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Keeping Team Unity

Church, Life, Message / By Pastor Dan Walker / September 10, 2007

Today I’m going to talk about “Keeping Team Unity” in our message series Faith Workout. Each of us is on multiple teams in life. Your family is a team, you should work together for common goals. Not just the parents, but the parents and all of the children are together on the family team. You’re part of a team at work, maybe multiple teams. If you’re in a Life Group you’re on a team. If you’re a member at Life Church, you’re part of the Life Church team. If you’re working on a ministry with others, you’re part of a team.

When everyone on a team is in unity, it’s an enjoyable experience and the team can accomplish what it was created to do. However, what happens when the team unity is broken. What happens when you don’t get along with someone else on the team? What happens when arguments begin? How do you become part of the solution, not the problem in a team environment? That’s what I’m going to talk about today.

I believe that one of the most important teams that each of us is on is our families, so I’m going to focus on the family team today, but the principles will apply to any set of relationships. Probably the most common result of a breakdown of relationship on a team is an argument. You might call it a quarrel or a fight, but it’s not fun. Arguments can lead to emotional injury and sometimes things even get physical. We need to learn to avoid arguments.

Today we’re going to look at the fourth chapter of James which explains the causes of arguments and the cure for arguments. James begins with a question. NLT James 4:1 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Here the Greek word for fights literally means “armed conflict or war.” The Greek word for quarrels literally means “physical combat fought with weapons.” So James is here likening arguments to armed conflicts fought with weapons. In an argument the weapons are words.

This morning I’d like to ask you to think about the person that you’ve had the most arguments with recently. As we go through the message, I trust that you will better understand what causes the conflict between you and how God would have you bring peace to the relationship in the future.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my September 9, 2007 message entitled Keeping Team Unity

Learning Teamwork

Church, Life, Message / By Pastor Dan Walker / August 20, 2007

Currently we’re in a message series that I’ve called “Faith Workout” Living the Christian life is not for wimps, you have to be a strong person to stand up for God in a world that wants little to do with Him. Your faith must grow stronger each day in order to handle the challenges that you will be facing in the future. So, we don’t have any time to waste, let’s get on with our Faith Workout for this week.

Today our Faith Workout lesson is “Learning Teamwork.” Contrary to what some people think, being a believer is like a team sport. The life of faith is not meant to be lived on your own, but in a community or team of believers. A team of believers is much stronger and able to do much more than just one believer alone. NIV Ecclesiastes 4:12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Too many believers think they can make it on their own and they are overpowered, sometimes by sin, sometimes by circumstances. However, when believers learn teamwork, they can defend themselves, they become strong together and can stand firm.

In the game of soccer, a pass from one soccer player to another travels faster than any single player can run. So teamwork can accomplish more than trying to do it all yourself. The same is true in the Christian life. Yet because of our American tradition of individualism, many believers and churches miss out on the power of teamwork.

Today, in our passage from the book of James, we’re going to look at one of the main impediments to teamwork. We’re going to look at what it is, why it’s wrong and what you can do about it. Our goal is to build powerful teams within this church that do great things for God.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my August 19, 2007 message entitled Learning Teamwork

Reaching Out In 2007

Church, Life, Message / By Pastor Dan Walker / January 2, 2007

Well, it’s the last day of 2006. Another year has come and gone. Life is a journey and the years, months and days are the stepping stones of that journey. Your life’s journey is not meant to be random meanderings, God intends for you to go somewhere in your life. His purpose is for you to accomplish things that will last for eternity. You will only accomplish God’s purpose for your life in the context of a church family that has a vision, a church family that is going somewhere with God.

Let’s talk about where Life Church is going as a church. The year of 2006 was an important year for us as a church. Our theme for the year was focused on the purpose-driven life. We looked at God’s five purposes for our lives, purposes that give us direction in keeping in step with God’s will. I believe that during 2006 our church family grew stronger in many ways, as we continued to grow numerically.

So what’s ahead in 2007? My message today is entitled “Reaching Out in 2007.” I believe the theme that God has for Life Church in 2007 is “Reaching Out.” What does it mean to Reach Out? To reach out means to stretch beyond the comfortable circle of our church family to those who are outside. God has blessed us as believers, but the blessing of God comes with an obligation. Here is God’s promise to Abraham, our father in the faith. NIV Genesis 12:2 … I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. God blessed Abraham for a purpose, so that He would be a blessing to others. God has blessed you as well. Why? So that you would be a blessing.

Who does God want us to reach out to? God desires us to reach out to those who are lost. Many people are lost from a relationship with God. They wouldn’t think of themselves as lost, yet they don’t have a living faith in Jesus Christ. So, what’s in it for you? The Bible says, NIV Luke 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you. Your most precious possession is your faith in Jesus Christ. As you give it away to those who are lost, you will receive from God all that you need. Wouldn’t it be great if all your relatives and friends were believers, living for God, active and growing in the church family at Life Church?

Today, we’re going to look at a passage from Luke 15 where Jesus teaches on the importance of reaching out to the lost. The story begins in NIV Luke 15:1-3 Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Then Jesus told them this parable: The important point here is that Jesus told the following story about a lost sheep because He was being criticized for being around lost people. Those who reach out to the lost will always be criticized by others, but Jesus told this story to encourage us to continue to reach out. So, what does Jesus want to teach us today about reaching out to the lost?

To hear more about this topic, listen to my December 31, 2006 message entitled Reaching Out In 2007

Can God Use Me?

Church, Message / By Pastor Dan Walker / October 9, 2006

Today, we’re going to talk about the question “Can God Use Me?” Some of you may be wondering “Why would I want God to use me anyway?” Let’s take a look at the picture for this message, it’s a picture of interlocking gears. Those gears represent you. God created you and fitted you together in a far more intricate pattern than any complex machine that man has ever made. When people make a machine with gears, they always make it with a purpose in mind. When God fitted you together, He made you with a purpose in mind. God wants to use you to accomplish something wonderful with your life.

Many people use their lives to do things that God never intended. The Bible calls that sin and the results are always tragic. However, when you let God use you for His purpose, the results are wonderful. They will make you the most happy and fulfilled in life that you possibly could be. The problem for many people is that they don’t think they’re of much use to God. They believe that they have too many weaknesses and imperfections for God to use them. However, the fact of the matter is that everyone has weaknesses and God chooses to use weak and imperfect people to accomplish great things. NLT 1 Corinthians 1:27 God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose those who are powerless to shame those who are powerful. So, if you consider yourself foolish, if you consider yourself powerless, there’s good news. You are the kind of person that God deliberately chooses to do great things.

If you look closely at a golf ball, you can see that the surface is covered with pock-marks or dimples. Those dimples make the ball look less than perfect, it is not perfectly smooth. However, experts tell us that a perfectly smooth golf ball would only travel about half the distance as the ball “flawed” with dimples. Those apparent imperfections minimize the ball’s air resistance and allow it to travel further than a perfect ball would. In a similar way, God has designed you with imperfections and weaknesses. You have limitations of various kinds in your life. However, it is those very limitations, those very weaknesses, that make you a prime candidate for God to use and work through. So, don’t count yourself out. God wants to use you to do great things for Him. Let’s look at how you can cooperate with God to change your world.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my October 8, 2006 message entitled Can God Use Me?

Adjusting Your Thinking

Church, Message / By Pastor Dan Walker / October 2, 2006

After Hurricane Katrina last year, an English atheist named Roy Hattersley wrote an interesting article. In his article he observed that almost all of the disaster relief was being done by religious groups of one kind or another. There were no teams of atheists or free thinkers or rationalists. He concluded that he wished it was possible to live a Christian life without being a Christian, yet it didn’t seem to work that way. The faith of believers gives rise to serving others.

Hattersley was right that serving others is a mark of a believer. NIV 1 John 3:17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Love for God expresses itself in love for others. Love for God expresses itself in acts of service to those within and without the church. One of the marks of a believer is that he is a servant.

God is interested in your actions of service and He is also interested in your attitudes behind your actions, both are incredibly important. An action done with a bad attitude doesn’t accomplish anything in God’s eyes. However, when our attitudes are right, we will be motivated to serve others, as if we were serving God Himself. NIV 1 Corinthians 13:3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Serving others needs to come from a heart of love, from thoughts motivated by God’s Spirit.

Today I want to talk about the topic “Adjusting Your Thinking.” Everything you do in life begins in your thought life. The things you do wrong, begin with wrong thinking. The difficulty you have in serving God, stems from wrong thinking. If you and I can get our thinking in line with God’s Word, then we will learn to please God. When you please God, your life will be the best life it could be.

The difficulty is that most people around you are thinking the wrong way about life and that influences all of us. However, as we focus on what God’s Word, the Bible says, not what we heard on television or read in the newspaper or saw at a movie, then God can begin to adjust our thinking. Serving God begins in the mind. Having a successful life begins in the mind. Pleasing God begins in your thoughts. NCV Numbers 14:24 My servant Caleb thinks differently and follows me completely. If you want to serve and follow God completely, you’ve got to think differently than the people around you. So, today we’re going to ask some questions about how a servant of God thinks.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my October 1, 2006 message entitled Adjusting Your Thinking

How Can I Serve God?

Church, Message / By Pastor Dan Walker / September 25, 2006

Currently, we’re in a message series which I’ve entitled “Created To Do What?” The basic truth underlying this series is that you and I were created by God with a purpose in mind. God created you to do something special with your life, to do something unique that only you can do.

When you become a believer, God implants a desire in your heart to please God. God gives you a desire to fulfill the purpose you were created to fulfill. The desire of an unbeliever is to please himself first and foremost, but the desire of a believer is to please God first and foremost. If you’re living life with a me-first please myself mentality, you’re headed down a dead-end street, you’ll never fulfill the potential God created you with. But that can change this morning and you can become a God pleaser, you can become someone who serves God.

This morning I want to address and answer the question “How Can I Serve God”? The short answer to that question is to live as Jesus lived. Jesus is our example. When we pattern our lives after Him we will serve God as He did. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to just get by in life.I want to be great in the Kingdom of God, I want to be great in God’s eyes. How about you? Here’s what Jesus said to His disciples who also wanted to be great. NIV Matthew 20:26,28 Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. So the key to become great in serving God is to be a servant of others, just as Jesus came to serve others and not to be served. Now this runs contrary to the me-first culture of our time. Jesus is saying that you become great by serving God and others rather than serving yourself.

Now for a lot of people this is a scary and frightening thought. I hear it nearly every week from people and it basically goes like this. “My life is in such trouble that I’ve got to look out for myself first. I don’t have any time or resources to help anybody else, in fact I’m so busy taking care of myself that I don’t have much time for God or the church either. Maybe when I pull myself together, I’ll have time for God and serving others.” People are basically afraid that if they give to God and others that they’ll come out on the short end of the stick and their stick is pretty short to begin with. If you’re one of those people this morning, here’s what God says to you “Just close your eyes and jump into serving me and others and see what happens. See if your life doesn’t change for the better, don’t be afraid just jump in.”

So today I challenge you to make a decision to just jump into all that God has for you in serving Him and others Just jump in.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my message entitled How Can I Serve God?