Sunday TX – 4/6/2014

Click here to listen to the service or Download as MP3 (right click & save as):

Speakers:

• Scott Bishop
• Bob Hicks
• Richard D. Eutsler, Jr.

Scriptures Used:

• John 17:1-23
• Hebrews 3:12-19
• Ephesians 4:1-32

Subject:

• What we need to serve the Lord is our heart, our mind and our soul. He has given us everything we need to go out into the world and serve Him.
• When we join ourselves to God and accept Jesus’ Word, know His truth, follow His Word, do as He has commanded and go out and teach the world, we are to remember we are joined to Him, we are not of this world, we are part of the Kingdom of Heaven and we are one with Jesus Christ.
• If we are in the Kingdom of God we have to fight to stay there, we have not arrived. One of the things we fight is unbelief.
• We need to exhort each other daily while it is called today. If you love your brother you may have to show him things that are not comfortable for either of you.  We might not want exhortation but we need it.
• Satan uses unbelief to deceive us and if we join ourselves to it, it is not a good place to be.
• We like to hold onto the things of the world – attitudes, thinking we deserve to be treated better, but if we don’t put this off we are not walking worthy of the vocation wherewith we’re called.
• Nothing prevents us from being in a better place with God but ourselves. It is scary how content we can be with that.
• When you start feeling you deserve to be treated better, that is the insidious seed that separates you from God. Tell it NO – go back to the Lord, ask Him to show you all the grace and mercy He’s had on you, show you the love He’s shown to you, the times His hand has been in your life when you didn’t deserve it.
• Get on your knees, humble yourself before the Lord and as quick as you separated from God you are reconciled to God because He’s right there.
• There are lots of chairs filled by angels holding place for those He wants to bring in but why bring someone in if we’re not in a place to minister to them?   It needs to be different, it has to be different.
• You can depart from Him, He does not depart from you.
• Nothing is too big for the Lord to deal with and if you say otherwise, you’re a liar.
• If you want to move forward in Him you have to make that decision and believe He will meet you there and help you through. From there, you believe, you obey, you walk in it.
• The messages heard 25 years ago are still being preached today which tells that those who have been in the ministry a while have not got it yet. We come up short.
• We’re called to a vocation and need to walk worthy of it.   This takes effort, energy and work.
• Asking the Lord to be your Lord and Savior is not the end of it.   It is the start of our walk because we are not saved until God says enter in my good and faithful servant.   It is not about hearing the Word, it’s about doing the Word.
• The children of Israel in the desert did not fear the Lord, they did not use the Word, they experienced it.   They died because they did not put off their old nature in the desert.   They held onto the aspirations of  Egypt.
• We need God’s grace.  If we say we trust in God’s grace but are not moving forward in God, it is presumption which does not bear Godly fruit.
• Putting off the old man is not suppressing the old man.   To put off is to realize the old man is evil and you want nothing to do with it. Paul likens his sin to a dead body strapped to is back to kill him, he put it off.
• We are stuck with our flesh until the Lord redeems us but we are not subject to it any longer through the power of Jesus Christ.   Suppression of the old man demonstrates you have not put him off.  If you still feel justified, that is suppressing the old man, hugging up to it like the children of Israel in the desert.
• We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, but we can only do all things through Christ who strengthens us if we realize that without Him we can do nothing.   If we feel justified in our bad attitude we’ve forgotten that part and are not putting anything off. If you are not putting anything off have you transitioned from unbelief to faith?
• How often are we truthful with one another, with the Lord or with ourselves?
• Labor to be a useful tool of the Lord to help those in need.
• Daily edify one another.
• There is no justification to hold onto our old man, it will land you in hell.  We can’t survive with it in us, it is impossible. Anger, bitterness, unforgiveness is a cancerous poison.   God, for the sake of the body, will get out the thing that’s poisoning the body. Don’t be cut out because you refuse to let go, rather get rid of the poison.
• You want to be fruitful, successful for the Lord?  Only you hold yourself back.
• Look at your offenses and ask what there is to be upset about?   Forgive us our debts as we forgive others.
• When we carry around that bitterness and unforgiveness we separate ourselves from God and things don’t go as they should. You have to get rid of the anchor, that bitterness, to move.   Let go of the dead weight of the old man’s bitterness and anger.
• Running with patience means determine to finish.  This takes effort and work.  It takes humbling yourself.