Creating a Culture of Blessing (2)

The Character of God

Creating a culture of Blessing 2

Here at Mokuaikaua we are about Creating a Culture of Blessing.

We believe this is God’s mission for our church.

201 years ago a group of missionaries arrived here in Kailua Kona in response to the invitation and prayers of two young men from Hawaii, Henry Opukahai’a and Thomas Hopu.

On April 4 1820 our beloved church Mokuaikaua was founded, Rev Asa Thurston after meeting with the King Kamehameha, and the Queen Regent Kaahumanu, they gave them permission to start churches and schools, King Kamehameha the second Liho-Liho gave his house and canoe house to be the first church and school.

The missionaries came to Hawaii to fulfill the great commission to preach the gospel, baptize them, and disciple them to obey everything Jesus thought us.

Mokuaikaua is committed to carry out this inheritance, April 1820 also marked the beginning of one of the greatest revivals in history, 97% of the population of Hawaii came to Christ, by 1840 Hawaii had the largest church in the world, Haili church in Hilo, a church with 11 thousand members.

The aim of a culture of blessing, is to reach out others is to be a blessing not only to our congregation but to all who come across our path.

Today I would like look into some aspects of the character of God.

Faithful, just, good , holy

For us to be a blessing we need to know the Character of God, we need a deeper revelation of His Character so we can live and demonstrate to others.

Let’s pray

Covid-19 has disrupted our lives in many ways and brought so much pain to our hearts, just this week many more people passed away because of Covid-19, some our friends. Like John Davidson who served us and supported us when he was here in Hawaii.

During difficult times, we begin to question the character of God.

Questions like is God faithful is He just ? Is He good, is He Holy? Comes out.

Traumatic experiences will impact the course of our lives, they will shake our foundations

We need to be able to answer these questions for ourselves and others,

Deu 32:3 For I proclaim the name of the LORD: Ascribe greatness to our God.

Deu 32:4 He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright isHe.

1 Our God is faithful

This word is about Moral fidelity, been trust worthy. Remaining loyal.

We can fully trust in God’s Character, in Him we find truth

2Ti 2:11 This is a faithful and trustworthy saying: If we died with Him, we will also live with Him;

2Ti 2:12 If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He will also deny us;

2Ti 2:13 If we are faithless, He remains faithful [true to His word and His righteous character], for He cannot deny Himself.

Even when we don’t believe, He will remain faithful. His promises will come to pass

Our Heavenly Father is loyal to us. It does not depend on how we view His word, what he said is If we died with Him, we will also live with Him; If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He will also deny us;

If we believe or not it will come to pass. God doesn’t change

From the beginning of time God gave us our free will, we can choose to believe God and enjoy His promises or suffer the consequences of our own choices, the rules in the garden of Eden were very simple, you can do everything you desire, the only restriction was the tree of good and evil, don’t eat from it God said, the consequences were catastrophic.

Our Heavenly Father did not abandon us, He sent us His only son to take our punishment and the consequences of our sins, so we could be reconcile to Him, now we have the opportunity to undo the works of the enemy.

Lam 3:22 It is because of the LORD'S loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, Because His [tender] compassions never fail.

Lam 3:23 They are new every morning; Great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness.

In the middle of a crises we need to line up our thoughts and hearts with the word of God, a traumatic experience will impact every area of our lives.

2 Just

Psa 89:14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Lovingkindness and truth go before You.

Our God is a God of justice. The word justice means that He will always make anything that’s wrong right.

He will bring justice into our lives, we don’t need to worry about people taking advantage of us in businesses or even stealing from us, God sees everything and He is just

Deu 32:4 He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright isHe.

Joseph is a great example of God’s justice, even when his own brothers tried to destroy his life.

God raised him to be the most powerful man in the land of Egypt second to Pharaoh, and as it was in his dream his brothers would all bow down to him.

3 Good God is good—this never changes. He’s good all the time—even when we are going through a hard time

Psalm 34:8 says, Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. we need to bring to mind that our heavenly Father is good

Psalm 145:9

The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.

Sometimes our questions and issues against God is not from our own experiences with Him, but our questions comes from the suffering of others and disasters around the world.

We forget that we live in a fallen world, men’s choice in disobeying God.

Of course the enemy of our souls satan loves to accuse God for all the bad things happening in the world that he does mostly through the selfishness of men.

Our Heavenly Father will always be good to us.

In 2019 we began with our preservation project for Mokuaikaua church one of the most extensive repairs the church has ever gone through since the construction of the building.

We had to redo our roof inside and outside attach it to the walls, re-enforce the walls with steel beams, re-enforce our entire mezzanine floor, enlarge the size of our concrete foundation blocks, dig new trenches for our new electric system, re-enforce our steeple, rebuild our stage, paint and replace the carpet.

Our Heavenly Father has been extremely good to us, we saw so many miracles to get to here, we had $20 thousand dollars when we began, this project, our engineer and architect donate so much of their time to us God brought so many good people to help us with their skills or financially.

I remember when I receive a call from Partners for sacred places offering us a grant for $250 thousand dollars, I initially thought it was a prank.

Soon after our contractor Ali’i builders, having dinner with Bill McMorrow he ask Nate what he was doing next, as he shared he was helping us to preserve Mokuaikaua he donated another $250 thousand.

Weeks later a Canadian philanthropist walks into our church and donates $3.450 thousand dollar, now he is a dear friend but back then, he was the grace of God sent to us.

All together God has blessed us with $4.5million, I thought that would be sufficient to complete the project, but last year as the county came for an inspection they request extra work and more steel to support our steeple what raised our bill to another $1.5 million.

We had to go back to hire a grant writer and begin to ask for funds

By the grace of God again our contractor’s friend came by and donated another check for $150 thousand, this week we received the check and just a few days ago we receive a grant from the Atherton foundation for another $150 thousand, this project has taken way longer than we all wished but our Father is with us and He is good, we will see the completion of the sanctuary soon.

4. Holy

God is holy. What does that mean? In the Greek, (Hagios) to be holy is to be righteous—or to be right. Morally blameless, physically pure, a saint.

Our lives would be a whole lot easier if we would realize that God is always righteous.

Isaiah saw the Lord

Isaiah 6:1-5

1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.

3 And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke.

5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Isaiah’s vision made it clear, that he was a sinner a man of unclean leaps leaving among people of unclean leaps, and now he was before a Holy God.

God is always right. Whatever He does, is right, whether I like it or not, it is right, and if I agree or not, He is right.

When we agree with Him things will go well for us

Whatever difficulty you are walking through, we need to trust in the character of God.

He is Faithful, Just, Good, and Holy.