Go Big For God

Written February 9, 2015

Youth – Go Big for God

One of my favorite shows on Netflix before it was taken off was Dual Survivor. For those unfamiliar with the show it is a program that takes two wilderness survival experts and places them in various terrains where they show how you can survive in a harsh environment.

In one episode the team was in a swamp and one of the survivalists was hunting for food by himself and while he was out he found an alligator and killed it for food. After preparing it for transport he slung it over his shoulder and brought it back to camp. When his teammate started in on him for going after something so dangerous he replied “Go big or go home.”

We’ve all heard that phrase before “Go big or go home.” It is an expression the someone says to encourage another to be extravagant, to go all the way, and do whatever you are doing to its fullest. We use it all the time in school, sports, when we are building something, when we are performing, and everything else in between. We use the phrase to push others and to push ourselves to the very limits of what we can do

When we look at the Scriptures we can see that a Go big or go home attitude is what God wants out of each and every one of us. When Jesus was with His disciples one day He said this to them “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

Essentially Jesus was saying this, “If you want to be one of my disciples, go big or go home.” He wants everything from us and wants us to give Him 110% of our lives, that what He was getting at with the phrase take up your cross. It means die to yourself that you might live for Christ. My earnest hope and prayer is that you will be that sold out and passionate about your Christian life.

Right now in your life you are in that preparatory stage where you are figuring out your college choices, your majors, and your life’s direction. Many of you have your life all planned out and you know how you want things to go. Let me ask, what if you got the life you were dreaming of right now? What would your life’s story be if we were to fast forward in time and you got it all? What would your life look like if all your hopes and dreams were accomplished? What type of story would it tell if you received the education, job, career, and life you’ve always dreamed of?

I bet it would be an amazing story. In fact, let’s fast forward even more and go to the very last day of your dream life. I’ll paint a picture of what I bet it will look like. You’re surrounded by family and friends. You are the current Guinness book of world record holder for the oldest person alive. You are in your room in your beautiful mansion. It is in this surrounding that you will spend your last day before going off into glory. Now, look back at your life. Have you got a clear picture? Once you have that clear picture don’t change it, that breaks the rules.

Now with that picture I want you to gather together all the things you’ve done in your dream life to bring glory to God. Remember, no changing that picture you just had.

Let me ask if we took all those things and put them together into a representative image would you be the survivalist throwing down a big dead alligator saying go big or go home, or would you be holding out a few berries you scavenged along the way saying this is all I could do?

So many times we do not achieve great things for God because we do not attempt great things for God. One of the reasons why we do not attempt great things for God we push Him out of our life’s plans and believe the lie that God is not able to do much through our lives. Rather than dreaming big for God glory we dream big for our own personal glory.

We serve a God too great to attempt small things for Him. We serve a God too good to push Him out of our plans. We serve a God too wonderful to think that following Him and going big in every actions and every dream we have is a bad idea.

Youth when you think about your life and serving God, Go big or go home. Throw every part of your life into God’s hand and dream big! Those dreams might not come about, you might see every soul in Orange county won to Christ, but you might see half. You might not see the international slave trade end, but you might deal it a death blow. Your dreams might not come about but it will not be because God is not big enough to do it. Here’s the thing, none of those grand visions and dreams will come about if you never have them, never pursue them, and never give yourself over totally to Christ. You can’t say you went big if everything of who you are is not given over to Christ. My prayer for each of you is that God would work in amazing ways in your lives. The only way that can occur is if your lives are in His hands.

So how bout it? Is your life, your hopes, and dreams all in Jesus’ hands? Jesus is calling out “Follow me.” But as He says that there is also the call that when you do you “Go big or go home!”

I’ll leave you with a few verses of an old hymn that I think speaks well to the topic at hand. It is called “Is Your All on the Alter.”

Would you walk with the Lord,

In the light of His word,

And have peace and contentment always?

You must do His sweet will,

To be free from all ill,

On the altar your all you must lay.

Oh, we never can know

What the Lord will bestow

Of the blessings for which we have prayed,

Till our body and soul

He doth fully control,