Sunday, October 4, 2009
Living in HD:
1 Peter 1:3-9

If you have an HD TV you will never go back to watching regular TV because HD is so much clearer and so much better.
It is the same in Christianity. We need to strive for HD Christianity- seeing and understanding the details of how to live Christian lives.
God wants us to live like He really is coming back. Unless we understand Christ completely we will not live for Him confidently. It is impossible to praise God and live in perpetual pain. When we praise God it helps remind us of His goodness and our pain isn’t as painful. He is the only one worth of praise. No one deserves salvation, grace, mercy, hope or the love of Christ. So we are to bless Him regardless of our situation. We tend to believe that God owes us the opportunity to be saved but God chooses us according to the foreknowledge of God.
What if God called us in an interview to see if we would be a good Christian deserving salvation? We will never qualify to be born again. We are all unqualified and messed up but GOD still HIRES us. He still chooses us!
If we go into an interview being completely unqualified and still get the job then we would be extremely happy and that is how it is- we should be praising God because we got the job.
We will always be unworthy of God and need to praise Him regardless of where we are in the Christian faith.
When we were born again we got new information on how to life and a new hope. Our life as Christians should NEVER be hopeless.
We should never say our marriage, finances, health, ect are hopeless! We are born again to a living hope. If we live a hopeless life we are living an abnormal Christian life.
God also shows us His ministry and provides us with an inheritance in Him. Our inheritance is defiled, imperishable and reserved in heaven. It should encourage us today even though we do not receive it until we get to heaven.
God doesn’t have a relationship with everyone on earth, only those that are born again. Our rebirth gives us many benefits in Jesus Christ.
We should not listen to Oprah or CNN when they say that we all have the same Father because we do not- only those born again can call on the same Father.

You cannot lose your salvation in Christ, everyone seems to think that that we lose our salvation when our actions do not measure up to Christ but His works save us not ours!
Our eternity is secured but until God removes us from sin we will always face trials and pain. Life will not be perfect until sin is removed from our lives in heaven. Beware of the person here on earth who has no trials because if you are on Gods team, Satan will always be searching for ways to come against you and you will face trials. If you are not on God’s team, Satan has no reason to mess with you, you are already on his team. As long as you are on Gods team, Satn will always bring you trial and pain.

The holy spirit is Gods down payment to us since He cant be with us physically on earth. It is an indication of what is to come. If God gives us the Holy Spirit now just imagine how much more God will do for us in the future and how much better it will be with Christ there with us.
We have to let the world go, we hang on too tight. We need to quit hanging onto the wrong things. We think if only I had a new job, or new clothes, a new house, a new spouse, the new phone then everything would be better but we are always wrong! Things are never better just by getting the newest and best things here on earth. We are living on an earthly hope. How much better would life be if we could live here on earth with our heavenly hope.

The proof of our faith is when we go through troubles it authenticates our faith. Our faith is what brings us through those hard times. Nothing can destroy our faith- nor life nor death! When we come out of pain and trials with our faith still strong that is the proof of our faith in Christ.
It is not what we give to God but what He gave to us and we must speak well of God in spite of our pain and trials.

The trial of living in HD is that we serve and love a God that we cannot see or touch. And that is the mystery of worshipping Him. We are called to walk by faith and not by sight. Too many of us walk by sight and that is why we are limited in our Christianity.
To live in HD you must live by faith. We tend to walk around defeated because we don’t understand the nature of faith. We can no longer live in the hope of our job, education, marriage, house, ect……..those are temporary.

A new thing we do at our church is we text the pastor ?s while he is preaching and then at the end of the service he answers them. Here are some of the ?s:

Does God choose everyone to be on His team?
No God doesn’t choose everyone because then He couldn’t say that he chooses. He chooses by the foreknowledge of God. Remember we love Him because He first loved us. No one can pursue God, He pursues us. If you feel Gods tug on your heart then He has chosen you. How can we know we are chosen? When we place our total confidence in Him then we are chosen and when we face trials and come out of them with faith in Christ we are chosen!

Will God wait for us to accept Him?
No God will not wait for us to come to Him. We never know when God calls our family home. Tomorrow is never promised. God gives us time to get right with Him but we will never know how much time we are given.

Are certain sins worse than others?
No every sin is despicable to God but there are different consequences to certain sins.

Is it okay to divorce when you face trials or betrayal?
God never asks or tells anyone to get a divorce. If American Christians would understand that trials come regardless then the divorce rate would be a lot smaller in America. Hardship is not a reason for divorce. Trial in marriage is inevitable just like we will face trial in life as well. God does say it is ok to divorce if one person is an unbeliever and decides to leave on their own or if there is continual sexual immorality (cheating). The heart of God is forgiveness and people do mess up but if the sexual immorality continues he will permit a divorce but never requires it.