Exodus 33:1-23

1. What do you Desire?

a. Why wouldn’t I want to desire God?

i. A relationship with God is disruptive, it will cost you something.

ii. Are you willing to be inconvenienced by Jesus?

b. What you do – determines what you want.

c. Moses had to work this out.

d. Moses was still receiving the blessing of God without the presence of

God.

2. God is accessible to anyone.

a. God wants to be seen by you.

b. Make it generational.

3. How do we do this practically?

i. Loneliness is the inability to spend time with God.

ii. Muddy water will only become clear when you give it time to

settle.

a. Word

iii. Memorize the word of God.

iv. Psalm 119:11

v. Spending just 5 minutes a day will change everything.

b. Worship

i. Worship is placing God where He rightly deserves.

ii. Humble yourself.

iii. Get together with other believers, fellowship.

c. Prayer

i. Pray as you can, not as you can’t.

4. Ask God one of these questions.

a. God, what are You like?

b. God, what do You want to say to me?

c. God, what do I desire?

d. God, what do You want me to do?

e. God, who do You say that I am?

Psalm 1:1-3

Introduction to the Bible:

*The most popular/preeminent book

7 billion total, 44 million copies per year

*The most powerful/influential book

The Bible is preeminent in influence. Why? Because it has the power to change lives!

*The most precious book

(Matthew 4:4)

I. A manual for life — God has spoken

Christianity is a revealed faith. We cannot find out about God unless God reveals Himself. God has revealed Himself in a person, Jesus Christ. He is God’s ultimate revelation (Hebrews 1:1-2; II Timothy 3:16-17). If it is God’s Word, then it must be our supreme authority for what we believe and how we live. It’s a manual for life.

II. A love letter from God – God speaks

It is also a love letter from God to you. John 5:39-40 The Bible is only so wonderful and exciting because it is about Jesus. It helps us come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

*To those who are not Christians

First, He brings faith to those who are not yet Christians.

*To those who are Christians

Become like Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:18); Joy and peace in the midst of a storm (Psalm 23:5); Guidance (Psalm 119:105); Health/healing (Proverbs 4:20-22); Defense against spiritual attack (Matthew 4:1-11); Power (Hebrews 4:12); Cleansing (John 15:3)

III. How do we hear God speak through the bible?

1. Time, Place, Method

Ask God to speak

Read & study the Bible (What does it say and mean? How does it apply?)

Respond in prayer

Put it into practice

Matthew 7:24

I John 5: 1-5, 11-13

“When someone becomes a Christian he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same any more. A new life has begun.”

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

I. The natural order

1. Cosmological argument

2. Evidential Evidence.

3. Moral Argument.

II. The Word of God

III. The Work of Jesus

IV. The Witness of the Spirit

Acts 2:1-21

I. Love

II. Power

God wants to unleash on the world a passionate, focused, disciplined, humble, Spirit-filled church... Authentic in our expression of the love of God, purity of God and power of God.

III. Purity

The unresolved gap between our confession as a Spirit-filled Christian and the conflicted internal condition of our own lives is the crevice into which the post-modern, emergent culture has fallen.

The great witness of the Holy Spirit is, above all else, a changed heart and a changed life.

Matthew 28:19-20

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Peter replied, ‘Each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gif of the Holy Spirit.’

I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him…

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opening and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “you are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

2 Corinthians 5:14-21

1. You have a new kind of love.

God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

2. You are a new creation.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Or do you have no regard for the wealth of His kindness and tolerance and patience [in withholding His wrath]? Are you [actually] unaware or ignorant [of the fact] that God’s kindness leads you to repentance [that is, to change your inner self, your old way of thinking—seek His purpose for your life]?

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

3. You have a new purpose.

When your life belongs to Jesus you no longer exist for yourself.

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

4. You have a new hope.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.

The Apostles Creed

John 3:16-21

I. THE PROBLEM

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

The pollution of sin:

The power of sin:

The penalty for sin:

The partition of sin:

II. THE SOLUTION

The “self-substitution” of God:

The agony of the Cross:

I choose God’s love.

I pray that you might have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

III. THE RESULT

What do you have to do?

John 4:4-10

1. The things that God calls us to do are greater than the excuses we make.

John 4:11-15

2. We will never be satisfied by anything other than God, and serving God is a great place to start.

John 4:25-30

3. When God calls us to Go — He will equip us.

John 4:31-42

What do you have to do?

Ephesians 2:19-22

• God formed me for his family.

• God’s family is called the church.

• I’m called to belong to his church.

1. In God’s family I learn my true identity.

3. In Christ’s body I discover my unique value.

5. In God’s garden my life becomes productive.

Isaiah 1:18-20

I. Public worship connects us to God.

For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.

II. Public worship inspires us to faithful living.

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

III. Public worship ennobles us for higher purpose.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.