As Jesus followers we are called into the Kingdom Life. This blog will help us converse and learn what that means. It will contain thoughts on Scripture, Sermon Reflection, Leadership Training and interesting reads. -Pastor Jeff

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Living a Life that Matters

You matter!  Your life matters!  How you live your life matters to those you come into contact with every day.  Your life matters because as a follower of Jesus, the One you follow, the One that fills your life matters to this world.

Over the last few weeks we've been talking about living a life out of the "overflow."  What fills your tank (the core of who you are) will eventually spill out and affect those around you. The question we must ask, "What kind of overflow is my life producing?"

I believe that each of us wants to make a difference.  I believe that we all want to live meaningful lives.  I believe that we want to live the kind of life the produces the kind of fruit that is positive and life giving in every area of our lives. That's right I said every area of our lives.  The key to living a life that matters is remembering that our overflow matters in whatever we do, whereever we are, in whatever season we find ourselves.  This weekend I shared a message that looked at a list of 10 things we must keep in mind if we hope to live a life that makes a positive, faithful, life-giving difference.  Here's a reminder of that list with some helpful Scriptures.

1.)  We must stay hooked to Jesus.

  • Living a life that matters means living a life completely saturated in Jesus.  He is the source of our overflow.  He is the One that produces life giving fruit in our lives.  Being a Christian isn't simply about doing good things.  It's about doing the kinds of things that point past our goodness to the source of that goodness.
  • Jesus says it this way...John 15:4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  Only as we stay connected to Jesus can we hope to live a life that produces the kind of fruit that matters. 
  • The Bible also gives us another image.  Each day, no matter where we go, we better ensure that we are dressed appropriately.  The Bible says,  Romans 13:14 Rather clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. Too often our good intentions to make a difference are sabotaged by our failure to put on the right attire.  We try to take on the world naked.  We must clothe ourselves with Jesus so that he shapes our desire, our ambitions, our attitudes, our perspective and ultimately our actions.  Phil. 2:5 or Hebrews 12:1-2
2.)  We must make the shift from a focus on success to a focus on signficance.
  • We are too easily enamored by bigger, more, and climbing ladders.  We live lives in pursuit of the proverbial carrot that seems to consistently elude us.  It is almost as though we won't be satisified until we've been affirmed as successful, until we've "arrived."  But what if we weren't created to be concerned about success? What if our concern was alway about significance?  What if as followers of Jesus we are to be concerned less with the size of our paychecks and promotions and more a passion for people?  
  • In Matthew 6, Jesus clearly says, Matthew 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Our passion as believers is always first and foremost about those things that stir the heart of God.  What we do with, for, and to others matters far more than the size of our compensation.  What if I told you that you paycheck was simply the icing on the cake. The cake itself is the people that you positively impact.
  • And one more thing...When you set your eyes on this, you will discover that God gives the increase.  If he feels as though you are in a season when more, bigger, or extending your social influence will matter for His Kingdom, He will take care of your increase. We needn't try to control our outcomes or manipulate our situations to get what we believe we have coming.  We place ourselves in His hands.  Check out more at Phil. 4:10-19.
3.)  We must begin to believe that our lives have meaning...RIGHT NOW, where you are!
  • Perhaps my greatest fear in life is regrets.  I don't want to live the kind of life where I look back and think, "I should have or could have."  Regret is the result of a life that simply tries to survive, make it, punch our tickets, get through the day.  We need to stop trying to "get through" (our day, our week, this season) and instead "get into" life.  We need to jump in, get involved, realizing that we can make the most out of this season.
  • I know, I know...what if this season isn't what you had in mind?  What if you feel like that what you are doing at your job, in your home, where you live is without purpose?  I want to tell you that's a lie from the devil.  You matter.  Your overflow matters!  Right Now!  No matter how simple or insignificant you feel life is, God has assigned you this place and called us to display his grace in this place, RIGHT NOW!
  • I love a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. and I believe it applies any time we think our live don't matter.  He states, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well...No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
4.)  We must stop suffering from destination disease.
  • This one has been tricky for me. For a long time I struggled to embrace where I was because I was always thinking about where I should be next.  When we are focused on our supposed arrival point, we miss the value of the present moments.  We regularly tell ourselves that when I get to the right job, the right town, the right group, the right church, or when I have the right amount of money or retire, THEN I'll make a difference.  I've actually found that the person who fails to make a difference where they are now won't make a difference when they arrive somewhere else.  Your overflow should gush out now!
  • Besides, it's a little bit arrogant to think we've got our destination figured out anyway.  Not one of us can guarantee our next day. We don't know what's coming next. How many have procrastinated about "difference making" only to have their lives demanded from them. There is a humility required of us in recognizing our destinations and outcomes aren't up to us. James says it this way, James 4:13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
  • I also love this quote from a Pastor I enjoy.  Bob Roberts says, I prepared for a life that never came and lived a life I didn't know existed.
5.)  We must become attuned to Divine Appointments.
  • Most of us don't have time to impact the world because we haven't scheduled it in our calendar. We are so busy that we are blind to the opportunities to overflow in life giving ways each and every day.  A person that wants to make a difference is less concerned with convenience and more concerned with God's providence.  People concerned with convenience live lives on the verge of frustration and annoyance every day.  They are unsettled by those random and ill-timed moments when God wants to break in and use them in meaningful ways.  
  • Every person throughout the Scriptures that God uses was doing something else when God called them.  Moses wasn't strolling about waiting for God to come out of no where.  He was doing his job, tending to the flocks, when God showed up for a divine appointment.  Gideon was threshing wheat, intentionally trying to stay off the radar...and...divine appointement.  Matthew was at his tax booth doing his thing when Jesus showed up and called him away.  How much different might their stories have been if they had said, "You know God, this really isn't a good time for me."  
  • Newsflash!  Your time was never your time. God loves to hijack our time!  In fact, your time was always God's time, he just lets you use a little. You've been created to be at His beckon call, to live by the beat of His drum, even when His drumbeat doesn't fit your rhythms. For a deeper look at a moment in Scripture where life moves from convenience (trying to get away from the hustle and bustle) to God's providence (when Jesus hijacks a moment and puts His glory on display), read Mark 6:30-44.  Or I love Colossians 4:5-6.
6.)  We must live lives more concerned with making deposits than we are withdrawals.
  • We've been taught to constantly ask the question, "What's in this for me?"  We are always working an angle trying to maximize what we can get from people, a job, and about every other thing that surrounds our life.  I am convinced that if you really want to make an impact, cut the strings. You know what strings I'm talking about.  We constantly have strings attached to what we do.  Even when we are doing "good things" we are typically hoping for some kind of return on our investment.  I don't mind going over the top at work as long as it ensures me a return. I don't mind helping a friend, as long as they know they owe me.
  • A difference maker does what they do for the sake of doing good, not for the sake of getting something out of it. We do what we do because it's faithful not because it's profitable.  We must learn to take the example of Jesus who lives out a self-giving humility. He states, Matthew 20:26 whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
  • A really important note here!! You will not positively impact this world or live a life that matters if you spend your life feeling as though the world owes you something.  If you live the life of a leech that constantly sucks the life out of others, your fruit will leave a VERY BAD taste in the mouths of others.  Only those that relinquish the sentiment "I deserve" are prepared to make a difference.  
7.)  We must embrace the calling to be thermostats instead of thermometers.  
  • You know there is a difference between a thermometer and a thermostat, right?  Thermometers are desiged to reflect the temperature.  Thermostats are designed to set the temperature.  This is really important!  Too often our difference making capacity is sabotaged by our tendency to get sucked into our surroundings and reflecting those around us.  As Christians we are called to set the temperature and affect and influence the atmosphere.
  • Did you know when you became a Jesus follower, you became wierd.  That's right, embrace it. Live it!  Love it!  We are called to be different. Jesus' good friend Peter writes, 1 Peter 2:11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. Did you get that?  We are foreigners and exiles.  We don't fit.  We should and will stand out.  When we do, we offer the world and alternative to what they so readily see all around them all the time.
  • Imagine the difference this would make where you work.  How often do you get sucked into conversations at work that you know have the seeds of some pretty bad fruit? Even before you know it, you've started saying things that even as you say them, you know they aren't faithful to your witness to Jesus. What about crisis? Do you handle crisis the same way everyone else does?  What about conflict?  See the list could go on.  We are to conduct ourselves in a way where we set the tone!  That will make a difference that lasts!
8.)  We must experience a shift from fickle and flaky to steadfast and sound.
  • Our world is clamoring for someone they can trust.  However, what they too often encounter are people that are willy nilly about their commitments, leave promises unfulfilled, lack consistency, and are easily distracted by the next big deal or issue.  Many folks in our culture feel like they sitting in a little life boat in a wild and stormy sea looking for something to toss their ropes around and tie off.  Unfortunately all they find are other life boats being tossed about by the waves.  They need something/someone sturdy.
  • Integrity, solid character, and a trustworthy nature go a long way in today's world. We often think, "How can I change the world?  Who am I?  What difference can I make?"  We are often overwhelmed by the magnitude of the world's problems that we forget the importance of the daily acts like, keeping a promise!  
  • I love the way Jesus puts it in the Sermon on the Mount.  Matthew 5:33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
9.)  We mustn't build dams in areas of our lives!  We should overflow everywhere!
  • Consistency, consistency, consistency!  Did I say consistency?  Living a life that matters, a life where our overflow gives life to others is only possible if that overflow affects every area of our lives. We can't build a dam in certain areas, suggesting those are off limits.  For instance, say you overflow well in your family, your church, and even in your work, but you go to your kid's basketball game and lose your "ever-loving" mind...people will call into question every area of your overflow.  It will feel disconnected to them.  You can't live faithfully at home and at church and then produce bad fruit at your workplace.  Remember Jesus says, "You will be recognized by your fruit."
  • We can't underestimate the value of  being the same person whereever we are and with whomever we find ourselves.  All dams must come down.  You must be willing to allow the overflow of your life to filter out into every area of your life.
10.) We must understand that our lives are often the only representation of God that many know.
  • Yikes, that's a tough one to end on.  What a responsibility.  When we say we believe in God or that we follow Jesus, they will assume that the way we live should be a reflection of the God we believe in, the Jesus that we follow.  If we fail to produce life-giving fruit, if we fail to overflow with love and grace, we will send the wrong message about who God is.  Before a person ever walks into a church to sing songs or listen to preaching, they've already been influenced and impacted by the God they see in you. That's why YOU MATTER!  You matter because you've been created to be sent out into a world that doesn't know Jesus as His ambassador.  
  • I love what Peter writes.  In quoting an Old Testament passage from Exodus 19, he writes, 1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. He uses the image "royal priesthood."  The vocation of the priests is to mediate the presence of God to the people.  We are that priesthood.  Our lives are to be lived as a mediation of God's love, grace, mercy, faithfulness, and forgivness.  When we demonstrate that God, people come running to discover more about the One we faithfully represent!
  • Jesus says, Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
YOU MATTER!  Your life matters!  Your life matters because the One the fills you up, the One the lives within you, the One that is the source of your overflow matters to the world.  Go out and live a life that matters!

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