Rules Of The Road - h (1)
There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death.- Proverbs 16:25
! THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
ROBERT FROST
I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day.
Abraham Lincoln, Leadership, Vol. 3, no. 1.
Ill. - Burton told me that he determines the direction to take when he heads for home by the color of the water.
Intro: - Have people stand, close their eyes and then point to a certain direction. Then open their eyes to see what others perceive the direction to be.
1. Most people in our world today believe that they are doing the right thing. I know of so many people who have made decisions believing or sometimes making themselves believe that they were doing the right thing and later discovering that they had invited disaster into their lives.
Ill. Cindy & Eugene, no guarantees that things will turn out okay in the best of circumstances. No guarantees that marrying someone who goes to church will provide you with a life of happiness. There is a good argument for seeing people long enough to evidence them at their best and at their worst.
There are decisions that we may make that can lead us to disaster and there are those that can lead us to death. The former are temporal as they relate to this life and the latter are eternal. When it come to disaster and bad choices in this life, I want to praise God that his nature is redemptive and reconstructive. I believe today that whatever calamities that you may have “decided” your way into, it is never too late to decide to follow God closely in obedience and if you will do that then he will rebuild you and rebuild your life, your broken dreams to give you abundant life here and now and eternal life beyond our mortal existence. I also believe that the church of Christ must function accordingly. There should be no one in the city of Fredericton who would feel that he is “not good enough” or sufficiently “sin-soiled” or “sin-scarred” to prevent him/her from walking through these doors and being loved in the name of his/her precious Savior. Now people many times come in that way anyway. What then is the challenge for you and I? It is to get down low enough to look up to everyone that ventures to come to this hospital. We need to show respect to those who are nowhere else respected, to show love to those who are loved nowhere else, to give words of hope and encouragement to crushed and cynical spirits, to speak carefully and lovingly in the words of everyday living as experiential translators of the goodness of God to those who really do not understand it at all, it means that we must go far beyond the notion of smiling and being pleasant alone, we must be willing to enter into the complex lives of people to visibly demonstrate the love of God as servants of Christ. Need a towel? You should and you will. It is one of the most essential and significant instruments that the Christian can carry.
The scripture tells me that “All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” That promise holds true on 2 conditions:
q one is that you love God and the other is that your life is presented to Him as a living sacrifice
q and that you are now seeking His purpose in life rather than your own.
2. What makes us so sure that we are taking the right path
q It is always easier to do what is wrong. The right thing is quite often the most difficult thing to do. Most often the path that is most worn and trodden is the wrong way. There will be infinitely more people who leave this life and go into a Christless eternity than those who find their way to heaven and it will not be for lack of direction. The parable of the sower talks about the man who went out to scatter seed. Four scenarios were presented.
1. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path , and the birds came and ate it up. Meaning - When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
2. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. [6] But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Meaning - The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. [21] But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
3. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Meaning - The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.
4. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop--a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Meaning - But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."
Expressing this in a matter of percentages, the sower was successful 25% of the time. Or you are three times as likely to miss the way than you are to find it. Once again however, people do not miss heaven for lack of direction. The parable of the Sower relates three great adversaries that people face in finding their way to heaven:
n The Devil
n Inability to weather the tests of spiritual living due to lack of maturity
n Unfruitfulness – Jesus cursed the barren fig tree. Please note here that the scripture does not say that the plant failed to appear – merely that it was unfruitful. Barren Christians are really dead weight in the kingdom – worse than that, there are folks whose lives actually make others want to stay away from the kingdom. Not merely hypocrites but miserable joyless living, people who are difficult to get along with – these folks are repellants to the seeking soul.
q We are deceived by our appetites and desires. This is what we bear in our physical bodies. It is difficult to keep these in check. We do know that our drives and our appetites unchecked and uncontrolled lead to destruction, disease and death.
q We are deceived by the pride of self-sufficiency. We are convinced that we know best. Remember the poem Invictus?
It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the Master of my Fate
I am the Captain of my Soul
It really is that inability or unwillingness to trust God and to yield to Him believing that He can bring to my life everything that I ultimately want. God has the ability – because He knows our hearts – to guide us into the set of circumstances that will make us most fruitful for His purposes and consequently most fulfilled in this life. It does require that we should trust and obey.
The captain of the ship looked into the dark night and saw faint lights in the distance. Immediately he told his signalman to send a message: "Alter your course 10 degrees south." Promptly a return message was received: "Alter your course 10 degrees north."
The captain was angered; his command had been ignored. So he sent a second message: "Alter your course 10 degrees south--I am the captain!" Soon another message was received: "Alter your course 10 degrees north--I am a seaman third class Jones."
Immediately the captain sent a third message, knowing the fear it would evoke:
"Alter your course 10 degrees south--I am a battleship." Then the reply came:
"Alter your course 10 degrees north--I am a lighthouse."
In the midst of our dark and foggy times, all sorts of voices are shouting orders into the night, telling us what to do, how to adjust our lives. Out of the darkness, one voice signals something quite opposite to the rest--something almost absurd. But the voice happens to be the Light of the World, and we ignore it at our peril.
n Paul Aiello, Jr., Leadership, Vol. 4, no. 2.
Remember this illustration when you are being directed by God and yield to His voice.
q Often our primary pursuit in life is not to do what is right in God’s eyes.
Romans 6:13 - Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
One of the reasons that people fail to live victoriously is that they never offer themselves to God to serve Him. There is this wonderful principle woven throughout the fabric of faith. We receive as we give we reap as we release control to a higher power. Unless a grain of wheat fall to the ground and die . . . . If you evaluate your life today to find with disappointment that you are not enjoying the ride, things are boring, you don’t understand the Bible, the sermons are not relevant or whatever, then in the next breath ask yourself what your are doing for God’s sake. What portion of your life is truly given to Him? If you cannot give with joy to your church the find some place where you can give without return in His name.
q We are falsely comforted by the values of the society in which we live. The standard that is established by the crowd is the standard of mediocrity. What society calls good is minimally passable. If you look for affirmation to the standard of the day then you will only find further deception. What is there in this day and age that is not acceptable? Anything goes.
There is no slave like the man free to do as he pleases because what he pleases is self-destructive. A California psychiatrist recently complained that four out of every ten teenagers and young adults who visited his medical center have a psychological sickness he can do nothing about. According to the Los Angeles Times it is simply this: "Each of them demands that his world conform to his uncontrolled desires. Society has provided him with so many escape routes that he never has to stand his ground against disappointment, postponement of pleasure and the weight of responsibility -- all forces which shape character." The psychiatrist adds, "If the personality disorder persists far into adulthood there will be a society of pleasure-driven people hopelessly insecure and dependent."
q There is no universally accepted measure to determine the nature of a thing or deed.
q There is no universally accepted map that we rely on for direction.
q The Devil is a master of deception.
q Our mindset determines what we see and the way that we justify ourselves.
3. How can I know if I am on the right path?
q Figure out where you want to go. That is one of the major bridges to cross or a person who decides to follow Christ. Where do I want to end up – what is my desired destination? I can tell you that if you want to get there, it will have to be on God’s terms not your own.
q Accept the fact that you need direction. Don’t rely on your own sense of direction. Usually we have to come to the place where we admit that we are lost before we can find meaningful direction. Have you admitted that to yourself today? I am lost. I’m not sure where I am at – I want to go to heaven but I am not sure which way to turn.
q Follow the map. “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.