Tag: faithweek

Follow Me: Faithweek Night 2

On By joshnnomiIn FaithweekLeave a comment

Faithweek has been great thus far. God has been speaking to us through His Word and worship. If you have never been here it is a powerful time of rescue, restoration and renewal. I will try and sum up day two but it is hard to do because we have 4 different bible studies/services.

Follow Me

The theme for Faithweek is #Follow. In the youth Bible studies they went over when Jesus called the disciples and the two powerful words he used “follow me”. The youth learned about the response of the disciples of leaving everything they knew to follow Jesus. If you think about it there is some powerful things happening. Jesus didn’t come along and give them a three point business plan, He used 2 simple words follow me. Let that saturate in your mind and heart. Follow me.

In our morning service we went deeper on what follow me looks like. To sum up what Jesus command to follow me looks like I will use four words from one of the passages we looked at.

Coming
In order to obey the command to follow we have to respond to the invitation, follow me. We have to come in faith and repentance and accept the invitation of the Master. We are coming to a person, that person is the Jesus of Scripture.

Denying
When we come we are to deny ourselves. Like the disciples who forsook everything to follow Christ we are to do the same. We are not suppose to try and fit Jesus into our world. We are to forsake our little world for the kingdom of heaven. Easy to say and write hard to do but His promise is He will help you.

Taking Up
Take up the cross of Christ. His word, His anthem, His banner, His truth, His life everything must become ours. As believers we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. When we deny, we are throwing off the works of the kingdom of darkness. When we take up we are replacing what we are denying with Christ and his kingdom of light. We are taking up His commands and living a life of self denial to do the will of Christ.

Follow Me
We looked at coming, denying, and taking. When we do all those daily we are following. Jesus said my yoke is easy my burden is light. I think the problem is we look at the commands and we think they are burdensome. The Christian life was never intended to be lived on your own. Christ promised His Spirit to help us and he gave His church to help us. Come, deny, take up and follow me.

By the evening service we had a sea of kids God was dealing with that responded in an altar call before the message even started. God moved in the hearts of many kids, from all churches last night.

I haven’t even touched the evening message and adult Bible Study. God is moving. Pray for us.

Some quotes from Brad’s Sermons

“Jesus did not come to bless your busyness. He came to give you an assignment.”

“Deny yourself give me everything you have and I will put it to death and I will resurrect in you new life”

“You know what’s the sad thing about the things of God. We miss them because of the things of us.”

“The same Jesus that said follow me to them is saying follow me to us”

“SMILE, we have a redeemer”

Coram Deo: Faithweek Night 1

On By joshnnomiIn FaithweekLeave a comment

Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! (Psalms 133:1)

We had an awesome time of corporate worship and the word. It is always great to come back to Faithweek and fellowship and worship with God’s people.

Coram Deo

If I were to sum up last night’s message in two words, the two I would use is coram deo. Coram Deo means before the face of God. The concept that it is teaching us is we should live our whole life before the presence of God, under His authority and for His glory.

Last night’s sermon, from Brad Fogarty began with a question,

What keeps you from getting before the presence of God at home?

Many would think of that question and their mind wanders to praying and reading the Bible. When I heard this question I immediately thought of,

What keeps me from coram deo at home?

Ask yourself this question…

The answer could be enlightening because it could reveal a divided heart. A heart that is trying to serve two masters or more. A heart that is searching for life, peace, hope and satisfaction that only God can provide. Sometimes what keeps you from coram deo could be sins and addictions. Sometimes they could be as Mark Driscoll puts it,

good things that we turn into god things, which makes it a bad thing

It all comes back to your heart. What does your heart desire. We know that because we are diseased with a sin sickness our heart can still desire sinful things and can take good things and make them into god things. But for the believer there is a hope.

In Galatians 5 Paul contrast living by the Spirit with living in the flesh. Paul even gives us a list on what it looks like to live in these two domains. Not only does he give a list, Paul says it will be “evident”, in other words it will be noticeable which domain you live in. Take a look at the list, which does your life reflect?

It all comes back to Coram Deo. Our lives were always intended to live in the presence of God. Our lives were intended to be in communion with God. Since the fall, the believer has a sinful nature that is at war with the Spirit. So how do we overcome the sinful desires of the flesh? You have to live Coram Deo. Think about if you live your life as you are in His presence 24 hours a day would we want to gratify our sinful desires? We would want to feed our spirit with prayer, the Word, fellowship and works of rightousness. You know what the awesome thing is, God says here is my Spirit, He will help you live this way. Amazing Grace!

Here are some quotes from last nights sermon by Brad Fogarty.

Your addictions (or whatever your struggle) are lesser than HIM.

Your sin may feel good. But your feelings are stealing the opportunity for you to live life abundantly.

Some of you ask “how far is too far?” That thought right there says you are not following after the Spirit.

A serpent came to Adam and Eve and told them they needed more than His presence.