THE FIVE ESSENTIALS OF LIFE
01-15-12 Sermon
If you were to ask a biologist, “What are the essentials of life?” he’d answer, air, food, water, light. If you were to ask a pharmacist, “What are the essentials of life?” he’d probably give you a long list of trace minerals, and important vitamins that you need. If you were to ask a survivalist, “What are the essentials of life?”, he’d say a shotgun, bottled water and a bunker.
But you are more than just physical life. Life has a spiritual element and life has an emotional element and there are spiritual and emotional factors that are just as essential to life as air and water and food and you need these to really live. In fact without these you’re not living, you’re just existing. You’re not thriving, you’re just surviving.
We want to look at five essentials for a balanced life.
1. YOU NEED POWER TO LIVE ON
You need that because there are a lot of things in life that drain your life of power, drain your life of energy and strength and vitality and stamina. Change definitely can rob you of energy. Stress can rob you of power. Conflict can drain your life. Delay can drain your life of energy. Frustration can drain your life of energy. And everyday work can drain you of the power in your life.
Where do you get the energy and the stamina and the power to live on? Where do you get the energy to just keep going when you feel like giving up?
People try different things: fads, therapies, pills, things like that. But the real secret of power to live on is this: focus on God. The more you focus on God the more power you’re going to have in your life. God is the source of all power. God has all the power you need. Just look around nature. His power is evidenced everywhere you look. The Bible says, “Nothing is impossible with God.” He’s got more power than you could possibly imagine. That power is available to you but you get it by focusing on God. You get your eyes off your problems and you get your eyes onto God, onto Jesus Christ.
Isaiah 40:30-31 “Even youth grow weary and tired and vigorous young men stumble badly yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not become weary.”
God has all the power you need and you get it by waiting on Him or by focusing on Him. The more you focus on God the more you plug into His power. If you spend a lot of your life focusing on God, you’re going to have a lot of power in your life. If you spend a little time focusing on God, you’re going to have a little power in your life. If you don’t spend any time focusing on God, you’re going to have no power in your life.
There’s a word for focusing on God in the Bible. That word is “worship”. Worship is simply focusing on God. Some people think worship is a ritual. It’s not. Some people think worship is a regimen, rules and regulations. It is not. Some people think it’s a ceremony. Worship is not a ceremony. It’s not a list of things you do or don’t do. Worship simply means focusing on God.
You can worship by yourself in your backyard. You can worship with another person or a couple of people in a small group. You can worship in a large crowd. Whenever you are focusing on God, you are worshiping and that is the secret of the power to live on.
How do you worship? Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God.” You need to quiet yourself, drop the distractions, center in on God and His greatness and His love and what He wants to do in your life – His plan and purpose. The more you do this, the more you be still and know that God is God, the more you’re going to find yourself restored, renewed and refreshed on a daily basis.
The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, the same power that rolled the stone away from the tomb so people could see that Christ is risen is available to you. And you will not make it if you don’t have power to live on. That is your first and foremost greatest need. But you need more than that.
2. YOU NEED PEOPLE TO LIVE WITH
The Bible calls it fellowship. You were made for relationships. You do need the power of God in your life but you also need people around you to support you, encourage you and to fellowship with. The Bible tells us that when God made Adam, He put him in the Garden of Eden which was a perfect environment. No problems, no pressure, no pain. Yet God looked down at Adam in a perfect environment and said it’s still not good enough. There’s something terribly wrong. And in Genesis 2:18 “God said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone.’”
It is not God’s will for you to be lonely. You were made for relationships. You were made for other people. And God says you need people to live with not just power to live on.
A study by the Department of Mental Health of California said that they discovered that if you isolate yourself from other people, if all you have is acquaintances, no close friends, you have no intimate relationships with other believers, other people, you are three times more likely to die an early death, you are four times more likely to suffer emotional burnout, you are five times more likely to be clinically depressed and you are ten times more likely to be hospitalized for emotional or mental disorder. You were made for relationships.
The Bible says we’re supposed to help each other. We’re not supposed to go through life as Lone Rangers. You are supposed to have people that you depend on. Close friends. The Bible calls it fellowship.
In Ecclesiastes 4 the Bible says, “Two people are better than one because they get more done by working together. If one falls down, the other can help him up.” The next verse in that chapter says, “If you don’t have anybody to help you up when you’re all alone, pity on you.” You need people to live with.
Fortunately God has designed a custom-made support network just for you. That is called the church. Church is not something you go to. Church is not an event you attend. Church is a family that God meant for you to be connected to, to be a part of. He wants you to have relationships and connections and fellowship in the body of Christ, in the family of God. You need people to live with.
When you get busy the first thing that gets short-changed in your life are your relationships. You start cutting back. The first relationship that gets hurt when you get busy is your relationship to God. You start saying, “I don’t have time to pray. I don’t have time to talk to God. I don’t have time to read my Bible. I don’t have time to be quiet and focused like we just talked about.” God always gets short-changed first in relationships. And then if the pressure and the stress stays on, you start cutting back in your family, and you start cutting back in your relationships with other Christians. “I don’t have time to be a part of a small group. I don’t have time to go to special programs. I don’t have time to come every weekend to church.”
If that’s the case in your life, you’re too busy. Your priorities are all out of whack. And when you start skimping on relationships it always comes back to haunt you. You’re going to get hurt in the end. You cannot cut back on an emotional and spiritual need of your life – people to live with. If you don’t have meaningful, supportive and accountable relationships you’re going to go under at some point in your life.
The Bible warns about this in Hebrews 10:25 “Let us not neglect our meeting together.” Why? Because you need it. It’s not just what you hear and learn, it’s the relationships that you build in those meetings.
There’s a third essential you’re going to need in the 21st century.
3. YOU NEED PRINCIPLES TO LIVE BY.
You need power to live on and people to live with but you also need principles to live by. You need a clearly thought out philosophy of life. You need a moral foundation. You need a code of conduct and conviction that gives you stability when everything’s flying off the wall.
The Bible says that you were created to have a relationship with God. That’s why you were made. And God wants you to live with Him in eternity by first developing a relationship with him here on earth. You’re not going to spend forever here on earth. You’re only here 60, 70, 80, maybe 90 years on earth. When your body dies, that’s not the end of you. You’re going to keep on living. Where you spend your eternity and what you do in eternity is largely going to be determined by how well you follow the directions of God here on earth. If you don’t do too good at that here you’re not going to do too good in eternity.
You are being tested. Life is a test. It is not the final act. This is the warm up act. You are being tested by how well you follow what God says to do in His word. And you need principles to live by. God’s going to see if you’re going to live by them or not.
Every principle you need for life is in the Bible. It is in the Bible and the Bible says in Psalm 119:19 “I am a pilgrim here on earth [that means you’re just passing through; you’re not going to stay here] I need a map and Your commands are my chart and my guide.” Everything you need is right in there – the principles to build your life on and to live by.
Here’s the problem. God’s principles for living are the exact opposite of conventional wisdom. I used to have a saying in big letters on the wall of my office that said: What is popular is not always right, and what is right is not always popular. And another that says Stand up for what is right, even if you’re standing alone. Figure out the popular thing to do and it’s almost always the wrong thing to do. Because God’s principles for living about time management, and God’s principles for living about sex, and God’s principles for living about how you use your money, and God’s principles for living in so many areas, are the exact opposite of what popular culture tells you. Popular culture almost always gets it wrong.
They say, “You earn your way to heaven by being good enough. And if your good works are better than your bad works, you’re going to make it.” So you work real hard and hope to get into heaven. God says, “Not a chance. There’s no way you can earn your way into a perfect place. It’s a gift. You must accept it by faith in My Son. It’s a free gift of grace. Accept it.” Popular culture says, Get all you can, get it as fast as you can and don’t let anybody else have any of it. God says, “The way to be happy is to give your life away. A man’s life does not consist of the abundance of things he possesses.” Learn to give, learn to share, because happiness comes from being generous, from being a giving person.
Today, more than ever before and particularly in the 21st century, you are going to need to settle in your mind the principles that you’re going to live on. What are the statements, the values that are going to hold your life up? The reason that’s important is because we are moving from the modern age to what they’re now calling the postmodern age. The 21st century will definitely be the postmodern age.
What’s the difference between the modern age that we live in right now and the postmodern age? There are many differences and we’re going to look at those in this series in detail. But let me give you one today.
In the modern age, truth was discussed and debated and fought over. In the postmodern age, people don’t even believe there’s such a thing as truth. We’re already seeing that in our culture today. “There is no such thing as truth. What’s right for you may be wrong for me. What’s right for me may be wrong for you. What’s true for you may not be true for these people. There is no such thing as truth. It’s just a figment of your imagination. It’s all an illusion.” We’re seeing this attitude being implemented in every area of our society – politics, government, education, every area of life. You’re hearing people say things like “There are no absolutes. There is no absolute right and there is no absolute wrong. It’s just what you want it to be.” Whenever I hear anybody say that I want to say, “Are you absolutely sure?” That statement in itself is an absolute.
There are profound implications if there is no truth. And people who say this don’t even think it through. It’s true that for people today tolerance is more important that truth. You don’t have to tell the truth you just have to be tolerant of everybody else no matter how devious they are. Today the supreme value is not truth. It’s political correctness. I need to warn you that the moment you decide to say, “Here are some principles to live by,” this is always right and this is always wrong,” the moment you say that you may be labeled a bigot. No matter what you say. The moment that anybody has the courage to stand up and say this is right and this is wrong, always. Then you’re labeled a fundamentalist, a bigot, a nutcase of some kind. Because you’re not tolerant.
Folks, we need to be tolerant of people, but not truth. It is not tolerance that sets you free. It’s truth that sets you free. You can be very tolerant and building your life on a total lie. It does not make sense to affirm two contradictory ideas as true. You need to be tolerant of people but not of truth. You need principles to live by.
If there is no such thing as truth, nothing matters. There is no meaning. There is no significance. And you don’t matter. You’re just some primordial ooze that happened to evolve. You don’t matter.
Jesus told a story at the end of the Sermon on the Mount where He said, two guys went out and built homes. One built his home on shifting sand. And when the storms came along that are inevitable in life and the rains hit it and the winds battered it, it fell apart because it had no solid foundation. But there was a wise person who built his house on solid rock, a solid foundation. And when the winds came and the storms blew, the rains came down, it remained solid because it had a stable foundation.
In a society where things are crumbing all around us, how do you have hope? How do you be optimistic? Look at the next verse. “Everyone who hears My words and obeys them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” You need principles to live by.
There’s a word for people who do this. A word for people who build a foundation, who live by God’s principles – holy. God wants you to be holy. Holiness should be a goal of your life. That is a word we’re not used to. When we think of holy we think of nuns or priests or holy men on the mountain, a hermit who hides in a cave or monastery, some super saint or spiritual superstar. We don’t think of ourselves as being holy. Holiness means being totally dedicated to doing what God wants. That ought to be your desire in the 21st century, to be wholly dedicated to God’s principles, to be wholly committed to God’s word and way of life, to be wholly sold out to what He wants for your life. In the 21st century you need to make that your desire. You need to say, “Lord, holiness is what I long for. Holiness is what I need.”
There’s a fourth ingredient, a fourth essential you have to have to be all God wants you to be.
4. YOU NEED A PLAN TO LIVE OUT
You need an outlet for expressing the talents and abilities that God has given you. You need a plan and a place where you can make a contribution with your life, with your talents, with your abilities, with your giftings in this world. You need a plan for how God is going to use you to make the world a better place. Really it all boils down to two options: You can live your life by design or you can live your life by default. You can live your life intentionally or you can live your life accidentally. You can make the most of what God has given you or you can waste it, blow it, and kind of drift through life unintentionally, without a plan and wasting what God has given to you.
The truth and good news is, God does have a plan for your life. The fact that you’re alive means He has a plan for you. Life does not make sense until you understand you were made by God and for God. He made you for Himself. Life doesn’t make sense until you understand that.
So how do I know God’s plan for my life? How do I know my place in this world? How do I know my niche, what I'm supposed to do, where I'm supposed to give back? What am I supposed to do with my life? I can say it in one word. God’s plan for your life is service. That’s God’s plan for your life. God wants you to serve Him and God wants you to serve Him by serving others.
Notice Ephesians 2:10 “God has made us what we are…” You are who you are and what you are because God intended that. He has a plan for you to fulfill. If you don’t be you, who’s going to be you? Only you can be you in this world. So you may not like it, you may say, “I wish I looked like ‘that’ or have ‘that’ talent…” God wants you to be you and He want you to fulfill the role He made you for and that’s where fulfillment and meaning and significance comes from. God made us what we are.
It says “… in Christ Jesus God made us…” …to watch television? No. “God made us to do good works.” That’s service. God made you to serve. God didn’t put you on this earth to be a selfish little clod where you live totally for yourself and everybody in the world exists for you, to meet your needs, to give you pleasure. God did not mean for you to just live for yourself. He wants you to make a contribution in life. He wants you to give something back, to make an impact in the world, in the way that’s best for you based on how He made you.
How do I know God’s plan for my life? I look at the Bible. The Bible says serve Him. It says “God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing.” Before you were even born, God planned the ways of service, the ways of making an impact in the world that He wanted you to do specifically. When you get to heaven, God isn’t going to say, “Why weren’t you like that person over there?” He’s going to say, “Why didn’t you do what I made you to do? Why didn’t you make the impact that you were designed to make and influence where I designed you to influence?”
How do I know what God wants me to do? How do I know where He wants me to serve? I look at the way God has wired me up. God has uniquely shaped you for a reason. There is an acrostic, SHAPE. Five things that shape you, that make you, you. Your Spiritual gifts, your Heart, your Ability, your Personality, your Experiences. All these five things shape you and make you, you. When you understand how God has shaped you, then you’ll know your niche in life. You’ll know what you should be doing in investing your life.
Here’s the thing: when you’re a child, it’s very obvious what your spiritual SHAPE is because your parents and everybody else can see it. If you’re good at art, you’re good at art. If you’re good at music, you’re good at music. If you’re good at numbers or words or pictures or mechanical things or animals, those things just naturally come out. If you’re a leader, you end up being a leader on the playground. Whatever it is, it starts showing up pretty early.
But as you grow older, socialization kicks in and you start saying, “That’s what gets rewarded in this society,” or “That’s what makes money in this culture. That’s where the big bucks are,” or “That’s what gets the approval of my parents or my friends,” or “That’s what will make me famous and give me status.” And you end up, often, in some area of life that you weren’t shaped for and no amount of money, no amount of prestige and status, and no amount of fame is going to compensate for that, so you’re still miserable. You’re wondering why you have all these things yet you still don’t feel satisfied. Because you’re not doing what you’re shaped to do. And you let somebody get you off track.
Here’s the good news. Your shape is unique. There’s nobody else like you in the world, shaped just like you. God made your shape unique – your heart, ability, personality, experiences, all those things – because He has a unique contribution He wants you to make in this world. And He wants you to do it. But you will miss that contribution if you start copying other people. Most people start off as originals in life but they end up as carbon copies of other people. “Look at what the Jones’ are doing. We need to do that!” You end up being like somebody that God never intended you to be like. And you miss the glory and the wonder and the satisfaction of being fully who God meant for you to be. Don’t miss it by copying others.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 12 “God gives us many kinds of special abilities, but it is the same Holy Spirit who is the source of them all and there are different kinds of service to God but it is the same Lord that we are serving.” God uses us all in many different ways.
5. YOU NEED A PURPOSE TO LIVE FOR.
Everybody needs to feel like their life matters. You need to feel like you’re not just taking up space, that you’re not just using oxygen, wasting resources, that your life matters and it counts. That you not only have a plan to live out but you have a purpose to live for. You need to know your purpose. In fact, if you don’t understand your purpose, life doesn’t make sense. Why bother? Why get up in the morning? If you don’t know your purpose in life and you’re not fulfilling God’s plan in life, God doesn’t owe you one more day. Why does God owe you one more second of breath of life if you’re just going to use it on yourself rather than fulfilling His plan and His purpose for your life?
Sadly, most people never even discover God’s purpose for their lives. They live and die just existing. What do you do when you don’t know your purpose in life?
Some make up a purpose. And a lot of people do that. They just grab something, grab onto it and that becomes their meaning for life. They say things like, “I'm into sports… I'm into music… I'm into politics… I'm into making money… I'm into golf… I'm into redecorating my home.” All those are fine things but they’re lousy purposes for living. You try to make up a purpose and people do that.
You were made with a hole in your heart that only God can fill. You were made to have God at the center of your life. If God isn’t number one and at the center of your life, then you’re going to try to cram something else in there that’s a poor, second class substitute. And you’re going to be disappointed. If you give first class allegiance to a second class cause, you’re going to be betrayed. Nothing can take the place of God in your life. When you try to fill it with something else and put something else at the center of your life instead of God that becomes your god and it becomes an addiction.
One guy who clearly understood his purpose was Paul in the Bible. The Bible says in Acts 20 “The most important thing is that I complete my mission, the work that the Lord Jesus gave me to tell people the good news about God’s grace.” God had a mission and a work for Paul to do.
God has a mission and a work for you. A life mission, a life purpose that He intends for you to fulfill while you’re here on this earth. Part of the job of this church is to help you understand that.
These are the five essentials you have to have to live in the 21st century.
Matthew 6:33 “The thing that you should want most [circle “want most”] is God’s kingdom and doing what God wants [You should want most what God wants.] then all these other things you need will be given to you.” If you want most what God wants most for your life, then all these other things you need will be given to you.
The Bible tells us in 2 Peter 1 “Jesus has the power of God and His power has given us everything we need to live [that’s all the essentials of life] and to serve God. And we have these things because we know Him.” It starts by getting to know Christ. If you’ve not gotten to know Jesus Christ, you need to do that. Get connected.
Prayer:
Father, I want to thank You that You’ve promised to provide everything that we need to live and to serve You, if we will put our trust in Your Son, Jesus Christ.
Why don’t you pray? Pray this in your mind. Say, “Dear God, today I want to get started getting to know You better.” Just say that in your mind. “I want to get connected to You. I'm going to look to You to meet my needs in these five essentials in my life. Please give me Your power to live on. And please bring the right people into my life that I need for support. And help me to live by Your principles. I want to know You and I want to follow Your plan for my life and I want to fulfill the purpose that You created me for. In Your name I pray. Amen.”
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