Randall Caselman
Bella Vista Church of Christ
12/29/2019 A.M.
IN PURSUIT OF THE GOOD LIFE
Accessing God’s Power Within
John 10.10 Galatians 5.22-24 2 Peter 1.3-8 & 10-11 Ephesians 3.20
Well… Here we are… At the end of our study… IN PURSUIT OF THE GOOD LIFE.
It was Jesus who said… I came that you might have life… And have it more ABUNDANTLY.
We’re examining Paul’s Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians chapter five…
Paul is saying… When God lives in us… We will become a people and person of… LOVE… JOY… PEACE… PATIENCE… KINDNESS… GOODNESS… FAITHFULNESS… GENTLENESS… SELF-CONTROL.
Peter calls these traits… CHRISTIAN GRACES…
• Attributes that help us participate in God’s Divine Nature…
• Character Traits that make our calling and election sure…
• That open an entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.
What have we done with these lessons?...
• Enjoyed them….
• Hated them…
• Been care-less and indifferent to them…
Or have we allowed GOD TO WORK HIS WONDER IN OUR LIFE… Bringing about the Good Life… The Abundant Life… He promised.
Let me take you back to 2013… It was February 10th… When a fire broke out on the Engine Room of the Carnival Cruise Ship TRIUMPH.
• Leaving her stranded in the Gulf of Mexico…
• 150 miles off the Yucatan Peninsula…
• With 4,229 people aboard.
The fire itself did little damage… BUT KNOCKED OUT THE SHIP’S POWER…
• No Power meant they were Dead-in-the-Water… At the mercy of the wind & ocean currents…
• No Air-Conditioning… No Refrigeration…
• Food Spoiled… Toilets didn’t work.
With nothing to eat… Fresh water becoming scarce… Nowhere to go to the bathroom…People quickly abandoned the hot smelly conditions of the Lower Decks… Most passengers crowded the Upper Decks trying to find a place to sleep.
Four long days later… Two tug boats pulled the crippled TRIUMPH into Mobile Bay.
Listen church… This is a riveting reminder of WHAT CAN AND DOES HAPPEN when anything or anyone is disconnected from its source of power.
For we Christians… God is our power through the Holy Spirit He gave us.
You see… There is no way to add and sustain these nine CHARACTER TRAITS in our life without God’s help… Without power from above.
We don’t live the Christian Life on our own power… BUT BY HIS POWER AT WORK WITHIN US…
Listen to these Scriptures again…
The Hebrews’ Writer tells us that God will empower us with EVERYTHING GOOD NEEDED for doing His will… For living the Good Life…
In Ephesians 3.20…Paul said… GOD’S POWER IS AT WORK IN US… Doing more than we could ask or imagine.
In Philippians… He says… God will finish the work HE has STARTED IN US.
Look at the first verse of our text in Second Peter one… His DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN US EVERYTHING WE NEED FOR LIFE AND GODLINESS.
You see… The Fruit of God living in us doesn’t mature in one day… But in years…It’s the result of God living in us… LIVING IN US.
We are not born… FULLY GROWN… FULLY MATURE
Scripture teaches that God takes up residency in our life the moment we are Born Again…But it’s NOT at that moment we become A FULLY MATURED BELIEVER… It takes time for His Fruit to germinate and ripen.
Sanctification… Becoming Holy as He is Holy…Takes time as we work out our salvation.
Paul said… We plant… We water… We cultivate… BUT GOD GIVES THE INCREASE.
So…This morning…
What we must do to stay connected to the power source…
First…We must DESIRE GOD’S PRESENCE IN OUR LIFE…
John 1.12 & 13 tells us that… If we choose to believe… If we choose to have faith in Jesus…God gives us… The right… The authority… The power… To become children of God through the New Birth… Not a birth by the will of man… But by the will of God.
John 15.5 has Jesus saying… I am the Vine… You are the branches… Whoever abides in Me… LISTEN NOW!… AND I IN HIM… Bears WHAT?... MUCH FRUIT… But apart from Me…DETACHED FROM THE POWER SOURCE… You can do nothing… ZILCH!!
Jesus tells us that the Good Life… The Abundant Life… Comes as a result of hungering and thirsting for God and His righteousness.
Paul contends that we are… God’s Temple… His Tabernacle… His Abode… Don’t you know that your body is the TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT WITHIN YOU… Whom you have from God.
1 John 4.12 reads… If we love one another… GOD LIVES IN US.
Then verse thirteen tells us HOW… THROUGH THE SPIRIT HE HAS GIVEN US.
Church… Do we want God living in us?... REALLY?... Do we want Him producing His Fruit?
Or are we looking for someone else to live in us producing THE FRUIT OF THIS WORLD… POLITICAL POWER… PRESTIGE… POPULARITY… MATERIALISM… ETC.
Here it is church… God wants to direct our lives…
• But He will not override our own free will…
• God doesn’t seize control of our heart and mind.
God provides the power… BUT WE HOLD THE STEERING WHEEL… My life and yours are still under our own control… No one else’s!!
We become WHO and WHAT we WILL to become… Nothing more!… Nothing less!
Listen…The Good Life will not happen… Cannot happen… Unless we desire it above all else… Seek first the Kingdom of heaven… And all these things… The abundant life… Will be given you.
Church…Have we ask God to come into our life?... Have we?... REALLY?
John R.W. Stott used to start each morning with this prayer… Heavenly Father… I pray that this day I may live in Your Presence and please you more and more… I pray this day that I may take up my cross and follow You. I pray that this day you will fill me with Yourself… AND CAUSE YOUR FRUIT TO RIPEN IN MY LIFE… LOVE…JOY… PEACE… PATIENCE… KINDNESS… GOODNESS… FAITHFULNESS… GENTLENESS… SELF-CONTROL.
Secondly… WE MUST CONFESS AND RENOUNCE OUR SINFUL WAYS.
Scripture tells us that we are to be HOLY because He is HOLY.
If God is Holy & He is…. If He lives in us & He does… Then We will be Holy.
Peter says… We’re living stones… A spiritual house… A HOLY PRIESTHOOD… A HOLY NATION.
Here it is church… God WILL NOT… CANNOT… Live in a Contaminated Environment… We are NOT TO GRIEVE THE SPIRIT OF GOD by providing a contaminated Temple…
• You don’t grow oranges in Alaska…
• You don’t study democracy in Leningrad…
God cannot live and produce His Fruit in… A worldly… Evil… Lustful… Fleshly… Sinful environment… We must ACKNOWLEDGE and RENOUNCE our sin.
Listen to Paul’s admonishment from Titus chapter two… For the grace of God has appeared to all people bringing salvation… Teaching us to renounce… Ungodliness… Lust… Worldly passions… And to live… Self-controlled… Upright… Godly… Lives in this presentage.
It was John who wrote… Confess… Acknowledge… Your sins and He will… Forgive you… Cleanse you from all unrighteousness… Make you Holy.
Galatians chapter five is a contrast between… The Fruit of the Flesh… And the Fruit of the Spirit… Now the works of the Flesh are… Sexual immorality… Sensuality… Idolatry… Sorcery… Enmity… Strife… Jealousy… Fits of Anger… Rivalries…Dissensions… Divisions… Envy… Drunkenness… Orgies… And things like this… But the Fruit of the Spirit is… Love… Joy… Peace… Patience… Kindness… Goodness…Faithfulness… Gentleness… Self-Control.
Indeed… God works in a life given to Him.
We must become… A PEOPLE OF THE WORD… IN STEP WITH THE SPIRIT.
2 Timothy 2.15… Study so as to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed… Who correctly handles the word of truth.
2 Timothy 3.15-17… The Holy Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
If we want to know how to live in love?... Read First Corinthians 13… Love is patient… Kind… Does not envy… Does not boast… Is not proud… Is not rude… Is not self-seeking… Is not easily angered… Keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth. It always protects… Always trusts…Always hopes… Always perseveres. Love never fails.
If we want to learn how to have a life of integrity… Read about.. NOAH… ABRAHAM… JOSEPH… ESTHER… HANNAH… DAVID… STEPHEN… PAUL… And others.
Church…If we want to live the abundant life… We must… Like David… Allow the Word to be… a light to our feet… A lamp to our pathway.
Here is something else… We need to stay in the Word DAILY!!
Here we are… Next to a new year. In the foyer and education hallway are calendars and cards that will help us read through the Bible in a year…
• Aids that will keep us in the Word…
• Tools that will help us keep in step with the Spirit.
This morning… Will we commit to spending time in the Scriptures every day in 2020?
Number four… WE MUST LET GO OF OUR WORLDLY AMBITIONS.
Galatians 5.24 reads… And those who belong to Christ have CRUCIFIED THE FLESH AND ITS PASSIONS AND DESIRES.
Listen church… Standing in the dawn of a New Year… We must choose… We must decide…
• Are we going to live a life patterned after Jesus?… Or… A life patterned after the world?
• Are we gonna Seek First the Kingdom of God and His righteousness?… Or… Are we gonna pursue the ambitions and pleasures this world has to offer?
• Are we going to lay up treasures in Heaven?… Or treasures on earth?
• Will we be conformed or transformed? Conformed to the World’s way of thinking… Or Transformed into the image of Jesus?… Paul admonishes… Don’t be conformed to the pattern of this world… But be transformed.
• Who will rule and reign in our life?… Who will be our CEO?… Jesus or this world?… It was Jesus who said… We can’t have it both ways… We must choose today whom we will serve… WE CANNOT SERVE TWO MASTERS.
• Will we be Spirit led or Flesh led?… I want to be Spirit Led because Paul wrote… Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
Coach Tom Landry was right… The job of a football coach is to make men do what they don’t want to do… In order to become what they want to be.
Paul put it this way in First Corinthians 9.27… Like an athlete… I discipline my body… Training it to do what it should. Lest after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.
Then finally… We stay connected to the power source by BEING PERSEVERANT… BY KEEPING-ON-KEEPING-ON… NEVER GIVING UP.
Church…No matter how hard we try to produce the Fruit of the Spirit in our daily walk…We will come up short!… We will fail!!
Here it is… We can provide THE DESIRE TO LIVE GODLY LIVES… But God SUPPLIES THE POWER to do it… And FORGIVENESS when we fall short.
Paul affirmed this idea in Philippians 2.12 & 13… Therefore my dear friends…Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling… LISTEN NOW… FOR IT IS GOD WHO WORKS IN YOU TO WILL AND TO ACT ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE.
I remember Charles Hodge used to tell this story about the great pianist Paderewski…PAD-RES-KEE. One day… A mom took her little boy to hear him as an encouragement for her son to keep-on practicing. They sat near the front… The boy was fascinated by the grand piano on the stage. While his mother was talking to a friend… He slipped away.
As the house lights dimmed and the spotlight hit the piano… She gasped to see her son on the piano bench playing… “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Before she could get to him… Paderewski walked to the keyboard… Sat down beside the boy….Whispering… “Don’t quit, Don’t stop… Keep playing.” Then he reached down with his left hand and began filling in the bass… With his right… He began adding a running obbligato.
Together the old master and the child brought the crowd to its feet.
Listen church… This morning… I hope you’re HEARING GOD WHISPER…
• Don’t quit…
• Keep playing…
• Don’t give up…
• I have given you… TheComforter… The PARACLETE…
• I am walking with you…
• I’m empowering you with whatever is needed to turn your life into a masterpiece.
Listen as we hear God say… MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU… FOR MY STRENGTH IS MADE PERFECT IN YOUR WEAKNESS.
Hear Him say… MY DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN US EVERYTHING WE NEED FOR LIFE AND GODLINESS… Everything you need for living the abundant life.
If you are here this morning and not a child of God… Become one… Start your walk with Him by… Faith… Repentance… And the New Birth in New Testament Baptism.
As His Child… May we commit… In this New Year… TO LETTING THE WORLD SEE JESUS LIVING IN US… AS WE PRODUCE THE FRUIT OF HIS PRESENCE.
Accept His invitation… Accept His challenge… As we sing this song together.