Life s Choices Choose God As Your Greatest Pursuit (Part 2)

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1 Mailing Address: PO Box 797 Molalla, OR Phone: Fax: Pastor Dale Satrum Life s Choices Choose God As Your Greatest Pursuit (Part 2) Intro: Do you remember the days before you were married when you were pursuing your true love pursuing your soon to be spouse? I know it s usually the men who get accused of pursuing, but in my case, my wife didn t mess around either. She s always been a woman who knows what she wants. Once she has her mind made up, only God can stop her. She set the standard right from the start how it was going to be After a few years of dating, I asked her what she wanted for Christmas (explain) At our wedding during the unity candle, she said I finally got you! As important as that pursuit was, there is an even greater pursuit that continues for our entire lives Our pursuit of God. Deut. 30:19-20 I have set before you life and death, blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendents, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days (NASB) Blessing and life are the result of choosing to love God. Jesus said it this way Mark 12:30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength. (NIV) Greatest command priority. Rev. 2:4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. (NLT) Consequences for not maintaining this priority. How do we make God our first love? How do we make Him our greatest life pursuit? Let me give you 4 choices that will help make God your greatest pursuit and your greatest love. Remember, love is a choice. And for us to pursue and love God, it requires a choice that involves the total person. (heart / soul / mind / strength) I. Choose To Love God Passionately Ps. 105:3 Let the heart of those who seek the Lord be glad. (NASB) Ps. 35:9 My soul shall rejoice in the Lord and delight in His salvation. (NIV) Having our emotions engaged in our relationship with God is all through Scripture. Loving God without passion / emotion wouldn t even have made sense to the original readers. Emotionless love? Unthinkable! A. We need to give ourselves permission to feel Page 1

2 1. God created us as emotional people. It s part of being made in His image. God has emotions as too! We need to relate to God with our emotions engaged. 2. I see so many believers with guarded emotions when it comes to their relationship with God. They guard their emotions in worship / in prayer / in ministry / in conversations with others 3. Every person I ve ever met can get excited about something. (passion) I ve seen passion over fishing / hunting / scrap-booking / garage sales / 50% off signs / eating / music / 4. What makes us shut off our emotions when it comes to our relationship with God? How come I can have more passion about an athletic event than a worship event? (explain) Why can I raise my hands unashamed in a gym / stadium in celebration over a team but can t do it at church? 5. Where did we get the erroneous idea that my relationship with God is supposed to be serious / somber / with all my emotions in check? It wasn t from Scripture! We need to give ourselves permission to feel passionate about God and the freedom to express it! Ps. 149:3,5 Let them praise His name with dancing Let the saints rejoice and sing for joy (NIV) B. We need to practice steps that engage our emotions 1. Most people don t think feelings can be the result of choices, but many times they are. Of course we are emotionally impacted by things we have no control over. BUT, we can make choices to purposely engage our emotions simple steps that help our emotions engage ** Place yourself in the right environment: Ever wonder why it s easier to express emotions at a game or sporting event? The environment! Spiritually, you must make spiritual environments a priority. (Sunday worship / classes / home groups / ministry teams / missions trips / all these place you in environments with other people with similar passion. Passion is contagious! Passion always diminishes with isolation! ** Expose yourself to the right information: I am referring to God s truth. There is so much negative information in this world and it can suck the joy right out of us. We have to be intentional about taking in God s truth / God s promises and meditating on these truths. (explain meditation) Personally, God s truth impacts my emotions more then any other single factor. (This is how you control your thinking) ** Practice the right behavior: Sometimes you just have to do the right thing before the emotions show up. It s like working out. I never feel like working out at 5am, but after I m done, I feel good. Working out releases endorphins that impact emotions. Spiritually, we choose to Page 2

3 engage even though the emotions aren t there yet. (choose to sing lift my hands focus on truth go to group even when tired This is how we can choose to love God passionately! II. Choose To Love God Uniquely Ps. 139:13-14 For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother s womb. I praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made (NIV) God is the One who uniquely created each one of us. Just as there are no two snowflakes identical, God has never made two people the identical either. A. Our uniqueness pleases God 1. It took me a long time to fully embrace this truth. (explain). We spend so much time wanting to blend in when God created us to stand out! Those uniqueness of our personalities / likes and dislikes / gifts and talents / have all come from Him and they please Him! 2. Part of us learning to love God is learning to appreciate the uniqueness He created us with. Often, instead of praising Him for the uniqueness, we re complaining about it. God, why didn t you make me more like! 3. We re trapped in comparing ourselves with others and focused more on trying to conform to something we were never meant to be. This will rob us of joy! 4. I can t tell you how liberating it was for me to finally accept how I was created and then praise God for it. It removed a barrier in my love relationship with God. If you think of yourself as some kind of mistake / or that God short changed you, that will impact your relationship. Once you come to grips with this, now you can B. We need to love God out of our uniqueness 1. You learn to start celebrating the differences instead of hiding from them. You allow your uniqueness to actually enhance and personalize your relationship with God. How so? 2. God wants you to love Him through the special way He created you. We have unique ways we like to express worship (public & private) We have unique musical styles we like to listen to We have unique expressions of spiritual gifting and ministry We have unique passions and interests We have unique personalities We have unique ways we like to dress / culinary tastes eating can be a worship experience. 3. When we give full expressions to they way God created us, it brings God pleasure and it connects our hearts to Him. We celebrate God designed Page 3

4 uniqueness here! 4. How about today? Can you thank God for how He made you? Love Him? III. Choose To Love God Intelligently Ps. 119:26-27 teach me Your principals. Help me understand the meaning of Your commandments. (NLT) Rom. 10:2-3 I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal. For they don t understand God s way (NLT) A. We need to love God accurately 1. You can t just have passion alone. Misdirected passion causes a lot of damage in this life. Throughout history, there have been many awful things that have happened in the name of God misdirected zeal. 2. Christianity is not mindless / it is not blind faith / it is not something where we kick our minds in neutral. It s also not something where we get to make up whatever we want to believe about God. 3. This is something that I see keeping people from loving God. They believe things about God that are untrue and it creates barriers in the relationship. Some of you think God is distant / unconcerned / angry / judgmental / bothered by you / not one of His favorites / tolerates you 4. Many people project their earthly experiences on God (explain) 5. Other people have trouble loving God simply because of a lack of understanding. The simple fact about relationships is that the more you know of someone, the more you can love them. 6. Many people s relationships with God could be transformed by simply increasing your understanding of who God really is. Our lack of accurate information is hindering our love for God. B. We need to pursue increasing our understanding (of God) HOW? 2 key ways to gain understanding. 1. We increase our understanding of God through the objective, written truth of the word of God. We don t get to make up our own truth, we discover it as it is revealed / recorded in His word. This is something we need to be intentional about. When we read God s word, one of the questions we should be asking ourselves is; What can I learn about God Who He is and what He does.? We can be intentional by taking specific classes that are offered. (Foundations Class explain) 2. The second way we increase our understanding of God is through experiential knowledge. Experiencing the reality of God in my life myself. Page 4

5 IV. 3. There was only so much information that I could learn about ministry at Bible College and Seminary. Over 20 yrs. In ministry has been quite an education. I have experiential knowledge. We don t learn more about God simply to have more facts about Him. We learn more about God so we can relate and experience Him better. I want to experience who He is. I want to experience His presence / His power / His wisdom / His guidance / comfort / peace / joy Caution: Experience alone is not enough. Our experiences must be consistent with what is revealed in His word. This keeps our passion / zeal in check. It is according to knowledge. 4. This is why the application of God s truth is so vital. Applying God s truth allows you to experience the reality of God in your life. You gain experiential knowledge. It s like teaching my daughters to drive a stick. (explain) There was only so much I could explain now they had to experience it. 5. Our love relationship with God is tangible / real / experiential. We can read about His comfort / peace / power / but need to experience it! This helps us love God intelligently / accurately Choose To Love God Physically Sometimes love requires physical involvement. It requires more than just verbal expression / feelings / but an actual physical response. Example: I can tell my wife I love her, but she needs me to show her as well. (May require cleaning up the kitchen / bathrooms / taking her out to dinner / spending time together / watching the kids / - How do we love God physically? Ps. 100:2 Serve the Lord with gladness (NASB) requires a physical response. John 14:21 Those who obey My commandments are the ones who love Me (NLT) Doing / obedience proves our love. I John 3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. (NLT) Outward action reveals the internal love commitment. A. We need to love God with an outward response 1. Many times, this requires a physical response. We obey Him out of Love / serve Him out of love. Love requires doing. 2. Look at how many things He has asked us to do things that require a physical response from us? 58 times in the NT alone there are one another commands. All of these require a response from us. We have to do something physically. (serve / love / encourage / bear / exhort) 3. To say we love God without any outward physical expression of that love isn t genuine love or genuine faith. James 2:14 what s the use of saying you have faith if you don t prove it by your actions? (NLT) 4. We ve all heard the expression; Actions speak louder then words. Page 5

6 According to the word of God, He would agree! B. We need to love God with specific service 1. God has uniquely wired and gifted you for ministry for serving His purposes. When we physically serve using the gifts and talents He put inside us, we are loving God. 2. This is one of the ways I can love God with all my strength. I allow God to use my physical strength for His purposes. I believe when I allow God to use my physical / emotional energy for a Sunday morning, He is pleased. 3. It takes physical strength to serve God (to teach that class of kids / serve in the nursery / worship team / mission trip / make food boxes / ) BUT, we love God physically by serving His purposes with all our strength. 4. When we serve out of a love for God it actually magnifies our love for God. It grows my appreciation for God. How so? I get to see Him work in and through my life / see Him work in other people / I get to partner with Him in what He s doing / I actually learn more about God as I serve Him/ This is how we love God with all our strength! God wants us to make choices that result in life and blessing from His hand. He didn t want to make it rocket science either. His system is all about choices that impact our lives. One of the greatest choices we can make is to make God our greatest pursuit our greatest love. Page 6