Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Ø THIS IS GOD'S SUMMER, NOT OURS!!!! The summer is a time we usually look forward to, because of vacations, extra spare time, and time away from our typical daily responsibilities. Often people use this time to travel, read books, get in shape, finish projects at home, attend summer school, or just relax.
Ø So my question for you today, is how are you going to use your summer? What are your goals and priorities this summer, and more importantly, by what criteria or whose criteria do you make your decisions about how to use your time? You see, summer can be used as a time of renewed focus on God and tremendous growth, or it can end up being an aimless period of self-indulgence, wasted time and great backsliding. Temptations seem to intensify during the summer -- the extra time and a free mind can lead to more opportunities to sin, and some people misinterpret their freedom from school to mean they are off-duty from serving God (which we never are!). So, how you use your summer freedom is a great indication of who is on the throne of your life – you and your own worldly desires, or God and His Word? The world says that the summer is all about you – getting YOUR rest, making YOUR money, finding YOUR dream guy or dream girl, pursuing YOUR hobbies, etc. However, the Bible says that YOUR LIFE (not just the summer) belongs to God and is all about Him. The choice is yours, are you going to pursue after the world’s version of the “ideal summer” and the way popular culture portrays that it’s “supposed” to be, pursuing some worldly vision of self-indulgence, or will you pursue a deeper, closer, more obedient walk with God?
Ø When you think about it, the time you have been blessed with is very important. Jesus is coming back, and there is so much work left to do for Him, in our own lives as well as in the lives of others. There are so many people in need of “salt and light.” Are you using your time meaningfully? Sometimes we act like we have unlimited time on the earth. We act like our own priorities are more important than being here to get equipped with God’s Word, to encourage each other, and to spread God’s Word. Meanwhile there’s an empty, dying world out there that needs what God has to offer through you.
Ø So, as you decide what to prioritize this summer, we’re going to look at some Biblical guidelines to help you have a meaningful summer that pleases God -- not a summer of worldly pursuits that seem “fun” at the time but leave you empty, wanting more, distant from God. Only He can truly satisfy you anyway, and His principles can make your summer worthwhile and have lasting, eternal value. You and your summer belong to God, so let’s make this summer “God’s Summer” like it should be! To get some insight on how to do that, we’re going to look at Romans 12…
(Romans 12: 1-2)
Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing, and perfect will.
1) REARRANGE OUR PRIORITIES WITH GOD AT THE TOP
The first key to a meaningful, satisfying summer is for us to rearrange our priorities and put God first. If we claim to love God and worship God, then we are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices and put His interests and His priorities above our own. We are called to stop conforming to the pattern of the world – forget about what the world tells you the summer is supposed to be about, and be transformed by God, with His Word renewing your mind. Allow God’s Word to transform and reshape what you value. Spend extra time this summer praying and delving into God’s Word to see what His will is for your life and His vision for this ministry, and your role in it. When you are a living sacrifice, the summer is not all about you and your wants and your comforts – but it is about using the limited time you have for His glory and to do the eternally-valuable work of building His kingdom. You will never regret putting God’s priorities above your own, because there are so many wonderful promises (like Matthew 6:33) of what life is like when you put Him first (and not just talk about it).
A lot of times we have trouble doing this, because we’re conditioned from a young age to see the summer as our “reward” for our hard work during the schoolyear, which is an extremely self-centered point of view. We think to ourselves, “I’ve been working hard all year and I deserve a break over the summer, just to do whatever I want to do – I need to take time to stop and relax.” First of all, you might be taking a break from school and that’s fine, but you should never take a break from your purpose in life, or a break from God’s will. That’s a little too big and too important to take a break from. Secondly, this idea that we “deserve” some time to be self-indulgent and self-centered during the summer is totally flawed. If you want to talk about what we truly “deserve” – we “deserve” eternal punishment for our sins. It is only by God’s grace that He sent Jesus to die in our place, forgive us, and give us a new, meaningful, and eternal life. Don’t think for one minute that we deserved it. It was the gracious gift of a loving God. You obey Him “in view of God’s mercy” like verse 1 says, not because it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside (because there will be plenty of times it doesn’t – but we still are called to obey!) Therefore, “in view of God’s mercy” it is a great privilege to be able to use our time and priorities in His service. After what He’s done for us, we ought to be ready to do anything for Him, anytime.
(Read Romans 12:3-8, 9-16)
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
2) GET BEYOND OUR NATURAL, SELF-CENTERED PERSPECTIVE
Step two for a meaningful, God-pleasing summer is to humble yourself and get rid of any traces of self-centeredness or arrogance. Verse 3 makes this point very clear. In the context of this passage, Paul makes it clear that it is pure arrogance to think that we can live the Christian life apart from playing our role in the local church body. It is arrogance to think we can just be out on our own, pursuing our own interests, just being a spectator at church but not giving of ourselves to others – and think that we can still be pleasing God and growing in our walk with Him. It is arrogance to think that we can please God and fulfill His will for our lives without submitting ourselves as living sacrifices. It is arrogance for us to believe that somehow what’s going on in our lives gives us an excuse to take a time-out from being fully devoted to serving Him and serving others. We have got to get rid of this kind of arrogance – the type that just focuses on what we get OUT of church instead of what we are called to put INTO it. The type that is so self-absorbed that it overlooks how our unique gifts are supposed to be meeting other peoples’ needs in the church body (give examples).
It is arrogance to think that our gifts are just to enrich our own lives or boost our self-esteem. This passage makes it clear that the essential purpose of why God gave us gifts in the first place was to use them to actively serve Him the local body of believers. EACH MEMBER BELONGS TO ALL THE OTHERS. This leads us to the third step to make it “God’s Summer”.
3) OBEY GOD BY ACTIVELY USING OUR GIFTS TO SERVE IN THE LOCAL CHURCH BODY
What’s funny is that we act like this is an option – whether we want to be an actively-serving Christian or not – when really there is only one type of true Christian who obeys God, and that is the one who actively serves and uses their gifts. The Bible says that God has arranged each member in each church body (I Corinthians 12:18) -- so that we have everything we need and are not lacking anything. Every person is here for a purpose with some gift to supply the needs of the ministry in order to accomplish God’s will/vision/purpose. Remember, our gifts, and even our placement in this local body, is for the benefit of others, not ourselves. We have everything we need right here in this body of believers – God did not bring us haphazardly together by accident and give us too much of one gift and not enough of another. That’s why from a biblical perspective, when we don’t have enough people actively serving in the ministry, it’s not from a lack of people or a lack of gifts – IT IS A LACK OF OBEDIENCE, PLAIN AND SIMPLE. When we need someone to step up and fulfill a need in the church body and no one does, it’s just good old-fashioned willful disobedience and it breaks God’s heart to see His vision going unfulfilled, His commands disobeyed. This is not an accusation – it is a biblical, spiritual reality. Remember that we come to church to give, not to get – to serve, not to be served (just like Jesus’ example). When God has led you to be a committed part of this church body and then you stay away or stay passive (either because you’re not “getting anything out of it”, or you have your own priorities you are focusing on that particular day) you are willfully disobeying God by withholding yourself and your gifts from the other members. We suffer and miss out on something important (your contribution) when you are not there (or even if you are there, but not willing to actively use your gifts). That is one of the reasons that God instructs us in the Book of Hebrews to not forsake meeting together regularly with our fellow believers. We all have a vital, ongoing role to play that we’re not supposed to just start doing or stop doing when we feel like it. We’ve got to mature beyond the self-centered perspective and live the God-centered life, not only this summer but always, if we want to see God’s will take place in our lives and in our ministry. It’s amazing to think how God has given us EVERYTHING – things that we didn’t even earn or deserve, not even on our best day – and yet we often respond to His commands by telling Him “no” like a stubborn spoiled child. He sacrificed His only Son for us, and yet we don’t want to sacrifice our priorities or our schedule or our day of self-indulgent “fun” to obediently serve Him in the capacity He designed us for. Our leisure time, our comfort, our bank account, our social life, our bad mood – we often let these things become more important than God’s will and calling in our life. When are we really going to start living the Christian life and putting His interests over ours DAILY, and not just on special occasions when we “grace” Him with our presence? He says in His Word that those who truly love Him OBEY HIM. This obedience issue is seriously a matter of spiritual life or death!
Let’s truly dedicate this summer to God and His priorities – forget self-indulgent summers as depicted in Budweiser commercials, teenage movies and pop culture – let’s make this a “Romans 12 Summer”, “God’s Summer.” If you obey what God is calling you to do in these verses, you will GROW SPIRITUALLY this summer instead of getting lost in lazy haze of self-centeredness and backsliding, and waking up at 3 PM disgusted with yourself after wasting another day. You will never regret obeying God and investing your life in things that matter in eternity. You will never regret using your gifts for God. And just think… someday there will be additional people in Heaven because of the way you obediently humbled yourself and allowed God to use your life for His purposes. There is no limit to what God can accomplish through a unified, OBEDIENT church body that truly makes God’s priorities their own!Be honest before the Lord about your life, pray, and confess, and ask for His strength to grow and improve... TODAY! Don’t wait another day or another hour – procrastination is Satan’s trap; your meaningful Christ-like summer can begin right now (if not already) with a simple prayer.
Ø So my question for you today, is how are you going to use your summer? What are your goals and priorities this summer, and more importantly, by what criteria or whose criteria do you make your decisions about how to use your time? You see, summer can be used as a time of renewed focus on God and tremendous growth, or it can end up being an aimless period of self-indulgence, wasted time and great backsliding. Temptations seem to intensify during the summer -- the extra time and a free mind can lead to more opportunities to sin, and some people misinterpret their freedom from school to mean they are off-duty from serving God (which we never are!). So, how you use your summer freedom is a great indication of who is on the throne of your life – you and your own worldly desires, or God and His Word? The world says that the summer is all about you – getting YOUR rest, making YOUR money, finding YOUR dream guy or dream girl, pursuing YOUR hobbies, etc. However, the Bible says that YOUR LIFE (not just the summer) belongs to God and is all about Him. The choice is yours, are you going to pursue after the world’s version of the “ideal summer” and the way popular culture portrays that it’s “supposed” to be, pursuing some worldly vision of self-indulgence, or will you pursue a deeper, closer, more obedient walk with God?
Ø When you think about it, the time you have been blessed with is very important. Jesus is coming back, and there is so much work left to do for Him, in our own lives as well as in the lives of others. There are so many people in need of “salt and light.” Are you using your time meaningfully? Sometimes we act like we have unlimited time on the earth. We act like our own priorities are more important than being here to get equipped with God’s Word, to encourage each other, and to spread God’s Word. Meanwhile there’s an empty, dying world out there that needs what God has to offer through you.
Ø So, as you decide what to prioritize this summer, we’re going to look at some Biblical guidelines to help you have a meaningful summer that pleases God -- not a summer of worldly pursuits that seem “fun” at the time but leave you empty, wanting more, distant from God. Only He can truly satisfy you anyway, and His principles can make your summer worthwhile and have lasting, eternal value. You and your summer belong to God, so let’s make this summer “God’s Summer” like it should be! To get some insight on how to do that, we’re going to look at Romans 12…
(Romans 12: 1-2)
Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing, and perfect will.
1) REARRANGE OUR PRIORITIES WITH GOD AT THE TOP
The first key to a meaningful, satisfying summer is for us to rearrange our priorities and put God first. If we claim to love God and worship God, then we are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices and put His interests and His priorities above our own. We are called to stop conforming to the pattern of the world – forget about what the world tells you the summer is supposed to be about, and be transformed by God, with His Word renewing your mind. Allow God’s Word to transform and reshape what you value. Spend extra time this summer praying and delving into God’s Word to see what His will is for your life and His vision for this ministry, and your role in it. When you are a living sacrifice, the summer is not all about you and your wants and your comforts – but it is about using the limited time you have for His glory and to do the eternally-valuable work of building His kingdom. You will never regret putting God’s priorities above your own, because there are so many wonderful promises (like Matthew 6:33) of what life is like when you put Him first (and not just talk about it).
A lot of times we have trouble doing this, because we’re conditioned from a young age to see the summer as our “reward” for our hard work during the schoolyear, which is an extremely self-centered point of view. We think to ourselves, “I’ve been working hard all year and I deserve a break over the summer, just to do whatever I want to do – I need to take time to stop and relax.” First of all, you might be taking a break from school and that’s fine, but you should never take a break from your purpose in life, or a break from God’s will. That’s a little too big and too important to take a break from. Secondly, this idea that we “deserve” some time to be self-indulgent and self-centered during the summer is totally flawed. If you want to talk about what we truly “deserve” – we “deserve” eternal punishment for our sins. It is only by God’s grace that He sent Jesus to die in our place, forgive us, and give us a new, meaningful, and eternal life. Don’t think for one minute that we deserved it. It was the gracious gift of a loving God. You obey Him “in view of God’s mercy” like verse 1 says, not because it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside (because there will be plenty of times it doesn’t – but we still are called to obey!) Therefore, “in view of God’s mercy” it is a great privilege to be able to use our time and priorities in His service. After what He’s done for us, we ought to be ready to do anything for Him, anytime.
(Read Romans 12:3-8, 9-16)
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
2) GET BEYOND OUR NATURAL, SELF-CENTERED PERSPECTIVE
Step two for a meaningful, God-pleasing summer is to humble yourself and get rid of any traces of self-centeredness or arrogance. Verse 3 makes this point very clear. In the context of this passage, Paul makes it clear that it is pure arrogance to think that we can live the Christian life apart from playing our role in the local church body. It is arrogance to think we can just be out on our own, pursuing our own interests, just being a spectator at church but not giving of ourselves to others – and think that we can still be pleasing God and growing in our walk with Him. It is arrogance to think that we can please God and fulfill His will for our lives without submitting ourselves as living sacrifices. It is arrogance for us to believe that somehow what’s going on in our lives gives us an excuse to take a time-out from being fully devoted to serving Him and serving others. We have got to get rid of this kind of arrogance – the type that just focuses on what we get OUT of church instead of what we are called to put INTO it. The type that is so self-absorbed that it overlooks how our unique gifts are supposed to be meeting other peoples’ needs in the church body (give examples).
It is arrogance to think that our gifts are just to enrich our own lives or boost our self-esteem. This passage makes it clear that the essential purpose of why God gave us gifts in the first place was to use them to actively serve Him the local body of believers. EACH MEMBER BELONGS TO ALL THE OTHERS. This leads us to the third step to make it “God’s Summer”.
3) OBEY GOD BY ACTIVELY USING OUR GIFTS TO SERVE IN THE LOCAL CHURCH BODY
What’s funny is that we act like this is an option – whether we want to be an actively-serving Christian or not – when really there is only one type of true Christian who obeys God, and that is the one who actively serves and uses their gifts. The Bible says that God has arranged each member in each church body (I Corinthians 12:18) -- so that we have everything we need and are not lacking anything. Every person is here for a purpose with some gift to supply the needs of the ministry in order to accomplish God’s will/vision/purpose. Remember, our gifts, and even our placement in this local body, is for the benefit of others, not ourselves. We have everything we need right here in this body of believers – God did not bring us haphazardly together by accident and give us too much of one gift and not enough of another. That’s why from a biblical perspective, when we don’t have enough people actively serving in the ministry, it’s not from a lack of people or a lack of gifts – IT IS A LACK OF OBEDIENCE, PLAIN AND SIMPLE. When we need someone to step up and fulfill a need in the church body and no one does, it’s just good old-fashioned willful disobedience and it breaks God’s heart to see His vision going unfulfilled, His commands disobeyed. This is not an accusation – it is a biblical, spiritual reality. Remember that we come to church to give, not to get – to serve, not to be served (just like Jesus’ example). When God has led you to be a committed part of this church body and then you stay away or stay passive (either because you’re not “getting anything out of it”, or you have your own priorities you are focusing on that particular day) you are willfully disobeying God by withholding yourself and your gifts from the other members. We suffer and miss out on something important (your contribution) when you are not there (or even if you are there, but not willing to actively use your gifts). That is one of the reasons that God instructs us in the Book of Hebrews to not forsake meeting together regularly with our fellow believers. We all have a vital, ongoing role to play that we’re not supposed to just start doing or stop doing when we feel like it. We’ve got to mature beyond the self-centered perspective and live the God-centered life, not only this summer but always, if we want to see God’s will take place in our lives and in our ministry. It’s amazing to think how God has given us EVERYTHING – things that we didn’t even earn or deserve, not even on our best day – and yet we often respond to His commands by telling Him “no” like a stubborn spoiled child. He sacrificed His only Son for us, and yet we don’t want to sacrifice our priorities or our schedule or our day of self-indulgent “fun” to obediently serve Him in the capacity He designed us for. Our leisure time, our comfort, our bank account, our social life, our bad mood – we often let these things become more important than God’s will and calling in our life. When are we really going to start living the Christian life and putting His interests over ours DAILY, and not just on special occasions when we “grace” Him with our presence? He says in His Word that those who truly love Him OBEY HIM. This obedience issue is seriously a matter of spiritual life or death!
Let’s truly dedicate this summer to God and His priorities – forget self-indulgent summers as depicted in Budweiser commercials, teenage movies and pop culture – let’s make this a “Romans 12 Summer”, “God’s Summer.” If you obey what God is calling you to do in these verses, you will GROW SPIRITUALLY this summer instead of getting lost in lazy haze of self-centeredness and backsliding, and waking up at 3 PM disgusted with yourself after wasting another day. You will never regret obeying God and investing your life in things that matter in eternity. You will never regret using your gifts for God. And just think… someday there will be additional people in Heaven because of the way you obediently humbled yourself and allowed God to use your life for His purposes. There is no limit to what God can accomplish through a unified, OBEDIENT church body that truly makes God’s priorities their own!Be honest before the Lord about your life, pray, and confess, and ask for His strength to grow and improve... TODAY! Don’t wait another day or another hour – procrastination is Satan’s trap; your meaningful Christ-like summer can begin right now (if not already) with a simple prayer.
