Who're you following? Acts Church

-----Part of this note got deleted, so it's shorter than it would have been.-----

Faith without works is dead. 

I want to go and minister to people. I want to pray for people. This will be a barrier that I have to overcome. I'm scared. 

If you really know Jesus, there's going to be works that stem from that. 

It's okay to be scared. But if there is no passion to follow Jesus, then there's a major problem. Well, I have the passion. I want to. But I think fear may be controlling my actions. It scares me to consider going to a random person and praying for them. 

If we aren't following Jesus, then the world won't get changed. What's the motivation of following Jesus? To be a good person? To not be involved in bad sins? No! We have to go out and do what He taught us. Freely we have received. Freely we need to give. 

We want so bad for people to have peace that we never give them joy; the joy of the ministry of Jesus. 

What are you holding onto that prevents you from joy? We can't live in both worlds. We can't serve God and the world. 

***song: No Turning Back, feat. Chris Tomlin from the Passion White Flag album***

Trajectory; First Woodway

Nonbelievers are not ultimately chasing the things that believers are chasing. We are not supposed to be out of the world, but we need to recognize the tension there.

We should not invest ourselves fully in those who don't have the Lord. However, we should not fully withdraw from the world and surround ourselves with Christians if we have any kind of love for the world, in that we desire to change it. We are to be in the world, but we have certain needs as followers of Jesus that can only be met with other followers of Jesus. We have to serve each other and exercise spiritual gifts and encourage each other. Our identity needs to be interwoven with those who are following Christ.

We should be a community set apart in the world that is marked by Jesus. We need to be bound to other believers.

Verse 16 [Disclaimer, I have no idea where this is from. So there's that.]
Since God has pursued us and made us His people, we should be a people who DESIRE holiness and desire to live a life after the Lord. Because we have known God's grace, we should be empowered to pursue holiness.

Because of His work in our hearts, it should transform the things that we desire. It transforms the things we pursue, we want our life to be for His glory. We should want to be rid of sin, to walk away from those things in order to pursue Christ and know Him more fully.

Because of Jesus, we should be a different people. We need to be a people who aren't just living life with Jesus in addition, but who met Jesus and who's lives are on a different trajectory as a result.

Our ability to do more comes from the Gospel.

Rest on the Gospel. Know that your identity is now in Christ. You are a son or daughter of the Lord.

[Talking to myself.] Remember at Baby Ruths? Once you are a child of God, you don't cease to be. You are of God. You are Godly. It may come about that you stop acting like who you truly are (a child of God). When we mess up, when we deny Him, we aren't acting as a believer. But that doesn't change our identity, because He has claimed us and nothing we can do can change the truth of His words.

The Gospel has to mean something more than you going to heaven.
Jesus transformed us.
He brought us new life.
This is not your everyday story of change.

2 Corinthians 7:2-13

Verses 3 and 4
"...to die together, and to live together."
This phrase is very unusual. We would talk about this phrase in reverse usually, because we tend to live first and THEN die. Paul switches this on purpose (THAT'S A LITERARY DEVICE) our old lives have passed away. We're reborn into a new life together, as a group. That's what unites us. Our old lives are gone and now we pursue the same things and we are bound together for who we are.

As we experience Jesus individually, we are supposed to be coming together as one and interacting together. We should bond and be yoked together by this.

We SHOULD have deep, meaningful relationships with nonbelievers. To do otherwise would be to squander the gift we've been given.

When we are born into the kingdom of God, we lose ourselves. We lose our decisions and our own direction, because our lives become submitted to God and to one another. Our decisions are for the benefit of the church now. We can't continue living in our own little world, and we need to be seeking the greater kingdom.

***song: My Own Little World, Matthew West***

Paul is not saying to not be with nonbelievers, but he is telling us to be bound to believers. We have a new life with the people of God that assists us when we go into the presence of nonbelievers. If you spend time with those who are not building you up, you are constantly fighting the mental battle with satan of retaining your connection with God. You cannot go into the world unprepared, that's why we need the community of the Church.

Worldly grief is a lament that we have lost something in our life.
Worldly grief is not always bad, but it can be self-centered.
Godly grief is lament over the fact that our sin and the sin of other people has turned our attention from the One who deserves it most.

Our hearts should want Him above all else. Not only should we want Him, but we should want others to want Him, and we should pray earnestly that we can rebuke each other and point one another back towards the grace of God.

Do we have a genuine concern in the way that others are following the Lord?

[Frustration with the stress I was experiencing at that time]
At TCA I was totally focused on God.
At Vanguard I was totally focused on school and friends.
I'm trying to do both and it's not working.
Shemurrrr

[Talking to myself. Again.]
God deserves more of my time. At Baby Ruths we got so much work done, despite the amount of journaling we did. Work hard, and take 15-20 minutes to journal and spend time with God. Why does it feel like I would be more productive doing school for four hours as opposed to three hours and forty five minutes? Heck, it takes 15 minutes to go get icees. How much more could my day be impacted if I spent that time in prayer instead?

The way that you learn to submit and be obedient is the way that you reflect on His grace and kindness, and that stirs your heart; the obedience will come naturally. You must first love the Gospel.

Prayer

Seek FIRST the kingdom of God. Jesus very first prayed... That was His first response. And it should be. We need to spend time in prayer.

Why don't I have a quiet time? Because I'm not prioritizing God over school and sleep and friends. That's the problem. I need to set aside time for Him in my life. I've tried for so long to be consistent with that. Rawwrr.

I fall so short. I'll leave it at that. Of everything. Of my spiritual walk. I can't fathom the idea that Jesus should desire to still save the world despite the way we act. There's so much hypocrisy that I see in those who claim the Christian faith. I don't understand it. I don't understand it in myself. I don't want to change others; I want to change myself. Having the desire to change is not the act of change. I have to allow Christ to change my heart and my actions. The hearts there- but I have to be disciplined enough to put my faith into practice. I cannot simply go through the motions.

I think one thing that was misunderstood was me fretting about the world because the world is sinful and I can't change it. But that's not the case. I am well aware of the futility of changing most people. Not being able to change people does not make me fret. What does make me fret is spending time with people who are constantly making me fight against the devil. It's wearing me out haha. I can handle the world for so long, but I'm not getting the equivalent of spiritual intake that's needed for me to be at college.

But I digress.
Sometimes when we pray, God eliminates the trial. And sometimes He gives strength to get through the trial.

Without prayer, I'm only dealing with me and using my judgement to determine what's right.

Prayer prepares us to face temptation. Pray that we will not fall into temptation.

Satan dreads prayer. His one concern is to keep the saints from praying. He trembles when we pray.

Ask God to meet you at your point of greatest need.

Do the thing from Baby Ruths...
Wake up, and ask God to make me small. He is so great and big, and I need Him to make me small. I need to recognize His power and humble myself before Him each and every day.

Cheerful Giving; FBC Woodway

James 5:3
(Click.)

Here, James is a pastor, kind of trying to encourage people and give them a last push towards the Lord.

James reminds the people that it is wrong to hoard. (6 in 10 people in Arizona are hoarders.) The inability to throw things away.

In Bible times, the word rich meant more than one coat. Hoarding is a selfish action on our part.

There is something called spiritual hoarders. They take in lots of spiritual food but they never share it with anyone. We can be guilty of this.

James also talks to them about exploitation. Not paying a fair days wage for a days work. Are we doing the best we can do for people?

Teenagers are the most affluent in the world today. We give less to charitable causes than anyone else. We are very self-indulgent. Thus, James talks about stewardship. What we do with money says a lot about our relationship with God.

Do not store up treasures for yourself on earth, where moths and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal.

Acts 20:35b

God loves a cheerful giver. Become a person known for generosity.

The Noonday Demon; Harris Creek

Mark 5:1
(Click. This is the story that this lesson is teaching on.)

Growth takes time. It doesn't happen overnight.

We have a microwave mentality, but growth is more like cooking with a Crock Pot.

Limitations on our growth... We have ambitions to be a certain size, but there are predetermined heights that every plant will reach.

We would like to grow larger than what we have been determined to grow (ambition), but sometimes we don't grow in the ways we want to and we blame it on others. Therefore, the problem might be you, and not the community around you.

"Ambition tempts us to forsake the mundane for the sake of unlimited growth-- or, at least new opportunities.We are so easily unimpressed by the ordinary, longing for the feeling of excitement that comes with a new task to take up, new people to engage, new challenges to face. The repetition of the daily grind wears on us, tempting us to think that nothing ever changes unless we break out of our routine and change the conditions of our everyday life." --Jonathan Wilson, Wisdom of Stability

Establish deep roots in a Biblical community.

Every time we are living in sin, we are isolated from our spiritual community.

"Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation." --Deitrich Bonheoffer, Life Together

The people, when they realized what Jesus had done, were AFRAID. What?!

Mark 5:15

The guy with the Legion? He is at peace. He's just sitting there with God. His shame has been covered. 

Verse 18

Jesus tells him to go and tell the people what the Lord has done for him. 

He WANTED to follow Jesus and escape the people who had known him...

Okay, so this very well may be true, and may have been part of his motivation. But I don't think you can assume this from the text. Since he is changed, I don't believe he would want to go with Jesus only to escape. He simply says that he wants to go with the disciples- well, everybody wanted to follow Jesus. Why would you not want to follow the amazing man that just rescued you from a life of demon possession? He changed his ENTIRE LIFE. Obviously he wanted to go with him. 

Verse 19

"Go home to your own people"

The people that would benefit most from this story are the people who know his past and his shame. They needed to know how much the Lord had done for the man. And that's good; you are supposed to celebrate what the Lord has done. 

HOWEVER

If the people in the town didn't want Jesus to stay, they obviously didn't recognize that He was the Son of God. Were they even a Christian community? Were they religious? We don't know. They kicked Jesus out. Therefore, we don't know that the man was part of a Biblical community. In fact, there's a high possibility that he wasn't. If the people were afraid and didn't understand what had happened, I would venture to say that they didn't believe in Jesus and His actions. If this is the case, this has not a lot to do with Biblical community. Jesus would have asked the man to return to his town to spread the things the Lord has done for him, not for his own benefit but for the benefit of the people. He wanted him to be a witness. If the town had been God-fearing, the man might have been able to go with the disciples, but he was more needed in his own town where the people did not have their trust in God. 

He is assuming too much from the passage. Reading it in quite a different way than I would have. 

We are called to share the Gospel in the community immediately around us, where we are rooted. 

^I do agree with this. I think some churches have become too missions-based, and they've stopped focusing on the growth of the members.  

Some HRC event.

As children of God, we don't know what we will be like or where we will end up. We will be transformed by the renewing of our mind to NOT be like this world; because we are not of this world. We are aliens. This journey in college will be a time of finding our path that God has chosen in advance for us. I have to be sure and follow His will, and not mine. Because He knows what He's doing, and I don't. I have to remember Whose I am and where my hope lies.

Self Control; notes from Pastor John Durham

Acts 24:1-6
(Click here to read it)

People will follow what you do, not what you say. 

Acts 24:25

Paul is talking to the governor of Palestine here. 

Paul is pointing out the righteousness that he knows Felix doesn't have. Felix married the daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. And then now he's married to Drusilla. Felix moved from being a slave to a governor. 

Paul points out in Felix a...

1. Righteousness he doesn't possess.

2. Self-control that he doesn't exercise.

3. Unreadiness for the Judgement Day.

The combination of unrighteousness and self control is a bad combo. Felix has married the daughter of the king, and he is the governor of the city with the largest gold trade. He has no apparent reason to display self-control; why would he desire a bribe from the prisoner? He has everything. 

Self-Control: refusing to let what will rot rule the eternal 

Do not let yourself be ruled by temporary things. 

Proverbs 25:28

"Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control."

"Learning to say no will be of more use to you than learning to speak Latin." -- Charles Spurgeon

Self control can only be exercised when we are Spirit-controlled. 

To be Spirit controlled, you daily live like Christ. To talk to Him everyday, let Him control your actions. Let the Spirit control your life. 

Sin and Grace

Under grace, sin no longer has enslaving power.

I don't just need to recognize I have sin, but I also need to recognize God will let me go free and not squash me like a bug... because of grace.

Grace is your commission to be a work in progress.
1. According to the text, it is possible for sins (plural) to reign in the life of a believer.
Paul says we should "guard against it"

How do you know if you have reigning sins in your life?
A. you don't put up much of a fight
B. you spend energy hiding or covering this sin
C. you have an incomplete routine of repentance (are there sins you feel bad about afterward, but you never declare war on them?)

2. According to the Scripture, everyday is a presentation of your mind and body. You have to present yourself to God, and not to sin.

^What THIS means is, we LET sin catch us. It does not force us to participate- we opened the door. The good news is... there's grace for that! Sin can no longer condemn you.

3. We have a role in deposing sin. You have a role in whether or not sin reigns in your life.

How to dethrone sin:
A. Reject its claim on your life.
B. Stop sinning.

Grace is your commission to be a work in progress.

Science and faith.

We can experience God in an existential way through nature and His creation. It is a way to cognitively interact with something that indirectly reveals to us His beauty. Similarly it's our innate draw towards beauty that causes us to experience God in a special way through music and the arts.

[Update January 4, 2014: MY GOSH YES. I certainly worship through music and art; singing to God has always been something that makes me feel close to Him, even when I'm alone or in the car or sitting outside or anything. The Bible tells us to sing and rejoice to Him, and I am definitely chill with that. And art? Heck yes. I've spent a long time trying to find ways to incorporate my spiritual life into my artwork. Recently I have switched to architecture... What would be awesome? Designing and building churches. Bazinga.]

Newton said that to explain the forces of attraction of the universe such as the attraction of positive to negative charges, or the force of gravity, there is no better explanation than that of Colossians 1:17 -- "He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. Science can describe to us what is happening in nature but it cannot always explain how or why it functions in the ways that it does."

God's customary ways of caring for His creatures can be seen in the laws of nature, such as rain and wind and sunlight. These sometimes go unnoticed because they happen all the time. If the sun only rose once every so often, it would be much more important than how we view a sunrise now. Mankind has begun to take the majority of God's work for granted.