BUILDING A LIFE OF COMMITMENT
Building a Great Life
- Part 5 of 8
2 Chronicles 16:9 (NIV)
05-05-13 Sermon
"The
eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts
are fully committed to Him." 2 Chr. 16:9 (NIV)
I. THE POWER OF COMMITMENT
My
commitments
...
show my ______________________________ (Mt. 6:24)
...
shape my ______________________________ (Pr. 4:23)
...
determine my ______________________________ (Mk. 8:36)
II. THE PRICE OF COMMITMENT
"If you want to
be My follower you must love Me more than your own father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters -- yes, more than your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be My
disciple." Lk. 14:26
(NLT)
I GIVE CHRIST...
* THE FIRST ______________________________
OF EACH DAY.
"Each
morning I will look to You in heaven and lay my requests before
You..." Ps. 5:3 (LB)
*
THE FIRST ______________________________ OF EVERY WEEK.
"On
the first day of the week, the disciples came together..."
*
THE FIRST ______________________________ OF EVERY PAYCHECK.
"Honor
the Lord by giving Him the first part of all your income." Pr. 3:9 (LB)
*
THE FIRST ______________________________ IN EVERY DECISION.
"In
everything you do, put God first, and He will direct you and crown your
efforts with success."
Pr. 3:5-6 (LB)
III. THE PITFALLS OF COMMITMENT
1. WE GET
_____________________________________________
"The
attractions of this world, the delights of wealth, the search for success and
lure of nice things come in and crowd out God." Mark 4:19 (LB)
2.
WE BECOME _____________________________________________
"Don't
be lazy in showing your devotion.
Use your energy to serve the Lord." Rom. 12;11 (GWT)
IV. THE PAYOFF FOR TOTAL COMMITMENT
"Do
not worry, saying, `What shall we eat... or drink... or wear?' ... your heavenly Father knows that you
need these. But seek first God's kingdom and His righteousness, and all
these things will be given to you as well." Matt. 6:31-33 (NIV)
"The
Master will say, `Well done good and faithful servant! You have been faithful
with a few things -- I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your Master's
happiness!" Matt.
25:23 (NIV)
"Give
yourselves completely to God -- every part of you... you want to be
tools in the hands of God, to be used for His good purposes." Rom. 6:13b (LB)
BUILDING A LIFE OF
COMMITMENT
Building a Great Life
- Part 5 of 8
2 Chronicles 16:9 (NIV)
05-05-13 Sermon
Every time there is upheaval
in the stock market financial advisors say the same thing: ignore the daily ups
and downs and commit to the long term.
They could have been talking about life. History shows that long term commitments pay off.
The sad thing is that today
in our society as technology is speeding up the pace of change people are more
and more reluctant to make long term commitments. We don't want to be committed to anything. We don't want to commit to a long term
job. We don't want to commit to a
long term marriage. We don't want
to commit to long term investments.
We don't want to commit to a church. We don't want to commit to
anything. In fact, if there is any
operational attitude today it's "I
want to keep my options open. I don't want to be tied down. I don't want to commit to anything
because life is a buffet and I don't want to get to the end and say, `Oh, I
filled my plate up with the wrong stuff!'"
That's tragic because the
fact is you can't live without making commitments. You can't buy a house without making a commitment. You can't
get married without making a commitment.
You can't even get a driver's license without making some kind of
commitment. Nothing great ever
happens without making commitments.
If we go through life without making any commitments we just drift
without any focus.
So today as we look in the
fourth of this series on "Building A Great Life" I want us to look at
"Building a Life Of Commitment." I want us to look at what the Bible
says about the power of commitment, the price of commitment, then what it takes
to make a commitment, the pitfalls of commitment and the payoff.
THE POWER OF COMMITMENT.
What does the Bible say about
the power of commitment? The Bible
says that nothing affects your life more than the commitments that you choose
to make. In fact, my commitments
have three profound effects on my life.
The things I commit
myself to... my commitments
1. Show my values. They show what I really think is
important, what I really value, what I really love. There is no such thing as love without commitment. The essence of love is a commitment of
oneself to that person, to meeting the needs of that person. That's what love is all about. You
can't love without making commitments.
I may say something is
important to me, but the way I commit my time and my money shows what is really
important. I may say, for
instance, that my family is important to me. But if I commit all my time to my work, and none of my time
is committed to my family, it shows what's really important. If I say my health is important to me,
but I don't commit any of my time to taking care of myself, then it means that
my health is not really important to me.
My commitments not only show
my values they...
2. Shape my life. I become whatever I'm committed to.
Your life is the sum total of your commitments. If I believe that making money is the most important thing
in life, then my life is going to be shaped by that. If I believe that being well liked and being popular is
important, then my life is going to be shaped by that. If I think that having a good time is
the most important thing in life, then my life will be shaped by that.
Once you choose your
commitments in life, your character is set. So you better choose your commitments carefully. And if you've never thought those
things through, you may not like how you're going to end up if you haven't
looked at those commitments.
Commitments not only show my values they shape my life.
Not only that, the Bible says
my commitments...
3. Determine my
destiny. The destiny of
nations is determined by the commitments that people make. The very fact that we experience
freedom here this morning to talk and pray and worship like this is because
somebody spilled their blood for that.
Our freedom was bought with a price.
The commitments that you
make, that I make, they not only determine our destiny here and now, they also
determine our eternity. We talked
about this a lot last week. Life
here on earth -- 60, 80, 100 years -- is brief compared to the years you're
going to spend in eternity. If you
develop a relationship with Christ, you're going to spend eternity with Him and
your rewards and responsibilities are going to be based on how you used your
life here on earth. That involves
commitment.
Jesus said it like this, "What will a man give in exchange for
his soul?" That's a very
important question because every day of your life you're exchanging your life
for something. We're all given
just a certain number of minutes to live.
The average human being will live 25,550 days. Every day when you wake up, you exchange your life for
something.
Wise people use their time
wisely. Wise people plan how
they're going to exchange their life.
You are going to exchange your life for something. Wise people plan that exchange by
making what we call commitments.
When you make a commitment you're choosing how you're going to invest
your life. You're choosing how
you're going to spend your time.
You're choosing how you're going to use your resources.
Of course the most important
commitment you're going to make is your commitment to Jesus Christ. But even that has a price tag. Every
commitment, regardless of which one you make, has a price tag to it. You have to weigh out the benefits and
the pay off compared to the price tag on it. What are the price tags, what are the costs of following
Christ?
Jesus is very up front about
it. He doesn't beat around the
bush. He's not vague. He just lays it out in Luke 14:26 "If you want to be My followers you
must love Me more than your own father and mother, wife and children, brothers
and sisters, yes, more than your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be My disciple."
Jesus is very clear about the
cost of following Him, the cost of commitment. He's saying, "I
expect to be first place in your life.
You have to love Me more than anybody or anything else if you want to be
My follower." That's
pretty audacious. He says you've
got to love Him more than your parents, more than your husband, more than your
wife, more than your kids, more than your own life. That's pretty strong cost. No human being would ever say that to you. Jesus Christ makes demands on your life
that no dictator, no despot, would even think of demanding in terms of
loyalty.
The only difference is, He
has a right to it. Why? He made you. He created you. He loves you. He has a plan for your life. He died on the cross for you. Nobody else has done that. Nobody else can claim those three things -- that you were
made by them, that you were planned for a purpose by them, and that they died
for you. Jesus says, "I gave My life for you. I expect your life in return." I think He has a right to it. He says "I demand first place in your life if you're going to be following
Me."
Some people imagine their life
as a pie and Jesus is a slice of that pie. There’s a career slice, a relationship slice, a sex-life
slice, a goals and ambitions and dreams slice, a family slice, and my Jesus
slice. Jesus says, "No thank you. I don't want to be a slice of your life. I don't want to be a part of
your life. I want to be number one." Jesus Christ is not an appendage that you just tack on.
If Jesus Christ is not Lord of
all in your life, He's not Lord at all in your life. You're kidding yourself. C. S. Lewis said, "The only thing Christianity cannot be is moderately
important." It's either
all or nothing. It either demands and deserves everything I've got or let's all
go home. The one thing it cannot
be is moderately important. The phrase "casual Christian" is a
contradiction. It's like saying,
"I'm semi-pregnant", "I'm half dead". No you're either alive or you're dead. You're either pregnant or you're
not. Jesus Christ is either Lord
of your life or He's not Lord of your life. Don't kid yourself.
Jesus says this is the
cost. "I want you to seek Me first." How do you do that?
We talk a lot about putting God first in your life, how do I put
God first in my life? Four
practical ways:
1.
I GIVE GOD THE FIRST THOUGHTS OF EACH DAY. Psalm
5:3 says "Each morning I will look
to You in heaven and lay my requests before You." I'm not saying, when you get up in the
morning the first thing you have to do is sit down, read your Bible and have a
quiet time and pray -- although I recommend it. But I'm not saying you have to do that. What I am saying is, before you get out
of bed in the morning, you ought to learn that the first thing you think about
is talking to God, even before you roll out of bed, "Good morning, Lord" rather than, "Good Lord, it's morning!" Those are the alternatives.
Let me give you a secret to a
mood lifter, a mood enhancer. Talk
to God before you talk to anybody else each day. Read the Good News before you read the bad news in the
paper. It will help you keep
everything in focus and realize who's in charge. It's no wonder so many people are stressed out and
negative. They get up in the
morning to an ALARM clock. Not
just music, but ALARM, so they wake up alarmed! The first thing they do is turn on the talk radio and news
radio and listen to all the rapes and all the violence and all the people who
got murdered and all the international conflict that's going on. Then they go down and fix their
breakfast and read the paper about more problems and economy and business and
education. Then they turn on the
tv and watch thirty minutes of Bad Morning, America hearing about
problems. Then on the way to work,
they listen to more talk radio, more news, hearing about more traffic jams,
more problems, more crime. Then
they wonder, "Why do I feel so bad
when I get to work?"
You're feeding yourself this constant diet. Let your first thoughts each day be of God.
You can do this. Let me give you the secret. The way you do it is, your last thought
at night tends to be your first thought in the morning. Have you ever gone to sleep at night
with some stupid song stuck in your mind and you wake up the next morning and
it's still going on? Why can't I
get that out of my head? You can train yourself that when you go to sleep at
night, the last person you talk to is Jesus. And with your head laid on the pillow, you say, "Jesus, I know You're with me. I know You're in me. I know You're watching over me. And I want to see You in the morning. Good night, Lord. Help my first thought in the morning be
of You."
You can do that. That gives God the first thought of
every day.
2. I GIVE
HIM THE FIRST DAY OF EVERY WEEK. Acts 20:7 "On the first day of the week, the disciples came together." They worshipped. Why do Christians worship on Sunday? We do it for two reasons.
1. Because Jesus Christ rose from the dead
on Sunday. It's called
Easter. We celebrate Easter every
Sunday.
2. Because it's the first day of the week
and we want to give God the first thought of every day and the first day of
every week. We call it The Lord's
Day.
3. I GIVE
HIM THE FIRST TEN PERCENT OF EVERY PAYCHECK. The Bible says in
Proverbs 3:9 "Honor the Lord by
giving Him the first part of all your income." That's called tithing and we've talked
about this many times. One of the
ways we show that God is first place in our life is give Him the first ten
percent right off the top. Not after I've paid all the bills. Why do I do it? In
gratitude for the past, to keep my priorities right in the present, and in
faith for the future. If you
really want to know what's really important to you, if you really want to know
what you really love, if you really want to know what you're really committed
to, look at your check book. I
don't' care what you say is important, the way you spend your money and the way
you spend your time shows what is really important. If God's first in your life, He's going to be first in your
time and first in your checkbook.
There are plenty of promises
about tithing in the Bible. We don't
have time to go into it today. Two
verses you can look up later:
One of them is
Deuteronomy 14:23 "The purpose of
tithing is to teach us to put God first in every area of our lives." That's the purpose. It's a reminder. Every time you get a paycheck and sit
down and write out your tithe and give it back to God, it's saying, "God, You're first." That's the purpose of tithing, to
teach us to put God first.
Another verse, 1
Corinthians 16:2 says we ought to give our tithe on the first day of the
week. Why? Why not the second day or Thursday or
Friday? Because on the first day
is when I go to church and tithing is an act of worship.
Tithing is not giving to
charity and giving to charity is not tithing. Those are two different things. You ought to give to charity. Tithing is when I give to the Lord as an act of worship at
the house of worship on the first day of every week. That's tithing. Peg and I for years have supported other
mission projects besides the church.
But that's not tithing.
That's a gift, an offering.
Tithing goes to the house of worship, as an act of worship.
4. I GIVE
HIM THE FIRST CONSIDERATION IN EVERY DECISION. Proverbs
3:5-6, "In everything [circle
"everything"] you do, put God
first and He will direct you and [here's the promise] crown your efforts with success." Do you want to be successful? Then you need to memorize that verse and do it. Put God first in every area and He will
crown your efforts with success.
Do you want your finances to be successful? Put Him first in them.
Do you want your business to be successful? Put Him first in it.
Do you want your family to be successful? Put Him first in it.
It's a no brainer!
SOME PITFALLS TO COMMITMENT
There are some things that
cause us to stumble, to get entrapped, that can ambush us and trip us up. They're hazards. I want to mention two that can weaken
or dilute our commitment to Christ.
1. WE GET
DISTRACTED. We lose our focus.
Mark 4:19 "The attractions of
this world, the delights of wealth, the search for success and the lure of nice
things come in and crowd out God." Is there anything evil in this
list? No. Is there anything bad in the list? No. Is there anything that's really wicked in that list? No. There's nothing wrong with wealth, success, nice
things. What's wrong with it? He's saying, they're not the most
important things in life. There's
nothing wrong with those things, it's just not what God put you on earth
for. He didn't put you on earth
for wealth and success and nice things.
Those are gimmes, freebies, perks.
But that's not really what you're here on earth for.
Don't make that the most
important. If success or wealth or
nice things become number one in my life, God gets bumped out of first place
and that becomes an idol. The
Bible says in the Ten Commandments, Don't do it! Don't have idols.
Don't let anything take first place in your life except God. Don't let good things get in the way of
the best.
2. WE
BECOME COMPLACENT. What happens when we become complacent
is we start living off of past commitments and don't make new ones. "In
1921, I made this commitment..." Have you made any more since then? Have you grown any since then? Have you updated your commitment? Or have you just become complacent in that level of
commitment? You think some
commitment you made ten years ago is enough to keep you going for the rest of
your life? No. You need to be
continually growing in your commitment, striving, deepening. We become complacent.
A story in the Bible: In the book of Joshua (chapter 7)
there's a story that after Moses led the Israeli's out of bondage for 400 years
of slavery from Egypt, he leads them through the desert and they wander for
forty years. Then Joshua leads
them across the Jordan river into the Promised Land. Now the next step is to take over the Promised Land. They find there are enemy people living
there. So the first town that they
have to take on is Jericho.
At that time, Jericho was the
most fortified city in the world. It was considered impenetrable. Now here's a bunch of slaves going to
take on this major city. We talked
about this in the message on faith, how they marched around the walls, the
walls fell down and they had a great victory and it was a huge miracle. They
had this incredible miracle and victory.
A few days later they go on
to take over the next city. Only
it's a little dinky podunk town called Ai. It's a wide spot in the road. And they got complacent. They'd had this big miracle at Jericho. Joshua 7 says, "Soon after Jericho's defeat, Joshua sent some of his men up to
spy on the city of Ai. Upon their
return they told Joshua, `It's a small city. It won't take more than two or three thousand of us to
destroy it. There's no point in
all of us going up there.'"
Do you hear the
cockiness? Here the
complacency? "So approximately 3000 soldiers were sent and they were soundly
defeated. [They got
clobbered.] About 36 Hebrews were killed during the attack and many others died
while being chased by the men of Ai.
The Hebrew army was paralyzed with fear at this turn of events and
Joshua and the elders of Israel tore up their clothes and lay on the floor
crying to God with dust on their heads.
Joshua cried out to the Lord, `O God, why have you brought us over the
Jordan river if you're going to let the Ammorites kills us? Why weren't we content with what we
had? Why didn't we just stay on the other side? O Lord, what am I to do now that Israel has fled from its
enemies [This guy is having a mid life crisis!] But the Lord said to Joshua, `Get up off your face.'"
There's a time to pray and
there's a time to `Get up off your face!" Sometimes you need to pray about a problem. Sometimes you just need to do something
about it. "God said, `Israel has sinned and disobeyed
my commandment and has taken loot I said not to be taken. They've not only taken it but they've
lied about it and hidden it among their belongings.'"
God had said, "When you take over these cities,
you're not to save any of the spoils of war. I don't want you keeping any of their things, their idols,
their gods. I want you to wipe it
all out." But one guy in
the entire nation disobeyed. One
guy. And his name was Achan. The Bible says that Achan found three
things -- a Babylonian dress for his wife, some shekels of silver worth about
$500, and a bar of gold worth about $200.
He hid them. But they found him out. That one guy and his son had caused the whole nation to be
defeated. That's the power of one
individual not being committed. That's
the power of one individual keeping an entire group of people from being
blessed. They got complacent and
they were humiliated.
They said, "We were part of the big miracle last
week at Jericho so we'll just sit this one out. We'll just send a few troops up there." We need to be aware that Satan wants us
to become complacent or else we will miss God's blessing and we will be
defeated. There's going to be a
spiritual battle in the mind of every person here. The issue is, How real and how deep is my commitment to
Jesus Christ? Will I lay it all on
the line for Christ?
When the Israelites went
through the Red Sea, was that the last time they were tested? No. They had one test after another. And you're going to be
tested the rest of your life too.
Romans 14:12 says "Don't be
lazy in showing your devotion. Use
your energy in serving the Lord."
Phillips: "Let us keep the fires of the spirit
burning." We can't live
on yesterday's level of commitment.
We have to keep developing spiritual muscle. Each new test requires a new commitment.
THE PAYOFF FOR COMMITMENT TO CHRIST
God promises both a short
term payoff and a long term payoff. The short term payoff is in Matthew 6. Jesus says this, "Do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat or drink or wear?' Your heavenly Father knows you need
these. But seek first [there's
that put God first, again] God's kingdom
and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." The first payoff when I commit my life
totally to Christ, I don't have to worry any more. God says, When you give your life totally to Me, I assume
responsibility for every need you have from that point forward.
God does not assume
responsibility for all your needs if you're half committed, if you're partially
committed, if you're uncommitted.
God does not owe you anything.
He doesn't owe you tomorrow.
But, in His grace, when I give my life totally to Him, and I say, "God, I'm all Yours", God
says, "That's what I've been waiting
for. Now I will take care of all
your needs from here on out."
In ancient Rome, there were
twelve million slaves and servants. There were more slaves and servants in Rome
than there were free people. Many
free people voluntarily sold themselves into slavery as servants. Why? Because in Roman law, a master was prescribed under law to
take care of all the needs of a servant. So if you sold yourself to a good
Master, that master was responsible for all your food, all your clothing, all
your medical care, your retirement, your education. Every need that you had, he would take care of. It was like cradle to grave
security.
In the same way when we come
to God and say, "God, I give You all
my life." He says, "All right! You're never going to have to worry again because I'm the
master and I'm responsible to take care of all your needs." That's the short term benefit.
The long term benefit in
heaven is Matthew 25 "The master
will say, `Well done good and faithful servant! You've been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many
things. Come and share your Master's happiness." Three eternal benefits: Affirmation -- God says, Good job, well
done! Promotion -- He's going to give greater responsibility. And Celebration -- He says, "Come and share your master's happiness." Party time! And when God parties that is one party!
What kind of commitment, what
kind of life are you going to live? A half committed life, an uncommitted
life? The problem I see in most
people today is that they are over committed. They make half hearted commitments to twenty different
things, rather than total commitment to the one thing that really matters in
life, why they were put on this earth.
Henry Varley once said,
"The world has yet to see what God can do in and through and for the person
who is totally committed to Christ."
Look at the very first verse
on your outline. "The eyes of the Lord range throughout
the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him." God is looking for people to use in
this world. God is looking for
people to bless in this world. God is looking for people He wants to strengthen
in this world and the only qualification?
A fully committed heart.
I personally intend to be
that kind of person. From the
depths of my heart, I want to have a fully committed heart to Jesus
Christ. I challenge you to make
that your goal too. It is the best
and wisest investment of your life.
It doesn't take great people to do great things. It just takes committed people. God says do that. "Give
yourselves completely to God every part of you. You want to be tools in the hands of God to be used for his
good purposes."
I want to challenge you to
become a person of deep commitment in a shallow, superficial world where they
can't understand commitment until Saturday, much less commitment for
eternity. It's a decision you'll
never regret.
Prayer:
As
we close in prayer, I want to ask you to consider in what areas of your life do
you need to make a fresh commitment. Will you say, "Jesus Christ, I want to start giving You the first thought of
each day." You can do
that! "Jesus Christ, I want to start giving You the first thought of
each day. Help me to start,
thinking of You. Help me to train
my mind to do that." Will
you give Jesus Christ the first day of every week? "Unless I'm ill,
I'm going to be at worship every week.
I'm not going to put You second or third and worship You when it's
convenient. I'm going to be there
rain or shine. The first day of
every week belongs to You, God."
Will you give Him the first ten percent of every paycheck and say, "God, I realize I'd have nothing if it
weren't for You. Jesus Christ, in
gratitude for the past and in faith for the future and to show that my
priorities are right, right now, right off the top, the first part goes back to
You." You can do
that! Trust Him. It's an issue of trust. Will you give him the first
consideration in every decision?
Will you say, "Jesus Christ,
from here on out I want to put You first in everything that I do." He will crown your efforts with
success.
Dear
Lord, thank You for what You've done for us. You made us, You love us, You gave Your life for us. We want to give our lives back to You
in return. In Jesus' name, we
pray. Amen.
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