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Sermon Notes
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I was listening recently to a sports talk show where the host was interviewing a boxing trainer. He was explaining one of the aspects of the psychology of training a winner, a champion. I'll paraphrase. It's about being a survivor. You can only be killed once. A survivor never dies till he actually does, a quitter is killed early in life and goes on ‘living' but he's really ‘dead while he lives'. He is sick inside and its fatal. He is sick that he quit, sick that he is considered a quitter, sick of himself. The trainer was saying that the hardest thing to convince a fighter in the training phase and also in the corner of the ring between rounds is that no matter what, a champion cannot quit. Even when the body cannot respond to the commands from the mind, the mind must war on. When you are taking a pounding and are in pain, you are confronted with a struggle inside you he said, between ‘the truth and the lie.'
The lie is that the ‘current unpleasantness' is much worse than the lifelong unpleasantness of knowing you have capitulated or given in. The lie says ‘this is too hard, you're too tired, this hurts too much, it's not worth it, no one will blame you, lie down, let your opponent win, anything to stop the pain. It won't bother you to quit, quitting has no long term effect and after all, you can bounce back and be strong next time.' All lies!
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What is going to cause us to move from where we are to where God is taking us?
In Matt. 21:33-41 Jesus says, ‘this is what the Kingdom of God is like: a landowner (God), planted a vineyard, (gathered a group of people in a specific location), and put a wall around it, (established the boundaries or areas of effectiveness, it’s unique purpose and destiny), and dug a winepress in it, (provided everything necessary to fulfill that destiny, money, talent, gifting, opportunity), and built a tower, (for safety, speaks of watchmen, intercessors, the prophetic, discernment, vision), gave it to the people and let them manage and run it for him. Then he expects to receive produce, he expects them to use what he has provided to ‘turn a profit’.
God is moving in our body and there is great progress on most fronts. It is a delight to be associated with every one of you, to be part of the family called River Community Church. I really do love you guys! I also have a sense that God is taking His church, us, to another level of productivity. Do we believe that we are to be more than a place to gather on Sundays, if it is convenient? I believe we are. Sundays are important because that is where we are all together and in that place, God can say and do stuff in us both that we can see and that we can’t. It should be the celebration of a 7 day a week walk with Him in our homes, schools, places of work, free time.
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Luke 6:43- (the Message)…if you work these words into your lives…
Why are you so polite and say ‘yes sir’ and ‘that’s right’ but never do a thing I tell you? If you just use my words in Bible studies but don’t work them into your lives…the dumb and smart carpenters.
- not just words in the scriptures, but everyday words I hear Him speaking to me, like: ‘start planning as if you have provision and when you need it, provision will be there!’
Luke 12:29-34 if you steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provision, you’ll find all of your human concerns will be met.
Luke 12:47,48 if you ignore the Father’s direction, expect discipline, heavy if you ignore and insolently do as you please, light if you were ignorant, didn’t hear clear, were uncertain. It’s a learning curve. If you when you think you hear something, do it and it turns out it wasn’t God-initiative, Father smiles and corrects you. It’s the intent to please Father and obey that counts. Jesus didn’t use this story to tell us we have a slave/master relationship with Father who waits to soundly thrash us, but that there is a difference in Father’s response between when we insolently do our own thing and when our intent is to hear and obey, but we mess it up.
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