Yeah, put on your seatbelt. That means more than a few things in light of today's message that we're calling "Getting on Down the Road."
I want to talk today about moving your life into health and prosperity, being where you're called to be.
Before I do that, I'm using this new software. We're going to try this out today. We've got a timer on here. Somebody say Amen! There's a timer! I'm giving myself a limit. Here we go, let's start this timer. There it is—how many hours? 30 minutes!
Man, 30 minutes! If you want to learn about yourself, your character, the quality of your maturity, all you have to do is get in your car and drive. That will teach you a lot about who you are as a human being and as a Christ follower. Yes, driving is one great way to learn about ourselves.
It's the act of getting behind the wheel of a car, a truck, a van, an SUV, or maybe even behind the handlebars of a motorcycle. This experience will teach you everything you need to know about life and the afterlife.
So take, for example, driving in downtown Sacramento. And we're talking downtown; we call that "the grid." You're driving on the grid, okay? There's a lot of things happening down there. But Sacramento, what I love about it is at least they had the forethought to make it easy to navigate downtown. I mean, the streets are laid out—numbered streets running North and South: one, two, three, four. And then running East and West are the A, B, and C's. I mean, that's easy!
If you want to go to Temple Coffee, you go to 22nd and K. There you go! Temple Coffee—easy to find! It's laid out well, unlike my hometown of Seattle, Washington. You have First Street, but then you got Pike and Pine and Alaska and everything in between—Seneca. I'm like, "Where the heck are these places? ABC, one, two, three?"
But now, if it was only as easy as that, you'd probably visit downtown a lot more, huh? No, downtown, what complicates things is the one-way streets, the two-way stops, the four-way stops, the alleyways without stops. You got the dog walkers, the bike riders, the cars parked blinding you from cross traffic. There's the muni train, red light runners, and the unaware wandering the streets like the latest zombie movie.
If only it was as easy as ABCs and one, two, threes! Doesn't sound a lot like everyday life. If only life was as easy as ABC, one, two, three. No, there's a lot more involved with going to work, raising kids, becoming better people. It's not as easy-peasy as ABC, one, two, three. Life has its own set of crossroads and distractions, and you and I, we have to learn to navigate to get on down the road.
If you're going to go anywhere, you have to anticipate, motivate, plan, and prepare to get there safely. What do I mean by getting on down the road? Well, getting on down the road is making progress. It's getting to the place that God has called us into, living our life in a way that fulfills God's will and purpose for our life.
Getting on down the road is all about our lives becoming what God has envisioned when He put life in our soul. Did you know that God has a plan for your life, a purpose for your life? You're not meant to just exist and wander the streets, but He has a destination to bring you to. That's what it means to get on down the road.
Now, I know that seems like a pretty lofty ambition. It requires lots of hard work to get from here to there, fulfilling God's purpose for my life. That seems so big. But I want to give you some encouragement. When you start the journey, when you say yes to Jesus, "Jesus, I will follow You into God's purpose for my life," this is what He says in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14: "For by a single offering, He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."
Okay, pastor, what the heck does that mean? Well, let me tell you. The scripture is telling you what Jesus did. He perfected or made right your life. Your life is already perfect, although it's being worked out to perfection.
Anybody's life feel perfect today? Now, most of us in the room, if we have some humility, we go, "My life is pretty far from perfect." What is cloaked in this passage is a promise that already now it has been perfected because of Jesus, even though you're working it out daily, even though you're still driving to a destination.
It's already envisioned in God's mind that it's fully worked out and fully perfected. This should stoke a confidence within us. This passage should invoke boldness within us that we could commit to the work that needs to be done to get in the car and to drive towards the destination.
You see, this is all about you and I having marriages that are full of love and grace, despite a full and grace depicting God's views of intimacy—what it looks like to honor God in the marriage covenant. This is all about careers bringing in more than just a paycheck, but bringing about personal fulfillment and purpose and Kingdom values.
This is about souls that are full of joy and free from anxiety, fear, and hurts of past experiences. This is all about addictions and unhealthy coping mechanisms dealt with, that we're free from their tyranny and their tireless pursuit of beating us down. This is about living out the fullness that God has promised you and I through Jesus Christ.
So this morning, I'm making a declaration at the beginning of this message that we are getting unstuck, unhindered, and unsettled with remaining parked. Today, you and I, we're going to learn to say that my life is going places. I'm getting on down the road. Would you say that with me this morning? I'm getting on down the road. Let's do it again: I'm getting on down the road.
Well, now that we've determined we're going somewhere, maybe we should figure out where we're going. So I want to give you today three of the Bible's tips on driving. Before cars were even made, there are things that talk about us driving us somewhere.
Let's talk about number one: Where are you headed? Where are you headed? You know the story of Alice in Wonderland, the girl that followed a rabbit down a hole? Her whole world is turned upside down. It's a crazy story.
If you've watched the cartoon, and then there was that crazy director, Johnny Depp, but the director Tim Burton's version of it—that's just crazy. So there's a scene in this where Alice, she's lost in Wonderland, and she comes to the fork in the road. She's got icy panic that just keeps stabbing her, and she's frozen by indecision: "Which way do I go? Which way do I go? Which way do I go?"
And she lifts her eyes towards heaven; she's looking for guidance. But her eyes didn't find God, only the Cheshire Cat, leering at her from the perch in the tree above. "Which way should I go?" Alice blurted. "That depends," says the cat, fixing a sardonic smile and confused grin.
Right? He's this little trickster. "Well, it depends on your destination," where are you going? The cat asks. "I don't know," Alice stammered. "Then," said the cat, his grin spreading wider and wider, "it doesn't matter which way you go."
You see, in order to get to a place of purpose, we must first determine the destination of our travels. Otherwise, you and I will find ourselves on a road leading to nowhere. We're going to drive in circles, stuck in the one-way street loop.
However, do I get out? While some people will find their way wandering through life, that's luck. Why leave it to chance when we can get clarity on from the beginning? Why not have the destination in mind to begin to progress towards and work towards?
How do we get clarity? Well, Proverbs 29:18 says, "Where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law." Here is this verse again in the Christian Standard Bible: "Without revelation, people run wild, but one who follows divine instruction will be happy."
So the scripture is telling us that we need some guidance to set direction for our lives, to put us in a heading, and that we can look to God to get those directions. Revelation, prophetic understanding, or vision—these are hearing God speak to give us a destination He wants us to work towards.
You and I are designed to hear from God. As believers, we hear from God, and we're called to move towards the direction of His voice. Where is He leading us to?
So my question to you this morning is this: Where in your life are you stuck? Where in your life are you hindered? Where in your life are you driving in circles, experiencing the same defeat and broken heart over and over and over again?
Does your marriage need some direction? What about your finances? Do your thoughts run rampant and take a toll on your mental health? These are places that we can go. Maybe God is using these things to depict or share with us a destination to move towards.
You see, I believe that if we've become aware of the need to progress in an area of your life, it's most likely that God is giving you a direction to begin working towards. His desire is that you get on down the road of life.
If you're frustrated with an area of your life, maybe that's the direction to start working on. If it's tiring you out, maybe that's the area to start working on. If you're growing impatient and saying, "Man, I'm just tired of this! I can't stand this anymore! Why can't I get my breakthrough?" then maybe it's time to say, "I need to chart the course to get there."
See, feelings of inadequacy, being unsettled, frustration—those are all good indicators of needing to bring about a change so that the area of your life can be saturated with peace and a sense of belonging. This is where I should be. That's what God wants to hear from us: "This is where I should be. I'm right where I belong."
Now, I can say that in many facets of my life, but there are some in my life where I go, "Man, I got some work to do." Am I going to remain parked? Am I going to remain settling for the status quo? Or maybe it's time to get on down the road.
You see, if you'll make it a point in prioritizing the authority of the Bible and leaning into prayer to hear God's voice, guidance will come—guidance to make progress in the fullness of our lives: relational, emotional, financial, spiritual. We cannot afford to leave it to chance.
Maybe getting somewhere that we can actually work towards today—what word from the Lord could open up the possibility of getting you right where you need to be?
Number two this morning: Let's chart your course. Chart your course! Say that with me: Chart your course!
So if you have a direction, I want to get to Temple at 22nd and K—great! The destination's in mind, but how am I going to get there? Do I walk? Do I drive? Do I fly? Do I take a train?
Planes sound like Dr. Seuss, don't they? Warren Wiersbe, in one of his many commentaries, says this: "When circumstances become difficult and you're in the furnace of testing, remain where God has put you until He tells you to move. Faith moves in the direction of peace and hope."
I want you to get that: Faith moves in the direction of peace and hope, but unbelief moves in the direction of restlessness and fear. You see, getting life on down the road—getting where we need to be—requires work. It's not just going to happen.
It doesn't just have the values of evolution of a cell producing cells that produce this, that produce that. To be where we need to be requires us walking lock and step and moving in a direction.
And whether it's a minor course adjustment, which just simply means, you know, maybe I change this little thing to this little thing to get the results I need, or it could be a complete restart of where we're at—getting back to home base and moving again in a new direction.
We'll need to keep moving forward despite what fears might derail us. If I only had a dollar for every time someone just said, "Pastor, tell me which way to go," I would be a very wealthy man. That wouldn't be probably doing much but laying on a beach somewhere, okay? Let me just be real.
Tell me which way to go, and we'll go. What I often have to say is, "Look, it's not always black and white. You're looking for a yes or a no, a right or a left." But honestly, when we're charting a course in life, it's a lot of gray area.
And my common answer is, "It just depends." Tell me about the circumstance. It depends on what's happening in your life, where you're at, where you want to go, how far the journey is, right?
I got to church today, and my car said "refuel." I didn't stop and get gas because I knew that I only had like five miles to get here. The dread puts anxiety in your heart, doesn't it? Yeah, you're like, "Oh no, that thing's got to be a full tank!"
Me? I'd like to see how far I can get before the car goes. But let me tell you, if I was driving back home to see my in-laws or somewhere else, I was driving over the mountains, I wouldn't have taken the risk, right? I would have put a full tank of gas because it depends on where I'm going.
You got it? Yeah! So tell me which way to go requires you to examine the breadth and the scope of the direction you're traveling.
Driving to downtown from here, we can go down Del Paso Boulevard, turn right onto 160, that becomes 12th Street, and that will lead right into the heart of the city. You can take Del Paso down to Arden and then take a left and cut over to 99; that will take you down into 160, 12th Street in downtown.
You can take Del Paso to Arden to 99 all the way down to Highway 50, take you over to I-5, come back up and get off at Q Street or J Street. I can hop out, I can go up El Camino, go down to Northgate, go back up to 80, take 80 to 5, right?
I got directions all around me! There are many different ways to get to downtown. Are you getting this this morning? Every path will get me there; I just have to determine the level of difficulty of those paths.
What's in the way as I travel? I want the most efficient way to get where I'm going because why drive in circles when I can just cut across the field? Right? Barring that it's legal to cut across the field.
Okay, good. Just stick with me. You have to determine the course that will serve the purpose of your destination.
So in one of the probably the easiest examples I can use, let's just talk about a marriage real quick. If you want a better marriage, you need to hear God's perspective of what a healthy marriage looks like.
Go to Ephesians 5:31 and 33, for example. It says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. However, let each of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."
So as I read through this, it sets the direction. A healthy marriage is my direction. Charting the course, I go, "Okay, now I know that a healthy marriage looks like this: it's two becoming one, unified, selfless, honoring, working together for the good of the family."
This is my direction for a healthy marriage. How do I get there? It depends. Where are you starting from? Where are you at today? How dysfunctional is your marriage?
You see, it might be as simple as setting up a regular date night to reignite intimacy and having a conversation. It might be slowing down enough during the day to have a conversation with your spouse so that you can communicate your needs and desires to one another.
It might be finding another couple who models what you want marriage to look like—what you see a healthy biblical marriage looks like—and then regularly get together and ask them questions: "How are you doing it? How does this work for you?"
You might be in a place today that seeking out a counselor is the best way for you to have a healthy marriage—someone to help mediate and equip you with the right tools for that marriage.
You can do this for your finances, overcoming your hurts and your offense, your anxieties, a broken relationship with another family member or a friend. Anywhere that you have a frustration in your life, you can begin to chart the course by simply writing down turn-by-turn directions on how to get there.
Do you remember MapQuest? Before we had iPhones that did it all for us, we used to have to go to this website. I remember we delivered cookies for visitors in church, and we'd go and print off their address, and it would give you everything starting on 1600 Snyder Avenue and take a right, take a left, take a—
That's what our phones do! And it would be these step-by-step instructions, and it would print it out. So you'd have a list of maybe 5, 10, 12 different steps, and you would just follow along wherever it told you to go.
That's what I'm telling you to do today. Once you got your destination in mind, start writing down step-by-step instructions: How do I get where I need to be? Where God is calling me to be healthy and prosperous?
If you don't know how to create turn-by-turn directions, then let's go get a cup of coffee. I'll help you write the turn-by-turn instructions. Find someone that has what you need in your life. You go, "Man, they are great with finances. I want what they have."
Then go sit down and have lunch and ask them questions: "How did you get to be good with your finances? How did you get to be good with raising children? How are you navigating being an empty nester? How are you good with retirement and planning for the future?"
Like, get with people that got it and begin to ask them questions and learn so that you can grow and become prosperous and healthy.
Friends, your marriage, your finances, your mental health are all worth fighting for. They're worth fighting for! It's not worth going in circles and just being okay. You can accept Christ and never progress another day, and I believe you'll be in heaven; you'll get there.
But why be miserable and frustrated on this side of eternity? I want to be healthy. I want to be prosperous. I want to live the best life possible that Jesus Christ has offered me.
So let's chart the course to get where you need to be, where you're walking out of life worthy of the calling of God.
Number three is this: Drive with purpose. Drive with purpose! Once you know where you're going and how you're going to get there, you got to get in the driver's seat. Great! The planning was awesome. Planning seemed hard. Planning took a toll on you and wore you out thinking about the possibilities of getting there.
But friends, it doesn't matter if you don't get in the driver's seat and go. You've got to get in the driver's seat and go! Getting on the road is the hardest part.
Okay, let me say that again: Getting on the road is the hardest part. It is getting on the road. It requires action, and your action will always be challenged by perceived obstacles. But get on down the road anyway!
Come on, think about it. When you get that late-night craving for ice cream, and you're like, "Man, I'm gonna go to Handel's in Natomas because they just opened the store, and they make other ice cream fresh every day, and it's cold, and it's still hot out at nine o'clock at night."
"Oh man, just I want the ice cream to wet my throat, and just the creamy—oh, it's so good!" And you're like, "Oh, I got my destination! I know how to get there."
What's the next thoughts that come to mind? It's nine o'clock at night; you're in your pajamas. You've already taken your makeup off your face, ladies, or man, I've already brushed my teeth. I'm halfway into this Netflix episode.
Right? You start coming up with every excuse you can to talk yourself out of it. You have now denied yourself the pleasures of Handel's Ice Cream! Why would you ever do such a thing?
But that's what happens. We want to work towards a healthy marriage and finances, emotional whatever it is that we're moving towards to be healthy and prosperous, and all of a sudden, we don't think about all the great things that are going to come our way when we get there.
We start thinking about every perceived obstacle that is going to stand in our way. Friends, we've got to learn to not give probability a permanent residence in our mind. Who cares what might happen?
Friends, crap is going to happen! When you've been on a road trip, you don't get to control when you get a flat tire or someone shifts into your lane. You don't get to control it. All you are in control of is where you are headed—your course of action.
So control what you can control and leave the rest up to the Lord. When I was young, 16, 17, I got my license, and I learned on a stick shift because that's what my family had. I was actually excited! Driving a stick is actually way easier than an automatic in my mind.
One, because you get to look cool when you're driving a car because you can still spin the tires, even if it's only like a little four-cylinder, and you get to choose your gear. I remember being excited because when we were driving, the speed limit was like 25, and I knew that if I just kept it in second gear, the car wouldn't go over 25.
It was easy to keep it at 25 in the second gear. It was a Jeep Cherokee that I was taking my driving test in. So I did it all; we were driving great, things were good, and the driving instructor said, "Hey, I want you to pull into this alleyway."
"Okay, why am I pulling into an alleyway? What am I going to ever pull into an alleyway? Like, you know how practical really is this?"
So, "Okay, now you're in the alleyway, and I want you to back out of the alley into the street." "Okay, I got this!"
Well, so I put it in reverse. I did the whole arm up here on the other guy's trying to turn my head over the neck and started to back out. I got out to the road, and I saw him writing some notes in his thing, and I went, "Oh crud! I just ran over a woman pushing a stroller, didn't I?"
I had points because I didn't stop at the sidewalk, and I could have run over a woman with small kids. But everywhere else, I was confident and prepared for. Everywhere else I'd practiced for, I never practiced driving in and out of an alley. Where is that practical?
I didn't have an alleyway at my house. I had a driveway and street parking, right? I went to the store; it wasn't in an alleyway. Like, an alleyway was nowhere on my radar.
But everywhere else—parallel parking, parking in angle, complete stops at stop signs, driving the speed limit, using your turn signals, checking your blind spots—these were things we practiced for. We had prepared for.
How could I ever really been prepared for the alleyway? But friends, here's the lesson of the story: I passed my driver's test. I had a mistake there. There was a probability that took place, and I failed it.
Now, I learned something from that failure, but I had prepared in every other way, and it allowed me to pass. Why? Because I had planned, and I had purpose, and I knew what I was confident of going towards.
A level of confidence arises when you've prepared and planned. You may not know everything along the way, but you do know, as of this moment, I have done my due diligence, and now I trust the process. I trust the Lord as I move towards my destination.
Psalms 37:23 says, "The steps of a man are established by the Lord when he delights in his way." I plan; I'm walking with God. My steps are being established by Him.
Your mind will never stop reminding you of all the things that could possibly stand between you and where you need to be. The what-ifs will just paralyze you, keep moving you in circles, and keep your progress stifled.
But when the noise gets loud, you need to turn them down. Liam, my oldest son, he's much like his father. He's a bossy kid. We call that leadership in our house. "You're going places, kid! You're a leader!"
And when we're driving, sometimes he's like, "Dad, get in the left lane and pass this car! Dad, take a right here!" Dad, and he's a little backseat driver.
And let me tell you what—I love that kid! Nonetheless, when he starts raising his voice from the back seat, I have to say, "Sit back and quiet down! There's only one wheel, and it's in my hands! I've got this!"
So when the thoughts from the back seat of your life come up and they say, "Your partner won't go to counseling with you," you say, "Sit back and quiet down! There's only one wheel, and it's in my hands! I've got this!"
When you start to have the backseat thoughts that your debt is too large, you say, "Sit back and quiet down! There's only one wheel, and it's in my hands! I've got this!"
"But you've always had this fear, and you'll always have this fear. You'll never get rid of this fear." "Sit back and quiet down! There's only one wheel, and it's in my hands! I've got this!"
"But you're not smart enough! You're not strong enough!" "Sit back and quiet down! There's only one wheel, and it's in my hands! I've got this!"
That is what we learn to say to the negative thoughts that will try to derail our progress: "Sit back and quiet down! There is only one wheel, and it's in my hands! I'm getting on down the road!"
Friends, refuse to take your eye off the destination, and as you drive the course you set, be okay with making adjustments along the way.
As we close this morning, Rich, if you could just come up on the piano, I want to say these final words: The moment you made a decision to follow Jesus was the moment you received a gift of progress. Your life became more like Jesus than it had ever been before.
The power to change and live in the prosperous promises of God became a reality that was never for you before. You're perfected, yet you're becoming more and more perfect every day.
The believer's life can and should be filled with the best relationships, finances, emotional health, and so much more. And though we know that much of this requires doing hard work with confidence and boldness and a heaping dose of clarity, we got to get a destination.
Where in your life is the Lord calling you to make progress? And that's for every one of us in the room. Because although we're perfected, we're still being perfected. You're not done until you enter into eternity.
There's progress still to be made. And then chart the course. What is your path to get there that leads you to greater peace and hope in that area?
And finally, drive with purpose. Put the pedal to the metal and get moving! Don't let backseat drivers or the possible conflicts keep you from getting to your destination.
Sit back and be quiet! There's only one wheel, and it's in my hands! I'm getting on down the road! Would you stand with me this morning? I want to give you a moment just to hear the Lord.
on Nov 05, 2023
