Advance to the Abundant Life (Part 1)
2 Chronicles 7:12-14
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - Aug. 5, 2007
*How is your life going today? -- Maybe great, maybe not so great. But the good news is that God wants you to move up in life -- Really move up. In John 10:10, Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
*God wants you to advance to the abundant life -- But you can’t even start on your way until you have His eternal life. As Jesus said in John 3, “You must be born again.” You must be saved by trusting in the truth that Jesus Christ died for your sins on the cross and rose again from the dead. You must be saved by receiving Jesus as your Savior and Lord.
*Jerry Falwell helped us understand saving faith, when he said:
-It is like taking a drink of water... In John 4:14 Jesus said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
-Saving faith is like sitting down to a sumptuous feast... In Luke 14:16-17 Jesus said, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’”
-Saving faith is like accepting an invitation... In Matt 11:28 Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
-Saving faith is like walking through a door... In John 10:9 Jesus said, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”
-Saving faith is like receiving a gift, because Rom 6:23 tells us that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
-And saving faith is like making a deposit in the bank... -As Paul said in 2 Tim 1:12, “I know whom I have believed & am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” (1)
*Most of us have already made that commitment. We are saved! And we hope you will be saved before the service is over. But that’s just the beginning!
*God wants us to keep moving up to the abundant life -- but the reality is that sometimes we get stuck. Sometimes our Christian life gets stale. Sometimes we find ourselves drifting away from the things of God. We need renewal and revival.
*Dennis Selfridge asks, “When do we need revival?”
-When the things of God do not stir you
-When the glories of heaven do not interest you
-When the horrors of hell do not concern you
-When the peril of the lost doesn’t move you
-When the Word of God does not attract you
-When the idea of prayer does not draw you
-When the House of God does not delight you
-When you do not see the other things in your life as a way to perform the will of God. (2)
*God wants to revive His people, so that we can have His abundant life, and He shows us what to do in vs. 14: “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
1. How can we get to the abundant life Jesus wants us to have? First, measure your life against God’s majesty.
*As He says in vs. 14, “Humble yourself.” Take a big step down. The word picture is bending the knee -- Bowing down low before the greatness of our God.
*Why do we need to humble ourselves? One reason is foolish self-sufficiency, because the more we’re blessed, the more we’re tempted to think we did it all on our own. That’s why the Lord reduced Gideon’s army from 32,000 men all the way down to 300, facing an enemy army of 135,000!
*In Judges 7:2, the Lord told Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’”
*The more we’re blessed, the more we are tempted to think we did it all on our own, but the truth is that there is nothing we can do without God’s help!
-Every step we make -- Every breath we take.
-Every moment we live is a precious gift from God.
*We ought to humble ourselves before Him, because of our self-sufficiency, and our self-righteousness. It is so easy for us to think that we are better than other people. We are tempted to be like the Pharisee in the parable Jesus told in Luke 18:10-14. Listen to what Jesus said from the New Living Translation:
“Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a dishonest tax collector. The proud Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else, especially like that tax collector over there! -- For I never cheat, I don’t sin, I don’t commit adultery, I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’
*But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’”
*And Jesus said: “I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For the proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored.”
*In God’s Kingdom, the way to step up to the abundant life is to take a big step down. God wants us to humble ourselves.
*Let me help you. I can do that this morning with one verse we use a lot to witness to people who need to trust in the Lord. It’s Rom 3:23, where Paul said that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
*We all “fall short of the glory of God.” It dawned on me the other day: the glory of God? -- That’s the standard? -- The glory of God? -- The glory that He must shield us from or we would melt like a snowflake in the hot desert?
*Could we ever measure up to the glory of God?
-Can a goldfish climb Mt. Everest?
-Can a mosquito get elected as President of the United States?
-Can a germ make a perfect score on the A.C.T.?
*Of course not! -- But us measuring up to the glory of God is like asking a germ to make a perfect score on the A.C.T. It’s never going to happen. It never could happen. -Yet without Jesus Christ, the gap between us and God’s glory is infinitely greater. So Peter tells us to “humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.” (1 Peter 5:6)
2. How can we get to the abundant life? Measure your life against God’s majesty, and steer away from sin. As the Lord says in vs. 14, “turn from your wicked ways.”
*Everybody needs to make a first turn: Turn away from sin and selfishness -- And turn to Jesus Christ. He loves you! He died on the Cross for you and rose again from the dead. If you open your heart to put your trust in Jesus, He will forgive all of your sins and give you eternal life.
*Everyone needs that first turn. But we also we need to make fresh turns -- turning away from whatever is wrong in your life. Turn away from jealousy, gossip and greed. Turn away from dishonesty, sex-sin and self-righteousness. Turn away from laziness, lack of love and lack of concern for other people.
*Facing up to our sins like this and turning away from them can be a painful thing. Paul called it “Godly sorrow” in 2 Corin 7. Steve Shepherd shared the testimony of a preacher who said, “I have a very good friend who recently shared with me that on one occasion, out of sincere concern over sin and desire to be what God wanted her to be, she prayed, ‘God, show me the sin in my life. Show me what I really am.’
*She said that in a couple of weeks she began to pray, ‘Lord, I’ve seen enough! Please, Lord, don’t show me any more. I can’t stand myself!’” (3)
*Seeing our sinfulness is no fun, but we must, so we can turn away from our sins. And when we think about Jesus, when we think about what He has done for us -- It helps us to turn away from our sins.
*One of the hardest sins for me to overcome was smoking marijuana. I struggled with it for a long time after I got saved. We moved back to Macon in 1977, and about a year later, I started hanging out with old friends. That’s when I really got back into it. I knew it was wrong, but for a long time I just couldn’t give it up.
*I used to go over to one friend’s apartment a lot. Sitting on his couch one night, I happened to look out the window. There was a screen on the window and a streetlight just outside. I had never noticed it before, but the streetlight always came through that window in the shape of a cross.
*From then on, every time I went over to that apartment and looked out the window -- I saw the cross. God used that little cross of light in the window to help me put that mess behind me forever. The best thing we can do to help us turn away from sin is keep our eyes on the cross.
3. How can we get to the abundant life? Steer away from sin, and put a priority on prayer.
*The Lord tells us to pray in vs. 14, and vs. 12 helps us see why, because there “the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer. . .” God hears our prayers! The more we realize that, the more we will pray, and we will see His Hand at work in our lives.
*A.C. Dixon once said:
-“When we depend upon organizations, we get what organizations can do;
-When we depend upon education, we get what education can do;
-When we depend upon man, we get what man can do;
-But when we depend on prayer -- We get what God can do.” (4)
*Today out it the hallways you can see the results of years of prayer and hard work to develop a plan for a new children’s building. It’s a great dream, but right now it is still a dream -- A dream that will only become a reality through the prayers of God’s people.
*But remember that we are not here to just build a building of wood and brick. We are here to build lives. We are here to help children grow into faithful followers of Jesus Christ. We are here laboring together with God, as He builds His living church.
*Your prayers can make an everlasting difference in countless lives -- including your own.
*Brian Roennfeldt is a pastor who lives in Australia. Listen to his testimony about the power of prayer. Brian said:
“My wife, Angie, went to a rough high school. There were few Christians there apart from one teacher, Mr. David Bunton, who taught manual arts.
Years after Mr. Bunton left his position, dozens of his former students became believers. Many have entered the ministry and become pastors and missionaries. I tracked down Mr. Bunton, who is now 70 years old and retired. He was stunned and choked with emotion when I told him of the many conversions since he had taught at that high school.
I wondered how his influence had brought such a harvest. He told me that many times he had prayed softly over his classes as he sat back in his desk and watched them work. But apart from this, he’d done nothing to influence these students toward Christ. The only common point of spiritual connection the students shared was that they were prayed over by their teacher.” (5)
*Prayer has far more impact than we realize. God hears our prayers! He wouldn’t ask us to pray, if He didn’t plan on hearing us. And here God says, “Pray.”
4. How can we get to the abundant life?
*Put a priority on prayer, and passionately seek the Savior.
*As the Lord said in vs. 14, “Seek My face.” Here the Lord is reminding us of His presence. *We may not be aware of Him, but the Spirit of Jesus Christ is here with us right now. And Jesus has promised us that if we seek Him, we will find Him.
*God says, “Seek My face.” *It reminds us of His presence. And it’s proof that God wants to have a close connection with you. We all have a comfort zone around us. You are probably comfortable with me at arm’s length, but if I get too close, you will get uncomfortable pretty fast. We are only comfortable close to someone’s face, when we know them very well -- So, this is an invitation to know the Lord in a close-up, personal kind of way.
*God says, “Seek My face.” He wants a close connection with you. And He is looking for passion in our hearts -- Passion for God. The word picture for “seek” here is to search for something with great desire -- Seeking, asking, begging for something.
-How much passion do you have for God?
-How strong is your desire for God?
*In Jeremiah 29, the Lord says, “You shall seek me, and find me, when you search for me with all your heart.” And Jesus said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
*When I lived in Atlanta, we used to go tubing down the Chattahoochee, and one time I got trapped under a huge rock that jutted up against the current. Immediately I knew that I was in trouble. The water was pushing me down, down, down -- And I couldn’t get my breath.
*I am sure that God got me out of that jam -- But you can you imagine how desperate I was to get free. That’s the kind of desire we should have for God.
*King David put it this way in Psalm 63:1, “O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water.”
*We should treat seeking God as the most important thing in our lives -- Because it is! -- Because He is! We must appreciate the infinite value of knowing Him in a personal way.
*When our son, Eric, was about 4, we went to the old Sears on Louisville to get a Christmas present for Mary, and in that mob around the cash register I lost him. It was only for a few minutes -- But I lost him!
*Nobody had to ask me, “Are you going to look for your little boy?” Why? -- Because he was precious to me. And if we could just see how good and great God is, if we could just get a taste of how much He loves us and what He did for us on the cross, then, nothing could keep us from seeking the Lord with all our hearts, and having the abundant life He died to give us.
Conclusion:
*How can I get to the abundant life God wants to give me?
-Measure your life against God’s majesty.
-Steer away from sin.
-Put a priority on prayer.
-And passionately seek the Savior.
*God wants you to advance to the abundant life, but remember that you can’t even start until you have His eternal life. And remember what Jerry Falwell said:
-Saving faith is like taking a drink of water
-Like sitting down to a sumptuous feast
-Like accepting an invitation
-Like walking through a door
-Like receiving a gift
-Like making a deposit in the bank.
*Make that deposit today. Give your life to Jesus. You can surely trust Him to save you. You can trust Him to give you His abundant, eternal life.
1. Adapted from “The Most Important Question Ever Asked” - sermon by Jerry Falwell - www.trbc.org/sermons/20010902.html
2. Adapted from SermonCentral sermon “What am to do with my life?” by Dennis Selfridge - 1 Timothy 1:1-20
3. From SermonCentral sermon “Hope In A World of Despair” by Steve Shepherd - Psalms 46:1
4. SermonCentral illustration contributed by Dana Chau
5. (PreachingToday.com, Brian Roennfeldt, Perth, West Australia) (Found in SermonCentral sermon “Standing In the Gap” by Russell Brownworth - 1 Tim 2 1)
