Matthew 6:25-34

What you think about God has everything to do with how you live your life.

1. God is always working.

Obed Edem (2 Samuel 6)

Where the presence of God is, you can expect to see the works of God.

Don’t just chalk things up to coincidence. God is always working.

2. God works in our failures.

Sampson (Judges 16)

You can expect that even despite ourselves God will see us through to the very end.

For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again

3. God works in the mundane.

Water into wine (John 2)

If it matters to you it matters to God because you matter to God.

4. God works in our victory.

Psalm 127

“Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.”

When Satan undertook to draw Eve away from God, he did not hit her with a stick, but with an idea. It was with an idea that God could not be trusted and that she must act on her own to secure her own well-being.

Don’t be confused, God is in the middle of every victory and every failure, that’s not the issue – The issue is whether or not you will acknowledge it.

Ephesians 6:1-3

God is clear on this subject. If you honor your father and your mother you will be blessed. One of the 10 Commandments includes this admonition. Honor your father and mother. Why is it so important?

1. Every parent is flawed.

2. You would not be alive without them.

3. God chose their DNA to make you unique.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb… Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How do I honor my mother through the seasons of life? As a child, I honor my father and mother by…

1. Obeying them

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

As an adolescent/teenager, I honor my father and mother by…

1. Respecting them

Each of you must respect his mother and father.

Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it…

2. Listening to them

A wise son heeds his father’s instruction, but a mocker does not respond to rebukes.

Listen to your father, who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.

As an adult, I honor my father and mother by…

1. Appreciating them

When your mother is old, show her your appreciation.

May your father and mother rejoice; may she who gave you birth be joyful!

Your parents have an intense need to know they made a positive impact on your life.

2. Providing for them

[In your church] treat the older women as you would your own mother, and treat the younger women as your own sisters…The Church should care for any widow who has no one else to care for her. But if she has children or grandchildren, their first responsibility is to show godliness at home and repay their parents by taking care of them…This is something that please God.

My father and mother may abandon me, but the Lord will take care of me.

Romans 12:1-2

What you think about God has everything to do with how you will live your life.

Past generations looked to God and the Bible for determining morality and truth.

Our feelings should subject themselves to what is true rather than developing your worldview based on how you feel.

Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its mold.

He created them male and female and He blessed them. And named them mankind when they were created.

No one ever discovers their true identity, their true self, their true purpose in this world apart from a relationship with Jesus Christ.

II Corinthians 4:8-10

I believe that standing for orthodoxy is exciting, faithful, courageous, challenging, hard (in the face of today’s culture) and right.

I think standing for a changing, shifting, progressive culture/church is boring, easy, compromising, lazy and bankrupt.

The Thrill of Orthodoxy

The Boredom of Progressivism

The Excitement of Orthodoxy

Christianity is radically inclusive!

Christianity is also radically exclusive!

Marriage and Gender Issues Matter

Stand Up for Jesus

Luke 6:36-40

Luke 6:20-26

Here’s the challenge: don’t settle for success, security and acceptance when Jesus has immeasurably more waiting for you.

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Giving breaks the curse of selfishness that we all struggle with so we can experience the kind of peace, contentment and extravagant joy that can only come from God!

When your finances don’t measure up: Give money

When your schedule doesn’t measure up: Give time

When your relationship doesn’t measure up: Give love

When God doesn’t measure up: Give Him all that you are

Mark 4:21-25

I. Come to worship prayerfully

II. Come to worship hungering for truth

III. Come to worship without prearranged agenda

IV. Come to worship asking to hear at the deepest level

I Corinthians 15:3-8

There were many eyewitnesses at Jesus’ death.

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

Psalm 150

I. Worship with our regenerated spirit.

a. Worship in spirit

b. Singing spiritual songs

c. Giving thanks by the spirit

II. Worship with our renewed mind.

a. Worship with intelligent obedience.

b. Pray with understanding.

c. Praise with understanding.

III. Worship with our revived emotions.

a. Shouting and clapping hands unto the Lord

b. Rejoicing and expressing thanksgiving

c. Being silent before the Lord

IV. Worship with our rededicated body.

a. Kneeling in worship

b. Bowing heads

c. Raising heads

d. Lifting hands

e. Waving hands in praise

f. Dancing with joy before the Lord

Psalm 100

Worship defined: Worship in truth and spirit is experiencing/encountering God.

I. Serve God (with praise & adoration)

Worship is seeing what God is worth and giving him what he’s worth.

I’ve experienced God’s presence most powerfully in worship, often during the singing, I suppose because when we sing to him, we are looking hard in his direction.

Christian worship is the most momentous, the most urgent, the most glorious action that can take place in human life.

The world can be saved by one thing and that is worship. For to worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.

II. Serve people (with His sufficiency)

In His presence is fullness of joy.

Mark 2:21-22

“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”

I. Revival is God-breathed not program planned.

II. You really cannot stop something that you didn’t start.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.