Living Life On Purpose - Part III - The Challenge of Change

Once again, I guess I could say we could go home now. But I think we need God's word to walk. I'm going to ask you to take your outline out and your notes. If you're new to us, we try to take every week and put it basically in a little card form that then you can insert in a notebook and keep as sort of a journal of your spiritual progress. And that's why we do these things here at North Way. I want you to read with me the text in the top of the page. It's two verses out of the book of Proverbs. It's very familiar, but not so much in the Living Bible. I want you to read it with me. Here we go. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the Lord in everything you do, and He will show you the right way. I'm talking about living life on purpose. That's the title of this series. And the reality of it is, friends, that God has given to us the possibility of making the choices that will lead to a fulfilling, on-purpose kind of life. We have a free will. That distinguishes us, by the way, from most of the rest of creation. My cats didn't wake up today thinking, hmm, how will I live a more fulfilling life? One of them doesn't even wake up during the day. It just lays there all day and sort of blobs over the table. But that's that part of creation. Genesis 127 says we're created in the image of God. In the original language, one of the characteristics of the image of God is the freedom of will, of having the will to say yes or no. It's an incredible gift. Yet I'm confident today that a lot of you, like me, feel at times that I don't really have a choice in this at all. I feel swept along by the power of forces all around me. Choices I seem to make don't often get the job done that I hoped that they would. And sometimes there's great stress in my life, because remember last week we talked about the values of God's kingdom we want to live by and being unable to live by them? And we said that causes stress. I'm going through that. You go through that. How many of you did your homework, by the way? How many of you took the time to just sort of evaluate your values and write out a mission? Well, thank you. A few of you did. If you didn't, I just want to urge you to do that. It's not too late to do that. But there's three reasons today I want to submit to you why stress is growing. When Dan asked the question, how many of us are living a slower-paced life, very few hands went up. And I'll tell you, it's interesting. I remember reading a book 15 years ago that said by the turn of the millennium, most of us will be working 24-hour weeks. This is by a respected author, whose name I won't mention because most of you, like me, would like to strangle him. Instead of our workload lessening, it seems to be increasing for most of us. And there's three great reasons, or three obvious reasons to me. Number one, and this is on your outline, stress is growing because everything is moving faster. I mean, would you agree that the pace of life is faster, faster, faster, faster, faster? And I try to put some kind of pictures around this, so I'm going to do it musically. How many of you would describe, Marty's going to help us here, how many of you would describe your pace of life as sort of like this? Just sort of a, just a... You wake up, gently get in the car, drive in on Interstate 79, find your parking spot, and just... Huh? How many of that describe? One of you, and you're retired, that's the only reason, okay? How many of you would say, no, my life's more like this, this is how I feel when I get up in the morning and go on, it's just... I mean, your commute is a nightmare, and you fight for everything. Now, I know a lot of you kind of personally, and a lot of you, the song of your life is this one, because this is your stage of life. It's, uh... If my lips ever left my mouth, pack the bag and head it south. Oh, yeah, you're the old Vichy sale parent. Your whole life is arranged around driving, count the number of minivans in our parking lot, it's incredible. That's your pace of life. And there's this chosen few of you, and you're out there rather smugly, because that doesn't describe you. The song of your life is really this one. I mean, it's, let's be real, here it comes. It's who you are. Pack the trains to... It's the few of you who are at the very end, and it's... God, it's so sick. Could you please turn that thing off? I wanted the Roy Rogers version, we couldn't find it. But, you know, you're sort of at the sunset, so life's nice and slow, and I bless you. The pace of life is moving incredibly fast, and, you know, technology fuels this, but progress of any kind causes things to go faster, doesn't it? I mean, who's going to build an airplane that goes slower? Or who's going to build a new computer that's actually slower than one? You know, I just read they designed a microchip that can do three billion calculations in a second. I don't have a frame of reference for that, but that's fast, that's all I can tell you. Everything is faster. And as a consequence, you know, we're dealing with stresses that we never even imagined before. Think of good old King George of England. In fact, it was written in his journal on July 4, 1776. Remember that day? Here's what he wrote in his journal. Nothing much happened today. You're right, he was clueless. Why? Because it took him weeks to get the news of the revolution, of the colonists. I mean, that's how slow things are. Today, he'd have watched it on CNN, you know, he'd have seen the bombs going off, and he'd have said, send my troops in. That's the way we'd be. See, speeding, really, in any frame of reference, kind of blurs things, doesn't it? I mean, it's hard to see what's going on around you when you're going so fast that all you can do is just concentrate. For some of you, listen, your careers are that way. Your careers are consuming you, and you're so focused on that, because you have to, because it's going so fast, that you're missing on what's going on all around you and your families and your walk with God and so. Speed is extremely risky. That's why some of us need to downshift just a little bit and understand that there's more to life than just what we're focused on right in front of our face because we're going so fast. Another reason why stress is growing is every decision is more complex. Wow, is that true? Again, technologies feel this to some degree. I mean, the world is shrinking. Decisions that happen around the world affect us. When the Asian markets have a major crash, you know, we feel something in Wall Street. When Bosnia sort of explodes, we send in troops, and it's going to be that way. Friends, the Internet is in its infancy. I can't imagine what 30 or 40 years from now, what it's going to be like to live in a connected world where it's all really just like right there. But the other part of it is the incredible number of choices that we have in ordinary things. This complicates life. This adds stress to us. Let me give you a personal kind of dumb illustration, but this was indicative of the kind of thing I deal with. I was in far more drugstore on Monday to get a prescription filled, and I decided to wait for it. 20 minutes, they said. So I started walking around, so I get some shaving cream. I use the EDGE version of shaving cream. I walked over, and usually Carol picks it up for me, and I walked over, and here on the shelf, there were, of the EDGE shaving cream, there was normal skin, fragrance-free, regular, tough beard, skin conditioner, sensitive skin, menthol, medicated, extra moisturizing, extra protection, extra refresher, and extra soothing. Which one would you care to buy? We're talking overload. I just want shaving cream. I said, all right, so I picked one out. I said, well, I might as well get some razor blades while I'm here. 26 different kinds of razor blades. There used to be two kinds, sharp or dull. You know, I'll take the sharp one. I mean, it's incredible, isn't it? I mean, every day, and I used to say, what's the big deal? Well, the big deal is, I literally spent probably 12 or 14 minutes of my 20-minute time slot picking out shaving cream, razor blades, and, one other thing I looked for kind of stupidly, a toothbrush. Now, a toothbrush, you used to go in and get a toothbrush. Now, I counted them, get ready, 62 different kinds. Oh, there's the soft-bristle 35. There's the medium-bristle 40s. There's this one, that one. I got this new, you know, I'm an early adopter kind of person, so this is the new crisscross-bristle one with the little, like little plaque finder at the end. Nifty, huh? Weapon of mass destruction. So, there it is. I mean, and so all these ordinary decisions kind of load up on us, and it creates some stress in our life and gobbles up our time and creates, I mean, it's a great thing in one respect. On the other hand, gee, is it really all that necessary to have 62 kinds of toothbrushes? The third reason why stress is growing, that every value is being challenged. Isn't that true? I mean, what happened to right and wrong? They're disappearing into the abyss of moral relativism. As far as I can tell, friends, someone wants to challenge every single thing that we used to say, hey, that's right, or that's wrong. And someone will then say, there are no absolutes. When they say that, I like to say, are you absolutely sure? And there are people, and some of you have told me, people in the schools and people where you work, there are no absolutes. How can you know? Every value has been challenged by some group somewhere. And then there are polls that people pull out and say, well, see, the American people think this. Well, you know, I just got to tell you, it just rocks me. We're coming up on President's Day, and one of the polls that happened here about three weeks ago in USA Today, would you say the following applies or does not apply to our current president? Honest and trustworthy. Applies. 24% say it applies. 74% say it doesn't apply. Honest and trustworthy. Wasn't there a president named Lincoln? What was his nickname? Yeah, and you know, the polls say this, and the polls say that. Well, you know what? Every value, if you get your values from the polls, you're in a lot of trouble, friends. Your life is going to be blown all around. Our whole culture is in this plausibility mode. Like, I can go out to someone and say, you know, Jesus Christ is Lord. And someone else can say, Ronald McDonald is Lord. So, where do you get that? Well, you have your religion, and I have mine. That's basically what they're saying. You just believe what you want, and I'll believe what I want. And there's no sense that, well, maybe there's a reason why I should investigate to find out what absolute truth is. Now, how do you live a life on purpose, on target, in a culture where everything's speeding up, and choices are so complex, and where every value is challenged? Well, you've got to do something. There's one important thing you've got to do. Alvin Toffler wrote a book called Future Shock years ago, and more recently he said this. He said, when people go through times of rapid change, like we are now, that's why I call this the challenge of change, they need islands of stability, things that do not change in life. And that's what I want to submit to you today. God wants for us to know. Islands of stability. Three things that we can know with certainty aren't going to change. Number one, God's love will never change. Now, that is so obvious that some of you went ho-hum, but I want to underscore this. We call God's changelessness, in theological terms, his immutability. Immutability. It means that God never changes. Malachi, look at your outline, Malachi 3, verse 6, the Lord does not change. Why? Why doesn't God change? Because he's perfect. And if you're perfect, you don't have to change to get better, and nothing gets worse that you have to fix. So you never change. God is perfect in his being. Jeremiah 31, 3, then goes on to say, that I have loved you with an everlasting love. Now, this perfect, changeless God has decided to focus that incredible love on you and on me. This is the thing that I hope you get today. The changelessness of God's love toward you. We are the object of his continuous, everlasting, consistent love. Listen, God doesn't wake up on any day. It never will happen that he'll wake up and say, I'm not sure I love you anymore. He doesn't have a bad hair day. He doesn't wake up on the wrong side of the bed and get grumpy toward you. I don't know if you realize how significant that is. But it's a stable thing. No one ever turns to God and says, what's gotten into you today? Now, people turn to me and do that from time to time. It pumps me up to realize that on my bad days, God loves me just as much as he does on my so-called good days. Now, you think, well, what's the big news about that? I mean, come on, give me something fresh. Well, you know, I guess, maybe I'm just a basic kind of guy, but it's fresh enough that Max Lucado, who many of you have read some of his books, spoke to the President's National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. I've been to that a couple of times. It's a gathering of about 3,500 leaders from around the nation. He was asked, well, what are you going to speak on? And he said, well, my message is straightforward. It's that God really loves us. He has an unimaginable, indescribable love for us. And those who know God's love have an easier time loving and forgiving others. And I started thinking, you know what? The reason why some of us struggle the way we do with our relationships with one another is because we've never really settled on the reality of his love for us. We can't really believe or accept the fact that God loves us just the way we are. And as basic as that is, friends, it's revolutionary for those of us who grew up in a performance-oriented, you know, you better do it right if you think I'm going to love you kind of mentality. The Lord loves you whether you feel it or not, whether you're obedient or not, whether you walk close or not. Now, that's not a license to go do what you please. It should be an assurance that when you fail, he's right there to pick you up and to move you on. And that's not going to change. Unfortunately, that's not the way most of us are. Human love tries but never really reaches that unconditional state. Does your love go up and down? Does your love go hot and cold? Can you go from a hero to a zero overnight at home? You know, last week I made that sort of passing, joking comment about Solomon having 300 wives and that many had 300 mother-in-laws. My wife thought that wasn't funny. She said, well, I'm going to go visit yours. And so she left to go visit her mom. And she's not here this weekend. So I'll be careful how I couch things in the future. I know this is difficult for some of you to believe, but I can have grouchy days knowing that. It's not difficult for you to believe. I do. And it bothers me, honestly, sincerely, it bothers me sometimes that I say the most hurtful things to some of the people in my family, on this staff, in this church that I love the most. I don't know why. Except that I'm human. But God never changes. And His love never fails. He is the same yesterday, today, what's the rest of the verse? And forever. So that love, I can count on it. And it's a stable anchor. When everything else is changing, God's love won't change. Look at Romans 8.38 in your outline. Nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic. Listen, no demon can keep you from God's love. Today or tomorrow, thinkable or unthinkable, absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love. Someone can say praise God there. Praise God. It's awesome. Celebrate that. Second thing that never changes is God's word. God's word will never change. But there's something incredibly powerful about this book. Look at Isaiah 40, verse 8. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God shall stand forever. This book is an incredible book. Last week we heard from Bob Fryer about the Yellow Pages. And then he said, you know, but I hope you build your life around this book. Because this book, you see, is God's truth to us. The laws in here, the commandments, the principles, the promises, the values that they speak of, these never change. I used to subscribe to Psychology Today magazine because I wanted to be tuned in to what was sort of the leading edge thinking in terms of some of the counseling circles. And I stopped getting the magazine because so many of the paradigms of counseling have changed. So many of the human behavior patterns that we study change. How many of you are in organizational management? And there's so many different new theories about how teams now work and how individuals now do this kind of relationship. And it's always changing. And that's okay, I expect, but the truth of the matter is to really have your life on solid rock, you need something that's not going to change. And this book is made of truth that's not going to change. Jesus said, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. And no book, listen, no book has been more scrutinized and analyzed and dissected and judged and criticized and all the rest than the Bible. And yet after all these years, it is still the number one bestseller year after year after year. Why? Because the truth in it is changeless. And it's a very inspiring thing. I don't know if any of you are going to try to make the Israel trip with us, but one of the highlights will be when you peer down into the actual manuscripts that they lifted from the Dead Sea Scrolls and look at the literal book of Isaiah written nearly 3,000 years ago. I mean, the literal tablets themselves under glass. It's the literal pages of scripture. And it's the same. And it's going to be good this year and next year and the next one. And if we get to the year 3,000 A.D., it'll still be the truth that you can build your life on. These promises, these principles, these laws. I mean, some of them are just laws. God says some very specific things. Alan Shepard, the first astronaut of America, said when he was asked just before his space journey, he said, well, what are you depending on? And here was his answer. It's a great answer. He said, I'm depending on the fact that God's laws will not change. What kind of laws was he talking about? Laws of physics, right? I mean, it is all figured out. And, you know, I mean, the laws of physics are pretty clear. If I take this plate, hold it up here, and drop it on this wooden floor, what will the law of physics say this is going to do? What particular law is going to go to work? Law of gravity. And, right, when something of glass hits something of wood from about six or seven feet, what's normally going to happen? I thought about doing this just to awaken a few people and to dramatize the point. But then I thought, you know, if the glass spilled out, there could be, someone could be injured. So I'm not going to do that. But just imagine it's a law. And it works. And aren't you glad that gravity works every day? And what if it was just Monday, Wednesday, Friday we had gravity? What would you do Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday? You'd put on the old gravity boots, right? But they work every day. Well, God's laws work every single day. And the interesting thing is, if you break the physical laws, if you drop plates or if you jump off buildings, if you drive around a bend too fast, you don't just break the laws. What happens? The laws break you. Put that in your notes. You don't just break the laws. The law breaks you. Your car will end up piled up into a tree if you go around a bend too fast. You'll have a broken body if you jump off a building. And God's laws are the same. When you violate them, you don't just break the law. The law breaks you. You end up being the one that's hurt. If you commit adultery, if you steal, if you lie, if you cheat, you're the one that gets hurt. If you don't give or serve or love, then you're the one that loses the reward. See, God's words, they're there for our benefit, not to diminish it. Please understand, those of you who grew up in a real strict kind of... The Bible's not meant to kind of like stifle life. It's meant to open it up and secure life. It's a freeing book if you receive it as God intended. I started thinking about our society. I don't know what the numbers are. We have some physicians, probably you could tell us. One I know is a specialist in communicable diseases. But you know what? There would not be any socially transmitted or sexually transmitted diseases, no STDs, if we simply followed God's laws. You know that? Think of the billions of dollars, the millions of people that wouldn't have an illness if they simply had followed God's laws to keep sex and marriage. Pretty simple. God put it there to protect us. And it's interesting that the root of all of our temptations in life come down from the first real temptation, which was to doubt God's words. Look at this scripture in Genesis 3-1. Look up it on the outline here. I'm not sure it's in your notes. But the Lord had spoken to Adam and Eve about what it was that they were to not eat in the garden. Here's what the tempter said. The serpent was the shrewdest of all the creatures the Lord God had made. Really? He asked the woman. Did God really say that you must not eat of any of the fruit in the garden? Now as you just think about that verse for a second, how many of you face temptations in your life where the first thing that you think about is really? Am I really going to get burned if I do this? Am I really going to cause some trouble? And we doubt God's word. The voice of the evil one is really? He didn't really mean that, did he? And that is the beginning of the end. And friends, he is so subtle. He does it very subtly. Satan rarely just shows up and stands in some red suit as he's portrayed to be. Things like this start to happen. Here's some variations of how we diminish God's word. I hear people say, well, that's your interpretation on your outline, your interpretation. That verse, I mean, I'm not sure that what you're saying there really is true. The Bible says stop gossiping and slandering others. Well, how do you interpret stop? I mean, when you drive home on 910 or if you go up on Brant School Road and there's a stop sign, what do you do? How do you interpret stop? Well, I interpret it by just kind of coasting through. Well, you might do that a couple of times, then how will you interpret it? In the hospital, probably. You'll get hit or you'll get arrested. And so when the Bible says stop doing some things, how do you interpret that? Stop doing them. It's pretty simple. I think it's just a smokescreen for a lot of us. We say, well, I'm not sure. It's pretty basic. Another thing I hear people say is, well, that's not culturally relevant. The Bible is for those people, those slower kind of people of the old days. They didn't have the same things that we deal with. Well, you know what? I've discovered this. People have been people all throughout history. King David, of whom Jeff sang a little while ago, obviously was a man who struggled with all kinds of passions and temptations 3,000 years ago. And we struggle with the same things today. And so the Bible is as relevant today as it was the days that it was written, regardless of what the polls or society's ideas or the latest fad or pop media kind of mores might be. God's word is still the truth. And it really kind of rubs me just a bit. I mean, I've heard it said in the last year, abstinence is out of touch with reality. I've heard people on television say, well, you know what? This whole thing of passing out condoms in the schools, I mean, people who are saying or advocating abstinence are just out of touch. Kids are going to have sex. The question is whether or not it will be protected. And what they're saying is, build your moral value system based on current behaviors. That's what they're saying. What a brilliant idea. So that means if I decide, well, I want to go 100 miles an hour between here and Cranberry on Route 19. And that's, I can't help it. That's just, I mean, that's how fast I'm going to go. You better make the speed limit 100 miles an hour, right? Think that's a good idea? I think it's a great idea myself, but I'm probably in the minority. But that is the literal logic of what these people are saying. When God's word goes against the grain of popularity, it is still the truth. Abstinence is still God's truth, outside of marriage. And it works. Another thing that people say to diminish God's word is they say, well, I know that. Some of you here today are listening to me say, I know that. And our big struggle in America, to be honest, in American Christians, isn't knowing it, it's doing it. Simply the response of, well, I know that. You know what? That doesn't get it done. You won't live in the kingdom of odd. You won't be different than the people around you if you just say, well, I know that. Many people that you'll work alongside know some Bible, but they haven't really integrated it into their life. Jesus said in Matthew 5, 24, look at it. Everyone who hears these words of mine, and then just circle the rest of it, and puts them into practice, is like a wise man who built his house on a rock. When you put the scripture of God into your heart and live it day by day, the storms will come, the rains will come, the winds will blow, but your house of your life, it'll abide. And whatever comes in 1999, whatever Y2K or whatever economic issues or political issues, your life will stay secure in God. And I want to just challenge everybody in a very practical way here. I want to renew a practice in my life, and I'm going to challenge you to do the same thing that I've kind of lost. And that is to memorize scripture. How many of you used to memorize a lot of scripture? It is a great way to stay current with what God wants you to know in your life. People say, well, I can't memorize scripture. I can't even remember my own name some mornings. You know, I'm over 50. I mean, give me a break, Pastor Jim. You know what I've discovered? People memorize what's important to them. I've had men say to me, I can't memorize the Bible, but they can list every baseball statistic of the last 10 years. Every Dow Jones quote that they're really interested in. They'll know the exact numbers and letters and all that kind of stuff that go with it. Lyrics to a song. People say, well, I can't memorize scripture. But they can tell you, they'll sit there and lip sync every song that comes through because it's important to them. Memorize the Bible. I'll tell you why. Because sometimes when you need scripture the most to empower you, you don't have a Bible in your hand. And you kind of wonder, well, where does it say that? What should I do now, God? When you need it, God can draw on it if it's in your mind and in your spirit. About six months ago, I was working out at the health club where I go, and I had a sort of unusually awkward moment. A guy came up to the piece of equipment that I was on, and he was rather insistent that I get off because I was in his slot. Well, the fact of the matter was, he had read the chart wrong. But he was kind of banging on this, and he was saying to me, come on. I said, you know, check the chart again. I think I'm on here correctly. And I'm in the middle of the whole thing. And he was insistent. And I was getting wrangled inside. I could feel myself. You ever get that way? You feel yourself getting kind of like, I want to lash out. And then I had memorized the scripture. Scripture that says, rejoice constantly, pray always, and give thanks in all circumstances. And instead of my anger welling up, I started to rejoice. Sort of. I said, well, just let me step off here a second, and thanks for helping me understand exactly what the problem is here. And he got a little chill. We walked over together and looked at the chart. And lo and behold, he was 15 minutes off. He didn't apologize. He just walked away. But I thank God, if I had had that scripture in my head, I probably would have said something stupid, done something stupid. And I regret it. Friends, we need that. I mean, how many of you need that in your home when you and your spouse are about to go at it? If you have a scripture in your head, in your spirit, God can call that and calm you down. How many of you face ethical decisions in your workplace where you know someone's pushing you to compromise, and scripture comes up about being a man of integrity? Those things can change you if you have them at your hand. I want to urge you all, memorize scripture in 1999. And finally, and rather quickly, let me just touch on the third one. Well, this is really the pinnacle of the whole thing. The other thing that I want you to know that will never change is God's purpose for your life. Look at the next scripture. God is not a man. He doesn't change His mind. It says in 1 Samuel 15, 29. What a great verse. See, long before you were born, God planned you, and His plans for you have never changed. He created you for a purpose, and that purpose has never changed. If you're alive and breathing, pinch your neighbor. Are they alive? Do you feel it? Do they wince? That means that God has a purpose for them. There's something He's doing for them and through them and wants to complete in them. Do you ever notice how often our plans get sidetracked? Ever notice how we can make plans, and all of a sudden, we can't do it? I mean, I don't know if John shared in the second service, but when he woke up this morning, he had a fever. And his plans were to come to lead worship, and then, you know, he had a fever. He said, how can I go do that? And he was ready to call Susie and say, I can't make it in. And he prayed and took a couple of aspirin and laid down again, and he said, a few minutes later, the fever broke him immediately, and he felt refreshed, and he came in. But those plans were put to the test, and I've had times when, you know, I just couldn't fulfill them. Why can't we normally fulfill plans? Well, number one, because we can't see what's about to happen, so we don't know. We had a wedding here a week ago, and Carol was supposed to join me for the wedding at four o'clock, and she didn't show up. Her plan was to be here, and on the way over, she had a flat tire, had a blowout, and was pulled off to the side and waited an hour and some for help from AAA. And her plans weren't fulfilled. Why? Because she couldn't see what was going to happen, and number two, she didn't have the power to change it. Those are the two reasons why sometimes our plans get scuttled. We don't always see what's going to happen, and when it does happen, we don't always have the power to fulfill it. But God is omniscient. He knows everything that's going to happen, and God is omnipresent, or omnipotent, rather. He has the power to change anything. So His plans always happen. His plans will always come to pass because God sees them and has the power to fulfill them. Look at Psalm 3311. His plans endure forever. His purposes last eternally. So that causes me to close in on three important questions. Can I miss God's purpose for my life? Is it possible for me to live my whole life and miss the reason why I was here? And the answer to that is absolutely yes. In fact, the more mature I become, the more convinced I am that most people do not find God's purpose for their life. I have been at far too many funerals where people really didn't have anything of substance to say about the individual's contribution. Whether by neglect or arrogance, you know, I'm going to do my plans and not God's, by disobedience, pride, laziness, indifference, you can live your entire life and miss God's will. What a tragedy. Jesus Christ will not force His plans on you. But, number two, can I get back on track after making a mess of my life? Again, the answer is absolutely yes. What great news. I know the plans. Jeremiah 2911, please. I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope. These are the plans that God has. And once you come to God with the broken pieces of your life, He'll put them back together. You say, well, Jay, you don't know what a mess I've made. You don't know what my indulgent lifestyle has done. You don't know