Freed Too -God Working Through Us

Freed To – God Working Through Us

Part 12 in Experiencing God Series

Pastor Michael Dean

 March 25, 2007

The Seven Realities of Experiencing God

1.      God is always at work around you.

2.      God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.

3.      God invites you to become involved with Him and His work.

4.      God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.

5.      God’s invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.

6.      You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.

7.      You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.

Open and Closed "Doors"

ÿ    God's affirmation of His call often comes after our obedience, not before.

12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

Exodus 3:12

ÿ    God is constantly working at getting His people adjusted to Himself.

4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1:4-6

In The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonheoffer makes the case that an enemy can only be overcome by love. Jesus does not allow the Christian to return hostility for hostility; in fact, the greater the hatred, the greater the love must be for the hater. Loving the enemy means serving him “in all things without hypocrisy and with utter sincerity. No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy.” Bonheoffer reminds us that love for the enemy is a hallmark of discipleship — this love is the fulfilling of the law and a sign of obedience to Christ.

ÿ    If God doesn't appear to be working through you, ask these questions:

1. Am I responding to all God already is leading me to do?
2. Have I obeyed all I already know to be His will?
3. Do I really believe that He loves me and will always do what is best and right? 

Story about tight rope walker at Niagara Falls.

1. Am I willing to wait patiently on His timing and obey everything I know to do in the meantime?

Sometimes we may get a sense of what God is doing and confirm it with others and then nothing happens.  There may be a long time of waiting.  It's at these times that we must remember that God is working in our lives too!

ÿ    Remember, God is shaping you for eternity, not just the next task, and this takes time.

29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

Matthew 19:29

A question to ask yourself is this – Am I willing to give God all the time He needs in my life to prepare me for the assignments He has prepared for me in my life?

Freed To – Go Working Through You

ÿ    When God works through you to do what only He can do, you and those around you will come to know Him.

21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

John 3:21

ÿ    We are completely dependant upon the Holy Spirit for the knowledge and the ability to accomplish His purposes in the world.

7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.

1 Corinthians 12:7

The purpose of the HS in our lives is to show us what God has set before us to do.  We cannot do this without a close and intimate relationship with the Father.  To know God's will you must know God!  The HS guides us to do the will of God and then enables us to carry out our tasks for the Father.

Jesus is our best example!

ü      He had an intimate love relationship with the Father.

ü      He lived in complete obedience to His Father.

ü      He adjusted His life continuously to live out His love relationship with his Father.

ÿ    If you walk in a consistent relationship with God's provision for you – the Holy Spirit, and His own presence in your life – then you should never come to a time when you do not know the will of God.

The challenge for each of us is to consider what we believe about God and then to live in obedience to His will?  We say we believe, now we must live as thought we believe.  Jesus said about Himself:

ü      I am the bread of life

ü      I am the light of the world

ü      I am the door

ü      I am the good shepherd

ü      I am the resurrection and the life

ü      I am the way, the truth, and the life

ü      I am the vine.

Jesus said it.  If we believe it, does our life reflect it?  Today consider these names of Jesus in your life and make sure you are living up to that belief.