Thrive Part 7

Abide in Christ

         Last week, we continued our series, Thrive, with more on the topic of prayer. One of the most important tie ins with prayer is our connection with the indwelling Holy Spirit in our lives. Holy Spirit is the very Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus, tied together with us in our daily lives. Living inside us, guiding us, convicting us, comforting us, counseling us, teaching us, advocating for us through Christ before the Father, identifying us as children of God, adopted into the family of God, co-heirs with Christ, priests and priestesses, princes and princesses, empowering us to know God’s will and to follow it, and producing all the facets of the Fruit of the Spirit within us. It seems like Holy Spirit has a lot of responsibilities in our daily lives. Yet we hardly make use of that connection; we barely scratch the surface of what is possible, and it’s not because God isn’t willing to enter our lives. It’s because we don’t want him interfering with our plans, desires, and ideas. We want to bend God’s will to our own. In order to justify doing that, we change the very essence of who Jesus was and why he was here. We change the Word of God to suit ourselves. And we end up following an imaginary Jesus who is absolutely powerless to help us overcome the trials and temptations of life. Any time we pick and choose from the scriptures what we want to believe and what we don’t; any time we insert our “the Bible says, but…” We leave the path and begin following a false Gospel.

         When we reach John chapter 14, Jesus and closest disciples are walking in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives right after the Last Supper. Jesus begins to teach his disciples about the advocate, the other comforter, that God will send to them in his place, because he tells them he is going to be with the Father. He has predicted his death and resurrection, and he is telling his disciples what it’s going to mean for them going forward to follow him when he is no longer right in front of him. Hear the words of Jesus as he is speaking with his disciples.

         John 14:15-17,22-26

‘“If you love me, you will obey my commandments. Then I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he resides with you and will be in you.

“Lord,” Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “what has happened that you are going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him. The person who does not love me does not obey my words. And the word you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me. “I have spoken these things while staying with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will cause you to remember everything I said to you.’

In our lives, as we try to follow Jesus and know him better, we submit ourselves to God in prayer. However, as we talked about last week; we hit obstacles in our prayer lives that inhibit our ability to find fellowship with God. In order to avoid blockades to prayer, it helps to know prayer’s purpose. Wonderfully, Jesus explains this to his disciples during this same conversation with them on the working of Holy Spirit in their lives, he says:

         John 15:7-10

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

This passage immediately follows Jesus as he describes our relationship with the Father and himself as the Vine and the Branches. How many of you can at least quote part of this from memory? I am not putting it on the screen, but I am sure this will sound very familiar. Jesus said,

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ‘

John 15:1-6

By a show of hands, how many of you have heard a message preached at some point in your lives about “bearing fruit”? Okay, how many of you have heard a message about bearing fruit is to make disciples? The more disciples you make the more fruit you are bearing? I know I have heard many of those messages preached in my life.

         However, Jesus is teaching about Holy Spirit’s work in our lives to glorify God. He is teaching about obedience to his commands. He is teaching about the third great commandment. To love one another as he has loved us. He is teaching about how our love and obedience will lead to his joy and our joy being complete. Jesus is teaching about the Fruit of the Spirit. Paul says, the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

In English, to remain means primarily to continue in the same state or in the same place. To abide means primarily to remain, continue, and stay; it also means to reside or dwell, to make one’s home. The Hebrew idea behind these words is to tabernacle. The Tabernacle was the place where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. It was also the place the Spirit of God lived or dwelled for the Hebrew people. Within the Tabernacle was the Holy of Holies; the place where to enter unclean meant death. Jesus says to live in him and he will live in us through his Holy Spirit.

So, the phrase “abiding in Christ” pictures an intimate relationship, and not just a superficial acquaintance.oHo

To abide in Christ’s love, we follow his commands, which means knowing Scripture, “the word of Christ” (Colossians 3:16). Listen to this passage of Colossians 3:15-17,

‘Let the peace of Christ be in control in your heart (for you were in fact called as one body to this peace), and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.’

As we increase in the knowledge of Jesus, we will also increase in love for him, which drives us to our knees in repentance. When you know Jesus and what he has done for you, it becomes progressively easier to turn from the ugliness of sin to the beauty of the Savior.

As we come to know and love Jesus, our prayers will be increasingly transformed. This will change how, why, and what we ask of him. We will love what he loves, hate what he hates, and desire what he desires. We will learn to submit to his timing in answering because we are learning to trust him more.

1 John 2:24-29

‘As for you, what you have heard from the beginning must remain in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. Now this is the promise that he himself made to us: eternal life. These things I have written to you about those who are trying to deceive you. Now as for you, the anointing that you received from him resides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, it is true and is not a lie. Just as it has taught you, you reside in him. And now, little children, remain in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink away from him in shame when he comes back. If you know that he is righteous, you also know that everyone who practices righteousness has been fathered by him.’

As our Father, God delights to give good gifts to his children (Luke 11:5-13). Knowing we ask according to his will, we can have faith that he will answer us, even when his answer doesn’t align with our understanding or timetable. When doubt still comes, we reject it and turn to our forgiving and compassionate God who will bolster our faith. We come to God humbly in prayer through Jesus, who opened the way for us to do so by removing all blockades to communion with God when he defeated sin and death.

Yes, we will still struggle with the flesh and the world; therefore our requests may be tainted, and our ability to notice God’s answers may be clouded. So we cling to Psalm 37:4: “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Jesus has changed those who love him, delighting us in himself. Even when we don’t know how to ask or receive, he sees what we truly want—to know him, love him, and bear fruit for him—and knows how and when to provide and answer.

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Thrive Part Six

Hear our Prayer

Many books and even more sermons have been written on the topic of prayer than almost any other topic in Christianity. It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that I heard a series from Dr. Tony Evans that started to make sense in my life. My family and I had been members of a para-church ecumenical charismatic community of believers called the People of Praise. Our meetings were considered ‘private’ because they didn’t want to biblically violate the 1 Corinthians instructions for church gatherings and order in services, but it was the kind of place where, like in any pentacostal gathering, people would speak in tongues (not biblical tongues, but a babbling “prayer language”, usually without an interpretation), be slain in the Spirit, there were occasionally legitimate healings taking place, but the were also those who needed to be healed of the same ailments over and over again week after week. I ran into issues when they would say, “We teach”, and I would respond “But the Bible says” and they would say, “But we teach.”

After all that, obviously, anyone might be confused about the true nature and purpose of prayer. This is also a place where, as I mentioned last week, people would take the LORD’s name and authority upon themselves, and when God didn’t act according to what they said his will was, the faith of individuals, like myself, would be injured and shaken. Around the time we left the People of Praise, I heard a sermon series by Dr. Evans on Moody Radio that started to make sense. The series was in essence, why God wouldn’t hear our prayer and how our prayer could be hindered. Since the early 2010s, I have seen more articles and books come out regarding hindrances to our prayer lives. You may have heard it said that God always listens to our prayers, but we can find evidence to the contrary within the scriptures. Our prayer lives can be disrupted, our prayers can be hindered, and there are times when God may not hear our prayers.

Last week, we focused read the brief passage from The Screwtape Letters, where Uncle Screwtape told his nephew, Wormwood, to have the patient focus on how he feels during prayer and what feels he is able to create within himself rather than being empowered by God through his prayer. We must all admit; God can seem far away when we pray. It can feel like I’m beating my head against a wall. My prayers feel repetitive, self-indulgent, short, and they seemingly go unanswered.

There are times when I pray, my prayers are often filled with a wish list of things I want. Instead of being a time of communion with my Savior, prayer becomes a means to an end, and that end is self. Instead of praying for God’s will to be revealed, I try to impress my will upon God. In Partners in Prayer,  John Maxwell shares ten things that act as “prayer killers.” Other writers focus on fewer hinderances to prayer. Let’s look into scripture and see what we can learn about hinderances to our prayers.

The very first should be obvious and should go without needing to be said, but most of our culture misses this one. God is under no obligation to listen to or answer any prayers of those who have not accepted his gift of his Son’s death on the cross, his burial, and resurrection for the forgiveness of our sins. For God to hear our prayers, we must enter into a relationship with him. So for an unbeliever, the one prayer God is guaranteed to hear and respond to is one of confession, repentance, and surrender. As simple as, “God, I believe you to be who you say you are, and I know that I haven’t lived up to your perfect standards. I accept the forgiveness your Son, Jesus, has bought for me with his death. I want to turn my life over to your will and your ways, and I ask for your Holy Spirit’s guidance in my life from here forward.” Such is a prayer that God will always hear and respond to. It is not a sacri-magical cure-all and the exact wording doesn’t matter, but it must come from your very soul and be sincere.

Once we have gotten that far, what does scripture say about what can hinder our prayers?

1. Ignoring God’s Word

Proverbs 28:9

If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.

If someone, even a professed believer, refuses to hear and heed God’s discipline and guidance, their prayers become detestable to the Lord.

This includes a rejection of the Bible’s authority as God’s revealed Word. If you reject God’s primary communication about Jesus and his work, how can you know him? You don’t love the real Jesus; your imaginary Jesus is powerless to answer prayers.

2. Loving Sin

Psalm 66:18

“If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”

The New Living Translation says,

‘If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.’

Our prayers won’t be heard if we “cherish iniquity,” holding unrepentantly to some sin. This is loving our sin more than loving God. As we read the context of these verses, not only will he not listen and hear, he will also reject our prayers and will withhold his favor also translated “love” from us. This does not include a believer struggling with a recurring sin who regularly and humbly repents, but this is anyone who willfully harbors sin and refuses to repent. We always have the promise in 1 John to be restored and cleansed, being made righteous.

1 John 1:8-10 says,

‘If we say we do not bear the guilt of sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. ‘

To restore our right relationship with him, we go to him with a prayer of confession and repentance, and then those hinderances will melt away.

James, the half-brother of Jesus makes several points regarding prayer within his letter to believers.

First,

3. Lack of Faith

         James 1:5-8

‘But if anyone is deficient in wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without reprimand, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed around by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, since he is a double-minded individual, unstable in all his ways.’

This idea of being double-minded is a person like one with a split personality. Not only do they say one thing and do another, they are not even sure what it is they actually believe and follow the latest fads of faith and whatever suits what they want to believe rather than standing firm on what the Bible says. They are the house built on the sand that crumbles into the sea. They are incapable of hearing from God or receiving the gifts he has for them.

         James makes two points in this next passage.

         James 4:2-3

You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

4. Not Asking

The first is that we don’t ask God for his help. I’ve fallen into this many times, either when I think my prayers are insignificant or selfish, or when I try to do things in my own power.

5. Asking with Wrong Motives

James’ second point speaks to our motivations. He writes this after saying that we’re too often ruled by our desires, and just as our unchecked passions may lead to quarreling and sin, they can inhibit our relationship with God, including his response to our prayers.

6. Lack of transparency with God and others

         James 5:15-16 says,

‘And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up – and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness.’

James is sharing a fundamental truth about God: When we confess our sins to one another, which requires us to be open and vulnerable, God is able to heal and cleanse us. We experience a spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental relief and restoration. This is why, in 12-step programs, the fifth step is to admit our shortcomings to God, to ourselves, and to one other human being. You don’t need to broadcast this on public radio, it’s about being transparent with someone. It also helps us have a sense of accountability before someone else and before God to not repeat the same mistakes.

7. Resentment and Unforgiveness

         During the Sermon on the Mount, immediately after introducing the pattern for prayer that we know as the Lord’s Prayer Jesus says,

Matthew 6:14-15

“For if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you your sins.’

Being forgiven and forgiveness are two sides of the same coin. By harboring unforgiveness in our hearts, by holding on to those resentments, we are also blocking God’s ability to forgive us and answer our prayers. By the same token, if we know someone has a resentment against us, we need to clear up our side of the street. Before Jesus teaches his disciples about prayer, after the Beatitudes, he teaches about anger and hatred, at that time he said,

Matthew 5:23-24

‘So then, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your gift.’

Not only are we making ourselves right with God and our fellows by doing this, we are also potentially helping the other person overcome some resentment or unforgiveness in their life.

         These seven areas are areas of our lives that we can consciously submit to God in prayer and his Holy Spirit will empower us to have a more effective prayer life. There are other roadblocks and hinderances that can come into our lives when we pray. For instance, putting anything before God in our lives in the form of idolatry (Ezekiel14:3), living in disunity or being unloving toward our fellow Christians, dishonoring who God is, putting our will before his own, husbands should know the way they treat their wives could lead to their prayers being hindered (1 Peter 3:7), but the biggest thing that helps us is to really understand the purpose of prayer. The purpose in prayer is intimacy with God, understanding who God truly is, becoming the people God wants us to be, and following his will and ways more closely. Martin Luther said it well,  “God wants us to pray, and he wants to hear our prayers – not because we are worthy, but because he is merciful.”

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Thrive Part 5

Hotline to Heaven

I seriously can’t believe we are already in the fifth and final Sunday of January. For the past four weeks, we have been talking about what it really means to thrive in this life. If you remember, to thrive means to be successful, to be prosperous, and to flourish. If we are going to thrive in this life, last week, maybe we realized that we need to redefine success and prosperity when we determine what it means to flourish. For believers in Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior, financial prosperity and success in achieving material goals should not be our first measure when we think of what it means to flourish. Many early believers were persecuted, beaten, hounded and killed for their faith; yet I would say they thrived in a manner few in the 21^st century truly do.

On January 1^st, I asked us as a congregation to make a resolution to take it SLOW this year. That we would resolve to Serve, Love, Obey, and Worship to thrive in our faith in Jesus and impact our community and our world for Christ. We’ve talked about four ways, four phrases that help guide us when it comes to living in a right relationship with God and our fellows here on earth. To have faith, do good, show love, and do the next right thing. Then for the last two weeks, we talked about how confession and repentance open the doors for the flow of the Spirit to flow through us and out into the world. We don’t want to quench or grieve the Spirit but instead open up the flood gates of heaven showing love, forgiveness, mercy, grace, contentment, and joy, and restoring our brothers and sisters in gentleness and humility by bringing one another into closer fellowship with our God.

This morning, going to start talking again about our Hotline to Heaven, PRAYER!

I said before, second to our salvation, the most important part of our relationship with God is our prayer life… From the beginning of time, God has been trying to commune with his creation. He takes great join from being able to have a relationship with us. So much so, he sent his one and only Son, Jesus, to die as an atoning sacrifice to cover our multitude of sins with his Son’s righteousness. Added to that, he gives us his indwelling Holy Spirit so that he can be in the closest possible fellowship with us, living within us… Yet, we commonly neglect talking with, fellowshipping with, communing with our Father in heaven.

I’ll remind you of Commissioner Gordon’s red bat phone in his office in Gotham city. Whenever there was a big problem, Gordon would ring up Batman and Robin to come and save the day.

We have the indwelling Holy Spirit. Paul tells us,

Romans 8:26-27 NET

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes on behalf of the saints according to God’s will.

This issue is so important, in CS Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, Uncle Screwtape writes this to his nephew, the young tempter, Wormwood…

“Whenever they are attending to the Enemy Himself, we are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so.  The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves.  Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings there by their own wills.  When they meant to ask Him for charity, let them instead start trying to manufacture charitable feelings for themselves and not notice that this is what they are doing.  When they meant to pray for courage, let them really be trying to feel brave.  When they say they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven.  Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling…”

Jesus taught on this subject himself in a very famous passage of Scripture. And, yet, we still missed the point… He said, Matthew 6:5-8 NET

“Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.  When you pray, do not babble repetitiously like the Gentiles, because they think that by their many words they will be heard. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

In the following verses, come what we know as the “Lord’s Prayer”, which is meant to be a template for how to pray that he gave to his disciples, but in our humanity, we turned it into another thing to mindlessly recite… he just finished telling us not to do that, not ‘babbling repetitiously’. He was trying to give us a pattern for how to start a conversation with God.

Last year, I gave these two patterns that you can use to pray that follow Jesus’s example to his disciples…

PRAY – Praise Repent Ask and Yield

ACTS – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication

God wants a relationship with us. He is not a celestial vending machine we plug our prayer quarters into and make our selections of what we want. He is not a genie in a bottle waiting for us to rub the prayer lamp to grant our next wish. He is a heavenly Father with a deep desire for a relationship with his kids. He wants us to pick up the phone and call him frequently. He does want to meet our needs, but what Father only wants a call from their kids only when they want something???

If we turn to Exodus 20 we find the Ten Commandments. The first ten of 613 dos and don’ts given to the nation of Israel that would define them as a people set apart by God for God himself. A people he has called to look and act completely different from an other society on earth. A people that were supposed to draw other nations into a relationship with God by demonstrating his glorious power through them. This is also the beginning of the Law of Moses that Jesus came to fulfill. And in Exodus 20:7 we find the 3^rd Commandment which you may have heard,

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

That is the King James Version. Most people have since interpreted that to mean something along the lines of don’t say “GD” or curse in some other way. But that is not truly the intent of the command. The New Living Translation captures the intent a little better, it says

“You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name.”

The heart of this commandment, while we shouldn’t misuse his name in our casual speech, frustration or anger, goes way deeper than something as superficial as that… In ancient times, to take someone’s name or use someone’s name, was to use that person’s power and authority for yourself. In our modern world, we would consider it identity theft. And when it comes to the identity, power, and authority of God; to misuse his name is to insert or pass off something as his will and ways when he would have nothing to do with it.

There was a woman in a Bible study who kept asking for an unspoken prayer request. My friend, being a discerning individual, would only pray for God’s will to be done, and not agree with her in prayer not knowing what he was praying for. He came to find out, she was praying that a man she was lusting after would leave his wife and family to be with her. That is taking God’s name in vain. Another instance I heard about more recently was a man who was struggling in his marriage who met a younger woman. He claimed God put her in his life after praying, for him to have an affair because she made him feel better about himself. God doesn’t endorse or approve of adultery in any instance, he was taking God’s authority and misusing it.

There is a very popular song on Christian radio right now that is one of those scattergun prayers, a very well-meaning woman singing a beautiful song with a terrible sense of theology and application fuel by misunderstanding and poor teaching. And have you ever watched a prayer or healing service where the preacher, pastor, whomever rattles off every possible ailment, illness, discontentedness, financial problem, on and on without praying directly for any one particular person or purpose? That is not God’s purpose in prayer. That is a whole lot of taking God’s power and authority upon yourself and misusing his name. What happens to people’s faith when that behavior is going on and they aren’t getting the results they are looking for?

Even in the life of Paul, he tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Therefore, so that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble me – so that I would not become arrogant. I asked the Lord three times about this, that it would depart from me. But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So then, I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with troubles, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

Paul’s thorn wasn’t removed. Whatever problem, temptation, or torment Paul was experiencing; he didn’t give in to it. But instead, God’s strength and power were perfected in Paul’s weakness. When the going gets tough, God will strengthen us in his will to get going. But sometimes, the going gets tough because it isn’t God’s will and we get going leaving God behind.

When God answers a prayer, an answer to prayer from God through the power of God in the will of God will never violate or contradict the will of God as expressed through the word of God that was written through the power of the Spirit of God.

There are many purposes and practices associated with prayer and next week we will look at more of them. One such purpose Paul tells us is the cure for anxiety is prayer… Philippians 4:6-7 NET

Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, in every situation, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, tell your requests to God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

James the brother of Jesus, who was know as James the camel kneed, because his knees were so callused from constant prayer tells us, James 5:16 NET

So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness.

The point is, if we want to thrive, if we want to have a vibrant and fulfilling faith, and have a true relationship with our heavenly Father through his Son, Jesus, we need to be deeply in touch with him in prayer through the Holy Spirit that is right here, in us, all the time! When we pray, we also need to take time to listen, he will answer, through intuition, through other people, through signs, through his Word, through peace that surpasses all understanding, through healing, through all sorts of other ways, if we are praying according to his will. And, as Romans 8:26-27 says, the Spirit will express his will in prayer through us in ways we can not express for ourselves, and he knows all our needs… we just need to pray!

It all begins with our prayer of confession and repentance, turning our lives over to the care of God through the sacrifice of Jesus… that prayer can enter us into or restore our fellowship with our Creator and our Father.

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Thrive Part 3

Live by the Spirit

         Have you ever picked up a device, tool, opened up a smart phone, tried to turn on your computer or television, and it just doesn’t work? We live life by faith all the time without even realizing it frequently. We walk into a dark room and flip a switch on a wall or pull a cord, and we expect the light will come on. We have faith the electricity is powering the house properly and the bulbs are in good working order. When the light doesn’t come on, we know there is a problem. Then we start troubleshooting to find the problem. Is it just this bulb or is it the room? Is it just the room, or is it the whole house? Is it just this house or the whole neighborhood? Then we deal with the parts of the problem that we can address… If it’s just the bulb, we change it. If it’s the room, maybe we reset the breaker. If it’s the whole house, we’ll check the breaker and then call the power company. We take action to fix the problem whatever it might be.

         With certain devices, it can be more complex. A computer or other technological device like a phone or tablet, not only needs electricity, but it has a basic input output system, then an operating system, then the individual programs to run each operation or series of operations to get the desired result. Troubleshooting those problems can sometimes take weeks or months. Writing new programs and development is a whole career that can take years and then you are always working on different versions to improve or upgrade the experience. Not unlike our lives…

         We started a series called “Thrive.” As a congregation and as individuals we should want to thrive. To thrive means to prosper, to be successful, to develop, and to flourish. We want to thrive as a church. We want the Body of Christ to thrive. We want our community to thrive. We want our families to thrive. It is natural for us to desire those things. And as the Body of Christ, we started off with a resolution to take it SLOW. To Serve, To Love, To Obey, and To Worship. Serve, love, obey, and worship to develop as a thriving congregation and impact our community and the world for Christ. In our efforts to thrive, we looked at those four short phrases last week that can wrap up how we can live in such a way as to remain right with God and right with others. To have faith, do good, show love, and do the next right thing, but just like a house without power, or worse, troubleshooting a faulty computer; in order to thrive, we need to be properly plugged in.

         As believers in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are given the gift of God’s very own Holy Spirit living and abiding within us. There are a lot of similarities between our existence as human beings and the computer systems that we have created. So much so, we continue to use ourselves as a pattern to develop more and more complex machines, artificial intelligences, and robots. All those things still have a basic input output system, operating system, and programs; but if we break it down; our lives, and especially our spiritual life has a similar structure.

         Our lives in Christ are powered by his Holy Spirit living inside of us. His Holy Spirit inside us is what defines us as children of God. Romans 8:14-16 says,

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children.

To live a life filled with God’s Holy Spirit’s power and authority within us is the only way for a Christian to thrive. Paul, throughout all of his letters, writes about living in and relying on Holy Spirit’s power to live godly lifestyles, to practice righteousness, to fight against the desires of the flesh, to guard against the works of the devil and escape temptation. However, if we continue to live as we once did, we can grieve or quench Holy Spirit’s power in our lives. Don’t quench the Spirit, Don’t grieve the Spirit, Don’t short circuit Spirit’s power in your life. The power in the life of a Christian runs on Holy Spirit power, and so we must remember that Holy Spirit’s effect in our lives is controlled by a basic input output system and an operating system.

         Earlier this week I posted on our Facebook page the content of Jesus’s first public sermons; he said in Matthew 4:17

         Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.

The most basic message from the beginning of the Gospel is to repent. 34 times in the New Testament repentance is talked about… To repent literally means to change your mind. Change your mind from what you think about and do to what God says you should think about and do. Acts 3:19 says,

Therefore repent and turn back so that your sins may be wiped out…

To repent is closely tied to the idea of confess we find in 1 John 1:9 where we are told,

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness.

Where repent means to change your mind, confess literally means to say the same thing. To confess our sins means we say the same thing about our sin that God says about our sin, then repent means to change our mind about our sin to agree with what God wants us to think about our sin. The basic power of Holy Spirit’s operating system functioning properly in our lives starts with confession and repentance. If we do not confess and repent, God is under no obligation to impart his Holy Spirit to us. The same Holy Spirit that God breathed into the scriptures themselves is the same Holy Spirit that empowers believers to live according to the precepts that God has given us. Of course, we have mercy, of course we have grace, of course we have forgiveness when we mess up, but that is not an excuse to not surrender our lives to the control of God’s Holy Spirit living inside of us.

We must notice, IF we confess, HE, GOD through JESUS, is the one who forgives, he is also the one who cleanses!!! We can’t cleanse ourselves! We open ourselves up to be cleansed through confession and repentance, HE DOES THE WORK through the power of his Holy Spirit.

Romans is Paul’s most complete treatise from start to finish on the state of mankind without God, the effect of salvation, living in through the power of Holy Spirit, living holy lives, and how life within the church should function tied into one letter. He chases down a few rabbit trails of course, because Holy Spirit is writing through him to the believers in Rome whose societal norms were so contrary to God’s laws for the Jews; they had no basic understanding of sin in the first place.

When we compare ancient Rome to today, living in Rome would have been much like living in any big city in America minus the technology. Particularly some of the more ‘modern and enlightened’ self-indulgent areas like L.A. Las Vegas, New York, Chicago, or San Francisco. Paul tells the Romans what judgment God had made on those who chose to claim he didn’t exist despite all the evidence he has left them, and those who chose to worship the creation rather than the Creator himself, and Paul says in Romans 1:26-2:5

For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones, and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. They are filled with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless. Although they fully know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them.

Therefore you (believers in Rome) are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge someone else. For on whatever grounds you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment is in accordance with truth against those who practice such things (all those things he just listed). And do you think, whoever you are, when you judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you have contempt for the wealth of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, and yet do not know that God’s kindness leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourselves in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed!

The problem for these believers in Rome who had grown up in such a perverse society was, after coming to believe in God and salvation, they continued to do the things that they had been doing. We find a similar situation in Corinth when Paul writes to them. They are believers in Jesus, but they continue to live as though they have not been saved. Paul says in Romans 6:1-2

What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

He continues in verse 12,

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness. For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not!

When we continue to allow sin to rule in our lives, we can cause our connection to God’s Holy Spirit to short circuit. This is why in Romans 12:1-2 Paul says,

Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God – which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God – what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.

Being transformed is the act of God doing the work in us, we are being actively changed by God. He does the work in and through us. Paul describes this scenario in Galatians 5, because again, he is writing to a pagan relativistic society, he reminds them; Galatians 5:16-25

But I say, live by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to each other, so that you cannot do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, idolatry, sorcery (which is getting high for the sake of enlightened thinking), hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God!

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also behave in accordance with the Spirit.  

It is living by in Holy Spirit’s power that we thrive. It is by living according to indwelling Holy Spirit’s power that we produce the fruit of the Spirit. By the way, even in the original language, it is THE fruit, singular, one fruit, of the Spirit is multifaceted. THE fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit is a multifaceted fruit that produces many Spirit-filled attributes. Those attributes are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. His Holy Spirit in us produces all of these things together and simultaneously. If I am lacking in any one or more of these attributes it means Holy Spirit is not fully in control of my life. The more I thrive in my faith, the more our congregation thrives, the more these attributes will burst forth and shine in and through us.

         The meditation of our hearts should be, where in my life am I refusing to acknowledge and repent of my wrongdoing before God? I am willing to submit, to God, for him to cleanse my life?

Visit facebook.com/ifcog for more information about the ministry of Idaville First Church.

Live stream and recorded messages can be found on Facebook or on the Idaville First YouTube Channel.

Thrive Part Two

Vibrant Faith

When we love God, we should want to do things to glorify him. Not to earn his love, but out of gratitude for his love for us. Our motive in all we do should be to glorify God. When we turn to live in God’s will, both as individuals and congregations, there is no amount of hurt that God will not heal, there is no transgression that God will not forgive. There is always hope when we rest on God and live according to his will.

I have shared before more than 20 years ago, a dear friend gave me four short phrases that when put together remind me how to glorify God and how to have a vibrant, living, and growing faith. If we do these things, our faith will thrive.

Your first phrase is “HAVE FAITH”. Why have faith? Because without faith it is impossible to please God. Hebrews 11:6 says,

“Now without faith it is impossible to please him, for the one who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” 

We cannot glorify God unless first we have faith. But, have faith in what?

The Bible makes this very simple for us. Have faith in Jesus, who he is and what he did. Jesus, the Son of the Living God, himself God, lived, died, was buried, and rose again on the third day to make us right with God by taking the punishment for our sin, making it possible for us to have a relationship with God as our Father.

Why Jesus? Who is this Jesus guy anyway? The historical accounts written in the Gospels, which are confirmed by the letters of the New Testament, and outside historical sources confirm that Jesus really did exist. Jesus is the Son of God.

John 3:16 says, “For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

God himself confirms that Jesus is his Son at Jesus’s baptism. We read in

Matthew 3:17, “And, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my one dear Son; in him I take great delight.’” If Jesus really is the Son of God as the Scriptures state, then he is the only one that has any authority and he says so, in

Matthew 28:18. Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

And, he says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point… Jesus is the only way to the Father, and it is through belief and faith in him, his saving work on the cross, and his resurrection that we are saved from an eternity without God.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.”

Remember, grace is the unearned, unmerited, gift of God, it is free and available to everyone.

Romans 10:9-10 puts it in simple terms, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness and with the mouth one confesses and thus has salvation.”

Salvation is available to each of us. It is available to you. You can take this vital step, right now, where you sit. In your heart, have faith in Jesus, who he is and what he did.

Once we “have faith” and have started our journey toward a vibrant, living, and growing relationship with our creator; we now have some work to do. Your second phrase is “DO GOOD”. Whoa, wait…, you just told me that I have to do something?! YES! In

James 2:26, in a section on living a godly lifestyle, it says,

“For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”

We work, not to earn God’s love. Not to earn salvation, because that is a gift of grace… Remember, we just looked at Ephesians 2:8-9, yet Paul tells us in the very next verse,

verse 10 “For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.”

This word, workmanship, in Greek means, handiwork or masterpiece. It is also where we get our English word, poem. We are built to be his poem, his masterpiece, and do his work. We also have a purpose, a purpose that he planned out for us. When we love God, our response to his love and grace should be that we want to glorify him. We glorify him through good works. We glorify God by showing others the same kind of grace that God has shown us. By being his Body at work here on Earth. The writer of Hebrews tells us

“And let us take thought of how to spur one another on to love and good works,” (Hebrews 10:24)

Here it is again, work. One more time, Paul told Titus,

“showing yourself to be an example of good works in every way.”(Titus 2:7),

as we boil this down, we are to “have faith”, we are also to “do good”. There are many, many practical ways we can “do good” congregationally, individually, both for the Church and in outreach to the rest of the world. Brainstorm, you’ll easily come up with something…Make a habit of trying to do something good for someone else without being caught in the act and don’t tell anyone about it, pay it forward at every opportunity…

Our next phrase is, “SHOW LOVE”. When the religious people of Jesus’s day tried to trap him with a question, Matthew 22:36-40,

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

They asked this because in the law of Moses, all 613 commandments were to have equal weight, not just the big 10 at the beginning… Jesus instead answered in a way they could not dispute.

He said, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Have faith, do good, show love. Jesus said,

“I give you a new commandment – to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples – if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

Here, Jesus is speaking specifically to his disciples, speaking directly to the Church. Telling them the first place that they should show love is between one another. So, for those of us who are disciples of Christ, where is the first place that we should show love? The first place that we show love is right here. Right here, in our local church, then to other believers outside of this local church in the global Church, then to the world at large. The command to love is repeated throughout the New Testament. John tells us that we love because God loved us first. This is agape love, unconditional love, love that surpasses understanding, Fruit of the Spirit love. If a member of our congregation is starving, but we take meals to the poor, what kind of people are we? It is very true; the millennials and Gen Z are very socially conscious generations and want to know what the church is doing for the oppressed and the heavy laden. They are also very conscious of when we don’t walk the talk coming out of our mouths. We need to work on building unity and promoting healing, inside our families, our congregations, our denominations, and the global Church.

Make no mistake though, love does NOT mean approval! Our culture has this point very confused… I can love you, I can show you the same love that Jesus has for you, I can show you mercy, forgiveness, love, and grace; but I do NOT have to approve of your behavior in order to do so. After all, God doesn’t approve of our behavior at times, but he offers us forgiveness and restoration because of his loving kindness.

So far, we’ve got “have faith, do good, show love”, now we add “DO THE NEXT RIGHT THING”. But how do we know what the next right thing is??? In Scripture. Paul tells Timothy

“Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Here it is again, equipped for every good work. We have work to do. It is through knowledge of God’s word that we can discern what the next right thing is. We don’t all need to be Greek and Hebrew scholars of the original biblical text because God has used those people to give his Word to us in our own language, in many different translations, so that we can understand it. However, we do need to know the Word, if we are going to live according to God’s will for our lives. Many people say, “I don’t need all that religious stuff, I don’t need to attend a worship service, I just need to follow the Ten Commandments.” Okay, can you name all ten? Do you realize those ten are the tip of the ice burg and that there are 613 commands in Exodus and Deuteronomy? Others may say, “Okay then, I try to live by the Golden Rule, treat others the way I want to be treated…” That’s a good start. However, doing what is right in our own eyes, is not the same as living according to God’s will. As humans, we always miss the mark.

The point is we learn to live a life of obedience. Oops, if I lost a quarter of you with my joke earlier, I lost another half of you right there with the word obedience. Well, even Jesus was obedient to the will of his Father, why should we be an exception?

There are a few places in Scripture where it comes right out and says, “This is the will of God.” For instance, 1 Thessalonians 4:3 and 5:17-18; other times it comes as a simple imperative command: Philippians 4:3, Ephesians 4:2, or Romans 12:16; other times it gives us a list of guidelines, what is beneficial and what isn’t: Galatians 5:19-26, 1 Corinthians 6. Sometimes, doing the next right thing is to do nothing at all, sometimes, it is to pray over a situation, but it is always a step of obedience to God’s will over our own will, especially when the Scriptures are clear on an issue. JW von Goethe once said, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” What in our lives have we known without applying and what have we said we have been willing to do without acting?

My challenge for all of us is to reflect on this question and make the necessary changes:

If someone came undercover… into our house, into our work place, followed us at the store, or in our car; if they were to ask those we run into or associate with on a regular basis, is there something different about us or are we just like everyone else? If they ask, could we be identified as a Christian by the way we act toward others and the things we do? What would the answers be?

Remember, this is time for a hard look in the mirror, not a chance to compare ourselves to others.

We all are works in progress… The question is: are we making progress through the power of the Holy Spirit? We can trust God to keep his promise in Philippians 1:6,

“the one who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Is everyone still with me? Good!

Remember, as we go out into the world this week, “have faith, do good, show love, and do the next right thing!” Demonstrate to the world what it really means to be a Christ Follower, go out from this place and go be the Church.

Visit facebook.com/ifcog for more information about the ministry of Idaville First Church.

Live stream and recorded messages can be found on Facebook or on the Idaville First YouTube Channel.