This is my message for the young adults on Saturday. Sorry for the strange formatting, I copy and pasted it from word.
1. How do you picture life?
a. Is life like a game of cards, you have to play what is dealt to you??
b. Is life like a carousel going up and down, and sometimes just around and around??
c. Or is life like a ten-speed bicycle, with gears we never use.
2. During worship think of your life metaphor, picture, be prepared to share it with the group.
3. Each one of you; tell me what picture or metaphor comes into your mind when asked; how do you picture your life?
4. When I was asked this question, I really couldn?t think of a picture or metaphor?
a. Then I got a picture of a mountain
i. You can stand at the bottom, and look up at it in all its glory, or in its intimidating might.
ii. You can choose to climb up it
1. You can attack it from different sides
2. You can stop and decide to camp out only part way
3. You can push your self to the top and see what view it has to offer
4. You can explore all parts of the mountain, and see what it has to offer
iii. You can choose to come down
1. Either slowly or quickly.
2. Sometimes you will fall, and someone will catch you, sometimes you?ll catch yourself, and sometimes you fall and hit rock bottom
iv. Or you can choose to stay at the bottom and wonder what the mountain has to offer, and be stuck always wondering. But if you decide to climb, you need the right equipment to get their safely.
5. What do you think God?s picture or metaphor is of our lives?
a. God?s word says our life on Earth is
i. a test,
ii. a trust,
iii. and a temporary assignment
6. Life is a test: What kind of test do you think God is talking about?
i. My faith has been tested through problems, problems with needs like; money, car, job, school, and questions like: What am I going to do with the rest of my life?
ii. My hope has been tested through how I handle my wants like: a dream job, a nice car, clothes, a nice house, good friends, good family life, and good things.
iii. My love has been tested through people, how I treat them, how I create relationships, and how I maintain those relationships
b. Sometimes God will draw away, you won?t feel close to him, although most of the time it is because we have drawn ourselves away from God. But when God draws away from us is testing to see where our hearts are, is our heart with God or with other things of this world. For instance in 2 Chronicles 32:31 God with drew himself from King Hezekiah, a very wealthy, respected king, who became deathly ill, he prayed to God for healing, and was healed, but became over-proud and self centered, he repented and changed. When the Babylonian?s came to ask of all the wonders happening in Hezekiah?s kingdom, God withdrew himself to test Hezekiah?s heart, unfortunately Hezekiah claimed all the wonder for himself, and not for God.
7. Life is a trust: What has God entrusted to us in our lives?
a. Our time on Earth
b. Our relationships
c. All of our resources and provisions
d. Everything we enjoy, or have is to be treated as a trust that God has placed in our hands.
e. How are we suppose to treat the things we?ve been entrusted?
i. God?s word in 1 Corinthians 4:2 says: Those who are trusted with something valuable must show they are worthy of that trust.
ii. Someone read Mathew 25:14-30
iii. Someone else read Mathew 25:21
1. What else besides the money did the master entrust to each servant and what did he expect on his return? What were his instructions to the servants?
a. He trusted each servant to invest their hard work into what he had given them.
2. How does this story apply to our lives?
a. God entrusts sometimes a lot, sometimes a little to each of us, but we must work hard at taking care and improving those things he has trusted us to take care of, it is all his to begin with.
8. Life is a temporary assignment?
a. Why do you think we are here on Earth?
b. What is the purpose of life?
c. Why does it seem like God?s promises are unfulfilled, he leaves prayers unanswered, and we end up in unfair circumstances?
i. Because we are not meant to be here, forever.
ii. We are only part way through our climb, or through our story.
iii. This life, Earth, and everything in it is not the end of the story ? It is all temporary, the story of your climb, of your life, does not end here.
iv. Our lives are meant to continue on to heaven for eternity, forever.
1. Where the unfulfilled promises are fulfilled
2. Where the unanswered prayers are answered
3. Where the unfair circumstances, are made fair
d. We, you, and I will never be completely satisfied here on Earth and in this life. A fish is not satisfied on land, it was meant to swim in the water. An eagle can not be satisfied if it not allowed to fly. We, you, and I will never be satisfied on Earth, because were meant to live for so much more.
9. For our present troubles are quite small and won?t last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever! So we don?t look at the trouble we can see right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever. [2nd Corinthians 4:17-18]
10. God is testing and trusting us with this temporary assignment to see our hearts. Not if we are only good to others, or the number of good deeds we can/will do. He wants us to be genuinely real in our love with him.
This life is the tip of the ice burg; of something MUCH better and greater then we can even imagine; let?s give and show God our trust and love for him.