TIME TO DECIDE: The Will of God in Our Lives - Walking the Way of Wisdom 4-5-26
INTRODUCTION
WHAT HAPPENED ON EASTER?
A Sunday School teacher asked her class on the Sunday before Easter if they knew what happened on Easter and why it was so important. One little girl spoke up saying: "Easter is when the whole family gets together, and you eat turkey and sing about the pilgrims and all that." "No, that’s not it," said the teacher.
"I know what Easter is," a second student responded. "Easter is when you get a tree and decorate it and give gifts to everybody and sing lots of songs." "Nope, that’s not it either," replied the teacher.
Finally a third student spoke up, "Easter is when Jesus was killed, and put in a tomb and left for three days." "Ah, thank goodness somebody knows" the teacher thought to herself.
But then the student went on: "Then everybody gathers at the tomb and waits to see if Jesus comes out, and if he sees his shadow he has to go back inside and we have six more weeks of winter."
Andrew Chan, Sermon Central, April 9, 2002.
Easter is the culmination of God’s will in this world, the fulfillment of all His plans, the reason for life itself.
Conventional approach - corn maze, target, Magic 8-ball
Ordinary guidance and supernatural surprises
Open doors, fleece, random, impressions
Information overload/media
radio, tv, Internet, phone,
More available information but less wisdom
Walking in the way of wisdom
1. Follow scripture
2. Follow counsel
3. Follow the Holy Spirit
SO WHAT DO WE DO NOW?
I. MAKE A CHANGE
Allow God to change you.
In a cemetery in Hanover, Germany, is a grave on which were placed huge slabs of granite and marble cemented together and fastened with heavy steel clasps. It belongs to a woman who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Yet strangely, she directed in her will that her grave be made so secure that if there were a resurrection, it could not reach her. On the marker were inscribed these words: "This burial place must never be opened." In time, a seed, covered over by the stones, began to grow. Slowly it pushed its way through the soil and out from beneath them. As the trunk enlarged, the great slabs were gradually shifted so that the steel clasps were wrenched from their sockets. A tiny seed had become a tree that had pushed aside the stones.
The dynamic life force contained in that little seed is a faint reflection of the tremendous power of God’s creative word that someday will call to life the bodies of all who are in their graves. He will also bring back every person drowned at sea, cremated, or destroyed in some other way. This is no problem to the One who made something out of nothing when He spoke the universe into existence. Unbelief cannot deter the resurrection. But faith in the risen Christ opens the door to blessings that His resurrection guarantees -- a glorious new spiritual body and a home in heaven. In new bodies we will be reunited with saved loved ones to live with Jesus throughout all eternity.
Gerald Flury, “Our Calling”, 10/25/2010.
A. Study
Psalm 119:105 NIV
“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”
Psalm 119:105 NIV
B. Seek advice
Proverbs 13:10 NIV
“Where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.”
Proverbs 13:10 NIV
C. Pray
James 1:5-8 NIV
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”
James 1:5-8 NIV
II. MAKE DECISIONS
Adults make 35,000 decisions per day
A. Do your best
Margaret Sangster Phippen wrote that in the mid 1950s her father, British minister W. E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the doctor, he found that he had an incurable disease that caused progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, his throat would soon become unable to swallow.
Sangster threw himself into his work in British home missions, figuring he could still write and he would have even more time for prayer. "Let me stay in the struggle, Lord," he pleaded. "I don’t mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a regiment to lead." He wrote articles and books, and helped organize prayer cells throughout England. "I’m only in the kindergarten of suffering," he told people who pitied him.
Gradually Sangster’s legs became useless. His voice went completely. But he could still hold a pen, shakily. On Easter morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote a letter to his daughter. In it, he said, "It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice to shout, ’He is risen!’-but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout."
Bobby Scobey, Sermon Central, April 22, 2008.
B. Take courage
Isaiah 41:10 NIV
“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10 NIV
C. Trust God’s guidance
III. MAKE THIS A WAY OF LIFE
Romans 6:4 NIV
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Romans 6:4 NIV
A. Resurrection has come!
B. Renewal is here!
C. It is time to decide.
Resurrection as our new world view
Dr. Joseph Haroutunian, professor at McCormick Theological Seminary, came to America from Armenia. One day a well-meaning friend said to him, "Your name is difficult to pronounce and difficult to spell--it could hurt your professional career. Why don’t you change your name to Harwood or Harwell or something like that?"
Dr. Haroutunian asked, "What do those names mean?"
His friend said, "Well, nothing. They’re just easier to remember."
Dr. Haroutunian said, "In Armenia, when my grandfather was baptized, they named him Hartounian which means ’Resurrection.’ I am Joseph Haroutunian and I will be a son of Resurrection all my days."
Dr. Michael Adams, "The Ten Minute Newsletter, www.sermonnotes.com.
CONCLUSION
We need to make a change. We need to make Godly decisions. We need to make this a way of life.
Every year I tell this story.
Little Philip, born with Down Syndrome, attended a third-grade Sunday School class with several eight-year-old boys and girls. Typical of that age, the children did not readily accept Philip with his differences, according to an article in Leadership Magazine. But because of a creative teacher, they began to care about Philip and accept him as part of the group, though not fully.
The Sunday after Easter the teacher brought L'eggs pantyhose containers, the kind that looks like large eggs. Each receiving one, the children were told to go outside on that lovely Spring day, find some symbol for new life, and put it in the egg-like container. Back in the classroom, they would share their new-life symbols, opening the containers one by one, in surprise fashion.
After running about the church property in wild confusion, the students returned to the classroom and placed the containers on the table. Surrounded by the children, the teacher began to open them one by one. After each one, whether a flower, butterfly, or leaf, the class would ooh and ahh.
Then one was opened, revealing nothing inside. The children exclaimed, "That's stupid. That's not fair. Somebody didn't do their assignment."
Philip spoke up, "That's mine."
"Philip, you don't ever do things right!" the student retorted. "There's nothing there!"
"I did so do it," Philip insisted. "I did do it. It's empty. The tomb was empty!"
Silence followed. From then on Philip became a full member of the class. He died not long afterward from an infection most normal children would have shrugged off. At the funeral this class of eight-year-olds marched up to the altar not with flowers, but with their Sunday School teacher, each to lay on it an empty pantyhose egg.
Donnie Martin, Sermon Central from Bible.org, April 14, 2010.
Take your egg, write a note, put it in the egg, place the egg where you can see it every day, pray for God’s miracle.
INVITATION
It is our custom to offer an "invitation" following the preaching of the Word. You may want to follow Jesus. You may want to proclaim your faith. You may want to repent (stop doing ungodly things and start doing Godly things). Perhaps you want to be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Possibly, if you have already responded to God’s call in these ways, you would like to become a member of Kenwood Church. If you have been moved by the Holy Spirit to make a decision in your life, you can come forward now. If you would like, I would be honored to speak with you following the service about what God is doing in your life.
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