Sloppy Agappe: God Knows My Heart....

June 22: Sloppy Agape (God knows my heart…But…)

"But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!' Luke 13.27

➤Amazing grace! God’s grace does more that provide a cosmetic covering for hurtful actions...it provides the cleaning, scrubbing and restorative work in our hearts, memories and souls. Grace isn’t merely a bandaid...it’s a scalpel...it’s anesthesia...it’s stitches...it’s therapy...it’s restoration. It’s a chance for wholeness.

✔The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. Gen 6.5

✔13 King Rehoboam established himself firmly in Jerusalem and continued as king… 14 He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord. 2 Chron 12.13-14

But Jesus…knowing their hearts…

✔Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? (Matt 9.4)

✔Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? (Luke 5.22)

✔But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? (Matt 22.18)

➤Jesus doesn’t merely want to be told to search our hearts…at what point do we begin to seek and know His heart??

Look at the story of Malachi Chapter One and sloppy offerings

• When times were frustrating, people blamed God
• Accusation was that they disrespected God’s name by the offerings they brought
• The sloppy offering showed what they thought about God…a determined how God saw them.
• Try offering this to your governors and others whose favor your desire!

➤Our limited and often-skewed worldview keeps us from understanding where we fit into God’s plan.

• Rest and reward are coming to those who labored with and for God
• We are the new temple and God wants people to experience Him without distraction
• Grace = the nature of God pressing into our worlds, making us acceptable…not contemptible to God.
• We’ve been chosen…not forced…to serve God. This implies choice.
• When we chose God… and God’s ways…Grace opens new levels of favor, power, encouragement, affirmation, alleviation, faith, endurance, hope and joy. All of which aid us in standing for and with our Great God and Sovereign king.

✔Don’t let me want to do evil or waste my time doing wrong with wicked people. Don’t let me even taste the good things they offer. Psalm 141.4

Closing Points:

✺ A pure heart is a beautiful thing to God..it’s the honorable way of loving God.

• A yielded heart is how a heart becomes pure. (Pure<> flawless. Purity rejects impurity)
• The heart is central because it is said to be the seat of our will.
• The heart is where Christ is said to reside in us via the Holy Spirit
• David doesn’t compare his heart to others…or scrutinizes it himself…he asks God to look at it and make a decision on its status and necessary changes

Next Steps

• Decide if God is your good-luck charm or the Captain of your soul
• Pray Psalm 139.23 today and each day this week.
• Ask God to teach you what it really means to love the Lord with all your heart.

Psalm 139:23 

Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; (NKJV)

Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me;

Cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I’m about; See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong— then guide me on the road to eternal life. (MSG)

23 Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! Psalm 139.23 (AMP)

Prayer Isn't Magic (Superstitions Series)

Prayer isn’t Magic~ (Series: Superstitions)

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John 14.13-14

• Prayer changes things...
• Pray without ceasing...
• Talk with the man upstairs...
• She’s a prayer warrior...

Prayer isn’t a wish book.

Prayer isn’t magic...our magic.

Prayer isn’t about manipulation

Prayer isn’t about having our own way

➤Today I want to teach about pray NOT being a formula without being formulaic. 

God has an agenda...

Earth is where it is played out...

Heaven is where it is strategized...

The Heart of God is where it originates...

The Hearts of God’s people is where it is staged...

The Will of God is where it is furnished...

The secret places of prayer is where it is hardwired...

The lives of the extraordinarily normal followers of Jesus become the canvas where the unseen splendor of Glory is seen in vivid, glistening colors... 

➤Pray is like the Tenney locks. It is meant to lift us to a place of compatibility

➤”In The Name Of Jesus” isn’t the spiritual version of “Abracadabra”

➤Background Dan 10

Prayer is about positioning (Praying against things that jeopardize this)

Prayer is about submitting (Being honest with our struggles & seeking aid)

Prayer is about listening (Who simple blabs when they have an audience with God)

Prayer is about co-laboring (Getting instructions about the next move)

Prayer is about releasing (Hearing/seeing what the Father says and praying that)

Prayer is about aligning (Asking for adjustments of attitudes, values, priorities, etc.)

Prayer is about disciplining ourselves spiritually (What do I need to do today?)

➤Power prayers that shaped history

• “I don’t know what the action plan is, but I know who does and I’m watching.” (Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20.12)

• “Show me how to properly lead your people into your will so that your glory is revealed and your cause...not mine is promoted.” (Solomon, the Richest, Wise man in Scripture man in 1 Kings 3)

• “Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief!” (Ruler who requested a healing from Jesus for his son in Mark 9.24)

• “I prefer plan B and ask you to bless that plan....however, we both know that what I should have prayer was to let you will be done....then the angel of the Lord appeared.” ~Jesus in Gethsemane in Matt 26 & Luke 22 

Ultimately

Prayer is Communing with God...

10 The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” 1 Sam 3.10

11 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” Luke 11.1

Next Steps: 1. Ask Jesus to teach you how to pray. 2. Get with people who do. 3. Pray and then expect. 4. Buckle up.

➤I pray that you’d pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5.17). This implies tenacity, discipline & connectedness. Pray until you get what God wants!

The Devil Busy...But He’s Scared!

Series: Superstitions: When You Believe In Things You Don’t Understand.

Message: The Devil Busy...But He’s Scared!

➤Don Cheadle Quote: Stop giving these monsters attention (SPU Shooter)

➤Thesis: The main point is that the enemy does not have the upper hand. 

➤He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” Acts 1.7-8

God’s Strategy: Overturn the fall of Eden (Spiritual blindness that accompanies spiritual death. This is both the power and gift of Pentecost!!)

➤Martin Luther Quote “Oh, it’s just you!” (Eve of Reformation in 1517!)

➤Dream about my grandmother in the green chair “No! You’re got to fight this one for yourself.”

• Sovereignty of God revealed in our witness
• We are protected by the blood of Christ!

Enemy’s Strategy: Distract. Emulate. Frustrate. Pervert. **Not create!!!!

➤The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Cor 4.4

....main goal is to get your to miss your connecting flight with God!!!!!

• What is the strategic-ness of imposed blindness?
• Reality can be dictated by another
• Tentativeness & Overly cautiousness
• Issues with balance
• Other sense work overtime and the enemy monopolizes these senses  (whispering lies in your ear.)

➤People who are so sure the devil’s “busy-ness” typically assume that he is running things rather than merely responding to the amazing work that God is creating in and with us! 

➤Our focus should be God & the Divine plan rather than the distractions of the enemy.

➤The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory rests with the LORD. Proverbs 21.31

➤3 Hebrews Boys didn’t see the wanna-be and handcrafted god the same way as society

➤WGLYD “Who’s running things around here, you or the devil?!”

Challenges:

➤God is Sovereign and all powerful

➤Acts 1.8 He has given us power...His power! Something never shared with the enemy

➤No weapon formed against you will prosper

➤Know your God! Know your authority! Know your relationship with God! 

➤Know...and not glorify...your enemy!!

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Colossians 2.15

Series: Superstitions: When You Believe In Think You Don't Understand…" (Today's Message: Can You Drink Behind Jesus?)

➣Superstition “When you believe in things that you don’t understand...”

1: A belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation

2: An irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition

3: A notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary

Full weight; support; maintain one’s position; 

Message Title: Can You Drink Behind Jesus?

Message Passage: Mark 10:35-40

➣Superstitions!

• Human attempt to understand the unknown
• Human attempt to control the unseen (What we understand...we control)
• We then formularize outcomes and impose on others as spiritual
• Myths, false beliefs, old wives’ tales, etc

✺ Understanding Christ comes by revelation..not by manipulation or mere intellect.

✺ Superstitions helps us to control certain outcomes and it often TRUMPS Christian faith or co-opts it (over-spiritualization)

✺ Faith isn’t formulaic. It’s step-by-step and requires intimacy with God.

One day the evil spirit answered them, “I know Jesus. And I know about Paul. But who are you?” Acts 19:15

Superstitions prompts a....

➤...partial reinforcement effect, and this has been used to explain superstitious behavior in humans... this effect means that, whenever an individual performs an action expecting a reinforcement, and none seems forthcoming, it actually creates a sense of persistence within the individual.

So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. 1 Kings 18.25-28

“When you believe in things that you don’t understand...”

2 Kings 5 Naaman is cleansed and healed of leprosy

• Felt disrespected and almost missed his healing

5 “I think you should go,” the king of Aram replied. “I’ll give you a letter to take to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left. He took 750 pounds of silver with him. He also took 150 pounds of gold. And he took ten sets of clothes. 6 He carried the letter to the king of Israel. It said, “I’m sending my servant Naaman to you with this letter. I want you to heal him of his skin disease.”

• He felt that he had either purchased an audience with the great prophet, or...
• He stooped low to visit their territory and felt his condescension earned certain rights

Challenges:

• Intimacy trumps superstitions...ask for the presence of the Spirit to reveal Christ to you more than ever via scripture, prayer, fellowship, service and obedience.

• Drinking from Jesus’ cup means loss of control, reputation and a say-so. The Spirit has to grant that to us. Our acceptance of the cup demonstrates our true acceptance of Christ and trust in the Father just as Jesus had.

Then I will tell them clearly, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who do evil!’ Matthew 7:23