SEVEN SECRETS TO AN ABUNDANT LIFE
Marcus Peters
Midland SDA Church
May 12, 2012
Intro John 10:9-10
Death at Sardis: Revelation 3:1
· By all accounts the Church had an appearance of life; they had a name or reputation of being active
· He who sees into the innermost recesses of the soul declares that Sardis was dead
· Jesus saw through the facade, the pretentions, the superficiality and spoke to true condition of His Church
· Were He to visit you today, would he declare the same?
The Living Dead - not a new phenomenon
· OT: House of Israel likened unto a valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37)
· NT: "She that live in pleasure is dead while she liveth" (1 Timothy 5:6)
· Paul's prophecy concerning the last days: "having a form of godliness (life) but denying the power thereof (death)" 2 Timothy 3:1, 5
· Recent statistics
o 300M live in the US
o 20.4% regularly attend church
o Every year 7.9M discard their faith in Christ (150,000 disappearing every week)
o Attendance drops to 15% by 2025
o And 11% by 2050
o A country once known as a Christian nation is gradually becoming spiritually dead
o In times past America sent missionaries to distant lands to spread the truth of the gospel
o Today the US is becoming an ever increasing mission field
There is Hope! John 10:10
· "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly"
· He came to counteract the work of spiritual declension and death
· Abundant life: His goal is that we would thrive and not just survive
· How do we acquire that life? What steps are needed to live abundantly?
Nature's Lessons
· The laws that govern the natural world are also applicable in the realm of spirituality
· Jesus often used lessons from nature to illustrate and teach spiritual truths
· We would do well to follow His example
· E.g. Newton's 1st Law of Motion parallels a lost world without divine intervention
· Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless acted upon by an external force
· Every sinner will continue living a sinful unless acted upon by the gospel of Jesus Christ
Nature's Lesson on Life
· From grade school biology we learn that there are seven characteristics that differentiate living organisms from non-living matter:
o Growth
o Respiration
o Irritability
o Movement
o Nutrition
o Excretion
o Reproduction
· The thesis of this message is that these seven characteristics that constitute living things are indeed the seven secrets to an abundant life
Growth
· Lesson 1: Growth should be symmetric: (Luke 2:52)
o Increase in wisdom (intellectually) | Need to read; turn off the TV
o Increase in stature (physically) | Get some exercise
o Grew in favor with God (spiritually)
o And Man (socially) | Seek to be loving and lovable Christians
· Lesson 2: Growth should be dynamic (Philippians 3:12-13)
o Baptism is not graduation
o Shun the desire to settle; avoid mediocrity like the plague.
o Don't be imprisoned by the successes (or failures) of the past
o Keep pressing toward the mark. Always approaching but never arriving (Proverbs 4:18)
o Growth in ministry - if you led one soul to Jesus last year seek to lead two this year
o If you memorized the beatitudes; then try memorizing the Ten Commandments
o Stop being lazy!
o Growth in character - add to your faith virtue, and to virtue... 2 Peter 1:5-7
o Growth in marriages - read a book together, go to retreats etc
· The day we cease to grow is the day we begin to die!
Respiration
· Defined as the oxidation of food molecules to release energy for cellular activities
· In the spiritual world respiration is analogous to prayer
· Prayer has often been referred to as "the breath of the soul"; it keeps us alive.
· It also can revive us if we're spiritually dead
· As a matter of fact every revival is linked with a radical prayer life
· England Before and After Wesley (by Bready)
o In the mid-1700's England had fallen to the lowest depths in the scope of human history. In fact, Berkeley makes this comment in his discourse to the magistrates and men of authority:
"Britain had collapsed to a degree that had never been known in any Christian country. Morals had declined, there was no more ethics in the judicial system and the preachers were no longer preaching the word of God and they were just paid to scratch the backs of their parishoners - England had fallen so low. John Wesley, John Wickfield, Cambridge Universtiy students, they got on their knees. They started to pray. They prayed for England. They prayed for revival. They prayed all night. They prayed for weeks on end. And from that secret place of prayer, John Wesley stepped out, by the grace of God, and shook England to its very foundations"
o You see England before Wesley, and then you see England after Wesley. Prisons were abolished (almost literally); slavery was abolished; ethics were reinstituted in society; the judicial system rose to higher morals; every aspect of English society was affected by John Wesley.
o If radical prayer can revive a nation imagine what it would do for us
· The source of Luther's power (The Great Controversy, page 210)
o "From the secret place of prayer came the power that shook the world in the great reformation"
o "Luther did not fail to devote three hours each day to prayer, and these were taken from that portion of day most favorable to study"
o He was able to undo 1260 years of papal dominance by prayer
o How's your prayer life? How's your communion with God today?
o Are you dying spiritually? It may be due to lack of prayer
o We can make a difference (James 5:16)
Irritability
· Defined as the ability to detect and respond to changes in the internal and external environment
· In the spiritual realm we consider this a heightened sensitivity to good and evil
· Indicative of the times we live in (Matthew 24:12). Spiritual apathy is a sign of spiritual death.
· Losing the capacity to shun that which is evil and embrace that which is good
· Response to evil
o "It is one of Satan’s most successful devices, to lead men to the commission of little sins, to blind the mind to the danger of little indulgences, little digressions from the plainly stated requirements of God. Many who would shrink with horror from some great transgression, are led to look upon sin in little matters as of trifling consequence. But those little sins eat out the life of godliness in the soul” (RH, November 8, 1887).
o The deadliest animal in the world isn’t a tiger or bear — or a stampeding elephant or rhino.
o No, it’s a mosquito! This tiny beast kills about 3M people a year through the spread of malaria.
o Experts say it might have caused the death of 1 of every 2 human beings who have ever lived.
o Yet we underestimate these creatures because of their size. We do the same with our sins.
o Instead of lying, we “exaggerate.”
o We don’t have dirty thoughts; we just “daydream.”
o We don’t abuse our spouses; we just have “heated disagreements.”
o We’re not prideful; we’re just “confident.”
o We’re not lost; we’re just “experimenting with the world.”
o We need to see sin for the tragedy that it is.
· Response to good
o Many are lukewarm. They have no passion for godliness or spiritual things.
o An old book called Evangelism featured the results of a survey regarding a mainline church’s membership list. They discovered the following about the people on this list …
o 10 percent couldn’t be found
o 20 percent never prayed
o 25 percent never read the Bible
o 30 percent never attended services
o 40 percent never donated to the church
o 50 percent never went to Sunday School
o 80 percent never attended prayer meeting
o 90 percent never had family worship
o 95 percent never won a soul to Christ
o … yet somehow, 100 percent planned on going to heaven.
o Booker T. Washington, author of Up From Slavery, once travelled 1,000 miles one way by train to Atlanta to speak to a predominately white audience for only five minutes. He even paid his own fare. Why? Because he felt so passionately about breaking down racial barriers following the Civil War.
o Why can't we be similarly passionate about the gospel? (Acts 4:13)
o I pray that God will bring us to the point where we have a genuine love for righteousness and a perfect hatred for sin.
Movement
· Defined as the ability to move either a part of, or the entire body.
· The opposite of movement is paralysis.
· One reason for a lack of spiritual movement is fear. Many people are paralyzed by the fear of spiritual failure
· The Bible speaks to this issue in Proverbs 24:16
o Both the righteous and the wicked have something in common: They both fall
o The difference between the two is the righteous person gets back up. They don't give into discouragement.
· How many spouses walk away from their marriages because they hit a bump in the road?
· How many kids drop out of school because of getting a failing grade?
· How many souls give up on Church because they don't feel the fire anymore?
· One of the keys to an abundant life is getting back up when you fall down. (kid playing analogy)
· Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith
Nutrition
· Defined as the process by which living organisms acquire food from the external environment and utilize it in building living tissue
· The Christian's nutrition can be found in the word of God
· Share observations on Matthew 22:23-33
· Sadducees were familiar with the scriptures yet Jesus said that they did not know it.
· We need a living experience with the word. Consider the irony of Jeremiah's experience (15:16)
· Study the word specific to your needs
· Jesus said that the words that I speak onto you they are spirit and they are life.
Excretion
· Defines as the removal of metabolic waste products and toxins from the body of an organism.
· Analogous to giving our sins to Jesus and eliminating distractions. Hebrews 12:1
· What happens when we hold in our waste (urine)? How much relief do you feel when it's gone?
· We're not bigger sinners than Jesus is a Savior (1 John 1:8-9)
· We're not bigger sinners than Jesus is a Savior. He is able to save unto the uttermost...
Reproduction
· The ability of living organism to perpetuate life by producing their own kind, hence ensuring survival of their species.
· Analogous to soul-winning. Matthew 28:19
· Paul Harvey once said, "God has called Christians to be fishers of men, not keepers of the aquarium"
· The capacity for living is maintained by reproducing (Proverbs 11:25)
Conclusion & Appeal
· The seven secrets to an abundant life begin and end with Jesus
· How's your walk with Jesus today?
· Are you dying spiritually?
· Jesus longs to give you an abundant life? Far from existing he longs for you to thrive spiritually
· I pray that the Lord will help us to start implementing the secrets to an abundant life
· If that is your wish; if this is your desire I would invite to stand for prayer