s going to be and you light the fuse run away and..... Nothing happens.... You find out it’s a dud.

Now in those cases I could agree with my dad, it would have perhaps been more fun to set that $10 on fire and throw it out the window. Dud fireworks fail the makers intentions to bring about $10 worth of joy in someones life. That’s what fireworks makers sell! They invest time, money, and effort on a product that will draw oohs and aaahs from the crowd. They don’t set out to make something that fails when the fuse is lit.

The creator of the firework expects it to perform the way they designed it, and our creator, God our Father, expects the same thing from us as His creation and as His church.

reads

Isaiah 43:1–7 ESV

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Like the firework, we have a purpose, and that is to glorify and to bring glory to God. Not only after we die, but right here and right now.

God lights the fuse of our life at conception and the questions that has been left up to us to answer over the course of our brief life which like a firework appears for a little time and then vanishes () is this: “Will I glorify and bring glory to God while I’m here, or will I be a dud?”

God has given us all such a wonderful gift not only in just being alive, but in having the blessed opportunity to serve Him in his glorious kingdom.

Don’t be a dud. Don’t let it be said of you that you wasted everything that God has blessed you with. Never let it be said of you that you lit your opportunity to shine bright for God on fire, and threw it out the window.

Let’s work for the purpose we’ve been designed for by our creator.

If you need help doing that, or if you are in need of prayer, you can come forward now as we stand and sing.