(Fourth Message in the series Experiencing God)

Key Verse: "Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:33 (PP)
Many of us want God to speak to us and give us an assignment. However, we are not interested in making any major adjustments in our lives. (PP) Biblically, that is impossible. (PP)
Every time God spoke to people in the Scriptures about something He wanted to do through them, major adjustments were necessary. They had to adjust their lives to God. (PP) Once the adjustments were made, God accomplished His purposes through those He called.
Adjusting your life to God is the second critical turning point in your knowing and doing the will of God. The first turning point is the Crisis of Belief. You must believe God is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He will do.
Without faith in God, you will make the wrong decision at this first critical turning point. Making the adjustment of your life to God also is a turning point. If you choose to make the adjustment, you can go on to obedience and experience God as He accomplishes His work through you.
If you refuse to make the adjustments necessary to your life and lifestyle, you may miss what God has in store for your life. At the very least you will slow His blessings upon you and retard you own spiritual growth. At the very worst, you will live an unfulfilling life and be a bitter old believer.

God's invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a
crisis of belief that requires faith and action. (PP)


Once you have come to believe God, you demonstrate your faith by what you DO. Some action is required. This action is one of the major adjustments we are going to focus on today. Your obedience also will be a part of the action required. Your adjustments and obedience will be costly to you and those around you.
When God speaks to you, revealing what He is about to do, that revelation is your invitation to adjust your life to Him and His plan. Once you have adjusted your life to Him, His purposes, and His ways, you are in a position to obey. Adjustments prepare you for obedience. You cannot continue life as usual or stay where you are, and go with God at the same time. That is true throughout Scripture.
Repeat Key Verse:
"Any of you who does not give up everything he has
cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:33 (PP)
Note:
Noah could not continue life as usual and build an ark at the same time (Gen. 6).
Abram could not stay in Ur or Haran and father a nation in Canaan (Gen. 12:1-8).
Moses could not stay on the backside of the desert herding sheep and stand before Pharaoh at the same time (Ex. 3).
David had to leave his sheep to become king (I Sam. 16:1-13).
Amos had to leave the sycamore trees in order to preach in Israel (Amos 7:14-15).
Jonah had to leave his home and overcome a major prejudice in order to preach in Nineveh (Jonah).
Peter, Andrew, James and John had to leave their fishing businesses in order to follow Jesus (Mt. 4:18-22).
Matthew had to leave his tax collector's booth to follow Jesus (Mt. 9:9).
Saul (later Paul) had to completely change directions in his life in order to be used of God to preach the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 9:1-19).
Repeat Key Verse:
"Any of you who does not give up everything he has
cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:33 (PP)
You may be thinking: "But God will not ask me to make major adjustments." If you look to scripture for your understanding of God, you will see that God most certainly will require adjustments of His people.
God even required major adjustments of His own Son. Turn to II Cor. 8:9 - READ. Jesus emptied Himself of position and wealth in heaven in order to join the Father in providing redemption through His death on the cross - that was a major adjustment!
If you want to be a disciple - a follower - of Jesus, you have no choice. You will have to make major adjustments in your life to follow God.
Preaching discipleship has lost us many members and attenders here at Glasgow Bible Church. Preaching the high cost of discipleship has run a lot of people off.
When many people are faced with the reality of the adjustments that are demanded by God in discipleship, they run for a more comfortable environment, a less demanding gospel, or a friendlier Christian climate.

Following your Master requires adjustments in your life. (PP) Until you are ready to make any adjustment necessary to follow and obey what God has said, you will be of little use to God. Your greatest single difficulty in following God may come at the point of the adjustment.


Lets look at two examples of opportunities for adjustment.
Elisha - I Kgs. 19:15-21 (PP)

2. The Rich Young Ruler - Luke 18:18-27 (PP)
Questions and Answers
1. What adjustment was required of each?
2. What was the response of each?
Jesus asked the Rich Young Ruler to put away the thing that had become his god - his wealth.
He missed coming to know the True God and Jesus Christ whom God had sent. He wanted eternal life, but he refused to make the necessary adjustment of his life to the True God.
Elisha responded differently.
He had to leave family and career (farming) in order to follow God's call.
You have heard of "burning your bridges behind you", well, Elisha burned his farm equipment and killed his 24 oxen. He cooked the meat and fed the people of the community.
Elisha was not about to turn back!
When he made the necessary adjustments, he was in a position to obey God. As a result, God worked through Elisha to perform some of the greatest signs and miracles recorded in the Old Testament (II Kgs. 2-13).
Elisha had to make the adjustments on the front end of his call.
Not until he made the adjustments, was God able to work through him to accomplish the miracles.

Note: (PP)
When God speaks to me, revealing what He is about to do, that revelation is my invitation to adjust my life to God.
Adjustments prepare me for obedience. The discipline of self- denial prepares the disciple for diligent duty.
I cannot stay where I am and go with God.
My greatest single difficulty in following God may come at the point of the adjustment or adjustments He wants me to make.
No one can sum up all God is able to accomplish through a life wholly yielded, adjusted and obedient to Him! Only God can keep up with that.
Absolute - Unconditional Surrender [Repeat - (PP)]
(PP) Adjustments may be required in one or more of the following areas:
In your circumstances - job, home, finances.
2. In your relationships - family, friends, business associates.
3. In your thinking - prejudices, methods, your potential.
4. In your commitments - to family, church, job, plans, tradition.
5. In your actions - how you pray, give, serve.
6. In your beliefs - about God, His purposes, His ways, your relationship to Him.
Lets look at some more Biblical examples of adjustments in person’s lives that wanted to follow God: (PP)
1. Mt. 4:18-22.
2. Mt. 5:43-48.
3. Mt. 6:5-8. (Expound on each one of these.)
4. Mt. 20:20-28.
5. Acts 10:1-20.

What are some areas in which God may ask you to make and adjustment of your life to Him?
(Answers)



Remember:
Christ is either Lord of all your life, every area of your life or
He is not Lord of your life.

(PP - Christ is Lord of all or He is not Lord at all!)

Conclusion:
David Livingston (PP) (Medical Missionary to Africa) said, "Forbid that we should ever consider the holding of a commission from the King of Kings a sacrifice, so long as other men esteem the service of an earthly government as an honor. I am a missionary, heart and soul. God Himself had an only Son, and He was a missionary and a physician. A poor, poor imitation I am, or wish to be, but in this service I hope to live. In it I wish to die. I still prefer poverty and missions service to riches and ease. This is my choice."
Livingston considered the work of a missionary to Africa
as a high honor, not a sacrifice.

Jim Elliot (PP) (Missionary to the Quichua Indians in South America) said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose".
Jim Elliot was willing to give up earthly things for heavenly reward. He was killed by the Indians as he sought
to take the gospel to them.
Bob Pierce (PP) (founder of World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse) said, "Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heat of God."
Oswald J. Smith (PP)(Missionary Statesman of Canada) said, "I want Thy plan, O God, for my life. May I be happy and contented whether in the homeland or on the foreign field; whether married or alone, in happiness or sorrow, health or sickness, prosperity or adversity – I want Thy plan, O God, for my life. I want it; oh, I want it!"
C. T. Studd (PP) (Missionary to China, India and Africa) said, "If Jesus Chris be God and died for me, then no sacrifice is too great for me to give for Him."


Final Illustration:
Experiencing God workbook, page 139 – "The Cry of a Mother’s Heart" (PP)
What adjustment, what sacrifice are you
being called by God to make today?

Will you say "yes" to the Lord?

Will you obey Him?




Introduction to "Adjusting My Life to God"
(PP) Adjust – Definition (Need Mic)
What is the definition of "adjust"?
(PP)
ad•just \ verb

1. to bring to a more satisfactory state
2. settle , resolve, rectify, to make correspondent or conformable, adapt


3. to adapt or conform oneself (as to new conditions)
4. to achieve mental and behavioral balance between one’s own needs and the demands of others


Think carefully….
How many are married?
How many had to make adjustments when you got married?
Think of one or two of those adjustments….
Now two or three of you share some "sharable" adjustments you had to make. Nothing too embarrassing… careful…