Better (Sermon Series week one)


Better week one—Intro

· Video - https://skitguys.com/videos/item/new-years-confessions
· All make resolutions. Why? We want some area of our life to be better than it was last year.
· “Good to great” quote

“Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.” ― Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

· We settle for a good life, why? Because good is normal.
· We love normal but long for better.
· Not just us, God wants us to be better
· God cares about you. Fathers care about their kids
· Normal keeps us from better
· Little habits, behaviors that keep you stuck in normal
· Normal—always being late, always blaming them, not being able to say I’m sorry, silent treatment, blowing up, having extra piece of cake, putting it on a credit card when you don’t have money, normal is not spending quality time with spouse, kids, friends.
· Normal is invisible to us.

Things to know about normal
1) Normal is the enemy of better
· Just because you’ve always done it a certain way doesn't mean it’s best.
· Ex. Just because you've been an auto mechanic 20 years doesn't make you a good one
· Never solve a problem you are not willing to admit you have.
· Ex. Bungee cord game.
· We try to run toward better but normal keeps pulling us back.
· We say, "Devil you know better than the devil you don’t know." But not true.
2) Normal is easy
· Normal just seems to happen. No effort.
· Ex. Kids normal is fighting, manners not.
· Ex. Friend doesn’t want to change because it’s easy.
3) Normal isn’t working
· Until you’re willing to admit normal isn’t working, and put forth the effort to change, you will stay in the same place you are now


Jesus isn’t normal, he’s better
· Jesus doesn't do things the way I do things.
· That’s what made Him so radical.
· Love your enemies, pray for those you can’t stand.
· Last shall be first,.
· Gain your life, you have to lose it.
· Peter even tried to tame Jesus
· If Jesus is really God, wouldn’t he know how to do things better?

Matthew 10:17-21
· Most of us we want Jesus to give us a boost, make our life better without us changing a thing.
· Jesus isn’t here to help you carry it any longer, he here to help you put it down.
· Enemy wants to convince us that better is really worse.
· Study any person in the bible and you will see most had to go back before they moved forward.
· Why? Because God wants a relationship of trust.
· Step away, step back, trust God.
· Jesus modeled this I the garden. He was life, but stepped back to death.
· You will always have to go through worse to get to better.
· Matthew 10:22
· He went back to normal, what he knew, what’s comfortable.

· Why are resolutions so hard to keep? Because they’re not normal.
· Change is not normal.
· You know what’s normal? Your divorce, your debt, your sin.
· But it’s not better.
· Don’t you long for better.

· What’s your normal?
· What can you do TODAY?

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