Pastor Tony Ashmore begins a new series entitled "The Simple Life" with part one "De-Clutter and Re-Ordered" in this Sunday morning celebration.De-Clutter and Re-Ordered
Pastor Tony Ashmore
Sunday, January 01, 2012
www.mylifegatechurch.com
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Sermon Notes:
De-Clutter and Re-Ordered
Big Idea: Sometimes our lives become so cluttered, complicated, and/or disorganized that we can’t see The Simple Life because we can’t find What Really Matters (WRM). It’s there. It’s just obscured by all the ‘trappings’ we have allowed to enter and attach. Kinda like a Velcro ball—as we roll along doing life, stuff just jumps on board—some of it we should keep and some of it needs to be jettisoned. But if we don’t stop and take a look, if all we do is ‘resolve again’, we work harder each year with less results because the ever-increasing load makes it harder to increase our momentum. Without momentum, we easily stall, becoming discouraged and giving up. The result is another year without accomplishing what we sincerely planned.
Let’s go on a journey together this year, as a church and as individuals, to find What Really Matters. Let’s embrace The Simple Life and make 2012 a fun, world-changing year!
Images: A cluttered room or desk, beggar-lice, the garage, Life Cereal box overflowing—all of it may be good, but some of it has to be set-aside for now. Put WRM in first, then decisions must be made on the rest—knowing that a choice to cram it in there anyway is a choice to negatively effect WRM
Key Verse for the Year:
Philippians 1:9-11 9 “I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. 10 For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. 11 May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.”
Key Verse for this Message:
Isaiah 45:18 “For the Lord is God, and he created the heavens and earth and put everything in place. He made the world to be lived in, not to be a place of empty chaos. “I am the Lord,” he says, “and there is no other.”
De-Clutter
1 Corinthians 7:29 (MESSAGE) “I do want to point out, friends, that time is of the essence. There is no time to waste, so don't complicate your lives unnecessarily. Keep it simple —in marriage, grief, joy, whatever. Even in ordinary things—your daily routines of shopping, and so on. Deal as sparingly as possible with the things the world thrusts on you. This world as you see it is on its way out.”
1. Start today, start somewhere
a. Eat an elephant one bite at a time
b. Accept no excuses
c. Put some success in the ‘bank’: pick a starting point where you can win, then build on that win until you are tackling the really ‘impossible-looking’ stuff
2. 4 categories:
a. Definitely keep—things that line up with what you say you want and what you believe God wants in your life
b. Definitely discard—things that distract, clutter, complicate, or create opportunities for sin and failure (1 John 3:4a MESSAGE “All who indulge in a sinful life are dangerously lawless, for sin is a major disruption of God's order. Surely you know that Christ showed up in order to get rid of sin. There is no sin in him, and sin is not part of his program…”)
c. Keep for a later time—dreams whose time has not arrived. If kept, even though they are good, they will distract WRM right now.
d. Give away—love, respect, stuff, ideas and dreams that don’t fit right now
Re-Order
Romans 8:3a (MESSAGE) “God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that…”
1. Establish Priorities—remember, we don’t have ‘time’ issues, we have priority issues
a. What’s the Big Picture? (Isaiah 47:7)
b. What does God think? (Isaiah 1:18 “Come, let us reason together”)
c. What would Jesus want me to do? (Hebrews 3:1 “Consider Jesus”)
2. Invest Time, Talent, and Resources accordingly—remember, our heart follows our treasure, not vice-versa.
a. Value what God values.
b. Add value to those things and they become valuable to you.
c. Be intentional with calendar and checkbook to add value.
So What:
Romans 8:3b (MESSAGE) “…The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.”
1. Rest in Him
2. Find What Really Matters in Him.
3. Live the Simple Life by letting Him live in you.
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