I believe that God has great things in store for us here as we follow His leading in the Ballwin area. Our vision at Life Church is to reach out to people across the St Louis metro area and tell them about God’s great plan and purpose for their lives. Somebody reached out to each of us at one time, that’s why we’re here. Jesus said, “Freely you have received, freely give.” Now we must obey Jesus’ command and reach out to others and bring them into the family of God here at Life Church. …
Currently we’re in a message series called “Five Foundations for Life.” As we start out the new year of 2010, it’s important to look at these five basic purposes that God has for every believer. These past three Sundays, we’ve looked at Powerful Prayer, Meaningful Relationships and Spiritual Growth through God’s Word. Powerful prayer had to do with our relationship with God. Meaningful relationships was focused on our relationships with other believers in the church family. Last Sunday, we examined the importance of studying the Bible in order to grow spiritually.
Knowing what the Bible says is not enough, we must apply it and put it into practice in our lives.
James 1:22 (NLT) But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.
There are people who get these five foundations in their lives out of balance. Some people so focus on studying the Bible, that they have no time to actually do what it says. James tells us that there is no benefit in studying the Bible is you don’t do what it says.
Today, we’re going to talk about “Compassionate Service.” Another title may have been simply “Putting God’s Word into Practice.” Serving in the family of God is a God-given method to grow spiritually. It goes hand in hand with studying God’s Word to know what to do.
It’s kind of like giving one of your children a book about playing baseball. They can sit down and study that book about baseball for weeks. They can take a test and score 100% because they know all the baseball vocabulary and rules. Yet, until they pick up a bat, glove and ball and get into the backyard to put their knowledge into practice, they don’t know how to play baseball. Knowledge must be applied before you reap the benefit.
God has a plan for your life of putting His Word into practice. God’s plan for each of our lives is different.
Ephesians 2:10 (NLT) For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Notice in this verse, that as a believer, you were created for a purpose. Your purpose is to do the good things that God planned for you before you were born. What are those good things you are to do? They are putting God’s Word into practice in a way that is consistent with how God created you.
James 1:25 (NLT) But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
The blessing of God comes on the lives and families of those who put God’s Word into practice. So how can you grow in doing God’s Word?
Listen to my January 24, 2010 message “Compassionate Service” (message-notes).
To start off 2010, we are in a message series called “Five Foundations for Life.” In this series, we’re looking at the five foundations for the Christian life that the Bible teaches. These foundations are essential for a growing and successful life as a follower of Jesus. I know that I need to be reminded from time to time about these five foundations or purposes of my life. Each of these foundations for life has many aspects and in this series, I’m trusting that God will help me highlight the aspects that will be most helpful for our church family right now.
Last Sunday, the message was entitled “Powerful Prayer.” We looked at the foundation of prayer, which is really the foundation of a growing relationship with God. When you become a believer, your relationship with God begins. However, our relationship with God must grow and be nurtured. Prayer is one of the most important aspects of growing in your relationship with God. This vertical relationship with God is the most important relationship in your life.
Today, I want to talk about the horizontal relationships with our lives. The second foundation for life we’re going to talk about today is the foundation of “Meaningful Relationships.” Specifically, we’ll be talking about the relationships that God wants us to have with other believers in a church family. Of course, we have relationships with other people who are not believers, but they will be the topic of another foundation later in this series.
Quite frankly, this is a somewhat controversial topic these days. Quite a few people claim to be Christians, but yet believe that they don’t need to be part of a church family. They feel that they can do quite well by simply maintaining their relationship with God. As with any other opinion, we must test it by looking at God’s Word. Opinions or beliefs that are not based on the Bible have no validity.
Hebrews 10:25 (NIV) Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Here we have clear instruction from the Bible, that believers need to meet together. Meeting together with other believers is not a new invention, it has been part of God’s plan since the beginning. The purpose for meeting together is to encourage one another. It’s interesting that this verse teaches that meeting together is more important as the time of Jesus’ second coming gets closer. So it’s actually more important now than it was 2000 years ago to build meaningful relationships in the church family. To love other believers in the family of God should come naturally.
1 John 4:21 (NIV) And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
If you love God, you must love your brother and sister in God’s family. If you love your brother and sister in the Lord, then you’ll want to meet together with them on a regular basis. Today, we’re going to look at the experience of the early church in the book of Acts to learn more about building meaningful relationships.
Listen to my January 10, 2010 message “Meaningful Relationships” (message-notes).
As a church family, we want to celebrate as we move forward with faith. God has done great things in and through our church in the past, but we believe that the future holds even greater things. To get to where God wants to take us, we must do more than just look forward, we must take action to move forward with faith. What is faith?
Hebrews 11:1 (NIV) Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
You and I cannot see the future. We don’t know exactly what it holds, but God does. Moving forward with faith is to see God’s vision for our church and then take action to bring that vision to pass.
Hebrews 11:7 (NIV) By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.
Noah obeyed God. He prepared to build the ark and then he built it, even though everyone said he was crazy. He moved forward with faith. When we look forward as a church family, what is God’s vision for us? God’s vision is for us to grow. God wants each of us to grow in spiritual maturity and He wants our numbers to grow as we reach more people for Jesus.
Ephesians 2:21-22 (NIV) In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
These verses tell us that you and I are part of a spiritual church or temple that God is building right here at Life Church. God’s vision is for that spiritual church made of believers to continue to grow.
Listen to my October 25, 2009 message “Looking Forward With Faith” (message notes).
Who knows what tomorrow holds? Not you, not me, no human being knows what tomorrow holds. Oh, people can make general predictions, but even those often turn out to be wrong. Virtually no one predicted the financial meltdown of 2008. Will 2010 be the end of the recession or the beginning of an even greater depression? No one knows. I believe the world is entering into a phase of every increasing changes and challenges.
Daniel 12:4 (NLT) But you, Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret; seal up the book until the time of the end, when many will rush here and there, and knowledge will increase.
We are living in the time of the end. The pace of life will continue to increase, as will knowledge. Increases in knowledge lead to constant change. How can we navigate such uncertain times? A lot of people think if they just keep on doing what they’ve always done, everything will work out. Well, it’s not going to work out for them without the right guidance. Where can you go for guidance about future decisions?
Only God knows the future, so we must look, not within, but up to receive guidance for the future.
Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
God knows the future and He has a plan for you to navigate successfully through that future. Each of us has important decisions to make about our future, about our finances, about our jobs. In order to receive God’s guidance, we need to hear God speak to us. Yes, God still speaks to people today. Jesus said …
John 10:27 (NIV) My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
Every believer is able to listen to Jesus’ voice and follow His direction.
Listen to my October 11, 2009 message “Looking Up For Guidance” (message notes).
There are two basic ways to look at tomorrow. The first way to look at tomorrow is with worry and fear. We let our minds race over what possibly could go wrong in the future. When we look at tomorrow with worry and fear, we are expecting tomorrow to be worse than today. God does not want us to look at tomorrow with worry and fear.
The second way to look at tomorrow is hope and faith. Our minds think about the dreams we have for a good tomorrow, both for ourselves and our church family. Hope dreams of a tomorrow that is better than our todays. Faith looks for a tomorrow in which dreams are fulfilled. God wants you to look at tomorrow with hope. Which way are you looking at tomorrow, with worry or with hope?
We’re going to see that paradoxically, the key to looking to the future with hope is looking to the past with thanksgiving. The difficulty in facing tomorrow is that tomorrow is full of challenges and the unknown. Unknown challenges can be scary. Will you be up to the challenge or will it be too big for you?
How can you deal with the challenges of the future? We might call the challenges of the future the giants that we must face. When you are called on to face a giant, it’s easy to be terrified. However, God wants you to face giants and challenges with hope and faith. The message today can be applied to challenges that you may be facing in your own life and family. Likewise, the principles we’re going to talk about today can also be applied to the challenges that our church will face in the future.
Let’s look at a story from the Old Testament found in 1 Samuel 17. I’d encourage you to read the chapter this week. In this chapter, the army of Israel was facing the Philistine army when out of their ranks emerged a giant of a man named Goliath. He challenged anyone in the Israel army to fight him alone. Goliath was over 9 feet tall and a strong warrior. How would you like to face Goliath in hand to hand combat?
1 Samuel 17:11 (NIV) On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.
However, there was one Israelite who was not dismayed or terrified at the thought of fighting Goliath. His name was David. Here’s what he said.
1 Samuel 17:32 (NIV) David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”
King Saul replied to David.
1 Samuel 17:33 (NIV) Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.”
How could a boy have the courage to face a monumental challenge like Goliath without fear? How could David have the faith to face a fearful tomorrow? We’re going to look at how David thought about his challenge to learn how we can meet our own challenges.
Listen to my October 4, 2009 message “Looking Back With Thanksgiving” (message notes).
