Enagaing God — Part 3

• A couple of observations: Review
  • ENGAGING God is a commitment of the whole self
    • All your heart, all your soul, and all your mind
    • Not a part-time, Wednesday and Sunday endeavor only
  • ENGAGING God is a commitment of selflessness:
    • Loving our neighbors – we will talk more about this in a couple of weeks
    • But for tonight here this: All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. In other words, the Bible can be summarized is ENGAGING God fully, and ENGAGING others fully!
  • ENGAGING God is about relationships
  • ENGAGING God is a matter of priorities

• Did you go to syatp today?
  • A nationwide gathering of students praying for their schools, and for our nation
• Tonight I want to talk about engaging God at school
• First, let me say this: Our relationship with God was never meant to be confined to the church building, or a Sunday and if we are really devout, and a Wednesday night endeavor.
  • If ENGAGING God is a commitment of the whole self, then we understand that who we are outside of the four walls of the church building is IMPORTANT! Maybe, even the most important!!
  • God can’t be put in a box
  • Turn with me to Psalm 139:7-10, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
• Secondly, I believe that God is alive and active and working in the world, and working in and through you
  • God is alive
    • Luke 20:37-38, “³⁷But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ ³⁸He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
    • 28 times you will find the phrase “the living God” from Deuteronomy through the book of Revelation
      • Jeremiah 10:10a, “But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King.
    • What does it mean to you that God is alive?
  • This means that as a Christian when you go to school, you take God there with you
    • Acts 2:38 – through the presence of the Holy Spirit
    • 2 Cor. 3:3, “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”
    • Col. 1:27 “To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
    • 2 Cor 5:20, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”
• ENGAGING God at school
  • Be His:
    • Remember who you are and what you are!
    • Romans 12:9-21
    • Let you lights shine at school (Matthew 5:13-14)
  • Pray: (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
    • You can still pray at school
    • You can pray any time, anywhere
  • Bring your Bible to school:
    • This is not illegal
  • Be a servant:
    • Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
    • In other words, be willing to give yourself up, in order to serve others
      • The two questions*:
        • Ask often, what is the best thing I can do for you right now?
        • Ask, is there anything I can be praying for you about?
  • Have new eyes:
    • This world isn’t our home
    • As new creations (2 Cor. 5:17), we have a new way of looking at the world and those around us, through the eyes of Jesus
• Prayer: May we learn to care about what he is concerned about, and to see others the way he sees them!

* idea for the two questions comes from Patrick Mead, I heard him suggest this at the 2009 Tulsa Workshop