My question today is… What are the ingredients of a life well lived?
If you’ve ever suffered from a lack of direction, motivation, purpose, or have poor time management, or if you get into commitments that you regret and you feel like wasting time. This is the sermon for you. It’s a reflection on the things worth doing in life.
The Big Idea Today is: A life well lived is full of Righteousness, Peace, and Joy.
Today, I want to talk about personal conflicts, the conflicts that we face every single day: some are big, some are small, some have lasted for years. The way we handle conflict can shape our lives for better or for worse. Conflicts can have a happy ending. It’s what we should strive for but sometimes it’s not possible.
So my question today is: What is the best way to overcome a personal conflict?
The answer we get comes from our Bible story. We find two keys:
Even if you are a strong Christian, it can feel like you’ve been forgotten, and thoughts start bubbling up in our minds like:
“If God is supposed to be here with me, then why are these bad things happening to me?” And we often subconsciously answer these questions by making up assumptions. Maybe God’s not real. Maybe He’s not in control. Or maybe he’s in control, but He’s not good, He doesn’t want what’s best for me. Or simply, God’s too busy with other things to waste time on me. And because of our misunderstanding of God, many Christians get bitter or become complacent in life.
Our story today reminds us that when these hard moments come, we are exactly where God wants us to be and we just need to continue believing in what he is doing and to work with him. But what IS God doing in difficult times?
Today I want to talk about the story of Joseph. Joseph was one of twelve brothers but he was the favorite son of his Father, Jacob. This caused an intense sibling rivalry- so intense that the brothers wanted to kill Joseph.
However, at the last minute they decided to sell Joseph as a slave instead. The slave traders took Joseph down to Egypt to be sold and there he worked and served a man named Potiphar.
In our passage, Joseph worked in a really difficult work environment, and he eventually overcame the challenges that he faced. Joseph teaches us how to engage the challenges of a difficult work environment. Work is a huge part of life and it’s part of God’s plan for every Christian to do good work (Eph 2:10; Eph 4:16).
Some work is paid, like if you have a career job. And other work is unpaid, like raising kids. But, we all need to work and we all need to overcome the challenges of our work. And our Bible story shows us how we can thrive at work and use our work to bless others and be blessed ourselves.
So my big question today is: What is the best way to approach our work? Our answer from our Bible story is:
Today, I want to talk about a relationship that does count. I want to talk about our relationship with God. Over the years I’ve talked to a lot of Christians, and I find that typically people’s relationship with God is not going so well. People have ideas for what to do in the relationship with God. They’ll read the Bible or they’ll pray, or they will help out at church, but often times a Christian will feel stuck no matter what they do. They’ll feel it there’s not a lot of power, not a lot of impact. Not a lot of joy. And some Christians resign themselves and think, well that’s as good as it gets. But I disagree. I do believe that a great relationship with God is possible.
I’m talking about a relationship where we are working with God all day and doing acts of courage and justice and loving people and being loved in return; experiencing answered prayer and seeing the biblical promises come true in your own experience. I’m talking about impacting history and eternity. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not an easy life. And it will cost us a lot personally. But I am convinced it is the best life out here. There’s literally nothing better than a good relationship with God, and it’s possible for all of us to have it.
Our Bible story today gives us two keys to a great relationship with God. My big question today is:
Sometimes life can be disappointing. It feels like we’re stuck on a huge detour, and sometimes we’re unsure with where we’re headed. And it feels like no matter what path you take, there’s this underlying feeling of uncertainty and disappointment. The Bible tells us that we don’t have to live this way. That there is a path we can take to get to a right and satisfying place in life.
How do we get to the right place in life? And the answers we’ll be exploring is:
Today, we begin a new series on the book of Genesis – specifically, the lives of Jacob and Joseph.
For some of us, we feel we are one big mistake and we feel like God can’t love us. We look at our mistakes, our failures and we don’t feel worthy to have a relationship with God. And no matter what we do, it feels like God is distant and doesn’t care about us.
Some of us don’t want a relationship with God because we have this view that God is like the moral police, that He’s like a bad boss or some dictator. Some view him as this needy person who always needs compliments to function. So it makes sense to ask why would anyone want a relationship with a God like that?
But the Bible tells us about a different God, a God that loves you and wants a relationship with you. He invites us into this life giving relationship. The only problem is we don’t just drift into a good relationship with God. We need to be intentional about it!
This leads me to my big question today: How do we get a right relationship with God?
