Sunday Morning, June 16, 2013
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NOTES
Review
To be saved, to be led of the Spirit, to be a child of God is something that is evident through love of the brethren.
Re-affirming the charge from last week.
1 John 3:1-10 Consider, are you led by the spirit of God?
You cannot go farther if you haven’t addressed the question that is the first question. Are you saved? Are you led by His spirit?
You cannot bypass that question. Believers are to be careful to maintain good works. If you are not being diligent to maintain the basics, everything else pales.
You must make a plan. You will have to plan and to do something in God to be successful.
You have to love God to love the people of God and you have to love the people of God to love God.
Your salvation is dependent upon your relationship with other people. It affects Him accepting your offerings and granting forgiveness.
To be saved your personality has to be different.
When you fail to do the things that God says, then others fall through the cracks, you fall through the cracks.
If your life is based on the selfish, you are not saved.
If you are seeking to be saved, you have to seek relationships and want other people to be well.
Philippians 2:1-8
You have to go beyond yourself.
We are together trying to help each other glorify God.
vs 3
Challenge for this week: How are you going to do this? Let my life esteem others better than myself.
vs 4. In order to have followed this scripture, you had to have checked on someone this week.
Who are you invested in, caring for, trying to encourage their salvation and growth?
What in your own life really speaks of you making this change and looking on the things of
others?
You structure your life so that you can be helpful to others in Christ.
To be saved, you have to be otherly minded. You cannot base your life and decisions on you and your feelings and comfort.
Truly changed people make decisions based on Christ.
You have to be saved to get other folks saved.
How many people are you trying to help live a strong life in Christ? To do that I have to be what God wants me to be, not what I want to be.
Selfish – God knows that the biggest hindrance is ourselves and our commitment to ourselves.
Just taking care of your family is not what being saved is. You have ot care about God and the things and people of God. He is the one that is eternal and to whom all attention is due.
A good father in God has to teach his children to love God, consider other people. Instruct them to be what God wants them to be.
How are you this week going to look on the things of others? If it is something that you put off, then your week, next week, life is not driven toward God.
What are you waiting for? That waiting is defiance of God. He does not want to wait for you to obey Him.
Whatever is keeping you from obeying God is your idol. It could be yourself.
You better learn to care about everyone. Some people say they don’t like children or don’t like old people. That is selfish. You were once a child and someone took care of you. You may be old one day. There are people who step in to care for someone just because they need it. And some of those people are not even operating in Christ. Speak in God’s power. It takes strength to love.
vs 5-8
Jesus showed us how to love. He took the form of a servant. Fatherhood is not to be treated like a king. It is work. To love.
If you are not changed at the core to think of others, then the transition doesn’t happen.
vs 12-13
This is tied to your salvation. Self initiate to do what God wants you to do in the lives of others.
It is God working in you to do His pleasure.
You never feel God’s work because you are not doing God’s work.
Has God been working in you?
If you are in the right spirit – God’s spirit, the love you do needs to be without complaint and argument. Even if you are doing something you didn’t plan to do, but you decide to do it because it is good in God, then do it without murmuring. God hears the murmuring and rebellion in your heart, even if you don’t voice anything.
Consider the response of parent – who after working, going to store, preparing a meal that a child enjoyed beyond necessity, and asking the child to help clear the table – hears they child murmur and complain about doing one task.
How much more do we consider the insult it is to God – who created the world, loved us, died on the cross for us – to be rejected, to have people say that they don’t want to do something He asks!
Proverbs 1:8
Proverbs 3:12 – a child without correction is missing love.
6:20, 10:1, 15: 20, 17:20, 19:13 , 20:20, 23:22 , 28:24 stealeth from parents, 30:11, 17
God will pay retribution for dishonoring parents
Deuteronomy 21:18-21
For a child that would refuse to be controlled. They used to remove an unruly child from the congregation.
Deuteronomy 5:16
God wants you to show your parents consideration all the time, not just on certain days. These days are good, but honoring always is better.
Fathers are a strong part of God’s plan. He even has a special concern for the fatherless. We can be strength for others.
As we accept His gift of love, we also accept His command for us to love others.
Consider God’s love and His persistence in offering Himself to us.