Living an Abundant Life in Balance with God, Part 1

Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the seminar. We are so delighted to have you with us today, and we certainly will pray that God gives you a very special blessing for taking time out of your day to come here and hear His word. Well, this is a seminar entitled, Living an Abundant Life. And we have to begin with a very dogmatic and powerful statement made by God Himself, as given to us by the prophet Isaiah. The Scripture says, My hand made all things. All things are here because I made them. Says the Lord, These are the people I am pleased with, those who are not proud or stubborn and who fear My word.

There aren't any other authoritative religious writings in which a being says, I am God. I am the Creator. I have made all that there is. So is this world in your life here by an intelligent design, or basically are we here by blind chance or by accident? Because you see, my friends, there really are only two choices. The choices are to understand that there is a Creator, or the alternative to that is nothingness. But the Apostle Paul tells us in the book of Romans that there is a way that we can know by physical observation, we can know there is a God and that there is a Creator.

He says in Romans chapter 1 and verse 20, from the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, has been clearly observed in what He made. As a result, He says, they have or people have no excuse. You may or may not know this gentleman.

Maybe you've seen him. He's Professor Brian Cox. He's well known in the United Kingdom. He's oftentimes interviewed on the British Broadcasting Network channel. He's a physicist, a professor of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester in England. And he believes in evolution. Recently, he was interviewed on the BBC and here's what he said.

He said, the biological process which led to intelligent life on earth was a fluke that is unlikely to have been repeated anywhere else in the universe. Now, what does that mean? He uses the word universe. In our universe, there are 100 billion galaxies. Within those galaxies, I'm sorry, I can't pronounce this number. It has so many zeroes after it.

Ten to the 24th power planets are what they think. Is that 100 trillion quadrillion? I don't even know what that number is. But the point is that it takes incredible faith to believe that all of these planets exist in the universe and life is only on one of them by accident. Here's something else that he says. There's only one advanced technological civilization. That's the English spelling.

This is a direct quote. Civilization in this galaxy. And there's only ever been one and that's us. We are unique. Now, my friends, what I have is a religious faith. I believe in a creator God. But compared to someone who says that we are unique, that we are the only ones that exist in 100 billion galaxies, that requires a lot greater faith than I have.

That makes a religious faith seem rather shallow to believe that against all odds in an entire vast universe, that life only started on one small planet with a mediocre sun in a small galaxy and exists nowhere else, yet that life is here by accident and chance. Recently, NASA completed an observation study. This was completed in April when the report came out. And here's what we read. This is from Penn State Science. After searching 100,000 galaxies for signs of highly advanced extraterrestrial life, a team of scientists using observations from NASA's Wise Orbiting Observatory has found no evidence of advanced civilizations in them.

So where is life? I'm told that given enough time, given the right ingredients, evolution just simply occurs. It can occur. Yet nowhere in 100,000 galaxies is there evidence of life anywhere else in this universe. Professor Jason Wright was part of this team. I want you to notice what he said. Quote, That's interesting because these galaxies are billions of years old, which should have been plenty of time for them to have been filled with alien civilizations if they exist.

Either they don't exist or they don't yet use enough energy for us to recognize them. It doesn't take much energy. Energy civilizations create fires, they create gases, they create light, they create heat. And our sophisticated equipment up in that sky sees absolutely nothing. No evidence of life anywhere in the universe, according to Professor Cox. Supported by this NASA study, who has taken the time to examine 100,000 galaxies. In other words, life only exists in the universe.

Even admitted by noted scientists, by noted physicists, only exist in one place. And that is on Earth. Why? Well, the reality is, my friends, are that every human being has a choice to make. There are two possible options. We can either believe that there is a God and understand what that means is revealed by his word, or we can believe in human philosophy as an alternative. And I'd like to contrast the difference between the two. Understanding and having a relationship with God gives you a purpose.

As a matter of fact, the purpose of your existence is revealed in knowing God and knowing the word of God. In contrast with human philosophy, your purpose is unknown. There are many man-made religions that attempt to explain why human beings exist. Many great secular philosophers throughout history have attempted to explain why is their purpose in life, or why man exists, but it's all contradictory and it's all in a state of confusion.

With God, there are consistent values. Throughout time, there are eternal values of love towards God and love towards your neighbor. And those values remain consistent because they come from God. They reflect who and what God is.

In contrast to that with human philosophy, there are ever-changing values. Each generation decides for itself what is right or wrong. Secular courts decide in an instant what is moral and what is immoral. So again, that contrast between what the word of God tells us and that being who says he is our creator and human philosophy.

With God and his relationship, you have a written owner's manual called the Scriptures. It's our maintenance manual. And when we follow that manual, we learn foods to avoid eating. We learn when we should get proper rest. We learn about having positive relationships with other human beings. We learn about how to guard our attitudes from negativity. So that maintenance manual for God's creation gives us direction. It gives us guidance. It is a mentor to help us in our journey through life.

In contrast to the written owner's manual, we know of as the Scriptures, there are human opinions, lots of writings, and contradictory ideas among men who, frankly, are clueless about why life exists in this world. When you have a relationship with God, you have a faith that transcends mere human existence. You know that you have a future. You understand your role and why you were born.

In contrast to human philosophies, which basically say that at death, that's the end of your existence. Not very encouraging, not very motivating or inspiring, but again, we have a God who tells us one thing, and we have human philosophies that tell us something else. And finally, the option when we have a relationship with God, we have a life that's filled with meaning and purpose in spite of our trials, in spite of our obstacles.

We know that that is also part of the training that God wants us to receive in this lifetime. So we have a life of purpose, of meaning, in contrast to a life void of meaning and any real purpose. And sadly, every day, people choose to end their own lives because they have a life that is void of meaning and purpose, and they decide to give it all up. Let's take a look at a few other examples. When we have a relationship with God, we experience divine intervention. When we want to get that new job, we can ask God to grant us favor in the eyes of the person who's going to interview us.

We can ask God to do very wonderful things in our lives. And we know through experience that when it's good for us, He definitely will intervene. Sometimes He won't because He knows ultimately what's good for us. Sometimes we don't know what's good for ourselves, and we ask for things we shouldn't have, things that are not good for us.

He knows His timing is right. So you experience divine intervention in your life. When we have taken the choice of secularism of human philosophy, life is nothing but time and chance. There is no divine intervention because there is no divine. Everything is just the luck of the draw, and you either have good luck or you have bad luck. And that's the philosophy of life. You experience answered prayer when you have a relationship with God.

I've been blessed to experience answered prayer many, many times in my life. Have all of my prayers been answered? Well, mine, no. And I'm sure all of your prayers haven't been answered because, again, sometimes we ask for things that we want so badly that just aren't good for us. And sometimes the timing isn't right, and God's answer is maybe not no, but not now. So, you experience answered prayer in contrast to a human philosophy where everything is mere coincidence or luck because, again, there is no God.

Life is planned and meaningful when you have a relationship with God, in contrast to a life that is chaotic and a life that is hopeless. And, my, in this world today, there are a lot of hopeless people. And finally, when you have a relationship with God, you get to envision the world in 3D. Your existence is magnified because you get to experience your existence from a unique plane. That is, a spiritual dimension. Whereas, if you just believe in human philosophies, they are materialistic, they are secular, and they cannot tap into the spiritual dimension.

Let me give you a couple of metaphors about the importance of this spiritual dimension. Let's begin by talking about stereo. I think most of us are familiar with stereo sound. And with stereo, it's a sound that is directed through two or more speakers, and it seems to surround us when we listen to it. Because it comes from more than just one source. If you take a walk in nature, in the walk in the woods, you'll experience stereophonic sound. It'll seem to surround you, the crickets chirping, and the birds singing and everything just surround you.

That's hearing in stereophonic sound. This is in contrast to monophonic sound, which has only a single source. And it's a flat sound. You don't get the dimension of true sound from it.

Stereo sound adds depth and direction, increased perception to our physical senses. It adds something we don't have normally. And the point of this metaphor is that having a relationship with God adds a spiritual dimension to life. Without it, we experience life with only one dimension. That is our physical, our flesh, our senses. And that's all. And that's not living life to its fullest. Let's continue this discussion. In a process known as stereopsis, the human brain pulls together two flat images, dimensional images, from each eye. Our eyes are on different sides of our head, and each eye sees a flat, one-dimensional image.

But in the beauty of what the human mind can do, it takes these images and it converges them in the unified vision known as stereopsis. Even though our eyes are positioned differently on opposite sides of our head, both eyes combined are able to observe our world in a stereo vision.

Our eyes are able to balance different dimensions by working together and focusing together. And just like sound, we talked about a minute ago, stereopsis ends depth and increased perception to our vision. And my friends, to truly experience the intensity and the fullness of life that God intended, to have complete balance and fulfillment requires having not just an understanding of our senses of this physical world, but the added dimension of a spirit world, of the spiritual dimension. Together, those pooling together help us to see life in its richness, to see life in the way that God intended us to.

Without it, we go through life half blind and spiritually myopic. Many people walk around like a spiritual cyclops because they don't have an understanding at all of this spiritual dimension that God has created, that we have the ability to tap into. Without a spiritual connection, we don't experience our existence in 3D. We miss out on an entirely different and added dimension of our existence beyond what we can smell and hear and taste and see and touch. It is undetectable with the natural carnal human mind, so it is unique and it's what gives life its richness and the fulfillment that we desire.

There are many general misconceptions that people have about God, and we struggle in this Western world today because our culture has degraded the awesome God who is revealed in Scripture. People have had the ability to recreate God into their own image and to recreate God into the kind of God that they want. We need to understand who and what God is. Many people don't want to think about or take the time to get to know God because they're afraid that He might require something from them.

People are afraid that a genuine relationship might have obligations. It might have a commitment to something, and people are hesitant to do that. So it's very convenient in our culture today to recreate God in a different image, and that's what many have done. Many people prefer to have a relationship with God as if He's a genie, and this has been popularized by Disney movies. So let's compare and contrast the true God as revealed in Scripture with the Western myth of a genie.

First of all, God is interested in your entire daily life. He wants to be present in your life. Jesus said, the Father knows every hair that falls off of your head. And I might say the last few years they've probably been using the calculator with the number of hairs that have been falling off my head recently. But He's interested in your entire life.

He knows everything about you. He cares about your life and everything that's going on. In contrast, the mythical genie is isolated. He stays out of your life. He stays away until you call Him, until you rub the magic lamp. And He responds when He is called. And many people like that because they just want the goodies. They want to call upon a being to help them when they're in trouble, and then they want them to get out of their life and go back from whence they came.

Go back into the bottle. Don't ask me to have any commitments or have any responsibility. Just work your magic and go away. And sadly, that's the kind of God that many people desire in our Western world today. God exists to develop loving character in His children. Our lives are not an accident. Our lives are filled with purpose. And everything that we do is for a purpose. Every good thing, even every wrong thing, every mistake, every painful episode and experience in our life is to build within us an understanding of appreciating God's values, of learning right from wrong and choosing to do right and resist wrong and reject the wrong that is in the world and in our lives.

So God is developing character in His children. In contrast, the mythical genie just exists to grant favors and wishes. And many people look at God that way, don't they? They have no interest in spirituality. They have no interest in fellowshiping with anyone. But when they get in trouble, when they're sick, when there's a real problem, then, oh God, come and save me now. That is until the problem is over. Then get back in your bottle and leave me alone.

So again, there's a difference between a loving God, the God that is revealed in Scriptures, and the mythical genie. God responds to a repentant and a sincere heart. He's calling people from all around this world of every color and every former faith and every belief system and every language. He respects those who come to Him with a repentant and a sincere heart. In contrast, the genie responds to magical spells or incantations. You say a magical spell and He suddenly appears. And that's actually been duplicated in many of our Western religions. Many prayers are just mantras stated over and over and over and over again in a hope that God will respond with forgiveness or with a blessing if a certain phrase is said over and over again.

And finally, God is real and He desires a relationship with you, in contrast to the mythical genie who is just a storybook invention. So how can we live an abundant life in balance with God? We've had a little bit of background now. We know that the first thing we have to do is understand that there is a God and understand that there is a creation, a Creator, and we are part of that creation. In contrast to a belief in accident, nothingness.

So that's the first thing we needed to understand. And then we come to understand that the true God is interested in our lives, in every detail of our lives. That He's not off somewhere in some far place. He's very intimate. He wants to be intimate. He wants to be close to us.

Now we have to do our part, but He's willing to do that and He wants us to be His children. So the first thing that we need to do when we understand that there is a God and who and what that God is, is to get to know God. And as we get to know God, naturally questions will come up in our minds and in our heads.

What are God's values? That's an excellent question. Many people ask that. I hear that quite often. Why do I exist? What is the purpose of suffering? Why study the Bible and why even pray to God? Let's take a look at these one by one. First, what are God's values? In 1 John 4 and verse 8, Apostle John wrote, He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested towards us that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him.

He says God loves us so much that His very Son was willing to empty Himself of His glory in a humiliating way, come down to earth and walk as a mere human being. He shed Himself of His glory and came down to earth and walked as a human being and was abused and was mocked and ultimately crucified.

And why did He do that? Because He loves us so much. That's why He did that. So what are God's values? God's values are His commandments. Some of those commandments we find in the Bible we call the Old Covenant or Old Testament. And some of the commandments are reiterated and even brought more deeply spiritual in what we call the New Testament. God's values are the fruit of the Spirit.

And we'll take a look at what some of those are a little bit later. God's values include loving Him with all of our heart. God wants us to be all in and not to have a barrier, not to have a limitation between ourselves and our great loving Father.

And also to love others as yourself. Your neighbors are also created in God's image and we should give them a level of respect and dignity and love them as we love ourselves. So these are all part of God's value system that are very important to Him. So why do I exist? What is the purpose of your existence and mine? Philippians 2 and verse 13, Paul wrote, For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His pleasure. Sometimes we tend to get selfish, me and I, but the reality is that we were created to give God pleasure.

We are the jewel in God's crown. He created humankind with a very special plan in mind. So we give great pleasure to God. God isn't mad at us. God is mad about us. And He wants us to respond to the calling that He gives us. And He wants us to develop a close and intimate relationship with Him. Luke 12 and verse 32, Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

It is exciting in God's mindset and His eye to look out at us and look at the potential that we have. Because He wants to give us eternity. He wants to give us immortality. He wants to give us and share His glory with us as His children. So why do I exist? Of course, we give God pleasure. We exist to develop godly character again, to develop what Paul called the mind of Christ. And to learn good from evil and reject evil and choose to do the good, the right things. We have existence to share His glory with us because God wanted to expand His family.

He at one time had one only begotten Son, and He wants His Son to have brothers and sisters in Christ in order to give glory to and to share all that He has. He wants to make us spiritual sons and daughters who will live forever in eternity. So what is the purpose of human suffering? Well, as Paul tells us, or reminds us in Romans 8, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.

In Hebrews, the author of Hebrews wrote, Even though Jesus was the Son of God, He learned obedience by what He suffered. So what's the purpose of human suffering? Well, the first thing we need to understand is that this physical life is short and it's futile. And though we try to extend it and we may eat well and we may exercise and we may do all those things, the reality is that this body that we have was created and designed to wear out. And eventually, it does. And hopefully that should make us the suffering that we go through as we age and as we have the aches and pains and the things that we experience it should make us the long for an existence in which we shed this physical tent and in which we take on eternity, mortality.

Suffering teaches us empathy for others and this is very important. My wife and I had a challenging year. We both are cancer survivors. We both had different types of cancer this last year and we're treated for it. And for many, many years, people would come to me and, yes, Mr. Thomas, will you pray for me? I have cancer and I certainly did. But until you've experienced it, until you've been there, done that, when you do, you develop a compassion and an empathy for people who are going through an experience that you did and you cannot do that unless you go through that experience yourself.

You cannot totally understand and comprehend in a compassionate way how someone is suffering unless you have experienced that similar type of suffering. So that's another purpose of why we suffer. It teaches us to share our burdens. We don't have to go through this life alone. We can ask friends to pray for us. We can pray for loved ones. We can share our lives with each other. And that's certainly what suffering does. It should force us to reach out. And when we need help to say, I need help, to be humble enough to say, will you please help me?

I'm not feeling well. I need a little help today. And on the other hand, of course, as we see other people suffer, we should be reaching out to them in compassion. So it teaches us to share our burdens, to get out of ourselves and to be connected with other people who are also suffering or going through their own challenging experiences. And it forges obedience. I have to tell you that most of the real challenges I faced in my life, the problems that I've had, I have brought upon myself. They were the result of stupid things that I've done.

And so I suffered, and I learned not to do that anymore. Through the process of suffering, I learned that some things are painful. Some things blow up in your face. Some things you regret. And it's that suffering that oftentimes teaches us those lessons.

When I was a small infant, when I was a small child, I was disciplined quite often for things that I did by my parents. But you know what? I don't even remember 95% of the times when I was chastised, when I was, if I can dare be unpolitically correct and say, spanked. When I was spanked as a child, I don't even have most of those memories. And why is that? It's because since that time, I've lived a long time.

And I've had long and rich and varied life experiences. So that that time that I thought the suffering was so terrible as a small child is barely a remembrance in my head. So when we read on the news and we see tragedies, we see people, young people dying in explosions from terrorists, and we read about a child dying of leukemia, and we read about these terrible things that happen, please keep in mind that it's not the end of the story.

And though those things were painful for a moment in every one of those situations, they will be resurrected again. And in the realm of eternity, those experiences that they had, the terrorist bomb, dying of a tragic disease as a child, dying as the result of war, will seem absolutely insignificant and nothing in the totality of their existence, and the wonderful things that God has planned for them.

Why study the Bible? Well, as the book of Psalms says, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. The scriptures reveal to us God's will. They open our hearts and our minds to understand who and what God is and how He wants us to live. Paul said to the young Timothy, writing to the young evangelist, be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

So the scriptures and the study of the scriptures help us to separate truth from error, to know what is right from what is wrong. When we study the Bible, we develop a bond with God. He speaks to us. Any form of healthy communication has to be two-way communication. There has to be a sender and a receiver, and they have to exchange information back and forth. That's called two-way communication. God has a form of two-way communication for us. The first is studying His word. He speaks to us. When we open the scriptures and we study it with an open heart and a sincere mind, He reveals His will.

He reveals His knowledge to us. Also, we gain biblical knowledge. We understand about history, important characters in the Old Testament and New Testament. We learn inspiring writings like the Psalms. We learn the way that we should live. We also learn about prophecy and what God says is going to happen in the near future. We understand how it is being fulfilled today that the King of the South is pushing against the King of the North, as mentioned by the Prophet Daniel. We're seeing the rise in certain forms of terrorism around the world today. That was all prophesied in Scripture. The fact that Jesus Christ will return to earth in His second coming is prophesied in Scripture.

These are other reasons why we need to study the Bible. And, of course, very important is to learn the way of salvation. Because Jesus Christ died so that all of us could have our sins forgiven through His shed blood, and so that we could receive the gift of His Holy Spirit. And we could continue faithfully on as His disciples and receive the salvation that we have been promised. So why pray to God? Well, when we pray to God, we develop a bond with God because He listens. So He spoke to us through His word.

Now, we bond back to God through daily prayer. As the Psalm says in the morning, O Lord, You hear my voice. In the morning I lay my request before You and wait in expectation. You see, He believed His prayers would be answered. He was excited about being able to go and talk to God. Do we have that level of excitement? James wrote that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. It literally can change history. It can change the world. That's how powerful prayer is within a righteous man.

So we want to develop a bond with God, and through prayer He listens to us, and it allows us to discuss our deepest needs and desires to God. There are probably very few people in this world that you can open up 100%, that you can vent to, that you can explain all of your disappointments, all of your hurts. God will hear. You can do that with God. God has big shoulders.

We can tell Him exactly how we feel. He won't be offended. He wants to hear from us. He wants to know what's going on deep inside of our hearts and minds. We also learn to pray to God, because again, we get outside of ourselves and we can pray for others. We can ask God to intervene on their behalf, to heal them, or to give them a blessing, or to do something to make their lives better.

So again, it's one of those things that takes us out of ourselves and gets us connected with people of like mind. And, of course, we pray to God to seek divine intervention, to have a prayer answered, to have something wonderful, a blessing showered upon us. Maybe it's a new job. Maybe somebody gives us a car, gives us a gift, does something out of nowhere. Just before services started today, someone mentioned to me what a blessing it was.

She had a car that she couldn't afford to get out of the shop. And her son called and said, How much is it to get your car out of the shop? And she told him the amount, and he wrote a check, and she's got her car. She's here today. It was a blessing out of nowhere.

But that's the kind of God that we worship. Divine intervention. It happens all the time. So, the first two steps to live a life of balance and abundance with God, and then we will end with part one. Here's the first of the two steps. And this is so important. And frankly, many people never get beyond this step. They're just unwilling to do it. And therefore, there's always a barrier. Therefore, they are not able to live their lives in stereo 3D.

Therefore, they are not able to experience the fulfillment and joy that comes from having a spiritual connection. And here it is. Matthew 6, 32. In context, Jesus was mentioning how the G calls them the Gentiles. It's life's secular, materialistic world today. What do people want? What do we desire? Well, people want nice homes, and they want clothes, and they want good food, and they want to be comfortable, and they want a lot of nice things to enjoy their physical lives.

And Jesus comments on that. He says, For after all these things the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knows that you need these things. He said, But here's the key. You've got to get your priorities straight. He says, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. You seek the kingdom of God by wanting to be part of that kingdom. You seek the kingdom of God by wanting to be a child of God.

You seek the kingdom of God by desiring to serve and love others and model the example of Jesus Christ in your life. And His righteousness, and here's what He says will happen if we have our priorities straight. And all these things, the nice car, the nice home, good food, comfort, all of those things will be given to you as blessings by God. But you've got to get your priorities straight. And when we get our priorities straight, then as a byproduct of having the right priority, and that is seeking God in our life, as a byproduct of that, we will receive the good physical things that we need and desire.

So that was number one. Again, going back to that, number one was have the right priorities in life. So many people today, their only priority is themselves. And step number two is nurture a deeper relationship with God. Make an investment in yourself and in your present life and in your future by getting to know God and building a deep and intimate relationship with Him.

Psalm 42, verse 1 says, He said, I'm excited. When is my next opportunity to worship God? When is my next chance to talk to Him, to read from His Word, to have an intimate, loving relationship with Him? That's a very important question that the psalmist asks.

So as we get into part two of this biblically-based seminar today, we will explore more deeply from the Scriptures how you can have an abundant life in balance with God. So we'll get into more detail in the second half.