Sermon Tone Analysis

Focus Scripture

Focus Scripture Slides Here

12 Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Your Story

YouTube Slide Here

This morning we are come to the end of our “My Story” teaching series.

If you have been enjoying this series and have missed a lesson or more.

I would remind you that we stream our worship service live every week.

These teachings are also parked on YouTube and can be found as videos on YouTube.

There is an address (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5_eDffMtaXbr60e3ZM56XA/videos)

for this page that can be found on our website or you can go to YouTube and search for Cimarron Praise and find it that way.

If you have a YouTube account, you can even subscribe to our page.

This will help ensure that you don’t miss anything and you can always catchup or pick up were you left off or rewatch a teaching in a series.

We will begin a new series next week, Smoke & Mirrors in which we will explore ways we entertain & open ourselves to illusion & deception.

Series Promo Slide Here

When we began this series five weeks ago.

We learned how God’s story is our story too.

We have been written into an epic work from the beginning of God’s story.

It is a story that has a beginning and the ending has even been sketched out but as people created in the image of our creator God.

We have been given the freedom to participate in not only living within this story but also to actively participate in how the story unfolds.

Our decisions influence the movement within the story but it does not change the beginning or the ultimate end.

The question is what will our story be?

Each of us may be in different seasons of our life but one day we are each going to tell a story about this season in life.

Seasons come and seasons go, sometimes a season comes and we are filled with life and excitement, others bring growth, discomfort or comfort, healing or injury.

Change always comes and we must constantly discern the right choices in each season of life and what we are to learn and take from it.

It is important that we pay attention to the Holy Spirit’s leading for our life because when we simply rely upon our own understanding we can miss the story God wants us to write with our life.

The decisions you make today will determine the stories you tell tomorrow as well.

“Words fill a page.

Pages fill a chapter.

Chapters fill a book.

Every decision big and small writes the story of your life.

Unfortunately, some people leave portions of their story unwritten.

Sometimes, that is why we need to go ahead and take the risk” and choose to ‘go’!

We Are Writing a Story

The reality is we are creating a life story.

One day we are going to tell that story.

Many of you are going to have a story you are really proud to tell.

“Pregnant” Pause

BUT!

Story isn’t Finish Slide

If you are looking over your life and you don’t think it is a story worth reading or it is a story that you don’t really want to tell.

Remember, the story isn’t finished!

There is still time to make a decision.

There is still time to turn the page and start telling the story God wants you to tell.

Suggested Options for Writing a New Story (Slides)

So far, I have presented three of four options for you to consider.

First, do you need to START doing something a discipline that would help you live out the story God wants you to tell?

Or maybe?

Maybe you need to STOP … stop doing something that prevents your story from being what it should be.

Those are two options but there are two other choices available to us.

We can STAY or we can GO!

When it is easier to quit and walk away, God may call us to STAY because it is the Right thing to do.

Or! Maybe.

God is calling you to GO when it might be easier to play it safe.

Growing up from womb, to infant, to toddler, to adolescent, to adult, to senior citizen is a ongoing process of growth and aging.

It never really stops because we are always changing as we move towards our destiny.

Many of us tend to romanticize an ideal in which life is constant and secure, and as a result we think of leaving the familiar comforts of life as a negative thing.

Things are always changing but it is our perception of risk, feelings of insecurity, potential loss and the fear of unknown consequences that often cause us to procrastinate or take a step towards the story God wants us to want.

We want to know what is ahead of us on our path.

We want to know the details of the journey.

We don’t like surprises or disappointments.

Fixing Our Eyes Upon Jesus

Slide Here

Sometimes the best decision you can make is to GO, to not just turn a page but to start a new chapter in your life.

Sometimes the right decision is to GO leaving the comfortable and familiar behind when it would be easier to stay.

Some of you are being called to take a new step of faith or you know that there is something you should do.

Answering that call feels risky, dangerous or uncomfortable right now.

If that is the case, lets remember what tells us.

“Fix our eyes on Jesus who is What?

The Author and what?

Perfecter of our faith.

If you are going to leave where you are, it is going to require us placing some trust in God.

It is going to require trusting God’s will just as Jesus did.

Disciples of Christ follow where God leads them and believing that what we may not be able to accomplish on our own is still possible by the power of the one who makes the promise.

Faith is exercised through small steps of faith.

Fears are overcome an trust is established only by taking risks and a willingness to leave some of our comfort behind hoping that something better is ahead.

Every relationship we have requires taking risk and our relationship with Jesus and God is no different.

Trust cannot exist unless promises are kept.

Promises can be fulfilled unless we are willing to move towards them believing the promise will be kept.

We don forge a new relationship unless we are willing to invite someone into friendship.

That requires risking rejection.

We can’t hope to find the love of our life if we are too afraid to give love a chance.

We might hopes and dreams but if we don’t take steps towards those dreams, believing and trusting that they will be fulfilled.

The hope of the promise can never be fulfilled with out us laying claim to that promise and trusting that it will happen.

A Faithful Life

Abraham Image Slide

provides us with a great example of what faithful living might look like when God invites us to GO and we make the decision to FOLLOW.

Abram (or Abraham) has been living in his father’s household.

This was the norm in that time and location.

Son’s would marry and their wives and children would become a part of the senior patriarch’s household.

Abram appears to be the eldest living son and he had followed his father to Ur headed to Canaan but they actually settle in Haran where the historical names of the towns in that area seem to agree with the Bible’s suggestion that they were living among Abraham’s extended family.

Documents near Haran seem to have names similar to Abraham’s family names.

Abram’s father dies and Abram is instructed by “Yahweh” , the Lord, to “GO” leave your relatives, leave the familiarity of your father’s house and everything in Haran and “GO” to a land that I will show you.”

Abram is 75 years old at this time.

One of his brothers is dead and his son Lot had become a part of Abram’s household.

He has a lot of responsibility but no children of his own.

The Lord tells him to leave his country, his relatives, his people, his home, his religious beliefs, traditions and almost everything that gives him a sense of identity, purpose and direction in life.

To become a stranger in a strange land following a stranger God.

I say a stranger God because Ur was the center of trade and worship of the moon god Nanna/Suen.