I Still Believe

“I STILL BELIEVE”

Lighthouse Worship Center

Am, Feb. 15, 2009

INTRODUCTION:

I look around the world today, even in Beaumont, & I see people who are looking for something. Looking for something to make them happy, looking for something to make them feel wanted, looking for something to make them feel complete. It’s only human nature to do that!

That is the way that God made us! He didn’t make us to just exist & to just get by or just be! God made us for a PURPOSE! A PURPOSE will answer most if not all the questions people have. It answers the looking for something, something making them happy, something making them feel wanted, something making them feel complete. A PURPOSE will give you something to BELIEVE IN! Again, it is only human nature to do this.

With that stated & laid as a foundation of what I want to speak about this morning I want to say this. For the last month it seems as though I’ve been going to Funeral after Funeral. Two of them I’ve done myself, one I went to yesterday & one I’ll be going to tomorrow. Of the Funerals I’ve been a part of or have gone to, I’ve found something in common for all of them. They had a PURPOSE! They had the answers to the questions that everybody is most looking for! Oh, they might not have had all the answers in mind but they knew the most important answer in mind! WHOSE THEY WERE! WHO THEIR GOD WAS! & WHO WAS THEIR SAVIOR, LORD & MASTER!

Of all the people I see in the Golden Triangle, in the world, on television, newsprint, news & media everybody is looking & searching for something! Of the Funerals I mentioned they had found that SOMETHING everybody is looking for! They found SOMETHING to believe in! In the past election we were told about “Change you can BELIEVE IN!” People ran with that slogan & elected a New President. I can only hope it’s change we can believe in! I’m not going to stand up here this morning & voice my political viewpoints! That’s not what this is about! But it is about the search for SOMETHING you, or people can BELIEVE IN!

I went to a yesterday and while there listening God brought this to my mind about something to BELIEVE IN!

We want to see wonderful things in our happen in our church! We want to see Souls Saved, People Fill w/the Holy Spirit, Healing(s), Deliverance(s), Financial Miracles, Families Restored. I could go on. Suffice it to say it goes back to the First Church in Acts 2:40-47!

But before that happens there has to be some fundamentals about ourselves that have to be made clear to “our” hearts & minds & to the hearts & minds of those we reach out to. THEY HAVE TO KNOW THAT “YOU” BELIEVE IN SOMETHING! SOMETHING REAL! SOMETHING LIFE CHANGING! SOMETHING RADICAL! SOMETHING REALISTIC! SOMETHING BRIGHT & BRILLIANT! SOMETHING THAT DRAWS PEOPLE FROM OUT THERE, NOT JUST TO IN HERE BUT TO HIM! JESUS THE SON OF GOD!

I sat listening to a friend speak on behalf of his mother, at her funeral, & I began to think about things that make us “DIFFERENT”, things that make us “COMPELLING”, things that make us “SEPARATE” from the world, things that make us “UNIQUE” in a world gone haywire with sin!

I’m not making a political statement but the first time in History of the United States we’ve elected a man who OPENLY supports abortion. We live in a world where parents are killing their children more & more. We live in a world where free speech is only free if it aligns w/a radical political agenda! We live in a world where Child Pornography & Child Prostitution is prevalent & permitted in some of the largest cities in the world, where human sexual slavery & bondage is common place. We live in a world where it is increasingly becoming harder & harder to BELIEVE IN SOMETHING GOOD, WHOLESOME & CLEAN!

But there is SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN, SOMETHING worth believing in, SOMETHING that is greater & better than this world has to offer! SOMETHING that makes all the suffering this world gives worth going through! THAT SOMETHING IS THE “KING OF KINGS” & “THE LORD OF LORDS!” THAT SOMETHING FOR ME TELLS ME NO MATTER WHAT THIS WORLD MAY DO TO ME I’VE STILL GOT SOMETHING GREATER THAN THIS WORLD HAS TO OFFER!

“FOR GREATER IS HE WHO IS IN ME

THAN HE THAT IS IN THIS WORLD!”

I THINK ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE (insert names that might have meaning to you or church family __________________, _________________________, __________, SOME OF THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN THE “PILLARS” OF A DISTRICT I’VE BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH FOR OVER 20 YEARS!