Friday, September 1, 2006

"[Abraham] waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11:10).

PURPOSE: To help listeners think about what dominates their lives.

Someone has said that we live with two or three ideas that dominate our lives. Do you think that is valid?

How do you come across these great dominating ideas?

I. If you asked Abraham for an idea that controlled his life, what do you think it would be?

He was going to live for what was eternal and not temporal.

How do you think that he would have come up with that idea? 

It lay in God's promise to him to make of him a great nation.

He was looking for a city whose builder and maker was God. He left one city he could see and feel and then became a nomad searching for a city that is eternal.

II. How would getting hold of that idea today transform the way we live?

This idea dominated Paul's thinking when he wrote, "Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil 3:20).

This idea dominated Peter's thinking as he repeatedly reminded his readers that we are pilgrims and sojourners in this world (1 Peter 1:1; 1:17; 2:12).