August 23 2015 Renewing Our Passion For God And His Church

RENEWING OUR PASSION FOR GOD AND HIS CHURCH

THE PLACE OF OBEDIENCE IN RENEWAL
I Kings 18

Introduction: Choice, not chance, determines our destiny.

Life’s Living Options:

1. Every person has a choice to make.

2. Every person has the ability to make these choices.

3. The choice we make always has consequences.

4. While we’re choosing we live in one of the choices.

Sermon goals help us to choose to live a life of continued obedience to God.

Observations About Obedience:

1. We need to be sensitive to the voice of God.
Vs. 1 – After a long time, in the third year, the Word of the Lord came to Elijah.

How to be Sensitive to the Voice of God:

1. We must be serving.
2. We have to be in the right place.
3. Samuel listened to a mature Christian.

2. Obey God even when the path is difficult.
Vs. 1-19 

3. Obedience is difficult if we haven’s seen God move in the lives of people.
Vs. 20-29
Vs. 21 – Elijah said, if the Lord is God, follow Him, but if Baal is God follow Him.

Three Classes of People at Mt. Carmel:

1. A group that was devoted to God.
2. A group devoted to a false god.
3. A group that was undecided.

4. God honors an obedient heart.
Vs 30-38

The preparation of an obedient heart.
Vs. 30 – He repaired the altar of the Lord which was in Ruins.

The predicament of an obedient heart.
Vs. 32-35

The prayer of an obedient heart.
Vs. 36-38

5. Obedience is easy when we see God move.
Vs. 39 – When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, the Lord He is God!  The Lord He is God!

July 26 2015 The Work Of Prayer In Renewal

THE WORK OF PRAYER IN RENEWAL

2 Chronicles 14 & 15

INTRODUCTION:

“Whenever God determines to do a great work, He first sets His people to pray.”  (C.H. Spurgeon)

Asa teaches us about life.

2 Chronicles 14: 1-10

1. A time when things are easy.

2 Chronicles 14: 1-8

2. Times when living becomes difficult.

2 Chronicles 14: 9-10

When God is going to do something wonderful, He begins with a difficulty.  When God is going to something very wonderful, He begins with an impossibility.

Asa teaches us about prayer when things got bad.

2 Chronicles 14:11

Successful prayer means you:

1. Recognize God as your only source of strength.

2. Understand our own personal weakness.

3. Total trust in God.

4. Make God’s cause your own.

If you make God’s cause yours, He will make your cause His.

Asa teaches us about renewal.

2 Chronicles 15

1. Renewal hands us a challenge.

2 Chronicles 15: 1-7

2. Renewal gives us a choice.

2 Chronicles 15:8

3. Prayer causes us to change.

To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives. The more we pray, the more we come to the heartbeat of God. Prayer starts the communication process between ourselves and God. All the options of life fall before us. At that point we will either forsake our prayer life and cease to grow, or we will pursue our prayer life and let Him change us. Either option is painful. To not grow in His likeness is to not enjoy His fullness. When this happens a haunting voice continues to ask us, what could I have become in Him if I would have been a man of prayer? When this happens the priorities of this world begin to fade away. Some of our friends do not understand the change in our life.