Teach Us To Pray

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 11:1-4

Spirituality is contagious  (but almost everything is)

Jesus’ shortened version of The Lord’s Prayer recorded by Luke:

Praise

Need for today

Forgive me & help me to forgive

Help with my tendency to sin

Practice teaches you how to pray.

Need teaches you to pray.

One of our greatest needs is to see our need.

Oswald Chambers, "Be yourself before God and present your problems, the things you know you have come to your wits' end over.  As long as you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything."

 Dr. Ole Hallesby, "Only he who is helpless can truly pray."

Eugene H. Peterson, "A religion without miracles has only marginal worth; why bother with religion if you can do it all yourself anyway?"

Priorities

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 10:38-42

~This is the same Mary & Martha who had a brother, Lazarus

~Like many followers of Jesus, the sisters aren’t facing an issue of right & wrong, but priority. Which is actually harder to discern sometimes. The issues are service or worship/discipleship (sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to Him)

~The reason they have to deal with priority is because of time…Jesus has only a limited amount of time to be in their home. We have only a limited amount of time so we are continually having to prioritize…choosing.

~Never make petty the priority. But petty never seems petty to us until compared to something much more important. Pettiness is always pulling us downward, worship is always drawing us upward.

~All of us are steadily heading toward a point in our future where time stops and eternity begins…where time meets eternity. That’s when we meet Jesus face to face. What is more important than that?

Which side of the "road" are you traveling?

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 10:25-37

30-37 The Good Samaritan, part 2

Cast of characters

Neighbor: we know nothing about him, who the lawyer thought would be the star of the story

Priest: from the family of Aaron. Ordained, anointed, sanctified. Publicly stands between God and the people.

Levite: helper to the priests. Maintains the temple and helps with sacrifices. A public worker.

Samaritan: a half breed Jew. Hated by the Jews and a hater of the Jews.

"Who is my neighbor?"

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 10:25-37

25-29 The Good Samaritan, part 1

~The lawyer was not serious about wanting an answer. He thought he was the smartest person in the room.

~Jesus never directly answers the lawyer’s questions.

~The lawyer asks a question he already knows the answer to. He didn’t have a problem knowing, he had a problem doing.

~So, this parable stems from the question from a smart alec lawyer who only wants to justify his lack of love by asking, “who is my neighbor?”

~Again, Jesus never answers his question. This parable is called The Good Samaritan, not, The Man Who Was Thrown In A Ditch.

~Rom 5:8 God doesn’t love you for who you are, but for who He is (1 Jn 4:19) Our love for others does not stem from who they are, but from who we are. Love that is performance based is not Godly love, it’s not real love at all. If that’s who we are, all we have left is to try and somehow justify ourselves.

God Revealed

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 10:20-24 (22)

Revealed, a parable:

1) Some care, some don’t. This is for those who want to see. Jer 29:13

2) Revealed, not unveiled. Time is the issue.

3) Someone has to see it first. Then:

a) Announcing to others may help them see too. b) but don’t be frustrated that some can’t see it right now. Again, time is the issue.

4) At some point everyone can see. Some: a) Don’t care b) Are pretending they can’t see. Denying what they know. Why?

5) If you’re straining to see what God has for you, it will be revealed in time. The journey is as important as the destination. Why did I reveal the painting as slowly as I did? What was I doing as I revealed the painting?

Beware of "Success"

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 10:17-24

Vs 20 is one of the most important verses in the Bible for disciples of Jesus.

Beware of “success in excess”

Don’t let your lows get too low, and don’t let your highs get too high.

Almost every success or problem we encounter is a temporal one. Ours successes and our problems are important, but don’t lose eternal perspective.

Philip Yancey, "My goal for growing older, for preparing to die, is to care less about how others view me and more about how God views me. We'll have much longer together, after all."

Henry Blackaby, "Paul said that despite their most valiant efforts, the athlete's successes and prizes are eventually forgotten. Even the greatest athletic achievements have not affected eternity."

Kingdom of Heaven

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 10:10-16

The Kingdom of God is here…and it is there. It is now…and it will be. The Kingdom of God is always only one breath away. It is always near you.

Sodom Chorazin

Tyre Bethsaida

Sidon Capernaum

The Day of Judgment is about being held accountable for the opportunities we had

Jesus’ message is to:

1) The person who is sent/speaking

2) The person who is listening

Time is short, repent while there is time. The time to spread the gospel is now. The time to respond to the gospel is now.

No Reason to Wait

Are you "waiting" instead of "doing"?

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 10:1-11

Vs 1-3

Sometimes we are the answer to our own prayer. Instead of looking out, look within.

Vs 4-11

~Be careful about becoming weighed down by too many things. God has not called anyone to accumulate stuff.

~Learn to live off what God is giving, what you are receiving...make do with what you have.

Henri J. M Nouwen, "We often live as if our happiness depended on having. But I don't know anyone who is really happy because of what he or she has."

“Happy is the man who is already happy with what he already has.”

~Minister to people wherever you go. Our encounters with people are not coincidence.

~None of us have much time left, and many people we try to reach will have nothing to do with Jesus. Move on to someone else knowing that the Holy Spirit may use a worker coming behind you. There were workers before you, there are workers coming after you.

Always forward, never backward!

Allies and Enemies

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 9:49-56

 Allies:

“I have some of the truth, not all of the truth.”

There is one path to the Father, many paths to Jesus.

Worship Night In Trumann, Sunday night, September 30

Enemies:

If we love Jesus we must learn to love each other as Jesus does.

We can’t love at arm’s length.

 C.S. Lewis, "To love at all is to be vulnerable…if you want to make sure of keeping your heart intact, you must give your to heart to no one.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken--it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…the only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the danger of love is hell."

Filling Your Role

Message: Sailors, Soldiers and Prisoners

Text: Acts 27:20-32

Roles of a father:

Leader; protector; provider; present; dependable; worthy of admiration…

(How do your children see you?)

Who else is ready to step in and fill the role:

Wives; mothers; grandparents; teachers; coaches; pastors; cousins; friends (peers); movies/sports; social media…

"The 7 Deadly Sins of Parental Responsibility,” 1) Replacement of parental authority with peer subculture. 2) Decision making based on consensus rather than principle. 3) Establishment of routines in which children spend more time with each other than with an adult. 4) Educational practices that focus more on emotions and self-esteem than character and intellect. 5) Dismissing as unimportant lapses in tact, propriety, and orderliness. 6) Gravitation of the media toward gruesome and prurient themes. 7) Viewing prescription drugs as a cure-all for problems of behavior and character."

Wait?

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 9:49-10:1

~You think you will follow Jesus until your comfort zone is tested.

~He was concerned about caring for his father until he died. Wait.

~Wait

Every excuse is reasonable.

Have you noticed that God usually calls those who are working to work for Him, people who are busy to be busy for Him? He calls you from something to something else, to leave in order to go.

Have you noticed that Jesus asks things of people that they won’t do?

Jesus does not want part of you but all of you!

A mission board executive wrote to David Livingstone in Africa asking if there was a good road to his remote outpost.  "If so," he said, "we have a couple of men who would like to come and help you."  The famous missionary wrote back,  "If they need a good road, don't send them.  I need men who can come, road or no road."

“If the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.”

How do you treat those in need?

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 9:46-48

Our relationship with Jesus is tied to our relationship with those in need. The needy are the ambassadors of Jesus. Jesus is the Ambassador of God.

~“The character of a society can be judged by how it treats its weakest members.”

~“The only way to be foolishly happy in this world is to be young enough, well enough, and have money enough--and not give a care about other people. But as soon as you don't have any of the first three, or if you have compassion for the weeping world around you, then it is impossible to have the foolish kind of happiness that I believe some Christians present as Christianity.”

~George Washington, "How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these."

If you have Jesus, everything else will be okay.

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 9:37-45

~Jesus with His disciples: what is the opposite of love? _______

~The disciples and the crowd would have been happy for Jesus to stay around and keep doing what He’s doing…until they die, then they will be glad He kept His appointment with the cross. People are always looking at the temporal, Jesus is always looking at the eternal.

Pilgrim's Progress,   "I remember now what my mother has told me, namely that the way to heaven is like a ladder and the way to hell is like down a hill.  But I'd rather go up the ladder to life than down the hill to death…I must continue, for to go back means nothing but death.  To go forward is the fear of death, but beyond it is life everlasting.  I'll keep going forward."

Hearing Jesus

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 9:28-36

~Disciples of Jesus: we are equal but not the same. None of us grow spiritually at the same rate…and the rate fluctuates

~”To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord…” Heaven is never far away.

~Peter, James and John. Jesus uses us in spite of ourselves, not because of ourselves.

~”Hear Him!”

In the Spirit, hearing is more important than seeing. 2 Corinthians 5:7,

Romans 10:17

Elijah and the rain cloud

There is a Savior!!

Message: What every mother wants her children to hear

Text: Luke 2:10-11

 ~There is a savior…

The angel didn’t tell the shepherds anything they weren’t waiting to hear.

A return to Joy! Jesus didn’t come to save it, He came to save you!

Colossians 1:16

 ~He is Christ the Lord. His Name is Jesus…

Matthew 16:16-17

 Ravi Zacharias, "Pleasure is a means, not an end.  Joy should be the greatest end. Every pleasure that is sought as an end in itself ultimately ceases to satisfy, and the hunger for a joy that rises above everything else continues."

Requirements for Discipleship

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 9:20-26

Becoming a Christian is a lot about Jesus saving you from what you’ve done wrong. Being a disciple is a lot about your decision to start doing right. Vs 22 is about what Jesus did to save you, to be a payment for your sins. Vs 22 is about Jesus giving His life for you. Vs 23 is about you giving the rest of your life for Him.

Requirements for discipleship:

Deny yourself; pick up your cross (burden, suffering, etc); every day, not once in a while; exclusively for Jesus; lose your life, give up your life for Jesus; be more concerned with the things of the soul than worldly things; begin being proud of who you are in Jesus.   Not ashamed

Why in the world would anyone hear what Jesus says about being His disciple and still want to be one?                                                   

1) __ _____ _______.

2) __ ______? A desire for the rest of my life to count for something more, for something eternal.

Who is Jesus to you?

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 9:18-20

Matthew 16:16, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

(Savior & Lord. Lord & Savior)

Who is Jesus to you?

~Son of God

Ps 139, John 3:16

~The Christ (Messiah, Anointed One)

Eugene Peterson, "The assumption of spirituality is that always God is doing something before I know it.  So the task is not to get God to do something I think needs to be done, but to become aware of what God is doing so that I can respond to it and participate and take delight in it."

Abraham Kuyper,   "There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out,  "This is mine! This belongs to me!"

Need Never Takes a Break

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 9:10-17

~Need never takes a break. Ministry is open ended, the work is never done.

~Jesus didn’t say, “Stand back and watch this!” He said, “You, feed them.” You don’t get to choose, Jesus chooses.

~Disciples are very practical, Jesus is very supernatural. We very easily dismiss the impossible so we can concentrate on the reasonable. Our ministry is never going to reach the level of walking by faith until we deal with the impossible Jesus asks of us.

~The disciples ended up with more than they started with. When you finally get serious about Jesus, he doesn’t ask for what you have, He asks for all you have. But you will end up with more than you started with!

A New Phase of Ministry

Message: The gospel according to Luke

Text: Luke 9:1-9

A new phase of ministry

Jesus – Luke 8:1

Paul – Acts 9:5-6, 18-26 (25-26)

Christian Believer

Disciple  Follower/Learner   

Minister Servant

What does “ready” mean? When will you be ready, when will you feel ready?

Ravi Zacharias, "There was a woman who wanted to know how she could rid herself of her miseries.  She was told to go from door to door and when she found a home where there were no worries, to ask there for a morsel of grain.  She returned a long while later saying she had not found a single home that fit that description.  In fact, she had become so involved in hearing of the heartache of others that she had forgotten her own."