In an upcoming post I will post the outline of that meeting which I got out of Dave Ferguson's book "The BIG IDEA – Focus the Message and Multiply the Impact".
Here is the first outline that was created four weeks out for our Lost Series. The message is titled "The Arrival":
Sermon Title – Arrival
Scripture Reference – Philippians 4:13
Date – March 7, 2007
Speaker – Jason Curlee
Me - Introduction
CUE DVD Lost DVD Clip of Island Crash
Sometimes we arrive in a place where we feel all alone. This could be for many reasons. It is during these times we go through phases of feeling stranded and begin living in survival mode. We must begin to learn to go to a place where we can be rescued. When we feel “lost”, our trust in knowing we can do all things through Christ will help us survive the mystery of the unknown. It is by coming to a realization that we must have a complete and utter trust in God will our faith grow stronger.
We present to you tonight our new series LOST – Surviving the Mystery of the Unknown.
Sometimes life can be good to us and then all of the sudden we can arrive in a place where we feel all alone. These are times where we feel others and God are no where to be found. Leaping off the TV screen from the “Lost Series” this message called “Arrived” is about how in life, when we focus on “I”, we find ourselves “Lost”.
The beginning of the series starts off with the cast arriving on an island due to a plane crash. They were 1.000 miles off course and lost.
Being lost is a scary feeling in life.
STORY ILLUSTRATION - Story on James Kim Being Lost
How many remember the story of James Kim? The family was driving in a blizzard and got lost and they ended up finding how he had tried to walk for help to save them. Watch this.And so tonight we are talking about arriving at a place and realizing that we are lost and not knowing what to do.
Cue Video of James Kim News Clip
You - Connection
Have any of you ever been lost?
Have many of you have ever felt lost in life? Felt like you don’t know where you are going in life.
Maybe some of you have found yourself asking the question “Where Am I?”
Maybe some of you have though that you live a pretty good life, but there is still something missing. Something you can’t figure out. Not satisfied with your life.
If you’re in a place where you are lost how are you going to think?
How should you feel if you are lost?
What is the proper way to act? Men often pretend that everything is ok…and that they don’t need help.
When the Israelites felt arrived to the Promised Land they doubted God and ended up wandering around lost in the wilderness for 40 years.
They faced the challenge of wanting to go back to Egypt where they felt it was good enough rather than into the land promised which was God enough.
We must come to realize that we must not stay where it is good enough but go where it is God enough.
Big Idea
Good Enough to God Enough
Let’s take a look at some Scriptures from the Bible as we talk about this Big Idea.
God – Biblical Foundation
All this series we are going to be looking at Philippians 4:13 and seeing how it is going to help us survive this mystery of not knowing.
Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (New King James)
As we start out looking at this Scripture I just want to focus on that first word…”I”
This is how most of us go through life especially when we first “Arrive” in a state of being lost. We first focus on “I”.
Our thought immediately is on ourselves. What we are going through.
We ask questions like:
What are we going to do? Why am “I” going through this? Why me?
In doing this we take our focus off God and we put it on our selves and on our problem.
In turn we make our problem worse. Our problem then becomes bigger than our God.
In fact the Israelites had this problem.
In Numbers 13 & 14 we find the story of them coming up to the Promised Land and they send out 12 spies to check it out. These spies went all over the land for 40 days looking at the land and what was there and the people who lived there.
I’m going to read you some and take some of it out.
Numbers 13:26-33
26 They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land.
27 They gave Moses this account: "We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit.
28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large…
30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it."
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are."
32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.
33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."
Here they were going to a land that was God enough and they ran into a snag…and they started focusing on their problem.
A "God Enough" life sometimes looks harder and requires more from us.
That’s what Jesus talked about when He talked about the Wide Road and the Narrow Road.
I was thinking about that and realized something. The roads that are most traveled on often look the best.
How many of you have pot holes going to your house? Why cause it is not as traveled on so it is not taken care of as much.
But travel done Interstate 37 here…it is smooth and wide…
It’s easier to travel on. The road to my house is harder to travel on. I have to dodge this way and that way.
Often times in life we don’t want to go the God Enough way cause it’s harder…it requires more from us. So we choose the Good Enough.
Good Enough though appears better…there are more going that way so why not.
In fact these same Israelites were willing to trade this Promised Land at one point for what is in this bag…
ILLUSTRATION
Ask Questions to peak interest…Philippians 4:13 Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. (The Message)
Open it up – Inside are Onions
Are you willing to give up a great life for God for a bag of onions?
That is what we do if we stop with that one word in Philippians 4:13…”I”
“I” is the Good Enough…”I” is the onions.
But to survive this mystery of the unknown we must move from “I”…from Good Enough to God Enough.
You - Application
STORY ILLUSTRATION - Lost Driving Bus To Galveston
I remember one basketball trip to state we were on and I missed my turn. It was late at night and even though I had gone that way before I missed it. I was knew I was off course and you know what I choose to do. I choose to ask for help. I knew I couldn’t trust myself to get us back on course so I stopped and asked someone who knew.As we look to apply this Big Idea to our lives we have got to build our trust. And we do that my not settling for Second Best…when we can have FIRST.
Even though the God life will take more from us…we must stay focused on the fact that we must trust God in all the areas of our life.
Trust does not doubt when it doesn’t work out how we think it should.
Those Israelites thought they were going to stroll right into the Promised Land. But they were going to have to fight for it.
To get FIRST…to get the God Enough they were going to have to not settle for the onions the Good Enough.
We - Vision
Answer the connection questions.
When you come to a place in life and you find your self crashed…isn’t it going to awesome to know that because you have developed your trust in God and not settled for second best that you will now be able to stand during this time.
Now you know that you can feel a deeper trust that God is there because all along you have only settled for the God Enough life.
Isn’t it great to know that you can live a life that shows a trust in God.
Altar Call
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