Series: The Power of a Committed Life
#1 "Being Fully Engaged In My Walk With God"
Jan 10, 2010
Are you fully engaged or are you copping out? Are you playing around or are you into it? The beginning of a new year is a good time to do an assessment check of your life and for us who claim the name to Jesus to check our spiritual pulse.
David ends Psalm 139 with these words: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” This month of January we are talking about being fully engaged in every aspect of our relationship to Jesus. The overarching theme is “The power of a committed life.” My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will work in you giving you the desire to be fully engaged and then for you to discover some practical ways to help you become more engaged than you have ever been before.
Today we begin at the place where all real life begins and that is with our walk with God. Everything else in life flows from this one source. Our underlying verse for this series is 2 Chronicles 16:9. Let’s read this together: “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” Circle that last phrase—fully committed to him. Being fully committed is the same as being fully engaged. God is looking for that kind of person and what will He do? He will strengthen those who are fully engaged! Being fully engaged with God means that God is the primary source of power and strength in our lives. That means that when we face problems, God is there to empower us through those problems. It means when life’s disappointments knock us to our knees, God’s strength will lift us back up. It means that when we are worried and anxious and uncertain about our future, God’s power will allay our fears and give us His peace. It means that when we think we are at the top of our game, God will take us even higher. All this is the power of a committed life and being fully engaged.
I. We begin by knowing that God is fully engaged with me. God’s engagement with each of us is 100%. God is constant the same yesterday, today and forever which means that God’s engagement with us is not up one day and down the next. Sometimes we do feel that way, don’t we? God is close then God is far away. But know that it isn’t God that moved! God’s commitment to us never wavers or vacillates. It is constant and consistent.
One place in the Bible we see this is Psalm 139. There is nowhere in your life that God is not engaged with you. The highest mountain or the lowest valley, the coldest arctic or the hottest desert--God is there before you and behind you! God was even there before you were born, fully engaged at the very beginning of your own human development. He knows all about you—your strengths and weaknesses, your good points and your bad points, your quirky personality traits, and your idiosyncrasies; and yet His engagement with you never wavers or falters. God desires to be involved with and in your life. God not only loves you but He likes you and wants to spend time with you. Max Lucado writes that God is crazy about you! He is fully engaged in your life whether you like it or even want it! The reality is that you can never run from nor escape from God. You just can’t get rid of God! It is utterly impossible.
Christmas reminds us that God not only write this truth down in the Bible, but God actually went so far to prove it to us by coming to earth in Jesus. You see God shows His engagement with us through Jesus. God is saying, “If you don’t believe my words, maybe you will believe my Son.” Jesus is the ultimate demonstration of God’s engagement in our lives. Want to know how much God loves you, look at Jesus. Want to know how much God wants to be in your life, look at Jesus. Want to know how far God will go to show His love for you, look at Jesus. God is not some far away, nebulous force from some distance planet. The popular song says, “God is watching you—from a distance.” God IS watching you but not from a distance! He is Emmanuel—God with us, not a God from a distance! Some think that God created the heavens and earth, and then walked away to let them run on their own. No way! God is fully engaged in His whole creation including you and me. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
II. The issue is not: Is God engaged with me? The issue is really: Am I engaged with God? How then do I show my engagement with God? Here’s the answer: I show my engagement with God through Christ likeness. That means becoming more and more like Jesus. As I am engaged with God, I become more like Jesus in my attitudes and in my actions. And the more the characteristics of Jesus are a reality in my life, my engagement level with God goes up.
Over the next few weeks we are going to discover some practical ways you can take on the attitude, actions, and characteristics of Jesus. Now I realize that we are all at different points on our Christian walk and journey. It doesn’t matter where you start, but it does matter that you do start and it matters that you keep on going. It is the end result that is ultimately the most important. In Romans 8:29 we read that God’s desire is that we become conformed to the likeness of Jesus. That is God’s heart for you and me. Can that happen? Why not? Do you think God would want something for us that can’t happen? We all to often sell God far too short!
So back to this question: Am I fully engaged with God? If there is any uncertainly, it lies not at God’s feet, but right here at you and me. What IS you engagement level? Most of us all instinctively know that it should be better than it is. Some of you are “in the zone” with God and you are more engaged than ever before, but my sense is that many of you who have been Christians for a while now, are drifting, and you have become a bit stale and static. What happens is that you do the very things that lessens your engagement with God—you worship attendance begins to become spotty, you don’t read the Bible as much and your prayer life is hit-or-miss. You are no longer apart of a Bible study group or Sunday School CALL study.
But wherever you are right now January 2010, your engagement level with God can get better and you can get back on track. This morning we are going to do a little spiritual blood pressure and heart rate check. So let’s put on that spiritual cuff and see what the results are and the indicators are as to the level of our engagement with God.
Our spiritual blood pressure cuff that we will use to determine the level with our engagement is listed for you in your notes: 10 Pillars of a Fully Engaged Walk with God(a survey from the Gallup organization). This part is interactive. As I read through this list of 10, I want you to determine where you are on the scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest and 1 being lowest. So a 1 is that “I really stink bad on this one,” and 10 being “I am fully and completely engaged on this one. Don’t compare yourself to others. You are competing with yourself—to be the best you can be!
1. My faith is involved in every aspect of my life. Most of us view life as a pie that is cut up into several slices. One slice is family, one is work, one is leisure activities/hobbies, another is church, one is personal walk with God, civic duties/volunteer work, etc. The problem is that life doesn’t work this neatly and God cannot be put into a slice. This is what we mean when we say ‘Jesus is Lord.’ That means that He is involved in and permeates EVERY aspect of our lives. God is not just a slice; He is the pumpkin in the whole pie!
2. Because of my faith I have meaning and purpose in my life. Does your life have direction, meaning and purpose? Is so, what is it?
3. My faith gives me inner peace. The opposite of inner peace is constant worry. Worry then leads us to take control of everything because we believe that we are responsible for how it all works out, rather than trusting God to handle it all.
4. I’m a person who is spiritually committed. You do get points for simply showing up today. You could be doing a lot of other things, but when people look at your life, do they say, “That is a spiritually committed person?” Would you agree with them?
5. I spend time in worship every day. Worship is more than Sunday morning, more than music and praising God and feeling good. Worship is praying, reading the Bible, and walking in God’s light every day.
6. Because of my faith, I have forgiven people who have hurt me deeply. All of us have had people who have deeply hurt us. Have we forgiven them or are we still holding on to those hurts in anger and resentment and bitterness.
7. My faith has called me to develop my given gifts and talents. Are you using your God-given SHAPE to serve Jesus and His Kingdom?
8. I will take unpopular stands to defend my faith. The reality is that being fully engaged Christian today is unpopular. Just try putting your Bible on your desk at work or putting up a picture of Jesus or a Bible verse. Are you standing up for Biblical truth with integrity and boldness?
9. I speak words of kindness to those in need of encouragement. It is much easier to gossip and tear down than to build up. The tongue is as James 3:6 describes, “a fire, a world of evil…it corrupts the whole person, set the course of his whole life on fire and is itself set on fire by hell itself.” Do you build people up or tear them down?
10. Finally, I talk about my faith with those who are not yet Christians. Do you pray for people to come to Jesus? Do people know that you are a Christian? Do you invite them to church?
Add them up and put an ‘x’ on the line where that number would be somewhere between 0 and 100. This is your Spiritual Engagement Quotient. Everyone is going to have different numbers because we are all different!
III. And this all leads us to a key decision. What are we doing to do about it? Here’s the bottom line for us: each one of us is responsible for our relationship with Jesus and our own spiritual growth. But I have found that people have all kinds of reasons for not taking personal responsibility. We blame all sorts of stuff—the economy, work, stress, family responsibilities, and even church.
I believe that deep down we all want to do better and we know that we should be doing better, but we are powerless to get it done! “’Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord.” The New Year is good time to start. It is not important where you start, but it is important that you DO start and to keep on going and never give up! It is your decision and your choice. You can live is spiritual mediocrity. You can be satisfied with the good but not the best that God has for you.
To be fully engaged, we have to start somewhere. James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” Who has the responsibility? You do! It’s called taking charge of your walk with Jesus and your spiritual growth.
What is that first thing (not 50 things) you need to do to move ‘your engaged number’ higher? Maybe it is to be more faithful in church attendance? Or reading your Bible every day? Maybe you need to forgive someone. Maybe to give one-person encouragement each day. Maybe it is to take one thing and by God’s strength be determined NOT to worry about it but to trust God for it.
Remember those feelings of being fully engaged: creative, energized, productive, fulfilled, empowered, joyful, confident, optimistic, excited, etc. It happens when you become more fully engaged with Jesus. That is the power of a committed life!