Screaming Brakes and Outta' Gas

Have you ever had problems with your car?! Come on, let me see how many of you drove here tonight. Well I have definitely had my fair share of car problems over the years. Even just in the last three weeks I’ve had car problems. Tyler’s car got a flat tire and it totally messed up the rim. We had to replace it. It was way beyond any repair! Then, oh yeah, there’s more! So after that my vans front brakes start screaming at me every time I would use them to stop. I mean it was metal on metal. If rotors could speak they would be sayin’ ouch! That’s still not it because then my wife, Jeanna, comes inside and says “Pat have you heard the front brakes on the car?! It sounds like they need replaced!” Too bad the gas gage doesn’t scream at ya like the brakes do. That’s right, in the last three months I have ran out of gas twice and my wife gave me a hard time about it, but guess who she called two weeks ago when she was out of gas? That’s right I went and took her gas with a big smile on my face! To top it off she was only three miles from Glidden which means she blew right past Grand Junction where there was a Casey’s.

Oh if only our gas gages would scream at us when we are running low. I believe many times that our lives can be kind of like our cars. We sometimes run them with very little gas and only fix them when their screaming. God never intended us to be running through life out of gas.That’s right with out vision for our lives we are out of gas! The vision is the gas that brings movement to the car of your destiny. If we don’t have gas in the tank if we don’t have vision for our life we will have absolutely no movement towards our destiny.

If we don’t have any gas in the tank called vision we are not going to get where God called us to be. God is on the move and we need to have to have the gas of vision for our lives if we are going to follow and keep up with Him. I can think of a couple times in my life where momentum has taken over. One was back when I used to speed skate. We use to have relay competitions and instead of passing a baton we push one another for the tag or hand off. I remember one time being tagged so hard in practice by a man named Danti Muse that I couldn’t even do my crossovers around the turn. All I could do was lean and pray that I wouldn’t wipeout. He had propelled me and sent me moving at a momentum that was way beyond me. His momentum took over my movement. That’s what Christianity is all about. It’s about us surrendering our movement for his momentum and allowing Him to propel us into the person according to his pace and his tempo.

Vision creates movement!Church wasn’t ever intended to be just a place or meeting. NO! It is supposed to be a place where we receive vision for our lives that compels us to go after our dreams and to do great things in our community for God and His kingdom. See God has a divine purpose and vision for each and everyone of you. It is that purpose that is the gas that creates movement in your life. I don’t want to stand still friends! I want to be meeting with God I don’t want to be coasting downstream and being conformed to this world. No! Instead I want to be propelled by God to swim upstream with momentum against the current of the world in such a way that others would want to follow. That my life would bear life and bring life to a new generation of people. I believe that is the desire of everyone’s heart here tonight.

See God created you to move because vision brings movement!Proverbs 16:9 “A mans heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” See we want to do something with our life. But its God who helps us get there. Noone here tonight wants to just exist. I don’t think anyone is here to just waste some time. No instead we want Gods vision and insight for our lives. Psalms 37:4 says “Delight yourself also in the Lord and he shall give you the desires of your heart.” See God is letting us know that if we desire to follow Him He will take us step by step until we achieve the desires of our heart. Not only that but it is when we delight in Him that our hearts true desires are revealed. So many times especially when we are in our youth we want to grow by leaps and bounds. We don’t want to wait until tomorrow and definitely not next year.

No, we want things now. But God didn’t create us to grow by leaps and bounds but instead by steps and by going through different seasons of life. See if we just continue to take steps and be consistent and remain faithful. He won’t let us be shaken and will give us the momentum to get to our destination. My friends I’ve got good news for you tonight because sometimes we get the wrong idea and think that if God would just show up tonight in my prayer time I would be able to get through this tough time and I would grow in leaps and bounds. But true spiritual momentum just comes by step after step. That’s right, when you begin to take steps in Gods direction for your life and continue to follow His voice He will get you on the move toward your dreams. Sometimes we get so caught up in taking the big strides in life so that others will notice us and instead we fall short and end up not even taking a step. See how many of you have had an awesome encounter with God and then just felt like man, tomorrow I’m going to go to school and win my entire class to Christ only to go home that night without winning one and then not trying again because it didn’t happen.See its not that God didn’t want you to win your grade to Him or your entire school but instead He wants you to celebrate your victories and learn from the upsets so He can grow you into the one that one day will move in leaps and bounds for Him in His kingdom through momentum.

Are you getting this thing about vision? See sometimes God gives us a vision for our lives and we misunderstand the times. Then when we go and try to fulfill the vision and it doesn’t happen we get upset and down ourselves. Then we think were just a failure. Instead of taking it step by step and realizing that God is growing us. Realizing we are gaining knowledge and wisdom that will become the momentum to fulfill the vision. See David was working as a shepard and killed the Lion and the Bear before he ever went after the giant.

See I believe that God is telling us that we must win the smaller battles and victories in life before we go after the big ones. Students do your best to win just one friend to the Lord and when you do celebrate the victory and then go win another. Successes like that will build confidence in yourself that you can and will do great things for the Lord. Which will lead you step by step to the momentum that God gives you to fulfill the vision or purpose for your life. Some of you maybe thinking I don’t know what my vision is or if I have a vision. Let me tell you weather you know it or not you have one because in Jeremiah 29:11 God says to you “For I know the plans that I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give hope and a future.”See a vision isn’t something that can be taught its something that needs to be caught.


The way that you catch your vision is by focusing on who you are in Christ right now. See we catch Gods heart and His vision by spending time with Him. We catch it by being who we are today. Remember God is always moving so if we stay connected to Him, He will move with us. He shows us this vision so that we have something to aim for without knowing what the target or destination is how would we know if we are taking the right steps. A hunter cant kill his game if he doesn’t know what it looks like or where to shoot it. Gods not going to give you a plan without showing you a hope for the future. Nor is he going to give you a future hope without a plan to get you there.

So the future hope is the vision for your life and the daily steps with God is the plan that gets you there. So if our heart plans our way and the Lord directs our steps, the vision will lead us to success. In Acts chapter 5, Peter and the apostles were living out Gods plan for their lives and were arrested for it. Then an angel of the Lord set them free. But the next day they were arrested again except this time the Jewish leaders wanted to kill them. Then a man with high respect in the Jewish community named Gamaliel said in Acts 5:38-39 “Keep away from theses men and let them alone, for if this plan or this work is of men it will come to nothing, but if it is of God you cannot overthrow it, lest you even be found to fight against God. See if its Gods plan it will succeed but if its not there’s a good chance it will fail. Here, over 2,000 years later their plan is still being lived out by us. That’s definitely of God.

So what’s your vision? What’s your plan? What’s God got for you? Is He directing your steps? See everyone of us has a major choice in life! We can either choose to listen to the enemy, the dream killer, or to listen to God, the dream giver so let’s see what we can get from God through His story of David and Goliath. 1 Samuel 17:31-40 explains that David caught what Gods plan was for him. He saw that there was a cause worth fighting for. Then King Saul tried to shoot down his plans by reminding him that he was only 16 years old and that this 9 ½ foot giant had been eating grown men in battles since David was sucking his thumb. Then in verse 34 David said to Saul “Your servant has been keeping his fathers sheep. Saul must have been like oh yeah! Then David’s like yeah! And when a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me I seized it by its beard, struck it and killed it.

See if we let the enemy reign over our friends its only a matter of time and they will be devoured and then he will be at our back door looking to do the same to us.Let’s back up because I want you to get this point in 1 Samuel 17:9 Goliath said if he is able to fight and kill me we will become your subjects but if I overcome him and kill him you will become our subjects and serve us. So David goes on to say your servant has killed both the lion and the bear, this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, will deliver me from this Philistine. See David didn’t fight Lions and Bears he fought A lion and A bear. He didn’t fight the Philistines he fought A Philistine. See many times when you defeat the enemy in someones life the enemy in others lives runs as well. Just like the Philistines did.

So we need to get the victory with one before going after the many. But the one will lead to many. Saul dressed David up in his very own battle gear but after trying it on David said I cannot go in this because Im not used to it. See God wants you to be you and for you to go into battle knowing he is with you. So what does David do? He grabs his staff, five smooth stones from the stream, and his sling. Then heads off to slay a giant!

DAVID had a vision, but what about YOU??

Do you have a giant to slay in a friends life, or your own?

Are your brakes screaming?

Are you outta gas?

Gods got an unlimited supply of power through the Holy Spirit for your life. That will keep your life (your brakes!) from screaming.

God Bless

-Patrick Grant