Making the Most of Your Life: Values Jesus Lived By
10/20/2002 - The Value of Faith
In his brand new book, Beyond Belief to Convictions , teen expert Josh McDowell writes, "If I had to summarize in one sentence what I believe kids want today, I would say they want a healthy, relationally significant life on earth and a home in heaven." Wow! That's good stuff! Teens want to make the most out of life and for them that means having healthy relationships that work and the confidence that there is more to life than just this life. That's not a bad target to hang on the wall for anybody.
He goes on to say that today's teens are the most occupationally and educationally ambitious generation ever and they possess a high degree of spiritual interest. Last year, George Barna the well- known researcher released the results of his study on the "Life Goals of American Teenagers." And in it he reported "4 out of 5 'Third Millennium Teens, ' that's 80 %, say that their religious beliefs are very important in their life."
What we believe is important. Our faith is absolutely crucial to making the most of our life. Because, like this pyramid shows, our beliefs shape our values and our values drive our actions. What's visible to others comes out what's invisible to us.
According to an extensive study done recently young people who lack a basic biblical belief system are 225% more likely to be angry with life, 216% more like to be resentful, 210% more likely to lack purpose in life and 200% more likely to be disappointed in life than those whose beliefs are based on the Bible.
The same study indicated that kids who don't possess a biblical belief system are 36% more likely to lie to a friend, 48% more likely to cheat on an exam, 200% more likely to steal, 300% more likely to use illegal drugs and 600% more likely to attempt suicide. What we believe matters a lot, because our beliefs shape our values and our values drive our actions.
But it's not just faith that's important to making the most of our life. It's putting our faith in the right things. Having faith in what's really true. The object of our faith makes all the difference.
On the evening of September 10, 2001, nineteen young men read a prayer letter written in Arabic on their very last night on earth. The letter said, "Be obedient on this night because you will be facing situations that are the ultimate and that would not be done except with full obedience. When you engage in battle, strike as heroes would strike. As God says, strike above the necks and strike from everywhere ... and then you will know all the heavens are decorated in the best way to meet you."
The next morning, September 11, those nineteen young men hijacked four airliners, turned them into flying bombs, and killed over 3,000 people. They gave their lives and caused horrific grief for what they believed was right. They believed they were honoring God by advancing a just and holy war against evil in the world. Their beliefs formed their values and their values drove four jets into their targets.
Two weeks later, Osama bin Laden, made a statement of what he believed was true when he said, "I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger. There is America, hit by God in one of its softest spots. Its greatest buildings were destroyed, thank God for that. There is America, full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that .... May God show them his wrath and give them what they deserve." That was his spin on the events of 911, quite a bit different from that of most Americans.
You see it's not just faith that helps us make the most of life, it's faith placed in what's true. Is your faith grounded in the truth? What is truth anyway? That's the question Pontius Pilate asked during the trial of Jesus when the truth was standing right in front of him. Truth isn't so much a concept, as it is a person. Truth is found in Jesus who said, I am the way, the truth and the life. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me! Are you listening to Jesus? Are you on the side of truth?
This morning we continue our series called Making the Most of Your Life: Values That Jesus Lived By. And the value we want to consider today is the value of faith. Last week, we began the series by looking at the value of love, the greatest commandment of all. Jesus said, Love the Lord your God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. If we hope to make the most of our lives it starts be becoming better lovers of God and better lovers of each other.
But how can we love a God that we don't even believe in? Or what if the kind of God we believe in doesn't really exist? If we're going to make the most of our life we need to believe in what's true. And what's true is Jesus.
Faith is the quality mentioned most often in the New Testament. 483 times we find the words "faith, belief, believe." In fact, the Bible says we have no hope of pleasing God without faith.
Turn in your New Testament to Hebrews 11. Listen as I read Hebrews 11:1-6,Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. 4 By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead. 5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Without faith it is impossible to please God. Not hard to please God, but impossible. We can't get off dead center in our attempt to make the most of our life without faith. It's that important. But what is it that God wants us to believe?
He wants us to believe, first of all, that he exists, that he's real, that he's there. That's not always easy to do, is it? Sometimes life gets so hard, so confusing, so twisted up that it takes every fiber in our being to keep believing that God is really there.
This week I spent some time at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia visiting a seventeen year-old girl who had emergency brain surgery over the weekend. She's a healthy, active, independent gal who came down with a cold that became a sinus infection that resulted in pus on her brain. At first she just felt dizzy, then her left side went numb and pretty soon she couldn't move her arm or her leg. Her parents rushed her to Children's Hospital and within hours she was in surgery. She spent the week in ICU, and her prognosis is good. But it's going to be a long road back. That can shake your faith. When things like that happen you wonder, "Where's God in all this? Does he really exist? Does he really care?" That's a crisis of faith.
Visiting her reminded me of the month I spent in the hospital after being involved in a car accident at the age of 16, the summer between my junior and senior year in high school. Staring at the ceiling with my broken leg in traction was the first time in my life when I wondered, "Where's God? Why did he let this happen? Why didn't he protect me? Is he there?" And I'm sure all of us have our own crisis of faith stories when it's all we can do to hold on with white knuckled faith to the truth that God is still there, that God is still in control, that God still loves us.
Those are defining moments in our life. In many ways, they'll make or break us. They'll either make us bitter or they'll make us better. And it all depends on how we respond. If we can hold on in those tough times, when every thing in life seems to be arguing against the existence of a loving heavenly Father who cares more about us than anyone in the universe, then we have a chance to make the most of our lives. But if we cave in and chuck our faith, we take the first dangerous step down a slippery slope that leads to destruction.
And how do we get through times like that? How do we make it? We make it with the comfort and the prayers of friends and family. We make it with a church community who walks with us through those dark times. And we make it by leaning hard on truth like we find in Isaiah 55:8-9 where God says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."
There have been many times in my life when I've held on to those verses like a lifejacket in a monsoon. Because when life gets crazy and I just can't figure it out I need to be reminded that that doesn't mean God isn't there. Instead, it means that his ways and his thoughts are so much higher than my ways and my thoughts. And isn't that the way it should be, if he's really the God of the universe? He knows what he's doing and I can trust him and that saves my faith.
God wants us believe that he's there for us even when life stinks. Second, God wants us to believe that there's more to life than this life. And that he will reward those who earnestly seek him. It's worth it to follow God. There's no other way to make the most of your life.
Hebrews 11 takes us by the hand and walks us down the corridor of God's Hall of Faith and shows us pictures of men and women, prophets and prostitutes, farmers and kings, who took God at his word, some at the cost of their lives, because they believed in him and wouldn't give up on their faith even though they didn't see their reward in this life. That's because God had something better planned for them and for all of us who follow him by faith.
Look at verses 35-40, Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37 They were stoned. They were sawed in two. They were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated. 38 The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. 39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. 40 God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
The men and women in Hebrews 11 knew that this world was not their true home. Verse 16 says, 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. Their true home was in heaven. That's what they longed for. And they made the most of their lives by giving up their lives, because they believed with all their heart that there is more to life than this life. So when they died they didn't leave home, they went home.
You see that's the great paradox of making the most of your life. You'll never make the most of your life if you believe that this life is all there is! You'll only make the most of your life if you realize this life is just preparing you for the next. This life is just a temporary assignment. Which is why the Bible repeatedly compares our life on earth to visiting a foreign country. We're pilgrims, foreigners, strangers, visitors, travelers who are just passing through. So don't get too comfortable. Don't get too attached to the things of this world. This world is temporary. This world is passing away. C. S. Lewis once said, "All that isn't eternal is eternally useless."
In his new book, The Purpose Driven Life , Rick Warren puts it this way, "The fact that earth is not our ultimate home explains why, as followers of Jesus, we experience difficulty, sorrow, and rejection in this world. It also explains why some of God's promises seem unfulfilled, some prayers seem unanswered, and some circumstances seem unfair. This is not the end of the story. In order to keep us from becoming too attached to earth, God allows us to feel a significant amount of discontentment and dissatisfaction in life. We're not completely happy here because we're not supposed to be! Earth is not our final home. We were created for something better."
To make the most of our lives God wants us to believe that he exists, even when the stuff of life argues against it. He wants us to believe that there's more to life than this life and that he will reward those who follow him. And third, he wants us to believe that Jesus is the way to that life.
That's of course the very claim that Jesus made in John 14:6 when he said, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
But perhaps no passage in Scripture sums it up better than John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. It would not be an exaggeration to say that that one sentence, more than any other sentence ever spoken or written, has helped more people over the last two thousand years to make the most of their lives.
That's because it's all there. The existence of a God who loves us. For God so loved the world. The need to trust in his Son Jesus. That he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him. The reality of a life after this life. shall not perish but have eternal life.
I'll never forget what happened to me one August day in the backyard of a neighbor's home. I was seven years old, listening to a young man tell a bunch of kids about Jesus. It was called a Five Day Club sponsored by an organization called Child Evangelism Fellowship. And at the end of the meeting the man asked if any of us wanted to believe in Jesus. I raised my hand and after the other kids were dismissed he took me to the corner of that fenced in yard and led me to faith in Jesus Christ.
He explained to me that God loves me. And that God wanted me to live with him in heaven someday. But God can't allow sin into his perfect and I was a sinner. So my sin needed to be forgiven and cleansed and that's what Jesus came to do. And he told that if I believed that Jesus died on the cross for me and my sin, I would be forgiven and cleansed and someday go to heaven to be with God forever. And on that hot August day I trusted in Jesus. I don't know the man's name. I never saw him again. But that day for me was the beginning of making the most of my life.
Have you had a beginning like that? Are you building your life on what is true? Do you believe that God exists? Do you believe that there's more to life than this life? And have you trusted Jesus Christ to give you that life?
If you have then you're welcome to celebrate the Lord's Table this morning. It reminds us of how much God loves us and what Jesus did to give us life both now and forever. But if you haven't, I'm going to give you that chance right now. Today could be the first step to making the most of your life. It's the same chance that that young man gave me in the backyard of a neighbor's home. He led me in a simple prayer that helped me put my trust in Jesus. It's the prayer I'm going to lead us in right now.