Sermons

God is always ready to give us faith for a new thing but are we ready — do we desire it? So many times we hold on to the things of old — the brokenness or blessing of yesterday — but God wants to speak a new thing. To man so much is impossible, but to God all things are possible. There are four convictions that need to take place in us for this faith:

• Conviction with a calling — God is calling our name
• Conviction with a commitment — God’s commitment to us
• Conviction with a choice — What I do affects others
• Conviction with a commission — We are called with our brothers and sisters for a purpose to make Him known

However, a new thing will not take place until we allow the Spirit of God to confront the things that are in our life.

Jesus is reaching out to those who are spiritually dead and offers them supernatural life through the power of the Holy Spirit. There is an emptiness that God has planted in the heart of man that eventually makes us miserable. God will move heaven and earth to save one soul. This life is made available through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the Son of God! This is all about getting a new life, not about religion. God's mercy reaches out to all those who are dead in their sin.

Philippi, unlike other cities of that time, didn’t have temples or cultic worship of gods, but instead had a culture of hero worship. It is into this culture of masculinity, dominance, and power that God called Paul — a small frail Jewish man with bad hearing. Amongst these war heroes God started the Philippian church using a woman, a teenage slave girl, and a suicidal jailer. It isn’t by man’s strength that God works, but by grace — a supernatural empowering of willing vessels. We are saints of Christ, called to speak grace into our own lives and the lives of others. Living a grace-filled life brings about the peace of God.

In the book of Genesis, Abram (or Abraham) has three encounters with his nephew Lot and the city of Sodom. Each time, he engages in a different type of faith. In one encounter he engages in passive faith — turning the situation over to God and trusting Him and His goodness. On another occasion he engages in prayerful faith — interceding with the belief that prayer can move the heart and hand of God. The final type, and often most difficult to engage in, is active faith — when God calls us to take action and be a part of what He is doing.

When we think of the victory of the cross we have to remind ourselves that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all our sins and we are forgiven in Christ. At the cross Jesus bore all our grief and sorrows. All guilt and condemnation is lifted because of His blood. At the cross mercy and peace took on a human face. Jesus Christ made a covenant with His Father and His blood brings us everlasting peace.

When God was moving, Moses got out of the way and let God move. Isaiah, the prophets, and John fell on their faces. In the book of Acts the church had to be fluid — willing to change. Our prayer is not to twist God’s arm to do what we want, but rather to submit ourselves to the direction God is moving.

When the Holy Spirit begins to fill our heart and mind we are given the ability to understand the truth of God's Word. When God speaks to us and we obey, we will be led into the miraculous. A cry will arise in our heart, "Oh Jesus use this frail vessel and glorify your name through my life." When everyone is planning their strategies there will be a church who will run into their prayer closets and get a word from the Lord for this generation. We do not have to figure it all out. All we need to do is to have a vision of the one who has all the power and authority we will ever need. Our prayer is, "God stretch forth you hand and fill us with boldness to minister your love and power."