A GPS for 2012
Coast Community Church; Pastor Earl Miles; January 1, 2012

A gps for 2012 jan 1

View more presentations from coastpastor

Starting Point Text: Galatians 5:5-7

This is a text that challenges us with regard to:

• What we are waiting for.
• What we are hoping for.
• What is really important.
• How we are running the race of life.
• Whether our lives reflect an obedience to the truth of the gospel.

These are the kinds of things we want to speak to today.

Living Life on the Edge

Today we begin a New Year. It is a great time to think about the “big picture” that we find in Scripture. And it is fitting that we think about how we will resolve to live in 2012.

We only have one life to live. We need to ask ourselves every New Year:

• What did I give my life to last year?
• What will I give my life to this year?

Many people live life “on the edge” so to speak and do so without much concern about heading in the wrong direction. (Proverbs 27:12)(Proverbs 14:15)

What does it mean to be ‘prudent’?

o A prudent man looks where he is going.

o Hebrew word = shrewd or crafty in a good sense; sensible; thinks ahead

o Acting with or showing care and thought for the future.

o Shrewd in the management of practical affairs (Merriam-Webster)

o Discreet or cautious in managing one's activities; circumspect

o Practical and careful in providing for the future

o Exercising good judgment or common sense (Collins)

What does it mean to be ‘naïve’?

o A naïve man doesn’t look where he is going.

o Hebrew word = simple or untaught (or acting like he is untaught – me); lacking good sense (here, not looking where he or she is going); unthinking person

o Showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment

o The opposite of prudent!

The Grand Canyon at Midnight

Imagine that you are standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon at midnight and there is no moon and no lights to illumine the darkness.

You do have a handheld GPS (Global Positioning System) in your pocket. And there is a stranger calling to you from a distance.

You have three options: (1) Go with your “gut feelings” in order to navigate yourself to safety (or “follow your heart”) or (2) Follow the strange voice in the distance that is calling to you or (3) Pull out your GPS and follow the path it prescribes.

Following our heart is like following our flesh. Following the strange voice is like following the world and its thinking. Following the GPS is like following the Bible.

The only question is which one do you trust more?

Today I want us to think about what I would call a Biblical GPS or “Gospel Positioning System” or a “Global Positioning System” for Biblically Orienting Our Lives in This World.

Stolen GPS

Recently we had our GPS stolen from our van. It is Satan’s design to steal our Biblical GPS as well and thereby, kill our joy and destroy our effectiveness in this life. (John 10:10)

Spiritual Triangulation

So let’s think this morning about what a Biblical GPS would involve. GPS technology uses “triangulation” in order to determine your location and the direction you need to head (3 out of 4 available satellites on the horizon).

GPS, which stands for Global Positioning System, is a radio navigation system that allows land, sea, and airborne users to determine their exact location, velocity, and time 24 hours a day, in all weather conditions, anywhere in the world. The capabilities of today’s system render other well-known navigation and positioning “technologies”—namely the magnetic compass, the sextant, the chronometer, and radio-based devices—impractical and obsolete. GPS is used to support a broad range of military, commercial, and consumer applications. 24 GPS satellites (21 active, 3 spare) are in orbit at 10,600 miles above the earth. The satellites are spaced so that from any point on earth, four satellites will be above the horizon. Each satellite contains a computer, an atomic clock, and a radio. With an understanding of its own orbit and the clock, the satellite continually broadcasts its changing position and time. (Once a day, each satellite checks its own sense of time and position with a ground station and makes any minor correction.) On the ground, any GPS receiver contains a computer that "triangulates" its own position by getting bearings from three of the four satellites. The result is provided in the form of a geographic position - longitude and latitude - to, for most receivers, within a few meters. (gis2gps.com)

There are three important things to consider as begin this year and seek to head in the right direction.

• Our Goal this year? (what I want)
• Our Priority this year? (what is important)
• Our Strategy this year? (what I pursue)

Our “spiritual triangulation” involves evaluating our answers to these questions, which will show us where we are and how to head in the right direction.

The Goal

Aiming Toy Guns

When our kids get toy guns, we tell them to point it only at snakes and birds, not people. We hit what we aim at. Whether we know it or not, our lives are “aimed” at something.
The question is, “What is the aim of my life?” – 1 Corinthians 9:26

The “G” in GPS stands for “Goal.” What is a “goal”?

The “aim” toward which effort is directed.

Aim, end, target, purpose (Collins Thesaurus)

The result or achievement toward which effort is directed (Reference.com)

• 1 Corinthians 10:31

• Psalm 70:4

• Psalm 16:11

• Isaiah 61:3

• Revelation 19:7

• John 14:13

• John 16:24

I need to ask myself:

• What is my goal in life?

• What do I really want in all this?

• What should I really want in all this?

Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 1

The first question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism (a product of the Westminster Assembly of English and Scottish Reformed Theologians in 1647) asks and answers:

• Question 1: What is the chief end of man?

• Answer 1: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

John Piper would argue that we should glorify God by enjoying Him.

Others take issue with Piper and argue that we should enjoy God by glorifying Him.

It appears that the question is what do we aim at? Glorifying God or enjoying God?

Thomas Vincent, in commenting on this catechism question in 1674, would support both statements. I think He would answer the question, “Yes! These two things are married! And let no man separate!”

The chief end of man is that which man ought chiefly to aim at or design, to desire, to seek after and endeavor to obtain, as his chief good and happiness; to which his life and his actions should be referred and directed, which is the glorifying of God and the enjoying of God forever. (Vincent)

He defines glorifying God in terms of honoring God, confidence in God, praise of God, and obedience to God.

He defines enjoying God as resting in God as the chief good with contentment and delight.

He asks why glorifying God and enjoying God are joined together as ‘one chief end’?

Because God has inseparably joined them together, so that men cannot truly design and seek the one without the other. (Vincent)

The Coin

This aim or goal or object toward which effort is directed is one goal with two sides, like a coin: one side supports and completes the other side.

Our goal each moment of each day this year, according to the Bible, should be to glorify and enjoy God.

To glorify God is to honor God as “God” in a variety of ways (trust, confidence, praise, thanksgiving, obedience, reverence, hope, pleasing Him, etc).

To enjoy God is to rest in God as my Supreme Good.

Make it your aim to glorify and enjoy God more and more this year.

The Priority

The Revelation of Packing

Let’s say you are going on a trip to India like my mom. You can bring one carry on and check one bag. The process of packing reveals something significant: what is important and what is not. If my mother filled her bags with bowling balls, we would think she was insane. Why? Because she has filled her bags for the trip with things that will not help her in the ways she will need help the most and she has left out what is going to be needed on the trip. She must choose between competing alternatives.

The “P” in GPS is for “Priority.” What is a “priority”?

Something given special attention and importance before competing alternatives.

A priority is something given or meriting attention before competing alternatives (Merriam Webster)

Precedence, especially established by order of importance or urgency (Free Online Dictionary)

I need to ask myself:

• What is my priority in life?

• What is really important in all this?

• What should be really important in all this?

Our priority every day of our lives, in each situation and in every relationship, according to the Bible, should be to trust and to love. This is also one priority, not two, because they are so closely related in Scripture.

• Galatians 5:6

• 1 John 3:23

Note: This is a single commandment with two parts. ‘This is His commandment,’ not ‘These are His commandments.’

• Romans 1:5

• 2 Thessalonians 1:3

• Hebrews 11:6

• 1 Corinthians 13:13

• 1 Timothy 1:5

Westminster Shorter Catechism Questions 2 & 3

The second and third questions in the Westminster Shorter Catechism are helpful here.

Question 2: What rule has God given to direct us in how we may glorify and enjoy Him?

Note: ‘Rule’ means guide or standard or authority.

Answer 2: The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him.

Question 3: What do the Scriptures principally teach?

Answer 3: The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man.

‘What man is to believe’ highlights the need of faith or trust.

‘What duty God requires of man’ highlights the need of obedience or love.

Faith and love together equal a proper response to the Word of God in our lives.

So that the key to the one goal of glorifying and enjoying God is the one priority of faith working love.

The Tree

We can think of the one priority of a ‘faith working love’ in light of a tree: the root is faith and the fruit is love.

We must seek to grow downward and deeper in faith and to grow upward in love.

Our priority in every situation and in every relationship this year should be to trust and love.

Trusting the Promises

Romans 5:1-2

We need to grow in trusting God’s Word in three main areas:

• Peace (with God; acceptance based on the righteousness of Christ and His cross)

“peace with God” - Romans 5:1

• Provision (all that I need for life and godliness in this world through His Spirit)

“this grace in which we stand” - Romans 5:2

• Pleasure (joy in the midst of sorrow in this life and full and lasting joy forever in His presence in the life to come)

“we exult in hope of the glory of God” - Romans 5:2

Loving in Specific Ways

We need to grow in practical expressions of love according to the Word.

That’s where ‘strategy’ comes in.

The Strategy

Israeli Commandos

In July 1976, Israeli commandos made a daring raid at an airport in Entebbe, Uganda, in which 103 Jewish hostages were freed. In less than 15 minutes, the soldiers had killed all seven of the kidnappers and set the captives free. As successful as the rescue was, however, three of the hostages were killed during the raid. As the commandos entered the terminal, they shouted in Hebrew, “Get down! Crawl!” The Jewish hostages understood and lay down on the floor, while the guerrillas, who did not speak Hebrew, were left standing. Quickly the rescuers shot the upright kidnappers. But two the hostages hesitated – perhaps to see what was happening – and were also cut down. One young man was lying down and actually stood up when the commandos entered the airport. He too, was shot with the bullets meant for the enemy. Had these three heeded the soldiers’ command, they would have been freed with the rest of the captives. (IPT)

God has commanded that we follow Christ in laying down our lives in order to be free from our own sin and to set others free as well.

The “S” in GPS stands for “strategy.” What is a “strategy”?

A plan of action that is designed to reach a goal.

Strategy, a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. (Wikipedia)

A ‘plan of action’ means I think ahead (prudent).

A ‘plan of action’ means I do something.

I need to ask myself?

• What is my strategy?

• What will I really pursue in my life?

• What should I really pursue in my life?

There are things that we must all do regardless of what we pursue (ie, work, keep house, pay bills, mow grass, raise children, exercise, eat, sleep, etc) and it is in the context of these things (and not instead of these things) that we will choose to pursue something with our lives.

Ultimately, I have to decide in what way I will lay down my life.

• John 12:24-26

• 1 John 3:16

• Romans 12:1-2

The Death of a Seed

Our strategy for walking in faith-filled love is to lay down our lives in the specific ways God commands in our relationship with Him, with the family of God and with the unbelieving world.

One way to think about the ‘strategy’ of the Christian life is in terms of a seed: death brings life, to the plant coming from the seed as well as to others.

Applying This to Our Lives

So a Biblical “GPS” involves:
• The Goal of glorifying and enjoying God.
• The Priority of faith (trust) and love.
• The Strategy of laying down our lives.

Wherever we find instruction in how to live including the explicit commands of Scripture as well as clear implications of truth, we see a practical strategy for living that we are to embrace in the exercise of faith and love and the pursuit of the glory and enjoyment of God.

Today, I want to mention three strategies for living in Scripture that are broad but not exhaustive. But these are three things that I would encourage us to focus our attention on this year and to seek to grow in personally, family-wise, and corporately.

The reality is that all of us are not in the same place. We all fall into one of three broad categories. (1) Some of us are an example to us all in one or more of the three strategies I’m about to talk about. (2) Some of us are actively pursuing one or more of these three strategies but are inconsistent and easily distracted from these things. (3) Some of us are not consciously pursuing even one of these things in any significant way that requires us to adjust our lifestyles to make it happen. Think about where you are in light of these 3 categories as we go through this.

Where do we begin?

1. Presentation

We believe in the name of Jesus and present our lives to Him, trusting Him for righteousness and LIFE, and live to do His will. - Romans 12:1-2

But we will never do this unless we believe in His name. We won’t seriously consider adopting this GPS for 2012 unless we believe in Jesus.

• John 1:12

• John 14:6

o Have you received Him as the Life (my ultimate Help and Happiness)?

o Have you received Him as the Way (of acceptance with God by forgiveness and a gift of righteousness)?

o Have you received Him as the Truth (my wisdom for living/reliable Guide/ Lord)?

2. Process

We have to work on applying the truth to our lives. We can’t apply everything at once or expect to be totally different overnight, since usually it is a process of working out the truth in our lives.

We won’t adopt this GPS for 2012 unless we plan to do it.

We have to plan to apply and plan in applying.

• Proverbs 6:6-7

• Proverbs 16:3

• Proverbs 16:9

• Pray (for grace to do this even in your most difficult circumstances and relationships)
• Preach (the truth to yourself with the help of others)
• Practice (make an effort to do things differently, even if they are ‘baby steps’)
• Persevere (don’t give up even if the going is hard and slow)
• Praise (God for any growth, however small)

3. Most Difficult

We need to identify the most difficult circumstances in our lives and the most difficult relationships and ask:

How do I need to trust God’s promises more in this circumstance/relationship?

How do I need to love according to God’s Word more in this circumstance/ relationship?

4. Everyday Life

We need to think about family and work, church and world and ask:

How do I need to trust and love more in my family?

How do I need to trust and love more at work?

How do I need to trust and love more in my church?

How do I need to trust and love more in my world of unbelievers?

5. Three Suggestions

I want to mention three strategies for living in Scripture that are broad but not exhaustive. But these are three things that I would encourage us to focus our attention on this year and to seek to grow in personally, family-wise, and corporately.

• To fellowship with God in the Word and in prayer for love.

Live more like a branch

John 15:4, 7

John 15:1-11

To abide is to ‘remain’ and implies a continual dependent and nourishing relationship through conscious, practical choices.

Practical Suggestion: Read one chapter of the Bible a day, write down one thing that stands out to you and pray for (1) yourself (2) your family (3) Coast members and (4) unbelieving neighbors, co-workers and friends in light of what you read.

• To speak the truth in love in the family and in the church.

Live more like a bodily member

Ephesians 4:15-16

Ephesians 4:11-16

Practical Suggestion: That we ask ourselves two questions: (1) Who could I benefit from in a particular area of need and growth and ask them to disciple me in this area? (2) Who could I benefit in a particular area of need and growth and ask to meet with them on a regular basis and informally disciple them?

• To be a fisher of men in your world through inviting and proclaiming.

Live more like a missionary/messenger

John 1:35- 36, 40-46

John 1:35-36, 40-46

Practical Suggestion: That we ask ourselves: (1) Who can I pray for on a regular basis who needs a Savior? (2) Who can I invite this week to church or to listen or watch something that communicates the truth about Jesus? (3) Who can I speak to this week about the truth of the gospel?

Don’t Waste Your Life

A NEWLY RETIRED COUPLE moves to New Mexico to spend their twilight years on the golf course. A middle-aged man labors all day at the office to make enough money to provide his family with a nice house in a safe neighborhood and fun vacations in the summer. A young student enters college in hopes of gaining the education and skills needed to have a good career. Is this all there is to life? Or did God make us for something greater than the American Dream? (Don’t Waste Your Life study guide by John Piper)

How will your life be different than simply pursuing the American Dream this year?

• It depends on what your goal is.
• It depends on what your priority is.
• It depends on what your strategy is.
• It depends on whether you plan.
• It depends on whether you believe in Jesus.

For the good of your own soul, you need to answer some questions today:

• What is your Goal for 2012? What do you really want this year? Will you embrace the goal of glorifying and enjoying God?

• What is your Priority for 2012? What is really important this year? Will you embrace the priority of faith (trust) and love?

• What is your Strategy for 2012? What will you really pursue year? Will you embrace a life of laying down your life to fellowship with God, to speak the truth in love to others and to be a fisher of men?

• Will you plan? Do you believe?

Some possible, Biblical New Year’s resolutions for 2012:

1. I resolve to lay down my life this year to grow in fellowship with God in devotion to prayer and to the Word.

2. I resolve to lay down my life this year to grow in disciplemaking by speaking the truth in love in my family and in my church.

3. I resolve to lay down my life this year to grow in reaching out to unbelievers by inviting and proclaiming the truth.

The greatest hindrance in our lives is indifference to what God calls us to because we have another agenda for our lives.

We need not fear failure or imperfection, but indifference to God’s vision for our lives.

May God give us grace to:

• Turn from our own agenda for our lives.

• Trust Him for all that He promises us through Jesus.

• Obey His Word in laying down our lives for the glory and enjoyment of God, for ourselves and others.

Let’s pray.