Living The Great Adventure

(show video from Steven Curtis Chapman "The Great Adventure)

Are you content in your Christian life? Let me ask it another way, are you content with life? Life is a great adventure as Steven Curtis Chapman sang in the video clip we just watched. Today, I want to help you saddle up and get into it. You might be here already out riding the full range of life, or you might be still trying to get into the saddle. No matter, I have some steps that will help you get more out of the great adventure.

Jesus taught on the principle of sowing and reaping. In Matthew 13, Jesus speaks of people who sow their seed in various types of soil and the results of such efforts, or in some cases, the temporary or lack of results. The verses I want to key in on are verses 22-23. In your notes, the Amplified Bible reads:

As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the Word, but the cares of the world and the pleasure and delight and glamour and deceitfulness of riches choke and suffocate the Word, and it yields no fruit.

As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the Word and grasps and comprehends it; he indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundred times as much as was sown, in another sixty times as much, and in another thirty.

The question, early on for us is this: What are we sowing into? What are we investing our life into? That investment will determine if we are saddling up, falling off, or riding the great adventure of life. The principle of sowing is that of making an investment. What have you invested your life? Let me show you three things worth the investment.

1. Sow into God.

The first principle of living is the principle of living for God. Making an investment with our time, talents and resources. How many places do you know where you can invest and yield forty, sixty or one hundred percent back? The Bible offers an investment prospectus with those figures dominant in their investment package.

Again, in the Amplified, 1 Thessalonians 1:9, 10 we read For they themselves volunteer testimony concerning us, telling what an entrance we had among you, and how you turned to God from [your] idols to serve a God Who is alive and true and genuine,

And [how you] look forward to and await the coming of His Son from heaven, Whom He raised from the dead--Jesus, Who personally rescues and delivers us out of and from the wrath [bringing punishment] which is coming [upon the impenitent] and draws us to Himself [ investing us with all the privileges and rewards of the new life in Christ, the Messiah].

We sow into God, and God invests in us the life of Jesus Christ, with all the privileges and rewards which come as a result of such an investment. It goes back to the verse in Matthew 13, you have to first hear the word, then grasp and comprehend it.

We find people like the man who saved up enough finances to take a cross Atlantic cruise. Because the trip cost his entire savings, he only had the money for peanut butter and crackers to bring on the trip. When they arrived in port, the steward thanking people for coming at the gang plank, shook the man’s hand and in thanking him, the traveler said, “It was a great voyage. Next time, I am going to save enough money so I can eat the food I saw in the dining hall.” The steward, in somewhat of a shock, replied, “Did you not know, the fare you paid for passage paid for all the food as well?”

When you and I sow into God through our time, talents and finances, we are receiving back so much more. Jesus taught in Luke 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

It not only applies to what God will do for us, it applies to the whole of living the great adventure of life. That brings we to the next step of living the adventure…

2. Sow into Others

Jesus said in Matthew 25 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

"Then they also will answer Him, saying, "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, "Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ (Matthew 25:43-45) NKJV.