Balancing Ministry N' Work

" 11  So, then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh—called “the uncircumcised” by those called “the circumcised,” which is done in the flesh by human hands.  12  At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.” – Ephesians 2:11-12 Before we started to follow Jesus, before we learned to Praise our Lord, before we humbled ourselves, before our eyes were open to the Wisdom our Lord is offering, before we were Convicted of the sin in our lives, before we were made Innocent in God’s eyes, we were sinners. Before we knew Jesus, we were lost. Before the awesome gift He has given us, we had no Hope. Without Hope a person has no direction and some even lose the will to live. “ 13  But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” – Ephesians 2:13 As sinners we are wit...

The Things We Need… Conviction is one of the ways the Holy Spirit works on us and in some ways drives us to our next Things We Need… Innocence. “ 19  The report of your obedience has reached everyone. Therefore I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise about what is good, and yet innocent about what is evil.” – Romans 16:19 We spent time looking at this verse with Things We Need… Wisdom, so let’s just focus on the end of it. Paul is saying we should be ‘innocent about what is evil.’ Paul is not telling us to be ignorant of what is going on around us. We are not to ignore the abundance of sin in our cities. We are not to turn a blind eye to those in need because of the sin in their lives. That would be counter to the teachings of Jesus in that we are to care for those who are in need. When Paul is telling us to be Innocent of evil, he is stating that we need to do our best to avoid practicing sin. We are not saved by avoiding sin in our lives as salvation only comes by the Grace...

 No traditional notes this week as it was not a pre-manuscripted sermon, but here are some of the notes I had jotted down. I have also included some stuff that I did not share this morning.  2 Chronicles 7:14 Our responsibility is to Humble, Pray, Seek God, and Turn from evil. The rest is up to God.  Romans 12:1-2 Do not conform to this world, instead look to the perfect will of God.  John 17:13-16 Jesus and we are not of this world.  John 18:36 Jesus' kingdom is not of this world.  Colossians 3:1-2; 11 We have been raised with Christ and need to seek the things from above.  There is no Jew or Greek, there is no Republican or Democrat, we are all one in Christ. Psalm 121:2  My Hope comes form the Lord.   Matthew 5:13-16 We are the salt and the light. If we are getting caught up in the emotion of any political movement are we being the light that Christ wants us to be? Ephesians 6 We need every piece, the FULL armor of God for whatever the fut...

So far in the Things We Need List Two series we have seen that we Need Jesus, Excitement, Simplicity. Praise, Humility, and Wisdom. Our last Things We Need… Wisdom will help us to understand that while we may not really want or like our next Things We Need… Conviction, it truly is something we cannot live without! Without the Things We Need… Conviction we would never know that we need a savior. We would never be able to identify the sin in our lives. Without Conviction we would spend our lives living as the world lives and not living the life our Lord and Savior desires for us. “ 8  For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light—  9  for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth—  10  testing what is pleasing to the Lord.  11  Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them.  12  For it is shameful even to men...

Prayer is one of those things I like to take time each year for us to look at. The Book of James may be short but it does tell us a lot about prayer. “ 5  Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him. 6  But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind.” - James 1:5-6 “ 2  You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3  You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” - James 4:2-3 “ 10  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” - James 4:10 “ 4  Look! The pay that you withheld from the workers who mowed your fields cries out, and the outcry of the harvesters has reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.” - James 5:4 “ 13  Is anyone among you suf...

Luke 2:14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors!” All Glory and Honor belong to our God!  May the Lord’s Peace fall on each of us. May the Peace that defies all logic and reasoning be with you. Peace is one of those things that has escaped many of us at times in 2020. The struggles many faced with job issues, medical issues, family uncertainty, and more made it hard to hold on to Peace. Part of the problem I think is that we were trying to find our own peace. When things are starting to get to us one of the first things many of us do is to attempt to create peace on our own. We may go sit in a dark and quiet room, take a long hot bath, listen to some music, spend time in the workshop, sew, or whatever we think will help us step away from the craziness that is getting to us. Doing these types of things to bring calm may help for a while, they may help us step away, but the reality is they do not help us to have the full Peace of the ...

As we started Christmas here it Littleby we looked throughout the Bible to see that Jesus lives up to the name Immanuel, God is with us. I hope that over the last week you remembered that Jesus is with you. Scripture shows us that He will never leave us, He will never forsake us, and that He lives in us. As a child of God, you are NEVER alone. This was all part of the Master’s Plan. God knew we could not earn our way to heaven and knew that we were going to need help. Simply put our God knew we were going to need a Savior; He knew we were going to need Christmas. This morning let’s take a look at how God prepared for Christmas. Luke 1:1-4 “ 1  Many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us,  2  just as the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed them down to us.  3  So it also seemed good to me, since I have carefully investigated everything from the very first, to write to you ...