Submitted by admin on Thu, 06/09/2011 - 4:14pm
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Defining Moments...those key events in our lives that dramatically reshape everything that comes after. These events become watershed moments that alter our whole perspective, shift our attitude, adjust our world view, even redirect the entire course of our life.
For instance, I heard that back when Bill Clinton was president, he and Hillary were touring a construction site. As they went through the line shaking hands with the work crew, Hillary struck up an extended and animated conversation with one of the men. When she caught up to Bill, he said, "Who was that guy you were talking to back there?" And she said, "Can you believe it? I used to date that guy back in high school." And Bill said, "Do you see how lucky you are? If you had married him, you'd be the wife of a construction worker." Hillary looked at Bill and said, "No...if I had married him, he would have been president and you'd be a construction worker."
Do you see how some events in our lives change everything that follow after? And it's not just who we meet and marry that can reshape or redirect us. Sometimes it's a serendipitous discovery. Sometimes it's an accident or a disappointment. Any number of things can become a defining moment!
Christopher Columbus-thought he'd discovered a route to the Orient. He was mistaken, but that mistake changed the history of the world. A mistake became a defining moment.
Charles Goodyear—so the legend goes-was experimenting with rubber in 1839 when he accidently spilled his mixture on a hot stove. The burned substance that resulted led to his discovering of the process eventually called "vulcanization" of rubber, which made it usable in everyday applications. An accident became a defining moment.
Joni Eareckson Tada—was an athletic 17-year-old who broke her neck and severed her spinal cord when she dived into shallow water. That event left her a depressed paraplegic, until her faith in Christ came alive. For many years now, from her wheelchair, she has encouraged and inspired many—particularly those who struggle with disabilities. A careless act became a defining moment that has ministered to many.
God can use any number of things to shape our lives in positive ways. God invades our days with unique events to prepare us for something new or something different to come. God's invasion in everyday situations become moments that define our lives for the future.
- Pastor Fred talked about how we can be defined by PRESENCE...it's those times when we come to the realization that God is with us and we are not alone. That assurance can redefine our lives.
- Pastor Jeff talked about how we can be defined by PAIN...that when we understand how God helps us survive the worst things, we can be changed for all eternity.
- Today we're looking at how we can be defined by PROMISE...how our lives can be reshaped when we finally gain an assurance that God has a plan—and is bringing about something better.
Let me make a bold statement: If your life is not defined by promise—by a hope for something better—then it will be defined by something else: fear, anxiety, suspicion, dread, defeatism.
If we don't learn to live in the light of God's promise, we're left with no choice but to live in the dark shadows of doubt. If we don't see the rising sun, we'll remain trapped in a night of discouragement.
The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day. Prov 4:18 (NIV)
As followers of Jesus Christ, those who claim to believe, our lives should be defined by promise. Is your life defined by God's promises...or is it overshadowed by anxieties and fear of the unknown? Do you live by promise or by panic? There are several ways you can evaluate to what extent you live by promise:
- Promise gives courage. Without it, we naturally do all we can to avoid risk. Do you live a bold and courageous life?
- Promise raises hope. Without it, we live under a cloud of uncertainty—a sense of dread. Do you face each day with expectation and hope that God is going to do something good in you and through you?
- Promise looks forward; it anticipates what's coming. Without it, we look backwards. Do you have plans and expectations that reflect God's purposes? Have you learned to trust in his abilities instead of relying on your inabilities?
Promise colors our days with hope; promise plans for good things to come; promise looks beyond the present and envisions a better future. Promise comes from beyond ourselves. We've got to learn to see the promises that come from God—but we also have to see how to receive God's promises by faith, how to empower them by faith, how to seize those promises by faith and put them into motion.
1. (You see) Promise connects us to God's potential! I read somewhere: "Anyone can count the number of seeds in an apple, but only God knows the number of apples in a seed."
It's like the man on vacation who asked the tour guide, "Were there any great men born in this town?" The guide thought a moment and said, "Nope. No great men were born here. Only babies."
Babies are cute, adorable, and cuddly—or, depending on when you see them—stinky, messy, smelly. No one looks at a baby and says, "Wow! What a great man!" or "What a magnificent woman!" No! An infant is not defined by magnificence or greatness. However even a tiny baby holds the promise of greatness.
An acorn is not an oak tree; but it is the promise of an oak tree. And when we finally see God's promise, we are connected to God's potential.
2. Promise redefines the way we live. A promise received can change things even before the promise is fulfilled. When by faith we believe the promise is real, that promise affects our attitude and our behavior! You don't have to wait until the promise is finally delivered before it can change things!
A purchase agreement on a house will change your life—even while you're still in your old house, even before you move to the new place. The expectation alone redefines the way you live.
When the promise becomes real to you, your whole outlook can be transformed!
August 5th, last year, near the town of Copiapó in Chile, a large cave-in occurred in a copper/gold mine deep underground, about 3 miles from the entrance into the side of the mountain. Naturally, the news caused enormous dread, a sense of foreboding, a great deal of anxiety. For over two weeks, no one knew if there were any survivors—but even if there were, no one knew how they could reach them in time. Nevertheless, workers began drilling "skinny boreholes," only about 6 inches wide, straight down to where they thought any surviving miners might be. Seven holes were drilled with no results. On the eighth try, however, 17 days after the mine collapsed, the drill bit broke through into an underground chamber where 33 survivors were waiting. They attached two notes to the drill bit with rubber bands. One read: "We are well in the shelter...the 33."
Here's the situation: They were still trapped far beneath the surface, nearly a half mile down; they had lost considerable weight; they were living off emergency rations. But that small hole to the surface lifted everyone's spirits! It gave them hope. And it set in motion what happened next—a massive effort was launched to get the miners out.
Meanwhile, the narrow borehole to the surface was used to keep the men's hopes alive. They dropped down a modified telephone. Medical experts talked to the men and nursed them back to health. They sent down vaccines and medicines. They took blood and urine samples. Additional tubes passed through the hole became the miners' lifeline. They sent down letters from their families, food and liquids, even a small video system so the miners could watch movies and even live soccer matches.
The miners could not be rescued by using the 6-inch borehole, but that small hole gave promise that a rescue was not only possible—but that it was coming. The borehole kept them alive while they waited. It gave them hope. It kept up their spirits until, on the 69th day of living deep underground, they were pulled out one by one in a rescue capsule through another larger shaft drilled for that purpose.
The small borehole helped them see beyond the circumstances of being trapped deep underground. It gave them strength to hang on till help could come. It reassured them that something good was happening far above them, even though they were trapped far beneath the surface.
In the same way, God wants us to live by his promise. His promise is like the small hole that lets us know something better is coming. When we learn to live by promise, God helps us to shift our focus, our attitude, our way of life. He wants us to reflect his promise rather than our current situation. He wants our lives defined by the promise of something better—the promise of something good to come, the promise of what is above.
The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day. Prov 4:18 (NIV)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Copiap%C3%B3_mining_accident]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/world/americas/13chile.html]
3. Promise fuels our faith. Without the promise, faith would be wishful thinking. But when God gives us a promise of something better, then we can pin our faith to what God has said rather than what we would merely wish for.
Promise is a powerful biblical concept found repeatedly throughout the Scriptures. The word promise (or variations such as promises or promised) occurs 229 times in the NIV. We read about the Promised Land, the promised Messiah, promised blessings, the promise of his coming...
Even when the word promise itself isn't used, the Bible is forward-looking. Whole sections deal with prophecy and speak of better things to come!
When God gives a promise, something happens in the spiritual realms. Because God says it, the whole atmosphere changes! And when God's people believe God's promise, they are changed. When they don't believe it, though, they stay stuck in their old, defeated ways.
When they believed they could possess the Promised Land, they crossed the Jordan River, they marched around Jericho, they chased the enemies out. But when they believed the giants were stronger than God's promises, they complained and grumbled and rebelled and wanted to go back to slavery in Egypt.
Hebrews, the letter in the NT, reminds us of their history, vacillating between belief and unbelief (like Pastor Jeff talked about last week).
12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first... 16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. (Heb 3:12-19, NIV)
Unbelief cancels God's promise. But when faith is fueled by God's promise, we seem more clearly what God has planned for us. When God's promise is received and believed, we can peer into the future and look beyond our present circumstances. Even though the fullness of God's promises haven't yet arrived, by strong faith we know they will.
So we need moments defined by promise and energized by faith! Promise should define the way we see our circumstances, the way we think about life, the expectations we have for what is coming and for what God is doing. We need those defining moments when a promise is given and we believe—when the drill bit breaks through the rock that traps us in darkness and lets in the promise of what's to come.
At that moment, at that defining moment, God's promise changes everything. It can change the direction and course of your life! It's not the fulfillment that makes the difference, but the promise itself.
Some promises aren't fulfilled even in an entire lifetime, but those promises—even unfulfilled—can still redirect the course of our lives! We read about ordinary people in the Bible who, because of the promise they believed, lived a different kind of life—even though they never received the promise in this life.
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Heb 11:13-16, NIV)
It's the anticipation of something that is coming that changes the attitude and the behavior of the person. When you receive a promise with faith and patience, something changes within your heart and soul! From that point on, your outlook will be different.
Faith in the Bible is not, as existentialists make out, a leap in the dark, but rather a step in the light, whereby (to extend the metaphor) one puts one's whole weight on the firm ground of God's unshakeable promises... The truth is that all faith, at every stage in our Christian pilgrimage, is essentially a resting upon God's promise. It has the nature of assurance, because it relies on God's assurances...
The heart of the life of faith is in fact the recognition that all the promises which God is recorded as having made to His people in the past are still in principle (not always, of course, in detail, because of differing circumstances) extended to each individual Christian in the present...
[T]he promises of God are the ground of faith; for where professed Christians are not living in the joy of the knowledge that all of God's promises are theirs, the truth is that God's Word is not being heard. [J. I. Packer, God Has Spoken: Revelation and the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979), 126-129.]
8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
11 By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. (Heb 11:8-12, NIV)
Let your life be defined—motivated and shaped—by God's promises!
Now Moses said to Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses' father-in-law, "We are setting out for the place about which the LORD said, ‘I will give it to you.' Come with us and we will treat you well, for the LORD has promised good things to Israel." (Num 10:29, NIV)
Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. (Deut 27:3, NIV)
Not one of all the LORD's good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled. (Josh 21:45, NIV)
"Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses. (1 Kings 8:56, NIV)
19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. (Romans 4:19-21, NIV)
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. (2 Cor 1:20, NIV)
If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal 3:29, NIV)
9 Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case—things that accompany salvation. 10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. (Heb 6:9-12, NIV)
But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises. (Heb 8:6, NIV)
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. (Heb 10:36, NIV)
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:3-4, NIV)
But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. (2 Peter 3:13, NIV)
And this is what he promised us—even eternal life. (1 John 2:25, NIV)