330 Christ, whose Glory Fills the Skies
407 Lord, like the Publican I Stand
582 My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less
683 Praise Him! Praise Him!
708 Moment by Moment
205—5 Hail, the Lord of Earth and Heaven
Words of Assurance: 1 John 1:9
God's will for our lives: 1 Thess: 4:1-12
Scripture: Ephesians 4:17-24
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Notes from sermon:
Taking notes today is frustrating...the programs keep updating on me and my work is lost!!!!
The church today is little different from the world around it. Even if you remove the stats of the nominal or non-Christian folk in churches, the statistics are little different from those in the world regarding crime, divorce and other such things.
Why?
Some people think that saved by faith means they can live as they want and everything will be forgiven.
God calls us to a different standard, but let's look at what the world is like.
Darkened minds
Separated from God.
Futile in their thinking
Ignorant
hardened
Lost all sensitivity
Given themselves over to sensuality.
They want to give themselves over to their own way of doing things.
People are greedy only wanting their own thing.
No desire to live for God. Only wanting their own thinking.
Hard hearts don't care what God wants, can't care what God wants.
Hard hearts are calloused....and often hardened hearts are so callous that they think wrong is right.
By nature people can't understand the things of God.
So that leads people to think that all people are good....because they really can't understand that goodness truly is.
BUT. THEN GOD.
God teaches us a different way of life.
God teaches us to hear him.
The holy spirit within us shows God to us.
We are taught to it off our old way of thinking , our old patterns of thinking.
God wants us to live according to the new nature he has given us.
God wants us to live in the way he has shown us to be.
God wants us to see that he has done something wonderful in Jesus Christ.
God wants us to live lives marked by growing obedience to him. That is how we should MARKEDLY differ from the world around us. We need that holiness that only comes from God.
Jesus did to truly set us free from that bondage to our own way that we were locked in. God wants us freed from the old and able to live in the new.
The call to us is to live that life everyday. Live new!
This is truly living differently than the world lives.