The New Life - Part 9

The New Life - Part 9

New Life Focus
Luke 12:22-33

1. Man has four basic needs
   
2. These needs are pursued in life through many ways
   
3. Our motivation is the diminishing of pain and the desire for pleasure.
   
4. When the needs are met, they provide meaning and bring order in our lives.

Life’s 4 Basic Needs:

• Security -- (certainty)
  
• Adventure -- (variation)
  
• Community -- (family)
  
• Significance -- (purpose)

Meeting Needs God’s Way:

• Our pursuit of needs must be filtered
  
• Two lenses: Giving and Growing
  
• All life flows from God
  
  • “Born from above!”

Everything got started and finds its purpose in Him!
Colossians 1:16

• Christianity is not something that happens to dead people.
  
• Christianity is not about a set of values to adhere to, nor a list of rules to obey, rather, it is a new life to receive and a new way to be human.
  
• “The glory of God is a human being fully alive!” --- Irenaeus
  
• “Jesus Christ has given us a whole new way to be human.” --- Maximus the Confessor

Life’s 3 Greatest Questions:

1. The Question of Existence: Why am I alive?
   
2. The Question of Significance: Does my life matter?
   
3. The Question of Intention: What is my Purpose?

The Question of Existence:
Why am I alive?

• Jeremiah 20:18 NKJV “Why did I come forth from the womb to see labor and sorrow, That my days should be consumed with shame?”
  
• It is a misery to be born, a pain to live, a trouble to die.” --- Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153)
  
• Enter the Kingdom through tribulation!
  
  • The tribulum
• God’s motive
  
  • Ephesians 1:4 NKJV “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love”
    
  • Message “Long before He laid down earth's foundations, He had us in mind, and settled on us as the focus of His love, to be made whole and holy by His love.”

The Question of Significance:
Does my life matter?

• Isaiah 49:4a NKJV Then I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain”
  
  • NLT “My work all seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and for no purpose at all.”
    
• You were made for meaning, and if you don’t have a meaning and purpose in your life and you don’t know why God put you on this planet, life
• You’re going to go through life living at one of three levels:
  
  • Survival
    
  • Success
    
  • Significance
• How do you live at the Significance level?
  
  • Three things:
    
    1. You know the meaning of life - that gives Significance.
       
    2. You know how much you matter to God - that gives you Significance.
       
    3. You know God’s purposes for your life and you’re living them out and that gives you Significance.
• Isaiah 44:2a NKJV “Thus says the Lord who made you and formed you from the womb, who will help you”
  
• Psalm 139:16 NKJV “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.”
  
• Psalm 33:11 NKJV “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, The plans of His heart to all generations.”
  
  • Good News "His plans endure forever; his purposes last eternally."
• I Was Made To Last Forever.
  
  • II Corinthians 5:1 NKJV “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
    
    • TEV “When this tent we live in—our body here on earth—is torn down, God will have a house in heaven for us to live in, a home he himself has made, which will last forever.”
      
  • Proverbs 9:6 NKJV “Forsake foolishness and live, And go in the way of understanding.”
    
    • Message “Leave your impoverished confusion and live! Walk up the street to a life with meaning."

The Question of Intention:
What is my Purpose?

• You know the meaning of life – that gives significance
  
• You know how much you matter to God – that give you significance
  
• You know God’s purposes for your life and you’re living them out and that gives you significance
  
• Psalm 89:47 NKJV “Remember how short my time is; For what futility have You created all the children of men?
  
  • NCV “Why did you create us? For nothing?”
• Proverbs 9:10b NKJV “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
  
  • TLB "Knowing God results in every other kind of understanding."
    
• I Find my purpose by getting to know God
  
  • Colossians 1:16 “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”

Life’s 3 Greatest Answers:

• The Question of Existence: Why am I alive?
  
  • Answer: I was created to be loved by God
    
• The Question of Significance: Does my life matter?
  
  • Answer: I Was Made To Last Forever
    
• The Question of Intention: What is my Purpose?
  
  • Answer: I Find My Purpose By Getting To Know God

All New