A Hard Drive, Not a Hard Head: Simplify Your Life and Win

Sermon outline

You win by simplifying: lay aside the sin, ignorance and stubbornness that complicate your life, stay open-minded to God's Word, handle your time, money and relationships with knowledge, wisdom and understanding, and then be still and watch God move.

1. Stay thankful and do not resist the truth

   Reading Paul's description of the last days, he stops at "unthankful": when you lose your gratitude, God will not give you what you expect of him. If you wonder why you are not proceeding any further, look at those who resisted the truth, because you can sit under the Word, nod your head and still resist it. What to hold on to is Paul's testimony that the Lord delivered him out of every persecution, and that the scriptures make you wise and thoroughly furnished.

   “This I know, that out of them all, the Lord will deliver you.”

   • 2 Timothy 3:1-17

2. Refuse to be distracted

   From Hebrews 12 he draws the purpose of the whole talk: lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets you, and run with perseverance, looking to Jesus. What he takes from the verse and passes on is a single instruction, which he tells the note-takers to write down.

   “Jesus is the beginner and the completer of your faith.”

   • Hebrews 12:1-2

3. Have a hard drive, not a hard head

   He has them underline wisdom, revelation, knowledge and understanding in Ephesians 1 and Proverbs 16:16. Your spirit is like a computer's hard drive: God uses it to lead you, speak to you and download revelation, and revelation brings results. A hard head is no better than a stubborn mule. God wants to take you to your destiny quickly, so that what would have taken twenty years is done in five.

   Illustration: The rods the tribes laid up in the tabernacle: one budded and bore fruit without being planted, a fast-tracking of time that God can do in your life.

   “God wants you to have a hard drive, not a hard head.”

   • Ephesians 1:15-21
   • Proverbs 16:16
   • Proverbs 4:7
   • Proverbs 20:27
   • Numbers 17:8

4. Three things that complicate your life

   Satan tries to make life complex, but God wants you to enjoy your life. He names three complications. Number one is sin, number two is the lack of knowledge, and number three is hardness of heart, when you are stubborn, unteachable and nobody can correct you. Together they keep you from knowing God, the stress crowds out time for him, and in the end people practise religion, coming in and out of church with no love or joy in it.

   Illustration: A theft leads to a charge, an arrest and a court case, and adultery leads to ducking and diving and more sin to cover the first. What was a simple life is now complicated.

   “Sin complicates life, but then obedience to the word of God simplifies life.”

5. Keep your life simple and you will know God

   The challenge is to keep your life simple, because then you can receive two things: light and understanding. Knowing God depends on three steps: managing complications, eliminating them fully from your life, and so coming to the place where God reveals more of himself to you. There are two ways to know him more: study his Word, and prayer and fellowship. When the devil dangles a carrot, remember that you may enjoy sin for a season but it brings a whole lot of complications.

   “When you keep your life simple, you will receive two things. One is light. And two is understanding.”

   • 2 Timothy 2:15

6. Martha and Mary: choose what is needful and turn to stillness

   Martha is his example of a stressed person, cumbered about with much serving, while her sister chose to sit at Jesus' feet. Being busy yet ineffective is a sign of spiritual growths that need cutting away, and people weighed down by complications tend to be critical of others. This is not a call to ignore responsibilities or be lazy. Identify the marks of a complicated life, make good choices and reject the bad ones that keep you from your destiny.

   Illustration: He describes himself as a surgeon using words, with the Spirit of God as the scalpel cutting away the things that encumber his hearers.

   “If you live a simplified life, you'll have more time for God.”

   • Luke 10:38-41
   • Hebrews 12:1

7. Time, money and relationships

   God has given you three things: time, money and relationships. If you can handle them you will succeed and come to your wealthy place, and what you need for that is knowledge, wisdom and understanding. The man void of understanding ends up with the overgrown field and broken wall of Proverbs 24. Shouting and jumping in church is fine, but without understanding you are going nowhere, so have a plan with goals from one day to thirty years.

   Illustration: Packing the car for a holiday without knowing where you are going. At the very least you need a map and a route.

   “If you ain't going anywhere, you're not going to end up anywhere.”

   • Proverbs 16:16
   • Proverbs 24:30-34

8. Knowledge, wisdom and understanding defined

   He dictates three definitions. Knowledge is the acquisition of information, facts and data, known by observation, reflection and experience. Wisdom is applied knowledge: knowledge is the foundation and wisdom is the structure. Understanding is the ability to mentally organise the information you have gathered and arrange it with what you already know so that it fits together in the best way. With these at work he sees the poor becoming wealthy, the sick healthy and broken relationships reconciled.

   “Wisdom is the ability to make knowledge produce the desired result.”

   • Job 8:7

9. Understanding comes to the simple: open-minded and uncomplicated

   He returns to the word he promised to explain. Simple does not mean below average in intelligence. He says the Hebrew root means being open-minded, believing every word, without the reasoning Jesus rebuked. God wants men and women of accurate understanding with the mind of Christ, and he tells them to stop saying they have a bad memory because words have a powerful effect.

   Illustration: After he used the word "simple" on one of his TV programmes, another preacher came on air and rebutted it as meaning simple-minded. He also pictures a loom of many-coloured wires in a motor car, all bunched up, as a complicated person, and tells how he ends his morning prayers with his hands on his forehead saying, "I have the mind of Christ."

   “It means to be open-minded and uncomplicated.”

   • Psalm 119:130
   • Mark 2:8
   • 1 Corinthians 2:16
   • Proverbs 10:7
   • Mark 11:23

10. Receive the messenger and you receive the miracle

    Being open-minded includes how you receive the person God sends. People who knew him years ago visited the church and left because they could not receive him, just as Nazareth saw only the carpenter's son and Jesus could do no mighty work there. God will often send your breakthrough through a messenger you do not like. He asks the church to receive him as their pastor, points to the results as his answer to critics, and tells them to put away racial prejudice.

    Illustration: He asks a visiting pastor from Umlazi to stand and says the man came with a blood disease the doctors could not heal and was healed in the church.

    “If you refuse the messenger, you've refused the message and you've refused the miracle.”

    • Mark 6:3-5

11. Be still and know that I am God

    He reads the whole of Psalm 46 and explains verse 10. Being still does not mean being idle or unproductive. He defines still as to abate, to cease, to let go or stop: letting go of the challenges, worries and anxieties that encumber you. To know, he says, means to ascertain by seeing: look at what the Lord has done for others and know he can do it for you.

    “Being still simply means simplify your life.”

    • Psalm 46:1-11