Today, we begin a new message series entitled “Follow God’s Heart.” In this series, we’re going to be learning from the life of David.
Acts 13:22 (ESV) [God] raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’
In this verse, God describes David as “a man after my heart.” What does the phrase “man after my heart” mean? It means that David’s heart was committed to following God’s heart. David desired to live life following the Lord, His heavenly Father. The next phrase in this verse describes what a man after God’s heart does. It says that such a man will do all of God’s will.
Now, we know that David did not live a perfect life. He fell into some tragic sins. Yet, even there, he repented and got back on track with God.
Today, we’re going to talk to fathers about following God’s heart. Following God’s heart is far easier said than done. Rather than following God’s heart, we are tempted to follow our own hearts. There is always opposition when we seek to follow God’s heart.
Our message today is entitled “Defeat Your Giant.” There are giants that get in the way of you following God’s heart. These giants are assigned to the enemy to oppose God’s plan in your life. Each person has a different giant or giants to deal with. But God desires to give you the strength to defeat your giant.
Whatever you’re facing today as a father, God wants to give you the victory. The victory will clear your path going forward as you follow God’s heart. So, let’s begin to look at David’s life to learn how to defeat your giant.
Today our message is about “How to Avoid Deception.” What is deception? Deception is being misled by a false appearance or statement. In other words, to be deceived is to believe a falsehood or a lie. Deception has a very long history, going back to the garden of Eden.
2 Corinthians 11:3 (ESV) But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
In the garden of Eden, the serpent, Satan, deceived Eve with a lie. He got her to believe that what God had said was not true. Because of that deception, first Eve and then Adam disobeyed God and sinned by eating the forbidden fruit. We can learn some important principles from that first deception. Every sin is a result of being deceived and believing a lie. Sin is the inevitable result of thinking that something is true when it is not. Jesus warned us about being deceived in …
Matthew 24:4-5 (NIV2011) Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.
As the time of Jesus’ return draws closer, the amount of deception will increase. Notice that Jesus puts the responsibility on each one of us to watch out so that we are not deceived. We must be able to distinguish between the truth of God and the lies of Satan. Not only must we be careful to not be deceived, we must also help others to avoid deception.
1 Timothy 4:1 (NIV2011) The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
When a person is deceived, behind that deception are deceiving spirits and demons. In order for a person to be deceived, the deception must sound like it is true. Let’s take a few minutes to look at a series of statements that many people believe. They sound true, but they are deceptions if you understand what God’s Word says.
All religions contain some truth and an ultimately lead us to God.
Widely believed but completely false.
In order to be all that we can be, we must believe in ourselves.
Sounds good, but not true.
Every woman should have the right to do with her body as she chooses.
Wrong for a lot of reasons.
You will go to heaven if you are a truly good person.
Nobody is good enough to go to heaven.
Our highest priority should be our families.
If that’s true, then our family has become an idol. God must be first.
And there are many, many other things that most people believe that are deceptions. So, how can you and I avoid being deceived? We must build our relationship with Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life. This morning, we’re going to return to the life of the prophet Jeremiah. He spoke the truth of God’s Word when those around him were being deceived.
I’d like to tell you the story of hope about a brave Christian who lived 500 years ago, his name was William Tyndale. Tyndale was born in England in 1494 and went to school at Oxford and Cambridge. He was a brilliant student who learned to speak seven languages. He was proficient in biblical Hebrew and Greek. As Tyndale read the New Testament in Greek, he became convinced that a person was saved by faith alone and not by works.
God spoke to Tyndale and gave him the calling to translate the New Testament into English so that everyone could read it for themselves. All of the church authorities in England or Europe warned Tyndale against doing the translation, but he persisted. Finally, he completed the first English translation of the Greek New Testament in 1525. The church authorities did everything they could to stop the distribution of the English New Testament. They did not want ordinary people to be able to read the Bible for themselves.
Tyndale was not deterred and began to translate the Old Testament into English. Tyndale was tracked down in his hiding place in the Netherlands and was arrested. He was accused of heresy and put on trial. Tyndale refused to recant his faith or to repent of translating the Bible into English. Tyndale was found guilty of heresy and was hanged and burned at the stake in 1535. William Tyndale was an example of someone staying true to God’s calling in the face of severe opposition. The New Testament that we read today are largely based on Tyndale’s excellent translation.
My message today is entitled “Find Hope in Difficult Times.” The difficult times in Tyndale’s life do not deter him from fulfilling God’s purpose in his life. So too we need to find hope when we face difficult times in our lives as well.
Philippians 1:27b-28a (ESV) …[I trust] that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.
When we face opposition in life, we must not be frightened, but we must stand firm. We are striving or another translation says fighting for the gospel.
Philippians 1:29 (ESV) For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,
I believe that this verse is true for every believer. We are given the grace to both believe in Jesus, but also to suffer for Him. Today in America, we are not facing being burned at the stake. Yet, we do face opposition of many kinds to our faith in Jesus.
Behind the difficult times that we face in our lives is our enemy Satan. He works in other people’s lives to negatively influence us away from God. Satan can also work through circumstances to cause difficulty and problems in our lives. His goal is to weaken or destroy our faith in God. He desires for us to get discouraged and to lose hope.
Today, God wants to give you hope, no matter what difficulty you are in or may encounter in the future. We are going to continue learning from the life of the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah encountered great opposition in carrying out God’s calling on his life. So, let’s see how we can find hope when we are …
When you go out in the country at night and look up at the sky, you can see far more stars than you can in the city. The darker the night sky, the brighter the stars shine. The darker our world, the brighter God’s people can shine.
That’s what we’re talking about in our message series “Shine in a Dark World.” Rather than getting upset with the darkness, we can see it as an opportunity to let Jesus’ light shine through us.
Today, our message is entitled “Trusting God’s in Control.” Or sometimes, closer to home, we fear that the situations of our lives are out of control. But nothing could be farther from the truth. The Bible teaches us that God is completely in control at all times.
Psalm 135:6 (ESV) Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.
No person, no spiritual being, no situation can stop God from doing what He desires to do. God is sovereign, which means that He has supreme authority and power over everything.
Matthew 28:18 (ESV) And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
How much authority or power does Jesus have? All authority. Where does Jesus exercise His authority? In heaven and on earth, which encompasses everything there is. We can rejoice in God’s sovereignty because He is also loving, good and righteous. God always does the right thing, the loving thing. He does what is best for every person, for every nation and for our world.
Even though God is sovereign, He has given the people He created free will. Free will is the ability to make choices, either good or bad in this life. How can God be sovereign and man have free will? We may not be able to reconcile these two truths with our minds, but God’s Word affirms both of them.
As human beings, we have a choice to make. The right choice is to surrender our free will to God’s sovereign power. When we do that, God works in us to give us the best possible life we can have.
John 3:16 (ESV) “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
God in His sovereignty, offers eternal life to everyone. Yet, we must choose of our own free will to believe in Jesus in order to receive God’s free gift of eternal life. Today, we’re going to learn how to trust that God’s in control in our dark world. And we going to discover how to submit ourselves to His will in all of life. To introduce our message today from the prophet Jeremiah, let’s watch a video called “The Potter’s House.”
Happy Mother’s Day, what a beautiful day. To start us off today, let’s watch a short video entitled “Mother’s Day Prayer.” In preparing for this message, I did some research on the origins of Mother’s Day. I was surprised to learn that Mother’s Day got it’s start in the US just in this century. Anna Jarvis was born to Ann Marie Jarvis in 1864 in Webster, West Virginia, the 9th of 11 children. Anna’s mother taught Sunday School. One day Anna was in class listening to her mother teach a lesson on the “Mothers of the Bible.” At the end of the lesson Anna’s mother prayed that someone, sometime would found a memorial mother’s day honoring mothers.
Anna never forgot that prayer. When her mother passed away on May 9, 1905 Anna made a vow to establish a Mother’s Day by the grace of God. At each anniversary of her mother’s death, Anna held a local memorial service for her. She passed out a carnation (her mother’s favorite flower) to each person who attended. Anna wrote hundreds of letter and spoke at many functions promoting the idea of a Mother’s Day. She wanted to let our mothers “know that we appreciate them, though we do not show it as often as we ought” Within the next few years, the idea of a day to honor mothers gained popularity, and Mother’s Day was observed in a number of large cities in the U.S.
On May 9, 1914, by an act of Congress, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. He established the day as a time for “public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.” I think it was a good idea. I think that the dream Anna had was from God. He helped that dream become a reality that we enjoy today.
Everyone here has a mother, no exceptions. We are grateful for our mother’s love. A mother’s job is immense. In many homes she is the primary caregiver, spending the most time with the children. She cares for physical needs, feeding, changing diapers, giving baths, washing clothes, buying groceries and cooking. She prays for her children, sings and reads to them. She teaches them about life, about family and about God. Raising children is a huge job of great significance.
Sometimes a mother may feel alone in her mothering. The task may seem overwhelming. Sometimes problems happen, where do you turn? Some mothers are alone, some are single, divorced or widowed. Others have husbands who for one reason or another aren’t able to help much. Even if your husband is great at helping, sometimes you may still feel alone. In those times God is there.
Today, we’re going to look at the story of a mother who felt all alone and see how God responded to her. My message today is entitled: God’s Promises for Mothers The mother we’re going to be talking about was named Hagar. Let me tell you Hagar’s story which is found in Genesis 21.
Abraham was married to Sarah, but they were childless. Rather than wait for God’s promise to be fulfilled, Sarah followed the customs of the society and gave her maidservant Hagar to her husband to have children. Hagar bore a child who was named Ishmael.
When Ishmael was 14, Sarah finally became pregnant and had a son Isaac. When Isaac is weaned, Abraham and Isaac hold a great feast. In the midst of the feast, Sarah notices Ishmael mocking. It is more than she can take and she tells Abraham to get rid of Hagar and her son Ishmael. Abraham was distressed over this turn of affairs and asked God what to do. God told him to send Hagar and Ishmael away and He would care for them.
So Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael off with provisions for the journey. So under these unusual circumstances, Hagar becomes a single mother. She wanders away into the desert with her son. Their provision of food and water was soon exhausted and she put her son under a bush to shade him from the sun. Her situation seemed hopeless, she was alone and afraid. What could she do? Today, we’re going to look at three promises from God for mothers that Hagar learned.
Have you ever wanted something to change in your life, but didn’t know how to bring it about? I’m sure that we have all wanted various things in our lives to change. This is true of both believers and unbelievers. Why do we as human beings always want things to change? No matter what we have, we tend to want more of it or something different. This desire for change is part of being created in the image of God.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV2011) He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Let’s focus on the phrase “God has set eternity in the human heart.” What is this eternity that God has put into every human heart? Eternity is the desire to live forever, the desire to have a relationship with God, the desire to live in a perfect world. It is all these things and much more, but eternity has to do with God.
Someone has said that God has placed a vacuum in every human heart that can only be filled with God. So, we seek to satisfy the longing for eternity, the longing for God by seeking change in our lives. Yet, only God can satisfy this longing for eternity in our hearts. Only God can bring us into eternity with Him where we will be completely satisfied.
Today, we’re going to look at how we can fill the void in our hearts in this life. Today’s message is entitled “Change Begins with Repentance.” Change in our lives doesn’t happen automatically. Change doesn’t always happen just because we pray for it to happen. Change begins with repentance, both for the unbeliever and the believer.
What is repentance? What does it mean to repent? To repent is to have a change of heart towards sin in our lives. Repentance is taking a 180 degree turn away from sin and towards God. So, repentance is running away from sin and running to God. That’s how a person is born again and receives eternal life, it begins with repentance.
Mark 1:14-15 (ESV) … Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Jesus was saying that God’s got a wonderful kingdom that He wants you to be part of. Your first step in entering that Kingdom is to repent of your sin, turn away from it and believe in the gospel of Jesus. The message was the same for the early church in the book of Acts.
Acts 2:38 (ESV) And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
First step is exactly the same, repent of your sin. This initial repentance and belief brings you into God’s Kingdom, you are born again. But repentance is not just for unbelievers. Repentance is for people who sin, and we all sin in one way or another.
1 John 1:9 (ESV) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
This verse was not written to unbelievers, but to believers. We also are to daily confess our sins, which is another way of repent. When we do that God forgives our sins and cleanses us from unrighteousness, that’s change.
How does repentance happen in the life of a believer? As we read and listen to God’s Word, the Holy Spirit uses God’s Word to bring conviction of sin into our hearts. When we realize our sin, we repent and God works in our hearts bringing about change, so we sin less and less. Repentance in our lives leads to spiritual growth, becoming more and more like Jesus. Change begins with repentance. Let’s begin today’s study of the prophet Jeremiah by seeking to understand why believers stray into sin.
