Sunday 4 July sermon notes

Training to respond

Today is the last of our holiday series and we’ve been sharing some awesome time together in Fellowship – true fellowship and getting to know people and friends better after the spirit especially! We’ve been cultivating the value of leading our society in cross cultural friendships and I hope you’ve been acting on those words. And we’ve also spend time with the Holy Spirit in fellowship with him and allowing him to rule and guide and comfort and teach us.

Now without a doubt we still need to continue growing in all these aspects as the year progresses but we definitely made a good start!

I was fellowshipping with an old friend the other day and we both agreed on what I’ve read in a book called, Liberating the Nations. The writer teaches that just as individuals have unique callings in God, so do nations.

As a nation we have been called by God to model cultural reconciliation! To show the world how one can have unity within diversity. As a church we have aligned ourselves with this call. If we do not, God will use other mechanisms to accomplish his will but we will unfortunately loose our privilege of leadership in our Nation. The church is still the largest organization in our country and as such still does the leading in most areas of right and wrong. We have to step up and embrace God’s plan for our Nation and be in the forefront of matters pertaining to the rebuilding of South Africa.

Our response determines your destiny!

James 1:22: But be doers of the word, and not only hearers of it, blinding yourselves with false ideas.
James 1:23: Because if any man is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a glass;
James 1:24: For after looking at himself he goes away, and in a short time he has no memory of what he was like.
James 1:25: But he who goes on looking into the true law which makes him free, being not a hearer without memory but a doer putting it into effect, this man will have a blessing on his acts.

Training to respond…

We always argue and debate and question when someone tells us to do something. Then we say to ourselves but it’s not easy when the Holy Spirit tells me to do something. I wonder why?

We’ve all been trained to think and not to obey. We’ve been trained to debate but not to act. We’ve been trained to critique but never to coach. We’ve have been trained to get solutions but not to execute them. Most of our training done in the name of training has been to train in theory, to train in the hypothetical world, never in real life and as such a huge chasm formed for us between hearing and doing. We’ve been trained to find truth but not to experience Him.

We are all to used to saying: One day when I get the opportunity to…I will… and so we wait and wait and wait and in the mean time when we talk we rarely talk experientially or we rarely testify we talk about our theories and hypothesis and we start debating and then fighting about which theory is right and then we split and we burn bridges all for what?

Most of us are very active and there is a lot of activity but too little acting…because we haven’t been trained how to respond.

Matthew 11:12: And from the days of John the Baptist till now, the kingdom of heaven is forcing its way in, and men of force take it.

There is a forcefulness in a person lead by the Holy Spirit that allows him to get breakthrough in a situation. There is a boldness in a person filled by the Holy Spirit that leads him to not accept a NO when he is driving out the enemy in a situation…

The Kingdom of heaven of which you are a part is in battle every moment of every second.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

So tonight we are not going to sit and do nothing. We are going to train. Can you remember the previous preaches during this holiday?

Look touch and word?
Walk across the room – learning to walk changes your life, but learning to walk across the room can change eternity!
Receiving the power to witness to someone
Sharing the word of Christ with a person in stead of just yada yada! Really fellowshipping by Calling forth Christ in one another.

Remember how the Holy Spirit provides gifts to encourage comfort and exhort us through each of us sharing His thoughts with one another.

It’s time to train…So here’s how it’ll work.

We are going to have some time just worshipping and listening to God then as you get something from Him I want you to respond and go and do what he tells you!

Your response determines your destiny… this morning Ps Tiaan preached and excellent sermon on how when we do not act immediately on God’s instruction we get hard hearts and the next time he tells us to do something it becomes so much harder to…

So respond the very moment you feel you hear something from Him. Then we are going to continue worshipping but not as always. I don’t want you worshipping tonight as we always do, cutting yourself off from your surroundings and focussing only on God, I want you to stay aware of what the Holy Spirit would lead you to say to someone, pray over someone, call out of someone, go and meet someone…

We are all going to join in as well but we are not the only ones God desires to use in this life! Use this opportunity to get trained by the Holy Spirit!

Worship time…

Close:

Remember to keep listening to the Holy Spirit as you go for coffee, don’t have this dual life where you do spiritual stuff and then stop and go on normally! Stay in the spirit always and always be ready and willing to allow God to lead you in His business…