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Courageous Influence

By Pastor Dan on January 31st, 2010

Medical science has made many advances in recent years. Largely because of those advances, the average life span has steadily increased and now stands at 78. People working in the medical field have found cures for many diseases and influenced the world for good. It would be unthinkable for a medical researcher to find a cure for a fatal disease and then not tell anyone about it. When you find a cure that will help others, you do everything you can to let others know about that cure. Continue reading Courageous Influence →

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Compassionate Service

By Pastor Dan on January 24th, 2010

Currently we’re in a message series called “Five Foundations for Life.” As we start out the new year of 2010, it’s important to look at these five basic purposes that God has for every believer. These past three Sundays, we’ve looked at Powerful Prayer, Meaningful Relationships and Spiritual Growth through God’s Word. Powerful prayer had to do with our relationship with God. Meaningful relationships was focused on our relationships with other believers in the church family. Last Sunday, we examined the importance of studying the Bible in order to grow spiritually.

Knowing what the Bible says is not enough, we must apply it and put it into practice in our lives.

James 1:22 (NLT) But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.

There are people who get these five foundations in their lives out of balance. Some people so focus on studying the Bible, that they have no time to actually do what it says. James tells us that there is no benefit in studying the Bible is you don’t do what it says.

Today, we’re going to talk about “Compassionate Service.” Another title may have been simply “Putting God’s Word into Practice.” Serving in the family of God is a God-given method to grow spiritually. It goes hand in hand with studying God’s Word to know what to do.

It’s kind of like giving one of your children a book about playing baseball. They can sit down and study that book about baseball for weeks. They can take a test and score 100% because they know all the baseball vocabulary and rules. Yet, until they pick up a bat, glove and ball and get into the backyard to put their knowledge into practice, they don’t know how to play baseball. Knowledge must be applied before you reap the benefit.

God has a plan for your life of putting His Word into practice. God’s plan for each of our lives is different.

Ephesians 2:10 (NLT) For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Notice in this verse, that as a believer, you were created for a purpose. Your purpose is to do the good things that God planned for you before you were born. What are those good things you are to do? They are putting God’s Word into practice in a way that is consistent with how God created you.

James 1:25 (NLT) But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.

The blessing of God comes on the lives and families of those who put God’s Word into practice. So how can you grow in doing God’s Word?

Listen to my January 24, 2010 message “Compassionate Service” (message-notes).

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Spiritual Growth

By Pastor Dan on January 17th, 2010

Today, we’re going to look at the topic of “Spiritual Growth”. This is the third foundation stone that we’re looking at in our message series “Five Foundations for Life.” What is spiritual growth all about? When a person becomes a new believer, whether you are 5 or 95, you begin as a spiritual infant. God’s purpose for every believer is that they grow to spiritual maturity. Just as God’s purpose for every baby is that they grow to adulthood, so His purpose is for every new believer to grow to spiritual adulthood.

Now, physical growth pretty much happens automatically, or so it seems. However, there are some requirements for physical growth. A child needs to eat right and learn a whole host of things to grow into a well-rounded productive adult. Regarding spiritual growth, many people think it happens automatically as well. People tend to measure spiritual maturity by how long a person has been a believer, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years and so on. But what does the Bible say?

Hebrews 5:12 (NIV) In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!

The first thing we can learn from this verse is that God desires every believer to mature to the point they can teach someone else about the truths of God. The second thing we learn is that this desired spiritual growth does not happen automatically. Spiritual growth had not happened for the people this book was written too. They were still spiritual infants, needing spiritual milk, rather than solid food. If spiritual maturity is not measured by how many years you’ve been a believer, how is it measured?

Hebrews 5:13-14 (NIV) Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

These verses show that a mature person understands the teaching about righteousness, that is God’s Word. Not only does a mature person understand the Bible, they have applied it to their lives. A mature person has trained themselves to doing the right things in life.

Today, our topic is Spiritual Growth. We’re going to be looking at how you can accelerate your spiritual growth and grow towards spiritual maturity. Every foundation that we’ll be talking about in this series is important for spiritual growth. However, today, I’m going to talk about how God’s Word can bring about spiritual growth and maturity.

2 Timothy 3:16 (NLT) All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

That’s a good verse to memorize this week. It’s one of our action steps on the back of your Connect Card. The Bible is essential to growing spiritually. The start of the New Year 2010 is a great time to pursue God’s goal for your life of spiritual growth.

Listen to my January 17, 2010 message “Spiritual Growth” (message-notes).

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Meaningful Relationships

By Pastor Dan on January 10th, 2010

To start off 2010, we are in a message series called “Five Foundations for Life.” In this series, we’re looking at the five foundations for the Christian life that the Bible teaches. These foundations are essential for a growing and successful life as a follower of Jesus. I know that I need to be reminded from time to time about these five foundations or purposes of my life. Each of these foundations for life has many aspects and in this series, I’m trusting that God will help me highlight the aspects that will be most helpful for our church family right now.

Last Sunday, the message was entitled “Powerful Prayer.” We looked at the foundation of prayer, which is really the foundation of a growing relationship with God. When you become a believer, your relationship with God begins. However, our relationship with God must grow and be nurtured. Prayer is one of the most important aspects of growing in your relationship with God. This vertical relationship with God is the most important relationship in your life.

Today, I want to talk about the horizontal relationships with our lives. The second foundation for life we’re going to talk about today is the foundation of “Meaningful Relationships.” Specifically, we’ll be talking about the relationships that God wants us to have with other believers in a church family. Of course, we have relationships with other people who are not believers, but they will be the topic of another foundation later in this series.

Quite frankly, this is a somewhat controversial topic these days. Quite a few people claim to be Christians, but yet believe that they don’t need to be part of a church family. They feel that they can do quite well by simply maintaining their relationship with God. As with any other opinion, we must test it by looking at God’s Word. Opinions or beliefs that are not based on the Bible have no validity.

Hebrews 10:25 (NIV) Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Here we have clear instruction from the Bible, that believers need to meet together. Meeting together with other believers is not a new invention, it has been part of God’s plan since the beginning. The purpose for meeting together is to encourage one another. It’s interesting that this verse teaches that meeting together is more important as the time of Jesus’ second coming gets closer. So it’s actually more important now than it was 2000 years ago to build meaningful relationships in the church family. To love other believers in the family of God should come naturally.

1 John 4:21 (NIV) And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

If you love God, you must love your brother and sister in God’s family. If you love your brother and sister in the Lord, then you’ll want to meet together with them on a regular basis. Today, we’re going to look at the experience of the early church in the book of Acts to learn more about building meaningful relationships.

Listen to my January 10, 2010 message “Meaningful Relationships” (message-notes).

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Powerful Prayer

By Pastor Dan on January 3rd, 2010

The New Year is a great time to look back on 2009 and look forward to 2010. If you look at the news headlines, they tend to look back on the economic difficulties of 2009 and say that the outlook for 2010 will be brighter. Maybe, maybe not. Although finances are important, they are not the most important thing in life.

The most important thing in life is your relationship with God. If your relationship is on track and growing, then everything else in life will fall into place, including your finances. However, if your relationship with God is stagnating or deteriorating, then you’ll have problems with the rest of life as well.

Psalm 90:12 (NIV) Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

To number your days aright is to analyze your days in light of your relationship with God. To look back at 2009 and ahead to 2010 in light of God is to have a heart of wisdom.

Today, we begin a new message series called “Five Foundations for Life.” To start off the New Year, we’re going to look at the five foundation stones of that God’s Word lays out for our lives. As we study these foundational principles, remember to look back at how you applied them in 2009. You see, it’s not enough just to say, I’ve heard that before.

The principles of God’s Word must be applied to your life in order for you to be blessed. How did you do in 2009? No matter how well you did, there’s always room to improve and grow in 2010. In January, we’re going to discuss a different foundational principle every week.

Today, we’re going to look at “Powerful Prayer.” Prayer is a foundational principle of the Christian life. You cannot grow in the Christian life without prayer. You can’t accomplish what God wants you to accomplish without prayer. However, although prayer is good, not all prayer is equally effective.

James 5:16b (NIV) The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

Some prayer is weak and ineffective. Ineffective prayer doesn’t receive answers from God. Powerful and effective prayer receives answers from God. Powerful prayer comes through righteous people, people who are living 100% for God. The reason is that prayer is two-way communication with God. Prayer is really simply talking with God, getting to know God better, building your relationship with God.

Listen to my January 3, 2010 message “Powerful Prayer” (message-notes).

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