Feb. 14, 2016 You Must Adjust your Life

Sunday, February 14 

Title: You Must Adjust Your Life; FBC Brenham "God Goals 2020"

Main Text: Genesis 12:1-8 

You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing. 

Today we are going to look at a man named Abram and how God asked him to leave the country he knew, the family he knew, and go to a land where he knew nothing or no one.  We will also see the promises God made to him about his future. All of this will remind us that God wants to have a personal relationship with each of us that is loving, real and purposeful. Today’s lesson will also show us that following God’s plan always requires major adjustments in our lives. 

Background: Abram – means “exalted Father”

Gen. 12:1

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

Who spoke to Abram? 

So who did the pursuing, God or Abram? 

What did God want Abram do to?

What was His crisis of belief? 

What adjustments in his life would Abram have to make? 

How many details did God give him? 

What is the most difficult thing God has asked you to do? How did you react? 

What adjustments did you have to make to follow God?

Read Gen. 12:2-3

“I will make you into a great nation,  and I will bless you; I will make your name great,  and you will be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you,  and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

God made 6 promises to Abram in these verses, what were they?

Read Gen. 12:4-9

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem.At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring[a] I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.

9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.

What 3 words show Abram’s response to God?

How old was Abram? 

Who did Abram take?

What did Abram take? 

As Abram traveled through the land, what people group was in the land? 

What kind of people were the Canaanites? Did they worship the God of the Jews? 

In vs. 7, who spoke again to Abram? 

What was the message?

What was Abram’s response? 

According to vs. 8, where else did he go? 

What did Abram do once he arrived east of Bethel? 

What does this say about Abram?  

What does it take for our worship to be disrupted?

Would we have been so ready to worship with Canaanites in the land??

Is God asking you to do anything that will stretch your faith to the point of being uncomfortable?  If so, what will your major adjustments be? 

How has God blessed your obedience in the past?

What are the Canaanites in your life? Note: We all have Canaanites in our lives. We all have obstacles that  keep us from being fully settled with God. 

What adjustments will our church have to make to follow God?

God Goals 2020

The God goals are focused on areas where we believe God is leading but will be difficult, if not impossible to do, without God’s leading and providing. My hope is that you will read these and think something like this, “There is no way we can do this.” If you feel this way, this is good. My prayer is that we will see God work in ways in our church that cannot be explained through our strength, talents, and/or resources. The only way these may happen is with God’s initiative, resourcing, and sustaining. We will continually come before God in prayer and seek His will. We will be open to however God leads us and will make changes as He directs. 

1) Have a church mission partnership in Central America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and East Asia that will involve some combination of giving, going, and praying. Each partnership will also have a unique focus. This is an opportunity to reach the nations with the Good News of Jesus Christ and to do so in unique ways. For example, we already have a partnership in Honduras (Central America) uniquely focused on food distribution, construction, and evangelism. We also already have a partnership in Colombia (South America) uniquely focused on serving orphans and evangelism. 

2) Be a sponsoring church for a church start in North America (United States or Canada). At this point, I’m not sensing that this church start will happen in Brenham/Washington County. Instead, it will happen somewhere else in North America. 

3) Build Phase One of our relocation without debt. 

4) Adopt the local BISD school with the most challenges and partner with them (while maintaining boundaries) in such a way that we bless teachers and staff and provide mentors. We will know we are making an impact when test scores go up and absenteeism and discipline problems go down. 

5) We will see more lost people coming to faith in Jesus Christ and will average at least one baptism per Sunday by 2020. 

6) We will call a full-time Pastor of Retirees. He will assist in providing pastoral care and will work to equip retirees to be missionaries locally, in North America, and internationally. The dream is that one of the reasons people will want to retire to Brenham is so that they can be a part of what God is doing in and through Brenham’s First Baptist Church. This is also about a strategic focus of reaching the numerous retirees, mostly baby boomers, who are retiring to Brenham. I believe our church is uniquely placed and resourced to be a church that reaches retirees. 

7) There will be no missing generations in our church, and we will begin to reflect more of the ethnic diversity of Brenham. This means that we will be a church full of children, youth, young adults, middle age adults, and senior adults. As we move forward, my prayer is that we reach all generations and not neglect any of them. I also pray that we will begin to reflect more of the ethnic diversity of Brenham.