Sermon Central
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Discover God's Involvement In Your Life Series
Contributed by Marilyn Murphree on Mar 13, 2003 (message contributor)
Summary: Finding God in the every day activities of your life.
Iliff and Saltillo UM Churches
January 19, 2003
Discovering God’s Involvement in Your Life
How to: Go On a Daily God Hunt
INTRODUCTION: King David was one person who had discovered God’s total involvement in his life over the many years. Scripture reveals his many imperfections and flaws, his mistakes, his times of deep sorrow and depression, times when he was being disciplined for his sins--yet the scriptures show his genuineness when it came to serving God. God was with this person and involved in his life in all kinds of circumstances because of his diligence in searching for God in all areas of his life. You could say that David went on a “daily God hunt” and in today’s scripture he wanted his son Solomon to also experience God in his life fully. In verse 9 he said to Solomon, “acknowledge the God of your father and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. Consider now, for the Lord has chosen you to build a temple as a sanctuary. Be strong and do the work.” Solomon was faced with a huge task and needed God’s involvement in every detail of his life.
1. God’s Involvement in Your Life: Are you ever disappointed with God’s involvement in your life? Does God seem far away during the week when you are trying to make decisions or when you are faced with some kind of difficulty? I’m sure that at times we all are disappointed because we try to walk by sight alone rather than by faith. David wanted to give Solomon some tips toward experiencing God’s maximum involvement in his life as he set out to build the temple. God had not allowed David to actually build the temple because he was a man of war who had seen much bloodshed, but He had given David the plans for the temple. Now David needed to turn these plans over to his son, Solomon. He had some advice for His son. These are principles we need in our life as well.
1. Get to know God personally
2. Learn God’s commands and discover what He wants you to do.
3. Worship God with WHOLEHEARTED devotion.
4. Serve Him with a willing mind
5. Be faithful and don’t become discouraged.
2. God Sightings: Are you on the lookout for ways the Lord regularly involves Himself in your life? Think back to an out-of-the ordinary miracle you experienced that caused you to be acutely aware that it was God. How much attention to do you pay to what God is doing in your daily life? If you are not looking, you can miss these sightings or think that they are mere coincidences.
STORY: Os Hillman tells of the time that before he and his wife were married, she went to a wedding shower given by her many friends in a town where she used to live.
One of her friends was known for her intercessory prayer life. This friend handed Os’s future wife a gift bag and said, “I have this unusual gift in there for your husband. I don’t know why I felt led to buy it for him. My husband thinks I’m crazy for giving such a gift as a wedding present, but I was impressed to buy this for him. Here it is.”
When Os’s fiancee looked in the bag and pulled out the creature, she started to laugh. It was a beanie baby named “Ostrich.”
“How did you know?”
“Know what?” asked her friend.
“My pet name for Os is ‘Ostrich’! (TGIF newsletter)
They were both amazed at God’s sense of humor.
God’s involvement in our life can be through little things such as this. It just helps us to see that God’s knows where we live.
Sometimes we are so busy during the week that we rush through the days and hours without the slightest thought that God just “might be interested” in what happens to us on the job, in our families, or in our finances. We are just not tuned in to consulting Him about any of the mundane daily decisions we need to make. Some people will say, “I think it’s the least I can do to give God an hour a week on Sunday mornings.” That’s a start, but what about the other 167 hours in the week. He is close by at all times waiting for your invitation. We must learn, like David, not to limit Him to only parts of our life. It is important that we have this sense of awareness that He is there ready to help us with the every-day decisions whatever they are.
