Notes from the sermon I preached after Thanksgiving:
Read Micah 4:1-5
I think the government really messed up. I mean really messed up. See, you maybe thinking that I am talking about one thing, but I am actually talking about another. The government messed up when the named Interstate 75, Interstate 75. They should have named it, “Billboard Parkway”. Riding back from South Georgia one day, I noticed more reading material on that road than in a library.
The billboards are a curious monstrosity. They tell you where to find the best food. They tell you who has the cleanest restrooms. They let you know that the next rest stop is two hundred miles away and usually when your kids have to go really bad. They tell you where you can buy fresh peaches, pecans, and Dairy Queen Blizzards. They lead you to godly places and lead you to the ungodly places (and people think they are being discreet as two hundred thousand people watch them get off at the only stop where the devil is).
There are signs telling you where you have been and where you are headed. And to top it off, the government thought you could not read those two hundred foot signs so they put up little green signs at each exit to repeat what the big signs already told you.
Billboards are great advertising ploys even though they do block out the sun. Traveling hundreds of miles is very easy when you know what’s ahead. The billboards have an advantage over maps because they are quick and to the point about where they hope to lead you.
There are many signs throughout life pointing us in many directions. Judah, the remnant of the once powerful nation of Israel, had plenty of billboards that showed them their future. They saw the split of their great nation. They saw the ruin of their Israelite family in the other kingdom of Israel. They saw the prophets come and go. They saw the Assyrian invasion and the exile of their people. Judah had plenty of signs showing them what their future held, and yet they still chose to ignore those signs from God and lost their influence on the world. Even still, God choose to give them more warnings and more billboards. He even promised a glorious future.
I have so much more hope knowing that God stills speaks to us. But I have even more hope because I understand why God is still speaking to us. God is pointing the people of this world to a glorious future. He wants to work through us to give the world a glimpse of what heaven has in store for all who are willing to take the journey and follow the billboards He is using to guide us.
Because God still speaks of grace for all, our lives become billboards of His influence.
Why would God choose to use us to reveal His grace? What else does God have to say to this world? How do we show God’s influence in our lives to others? There is a way of life we must uphold which leads us to ask…
Are we living as if we have a future like the one described in Micah 4?
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