A Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams!
Notes
Transcript
Handout
What Is Possible?
What Is Possible?
Maybe you’ve heard:
-Anything is possible if you believe hard enough/work hard enough/dream big enough.
*False Advertising*
-Lose 10 lbs in one day! (cut off your arm)
-A Saudi Arabian King died and left you a sum of $1,000,000 USD. Provide us with your bank account info so we can wire you the money.
-West Side Tasty Treat (might get a delicious ice cream treat—might get shot) spongebob ice cream bar.
What’s actually possible/realistic?
Pedro: “If you vote for me, all of your wildest dreams will come true.”
What are your wildest dreams? (What do you really want? What would you do if you could change anything in your life from tomorrow on?)
READ v. 20.
*v.20: “ask or think”. What does this mean? (You don’t ask for something without first thinking of it. So it’s a question of what we are thinking of that we would then ask for)
-Clearly the Bible is teaching us that we have some limitations here. NOT simply a limitation of intellectual capacity. (your ways higher than my ways/thoughts. Who can know the mind of God…). It’s ALSO an implication that we have a limitation of often not valuing and wanting the right things.
Now, reality check. Is what you really want, what God really wants and promises he can do?
So, reality check. Is what you really want, what God really wants and promises he can do?
-Listen to these promises: “…with God all things are possible.” “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” “God is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.”
*Are these just magical blanket statements that we can use to invoke whatever kinds of blessings we want? (I can be in the NBA; please make sure I marry a supermodel)
God loves to give good gifts, but “name-it-claim-it/prosperity” theology is not faith, its manipulative presumption.
What’s wrong with a lot of the things we want and ask for? (we ask for dumb things/lesser things/things that would draw us away from God and enslave us).
“All that is gold does not glitter...” (things of greatest value aren’t always immediately obvious or visible)
Thankfully our Creator is wise enough and good enough to NOT always give us the things we ask for, and to give us some things we don’t ask for because we have a propensity toward things that are not truly valuable.
What kind of things would we think to ask for if left to our own wisdom?
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Romans 1:18-23
-Autonomy
-Lies instead of truth
-Broken/backwards value system
-Death instead of life
There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death.
C.S. Lewis: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done."
v.20: “ask or think”.
*My ways, not your ways
*We would all choose Hell unless God intervened, or better yet, interfered. Some of you may still be making that choice. Please stop believing the lie.
-Clearly the Bible is teaching us that we have some limitations here. NOT simply a limitation of intellectual capacity.
So, what is possible? What is it that is more than we could ask or think?
-Salvation:
Matthew
And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
-Sanctification/Joyful/Meaningful Life: (everything Josh taught last week)
that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
:16-
*Includes trials, which we wouldn’t otherwise ask for, but we don’t know what’s best for us.
How is it Possible?
How is it Possible?
Those of us who have confessed that Christ is Lord, and have a new heart that wants God’s will—we still struggle not to be deceived by sin in certain areas of our lives. BUT look at v. 20: God is doing more than we ask or think, “according to the power at work within us.”
for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
What is God producing in you?
Why Is He Doing This?
Why Is He Doing This?
READ v. 21.
-For His Glory.
Does God owe you anything? Transcendence/Independence
-Your life means nothing apart from God. You were made by him and for him. Immanence.
Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.