Pursuing God

Pursuing Godly Living

SONGS: The Way and …

illustrations?

Grab a partner!

You’re going to live in the woods with your partner for 30 days.

You can only bring 10 items with you to aid in your survival.

What 10 items are you bringing?

I’ll give you 3 minutes to discuss and then give us your list of 10 items.

GO!

Transition:

Going into the woods with a few items may leave you feeling unprepared.

Maybe you feel like the life God has asked us to live for Him, but hasn’t prepared us with the tools we need to do that.

Today, we will see that:

God has given us all the tools… all that we need to live a godly life.

So how do we do that?

EXEGESIS

READ 2 Peter 1:3-11-

Illustration:

I have 2 older brothers. They are identical twins.

Raise your hand if you have a sibling?

Let me explain the difference between having siblings, and having siblings who are twins…

There is a special bond between brothers… We can be fighting with one anther, but if someone comes between us, all 3 of us will turn on the person who comes between us…

At the same time, there is an even more unique bond between twins…

They are best friends from the moment they are born.

Twin brain is a real thing… meaning, my brothers know what the other one is thinking all the time...

We grew up playing pickup basketball all the time in our driveway and even to this day it feels like my brothers have eyes in the back of their heads when they play ball together.

They just know exactly where one another are on the court.

I say all that this morning to help you understand.

Being the younger brother to twins… I often felt powerless.

Your brothers may have given you wedgies… You know… pulling your underwear real tight.

Well my brothers would double team me and hang me from a door by my underwear.

My brothers and I might build a fort, but then they would dog pile on me when I was in the fort and they were outside of it.

You may view that as mean, but it’s not. It’s just brotherly love man.

Two twin brothers is an unstoppable force when your 10 years old and they are 14…

transition

But there are lots of situations in life where I’m sure you’ve felt powerless…

A test you didn’t study for.

the girl/guy you like who doesn’t seem to notice you.

problems with your parents at home.

What do we do when we feel powerless?

We need to recognize where our power comes from!

One message you will hear at school, social media, and all throughout our culture is that you need to look inside yourself for purpose and meaning.

Follow your heart…

This is a lie…

look at vs. 3 again, “His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who calls us by his own glory and goodness.”

Those first 3 words… “His divine power...”

That’s where I find strength in this life.

A few weeks ago I woke up, got ready for work, came in to the church and it was about 8 in the morning.

I listened to a podcast for about 30 minutes, but that was it. When I looked at my phone it said it was at 60%.

I thought well… that’s weird what on earth?

So this kept happening for about 3-4 days.

I would wake up and notice my phone wasn’t fully charged.

It’s very frustrating to start the day with your phone at half power.

For me, it turned out my chord beside my bed had quit working.

The source of power for my phone was bad; therefore, my phone wasn’t fully charged when i used it.

You know what leaves us empty?

Following our hearts…

Living for what the world says is purposeful

money, power, influence, followers, good grades, success…

chasing these things leaves you empty…

like a phone that’s not connected to the source.

What is our source?

God has given us everything we need to live a godly life.

But when we look to something else besides God to power us up, we are using the wrong tools… We will only be left with a void.

Jesus is the only one who fills that God shaped void in our lives.

So look to Him as your source of life. The one who powers everything else you do.

2. Live for Him.

How do I do that?

You can’t live for Jesus apart from Him.

That’s why we spent so much time on point one.

If you aren’t being filled with Jesus. If you aren’t going to the source of life and power all the time, then you can’t live for Him.

The more you try, the more you will feel drained.

Some people play church…

They go to sunday school, wednesday nights…

They enjoy church as a social activity.

But church may just be a place for them to show others how kind they are… how generous they are… how good they are…

That’s not what church is about.

Church is about loving - deeply - the one who saved us from eternal separation from Him!

It’s about a group of people coming together saying, YES! Jesus is God. I was dead, but now I’m alive and it’s only because of Christ!

Church is also about bringing lost people from death to life!

Seeing unbelievers come to know Christ!

SO How do I live for Christ?

Vs. 4

Remember God’s promises!

He has so many.

“He will never leave us nor forsake us.” - Hebrews 13:5

“Be Strong and Courageous… the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” - Joshua 1:9

“Cast your anxieties on Him for He cares for you.” - 1 Peter 5:7

We could go on and on

In general though, the entirety of Scripture is about a Gracious God who came down to us who were most undeserving.

We love because we see a glimpse of How much He loves us!

1 John 4:19 - We love because He first loved us.

So Because of ALl of this.

Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:5-7 (read it)

“For this very reason, make very effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”

Don’t miss the first part of this statement.

“Supplement your faith.”

What’s a supplement?

A supplement is something that enhances something else.

Faith in Christ is most important, but all else supplements or enhances your faith in God.

In other words, I do all of these things not because I want to please God.

It’s because God is pleased with me that I can do all these things.

Doing these things supplements my faith, Faith does not supplement doing all these things.

Think of it like a tree…

The root of a tree is where all the life comes from.

What we see in a beautiful tree above the ground comes from a nourished tree under the ground.

Faith is like the roots.

the beauty we see in the tree… the enjoyment we get from the large tree in our yard that we climb, get shade from on a hot day, and maybe hang a swing from…

That’s love.

Love is the goal of faith.

It’s the action behind the faith we have in God.

That’s how we live for God.

we first recognize that we are rooted in Christ.

That everything that I am comes from God.

And everything I do then comes from my roots in Christ and is done in love.

And here’s the best part.

God has given you all the tools to be loving.

He’s given us Himself.

He’s given us His word.

He’s given us this beautiful universe that is constantly points to a creator.

Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speach. Night after night they display knowledge.”

Every moment of every day and every night, God’s power is on display.

Only the fool would look at creation and say, “There is no God.”

We recognize where our Power comes from.

We live for Him.

and finally.

3. We produce Fruit.

In John 15, Jesus describes Himself as the Vine and we are the branches.

This goes back to everything we’ve been talking about today, but I want to make this more applicable.

Application:

The tree doesn’t produce leaves or fruit just for it’s own benefit.

It also benefits the environment its in.

For example, an apple tree obviously produces apples that we enjoy.

We eat the fruit of that tree.

But what about the plain ole oak tree in your yard?

It allows birds to nest. Squirrels too!

It provides food for bugs and other organisms.

It drinks the excess water in your yard so your yard doesn’t stay flooded all the time.

It blocks out the sun.

It provides endless fun for those with imaginations.

The point is, trees always affect other people and animals.

That’s how we are supposed to be.

God didn’t make us to be isolated or hidden.

He made us to literally benefit others around us.

When we are filled with His love, we are empowered to share His love with Others.

So let me ask it this way.

What if church was a place where your hurting friends found peace?

What if you were instrumental in helping that friend?

What if church was a place where we saw the homeless restored, the mentally broken healed, and the sinner made new.

What if church was more about seeing broken people become whole through the power of Jesus and Jesus using believers than it was about buildings and other things…

What if the church stood for the truth of Jesus in love to a broken and dying world around us?

What if.

If you want that, are you praying to Jesus to use you in your church to see that happen?

Here’s all I know guys.

One day we will stand before Jesus and he won’t care:

about your grades

your batting average

your likes and follows

your 3-point percentage

your yards per carry

your popularity

your college transcripts

your class rank…

More than Anything, Jesus cares about you!

He cares about you sharing Him with others

I hope we are.

The truth is, God has given us all the tools we need because

He has given us Himself.

He has given us each other.

So…

Let’s go live the life He’s calls us to live. and let’s live it in Love.